2008 CTLT Annual University-Wide Symposium on Teaching and Learning

Let the Students Decide! A Student-Centered Approach to Music Appreciation for Honors Students

Marie Labonville, Music

Additional Materials

Handout
Presentation

In recent semesters, I have taught honors music appreciation, a general education course with an enrollment of 25. My teaching evaluations revealed that, although the students appreciated my enthusiasm, they did not find the material relevant to their interests. This semester, therefore, I decided to ask the students what musical topics they wanted to learn about and then shape the class around their interests. Most of topics that intrigued them fell into two general categories: Music and the Media and Music and Technology. Because a large percentage of these students are studying to be teachers, I let them design the rubrics, guidelines, and course requirements. I asked the students to immerse themselves in their chosen topics and then make a group or individual presentation. (Each student would present twice during the semester.) Following each presentation, classmates would provide informal, confidential written feedback. Finally, quiz questions would be written by the students themselves, based on their own presentations. I am impressed with these students’ enthusiasm and responsiveness and with the quality and creativity of their work. I believe this can be a viable method of teaching general education courses to honors students in other disciplines as well.

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Mediated Immediacy in Online Learning Environments: A Teaching & Learning Development Grant Project

Lance Lippert, Communication; Steve Hunt, Communication; Patrick O’Sullivan, Communication/CTLT

This project examines the use of mediated immediacy in shaping learning-related outcomes in educational contexts. Immediacy is a construct encompassing the various cues that individuals can use in their interactions to convey affiliation to others. The presenters’ earlier studies identified a variety of immediacy techniques that can be conveyed through communication technologies (e.g., email, web pages, telephone, etc.), resulting in “mediated immediacy.” In this session, they will report data collected from students in web-based courses regarding their perceptions of their instructor’s degree of immediacy in mediated interactions during the course as well as their perceptions of the instructor’s effectiveness and credibility, their own cognitive learning, and their own affective learning. The data hopes to determine whether the level of immediacy that an instructor conveys when communicating via mediated communication predicts important and desirable learning results. This research will provide evidence whether mediated forms of immediacy are also linked to desirable learning outcomes as has been found in research on face-to-face forms of immediacy. University instructors and others who teach in educational institutions or corporate settings and who use mediated communication as part of their instructional approaches could benefit from these findings. The results could also help guide teachers in managing immediacy when communicating with students via mediated channels.

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Strengthening SoTL Research: The Voices of Journal Editors

Gary Creasey; Psychology; Patricia Jarvis, Psychology; Denise Faigao, Psychology; Kellen Vail, Psychology

Despite the considerable success of research related to the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) at this university and beyond, there are somewhat surprising tensions related to this kind of research that are not limited to this institution. For instance, although there are highly reputable outlets for SoTL work in the form of high-impact journals (discipline- and SoTL-based) and books backed by major publishers (e.g., Anchor Press; Erlbaum; Jossey-Bass), some remain skeptical of SoTL research, claiming some of this work is methodologically weak. Grudgingly, the panel agrees with the skeptics that there is considerable work in this domain that could be strengthened. In an effort to determine how this might be accomplished, they contacted more than 70 editors who work for discipline-based pedagogical journals or cross-disciplinary topical pedagogical periodicals and asked them to provide feedback on the most common mistakes or pitfalls that they have witnessed in SoTL studies. The purpose of this presentation is to discuss the common themes of these interviews and discuss strategies that could alleviate these problems before even initiating SoTL research.

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The Export Project: A Cross-Campus Collaborative Effort

Mark Hoelscher, Management and Quantitative Methods; Iris Varner, Management and Quantitative Methods; Peter Kaufman, Marketing; Aslihan Spaulding, Agriculture; Klaus Schmidt, Technology

Additional Materials

International Business: An Integrated Approach to Learning

In this session, participants will learn about the Export Project, which pairs student teams with local businesses interested in exporting. These students and businesses take a semester to learn all about the export markets in the selected countries and to devise a plan for developing markets and beginning the export process for their products. The student teams then travel overseas to the target country and, along with an academic advisor, spend four weeks exploring potential and developing markets for their chosen product. The process concludes with a professional report and oral presentation to the sponsoring company. Currently in the planning phase for its third year of operation, the Export Project has previously sent student teams twice to New Zealand and once to Germany. Our desire is to increase international experience for faculty as well as students. To date, 16 students have been impacted and a select number of junior faculty have gained international exposure. The Export Project is a collaborative effort among five professors from two Illinois State University Colleges and four departments. The colleges involved are the College of Business (COB) and the College of Applied Science and Technology (CAST). Participating from within the COB are the Marketing Department and the Department of Management and Quantitative Methods. Participating from within CAST are the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Technology. The Export Project is a recent recipient of a grant from the U.S. Department of Education, which will provide funding for the next two years.

