Higher Education and Teaching Commons^™

Fractal Reflection: Cultivating Community And Meaning In Times Of Crises, Deandra Little, Joshua Caulkins, Eric C. Kaldor, Lindsay Wheeler

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

The Pandemic Educational Development Research Collaborative (PEDRC) formed in April 2020 to record research-participants’ experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic and systemic racism crises and includes 18 educational developers across various 4-year institutions, types of centers, and positions in the field. The novel research methodology used by PEDRC, called “fractal reflection,” includes an iterative process of reflection, analysis, and meaning-making at the individual, paired, and group levels. However, this methodology served as more than just a means to collect data; it also provided a set of effective reflective practices to support educational developers managing the emotional labor of their work in …

Growing Pains (And Opportunities): Launching A Center For Teaching And Learning During A Global Pandemic, Johanna Inman

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

This article provides a summary of the steps that were taken to launch a new center for teaching and learning (CTL) during the COVID-19 pandemic. Analysis of these steps explain how the inaugural director leveraged the pivot to emergency remote teaching to capitalize on faculty interest for educational development and increase collaboration between non-academic units that support teaching. Discussion also includes how strategic planning guided this process and ultimately garnered new staffing for this small center-of-one.

In Search Of Silver Linings: Strategies For Preparing Future Faculty During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Tazin Daniels, Elizabeth Bailey, Anoff Nicholas Cobblah

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

In this article, we describe our experience as a racially and disciplinarily diverse, relatively junior program team who embraced the opportunity to transform a 20-year-old professional development seminar for graduate students into a remote offering in response to COVID-19. Our efforts to support our participants and champion an institutional move toward equitable and effective virtual programming are situated alongside the psychological tolls of remote work, a global health crisis, and ongoing racial violence across the United States. We recount our experience using, as a helpful metaphor, Lewin’s change model, which describes the process of “unfreezing,” “changing,” and “refreezing” long-standing assumptions …

How A Flexible Teaching “Camp” Answered Our Pandemic Teaching Emergency, Patricia Dineen

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, faculty scrambled to move courses online and to master technology tools seemingly overnight. Keeping a focus on course design and teaching techniques became a central challenge for a center for teaching and learning (CTL) in the midst of the emergency move to online and blended learning. This article chronicles one CTL’s design and implementation of a virtual Forward Looking Explorations in Teaching Camp (FLEX Camp) that aimed to address pedagogy and technology simultaneously by immersing faculty in learning experiences. It details the planning process, learning goals, key activities, assessment methods, and lessons learned …

What Happens When You Close The Door On Remote Proctoring? Moving Toward Authentic Assessments With A People-Centered Approach, Sarah Silverman, Autumn Caines, Christopher Casey, Belen Garcia De Hurtado, Jessica Riviere, Alfonso Sintjago, Carla Vecchiola

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

The COVID-19 pandemic made traditionally proctored in-person exams impossible. This article provides a summary of the arguments against institutional adoption of remote proctoring services with a focus on equity, an account of the decision to avoid remote proctoring on the University of Michigan–Dearborn campus, and conclusions and suggestions for other teaching and learning professionals who would like to take a similar approach. Remote proctoring services require access to technology that not all students are guaranteed to have, can constitute an invasion of privacy for students, and can discriminate against students of color and disabled students. Administrators and teaching and learning …

Rebuilding A Teaching Conference In A Pandemic: User-Centered Guiding Principles And Lessons Learned, Laura A. Lukes, E. Shelley Reid

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

The COVID-19 pandemic challenged educational developers, like instructors across the world, to pivot their traditionally face-to-face faculty development programs to online formats. At the Stearns Center for Teaching and Learning at George Mason University (classified as research-intensive and the largest public institution in Virginia, United States), we faced the challenge of reimagining our annual pedagogy conference that scaled from 497 registered in 2019 when it was face-to-face to over 800 in 2020 as it was moved online. Under pressures of limited resources and increased uncertainty, leaders can find it difficult to imagine pathways toward innovation rather than just daily responses …

