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  Building Early Confidence in a Practice-based Discipline

  Lisa Nicholas, Angela Silverstri-Elmore, and Tricia K. Gatlin

  Front-loading coursework is an area that has little exploration and yet has many possibilities that may benefit beginning or entry-level students in academic practice-based programs. For the purposes of this proposal, front-loading is an educational approach to allow for a course to be reconstructed to focus first on skill attainment prior to entering the clinical setting. The premise of front-loading skills is to allow learners to engage in experiential learning, or learning by doing, which creates a frame of reference and context that can be drawn upon once the student moves to the clinical setting. Creating a frame of reference will help promote confidence and decrease anxiety allowing the student to exemplify skills in the clinical setting and begin to move from novice to expert within the students’ frame of reference. The confidence-building model can be applied to any practice-based program in preparing learners for their discipline.

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  Teaching Post Secondary Critical Thinking Skills to Neurodiverse Learners

  Maria Pena

  How to create course curriculum for Students with Neurodiversity to enhance critical thinking skills in all learners: In 1998 Judy Singer coined the term "Neurodiversity" in her graduate thesis, and inspired a movement. Neurodiversity (Neurodivergent) refers to "a paradigm shift; Instead of regarding large portions of the American public as suffering from deficit, disease, or dysfunction in their mental processing, Neurodiversity suggests that we instead speak about differences in cognitive functioning." (Armstrong, 2011) Faculty understanding of Thomas Armstrong's Eight Principles of Neurodiversity combined with the seven skills of critical thinking can provide professors with better insight into creating curriculum designed for all diverse learners.

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  On-Line Anatomy Review Modules for Dental Residents

  Joshua Polanski

  There is an inherent difficulty in teaching to dental residents, that of knowing at what level to make your lectures. How do you balance lectures so that residents fresh out of dental school aren’t bored, while those who’ve been practicing for years before returning to school aren’t overwhelmed. I have used Articulate Storyline to create anatomy review modules that allow the students to work at their own pace. Unlike traditional or recorded lectures, these modules involve active learning. Students interact with the slides to bring up new layers, each containing additional information about the subject. They also allow you to create quizzes, giving you the ability to assess student learning as the student uses the module. Modules can also interact with Canvas, so that the quiz grades are automatically uploaded to the “Grades” section.

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  A Freirean Service Learning Model

  Danielle Roth-Johnson

  My specific teaching practice consists of a Freirean Service Learning Model I successfully developed and implemented in WMST 488: Bodies, Sex, and Health in Fall, 2018. Inspired by the pioneering model of Our Bodies, Ourselves, I first created and taught the course in 2008 to empower students to become advocates for their own health and that of loved ones. Over time, the curricular approach shifted from an individual to an institutional one that focused on health care policy and activism at the local, national and global levels. Given the evolution of my discipline, I also redesigned the curriculum to reflect an intersectional approach to all bodies on the sex/gender continuum. In 2018, I received a COLA service learning grant to create an integrated service learning course for the Nevada Minority Health and Equity Coalition (NMHEC; URL: http://nmhec.org), our service learning community partner in Fall, 2018.

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  Simulating How Think Tanks Work: Lessons from the Metropolitan Policy Classroom

  Caitlin Saladino

  Through a partnership with the Brookings Institution in Washington D.C., the University of Nevada, Las Vegas offers students a curriculum based on the day-to-day environment of think tanks in the Brookings Public Policy Minor. This presentation explores the use of simulation pedagogy in one particular course: “Brookings: Metropolitan Policy.” In the 16-week class, each student plays the role of “policy analyst” and produces a comprehensive report on a metropolitan policy issue relevant to the Las Vegas metro region. Through guided, multi-part assignments, students build their knowledge of the policy problem. These include assignments to: draft a research project proposal for a funder to consider; write an opinion editorial for a newspaper; attend a local governance meeting where their policy topic is discussed; produce a localized fact sheet from national-level data sets; and author a comprehensive policy report. In the final report, students offer their recommendation for evidence-based solutions to be considered in the upcoming Nevada legislative session.

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  Inclusive Teaching Practice: Identity Prism

  Alison Sloat

  While attending the 2019 UNLV Educational Equity Institute, a group of us developed the Identity Prism activity to increase students’ sense of belonging and inclusion on campus. On the first day of Fall 2019 classes, all SCI 101 first-year students completed the activity. Students wrote about and/or drew six aspects of themselves that influence their college major, academic goal, strength, life outside of UNLV, identity, and anxiety or fear about college in a visual prism, shared one aspect of their identity with a peer, and then found one common aspect with their peer. As students completed their prism, I drew my own prism on the board and shared the aspects of my identity, which led to a whole-class discussion. The combined class response data was shared with students in the next class session. On the last day of class, students will revisit this activity to monitor their progress.

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  Showing Success: Student Stories on Film

  Brandy Smith and Emily Shreve

  In Fall 2019, we showed video interviews of successful (i.e., graduated) alumni to first-year seminar students in the hope that incoming students would be inspired to adopt similar success strategies leading to increased retention and completion of their UNLV degree. The Academic Success Center filmed interviews with ten UNLV graduates who took our first-year seminar, COLA 100E. These COLA 100E Success Stories were then edited into three videos, each focusing on a particular theme, such as the first-year transition, the major selection process, and the key tips for graduation. The goal was that these successfully-graduated students would serve as motivational role models for UNLV’s diverse first-year student population. Though the alumni echoed concepts taught in the class, we imagined these peers would be more relatable than the instructor alone, encouraging students to identify with and potentially adopt new approaches to and perspectives of success early in their college careers.