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The FOCUS Initiative: Political Engagement and Innovative Partnership Modules

Danielle Lindsey, Provost’s Office; Mardell Wilson, University Assessment Office; Joan Brehm, Sociology and Anthropology; Andrea Wilson, Educational Administration and Foundations; Megan Houge, Communication

Additional Materials

The FOCUS Initiative: Faculty Opportunities for Creating Civic and Community Understanding Among Students

The FOCUS Initiative is a faculty development program designed to enhance faculty responsiveness to the value of civic and community engagement at Illinois State University. FOCUS compliments other campus initiatives including the First Year Experience, the Political Engagement Project, the American Democracy Project, the General Education program, the Redbird Outreach Program, and the Partnership for Student Learning. In this session, members of the FOCUS coordinating team will give a synopsis of the FOCUS Initiative and discuss what it has to offer to ISU faculty. Then they will introduce the two newest online learning modules, which were created during the summer of 2007. The first of the two new modules concentrates on the Political Engagement Project. The module was designed to illustrate how to bridge politics and everyday life through identifying the touchpoints between the two. The second module explores Innovative Partnerships and how they can enhance the learning experience. Participants in the session will have the opportunity to network with the 2007 Summer FOCUS Fellows and members of the FOCUS coordinating team. Participants can also learn more about the Fellowship experience and/or discuss and explore the newest modules.

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The Power of Shared Expectations

John Bantham, Management and Quantitative Methods

It is typical for instructors to articulate a set of expectations for their students. However, it is not so typical for instructors to document expectations for themselves. This session describes the process that the presenter uses in his classes to establish a set of shared expectations and then to measure collective performance against those objectives. The process is embraced by students and yields desirable behavioral and performance outcomes. Examples of student comments on performance relative to expectations will be included.

A New Spin on Synchronous Learning: F2F Meets the 21^st Century

Brenda Jeffers, Mennonite College of Nursing; Stefanie L. McAllister, Educational Administration and Foundations; Patricia H. Klass, Educational Administration and Foundations; Lisa M. Marinelli, Mennonite College of Nursing; Neil E. Sappington, Educational Administration and Foundations; Norman D. Durflinger, Educational Administration and Foundations; Sandra D. Burke, Mennonite College of Nursing

Additional Materials

A New Spin on Synchronous Learning: F2F Meets the 21^st Century
A New Spin on Synchronous Learning: F2F Meets the 21^st Century

Synchronous learning is nothing more than a learning environment where the instructor and student interact in real time to facilitate learning. While the traditional face-to-face (F2F) classroom is the original method for creating a synchronous learning environment, the availability and increasing sophistication of web-based learning tools takes traditional or classic face-to-face synchronous learning into the 21st century. This panel presentation is an overview of an interdisciplinary collaboration between an experienced web-based synchronous learning provider, the College of Education, and a new adopter of the technology, the Mennonite College of Nursing. Three presenters will outline the perspectives of each of these two colleges in the areas of instruction, technology support, and the role of the department/college in ensuring that web-based synchronous learning is successful. They will also demonstrate the tools and reflect on the pros and cons of the experience from the perspectives of both an experienced and a new user.

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Constructive Conflict in the Composition Classroom: Preparing Students for Global Citizenship

Rebecca Anderson, English

In 1989, John Trimbur responded to discourse regarding consensus-oriented classroom dialogue by introducing dissensus, his term for dialogue honoring difference. Some years later, Thomas West developed Trimbur’s concept into a conflict heuristic, one that Julie Jung, whose work draws on feminist pedagogy, advocates as well. The shift from consensus to dissensus to conflict acknowledges the reality of a global community’s numerous perspectives and agendas. Instructors serve students well when they encourage them to consciously observe not only discourse’s tendency to marginalize some voices, but also students’ tendencies to ignore or overlook their own interior contradictions and ambivalences. The session will address questions regarding how productive conflict operates in group work and whole-class discussions and will also present a two-pronged sample semester inquiry. The first prong involves whole-class discussions regarding students’ responses to current, local, and global news events. The second prong engages students in work on a series of scaffolded projects designed to encourage analysis of their own beliefs and experiences. Individually, and in small groups, students analyze historical speech and story fragments, examine case histories of Americans engaged in negotiating global conflict, and respond to a series of writing prompts as well as to each others’ prompt submissions.

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Guest Speakers: Connecting the Past, Present and Future at Illinois State

Thomas Lamonica, Communication

Students and even some faculty may think of a guest speaker as an opportunity to take a day off from the real work of a class. In this session, the presenter will explain how he uses guest speakers to promote learner autonomy. Student groups engage in both intellectual and logistical preparations for each speaker’s appearance, learning a variety of professional and critical thinking skills along the way. The benefits go beyond the classroom by bringing alumni and other professionals to campus to meet with today’s students, creating a potential for future interactions, including job shadowing, internships, employment, and development. Key to the success of this approach is that the information guest speakers share carries equal weight with other student learning activities, leading to further consideration and eventual assessment.

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On the Road Again: Fields Trips and Pedagogy

Sally Parry, College of Arts and Sciences

Additional Materials

On the Road Again: Fields Trips and Pedagogy

Field trips can enrich the curriculum in a variety of important ways. Although time constraints make it difficult to arrange these trips during the regular semester, summer school offers a perfect opportunity to make the most of some of the resources our state has to offer. In this instance, students were able to take meaningful field trips to places such as Galesburg, Petersburg, and Springfield, IL, actually visiting the homes of the authors they were reading and connecting the sense of place with the literature. There are logistical challenges, of course, but the experience was a positive one and has implications for others who want to make the state their classroom.