Transcending Adversity: Trauma-Informed Educational Development, Mays Imad

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

The purpose of this article is to reflect on the pertinence and utility of using a trauma-informed lens in educational development. A trauma-informed approach is a framework grounded in an understanding of and responsiveness to the impact of trauma. After I describe the primary source of traumatic stress many faculty members are experiencing, I offer trauma-informed suggestions for how educational developers can help mitigate the effects of that stress. Importantly, in order to do this work of supporting faculty effectively and sustainably, it is critical that educational developers continue to attend to their own well-being. The overarching theme of this …

How A Small Teaching Center Made A Big Impact During The Pandemic Crises, J. A. Carter, Bradford Mallory, Brenda Refaei, Ruth Benander

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

For many faculty developers, 2020’s challenges changed our approach to our work. We found that by expanding our networks and relying on our collaborative spirit, we were able to adapt quickly and effectively to changing events. Each member of our four-person Learning + Teaching Center (LTC) team brings expertise and skills for faculty development. We employ a holistic approach to faculty development that not only provides programming for teaching improvement but also addresses the social and emotional needs of faculty and staff. The challenges of 2020 forced faculty and staff to work remotely, which necessitated more programming in how to …

Then What? Quantifying Sbae Teacher Career-Decisions Post-Migration, Becky Haddad, D. Brett Milliken, Josh Stewart, Johnathan Velez

Department of Agricultural Leadership, Education, and Communication: Faculty Publications

Complex career decisions, such as teacher mobility, are often reduced to stigmatizing labels that do little to account for the state of teaching as a profession or credit those engaging in migratory decisions as making healthy career choices. Through our study, we focused on understanding workforce mobility, teaching as an unstaged profession, and the current quantifications existing around SBAE teacher migration. We drew on over 100 years of data from California as we quantitatively explored and synthesized the career decisions of migrating SBAE teachers. This snapshot offers a means of understanding the Teacher Career Cycle (Fessler & Christensen, 1992) in …

Adjusting, Appeasing, And Rearranging: How Agriculture Teachers Reconcile The Demands Of The Profession, Haley Q. Traini, Becky Haddad, Josh Stewart, Jonathan J. Velez

Department of Agricultural Leadership, Education, and Communication: Faculty Publications

A teacher shortage continues to plague the SBAE profession. While this shortage has been quantified and explored from the perspective of individual teachers, little research has taken a systemic approach to the problem of the SBAE teacher shortage. We posit the teacher shortage problem as inextricably linked to a convoluted job description and growing list of competencies required to be a successful agriculture teacher. The teachers in this qualitative study shared their navigation of the process of reconciliation within their landscapes of practice and regimes of competence. Using hermeneutic phenomenology, themes of adjusting, rearranging, and appeasing emerged as the key …

Frontier: Discipline-Based Education Research To Advance Authentic Learning In Agricultural And Biological Engineering, Heidi A. Diefes-Dux

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

Discipline-based education research (DBER) is research activity aimed at investigating “learning and teaching in a discipline from a perspective that reflects the discipline’s priorities, worldview, knowledge, and practices” for the purpose of producing research-based evidence to improve education in that discipline. DBER arose out of concerns about the quality of post-secondary science education. Physics, chemistry, engineering, biology, geosciences, and astronomy education each have unique DBER histories in the U.S. that date back to the late 1800s or early 1900s when colleges and university systems were expanding and formalizing. The DBER fields accelerated in the 1950s and 1960s as a result …

Discomfort And Other Factors That Influence The Effectiveness Of Graduate Student Peer Consultations, Mark W. Pleiss, Krisztina Erzsebet Dearborn

