Teacher Education and Professional Development Commons^™

Psyc/Wmns 421/821: Psychology Of Gender, Kathryn Holland

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

This benchmark portfolio describes the process of developing and assessing student learning in Psychology of Gender (PSYC/WMNS 421/821)—a course I taught in Spring 2019 while participating in the Peer Review of Teaching Project at the University of Nebraska Lincoln. This course is housed in the Psychology Department and cross-listed in Women’s and Gender Studies. The students in this course are mostly advanced undergraduate psychology majors. The course is capped at 40 and is primarily discussion-based. In my portfolio, I outline the course structure and context, my course objectives, and the students enrolled. I also document the teaching materials, methods, and …

Course Portfolio For Assessing Student Learning Surrounding Biological Examples In Bsen244: Thermodynamics Of Biological Systems, Forrest M. Kievit

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

Thermodynamics is a course required in many engineering disciplines as it covers concepts utilized in many upper level engineering courses. In the Biological Systems Engineering Department at the University of Nebraska – Lincoln, this course, in a way, acts as a gateway to the major since this will be one of the first classes where the students must apply and hone their problem-solving skills. This course was developed to allow students in the department to have access to a thermodynamics course that relates to their major area of interest – biological systems. However, many concepts in thermodynamics do not have …

Bioc 321: Elements Of Biochemistry – A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Benchmark Portfolio, Jing Zhang

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

The benchmark portfolio of Biochemistry 321, Elements of Biochemistry, aimed to provide a broad overview for this large-enrollment class for non-biochemistry majors. This course was delivered in a blended format, and the learning objectives were aligned with the American Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) foundational concepts and skills. Classroom response system iClicker was employed and Think-Pair-Share method was utilized to facilitate the in-class discussion and group-learning. Additional activities include the 3D molecular models for visualizing and hands-on learning of the structure-function relationship concept, and practicing problem-solving through the end-of-chapter essay questions. Data analysis suggested that the iClicker response …

Smaller, More Frequent Assessments May Reduce Students’ Ability To Recall Information, Renee M. Mcfee

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

Frequent, low-stakes, formative assessments can provide valuable feedback to both students and instructors. Formative assessments have also been shown to enhance student learning. However, many STEM instructors, including those in professional schools, rely solely on high-stakes, summative assessments such as unit, mid-term, or final exams. Our goal was to determine how administration of weekly quizzes impacts student learning (n = 27) in a graduate/professional-level veterinary physiology course. For 2 units (endocrine and cardiovascular), weekly quizzes were administered in addition to a summative, unit exam. Quizzes consisted of lower-order questions (e.g. recall) while exams consisted of higher-order questions (e.g. integrate, apply). …

Teaching Communication Skills In A Computing Course: An Experience Report, Suzette Person

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

No abstract provided.

Benchmark Portfolio: Cive 334 - Introduction To Geotechnical Engineering, Seunghee Kim

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

This Benchmark Portfolio is for CIVE 334 “Introduction to Geotechnical Engineering”. The course description is provided as “soil composition, structure and phase relationships; soil classification; principles of effective stress; loading induced subsurface stresses; load history; deformation and failure of soils; elastic and limit analysis with applications to design for bearing capacity, settlement, retaining walls, and slope stability; steady-state seepage.” This course is mandatory for students in the department of civil engineering, and the only mandatory class in the sub-discipline of geotechnical engineering. Therefore, this course is critical for students to have foundational knowledge about soil mechanics and geotechnical engineering, and …

Peer Review Of Teaching Benchmark Portfolio – Sped 414: Instructional Methods For Teaching Mathematics To Students With Mathematics Learning Disabilities, Jessica Namkung

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

The primary purposes of the benchmark portfolio were to systematically document revisions made to the course, SPED 414: Instructional Methods for Teaching Mathematics to Students with Mathematics Learning Disabilities (SPED 414), to refine and explore more effective ways to teaching the course, and to build better connections and in-depth, higher level in-class activities and discussions. Specifically, I focused on reorganizing the course content, incorporating more hands-on activities (e.g., small and large group discussions, real-life examples), implementing “Keep, Stop, Start” mid-evaluation, and conducting a pre- and post-assessment on the main course objectives. Both qualitative and quantitative analyses based on …

