Higher Education and Teaching Commons^™

Final Master's Portfolio, Elaina Halverstadt

Master of Arts in English Plan II Graduate Projects

Practical matters of teaching college writing are the primary focus of this portfolio. Specific topics include an exploration of best practices in preparation for teaching an online college writing course, a rationale for introducing technical writing into an institution as a co-taught interdisciplinary course, a four-week teaching unit for teaching grammar concepts through creative writing, and a resource guide for teaching an introductory technical writing course at the college level.

Textbook Remix: An Introduction To Libretexts For Oer Editing, Mary Elmquist, Alice M. Brawley Newlin

All Musselman Library Staff Works

So, you’ve found an open textbook that you really like, but it’s not quite right for your class? LibreTexts might be the answer! Join us for this informal webinar to learn a little more about this online platform designed for customizing and distributing open textbooks. From Gettysburg College, Scholarly Communications Librarian Mary Elmquist will provide an introduction to the platform, its structure and features, and Dr. Alice Brawley Newlin, Assistant Professor of Management, will speak on her ongoing experiences using LibreTexts to edit and implement an open textbook for a Statistical Methods course.

This session should provide insight for both …

Improvisation As A Teaching Tool For Improving Oral Communication Skills In Premedical And Pre-Biomedical Graduate Students, Marianne Phelps, Catrina White, Lin Xiang, Hollie I. Swanson

Theatre and Dance Faculty Publications

Objective:

To evaluate the relationship between training in theatre improvisation and empathy, communication, and other professional skills.

Methods:

Undergraduate and graduate students who were participants of a 10-week summer undergraduate research program engaged in theatre improvisation techniques during a 3-hour workshop. In Study #1, a de-identified, self-report questionnaire (known as the Empathy Quotient) was administered prior to and following the workshop. Paired sample 2-tailed t-tests were performed to evaluate pre- and post-test scores. To identify additional benefits of engaging in theatre improvisation techniques, Study #2 was performed. Here, a survey was administered to the participants following their completion of …

Keepers' From Remote/Hybrid Teaching: What I'Ve Learned That I Will Incorporate Into F2f Classes, Dave Bostwick, Sheri Deaton, Elizabeth Dickerson, Page Dobbs, Jean Henry, Michael Riha, Alejandro Rojas, Helene Siebrits, Lora Walsh

TFSC Publications and Presentations

Faculty presenters share tools and techniques used during remote/hybrid teaching they plan to incorporate into face-to-face courses post-pandemic.

S1: Emotional Intelligence Curriculum And The Impact On Dental Students, Monica Freifeld Dmd

Annual Research Symposium

No abstract provided.

Promoting Literacy In A Virtual World: Success Stories Of Two University Student Clubs, Katherine R. Drish, Stefanie Flory, Dr. Katy E. Hisrich, Dr. Amy Vujaklija, Dr. Amy Kelly, Dr. Lisa Pennington

Research Days

The Student Education Association and Kappa Delta Pi at Governors State University has a main goal this semester, which is to promote literacy in a virtual world. The purpose of this is to help all young individuals become strong readers. Our organization was fortunate enough to receive a grant from the National Education Association (NEA) that allowed us to purchase children’s books, invite guest speakers, and create workshops about varying social issues. This was in collaboration with a local library. Some of the social issues that were highlighted in our workshops are community and activism, women’s rights, and identity. We …

Activities In A Virtual World: Engaging Students, Faculty, And The Community, Katherine R. Drish, Rama Diab, Stefanie Flory, Dr. Lisa Pennington, Dr. Katy E. Hisrich

Research Days

The Student Education Association and Kappa Delta Pi at Governors State University prides itself on the amount of time and thought that is put into planning and hosting our very own virtual events and socials. Our organizations have worked rigorously to create varying outlets and resources for our members. With computer screens acting as barriers for real life interaction, we were determined to find a solution to gather people together safely to have fun, stay connected, and extend learning. We have had tremendous success in reaching this goal early on in the semester. Our first social, a Virtual Pet Show, …

Letter From The Co-Editors, Todd Pagano, Sami Kahn

Journal of Science Education for Students with Disabilities

No abstract provided.

