2021 Agenda and Session Recordings

Dr. Maria Andersen

Westminster College

In the last decade, innovations like adaptive learning, smartphones, learning analytics, OER, and MOOCs have been chipping away at the corners of traditional education - causing us to teach using more technology. Then came COVID-19, causing a decade-forward acceleration of the adoption of these kinds of technology and new pedagogies in higher ed. The next wave of disruption to higher ed will not come from more technology to incorporate into teaching, but will be caused by the existence of advanced technology in the workforce. The existence of technology like AI will force us to alter the content we teach, how we assess, and how we design programs, modalities, and curriculum in order to stay relevant as educational institutions.

Jasmine Roberts, M.A.

The Ohio State University

Open education frameworks are known to address high-cost course materials, as there is an increase in the adoption of open educational materials. However, conversations about inclusive teaching, social justice, and anti-racism pedagogical practices need to be at the center of open practices. This talk seeks to address the urgency of adopting social justice practices in open education and strategies on how to do this.

Jasmine Roberts is a lecturer in the School of Communication at the Ohio State University, where she teaches in the areas of public relations writing, digital activism and campaign strategy. Roberts’ advocacy work centers on the experiences of people of color, women and queer communities. Along with her communication expertise, Roberts is also a renowned open education leader. She has delivered numerous keynote presentations across the country on the topics of inclusion in open education. She is the author of the highly-rated, openly-licensed book "Writing for Strategic Communication Industries." In her spare time, she loves to connect with her green babies (52 plants total), fur babies (2 dogs), and loving fiancé.

Sandra Wilder

Akron Public Schools

At every moment of every day, the brains of our students are bombarded by thousands of stimuli! How do we, as their educators, ensure that the information we share is perceived as relevant, as worthy of learning? How do we create a path for learning given such an overwhelming competition for our students’ attention. An ongoing lack of student engagement leads to dissociation from the content being taught, poor retention of the material, and struggle in making sense of content-based tasks. The answer to overcoming this educational hindrance lies in using cooperative learning with elements of movement. Engage with us in various learning structures that improve student attention to tasks, activation of their learning parts of the brain, and subsequently lead to an increase in student achievement. Our focus will be on cooperative structures that incorporate movement and are easily implemented in both small groups and large classes. Cooperative learning structures are content-free and independent of the learners' age, therefore they can be implemented at any stage of learning and in any content discipline.

Richard Steiner

The University of Akron

When a person is choosing software for giving a presentation, Photoshop is likely not very high on the list—if it makes the list at all. PS has a full complement of tools for creating illustrations and diagrams or just tweaking imported clipart or photographs. For instructors that like to annotate their presentations during delivery or mark things for emphasis, PS has an array of pens and pencils for scribbling to one’s heart’s content. There are also shape tools for quickly drawing a box around something, for example.

There is complete freedom for placing elements on a slide. Plus, these elements may be moved during a presentation—to add motion when illustrating a concept, or just to move something out of the way. In my experience, these PS tools are much easier to use and produce better results than traditional presentation software. Perhaps the coolest feature of PS is the ability to selectively show or hide portions of a slide using layers. Also, with layers, images or graphs can be overlayed with additional features.

In this presentation viewers will see examples of some of these ideas, as well as a strategy for building presentations.

View the Session Recording

Paula Reams

Kettering College

Service learning as a pedagogy has become a standard practice in health professions education today. Health care higher education faculty have been front runners in the use and research of service learning teaching. However, translating this to online education has been difficult and troublesome because of the nature of the community aspects of service learning.

In an online program for health professions who are completing their bachelor degree (nursing, respiratory therapist, radiation technologist, dental hygienist, sonographers, etc.), service learning is used to demonstrate end of program student learning outcomes that relate to service and civic engagement as well as an institutional outcome of civic engagement that requires the student to “ responsibly engage in service using knowledge and skill from both general and specialized curricula in wider community-based settings” (KC institutional outcomes). Explanation of how service learning is used as an online pedagogy will be discussed in three online courses.

Kenneth Browner

Lakeland Community College

How can you improve your courses and increase engagement? Ask the experts: your students. And ask frequently. This presentation will offer strategies and insights based on one instructor's effort to collect and utilize student evaluations every one to two weeks throughout the semester. While this approach requires a healthy dose of humility and curiosity, it offers exciting opportunities for professional growth.

Lisa Wiebenga Stroschine

COE College

Christy Wolfe

COE College

Preparing our pre-service teachers for life in the classroom incorporates all aspects of disposition, skill, and knowledge. “Technology training” for future teachers in our program has evolved from 2-3 class periods within practicum operating like a “workshop” (web-building workshop, Glogster workshop, etc) to a full-semester stand alone course featuring weekly hands-on labs complimenting theory and discussion.