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Overcoming Negative Student Attitudes in Science Courses

Kenton Machina, Philosophy; Anne Bettendorf, Biological Sciences; Tak Cheung, Biological Sciences; Anu Gokhale, Technology

Additional Materials

BSC 101: Fundamental Concepts in Biology
Strategies for Maintaining Positive Student Attitudes toward Science and Technology-an Empirical Study

In this session, Gokhale and Machina will offer some disturbing data on female student attitudes toward science and technology (S&T). They will also describe some modest successes achieved by introducing science-related “life issues” and personal contacts with S&T professionals into the (now-discontinued) first-semester freshman seminar known as “FOI.” This data was gathered in the fall of 2004 as part of an NSF-funded project to explore ways of enhancing undergraduate science education. Bettendorf and Cheung will describe the complex process of developing a new approach to BSC 101, an approach that attempts to inject the same spirit of “life-connectedness” into a large Inner Core science course. The new version of the course will be illustrated, along with an appraisal of its level of success. These ideas of S&T educational reform are supported by a growing body of literature and an increasing supply of introductory science textbooks, some of which have been adopted at ISU in recent years. It is possible these techniques may be generalizable to other disciplines as well.

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Reinvent Your Course; Reinvent Yourself

Patrick O’Sullivan, CTLT; Tim Fredstrom, Music

Sometimes tinkering with a course between semesters just isn’t enough; it needs a serious overhaul. Instructors may have first designed the course as a newer assistant professor, may have inherited it, or may realize it is not reaching its potential. This is when it is time to blow it up and start over so to take advantage of the instructor’s growth as a teacher, ownership of the class, and/or to enrich students’ learning experiences as always intended. This is the premise of the “Reinvent Your Course” workshop conducted during CTLT’s 2007 Summer Institute for the 21st Century Educator. Seventeen ISU instructors at all ranks and from across campus worked throughout the summer to reinvent their courses. Their journey was guided by key principles of effective instruction embodied in a new curriculum development model supplemented by coaching by the facilitator and each other. For many, it was an eye-opening and rewarding experience that has the potential for an enduring transformation of their teaching. In this session, participants will share their experiences reinventing their course (the good, the bad and the ugly) and then teaching their reinvented course in the fall of 2007. They will also share their insights and recommendations for colleagues who realize that their own courses need reinvention too.

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The CARE Case Study Method for Teaching Community Health Nursing

Emily Schlenker, Mennonite College of Nursing; Cynthia Kerber, Nursing, IWU

Additional Materials

The CARE Case Study Method: teaching public health nursing

In this session, the presenter will discuss the CARE (Case study, Application, Research, and Evaluation) method of teaching, which she used in a Community Health Nursing course to stimulate critical thinking and help students apply theory to clinical practice. Current issues in public health were gleaned from news articles, journals, the CDC, and NIH. These real-life cases related to class topics with clinical practice questions and raised issues and elements of conflict that prompted students to think critically and independently and to take positions on the best course of action for each instance.

Assessing General Education: It’s Easy to Get In on the Action!

Mardell Wilson, University Assessment Office

Additional Materials

Assessing General Education: It’s Easy to Get In on the Action!

This session will highlight the steps involved in the development and the fall 2008 implementation of Illinois State University’s newly designed plan for assessment of General Education. As assessment of student learning among General Education has reached a heightened sense of awareness, developing a comprehensive, yet manageable, system was the primary goal. This session will help faculty and staff to learn more about the Institutional Artifact Portfolio process where the unit of analysis is the institution and not individual faculty, classes and/or students. A primary focus of the discussion will include an explanation of the Institutional Artifact Portfolio and how the process captures the four shared learning outcomes "1) Public Opportunity, 2) Critical Inquiry and Problem Solving, 3) Lifelong Learning, and 4) Diverse and Global Perspectives” which were adopted from the 12 Goals of General Education. In addition, faculty will become familiar with how simple it will be for them and their students to participate and ultimately how the information will be used.

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“Be Careful What You Write: It Can Change Your Life”: Insights about Students and the Work of Writing

Kathryn Kerr, English

In this session, the presenter/story teller will share tales from the writing classroom that have implications for the way we all think about student writing. Session participants will be encouraged to consider these stories of life-changing writing experiences and engage in a collaborative consideration of the ways in which faculty in any discipline can support engaging, productive writing experiences for their students.

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Classroom Engagement: Involving Students with the Use of Classroom Response Devices

Sarah Walczynski, LILT; Doug Smith, CTSS

Illinois State University now has more than 100 courses each semester using classroom clickers. For the spring semester, the university will be switching to a new LCD-based model that will improve student feedback and interaction with the system. This session will give an overview of how to use clickers in classrooms, discussing the features of the new clicker as well as the updated software which will run on Office 2007.

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Community Action Poverty Simulation: Changing Perceptions of Poverty in Large Lecture Classrooms

Joan Brehm, Sociology and Anthropology; Jason Blanchette, Sociology and Anthropology

Additional Materials

Changing Perceptions of Poverty in a Large-Lecture Setting

Although the benefits and values of hands-on, active learning activities that move beyond the traditional classroom models are widely touted through an array of both empirical and theoretical literature, an individual instructor’s ability to implement such authentic collaborative learning opportunities can face extreme challenges when the class in question is a large lecture of 150 students. In response to this challenge, the presenters implemented the Community Action Poverty Simulation (CAPS) in a large lecture section of a general education course on community in the spring of 2006. Unlike more conventional large-class instructional approaches, the CAPS activity requires participants to engage in active-learning by role-playing the lives of a diverse group of low-income families and interacting with representatives from a variety of social service agencies within the community. Using a pre- and post-test questionnaire to measure change in students’ perceptions of poverty, a significant impact on student learning was documented as a result of the CAPS activity. This session will present the results of the survey as well as discuss what is needed to enable such activities to be implemented in other general education courses across the curriculum.