Do Expectations And Reflection In A Master’S Level Education Course Contribute To Sense Of Belonging And Learning? A Peer Review Of Teaching Inquiry Project, Stephanie Bondi

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

This poster describes a classroom inquiry project completed as part of the advanced peer review of teaching program at UNL in 2019. In this project, the course instructor wondered if some small interventions could lead to more sense of belonging and greater learning in the course. Literature suggests a lack of sense of belonging can negative affect a student’s engagement and learning. The intervention plan included (a) setting the expectation that students work to create an inclusive and affirming environment and (b) asking students three times during the term to reflect on the extent to which people have been doing …

Peer Review Of Teaching Benchmark Portfolio For Soil 477/877: Great Plains Field Pedology, Judith Turk

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

Pedology is a field that focuses on soil morphology, genesis, classification, and mapping. Students in pedology must learn to be keen observers, who are able to accurately evaluate the characteristics of the soil. This portfolio focuses on efforts to improve students’ skills at describing soil color, texture, and morphologic features.

Slpa 985: A Peer Review Of Teaching Benchmark Portfolio, Judy Harvey

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

My target course for the Peer Review of Teaching (PRT) Project was SLPA 985 Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). It is offered each spring in the Department of Special Education and Communication Disorders at the University of Nebraska – Lincoln. This course is intended for graduate level speech language pathology (SLP) students. I have over twenty years of experience as a practicing speech language pathologist in a rehabilitation hospital. Now, as an assistant Professor of Practice, my role is to integrate academic learning with practical experience. I am confident in my skills as a practitioner and motivated to share my knowledge, …

Edad 983 Qualitative Research Methods In Educational Administration, Sarah J. Zuckerman

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

This portfolio documents my process of understanding why a handful of students struggle each semester in a doctoral research methods course, EDAD983 Qualitative Research Methods in Educational Administration. The assignments in this online course build across the semester. Data analysis primarily examined students grades and rubric comments on major assignments. Overall, it was observed that the students with consistently low grades do not appear to take specific feedback to heart in subsequent assignments. Additionally, data analysis includes student surveys, as well as university course evaluations, to better understand how students interact with the material in this online course. As a …

Peer-Review Of Teaching Project Benchmark Portfolio For Edad 845: Human Resource Management In Higher Education, Katherine Wesley

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

This benchmark portfolio is the final product of a Peer Review of Teaching Project in which a required course in the Department of Educational Administration’s online Master of Arts degree was the focus. A single learning objective was focused upon and achieved through the thoughtful and purposeful “backward design” of the course, a cornerstone of the university’s peer review model. Students demonstrated the benefit of understanding and working within their unique talents via StrengthsFinder 2.0 assessment, through multiple assignments and relative in-depth conversation with me, the instructor of the course and certified Gallup Strengths Coach. Ultimately, the “benefit” was further …

Sped 861: Infants With Disabilities And Home Visiting, Johanna P. Taylor

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

This portfolio documents the process I used to redesign and assess students learning in SPED 861 Infants with Disabilities and Home Visiting. This is a course students in the Early Childhood Special Education (ECSE) Program at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) take while pursuing a master’s degree or graduate certificate in ECSE. This portfolio documents how I aligned the course objectives, content, and activities to Division for Early Childhood (DEC) recommended practices and DEC EI (Early Intervention)/ECSE professional standards (still in draft form as of June 2019). Then, I share the results of two methods used to assess student learning …

Course Portfolio For Math 872: Topology Ii, Alex Zupan

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

In this course portfolio, I explore tactics for engaging a group of beginning mathematics graduate students taking the second semester of the first-year sequence in topology. Course objectives include computing algebraic invariants of topological spaces, understanding the Galois correspondence between covering spaces and fundamental groups, and using a range of invariants to distinguish spaces. My main instructional tools include a series of three "Activities" tailored to each student, a project involving computing invariants with the program SnapPy and using homology of covering spaces to distinguish 3-dimensional knots, and individual student board work during class periods. The activities served as benchmarks …

