Higher Education and Teaching Commons^™

Leveraging The Power Of Course Redesign For Student Success, Rebecca Campbell, Benjamin B. Blankenship

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Colleges and universities have a commitment to improve the student experience, increase persistence, and provide paths to degree completion. Course redesign, focused on student success, is a promising strategy for realizing that commitment. This article examines some of the particulars when course redesign is explicitly linked to student success. These particulars include the types of redesign outcomes, why courses should be the locus of student success initiatives, identifying which courses to redesign, and the characteristics and scope of impact of redesigned courses. The article concludes with suggestions for next steps for student success course redesign.

“Am I Really Good Enough?”: Black And Latinx Experiences With Faculty Development, Sylk Santiago-Sotto

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

This study focuses on the experiences of Black and Latinx faculty in academic medicine in relation to their educational and faculty development. Narratives by participants reflect on their career path and refer to faculty development programs as valuable but also as dominant group-centric, counter to their cultural backgrounds and the underrepresented faculty experience. Findings reveal the need for faculty development to be spaces for affirmation, validation, and accountability and suggest the need for tailored programs. Furthermore, implications on the research and practice of faculty affairs within higher education and academic medicine are outlined.

The Experiences Of Non-Tenure-Track Faculty Members Of Color With Racism In The Classroom, Ryan Rideau, Claire K. Robbins

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Using critical race theory, this qualitative study examined the ways non-tenure-track faculty members of Color (NTFOCs) experienced racism in their classroom environments. The sample consisted of 24 NTFOCs who worked at 4-year historically White colleges and universities. Findings revealed that NTFOCs experienced racism in their classrooms in three ways: negative evaluations, different treatment than White colleagues, and feeling unsafe in the classroom. While these findings are consistent with the experiences of tenure-track and tenured faculty members of Color, the implications for NTFOCs, particularly in terms of their employment, are stark. The article concludes with recommendations for how educational developers can …

A Mandatory Faculty Diversity Workshop: Does It Work?, Heather Dwyer, Joya Smith

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

This article explores the effectiveness of a mandatory training workshop for faculty. Our center for teaching and learning (CTL) was charged with designing and implementing a diversity training workshop for all full-time faculty. The workshop included an introduction to diversity and inclusion, analysis of microaggressions, discussion of inclusive teaching strategies, and practice responding to difficult situations using realistic classroom scenarios. Data were collected on participants’ familiarity and comfort level with diversity and inclusion concepts and situations via identical pre- and post-assessment. A year later, a follow-up survey was administered, which included the original assessment. Assessment and survey responses indicated positive …

Teaching Certificate Redesign: Making A Flexible Program For Future Faculty, Kate Z. Williams, Lauren E. Margulieux, G. David Lawrence

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Higher education teaching certificate programs can improve graduate students’ and postdoctoral scholars’ teaching while preparing them for their future roles as faculty, providing a multi-tiered benefit to universities’ teaching goals. This article documents the decision points and initial success of a redesign of one such teaching certificate program.” As part of the redesign process, 10 universities’ programs were reviewed and used as a benchmark. The programs’ learning objectives and assessments, along with their connections to the literature, are discussed in detail. A new flexible pathway through the certificate program emerged, tapping into courses, workshops, and online resources for content delivery, …

Development Of A Faculty Appreciation Of Pedagogy Scale, Carol A. Hurney, Jordan D. Troisi, Lori H. Leaman

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Evidencing the value of programs and services challenges educational developers to measure a range of outcomes. While direct measures of faculty use of effective teaching behaviors and student learning are desirable, these methods are time consuming and resource intensive. We provide a scale that is easy to deploy and can be adapted to different programs. Our psychometrically sound scale measures one facet of faculty learning about teaching—appreciation of pedagogy. The scale measures awareness, knowledge integration, emotions, beliefs, and self-reported behaviors related to the appreciation of pedagogy. We also examine scale correlates, including teaching identity, confidence, and control.

Impostor Phenomenon In Educational Developers: Consequences And Coping Strategies, Kristin J. Rudenga, Emily O. Gravett

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

A recent survey of educational developers revealed that nearly all respondents (96%) had experienced impostor phenomenon (IP) in their professional lives. Here, we use survey data to investigate the consequences of and coping strategies for IP among educational developers. We describe the repercussions of IP for the personal and professional lives of educational developers (including stress, lowered self-esteem, not speaking up, and diminished career trajectories), the ways in which they cope with IP, and the unique ways that they may be positioned to leverage their own experience with IP to work more effectively with instructors.