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Ethical Issues and IRB Policies for SoTL and Action Research

Kathleen McKinney, SoTL; Gary Creasey, Psychology; Patricia Jarvis, Psychology; Joseph M. Casto, Research and Sponsored Programs

Additional Materials

Ethical Issues and IRB Policies for SoTL and Action Research

Do I need to submit an IRB protocol for my SoTL project? Is it coercion to ask my students to provide data for my teaching-learning action research project? Have I harmed my students when only some receive a new pedagogy that improves learning? Why can’t I just present data I’ve gathered from my students without IRB approval? These are just a few of the ethical issues that can arise when conducting SoTL and classroom action research. The members of this panel will use presentations, examples, and an interactive discussion to address these and other questions about the ethical issues and IRB policies relevant to this kind of research.

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The “Researched Paper”: What the New AP English Language Exam Teaches

Janice Neuleib, English

Students often see the need to use sources in their writing as an invitation to cut and paste a variety of sources into an unappealing, incoherent, or even unethical (in terms of its use of resources) product. English department writing courses have proposed more effective formats for years, and these approaches are finally finding their way into high school classrooms, thanks to a new Advanced Placement Language & Composition Exam that requires students to produce “researched writing” that takes an intelligently reasoned perspective, writes to and about it, and then backs it up with appropriate documentation, including images of many varieties. This session will demonstrate how to move from “the research paper” assignments to assignments that promote “researched writing” and help students “compose” while avoiding the temptation to “cut and paste.”

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The Redbird Risk Management Challenge

Nat Pope, Finance, Insurance and Law; Jim Jones, Katie School of Insurance and Financial Services

Additional Materials

The Redbird Risk Management Challenge

The Redbird Risk Management Challenge (the Challenge) is a nationally recognized, award-winning project for creativity in the classroom. The goal of the Challenge is to facilitate student learning through team-based participation in a simulated competitive business marketplace. The teams form corporations and navigate a perilous business environment in an effort to out-perform other corporations in the marketplace. The pedagogy is based on experiential and deductive learning theories while the actual competition plays out in a fictitious marketplace. While the learning principles are simple, the Challenge has broad applicability to a wide variety of settings and audiences. Our application of the Challenge comes in the form of a summer camp for high school students who are considering attending college after their graduation. The program is sponsored by the Katie School of Insurance and Financial Services and the College of Business and runs for a week each summer. Accepted participants meet highly competitive criteria, and while the Midwest is always well represented, students have come from all reaches of the country. The program represents a unique recruiting tool for the College of Business and the insurance and actuarial science departments, in particular.

Gettin’ Good Gear: Play, Pedagogy & Engagement in Synthetic Worlds

Amee Adkins, Educational Administration and Foundations; Ken Fansler, COE; Wes Matejka, COE

Because of substantial advances in digital capacity and bandwidth, participation in massively multi-user, online environments (MMOs) is growing exponentially. As a place where users willingly engage themselves at length, MMOs deserve sustained critical attention as we attempt to understand what they offer, to consider how we might use them educationally, and to learn about learning as presented in these worlds. The presentation will include a short film featuring the presenters as their avatars to introduce a synthetic world, World of Warcraft (WoW). Following the film, the presenters will discuss teaching an undergraduate class partially in the world of the game.

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Gladly We Learn and Teach the Past, Present & Future Using Primary Sources

Richard Satchwell, Director Midwest Regional Center for Teaching with Primary Sources; Judy Bee, Assistant Director Midwest Regional Center for Teaching with Primary Sources; Joan Brown, Midwest Regional Center for Teaching with Primary Sources; Suzanne Broderick, History Department; Cindy Ropp, Music Department

More than 10.5 million digital primary sources available at the Library of Congress website offer Illinois State University faculty a wealth of engaging resources. This session will introduce this site and a panel of ISU faculty will discuss how they use primary sources in their instruction.

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Race, Class, Gender, and Advertising in the Art Education Classroom

Judith Briggs, Art

Elementary Education majors use John Berger’s (1972) essay “Ways of Seeing” to evaluate the fine art undertones of today’s print advertising. They apply this analysis to their own lives. This assignment reflects the growing incorporation of popular media within the Art Education field as it changes to accommodate a visual culture curriculum. This study also overlaps discussion of gender roles within children’s media, particularly picture books, along with concerns about the part that commodification plays within school classrooms. Both topics are currently being discussed within Curriculum and Instruction classrooms and mirror the contemporary inclusion of cultural studies within some teacher training curriculum. By training students to become critical viewers of a visual society, and, hopefully, will enable them to make socially conscious and empathetic choices within a narcissistic, media-influenced world.

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Teacher Immediacy, Student-Instructor Relationships and the Development of Learner Autonomy: A Longitudinal Study

Gary Creasey, Psychology; Patricia Jarvis, Psychology; Denise Faigao, Psychology; Daniel Gadke Psychology

Although some scholars view learner autonomy as a disposition, it has been documented across all grade levels that this achievement orientation is amenable to change in individual classroom settings. In their study, the presenters monitored changes in learner autonomy based on verbal and nonverbal messages communicated by instructors to students (i.e., teacher immediacy) and the development of the student-instructor relationship. The presenters hypothesized that highly immediate instructors would have students who would eventually feel highly connected to them and such students would ultimately develop the confidence to become more autonomous learners. These predictions were tested via the assessment of teacher immediacy, student-instructor relationships and emerging learner autonomy in a single, randomly determined class over the course of a semester involving a collegiate sample (N = 90). The presentation will focus on the study design, the specific methods used to assess the study variables and some surprising insights about how learner autonomy grows or declines based on instructor behaviors.