Fdst 396 – Preventive Controls For Animal Food, Andreia Bianchini

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

This portfolio is a benchmark for the course Preventive Controls for Animal Food, which was offered for the first time in Spring 2019. The objectives of this course were (1) to provide students with the ability to distinguish between Current Good Manufacturing Practices (cGMPs), other prerequisite programs, preventive controls, and where they fit into the regulatory framework of the Food Safety Modernization Act – Preventive Controls for Animal Food; (2) to help students understand the hazard analysis process and resources to help conduct such analysis; and (3) to teach students the needed concepts to build a food safety plan. This …

Agro 204: Resource Efficient Crop Management, Andrea Basche

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

Resource Efficient Crop Management (Agro 204) is a high enrollment course taken by a diverse range of student majors across the College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources (CASNR) at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Learning outcomes focus on teaching crop management principles and processes, systems-thinking, data analysis, synthesizing current information, and evidence-based decision-making. This benchmark portfolio critically assesses student learning toward these outcomes, with an emphasis on a particular assignment that required students to work with the farming simulation platform, APSIM. The Agricultural Production Systems sIMulator (APSIM) is a freely available computer program that is an internationally recognized simulator of …

Hrtm 374 Guest Services Management – A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Benchmark Portfolio, Ajai Ammachathram

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

The purpose of this portfolio was to purposefully introduce and evaluate activities that are aimed at improving student learning and performance in HRTM 374 – Guest Services Management, a lecture-based 300-level course. Activities were designed to improve class preparation and ascertain student learning beyond exams. Objective 1: to assist students to identify the many ways that hospitality and tourism organizations can inspire positive guest service interactions, objective 2: To explain the various types of management principles that can encourage positive guest service interaction by employees and help understand brand loyalty that could also lead to positive guest experiences, objective 3: …

Tmfd 144-Intro To Design Theory And Criticism: A Peer Review Of Teaching Benchmark Portfolio, Mary Alice Casto

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

In this benchmark teaching portfolio, I examine TMFD 144: Intro to Design Theory and Criticism. It is offered every semester. The course focuses on visual literacy in the art and design fields. The overarching course goal is to teach students to actively “see” and interpret the visual world. Students should also learn to communicate clearly and effectively about the visual aspects of art and design as well as their interpretation. This course is a required foundation course for all TMFD majors and minors. It is also an ACE 2 course that enrolls students from across the university. The course is …

Math 314: Linear Algebra-A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Benchmark Portfolio, Xavier Pérez-Giménez

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

My intention with this portfolio is to present my approach to teaching Math 314. This is a linear algebra course for senior-year undergraduate students in different STEM programs. The course serves as a transition from computational courses, such as calculus, to more theoretical ones, and exposes students, possibly for the first time, to abstract mathematical objects (such as general vector spaces) and simple proofs. Several lecture-based strategies are discussed and evaluated in connection with student learning outcomes. I also present samples of course materials and student work.

Emgt 901: Total Quality Management Using Six Sigma Techniques, Jena Shafai Asgarpoor

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

Total Quality Management Using Six Sigma Techniques (EMGT 901) is an elective course in the Master of Engineering Management (MEM) Program at the University of Nebraska – Lincoln and serves as my Peer Review of Teaching Project (PRTP). This is an elective course in a fully online program. Students in this program have an earned undergraduate degree in engineering and are practicing engineers with at least two years of work experience. In this PRTP I will examine the development and delivery of the course based on pedagogical and backward design considerations and the framework proposed by Quality Matters ®. I …

Math/Stat 380: Statistics And Applications, Yuzhen Zhou

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

The portfolio is created for the course STAT/Math380: Statistics and Applications using backward design. It is a service course on introduction statistics for undergraduate students who are not majored in statistics at University of Nebraska-Lincoln. In this portfolio, I’ll provide the detail plans on what I will teach, how it will be taught, and what is my expectation on students learning. Besides, I’ll collect data from students to analyze whether students have achieved the course expectations, from where I’ll adjust and improve the way I deliver the knowledge in the future. This portfolio will be used to help document my …

Legal Research And Writing Lrw (Law 513), Chesi K. Hayden

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

This portfolio explores and documents student learning in a required first-year law course, Legal Analysis, Research and Writing. This portfolio focuses on two specific course learning objectives: (1) organizing a legal argument (CRAC or a variation) and (2) explaining legal rules. I evaluated student work on the two writing assignments with the most weight—Research Memo 1 and Research Memo 2 to analyze whether students improved their understanding of and ability to perform the selected learning goals. I was specifically interested in student improvement from Research Memo 1 to Research Memo 2 because they represent a formative and a summative assessment …

