Program

Centering Student Voices

Amy Brown, University of North Carolina Greensboro

After COVID, everyone’s priorities changed including how students engage in their course work. The UTLC hosted several student focus groups during the spring 2023 semester to learn directly from students how they stay motivated, what aspects of course design work best for them and what instructional practices encourage persistence.

Choice as voice: The value of embedding students as course collaborators

Melissa M. MacLean, Memorial University 

Respecting students as key stakeholders in our classrooms requires a renegotiation of our concept of students’ role within our courses. Trade in your course as a site of anxious absorption of academia for one of empowered engagement. When we see our students not just as learning players within a fixed moment of time, but instead as learning co-contributors on a continuum, we make room for them as a whole person. We can extend grace over requiring grit. By incorporating choice into our courses, we expand opportunities for authentic student experiences and engagements.

Ethical Challenges in the AI Era: Dealing with Cheating and Plagiarism

Yi Duan, Marshall University 

The new artificial intelligence (AI) tools represented by ChatGPT can be very useful for teaching and learning activities, but have also generated ethical concerns. More and more students have been using ChatGPT for their homework assignments and essays. AI-assisted cheating and plagiarism have become the new challenges in teaching and learning. This session will introduce some practical tools to deal with these challenges, including assessment design to prevent cheating and plagiarism as well as cheating and plagiarism detection. However, some detectors can be imperfect and need to be used with caution.

Co-teaching Models and Tips within Higher Education

Katherine Baker & Alicia Tate, Elon University 

While co-teaching is a commonly used practice in K-12 classrooms that prospective teachers (PTs) encounter, PTs may not experience co-teaching during their university coursework. This presentation overviews the co-planning and co-teaching practices used by Teacher Educators during a semester-long course for PTs. We will share the co-teaching models used and offer tips to move the co-teaching practices into other settings, both K-12 and higher education. Co-teaching models overviewed will include One Teach & One Observe, One Teach & One Assist , Alternative Teaching, Team Teaching, and Station Teaching. Tips will stem from the “5 Ps” of co-teaching: presence, planning, presenting, processing, problem-solving.

Best Effort, not Perfect

Virginia McCormack, Ohio Dominican University 

This discussion focuses on the impact of in-person teaching strategies for university students post pandemic. University students expressed a lower level of self-efficacy in working with other students, professors, and staff in the university environment. The researcher has developed a needs-based perspective to assist university students in the transition to in-person class and practicums. Preparing university students to acquire a mastery of content, critical thinking, complex problem-solving, effective communication and collaboration with others, and self-direction seems overwhelming to many students in higher education. The researcher has highlighted four areas: feedback, socialization, confidence, accommodations to discuss and steps for moving forward.

Centering the whole person: Approaches to developing and using Learner Personas

Katherine Farrar & Nicole Nash, Harvard Graduate School of Education  

Learning designers frequently create learner personas (LPs) to center the needs and motivations of the intended learners through synthesized portraits. Beyond the learning design context, however, LPs can be valuable to anyone working to center the whole person as they plan, assess, or improve academic and co-curricular experiences. In addition to developing LPs during initial design, we’ve identified improvement opportunities by using student feedback to develop LPs and elevated student voices by inviting students to co-design LPs.

Introducing students to social constructivism through the “penny” and “credit card” activities

Christopher M. Seitz & Muhsin Michael Orsini, Appalachian State University 

Vygotsky’s “social constructivism” suggests that learning takes place through social interaction and dialogue. As such, a common method of facilitating learning in constructivist classrooms is through discussion. Based on the presenters’ experience, by explicitly informing students about social constructivism and its link to classroom discussion, it appears that students enhance their appreciation of peer-to-peer interaction. The presenters have successfully illustrated social constructivism to students by using the “penny” and “credit card” activities. During this five minute “Speed Teaching” session, attendees will participate in these activities and gain access to the worksheets for their own classrooms.

Implementing Computational Statistics Across Disciplines

Andre Waschka, Mercer University

The growth in the role of statistics and data science across disciplines highlights the importance of adequate student preparation for the workplace. In order to improve statistical understanding and data literacy, there is an increased need to develop suitable statistics courses and research experiences for students in different fields beyond traditional introductory statistics courses. We describe the development of a computational statistics course that incorporates computation, statistical software, and work with real data. Participants will learn how to 1) improve statistical understanding/data literacy in their students and 2) increase research experiences using computational statistics for students in different disciplines.