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The Changing Face of the Research Report: Researching and Writing Graphic Novels in the History Classroom

Andrew Davis, University High School; Anita Beaman, University High School

Technological advances are rapidly expanding the possibilities for creative research in the high school curriculum. In this session, the presenters will explore the ways that the unlimited information available to students online has pedagogical implications for teaching writing in the history classroom, presenting a model that addresses possibilities for not only the teaching of research methods, but also the ways that research can be presented in alternative formats, leading to a richer experience and a deeper understanding for the student. The approach focuses on giving students the opportunity to research and write/illustrate graphic texts. The presenters contend that a thesis can be illustrated through plot and image, and that students will gain a deeper understanding of a period and culture through this medium than through the traditional research report. Through this approach (which is based on the concepts of bricolage and intertextuality), students are exposed to the kind of creative work many of them will use in their academic endeavors and work lives. The presenters will analyze published graphic novels as well as student texts to support demonstrate the model.

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Thinking, Teaching and Talking on Race Revisited: Incorporating Derrick Bell’s “The Space Traders” into the Social Science Curriculum

Dawn Beichner, Criminal Justice Sciences

In a 1996 article, Katheryn Russell proposed a writing assignment that centered upon students reading and responding to a hypothetical scenario. Students read Derrick Bell’s (1992) short story, ”The Space Traders,” in which aliens visit the earth and offer the United States government gold, chemicals to eliminate environmental pollution, and a safe nuclear engine and fuel in exchange for the entire African American population. After reading the scenario, Russell’s students were required to write an essay addressing the plausibility of the proposed trade. The presenter implemented Russell’s assignment in an upper-level Race, Ethnicity, and Criminal Justice course and a 100-level general education Global Justice course. The session will provide an overview of students’ responses to the assignment and discuss the assignment’s usefulness in providing a forum for discussions of the history of race relations in the United States, as well as contemporary social inequalities.

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Use of SecondLife for Teaching Green Building Technology

Borinara Park, Technology

In this session, the presenter will offer an overview of his work in using a small scale 3D graphical virtual reality (VR) simulation to provide a more effective and proactive learning experience for students studying green building technology. Green building technology focuses on environmental impacts and energy efficiencies of building features through various sustainable aspects of building design and construction such as sustainable sites, water efficiency, energy and atmosphere, materials and resources, and indoor environmental quality. The VR green building learning environment will provide highly visual, immersive, interactive, and sociable internet-based learning metaverse in which students can explore and interact with various green building features. In this VR learning environment, each student, through his/ her own avatar, is introduced to the 3D virtual green building, and explores and learns the sustainability features by interacting with the 3D graphical building parts in which relevant green building information is embedded. Additionally, since this virtual learning environment is accessible via the internet, students can interact in real-time with other avatars, such as experts and other presenters from remote places, to share information and thoughts. Therefore, this VR green building learning environment intends to provide synchronous/asynchronous interactive learning experiences.

Analyzing and Improving College Teaching: Here’s an IDEA!

Alan Lacy, CAST; Mardell Wilson, University Assessment Office; Marilyn Morrow, Health Sciences; Tricia Johnson, Family & Consumer Sciences

Additional Materials

Analyzing and Improving College Teaching: Here’s an IDEA!

In this session, a panel of stakeholders representing the College of Applied Science and Technology (CAST) and the University Assessment Office (University Assessment Office) will provide information regarding CAST’s use of the Individual Development and Educational Assessment (IDEA) student ratings of instruction since 2001. The system takes a positive approach to soliciting student input and contributes to more valid evaluations of teaching. Rather than emphasizing the instructor’s teaching techniques or personality, the IDEA system focuses on student learning. Local results can be compared to national norms, and more confidence in results has improved instruction and personnel decisions. The rationale for using this course evaluation system and an analysis of advantages and disadvantages of using IDEA will be discussed both from the College’s and the University Assessment Office’s perspective. In addition, the system’s advantages and disadvantages will be shared from both a chair’s and a faculty perspective, with an emphasis on how the system can be used to provide diagnostic elements for improving teaching.

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Hypothesis Testing - Recipe Style

MaryKay Rotsch, Management and Quantitative Methods

Students often view statistics as overwhelming and unapproachable, but the presenter has cooked up a pedagogical approach that makes them seem much more appetizing, inviting students to “cook up a batch of statistics fun” as they engage in a session of introductory hypothesis testing. Students learn to follow five successful steps in the recipe. Using large and small samples, they see how deliciously easy hypothesis testing can be. Through an award-winning, five star format, we remove the unsavory stigma from statistics. The main ingredients include the null and alternative hypothesis, z and t scores, the reject and non-reject regions, test statistics, and concluding with our decision. The table is set and the presenter has cordially invited participants to join her for an introduction to an unforgettable cooking class.

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Instructional Podcasting Development Initiative

Jessie Krienert, Criminal Justice Sciences; Teri Saxton, Mennonite College of Nursing; Jennifer Friberg, Communication Sciences and Disorders; Lance Lippert, School of Communication; Stacy Bock, Special Education; Patrick O’Sullivan, CTLT

Podcasting—distributing digital files to computers or portable MP3 players—continues to attract the attention as a potential teaching and learning tool. The session will feature several instructors who explored the benefits and drawbacks of podcasting for instructional purposes in the spring of 2007 with the support of the Instructional Podcasting Development Initiative and the Center for Teaching, Learning & Technology. The presentation will demonstrate how those instructors used podcasting and what they learned from the effort.