Digging Economics--Econ 200: Economics Essentials And Issues, Tammie Fischer

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

This portfolio examines student engagement in Econ 200: Essentials of Economics course. Econ 200, a large lecture format, serves as a requirement for completing a minor in Business and fulfills the ACE 6 or 8 categories. Much discussion and research exist around the importance of student engagement in large lecture sections which can often be a challenge. Engagement is important in the process of increasing knowledge with added peer effects. At the same time, activities designed to increase engagement often come at a cost, both in terms of precious class time and to faculty in the form of additional grading. …

Nutr 250: Human Nutrition And Metabolism-A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Benchmark Portfolio, Karsten Koehler

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

The purpose of this portfolio was to purposefully introduce and evaluate activities that are aimed at improving student learning and performance in NUTR250 – Human Metabolism, a large lecture-based 200-level course. Activities were designed to improve class preparation and ascertain student learning beyond exams (objective 1), provide time to review class material (objective 2), balance material related to concepts and knowledge (objective 3), and assess the effectiveness of activities (objective 4). To address objective 1, students completed weekly prequizzes, which improved student reading and preparation prior to class in approximately 2 out of 3 students. On average, students spend 33±27 …

A Peer Review Of Teaching Benchmark Portfolio: Larc 497/597: Waste Ecologies, Catherine De Almeida

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

This teaching portfolio presents a summary of my teaching efforts, course objectives, outcomes, and student learning for the first offering of the course LARC 497/597: Waste Ecologies. As a new professional elective course open to all upper level undergraduate and graduate students at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in Spring 2018, participating in the Peer Review of Teaching program enabled me to develop the course through backwards design by matching course objectives with specific assignments and exercises that tracked student learning. Although this marked the first time teaching this course, it integrates my research trajectory of designing with waste. The Peer …

Soci 101: Introduction To Sociology—A Peer Review Of Teaching Portfolio, Kelsy Burke

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

This benchmark portfolio targets the Spring 2018 semester of SOCI 101: Introduction to Sociology, a large-enrollment course that combines lecture and recitation classes. It describes course objectives (my goals for the course); an overview of course content and a description of the students enrolled (the target audience); teaching methods (assignments and classroom activities); and assessment of student learning (analyzing quantitative and qualitative data of student performance). In order to evaluate course objectives and their relationship to teaching methods and student learning, I collected data from student feedback following each exam (a post-exam questionnaire). I then compared this feedback with assignment …

A Benchmark Portfolio Evaluating Sped 201: Introduction To Special Education, J. Marc Goodrich

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

No abstract provided.

Agri 115: Biotechnology – Food, Health And Environment, A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Benchmark Portfolio, Leah Sandall

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

No abstract provided.

Course Portfolio For Math 407 Mathematics For High School Teaching: Refining Conceptual Understanding In A Mathematics Course For Pre-Service Teachers, Alexandra Seceleanu

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

My intention in this portfolio is to present my approach to teaching an upper-level mathematics course for pre-service secondary level mathematics teachers. Several teaching strategies are discussed in the context of designing a coherent approach to this course, which emphasizes the need for conceptual reasoning above all other goals. These strategies are evaluated and assessed in connection to the learning outcomes using samples of student work from the course.

Also presented are samples of course materials that were used to lead students through an organized discussion of the relevant concepts. These materials convey some basic mathematical knowledge and therefore may …

Sped 415/415a Reading And Writing Disabilities: A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Benchmark Portfolio, Judith Wilson

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

This portfolio explores four aspects of the lecture and practicum that comprise the coursework for students learning to tutor children with reading and writing disabilities. The first aspect is the alignment of the course objectives, teaching methods, assessments and scores. The second aspect is innovation in curricula for tutoring, explored through student response to surveys at the end of the tutoring session. The third aspect is student experience of participating in the course at mid-point and suggestions for improvement of course delivery, gathered by a mid-semester survey. The fourth aspect is topics and content students would like to see added …