Integrating Current Event Discussions In International Marketing

Lana Kurepa Waschka, Elon University 

In an effort to encourage news literacy and active engagement in both the classroom and globally, students were asked at the beginning of each session about national or international news that caught their attention. As a class, we would work our way through the relevant outcomes, connect it to course material, and discuss the impact on leading decision makers. The informal posing of the question allowed students to participate to whatever extent they felt comfortable. Allowing students to lead the discussion on current events that they identified as important resulted in greater engagement and thoughtful discussions.

Connecting Awe and Gratitude to Learning: The Affective Scaffolding of Positive Epistemic Emotions

Craig Morehead 
Elon University 

Educators know that the emotional well-being and disposition of students directly influences their capacity and attention for learning. Transformative teaching practices can help students understand the connections between their emotions and cognition. This session synthesizes research that demonstrates how fostering the epistemic emotions of awe and gratitude leads to positive learning outcomes and well-being for students. I share research-based strategies and prompts that help you guide students to reflect on awe and gratitude in simple ways. Participants will have a chance to practice these reflective strategies and consider further methods for encouraging moments of positive emotional reflection for themselves and with their students.

Prioritizing Accessibility and Equity: Using UDL to Redesign Curriculum for Critical Media Literacy

Ali Söken & Kysa Nygreen, 
University of Massachusetts Amherst 

In this session, I will discuss how we prioritized accessibility and equity for all students during the Fall 2020 semester while navigating a global health crisis. Our curriculum revision process focused on promoting critical media literacy (CML) and used Universal Design for Learning (UDL) as a framework. Through our re-design choices, we acknowledged and addressed the social and political dimensions of our teaching, with a focus on critical praxis.

Valuing the Whole Student in Teaching and Learning: Cooperative Learning as a Teaching Strategy for Re-Engagement

Farjahan Shawon & Nancy Carr, Carolina University 

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted traditional approaches to teaching and learning, and it has left many students, faculty, and institutions struggling to adapt. In response, there has been growing interest in faculty approaches, which explicitly value the whole student. Specifically, faculty teaching approaches should recognize the importance of addressing students’ physical, emotional, and social needs alongside their intellectual growth. Cooperative learning is an instructional strategy, which involves students working together in groups to achieve a common goal. It is a student-centered approach to encourage active student participation, collaboration, and mutual support among learners (Slavin, 1995). Drawing on current research, this presentation identifies ways to implement cooperative learning in course design, assessment choices, and instructional practices. This presentation identifies cooperative learning as a strong teaching strategy in which faculty may re-engage with students, while embracing the whole person. Cooperative learning strategies include creating a welcoming and inclusive learning environment, providing opportunities for self-reflection and self-care, incorporating real-world applications and personal relevance into course content, and offering multiple modes of assessment to align with the diverse needs and strengths of learners. By centering on the whole student, faculty may create a more meaningful and effective learning experience to support students’ growth and development in all dimensions of their lives to ensure critical (re)Engagement through the transformative teaching approach of cooperative learning.

They’re the Experts: Centering Students’ Experiences in a Project-Based Senior Seminar

Jessica Navarro, Sky Allison, Lauren Jaccobe, Emily Burgess, Danielle Carara, Morgan Cushing, Audrey Donahower, Taylor McCluney, & Juliana Schiano,
Elon University  

In the Spring of 2023, senior seminar students in Human Service Studies embarked upon an ambitious project to develop curricula to prepare undergraduate students for community-based learning (CBL) experiences. From the outset, students led the process and developed a meaningful final product with real-world application: a set of video-based modules following the narrative arc of a fictional character during the first days of a CBL course. This ungraded, non-traditional course encouraged students to see themselves as experts, build upon their strengths, and develop workplace-ready communication, teamwork, and organizational skills. This collaborative and iterative semester-long project exemplified project-based learning in Higher Education.

