2017-18 Evidence-Based Teaching Fellows Reports

Arpan Jani, Ph.D.
 

Designing Activities While Implementing a Flipped Classroom Model

I have been teaching an introductory course on Information Systems for Business Management for many years now. A significant portion of the course focuses on applications of business software. Students need to gain skills in using business software to solve problems such as how to organize data and how to analyze organized data to create meaningful information. Students need to understand how databases work and then learn a specific software where they can implement an end-user database. Students also need to learn to analyze data using a spreadsheet-based application such as Excel. This course has always been taught in a computer lab in the Davee library where each student has access to their own computer. In the earlier years, I used to introduce students to the basic concepts first and then demonstrate how they could use the software to accomplish a specific task. Using the projected screen, I could show how to accomplish a specific task and the students could work along with me. If a student had difficulty, they could raise their hand and I could investigate the specific problem they had. Sometimes their class mates would point out the step that they had missed. A challenge that I had faced at that time was that some of the students understood the concepts more quickly and would complete the task whereas others would lose the “situational awareness” and would need help. I found that I had to slow things down so that everyone could catch up. Sometimes students may hesitate to ask for help as they may perhaps feel that they will be slowing down the whole class while I would go to their terminal to find out what part they had missed and help them get back on track. Read full report

Youngmi Kim
 

What I Investigated and Why

Despite ongoing efforts and much progress in recent years, a gender gap still persists in engineering fields. While women constitute 56% of university students in the United Students, less than 20% percent of engineering bachelor’s degrees are awarded to women (Meiksins et al., 2017). The gender gap is even more obvious in “masculine” majors, such as computer science, physics, electrical, aerospace and mechanical engineering majors. Extensive research in the past decades has mainly focused on answering the question: “What causes the underrepresentation of women in engineering?” Numerous studies have pointed to stereotypes, gender bias, and climate factors to be the underlying causes of the gender inequalities in engineering majors (Hill et al., 2010; Cheryan et al., 2009; Walton et al., 2015). The term “chilly climate”, first coined in 1982 by Hall and Sandler, is still widely used in scholastic literature as a metaphor for describing the sense of nonbelonging and unwelcome that women experience in workplaces and classrooms. Engineering is still widely perceived as a “male-dominant” area and women are likely to feel marginalized which can cause attrition of female students from engineering majors. The problem of gender disparity continues beyond college-level engineering programs, as evidenced by a higher percentage of women than men leaving engineering professions subsequent to earning a degree (Silbey, 2016). Read full report

Rhonda Petree
 

As an instructor in and director of UWRF’s English Language Transition (ELT) Program, I work with students who are developing their academic English language skills and knowledge of American academic culture. Many English language learners (ELLs) – whether they are international students or students who attended American high schools, but are non-native speakers of English – feel insecure about their ability to complete university-level coursework in their second (or third or fourth) language. Therefore, in an effort to maximize the effectiveness of my instruction, I intentionally teach and promote specific learning strategies with the aim of helping ELLs achieve their academic goals and developing their sense of self-efficacy. Read full report

Matthew Philion
 

In my English 200 course at UWRF, there seems to be not enough time to get through the required material and also have students revise earlier work. As Mike McCloud notes, “while teachers know revision is important, we generally don’t leave much time in our schedules for students to actually do it” (“Teaching”). In addition, he says, “research shows that most writers don’t revise at all, and many of those who do fail to address concerns like argument or arrangement, focusing instead on surface-level copyediting” (“Teaching”). A challenge in teaching revision is demonstrating the process, especially in real time in the classroom. My EBTF project, then, was to examine so-called example-based and instructor-modelling approaches to teaching revision. My early thinking was guided by experience using Adobe Captivate as a tool to capture screen presentations. But I realized a broader approach was necessary, and that I didn’t want to wed myself to one particular technology or software in trying to effectively present material on revision. Read full report

Lyz Wendland

For the past several years, I have been investigating various art critique strategies. The previous research I have done in relation to critique concepts have included: online pre-critiques and the creation of an artist research form for students to examine language from contemporary artists. I’ve become interested in creating ways to promote critique participation and how motivation relates to this. Read full report