USG Teaching & Learning Conference: Best Practices for Promoting Engaged Student

Dee Gillespie, Terry Easton, Sara Mason

With support from a 2014 Presidential Academic Innovation Award, we incorporated oral history interviewing in English, History, and Human Services classes to promote student engagement, preserve regional history, and create connections between the University of North Georgia and the broader northeastern Georgia community. At this session, we will discuss the goals, methods, and results of our efforts. We will offer practical advice about integrating oral history into undergraduate classes and in developing and maintaining community and university partnerships necessary to sustain the work. We aim to create a learning community, where we engage the audience in dialogue to discuss ongoing projects and creatively address common challenges. This session will be of interest to participants who are using oral history and participants who are interested in integrating oral history into courses.

Josephine Dawuni

The day I stop caring is the day I stop teaching, was a remark I made to my colleague when we had coffee at the end of the semester to talk about our high and low moments that semester. I see teaching as a calling on my life and for this reason, I do more than teaching--I inspire my students. The purpose of this poster presentation is to analyze the role of the teacher as an inspirer in and out of the classroom. The presenter will discuss the different strategies of motivating and inspiring students and the challenges associated therewith. Drawing on personal narratives, the presenter discusses current best practices in student engagement strategies and concludes with proposals on how to inspire students across disciplines without getting burned out.

Josh Pfiester, Nubia Federico

A rural advocate in Elliott Wigginton's Sometimes a Shining Moment (1985) stated that "the beauty into which you were born into is often the beauty you never see" (p. 53). This doesn't have to be true- schools can help people see the beauty of their communities. This presentation will highlight student created primary source social studies lesson plans that were created from a collaboration between a School of Education faculty member at Dalton State College and the Emery African-American Heritage and Multicultural Center in Dalton, Georgia. A few lesson plans will be on display for the audience. The intended audience is teachers and college faculty (especially those engaged in social studies).

Rachel Eike, Arrie Milam

In order to prepare Fashion Merchandising and Apparel Design (FMAD) students for the next stage of their career journey, six FMAD industry professionals virtually connected with the professional seminar class and shared their apparel industry experience. Upon virtual conversation completion, students analyzed, synthesized, and reflected upon the knowledge gained from these conversations. This reflection process allowed students to communicate their individual growth experienced from virtual conversations (complemented by other course activities) while indicating their future implementation plan to apply knowledge gained. This connection-reflection process was an efficient engagement method that enabled students to understand industry expectations, network with potential employers, and develop a methodical reflection procedure for workplace annual reviews. This virtual conversation and reflection process may be implemented into any academic discipline.

Roben Taylor, Abby Sparks, Sara Douglas

Universal Design for Instruction targets the best practices of teaching for each student's learning needs. According to Scott, Shaw, and McGuire (2001), there are six principles guiding Universal Design for Instruction: 1) equitable use, 2) simple and intuitive, 3) perceptible information, 4) low physical effort, 5) a community of learners, and 6) instructional climate. This presentation seeks to educate all teachers on the benefits and ease of implementing a universal design approach in all our classrooms. Students know how they learn best. Let's give them the opportunity to become partners in the creation of a positive instructional climate! This poster presentation provides participants with sound practical strategies suitable for all teachers.

Ana Pozzi-Harris

Instructors teaching college-level introductory surveys face the challenge to expand course content beyond image and historical style analysis. This presentation explores a learning tool that promotes critical thinking about social relations in the art world. The presenter created a guided-reading assignment centered on two examples of art historical narrative fiction: Girl with A Pearl Earring and Lady and the Unicorn, by Tracy Chevalier. The assignment effectively fosters students' in-depth reflection about complex questions: the social relations between artists and patrons, artists and models, artists and market, artists and audience, artists and materials. The presentation documents examples of student writing in response to the assignment. It will appeal to college instructors and high school AP teachers of art, art history, and other liberal arts disciplines.

Geneva DeMars, Jennifer Brofft Bailey

The presenters developed and implemented a semester-long, student-centered, discovery-based laboratory research experience that actively engages students in the process and application of science. Screening local insect populations for novel strains of the bacterial endosymbiont Wolbachia provides the framework for students to develop competencies in the following: quantitative analysis, technical skills, scientific communication, and information literacy. According to survey data, students express an increase in confidence in these four competencies. Objective assessments indicate student gains in understanding molecular biology concepts and skills as well as the interdisciplinary nature of science. These data indicate achievement of project goals. The transformation of our introductory lab course has challenged students to develop critical thinking skills that should prepare them for success in STEM and other academic fields.

