Instructor Reflections Research Articles

Has your flip flopped? Discovery learning with extraordinary seminars

This instructional paper addresses the often encountered, but rarely published challenge of flipped classroom flops or failures, explaining key wrap-around interventions that were implemented to address observed flip shortcomings using a case-based methodology. Discovery learning with extraordinary seminars was conceived as a lean forwards or active pedagogy for an undergraduate digital marketing module. It comprised three distinct elements: firstly, never-the-same interactive seminars; secondly, conversational plenaries with industry practitioners; and finally, an emboldened ‘fly from the eagle’s nest and soar’ approach to assessment. This learning engagement innovation aims to inspire higher education professionals to overcome their time and risk innovation hurdles. It concludes by sharing a summary of qualitative student feedback and instructor reflections.

Using Analytics to Support Instructor Reflection on Student Participation in a Discourse-Focused Undergraduate Mathematics Classroom

This paper describes a method for using instructional analytics to support changes in teaching practice. The study took place in a discourse-focused undergraduate mathematics classroom taught by an experienced instructor. Using the classroom observation tool EQUIP and social network surveys, we generated quantitative data on patterns of student participation in this classroom that were presented to the instructor at the end of the semester. Our analysis focuses on how the instructor made sense of these analytics and ultimately changed his teaching practices in a future semester. This paper provides insight into how three data sources can be triangulated—classroom participation, student experiences, and teacher perspective—to better understand discourse-based participation in undergraduate mathematics. We also discuss the implications of using this methodology for faculty professional development.

The Gini Index: A Lens for Analyzing Inequality in an Interdisciplinary College Classroom

The Gini index is one of the most commonly used indicators of income inequality, and its computation and interpretation require a thorough understanding of various quantitative literacy concepts. In this article, we describe a unit for an interdisciplinary quantitative literacy course at a community college that treats concepts of ratio and proportion, percentages, and mathematical modeling through an exploration of income inequality and the Gini index. The broader theme of the interdisciplinary course is immigration, so the unit also invites students to explore connections between the Gini index and immigration. Employing in-class simulations, interactive online applets, and real-world data sets, the unit offers a variety of ways for students to encounter the quantitative literacy material through the lens of income inequality and immigration. Using both student and instructor reflections, we analyze the strengths and challenges of the unit through the lens of the culturally relevant mathematics pedagogy (CureMap) framework as developed by Rubel and Chu (2012).

The Emory-Tibet Science Initiative: Rethinking Cross-Cultural Science and Teaching

The Emory-Tibet Science Initiative was founded when the Dalai Lama invited Emory to develop and teach a comprehensive curriculum in modern science to Tibetan Buddhist monks and nuns. The project was built to grow and nurture a two-way exchange between complementary systems of knowledge. In the 10 years since the first days of the pilot, the interactions between people and places and the scientific and learning processes have served as a platform for exploring teaching across cultures and enriching approaches to teaching and science more generally. As a result of these interactions, we expand our definition of inclusivity in the classroom and the practice of science, emphasize connections and tensions between science and other systems of knowledge, and create space for student and instructor reflection and learning. The next phase of the project will engage students in research projects as tools for learning and as a means to contribute knowledge to the project and the larger science education community.

More Time for Hands-On Learning: Flipping the Engineering Classroom in a Polytechnic

This case study examines the use of the flipped classroom model in the polytechnic environment. This research gathered data through four student surveys and student grades and supported by overall instructor reflections. Overall this research indicates that using the flipped model in an engineering polytechnic education environment can be successful in extending in-class hands-on learning time while maintaining high levels of student satisfaction and grades

It will be very helpful once I understand ATLAS.ti”: Teaching ATLAS.ti using the Five-Level QDA method