Students Helping Students Provide Valuable Feedback On Course Evaluations, Adriana Signorini, Mariana Abuan, Gautam Panakkal, Sandy Dorantes

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

The purpose of the student evaluations of teaching (SET) are to help instructors enhance the teaching and learning experience in their courses; however, student feedback can often be more unconstructive than useful because students are usually requested to evaluate instruction with little or no formal training. As a result, SET become missed opportunities for students to effectively communicate their learning needs and for instructors to collect actionable information about how the course is perceived. This project aims to improve the quality of student responses to the open-ended questions that instructors receive by partnering with undergraduates in demonstrating to their peers …

Tell Me More About Alex: Helping Instructors Uncover And Mitigate Their Implicit Biases, Cait S. Kirby, Heather N. Fedesco

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

All instructors bring a set of unconscious or implicit biases to the classroom. These biases can negatively impact the way they interact with students, thus affecting important student outcomes (for example, grades, sense of belonging). Facilitators leading programming on inclusive teaching may struggle to identify strategies they should include in sessions to help unearth and address these biases in others. We have created an activity that can be tailored to fit a variety of teaching contexts and audiences and that helps unveil implicit biases while potentially mitigating some challenges associated with participant responses to such conversations.

Nefdc Exchange, Volume 34, Summer/Fall 2020, New England Faculty Development Consortium

New England Faculty Development Consortium Exchange

Contents

President's message, Marc Ebenfield

Bridging media: Shared referents to connect the unfamiliar to the familiar

Using flash activities to stimulate positive student engagement and promote critical thinking skills

Implementing a mid-semester assessment process (map) in your course: Using reflection to help reduce faculty and student anxiety

NEFDC Board members

Exploration Of Lived Experiences Of Science Teachers Of English Language Learners: A Transcendental Phenomenological Study, Uma Maheshwari Ganesan

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Theses and Other Student Research

English language learners (ELLs) are a talented pool of culturally and linguistically diverse students who are persistently increasing both in absolute size and percentage in the U.S. school population; however, they are underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields in college as well as in the workforce (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2018). Although educational leaders, policy makers, and researchers have emphasized the importance of STEM for the country’s continued prosperity, both education and scientific communities have found it challenging to improve students’ participation in STEM fields (Martinez et al., 2011). Exploring science teachers’ experiences could …

Adjusting The Late Policy: Using Smaller Intervals For Grading Deductions, Brandon Bosch

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Most late policies involve some type of initial large deduction when an assignment is late, followed by subsequent deductions around a certain interval. In many cases, instructors will select 24 hours as their interval. While this type of late policy is common, it can be criticized for being too punitive. Moreover, large intervals can encourage students to hold on to their assignments longer than necessary, increasing the possibility that students receive a second large deduction. To address some of these issues, I share my experience of using one-point deductions for each hour an assignment is late.

Editor's Note, Lindsay Bernhagen

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Editor's note for To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development, volume 39, issue 1 from spring 2020.

What's The Problem Now?, Randall Bass

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Revisiting an essay from 1999, this article explores the current conditions in higher education, and society more broadly, that help shape the roles for the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) and educational development. By seeing the current “crises” of higher education not only as “problems” to be investigated but as a “wicked problem,” we might be able to elevate and complicate the role that inquiry into teaching and learning might play in institutional change and the expansion of higher education. The article argues for the necessity, even urgency, of seeing educational development as a lever for change, fully engaged …

(Cultural) Taxation Without Representation? How Educational Developer Can Broker Discourse On Black Faculty Lives In The #Blacklivesmatter Era, Richard J. Reddick, Beth E. Bukoski, Stella L. Smith

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Predominantly White institutions (PWIs) in creative class cities offer contradictory experiences for Black faculty, who engage in invisible additional labor in response to racial aggressions, termed cultural taxation (CT). With an understanding that equity-minded faculty development is an essential space in which to respond to this reality, our study employed a phenomenological focus group design to investigate how Black faculty at a research-intensive PWI located in a creative class city buffeted by racial tensions navigated their service and community experiences. While finding their work meaningful, the participants shared experiences of the multifaceted nature of CT, their stress from teaching about …

The Diffusion Of Faculty Development: A Faculty Fellows Program, Tracy W. Smith, Sara J. Greenwald, Lillian Y. Nave, Victor N. Mansure, Michael L. Howell

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

This critical retrospective review describes the ideation, creation, and implementation of a faculty development fellows program at a regional comprehensive university. The authors share their perspectives as fellows regarding primary considerations for designing the program, including attention to the fellows selection process, required multilevel support, cultivation of communication and relationships, professional development of the fellows, development of unit programming, and lessons learned. Each section of the article concludes with critical questions institutions might consider when conceiving a faculty development fellows program.