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

The following study reports the findings of two surveys given to graduate teacher consultants (n = 30) and graduate student teachers (n = 59) who completed video-teacher consultations at a public, R1 university. The surveys assessed the overall effectiveness of peer consultation for both sides and identified the factors that influenced those assessments. We found that the level of comfort expressed by consultants and graduate teachers during their first consultations had the greatest impact on their perceived level of effectiveness. The time between consultants’ training and their first consultation also affected their assessments. Other factors that did and did not …

Focus On Outcomes: Fostering Systemic Departmental Improvements, Daniel L. Reinholz, Mary E. Pilgrim, Amelia Stone-Johnson, Karen Falkenburg, Christopher Geanious, Courtney Ngai, Joel Christopher Corbo, Sarah B. Wise

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

This article describes how a focus on outcomes can be a tool for guiding systemic change. By focusing on positive outcomes to be achieved, a group can guide its collective efforts toward an ideal future rather than becoming fixated on individual problems to solve. While there is support for an outcome-guided approach in the literature on individual and organizational change, this approach has not been used extensively to support department-level changes in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education.

Implementation Plans For Course Redesigns: An Exploration Of Identified Strategies, Rebecca Campbell, Benjamin Blankenship

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Institutions are redesigning gateway courses—lower-division courses known to create student success bottlenecks—to influence persistence and completion goals. These initiatives, student success course redesigns (SSCR), are specialized versions of course design institutes (CDIs). This investigation into SSCRs uses content analysis to examine the implementation plans created during a SSCR. Results demonstrated that the majority of the strategies planned focused on the Learning key performance indicator (KPI), and the minority of the planned-for strategies focused on the Monitoring Student Performance KPI. A more granular analysis of the Learning strategies revealed five themes: Content, Assessment, Pedagogy, Syllabus, and Student Success. Additional results indicated …

Finding Our Voice: Highly Flexible Ed For The Hyflex World, Kristine Larsen, Cristina Robinson, Jason A. Melnyk, Jennifer Nicoletti, Amy Gagnon, Kelly Mclaughlin, Mina Hussaini

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

The COVID-19 pandemic brought about unprecedented changes in our approach to delivering educational development (ED) programming. In this article we discuss how our dual ED centers pivoted during the sudden switch to online learning, highlighting how we overcame challenges such as a small staff, tight timelines, and faculty anxieties. Particularly, we explore how we adapted to the university’s investment in technologically advanced Hybrid-Flexible (HyFlex) classroom spaces and utilized a multi-pronged team approach to provide effective and timely ED to faculty. By identifying key faculty leaders, identifying multiple sources of data, and using multiple modalities, we supported the faculty in their …

Constellations Of Support: A Community Development Model, Tracy Smith, Melba Spooner

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

This article describes the rationale, development process, and initial artifacts and outcomes of a faculty support (a.k.a. mentoring) model developed for a specific academic context: a College of Education at a Southeastern comprehensive public university. The purposes of this article are to (1) describe the research and theoretical models that guided the development of the program; (2) provide a research-based rationale for a context-based community development model of faculty support; (3) propose a set of principles for a context-based developmental community model of faculty support; (4) describe the process for developing a community development mentoring model for faculty at all …

Motivation To “Keep Pushin’”: Insights Into Faculty Development Facilitating Inclusive Pedagogy, Kelly Erby, Melanie Burdick, Sandra Winn Tutwiler, Dan Petersen

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

This study focuses on the lived experiences of nine university faculty who were attempting to implement inclusive teaching practices following university-sponsored faculty development. While the participants were each successful in their respective implementations, they all expressed anxiety at the beginning of the semester as well as at the end when they reflected upon the changes they made. This occurred despite deeply held motivations to change their teaching and make a difference for their students. The participants encountered barriers that centered on feelings related to self-confidence, student perception, and peer approval. Findings include descriptions of these anxieties and the supports that …

Beyond Instructional Development: An Exploration Of Using Formal Pedagogy Training To Benefit Perceived Quality Of Life And Sense Of Community In Graduate Students, Matthew Mahavongtrakul, Ashley Hooper, Daniel Mann, Brian Sato