ABSTRACTFew studies have explored approaches to teaching qualitative data analysis software (QDAS). As more researchers rely on self-teaching, more research into best practices for developing QDAS expertise is warranted. In this paper, we report our experience using the Five-Level QDA® method to guide the design of an introductory ATLAS.ti workshop. By focusing on the translation process between analytic strategies and the tactics of the software, we sought to help students harness ATLAS.ti powerfully. Using a case study and reflective practice approach, we reviewed instructional materials, observational field notes, instructor reflections, student questionnaires, and interviews to describe what happened during the workshop as well as instructor and learner perceptions of the method. For the method to be successful, methodological competence prior to training and ongoing support after training are necessary, both of which may be fostered by using community-building strategies during and after instruction. Hands-on exploration of the software components during the workshop, including demonstration of both in-progress and completed projects by the instructor and peers, can bring life to the Five-Level QDA method. While the method emphasizes that powerful use of the software requires analytic strategies to drive software tactics, learners may view the two as mutually constituting. Implications for teaching QDAS as well as the development of the Five-Level QDA method are explored.

Moving Fiercely Linear Preservice Teachers into the Joys of Integrating Art in the Classroom: An Artist Residency in a University Early Childhood and Special Education Program

ABSTRACTHow can artist residencies for preservice teachers plant seeds for future classrooms? Teacher educators and a teaching artist describe a two-tiered residency in an early childhood and special education program that transformed preservice teachers' attitudes toward visual art and arts integration. Findings are based on teaching artist and instructor reflections as well as a qualitative analysis of student journal entries. Preservice teachers who had no prior art training and were resistant toward abstract painting began to enjoy it and appreciate the value of art for children's learning. They came to recognize visual art as a tool to support social development and children with special needs, understood the importance of process in children's art experiences, and considered ways to integrate art throughout the curriculum. We urge teacher educators and teaching artists to incorporate artist residencies into teacher education programs to prepare future teachers to integrate the arts into the classrooms of tomorrow.

Examining a WeChat-supported 5E-flipped classroom pedagogical approach

The use of flipped classroom has gained widespread interest among many universities in recent years. Yet, despite this interest, we still lack specific guidance on how to structure the pre-class and in-class activities in a conceptually coherent way to engage students. Using an educational modelling language (orchestration graphs), we illustrate a flipped classroom design that incorporates the use of 5E instructional phases and a mobile instant messaging tool (WeChat). We implemented this WeChat-supported 5E flipped classroom approach in two master-level graduate classes, namely E-Learning Strategies and Engaging Adult Learners involving a total of 48 students. A mixed-method approach was utilised to collect quantitative and qualitative data from student surveys, and student interviews and instructor reflections. Results suggested a majority of participants found the flipped classroom approach to be more engaging than the traditional method. We also discussed the benefits and challenges of using WeChat along four different axes: 1) interactivity vs. distraction; 2) immediacy vs. pressure; 3) abundancy vs. disorganisation; 4) intimacy vs. detachment.

Sexuality in a Diverse Society: Perspectives on the Quality Matters/Gold Review Process for Online Course Transition

Background: As student demand for online learning grew, Towson University adopted the quality assurance standards based from The Quality Matters Program and developed the Gold Review Process. The process, supported by research and best practices, was used as a professional development rubric for instructors initiating the conversion from classroom-based instruction to an online learning environment. Purpose: To evaluate the perspectives of the Course Instructor and of the QM peer gold reviewer during their experience of taking a course through the QM Gold Review redesign process. Methods: Peer review data, student course evaluation data and instructor reflections are presented and analyzed as measures to reflect on the transformation and implementation of a selected course to a fully online format via the Gold Review process. Results and Recommendations for the Field: As higher education institutions reallocate resources, time, and expertise to online course design and implementation, quality assurance processes like Gold Review and Quality Matters, can facilitate the successful design of courses to reflect sound pedagogy, course alignment and accessibility.