On The Financial Superiority Of Medicaid Specialist Insurers: A Novel Transactions Cost/Supply Chain Approach, Bo Shi

Faculty Research at Morehead State University

From 2002 to 2016, U.S. health insurers specialising in Medicaid financially outperformed health insurers specialising in other populations (i.e. groups, individuals, Medicare and federal employees). For this robust finding we developed a novel methodology incorporating transactions cost economics theory with supply chain performance models. The novel approach regards the insured populations as products supplied to health insurers (‘buyers’) in a supply chain. The populations are the ‘indigent’, ‘elderly’, ‘employed’ etc. Each has different care utilisation frequencies of encounters, admissions to hospitals and days in hospital, as well as severities of expenses, contractual arrangements and transaction costs advantages. The population attributes …

Sjsu Erfa Board Minutes, April 5, 2021, San Jose State University, Emeritus And Retired Faculty Association

SJSU ERFA Minutes

SJSU ERFA Executive Board Minutes

April 5, 2021

Roles For Candidates In The Classroom, Charlotte Wells

Prepared to Teach

This animated PowerPoint presentation shows different models for integrating aspiring teachers into the classroom to help with instruction while furthering their own learning. With more than a dozen examples, it's a helpful starting point for partnerships seeking to shift towards a more cohesive P-20 education system.

The presentation includes voiceovers and timed animations. You can choose to present without these if you'd prefer. Settings are in the slideshow tab of PowerPoint.

Download here.

The Residency Revolution: Funding High-Quality Teacher Preparation, Hannah Dennis, Karen Demoss

Prepared to Teach

(Re)Investment helps districts find ways to make shifts that can permanently embed residency funding into local budgets. The Residency Revolution is about identifying and maximizing the savings that a high-quality residency program can bring to a district.

2021 Program And Abstracts For The Celebration Of Student Scholarship, Morehead State University. Undergraduate Research Fellowship Program.

Office of Research and Sponsored Programs Reports and Publications

Abstracts from the Celebration of Student Scholarship held in the Spring of 2021.

Raising Cross-Cultural Awareness Among The Undergraduates Through Intentional Design In A Culture Course In The Us—An Exploratory Mixed-Methods Experimental Design, Hua Wang

Dissertations

The cultivation of intercultural competence is a growing trend globally, and integration of intercultural competence into coursework was widely acknowledged as a valid strategy to achieve this goal. The purpose of this study is to examine (1) the effects of the intervention of connecting one’s own culture to affect students' cross-cultural awareness development in American colleges; and (2) students’ perceptions of their own cultural‐awareness changes. Data was collected through pre-and post-questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. This study also compared between-group participants’ posttest ratings on a cross-cultural awareness scale, as well as pre- and post-test ratings within each group. The quantitative and …

Holding Tight To Our Convictions And Lightly To Our Ways: Inviting Shared Expertise As A Strategy For Expanding Inclusion, Reach, And Impact, Kylie Korsnack, Leslie Ortquist-Ahrens

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

When the global pandemic forced campuses across the United States to send students home in March 2020, instructors were thrown into triage mode, forced to rapidly transition their on-the-ground classroom curriculum to a format that could be completed remotely by students spread out across the country. At the same time, centers for teaching and learning (CTLs) also entered triage mode, puzzling over how to quickly but effectively provide appropriate training and meaningful support to prepare faculty for this rapid transition (Aebersold et al., 2020). The situation’s urgency, coupled with the significant constraints many CTL directors already experienced, necessitated creative, flexible, …

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 …

Special Research Edition, Lori Gwyn, Cj Smith, Jennifer Cook-Johns

The Source

Emily Bedea became SWOSU’s third grand prize winner in the 26 years of Research Day at the Capital.