Building A Social Network Around Sotl Through Digital Space, Shannon M. Sipes, Samy L. Minix, Matt Barton

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

In an effort to increase visibility of and access to the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) work on one campus, a collaboration formed between a faculty developer, a librarian, and a media specialist within a center for teaching and learning (CTL). Building on the frameworks of community of practice, professional learning network, and social networking, the authors strategically leveraged digital space to begin building a social network of faculty members interested in SoTL. This article will address the theoretical foundation and practical implementation of five digital strategies: (a) website redesign; (b) social media presence; (c) blog series; (d) filmed …

Assessment Literacy In College Teaching: Empirical Evidence On The Role And Effectiveness Of A Faculty Training Course, Kyle D. Massey, Christopher Deluca, Danielle Lapointe-Mcewan

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

This research explores how faculty members’ conceptions of assessment and confidence in assessment change as a result of an instructor training course. Based on a sample of 27 faculty members enrolled in a semester-long instructional development course, this survey-based study provides initial evidence that faculty members can develop confidence in assessment while adopting increasingly complex conceptions of assessment. Based on this study’s findings, we argue that instructional development programs for college faculty have a critical role to play in stimulating faculty learning about assessment of student learning and are an important component in promoting a positive assessment culture.

Cultivating And Sustaining A Faculty Culture Of Data-Driven Teaching And Learning: A Systems Approach, Marsha Lovett, Chad Hershock

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

A prominent goal of colleges and universities today is to enact data-driven teaching and learning. Faculty clearly play a key role, and yet they tend to have limited time, a lack of training in assessment or education research, and few incentives for engaging in this work. We describe a framework designed to address the practical and cultural aspects of these challenges via a cycle of educational development and support: motivate, educate, facilitate, disseminate. We illustrate this systems approach with concrete examples and conclude with lessons learned from our experiences that should translate to a variety of institutional contexts.

Access To Leadership Efficacy: Those Who Start Early Finish Ahead, Becky Haddad, Sophie Pierszalowski, Johnathan Velez

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

An increasing number of studies point to student gains from participation in leadership development opportunities. However, very little research exists to explore who has access to these experiences. In this paper, we investigate whether a student’s employment off-campus has an impact on their ability to participate in, and experience gains in leadership efficacy from leadership training opportunities. We employ a linear regression path analysis to identify potential relationships between pre-college leadership efficacy, off-campus employment, participation in leadership training opportunities, and leadership efficacy for undergraduate students at a university in the Pacific Northwest. Pre-college leadership efficacy was the strongest predictor of …

Motivated Reasoning And Persuading Faculty Change In Teaching, Gary A. Smith

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Many faculty members demonstrate unwavering resistance to adopting research-based instructional strategies. This phenomenon commonly fits with motivated reasoning, whereby a person feels threatened by persuasion to change, leading to overtly defensive and sometimes disruptive behaviors and refusal. Changing away from established practices may challenge one’s self-identity and values as an effective teacher and triggers arguments intended to invalidate research-based alternatives. Faculty who are motivated to reject consensus best practices may impede the implementation of these practices across entire departments or institutions. Motivated reasoning and its underlying cognitive processes are explained by self-determination theory, which leads to predictions of faculty behaviors …

Motivations And Obstacles Influencing Faculty Engagement In Adopting Teaching Innovations, Wayne Jacobson, Renee Cole

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Significant progress has been made in understanding science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education and ways it can be improved, but propagation of change remains a challenge. This study presents an analysis of STEM faculty responses to open-text survey questions that asked them to identify motivations and obstacles to making changes in their teaching. Responses reveal wide variability among faculty perceptions, conceptualizations of change, and understandings of evidence. These findings suggest reasons faculty are not uniformly receptive to calls for change and challenge educational developers and advocates of STEM education reform to be explicit about their own understandings of meaningful …

Culturally Relevant Science Teaching: A Literature Review, Uma Maheshwari Ganesan

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Theses and Other Student Research

This educational research literature review paper aims to discuss the rationale, review eight empirical research studies, and identify knowledge gaps in culturally relevant pedagogy in science education. This paper focuses on synthesis, review, and comparison of the findings of the empirical studies, and categorizes them into thematic heads such as similarities and differences between studies under the broad categories of professional development (PD) programs and case studies. Following these reviews, the author summarizes her reflections and thoughts about the literature to understand the big picture of culturally relevant pedagogy in science education. The basis of this literature review are various …

Evidence-Based Practices In Mentoring For Leadership Development, Lindsay J. Hastings, Hannah Sunderman

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

Effective mentoring for leadership development requires nuanced practical considerations. The authors outline aspects of effective mentorship, highlight considerations for practitioners and mentoring programs, and offer critical perspectives on mentoring.