Confessions of Novice Designers and Their Instructor

These three condensed design cases provide a glimpse of the decisions undertaken by novice designers in a graduate-level message design course. The course helps students examine the role of communication theory, cognitive psychology, cultural influence, and design skills within the context of instructional messages both in theory and through practical application. Practical application in the course includes smaller design projects to gain experience with best practices and recommendations, and the course culminates with a service learning project that pairs students with a community partner. The community partner provides basic specifications for a specific need, and the students then design artifacts to meet these requirements. The assignment is evaluated based of how well students followed client specifications, design considerations for each medium, content and grammar mechanics, copyright guidelines, and general design principles. However, the students also compete in the sense that the client selects which artifacts to implement from among those submitted. Embedded within each design case are instructor reflection comments that address particular or repetitive themes that emerged from each designer. Combined, these cases help identify course design weaknesses and bring clarity to concerns regarding how to help novice designers progress in competency.

Training the Next Generation: Developing Health Education Skills in Undergraduate Public Health Students at a Historically Black College and University

With the looming workforce crisis, undergraduate public health students could be an important link in filling this demand. As public health continues to face challenges in the future, it is important that the future workforce is not only diverse but also trained in a manner that exposes them to real-world experiences that give them an opportunity to apply coursework to solve problems. This article outlines how a health program planning course was taught at a Historically Black College and University using assignments that promote active learning. Students were assessed on their ability to plan and implement a health activity based on a developed metric. Student and instructor reflections were collected from final assessments of the health programs by both groups. All elements of the course are discussed from course design, structure, assignments, and outcomes along with student and instructor reflections and lessons learned. Results suggest that including assignments focused on active learning are beneficial to helping students learn course material. As public health continues to change, more work needs to focus on teaching pedagogies that better prepare students to address future public health issues.

Creation and Assessment of an Active e-Learning Introductory Geology Course

The recent emphasis in higher education on both student engagement and online learning encouraged the authors to develop an active e-learning environment for an introductory geohazards course, which enrolls 70+ undergraduate students per semester. Instructors focused on replicating the achievements and addressing the challenges within an already established face-to-face student-centered class (Brudzinski and Sikorski 2010; Sit 2013). Through the use of a learning management system (LMS) and other available technologies, a wide range of course components were developed including online homework assignments with automatic grading and tailored feedback, video tutorials of software programs like Google Earth and Microsoft Excel, and more realistic scientific investigations using authentic and freely available data downloaded from the internet. The different course components designed to engage students and improve overall student learning and development were evaluated using student surveys and instructor reflection. Each component can be used independently and intertwined into a face-to-face course. Results suggest that significant opportunities are available in an online environment including the potential for improved student performance and new datasets for educational research. Specifically, results from pre and post-semester Geoscience Concept Inventory (GCI) testing in an active e-learning course show enhanced student learning gains compared to face-to-face lecture-based and student-centered courses.

The Guilded Classroom: Using Gamification to Engage and Motivate Undergraduates

There is a breadth of psychological research that points to potential cognitive benefits of game play. Games engage and motivate learners while promoting mastery of skills and content knowledge. Further, thoughtfully applying gaming elements and structures to classroom environments, an approach called gamification, has the potential to optimize learning. This paper discusses theory-driven classroom gamification innovations implemented in an undergraduate educational psychology course and uses a case study approach to understand how these changes impacted students’ in-class learning experiences in positive ways. We will discuss specific interventions, students’ perceptions of these interventions, instructor reflection of the effects on student learning outcomes, and implications for classroom practice.

Teens, power tools, and green schools: Education for sustainability through a university environmental design program and middle school partnership

ABSTRACTThis article explores the role of green schools in promoting education for sustainability by reflecting on a university–middle school partnership focused on sustainable design. Undergraduates and middle school students met weekly for a semester to learn about sustainability through simple design projects and activities that focused on sustainability features of the school. Instructor and university student reflections explore the value and challenges in integrating education for sustainability and green schools that teach.