In this session we’d like to share how we’ve morphed EDU 219: Educational Technology Lab in response to changing technology in our schools and in general, the advancing needs of our students, and input from our community. EDU 219 is a lab component of Elementary & PE Practicum, Music Practicum, and Secondary Practicum education courses. Creating a curriculum for this broad audience is challenging. We have worked to create an inclusive cross-departmental collaboration, connections for all students outside of our campus community, and a strong technology base for students in the course. As is the nature of technology, the course is (and always will be) evolving.

Bushra Aldosari

Kent State University

Shannon R Brunette

Northeast Wisconsin Technical College

We examined the relationship between gender, students’ self-efficacy toward collaborative learning (SECL), students’ class preparation effort, participation in in-class group activities, and academic performance in four sections of a physics flipped classroom course taught in Fall 2018 and Spring 2019. During the third week, participants completed a survey self-reporting demographic information and collaborative learning self-efficacy. Behavioral engagement was measured by examining completion of class preparation and participation in group activities. Academic performance was measured using three exam scores. The instructors designed all classes using the same design. The results revealed, surprisingly, that SECL had a negative direct effect on participation in in-class group activities and academic performance. In the expected direction, the results showed that students’ class preparation effort had a positive direct effect on participation in in-class group activities which in turn had significant direct effects on academic performance. The results suggest that instructors are justified in devoting effort to helping students gain knowledge before attending class so students could retrieve this knowledge in class, and opportunities for spaced practice and retrieval increases knowledge retention.

Maria Andersen

Coursetune

Have you or someone you know been bitten by the Kondo-ing craze? The "KonMari Method" has steps for tidying up your home. Coursetune has steps for "tidying up" your programs and courses. We'll discuss the journey to move beyond the low-hanging fruit of "click data analytics" and begin the journey to reaching true learning analytics. Hint: To have learning analytics, you need to know what students are learning. Do you know what lurks in the dark competencies and learning objectives of your curriculum? Come see what the "Coursetune Method" has to offer your curriculum projects and your sanity.

Susan Corl

The University of Akron

The field of education has changed over the years but nothing like this past year as we all scrambled to deal with COVID restrictions. Teachers have always had to be flexible in their teaching methods, but it seems as though we are facing a crisis of pedagogy. What is the best way to provide instruction to our youngest students? The preservice teachers in the Special Education Moderate/Severe I class at Wayne College pondered this question. They developed Utopian Schools based on their own philosophy of education and brainstormed options for their schools on our class blog.

There are many blogging products on the market, but the best tool for working together as a class is Edublogs by Wordpress. It is flexible, easy to use, and dynamic. The blog platform can be used as a collective blog or expanded to allow each student to have his/her own blog. This keeps the students connected throughout the class and after. And…the best part is it is FREE.

Visit our blog at https://uaiece.edublogs.org/

Alan Snow

The University of Akron

A successful teacher develops a teaching philosophy that considers how people learn. It is best if that philosophy is shared with, understood by, and easily practiced by students. Many studies reveal that students learn best when given the opportunity to experience new concepts followed by self-assessment practices. Moreover, as teachers and scientists, we hope that students extend that knowledge by developing and testing their own new ideas. Active learning can be achieved by varied methods that encourage students to go beyond listening or reading. I include small discussions, think-pair-share exercises, group problem solving, brainstorming, concept mapping, and even structured "cheating." Moreover, these activities model the scientific process and problem-solving approaches. It is important to measure student learning; however, assessment should extend beyond written exams. It is especially useful for students to gain feedback in order to monitor their own learning process. Structured cheating affords the opportunity for self-assessment and timely feedback, critical features of the learning process. This session will introduce structured cheating techniques, summarize effectiveness and student perceptions, model examples, and provide a chance to discuss potential merits across the disciplines.

Mark J. Carroll

University of Mount Union

Dr. Sheryl Holt

University of Mount Union

Contemporary healthcare is increasingly dependent upon interdisciplinary communication and coordination. As a result, health education programs have progressively emphasized interdisciplinary training. The authors contend that contemporary education warrants a change in our approach to training.

Current education is rooted in medical model thinking that uses experiential methods such as shared classrooms and guest lecturers. These methods fall short in meeting contemporary practice demands. The authors explore the history, challenges, opportunities, and ineffectiveness of traditional interdisciplinary education, and propose the idea of moving to a system utilizing problem identification, counseling, and referral as part of the training. Such techniques have already been successfully used in wellness education. Additionally, the authors ask the educators to consider using psychosocial or spiritual foci, such as shared life experiences as part of this interdisciplinary training.