Higher education scholars have identified mentoring as an important tool in leadership development (Campbell, Smith, Dugan, & Komives, 2012; Dugan & Komives, 2010; Hastings, Griesen, Hoover, Creswell, & Dlugosh, 2015; Komives, Longerbeam, Mainella, Osteen, & Owen, 2009).Mentoring is recognized as one of the most promising practices for both leader and leadership development because of its effectiveness at facilitating development (Day, 2001). Mentoring embeds leadership development within the ongoing experiences of a …

Toward A Culturally Sensitive Approach To Student Centered Accent And Dialect Coursework - Thea 403: Advanced Voice - Accents & Dialects – A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Benchmark Portfolio, Ann Marie Pollard

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

A benchmark portfolio for Theatre 403: Advanced Voice (Accents and Dialects). This portfolio describes considerations taken in developing a new course design, optimizing course assignments, implementing a perspective which moves toward the decolonization of the acting classroom, and integrating heightened awareness of cultural sensitivity with practical, skills-based learning. The author provides context around the course, its objectives, and its structure. Samples of student perspectives are provided within an in-depth look at an in-class conversation about diversity, inclusion, and practicing advocacy for appropriate casting choices. The reflection includes a conclusion that, while moving toward a destandardization of content has its challenges, …

Stat 463: Introduction To Mathematical Statistics Ii - A Peer Review Of Teaching Portfolio, Qi Zhang

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

No abstract provided.

Agro 153 - Soil Resources Online - A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Benchmark Portfolio, Rebecca Young

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

Soil Resources (AGRO 153) is a high enrollment, introductory-level course taken by a diverse range of student majors at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL), predominantly from the College of Agricultural Science and Natural Resources (CASNR). Students that enroll in this course typically span all undergraduate class levels, and a small number of graduate students fulfilling degree requirements or prerequisites. AGRO 153 online is a smaller enrollment section of the course that is often taken by students when (a) the resident sections have closed due meeting maximum capacity, (b) there is a timing conflict within their course schedule, or (c) the …

Nefdc Exchange, Volume 33, Special Edition 2020, New England Faculty Development Consortium

New England Faculty Development Consortium Exchange

Contents

Notes from the guest editor, Eric Matte (Landmark College)

Rescuing the canary in the coal mine: Addressing mental health on college campuses

Five )not ten) teaching practices inclusive of students with anxiety

Resilience through discomfort: Reframing anxiety and helpful strategies for the mathematics classroom

Learning and wellbeing: A collaborative approach to course design

Simulations offer transformational learning and anxiety reduction

NEFDC Board members

Will The First Through Fifth Years Please Stand Up? Quantifying National Sbae Teacher Experience, Becky Haddad, Kelsey J. Knight, Josh Stewart, Johnathan Velez

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

Research often references years of experience specific to participants, yet no compiled report exists for secondary school-based agricultural education (SBAE) to holistically quantify years of teaching experience. In addition, definitions accounting for experience fall short of capturing the myriad ways experience counts in the broader teaching profession. Our study addresses this missing piece of the teacher retention puzzle. Using Quiñones, Ford, and Teachout’s (1994) conceptual framework for work experience measures, our study quantified teacher experience in the National Association for Agricultural Education (NAAE). We analyzed National SBAE teacher experience through descriptive statistics, compared experience by region using an ANOVA model, …

Let’S Review: Types Of Feedback Given In An Agricultural Writing Intensive Course, Becky Haddad, Kellie Claflin, Josh Stewart

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

Our study sought to describe the types of feedback (affective, cognitive, and metacognitive) used by students of senior standing in a Writing Intensive Course within an undergraduate Agricultural Sciences degree. This study quantified a change in peer-review feedback over the course of an academic term. Students used each type of feedback throughout the duration of the course, but relied heavily on affective and cognitive feedback (63% and 80% of combined feedback between both categories in initial and final feedback, respectively). Further efforts are necessary to provide direction and rigorous evaluation in the writing intensive course. Continued research is necessary to …