The Development and Delivery of a Multidisciplinary Research Course for First-Year International Science Students

Students who engage in undergraduate research experiences acquire many benefits, including an understanding of how scientific knowledge is constructed, recognition that knowledge can be complex and uncertain, and the habit of viewing knowledge critically. This paper describes a first-year two-course sequence that provides multidisciplinary opportunities for international science students to engage in the research process and present at a student-led research conference. We describe course goals and structure, and discuss whether the goals were attained using instructor reflections, student performance, and student survey data. We also evaluate the impact of changes to the curriculum between Year 1 and Year 2. In both years, we found that students engaged meaningfully with the research process and began to understand how scientific knowledge is created. We also found that a modular model with front-end support worked better for instructors as compared to a continuous individualized project mentorship model. This modular approach involved structured pre- and post-class assignments within discipline-specific themes containing examples of the research process embedded into the discipline. These discipline-specific modules were followed by modules covering broader research process themes. We encourage instructors who are thinking of delivering a similar research-based course for first-year students to provide support via example research questions and other example templates for student submissions.

Applying enterprise: active learning environments for business Higher National Diploma students

This article details an approach to teaching entrepreneurship to Higher National Diploma (HND) students that combines lecture-based and experiential learning processes to increase student learning, comprehension, and entrepreneurial skills. A UK university redesigned an entrepreneurship course to have students design and implement business plans for a pop-up shop and an event in the local community, while working closely with instructors and outside stakeholders. The lectures used in the lessons were designed to complement the enterprise activities and be immediately applied in group work settings. Data were collected from student reflections and analysed against instructor reflections to highlight both the success and challenges of this approach, as well as any areas of dissonance between student and instructor observations. While the benefits of active and experiential learning processes are highlighted in the literature, this article examines these teaching methods specifically in a HND context, an area in which research on the benefits of these teaching methods for developing entrepreneurial students and for developing students prepared for undergraduate education has been limited.

LISTERIOSIS CASE STUDY – VARIATION AND LONGEVITY FOR CURRICULUM ENHANCEMENT

Both teaching and learning from case studies enriches the engineering curriculum by connecting the classroom to real world complexities. A case study about the 2008 Listeriosis outbreak at the Maple Leaf Foods facility in Toronto was developed for the Food Process Engineering course, ChE 564. ChE 564 is a fourth-year technical elective in Chemical Engineering at the University of Waterloo (Waterloo), offered once every winter term. The Listeriosis case was developed by Waterloo Cases in Design Engineering (WCDE) from publicly-available sources.The WCDE Listeriosis case study has been used in four offerings of ChE 564 by three instructors, from 2013 to 2016. Factors that influenced the successful transfer of teaching material are explored using instructor reflection, classroom observations, and student feedback. The three instructors reflected on these factors between each offering of the course and adapted their teaching methodologies to align with the learning outcomes for the course.The evolution of the WCDE Listeriosis case study and its longevity will be discussed over the four course offerings. Issues such as student expectations, the role of the instructor, the open-ended nature of the case, class size, and class engagement are discussed as well. The success and challenges of the Listeriosis case study have broader implications on the difficulties of transferring material between terms and instructors while balancing variation for different cohorts. One challenge when developing case study material is balancing the time invested with the rewards in the classroom and the uptake by different instructors and/or courses.