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iTour: How We Stuffed Six Floors of Milner Library Into the Palm of Your Hand

Sean Walton, Milner

Illinois State University’s Milner Library is breaking new ground with iTour, a tour of the library that uses Apple’s 5th generation iPod. iTour is a blend of video, audio, and user-selected choices that will launch a new age of Information Literacy delivery within higher education. Anyone with a digital camera, a word processor, and a little HTML experience, can create one, too. When students start iTour, it walks them through a full tour of Milner, letting them determine what to explore and at their own pace. iTour is programmed to be interactive, allowing the student to determine the direction and depth of knowledge on a variety of sources and services at Milner. iPods were selected for iTour because they free the students from sitting at computers, watching online videos. Now the students physically move around in Milner, engaging with both the physical building and the “iLibrarian” through a familiar technology utilized by thousands of their peers every day. In addition, iTour can be checked out whenever the library is open, so students who have employment or family constraints can use them.

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Journal Clubs for Teaching Nursing Research

Elizabeth Carlson, Mennonite College of Nursing; Sandra D. Burke, Mennonite College of Nursing

In an effort to close the 17-year gap that it takes for research findings to make their way into everyday practice, a new era of health care requires that clinical practice be patient-centered and evidence-based. As the largest sector of any health care system, nurses are a critical focal point for processes and procedures necessary for implementing evidence-based care. Unfortunately, research literature suggests that nurses are poorly prepared to engage in evidence-based practice; uncomfortable with their skill in locating and interpreting systematic reviews or meta-analyzing; lack confidence in formulating clinical questions, finding, sorting, and appraising evidence; and are unable to discriminate between statistical significance and clinical meaningfulness. To overcome these deficits in practice settings, journal clubs are being used successfully to assist nurses with critical appraisal skills. In the spring semester of 2007, the presenters transitioned the classroom pedagogy from didactic to active learning using a journal club format to emphasize problem-based learning through small group activities. The journal club format provided students with the opportunity for discovery, application, synthesis, and evaluation of clinical evidence. Midterm Chat comments show a positive response from student learners suggesting that this approach might be useful for other disciplines as well.

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Processed versus Free Writing

Thomas Simon, Philosophy

Word processed versions of papers often have the consistency and lure of processed cheese. Not only do instructors often find enough spelling, grammatical, and other “mistakes” on the first page to discourage any further reading, but the papers often lack cohesion and coherence as well. In this session, the presenter will suggest some reasons for these problems and then demonstrate one possible solution: “free-writing,” an approach he has adopted in his own teaching.

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The Impact of Students’ Preferred Learning Styles On Curriculum Design and Delivery: Past, Present and Future

Lori Woeste, Health Sciences; Beverly J. Barham, Health Sciences

Additional Materials

The Impact of Students’ Preferred Learning Styles On Curriculum Design and Delivery: Past, Present and Future

Studies indicate that knowing a student’s preferred learning style can be helpful in the design and delivery of curricular content. In a five year retrospective analysis of the preferred learning styles of clinical laboratory science students, certain trends have been identified. In addressing these trends, changes in curricular design and delivery have been implemented. Both the data and subsequent changes are in alignment with professionally-based indicators for entry level clinical laboratory scientists. The presentation will discuss the impact this data has had on past and present curricular design and delivery, as well as the challenges anticipated when preparing to meet the needs of diverse student cohorts in the future.

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Wiki’ing It Up in English 101

Carey Applegate, English; Genevieve Baumann, English

Forty-five education majors + two ENG 101 instructors + one field trip to Chicago + numerous writing crawls + three writing projects based in urban education + one student-generated wiki = ONE WILD RIDE! Within the framework of a major-specific inner-core course, students explored urban education through a variety of experiences, including a wiki that became a vehicle for the development of a cross-classroom community. Stage 1: In miniature writing communities, students created wiki pages based on their own primary and secondary research into an aspect of urban life. Stage 2: Students from both classroom communities gave cross-community feedback and suggestions for revision. Stage 3: The virtual walls between the classroom communities became fluid as students’ ownership of the project expanded to include the entire wiki. By the end of the project, students had formed connections among a diverse array of areas of expertise to create a well-rounded, unified project and had become, essentially, one class based in two classrooms. The experience led one student to say, “This has been, hands-down, one of the coolest things I’ve done for a class!”

Active Learning and Learner Autonomy

Jeffrey Walsh, Criminal Justice Sciences; Donna Vandiver, Texas State University

The research the presenters conducted was designed to evaluate the utility of the “research project model” for teaching research methods courses in criminal justice. Specifically, they were interested in the value of the tiered active learning assignments in facilitating autonomous learning in students.