Centering Students in Technology Enhanced Learning Environments

Manuel Algarin 
New Jersey City University  

Student-centeredness is a feature of culturally responsive pedagogy and high levels of instructional technology use. A shift towards student centered practices requires teachers to potentially change current beliefs and traditional teacher or topic centered methods. Teacher centered practices relate to low levels of classroom technology and perpetuate opportunity gaps that disproportionately impact students from historically marginalized communities. The goal of this session is to present student-centeredness as an intersection between culturally and historically responsive pedagogy and effective classroom technology integration. Strategies, tools, and models for teachers and leaders will be shared as student centering techniques.

1:30 – 2:00

Trauma-Informed Reflective Practices for University Teaching

Jennifer Eidum
Elon University 

This session presents a trauma-informed integrative reflection framework (Eidum 2022) that educators can adapt to varying classroom contexts, including in-class discussions and written reflections. Developed via action research in a community-based service-learning education course, this framework for integrative reflection supports student learning, especially during times of trauma and learning disruption.

2:15 – 2:45

Cross-Disciplinary Strategies for Engaged Learning: Partnering Language and Visual Tools for Course Design

Dan Burns & Kai Swanson,  
Elon University 

This 30-minute workshop aims to provide educators across various disciplines with practical tools for bridging the pedagogical gap between language and image-driven subjects. The session introduces two innovative learning tools: annotated visual representations (Contact Sheets) and Multi-Column Audio Visual Scripts (MCAVS). Through hands-on activities with these tools, participants will discover ways to highlight key themes across texts and subjects while examining how to better promote critical thinking, creativity, and collaboration among students. The workshop further addresses the integration of these resources into lesson planning and assessment, ensuring alignment with learning objectives. Upon completion, participants will have gained a repertoire of pandemic-adaptive pedagogical strategies that encourage deeper engagement with combined verbal/visual materials.

1:30 – 2:00

Student Perspectives on the Benefits and Challenges of Engagement in the Asynchronous Online Course

Lisa Brown Buchanan 
Heidi Hollingsworth, Mary Knight-McKenna, Robert Alvis, Yanmei Duan, Florencia Guida, Ali LaTorre, & Madeleine Tapia 
Elon University 

This session focuses on strategies to facilitate active engagement in online courses. Presenters will provide a brief introduction to the course and program context for this panel discussion. Graduate students will then each share an aspect of course structure that facilitated active engagement in their asynchronous online courses. We will close with opportunities for discussion and for audience members to share their own helpful engagement strategies. We invite participants to attend with a course or course assignment in mind.

2:15 – 2:45

(re)Connect: Practical Strategies for Fostering Connections With and Among Students

Tolulope (Tolu) Noah 
California State University, Long Beach 

The climate faculty foster in their courses and the connections students make with faculty and peers can significantly impact students’ learning experiences and overall sense of belonging. In this session, we will explore practical strategies that you can use from the first day of class and beyond to get to know your students, help students get to know you, and help students get to know each other. You will also develop an action plan for how you will apply the strategies learned to your instructional practices.

1:30 – 2:00

Utilizing a Culturally Relevant Lens to Reengage Students in Entry-Level Calculus

Brittany Riggs, Aaron Trocki, Larry Cantwell, Emily Elrod, Daniel Flores, & Nancy Scherich 
Elon University 

In this session, we will discuss efforts undertaken by a group of instructors to update the curriculum of a calculus course for non-STEM majors using culturally relevant pedagogies. We will detail the steps taken to reconsider the course curriculum, how we involved our students in this process, and how our proposed changes will improve relevance to our students and increase engagement. Session participants will have an opportunity to share any similar reengagement efforts and consider how to translate our process to their own disciplines.

2:15 – 2:45

Towards a More Equitable Curriculum: Evaluating and Enhancing Content for All Learners

Silvana Rueda, Lindsey Pockl,  & Alexis Cho 
Harvard Graduate School of Education 

Any existing curriculum – regardless of whether it was initially designed with an equity lens – can always do more to mine for bias and exclusion, and center equity, authentic representation, and inclusivity. In this session, we’ll share a data-driven, learner-centered framework devised by the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE) for evaluating and redesigning curricular content rooted in equity-centered learning that reflects the richness and assets of HGSE’s diverse student body. In addition to providing a thorough introduction into the equity review process, we’ll spotlight examples of equity-grounded content and provide recommendations for educators to launch their own curricular review process.