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

The Association of American Colleges and Universities calls for improvements in teaching preparation in graduate programs as a transferable skill for future faculty. However, the amount of institutional and faculty support for these programs is limited. For the relatively few programs that exist, rarely do they have their outcomes assessed in a data-driven manner. This is disconcerting considering that participation in professional development can improve work-life balance, and graduate students often work long hours, suffer from mental health issues, and face increasing career competition. In this case study, we explore how two teaching development programs impacted pedagogical knowledge, perceived quality …

Lessons From The Giving Tree, Becky Haddad

Department of Agricultural Leadership, Education, and Communication: Faculty Publications

We probably know the story--in fact, The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein is one of my husband’s favorite books from his childhood. Shel Silverstein was one of my favorite childhood authors too. I recently came across an insert for this book that focused on the tree setting boundaries. The tree said, “no,” and told the boy to find his own way. Of course, The Giving Tree fans will tell you that isn’t the message of the story. Shel Silverstein didn’t really do interviews, but the general consensus is the book is about the boy’s selfishness, and the tree’s selfless giving. …

Jour200a: Fundamentals Of Editing And Reporting I — Teaching Lede Writing For Digital/Print, Broadcast And Social Media Simultaneously, Chris Graves

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

Fundamentals of Editing and Reporting I is a foundational course required for all majors in the College of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln. The first half of the course focuses on grammar, AP style, determining how to identify news and good editing. The second half of the course pivots to applying those principles in writing by focusing on teaching students how to summarize news facts, write them in an inverted pyramid news writing style for digital/print publication and also for broadcast and social media platforms. There are key differences in writing for various platforms …

Crpl 495/895: Introduction To Transportation Planning (Crpl 463/863: Land Use And Transportation), Daniel P. Piatkowski

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

This portfolio presents the results of the first year, peer review of teaching process for CRPL 495/895, Introduction to Transportation Planning. The course is split-level course for advanced undergraduates and graduate students, and has been offered at the University of Nebraska Lincoln since 2016. The course is an elective in the Masters of Community and Regional Planning graduate program. The course introduces students to the connections between Transportation and Land Use planning, and their impacts on urban form, health, sustainability, and social justice, and the planning tools available to influence this process. The course also addresses planning for multiple modes …

Anth 110: Introduction To Anthropology: A Peer Review Of Teaching Benchmark Memo, Taylor A. Livingston

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

This portfolio examines the extent to which the learning outcomes for Introduction to Anthropology (ANTH 110) were met through course assessments. The primary goal of this course is for students to engage with anthropological content, by introducing students to an anthropological perspective, which requires looking at issues from multiple contexts (holism), and having students add this to their “tool kit” to help them make sense of what they believe, why they believe it, and how to make sense of the world around them and their place in it. The alignment of outcomes and assessment was analyzed through an examination of …

Nutr100 Healthy Living – A Peer Review Of Teaching Benchmark Portfolio, Shinya Takahashi

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

NUTR100 Healthy Living is a gateway course for Nutrition and Health Sciences major students as well as students from other majors at UNL. The course is a large hybrid-online 100-level class. The course is an introductory course designed to help the students improve his/her level of well-being by understanding various risk factors and personal behaviors that affect health. The objectives of this portfolio were 1) Improve students’ preparation for exams by providing exam review sessions, 2) Improve students’ “healthy living practices” throughout the semester and beyond, and 3) Creating a sense of belongingness/community by sharing your experiences, providing constructive feedback, …

Peer Review Of Teaching Project Course Portfolio – Cnst 434, Vishnu Reddi

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

No abstract provided.

Maintaining The Fence: Establishing And Reclaiming Your Boundaries, Becky Haddad , Ed.