A shift from the current paradigm toward a wellness model that emphasizes identification, counseling, and spirituality would facilitate improved team dynamics, and conflict resolution, for the benefit of the patient or client.

Debra Horning

The University of Akron

Michele Zelko

The University of Akron

Barb Scherer

The University of Akron

We developed an Escape Room activity to provide nursing students with an opportunity to use collaborative learning techniques. The Escape Room format requires teams to work through a series of puzzles and tasks before the patient condition worsens. Our pilot study evaluated the effectiveness of the engaging students in critical thinking and decision-making during an unfolding patient scenario. An escape room activity focusing on hypertensive disorders in pregnancy was designed for nursing students. After learning about this condition in the classroom, they worked in small groups to uncover clues that led to discussion about patient symptoms, identification of a critical event, and intervention decision-making. Students completed a survey to rate the activity and completed four related exam questions.

Student feedback indicated that they enjoyed the teamwork, valued the opportunity to perform the interventions, and that it helped them learn about the condition. The exam question results were compared with students that did not have the activity and revealed slight differences. This escape room activity demonstrates a way to utilize gaming and simulation for learning. Although the pilot study demonstrated student satisfaction, investigators have decided to continue data collection to further evaluate learning effectiveness.

Jill S. Kawalec

Kent State University

Viveka Jenks

Kent State University

The jigsaw technique is an effective cooperative learning approach that aims to enhance student learning through positive interdependence, where students realize that their individual success is dependent on the success of the group as a whole. The technique can be used in any classroom, from grade school to graduate or medical school. This activity consists of two primary stages. The first stage is when each student is assigned one topic (of 5-7 topics) to study and become an "expert" in. To accommodate all learning styles, this stage can be divided into a quiet study period and then a group study period. The quiet study period can also be done as a pre-class assignment, as "flipped classroom" style. The second stage is when the students are divided into new "Problem Solving" groups consisting of at least one person from each expert group. The "experts" teach their specific assigned content to the group. This new group subsequently works together to enforce what they have learned by solving problems that require input from each "expert". Faculty feedback is provided through post-assignment review. The lesson that will be explored in this workshop will be on assigning common statistical tests to research scenarios frequently encountered in the health care field. The jigsaw method was applied two years in a row at a medical college with positive results both on grades and satisfaction ratings.

Erin Makarius

The University of Akron

William McHenry

The University of Akron

Educators are searching for new ways to capture the attention of multi-tasking, mobile, and easily distracted learners (Reeves & Wittenburg, 2015). Gamification incorporates competition, feedback, points, leaderboards, and learning from mistakes (Deterding, Dixon, & Khaled, 2011). Academic literature suggests that game attributes such as continuous feedback, teamwork, and problem-solving stimulates intrinsic motivation (Reeves & Reed, 2009). Game elements can provide autonomy, meaning, and relatedness, key factors of intrinsic motivation (Glynn, 1994).

This session will demonstrate techniques and elements of gaming, and discuss advantages and disadvantages. Although many assume that gamification will lead to greater engagement and learning for students, this has not been extensively examined empirically. We will analyze data from one section of a management class to explore how gamification influences student experiences and outcomes. In this "Leveling Up Game," we have awarded points, badges, and "perks" for experiences such as: participating in interactive videos in Brightspace and/or H5P for pre- and post-class introduction and mastery of material; taking self-assessments; submitting short "blog length" posts, examining ethical concerns in a CEO leadership presentation; and participating in Kahoot quizzes. The session will provide an overview of classroom gamification technologies and describe the learning and engagement that may result.

Janet Bean

The University of Akron

How do we create transformative learning practices that take on new meaning for students? How can students apply abstract classroom ideas into real-time practice more deeply? This panel will address these questions by providing examples of how metacognitive practices transform the classroom. First, we will introduce the idea of threshold concepts and and ask participants to consider how this model applies to their specific disciplines. We will then discuss metacognition as a strategy that can help students explicitly engage difficult disciplinary concepts, including activities such as reflection, inquiry-based learning, and experiential learning. For the second half of the presentation, we will present a case study from an English Composition II classroom that shows how students applied meta-cognitive learning practices in the context of a multimodal digital project. We will end with a discussion of how innovative projects can get students thinking about their disciplines’ threshold concepts in transformative ways.

Steve Kaufman

The University of Akron

Sean Kennedy

The University of Akron

Sheri Schulte

The University of Akron

Baomei Zhao

The University of Akron

Michele Thornton

The University of Akron

Rose Eichler

The University of Akron

Meera Chatterjee

The University of Akron

In this session, attendees will hear multiple faculty members share their insights about open resource implementation. We will share examples of how completely redesigning courses to utilize open resources directly impacts student success and persistence.