A Recreation Department’S Response To The Covid-19 Pandemic, Steve Chen, Michael Simmons

Faculty Research at Morehead State University

The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has severely impacted the operation and financial vitality of recreation, fitness, and sports industries (Byrne, 2020; Dolesh & Colman, 2020). This case study addressed how recreation and fitness sectors were impacted by the outbreak of virus and described how the Recreation, Parks and Cultural Activities (RPCA) department of a satellite city near the National Capital, Washington D.C., operated its facility with proper emergency responses and best practices under the guidelines of Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the State Health Department. In addition, challenges (i.e., staffing and financial compensation) faced during different phases …

Student Perceptions Of Advising For Retention At A Midwestern Technical College, Joseph Mollner

Education Doctorate Dissertations

Student retention continues to be an issue across the United States, with only 69% of students remaining in their higher education institution until graduation. This number drops dramatically to 59.1% at two-year public schools, including technical schools. Past studies proved that proper advising is the cornerstone of improving student retention. In this phenomenological study, ten participants shared their experiences with advising at a technical college in the midwestern United States. Four common advisor-centered themes appeared from technical students’ advising experiences: these themes were flexibility, compassion, helpfulness, and the ability to provide constructive feedback.

There were significant differences in advising experiences …

Perceptions On Implementing A Comprehensive Athletic Website And Online Streaming Service For Kentucky High Schools, Steve Chen, Adrienne Hall

Faculty Research at Morehead State University

Student participation in interscholastic athletics reached record levels in 2019-20 for the third consecutive year in Kentucky (KHSAA, 2020). Sport marketers have strongly advocated social media as a powerful and effective tool to promote sporting events at all levels. However, existing studies rarely focus on the trend for promoting interscholastic sports through social media platforms. This study examined the potential of an interactive website and online streaming service focusing on interscholastic sports may provide to high schools in Kentucky. After evaluating more than 102 high school athletic websites, the authors found schools were in need to improve the current website …

Stem Education As A Vital Preventive Response To A Pandemic, Emily Faulconer, Katherine Baker, Oliver Grundmann, Sarah Haines, Tyra Hall-Pogar

Publications

T he extraordinary work to develop feasible vaccines, effective medical treatments, and accurate epidemiological studies to alleviate the SARS-CoV2 pandemic would not have been possible without collaboration between academia, industry, government laboratories, and regulatory agencies that speak the common language researchers around the world know—science!

Legal Research & Writing: An Undergraduate Pre-Law Course Design, Rachel Kathleen Strieber

Senior Theses

The purpose of this project-based thesis is to develop an undergraduate pre-law course that teaches legal research and writing (LRW) and to design its respective description, topics, reading materials, sample syllabus document, and a sample lesson plan. The research portion of this thesis will study the pedagogy of LRW and the connection between LRW skills and the students’ success in law school and careers in law. Preparing students to excel in LRW skills prior to law school through the proposed undergraduate pre-law LRW course will yield a stronger performance in a first-year law LRW course to follow and amplify students’ …

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 …

Building Bridges In First-Year Composition: Investigating The Support Of Threshold Concepts In Writing-Related Transfer Across The Curriculum, Elise Antoinette Green

English Theses & Dissertations

Drawing on a multiple-case, embedded design (Yin, 2018), I highlight the in-depth differences and similarities that exist across students’ experiences in first-year composition (FYC), looking specifically at whether learners used genre and rhetorical situation as threshold concepts to transfer writing-related knowledge and skills across the curriculum. I designed and conducted this research by drawing on theories of learning transfer (Perkins & Salomon, 1988; 1989; 1992; Salomon & Perkins, 1989), writing-related transfer (Moore, 2017; Nowacek, 2011; Yancey, Robertson, & Taczak, 2014; Yancey et al., 2019), and threshold concepts (Meyer & Land, 2006). Across this study, I collected data as I facilitated …