대학 수업컨설팅 체제 분석 및 시사점

대학에서 수업컨설팅이 중요한 교수지원 프로그램으로 대두되고 있는 상황에서, 이 연구는 4년제 대학의 교수학습지원센터에서 운영되고 있는 수업컨설팅 체제를 분석하고, 이를 기반으로 수업컨설팅 체제에 대한 시사점을 도출하고자 하였다. 이를 위해, 2015년 7-8월, 홈페이지 조사와 전화 인터뷰를 통해 대학의 수업컨설팅 프로그램 유형, 실태, 활성화 사례를 조사하였다. 연구결과는 다음과 같다. 첫째, 대학 수업컨설팅 프로그램은 9개 유형으로 분석되었다. 둘째, 수업컨설팅 프로그램 제공 현황과 실행 현황은 일치하지 않았다. 셋째, 주로 대학 내부 인력을 컨설턴트를 활용하여 컨설팅을 수행하고 있다. 넷째, 다양한 결과 활용과 보상제도가 운영되고 있다. 수업컨설팅의 활성화 사례를 살펴보면, '다양한 컨설팅 프로그램-컨설턴트 pool-결과 활용 및 보상제도-타 프로그램 연계'를 통해 수업컨설팅 체제가 유기적으로 운영되고 있다. 이러한 연구결과가 수업컨설팅 체제에 주는 시사점은 다음과 같다. 교수자를 정확히 진단하고 요구에 기반한 맞춤형 컨설팅 체제 구축, 다양한 배경을 지닌 컨설팅단을 양성할 수 있는 대학 내 지원과 외부 기관 간 협력, 교수자들이 공동으로 성찰 반성해나가는 수업컨설팅, 대학 차원에서 수업컨설팅에 대한 제도적 지원과 인식 제고 등이 필요하다. The instructional consulting has emerged as an important teaching development program in university. So, this research aims to analyze the instructional consultation system in centers for teaching and learning in four-year-course universities and deduce implications from it. To this end, focusing on instruction consulting program types, status, and example cases for promotion, homepages were reviewed and phone interview was conducted from July to August, 2015. The results were as follows. First, 9 types of instruction consulting system in universities were found. Second, the status of offering the programs and implementing them did not correspond to each other. Third, universities were mainly using in-school consultants. Fourth, universities had various ways of using the results and reward systems. Lastly, as for the example cases, through various consulting programs, consultant pools, use of results and reward system, and connection with other programs, it was found that instruction consulting system was operated organically. The implications that the research result offers are as follows. First, there should be accurate diagnosis of instructors and customized consulting systems based on needs. Second, there should be supports inside schools and cooperation between external organizations that can help raise consulting teams of various backgrounds. Third, the instructional consulting should be made through joint considerations and reflections of instructors. Fourth, universities should provide systematical support for instructional consultation and have higher awareness about it.

Students' Viewpoint: What Constitutes Presence in an Online Classroom?

ABSTRACTIn this exploratory study, a community of inquiry framework was used to investigate students' perceptions of the efficacy and quality of online information organization and abstracting and indexing classes. It was found that participants valued not only the flexibility of online education, but also the instructor's timely engagement and reflection. Study participants emphasized the necessity of the instructor's frequent engagement through various modes of communication, such as virtual and face-to-face office hours and email. Participants' interest in asynchronous instruction mode was also observed. These findings are in line with previous studies emphasizing the importance of teaching presence in online classrooms. This study contributes to understanding students' perceptions of the quality of online learning and teaching.

Intercultural teaching competence: a multi-disciplinary model for instructor reflection

This article presents a model for Intercultural Teaching Competence (ITC) that instructors may use as a tool for reflection as they prepare to facilitate learning across cultures. Building on previous research on intercultural competence, culturally relevant teaching, intercultural trainer competencies, and student-centred approaches to teaching, the model identifies concrete facilitation techniques for instructors who would like to further develop their own teaching practice or mentor colleagues in effective teaching across cultures. The model consists of 20 instructor competencies grouped into three categories: foundational skills, facilitation skills, and curriculum development skills for intercultural learning. While intended as a tool to guide instructors in individual and group reflection on inclusive teaching practices, the ITC model may also be used by educational developers to guide feedback during classroom observations or while supporting curriculum internationalisation initiatives. Recommendations for use in faculty learning communities and workshops are included at the end of the article. The ITC model will benefit instructors in a variety of disciplines who teach in diverse and multidisciplinary classrooms, discuss global or social justice issues in their class, and those who seek to include intercultural and Indigenous perspectives in their curriculum.