Session Objectives:

• Participants will be able to identify key aspects of a successful open textbook initiative and how to develop a support model for open projects
• Participants will be able to create their own policies and procedures to help spur interest amongst faculty at their institution who are interested in pursuing open resources

Session Participation:

Participants will have a chance to participate in a moderated conversation with the faculty development teams. We will provide examples of how we managed the workflow, approached administration for funding, developed alignment documents and created resources.

Mark J. Carroll

University of Mount Union

Patrick Pauken

University of Mount Union

This study examines legal and ethical implications of intellectual property. Who owns the information presented in a lecture, or printed in a book, journal article, or on the internet? To what degree should we be allowed to use information from publications for the benefit of education? Free resources have been crucial to innovation and creativity; without them creativity is reduced. The author believes that while requiring use of all ideas to be licensed, owned, and reimbursed to the original thinker would severely hamper the creative process, complete freedom of material is likely to be an equally unsuitable answer. Like highways, information should be regulated but not unduly restricted. Such a system would allow authors to continue to receive motivation and financial reward to pursue their works without unduly restricting the free-flow of information that aids innovation and creativity.

Lauren Houser

The University of Akron

In Marketing, we teach the importance for companies to create value for customers and to consistently communicate in a way that tells an authentic brand story. Using this concept, I have changed the way I engage with students to create additional interest, investment, and learning in my online class.

I will demonstrate how to use the strategy that companies use to generate interest in their product and facilitate customer engagement. When you treat students as customers, and allow them to co-create their online learning experience, it can result in increased engagement and customer (student) satisfaction.

Attendees will learn how to more effectively connect with online students, as well as facilitate an environment that encourages peer communication and a classroom experience. Attendees will be given examples of how to better utilize basic tools to help students feel more connected. Examples include leveraging discussions, engaging with students one-on-one, connecting students to their peers, and helping students design some of their own learning.

Utilizing the concept of the "unclass" I developed a class that brought students together from two very different disciplines (Marketing & Computer Science). The goal of the class was for students to work cooperatively in project teams on a real-world client project. Students had two projects: one that allowed them to demonstrate their knowledge in their own discipline and one that challenged them to work on aspects of the project outside of their discipline. Allowing students to learn in this way helped them better appreciate how their role fits into the “bigger picture” as well as gain a better understanding of their counterparts’ roles. This class was developed in direct response to employers communicating a need for this. We created an opportunity for students to learn in an environment that more-closely mimicked their future real-world roles.

Additionally, students were allowed to be co-creators (to an extent) in their class experience, which included submitting input for the learning objectives, development of the syllabus, and the freedom to choose how they wanted to assist our clients.

By allowing students to work in cross-functional teams on client projects with flexibility, students were given a unique, experiential learning opportunity. The goal of my presentation is to inspire faculty to create these experiences in their classrooms, whether they do it with an entire class structure, or via some smaller assignment. The better prepared our students are for post-graduation, the more successful they will be, and the greater our reputation at The University of Akron.

Student testimonials will be provided as examples of how these methods impacted their engagement and ultimately their learning in the online class.

Andrea Meluch

The University of Akron

Michael Gentithes

The University of Akron

Sarah St. George

The University of Akron

Rhiannon Kallis

The University of Akron

This panel will explore how faculty members gamify their classrooms to increase student engagement. Specifically, faculty members will discuss how they have used polling apps, jeopardy, and other types of in-class “games” to help increase active learning opportunities for students. Four faculty panel participants include Drs. Andrea Meluch, Rhiannon Kallis, Sarah St. George, and Michael Gentithes. Each faculty member will first present how they have used gamification in their classrooms, then the panel will discuss the outcomes of using games in the college classroom context, and finally the panel will engage with audience members about the value of gamifying the college classroom today. Attendees will learn more about the opportunities and drawbacks that gamification provides and have the chance to explore gamification more in-depth.

Ghada Awad

The University of Akron

Nasser Razek

The University of Akron

Have you ever felt that your students do not appreciate the value of your assignments? Do you always wish students could capture the objectives you had in mind instead of getting busy completing the assignment to check a box? Oftentimes, students do not see the value of individual assignments or classroom activities. Therefore, they may not benefit from the learning activities included in the course. If students can reflect on these course components, they may be able to maximize their learning and optimize their satisfaction. We are suggesting intentional and facilitated discussions of reflective experiences with peers that may encourage students to better reflect on their own learning and understanding (Guthrie & Jones, 2012). Utilizing collaborative learning strategies to reflect on classroom assignments and tasks, students discover the values associated with each course component in an engaging exercise.