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Celebrating 150 Years (1857 to 2007) of ISU Women in STEM History Exhibit

Grace Foote Johns, Physics

Illinois State University has a rich history of educational excellence and providing access to education for underrepresented groups throughout its 150 years. This exhibit is a snapshot of the women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) who blazed trails in women’s education at ISU—as students, faculty or staff. Looking toward a future of increased representation of women in STEM careers and education, it is appropriate to reflect upon and honor those pioneers. This exhibit was initially created for the Oct. 5, 2007 event, Celebrating 150 Years (1857 to 2007) of ISU Women in STEM History Exhibit and the AWIS-HOI Women in STEM Career Pen Pal Mentor Recognition Ceremony and can be viewed at www.phy.ilstu.edu/AWIS-HOI. The Oct. 5th event was co-sponsored by the Association for Women in Science (Heart of Illinois Chapter), the ISU Physics Department, the ISU Mathematics Department, ISU’s College of Arts and Sciences and Dr. Carol Struck.

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Developing Learner Autonomy by Linking Classroom Theory to Applied Research

Jessica Murphy, Agriculture

The potency of agriculture relies heavily on colleges and universities to ensure an on-going supply of qualified individuals who are properly prepared for employment in the industry. At the same time, the rapid advancement of the agriculture industry in conjunction with the lack of autonomous learning research in agriculture education calls for further exploration of the use of autonomous learning techniques in the applied science curriculum. It seems particularly important to establish a practical autonomous learning model that can be utilized within agriculture education, more specifically, in the food animal curriculum. For these reasons, the development of a curriculum that fosters greater learner autonomy in applied science classes was the overall goal of a study involving food animal science classes at Illinois State University. The study was designed to explore whether providing students the opportunity to be trained assessors of quality measurements for food animal products links the theory and practice of product quality evaluation. The poster will provide information about this ongoing study.

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Effect of Online/Hybrid Instruction on Student Learning Variables and Instructor Evaluation Ratings

Jean Sawyer, Communication Sciences and Disorders; Rita Bailey, Communication Sciences and Disorders

Additional Materials

Student Perceptions, Grades, and Teacher Evaluation Ratings Comparing Online to On-Campus Teaching in Speech Pathology

Researchers in many fields have reported positive results of online instruction. In the field of Communication Sciences and Disorders, however, student perceptions of instructional quality with the use of this medium have not been reported. Additionally, the effects of these instructional mediums/settings on student learning outcomes such as course grades, department grade point averages (GPA), and instructor evaluation ratings have not been reported. This study assessed student perceptions of an online/hybrid course in Communication Sciences and Disorders, comparing student perceptions of that course with the same course taught in a traditional format over a two-year period. The instructors who taught the course online also taught the course in a traditional format, and the course content, tests, and activities were virtually the same across both years of instruction. The purpose of this study was to 1) determine students' perceptions of quality and efficacy of online instruction, 2) compare student course grades from one year of on-campus teaching to one year of online/hybrid teaching, and 3) compare teacher evaluations for online and on campus teaching. This poster will provide survey results as well as a comparison of course grades and teacher evaluations for the online and traditionally-taught courses.

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Extending the Learning and Teaching Beyond the Classroom: The Association of Teacher Educators

Thomas Lucey, Curriculum and Instruction

Additional Materials

Extending the Learning and Teaching Beyond the Classroom: The Association of Teacher Educators

A college of education depends upon its faculty to ensure that the preparation of teachers derives from a sound understanding of recent scholarship and innovative practice. Fulfilling these expectations requires that faculty reach beyond university classrooms to network and learn about current teaching and research ideas. Through these processes, faculty discover and assemble current information about best practices and convey them to college students through university teaching. The Association of Teacher Educators represents one organization through which these experiences can occur. The Association of Teacher Educators (ATE) is a national organization that boasts membership from state government agencies, school districts, and institutions of higher learning to offer members regulatory, practitioner, and scholarly perspectives about issues concerning teacher preparation. This poster highlights the benefits available to teacher educators by providing an overview of the association, describing sample sessions from some recent meetings, and identifying opportunities for involvement.

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Impact of Student Expectations on Experiences, Performances, and Satisfaction with an Online Class

Cara Rabe-Hemp, Criminal Justice Sciences; Susan Woolen, Criminal Justice Sciences; and Gail Humiston, Criminal Justice Sciences

This poster will focus on a study conducted to determine how students’ expectations impact their experiences, performances, and satisfaction in an online environment. The research was conducted in conjunction with an online course offered by the Department of Criminal Justice Sciences during the summer of 2007. It was hypothesized that students’ expectations, in addition to prior knowledge of, beliefs regarding, and dispositions to online learning would affect their course experiences and overall satisfaction with the course.

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ISU’s GLOBE Workshop

Do-Yong Park, Curriculum and Instruction

In the summer of 2007, ISU hosted a Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) Workshop that trained 6 science educators at the elementary, secondary, and university levels and over 88 pre-service elementary science teachers to use modules of GLOBE protocols to gather scientific data about the Earth’s environment (e.g., Surface Temperature, GPS Measurement, Digital Multi-Day Max/Min/Current Air and Soil Temperature, and Cloud). This poster will provide specific information about the GLOBE program and its content, including the results of the measurements, feedback, and the ongoing efforts of the GLOBEtrained teachers. The GLOBE workshop was made possible by a Provost's Office Faculty Excellence Initiative Fellowship.

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Preparing Future Leaders with an Elaborated Professional Development Model

Dianne Gardner, Educational Administration and Foundations; Joe Pacha, Educational Administration and Foundations; Paul Baker, Educational Administration and Foundations

Professional learning for leaders, teachers, and staff is at the heart of reforms proposed for schools and districts, and leading professional learning remains one of educational administration's fundamental challenges. Preparing educational administration students to become leaders in schools and districts requires that theories of professional development be examined in light of practitioner perspectives. This empirical investigation of 58 school and district professional development projects resulted in the development of an elaborated professional learning model for application. This heuristic model was then tested by university researchers and principal and superintendent candidates in a collaborative action research project that included document analysis and stakeholder interviews. Students in principal and superintendent certification courses were charged to use the model to study the professional learning arrangements in their schools and districts. Sources of data included interviews and document/artifact analyses. Students brought the results of their school or district self-studies for critical analysis with classmates.