Kimberly Kellett

Many institutions offer short seminars or courses focused on stimulating student engagement in areas outside of their major, but the effectiveness of these courses is rarely evaluated. We developed a "First Year Odyssey" course aimed at increasing interest in plants and combating "Plant Blindness," the inability to see or notice the plants in one's own environment. The course used a variety of creative activities, group discussions, and field trips to expose students to the multitude of ways plants are highly adapted to the challenges their environments present. We found that student awareness of and interest in plants increased significantly after taking our course, and that field trips and learning activities were the most common reasons given for this increase.

Kimberly Green

This activity explores decisions that underlie patents and trade secrets for disciplines in which intellectual property concerns affect revenue streams from innovations. The audience includes instructors of a wide range of disciplines such as business, entrepreneurship, engineering, life sciences, software development, art, architecture, and theater. Class discussion is based on patents accessed through the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office website and the example of the 600-year old dome of the cathedral in Florence, Italy. The dome has been the subject of reverse engineering efforts documented in the NOVA public broadcasting program and serves as a creative example of a trade secret. Prior to seeing the video, students can reverse engineer the product (i.e., the dome) in class with blocks to approximate bricks of the dome. The discussion compares benefits and risks of patenting versus trade secrets to protect proprietary information and the implications of reverse engineering. The audience fpr this presentation will see the forms and manipulatives used in class and receive a handout explaining how to implement the exercise in the classroom and tie the components together. The activity is suitable for face-to-face or online classes.

Lucas Vasconcelos

One of the most important skills for 21st century successful professionals regardless of their field is critical thinking, which enables them to make wise, informed decisions and solve problems. This poster presentation aims at sharing and discussing the process and the results of a learning adventure project wherein preservice teachers enrolled in the course EDIT 2000: Introduction to Computers for Teachers learn through the eyes of a student by engaging in a critical thinking and problem solving project themselves. This project requires them to gather technological resources, design a multi-day lesson addressing a Georgia Performance Standard and publish it on a website to guide a hypothetical K-12 group of students through the learning adventure. This project will help educators and practitioners striving to address and foster college student's critical thinking and problem solving skills.

Moya Alfonso

Little is known about the use of service learning in public health education and appropriate methods for assessing whether it results in students' improved abilities to think critically about public health practice. The purpose of this poster is to present the results of a study designed to determine whether Photovoice is a feasible and valid approach to assessing the effects of service learning on master's level community health students' ability to think critically about public health practice. A case study of students engaged in public health practice as a component of a master's level community health course (Community Health Assessment) will serve as the backdrop for the presentation.

Thomas Cooper, Brad Bailey

The presenters have completed a two-year quasi-experimental study of the use of Inquiry-Based Learning in Precalculus. This study included six traditional lecture classes and seven IBL classes taught by three instructors. Both quantitative and qualitative data were analyzed to investigate achievement as well as attitudes and beliefs. In this poster presentation, we will present a brief summary of our results with a particular focus on an "Openness to Inquiry Based Learning" survey that we have developed for assessing students' preferences for Student-Centered or Teacher-Centered instruction. Students who score higher on this survey, tended to perform better on the final exam; indicating that a key element to success in an IBL course may be the students willingness to participate.

Wendy Dustman, Alexandra Kurtz, Rebekah Ward, Pratima Darr, Julie Shearer

Our purpose is to analyze undergraduate student attitudes toward science and research ownership via participation in a multi-institution and authentic hypothesis-driven research project (the Small World Initiative [SWI]), and to inspire biology majors to pursue graduate studies and careers in science and have an informed appreciation for the process of science. This project also addresses a global urgent health threat: the proliferation of bacterial resistance to currently available antibiotics. This issue also exemplifies international collaboration in the scientific community. The SWI project will make a significant contribution to 1) GGC's commitment to a 4-yr URE 2) GGC's national reputation for excellence in STEM education 3) improving our students' broader perspective of scientific collaboration 4) enhancing our students' marketable skill set and critical thinking abilities and finally, 5) aiding discovery of novel antibiotics for future pharmaceutical development.

Wyatt Geist

This presentation describes the evolution of one graduate teaching assistant's approach to supporting student writing in the theatre classroom and suggests strategies for improving the quality of student responses in artist's journals. Artist's journals provide another rehearsal space in the theatre classroom, allowing students to plan, reflect, and create in a manner that supports their development as actors and prepares them to participate in collaboration and discussion. When students receive guidance through strategic instruction, practice, and self-evaluation based on Lorin Anderson's Revised Bloom's Taxonomy, artist's journals can also encourage critical thinking, turning low-stakes writing assignments into high-value learning opportunities. This poster session is relevant to those seeking a structured method for improving the quality of low-stakes writing in their own classrooms.