Ritu Sharma

Case Western Reserve University

Project Implicit focuses on the theme of student success. It is a creative, credible, and innovative tool created by Harvard University that investigates an individual’s thoughts and feelings that exist outside of conscious awareness or conscious control. It allows the educators to ethically serve the students, especially the international pupils, and ensure their success.

It benefits educators by empowering them to identify biases and prejudices and mask them successfully, if not overcome them. This allows chief stakeholders of education to intellectually embrace and serve each student without personal opinions, attitudes and beliefs to hinder them, promoting student success. This is deeply rooted in psychology and is a computer-based measure. The IAT (Implicit Association Test ) is proven to measure implicit attitudes. This is an educational resource and research site for investigations in implicit social cognition. This includes online tests for implicit preferences for racial groups, age groups, religious inclination, gender, weight, skin tone, sexual orientation, and disability.

Mark J. Carroll

University of Mount Union

Problem-based scenarios have long been a valued teaching tool in health education. Students gain valuable practice with taking histories, performing screens, tests, measures, and evaluations. Often these scenarios are written by, and “patients” portrayed by faculty. The critical thinking and problem solving in such an activity is difficult to duplicate through traditional didactic or laboratory activities. The author believes that a new dimension can be added to these activities if the scenarios are written and performed by one set of students, for the benefit of a second set of students. These groups then provide peer review to their colleagues. The research needed to present a sensible and logical case spikes learning and fosters a fun and friendly environment as the student groups attempt to “stump” each other, with only peripheral involvement on the part of the instructor. Repetition of this activity throughout an academic term is excellent preparation for more formally scored lab practicals and clinical placements.

Karen B. Plaste

The University of Akron

Jennifer Bozeka

The University of Akron

Brandi Davis

Akron Public Schools

Ohio adopted K-12 Social and Emotional Learning Standards (Ohio Department of Education, 2019), Self-Awareness, Self-Management, Social Awareness, Relationship skills, and Responsible Decision making. University of Akron students from the Early Childhood Inclusive Teacher Preparation (ECITP) in the LeBron James Family Foundation College of Education will present posters to address these standards.

These 15 preservice teachers are participating in a unique opportunity at the I Promise School. The I Promise School (https://ipromiseschool.akronschools.com/) is a third to fifth grade STEM school within Akron Public Schools (APS). Students are selected by lottery from the lowest performing students in the APS district. The LeBron James Family Foundation provides support to the school and the students’ families.

UA teacher candidates take two education classes in a block format with the option of including a mentoring class. Students also receive professional development regarding the students at the I Promise School, such as trauma-responsive education, and co-teaching.

The students posters will include:

• A description of the standard
• Background and current research regarding the standard
• How the standard can be implemented into the classroom
• A summary of an interview with a teacher regarding the standard
• Observations of how the standards has been integrated in the classroom

Daniela Jauk

The University of Akron

Insun Park

The University of Akron

We provide a 15 minute micro-input of four examples of community-oriented learning from our classes and our pedagogical practice, then we open to the audience to add and discuss their own examples. Discussion results will be documented on a digital notepad.

Dudley Turner

Northeast Ohio Medical University

When any project is part of the class (paper, production, performance, etc.) we can have students critique their own and other students' work using the criteria we want them to learn. Then we can give the "Top 5" award to each as a simple, fun (and inexpensive) motivational effort. This process can be accomplished with or without technology, and having the class discuss the process involves them further.

Here's how I did it and how it can be done.

Adel Alhalawani

The University of Akron

Student engagement in class leads to effective teaching. There are a large number of ideas that can be implemented to ensure that students are part of the lecture and use their electronic devices in a way that serves the goals of the lecture. Mentimeter is a website that allows instructors to a) create interactive presentations, b) present and engage the audience and c) compare and analyze data. In my presentation I will share with the audience how to use Mentimeter to engage students in lecture rooms of different backgrounds. I will also share a few examples of how I used it, its effectiveness and some recommendations to make sure it is used effectively. I expect this presentation to motivate instructors to use new technological methods to engage students in class and to have fun.

Steve Kristmani

DigitalEd

Möbius is an interactive learning platform for creating and deplying online STEM courses. Providing lessons, assessments and interactive learning activities, it allows STEM student to acquire knowledge at a guided, yet self-defined, pace.

Edwin Morales

Canvas

Brian Yuhnke

Canvas

Many attendees may be using Canvas or perhaps are curious about Canvas. Come join us for a 15 minute session where you can ask two fellow Ohioans who work for Instructure anything you want to know or learn about Canvas!