Centering Humanity in Gateway Course Redesign

Stephanie M. Foote 
Gardner Institute and Stony Brook University 

This session will draw from theories of change and lessons learned through gateway course redesign involving hundreds of courses at various institutions of higher education. Success in gateway courses is important to student success overall, and often students from historically resilient populations and identities disproportionately earn DFWI grades in these courses (Adelman, 1999; Foote, 2021; Koch, 2017; Koch & Drake, 2021). Critical theories associated with liberatory and contemplative practices foundational for gateway course redesign will be “brought to life” through the introduction of a framework and planning document session participants can use to consider the redesign of their own courses.

Training or Educating? Self-assessment’s Role in Gaining Awareness of Who We Are In Doing What We Do

Edward Nuhfer & Steven Fleisher
California State University, Channel Islands 

Twelve years of twenty investigators’ learning the roles of self-assessment in intellectual and ethical development underlie this workshop. Admission to this workshop requires experiencing self-assessment by completing the Inventory at https://tinyurl.com/VHCPHYx122x514 and receiving individual feedback before the session. Allow about 30 minutes to complete. We will use the results in the workshop.

Empowering students to have relationship-rich college experiences

Peter Felten 
Leo Lambert, Elon University;
Oscar Miranda Tapia, North Carolina State University;  
Isis Artze-Vega, Valencia College

Drawing on interviews with new majority students from diverse institutions, this interactive session will explore how staff and faculty can empower students to have the kinds of relationship-rich experiences that will support their academic success and their personal well-being. We will weave together stories from our research with the expertise and perspectives of participants in the session to focus on how our programs, classes, and institutions can more intentionally help students to develop strategies that will enable them to build meaningful human connections in college.

Research-based design thinking strategies for reengaging the whole person

Danielle Lake and Adam Kanowitz 
Elon University 

This session discusses the latest research on how Design Thinking pedagogies can redesign teaching and learning practices to support the well-being of faculty and students. Participants will get the chance to practice a number of strategies and discuss how they might adapt these practices to fit within their teaching practices. After briefly summarizing findings from a 2021-2022 mixed methods study examining 200+ student and 20 faculty experiences at four universities, facilitators will outline the practices identified as most valuable, give attendees a chance to experiment with these methods, and then collectively brainstorm how they might adapt strategies to fit within their teaching and learning practices.

Life Happens: Normalizing An Ethos and Andragogy of Care In Higher Education

Constanza Bartholomae 
Bryant University

What is something (besides toilet paper) that the pandemic has made us appreciate more? Social interaction. And yet, as we re-enter our classrooms, disengagement is at an all-time high amongst students and faculty. How do we check in with ourselves, our colleagues, and our students, instead of checking out? This session will highlight strategies we can use to form deeper connections in the classroom and in our interactions with colleagues, while bringing care to the forefront rather than as an afterthought.

Implementation of Mindfulness In Teaching and Problem-Based Active Learning, and Introducing Supplemental Instruction

Jing Ye, Salam College  
Destiny Blount, Taneisha Brown, Shanzhen Gao, Virginia State University 

Mindfulness is the art of paying attention to what is going on at the present moment. Studies have shown that mindfulness positively changes brain structure and is an effective tool in teaching and learning. This interactive workshop applies mindfulness in experiential learning, problem-based learning, and active learning to enhance classroom engagement and learning outcomes. We demonstrate these mixed teaching pedagogies by engaging participants in identifying and tackling emerging challenges that higher education has faced since COVID started. Furthermore, we will focus on finding innovative solutions to address the attendance problem. We will also discuss mindfulness in the Peer-to-Peer Assisted Study Session Program. Studies have proven to be a positive effect on student development (academically and personally), additionally on faculty, and attendance/retention.

What is Accessible Pedagogy?

Ann Gagne
University of Toronto Mississauga 

In this workshop we will question the framing of “new normal” or “return to normal” seen in higher education spaces for how it innately excludes disabled learners and supports a normative pedagogy that is not inclusive. We will explore frameworks that have been mistakenly used as an equivalent to accessibility, such as Universal Design for Learning (UDL), and answer the question “what is accessible pedagogy?” by expanding on three foundational elements that should be taken into account in accessible praxis. This workshop will provide tangible ways to design and support through an intersectional accessible pedagogy.