Department of Agricultural Leadership, Education, and Communication: Faculty Publications

Editor Comments: Boundaries? We Don’t Need No Stinking Boundaries... Or Do We?... by Gaea Hock

Theme Editor Comments: Lessons from the Giving Tree .....by Becky Haddad

Theme Articles: A Letter to the Profession.... by Haley Traini

Balance in the Busyness.... by Roobie Richards

The Boundaries that Weren’t..... by Bibiana Gifft An Early Introduction.... by Amber Rice and Quint Molina Prioritizing Boundaries... by Hannah Wedger

The How’s and Why’s of Building a Fence.. by JoAnn Pfeiffer Avoiding the Burn... by Jay Solomoson and Trent Wells

Book Review: Boundaries by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend .... by Kayla Loewenhagen

Ready …

Theory-Driven Approaches To Targeting Socially Responsible Leadership In Emerging Adults: Consciousness Of Self, Lindsay J. Hastings, Hannah Sunderman

Department of Agricultural Leadership, Education, and Communication: Faculty Publications

The purpose of the current paper is to present a theory-driven approach to developing Consciousness of Self, an individual value of the Social Change Model of Leadership, among emerging adults. Specifically, we discuss the development and execution of an intervention involving a large-group retreat with interactive activities and an emphasis on discussion. Grounded in theory, the intervention focused on identifying values, describing strengths, and practicing mindfulness and was evaluated based on the learning objectives. Program evaluation efforts revealed notable participant gains in all targeted objectives six months after the intervention. By providing a theoretical framework, in-depth description of the intervention, …

Leadership Transfer In Rural Communities: A Mixed Methods Investigation, Lindsay J. Hastings, Hannah Sunderman, Matthew Hastings, L.J. Mcelravy, Melissa Lusk

Department of Agricultural Leadership, Education, and Communication: Faculty Publications

The United States is poised to experience one of the largest transfers of leadership in its history, markedly impacting rural community sustainability efforts. The purpose of this exploratory sequential mixed methods study was to identify themes related to rural leadership transfer using grounded theory and to test the facilitation of effective leadership transfer using structural equation modeling. Adult and youth leaders (N = 19) from three nominated rural communities comprised the qualitative phase and secondary data from a 2015 rural survey (N = 1991) comprised the quantitative phase. Mixed methods results indicated the environment conducive for effective leadership transfer (via …

A Peer Review Of Teaching Benchmark Portfolio For Mued 403 Student Teaching Seminar, Danni Gilbert

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

This portfolio examines the course planning and delivery of MUED 403—Student Teaching Seminar. Taken concurrently in the final semester of the music education degree with full-time student teaching field experiences, in addition to fulfilling the ACE 10 requirement, this course provides an analysis of PK-12 music teaching with special attention to teacher certification, selected legal aspects of education, current issues in education, and professional communication. I chose this course for the Peer Review of Teaching Project to determine whether undergraduate music education students could successfully complete an action research project during their student teaching semester and if so, whether the …

Agro 366: Soil Nutrient Relationships — A Peer Review Of Teaching Benchmark Portfolio, Meghan Sindelar

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

Soil Nutrient Relationships serves juniors and seniors with a major or minor in Agronomy. I originally cotaught this course with another professor and was in charge of just the lab portion. Now that I am the sole instructor I had goals of developing new content learning resources and better integrating lab and lecture content. The course was reorganized in 2021 into weekly modules with independent learning, lab time to work on calculations, using NebGuides, and other skill content, and then end of week discussion for relevant case studies or discussion of application and interactions. Students also conducted a group project …

Strengthening Graduate Student Teaching Through The Basic Course: Comm 101: Communication In The 21st Century, Allison Ronnau Bonander

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

Basic course instruction receives significant attention in relation to pedagogical practices and application. While this examination is very worthy, it often neglects to understand how Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs) are trained, taught, and how their learning as teachers is examined. This portfolio examines COMM 101: Communication in the 21st Century, a large lecture basic course with recitations led by GTAs, as a means of understanding how GTAs are trained and taught to meet the “learning objectives” of teaching pedagogy of a basic course. A qualitative analysis of GTA training meetings transcripts as well as emails from GTAs – and select …