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Programming “Reflective Thinking” about Statistical Reasoning: First Steps and Missteps in a Research Program

Thomas Critchfield, Psychology; Daniel M. Fienup, Psychology

“Reflective thinking,” as defined by John Dewey, includes going beyond the information taught. The presenters have drawn on basic research about learning to create an automatic instructional module for promoting elementary “reflective thinking” about concepts of inferential statistics and hypothesis decision making. Laboratory studies show that students efficiently learn what the modules teach directly and that they also master some derived, but “untaught,” concepts based on what was taught. The presenters have begun evaluating the contributions of this module to the teaching of a sophomore-level research methods course. This presentation will focus on two studies (built along the lines of a randomized controlled trial) that illustrate some of the complexities of this kind of applied effectiveness research.

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Project Success: Changing the Culture of Academic Probation at Illinois State University

Amy Roser, EMAS; Michelle Schuline, EMAS; Bert Klunder, EMAS

Learn how the Office of Enrollment Management and Academic Services developed and implemented a comprehensive, required probation program that changed the campus culture. Learn about the program components, the program’s impact on student success, and the program’s impact on university reinstatement decisions. Understand how Project Success changed student attitudes about Academic Probation at Illinois State.

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Shared Service—Shared Learning: First-year and Graduate Students Working Together

Phyllis McCluskey-Titus, Educational Administration and Foundations; Wendy Troxel, Educational Administration and Foundations; Jodi Hallsten, Communication

This poster session will present results from a three-year SoTL research project on a collaborative service learning activity between first year undergraduates and graduate students. The purpose of this research is to present evidence of the real learning benefits associated with volunteer service. In addition, the presenters hope to better understand students' experiences in a class requiring service and the value of this project to their learning and development in the context of the college environment. The expected and unanticipated learning outcomes resulting from this project are depicted through the words of student participants and photographs of them engaged in the various service activities. This poster will help Symposium participants understand what students gained through participation in this project and identify ideas about how to replicate this process with their own classes in order to meet important learning outcomes.

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Student and Staff Perceptions of a Service-Learning Nursing Home Project

Rita Bailey, Communication Science & Disorders; Charlene Aaron, Mennonite College of Nursing

This poster will highlight a service-learning project that began in fall 2007 and involved students in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders (CSD), undergraduate nursing students, and community partner Heritage Manor in Normal. Over the past decade, several studies have determined that weight loss and undernutrition, often associated with eating and swallowing problems in the elderly, are prevalent among nursing home residents. A cost effective, easy-to-administer treatment approach that promotes oral food intake through Stefanie L. McAllister Brenda Jeffers Lisa M. Marinelli Sandra D. Burke Norman D. Durflinger Neil E. Sappington Rita Bailey Charlene Aaron 2008 ISU Teaching and Learning Symposium Program/Page 17 verbal cueing, touch and positioning during mealtimes is known to promote increased caloric and nutritional intake in nursing home residents. For this project, students in CSD and Nursing received training in evidence-based non-skilled methods to maximize independent feeding and swallowing skills in nursing home residents with a diagnosis of dementia, who required a variety of levels of support by nursing home staff members at mealtimes. A survey of graduate and undergraduate students and nursing home staff members’ perceptions of the effects of the service-learning project on students learning and student and staff perceptions of the effects of the project on residents’ feeding and swallowing skills and abilities was completed. Results of the survey and recommendations will be included in the poster.

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Universal Design for Learning in Higher Education: Strategies and Students’ Perceptions

Hedda Meadan, Special Education; Kelli Appel, Special Education

In recent years students entering institutions of higher education have become increasingly diverse, and their learning needs become increasingly complex as well. The components of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) can assist teachers in meeting the needs of students with a wide range of abilities and characteristics. UDL has several components, but can be implemented at various levels. This poster will offer examples of the ways in which the UDL components of learning community, flexible use of course content, equitable use of information/course materials, and simple and intuitive learning were incorporated into a 6-credit hour course in Special Education. In addition, student perceptions of the use of UDL and instructor challenges/benefits will be addressed.

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Using Interactive Podcasting in the Classroom

Jessie Krienert, Criminal Justice Sciences

One of the first questions criminal justice students ask each semester is, “What can I do with a CJS degree?” Or, more specifically, “I don’t want to be a prison guard. Is there anything else I can do in corrections?” Many students come into the field with starry-eyed dreams of being federal agents, but soon realize that's not a feasible goal for all. This year, the presenter used a hybrid podcasting/interactive web technology design to help students find answers to their questions concerning CJS career choices. Correctional career podcasts were made available to students throughout the semester. Each podcast contains an interview or discussion with a current worker in the field of corrections and links to other employment resources for the selected career. Podcasting allows students to spend out-of-class time discovering and exploring career opportunities in the field. In addition to gaining valuable information about potential careers, students also gain a better understanding of how the correctional system works through the first-hand knowledge of those currently working in the system. Because the information is available “to go,” students have the potential to listen and/or view podcasts in a multitude of settings.