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  Work Together

  Ikseon Suh

  I firmly believe that a two-way or Socratic approach fosters dialogue between a professor and her students and helps them to expand their curiosity, seek knowledge and learn critical thinking skills. In this interactive two-way process, a professor acts as a facilitator rather than an authoritative figure. As part of the interactive class setting, I use an approach called ‘let’s work together.’ This approach requires students to participate in class while working on a number of problems. In every class session, I distribute a handout of short or long problems to students and we then solve the problems together. I randomly select a number of students and ask them to walk me through the problem step-by-step. If one student cannot figure out the solution, that student can ask someone else to step in and help. I use this ‘ask for help’ policy so that everybody can participate in solving the problem, whether it is on a voluntary basis or requested by peers.To make students feel comfortable with the ‘let’s work together’ dynamic, I tell them that it is perfectly acceptable to say “I don’t’ know how solve this problem” or “I have no idea, but would like to ask someone else to help me.”

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  Active Learning Approach for Students in Precalculus and Calculus Classes

  Aleksei Talonov

  We would like to present practices of using Web-based audience response systems to enhance interactive learning activities in Mathematics classroom. We mostly concentrated our attention on PreCalculus classes which have had traditionally low success rates and retention. During the last couple of years, we developed a set of course specific materials in the form of lecture notes and in-class and out-of-class assignments. Each major assignment is accompanied by clear and coherent guidelines explaining what kind of skills will be attained by practicing this assignment, how it can be done, what amount of time can it reasonably take, when is it due, and where to get help. Speaking of technology, in our practice we use online homework systems (WebAssign or Willey Plus), video materials, and Web-based audience response systems (Poll Everywhere). Enhancing a class with technology helps students to be better engaged with the concepts covered, better communicate with the instructor and their peers, check their understanding of the concepts and quickly get a feedback.

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  Seeing the ‘Big Picture’: Building Cooperative Visual Literacy in the Undergraduate Biology Classroom

  Erica Tietjen

  Undergraduate introductory biology students worked cooperatively on a first day of class activity where they were given a small unknown drawing (which represented a portion of an animal cell image) and were asked to (1) work in pairs to translate the image by scaling it up (to letter paper) and then (2) work with their classmates to determine the placement and orientation of their scaled-up drawing to create a larger (now a 5x3 letter paper mosaic) recognizable image. Students were able to practice drawing and spatial reasoning, both important science process skills, in an engaging way and in the low-risk setting of introductory classroom activities, while also using cooperative communication skills to solve the visual “big picture.” Whole class discussion followed the activity, with an emphasis on the collaborative and problem-solving nature of science, as well as the fundamental “big picture” importance of the cell in biology.

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  Game Based Learning: Gaming in Education

  Margaret Trnka

  Higher education utilizes may different teaching practices. Teaching using the method of gaming is underutilized. The younger students entering higher education live in a world where technology has always existed. Technology has been used their entire life to learn and play games. As educators, we can capitalize on these technologically advanced students by incorporating gaming in the classroom to foster socialization and collaboration, to motivate learning, and provide the student with a sense of accomplishment through gaming success. Gaming in the classroom will engage the student in the subject and help them quickly think and react. In nursing education, student engagement can be an issue related to content learning and can be difficult to get the students to apply critical thinking and clinical judgement to the content they are not engaged with. Gaming can improve both of these areas that foster problems in current nursing education.

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  Team-Based Learning in Physical Therapy

  Cassy Turner

  I implemented the use of team-based learning (TBL) for DPT 732 Therapeutic Exercise in Spring 2018. My decision to implement this approach specifically to DPT 732 was related to a small number of students still reporting feeling unprepared to teach therapeutic exercise in their first clinical experiences in the subsequent semester after this class. Historically, students come in to DPT 732 with a significant variation in levels of past experience and knowledge on the topic. My goal in using TBL was to encourage the less experienced students to take more accountability for their own professional growth and life-long learning, and for the students with more experience to begin to step into a teaching role, together functioning as a team, and in consideration of our program’s goal of encouraging our graduates to become clinical instructors in the future.

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  Effectiveness of Online discussion forums in In-person class

  Soumya Upadhyay

  There is a need to fully involve students who maybe reticent, shy, lacking in English language proficiency, on hesitant to participate in class for any other reason. In my last three years at UNLV, I have felt a bit frustrated by the students who are either unwilling or unable to participate in class. As a remedy for the above problem, I included online discussion forums along with in class case studies. I learnt this practice from pedagogical research at the Association of University Programs in Healthcare Administration (AUPHA). My students in the in person class modality, were offered the opportunity to participate in class discussions online as well as in class.

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  Hands-on, Eyes-off Learning

  Van Whaley and Dustin Davis

  Engagement. We are evolving the Anatomy and Physiology Labs into a more hands-on, interactive and engaging learning environment. Students use models, and their own bodies, to learn the location of physical anatomy structures like major muscles and bony landmarks. The "poster" will be a flat board-game design with four interactive steps to complete. Examples might be feeling a quarter and saying if it is on heads or tails. This builds palpation skills in learners and is a fun experience!

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  Connecting with Students as a Motivator for Learning

  Michelle Arroyo

  Students want to feel cared for and that their instructors have their best educational interests in mind. Having an instructor who demonstrates compassion and shows empathy toward students creates a positive classroom climate and the course is more meaningful to the students at UNLV.

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  Categorization of Exam Questions to Improve Metacognition

  Tiffany Barrett

  This practice addresses UNLV students’ need for greater metacognitive awareness. Students often employ memorization as a study strategy when preparing for an exam. This can create an inability to apply the knowledge in a complex or different scenario. We know that “practice retrieving” study activities produce greater gains in meaningful learning (Karpicke 2011) but often students don’t identify a need for a change in study habits and a deeper level of understanding, especially if their exam score is considered passing.

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  What are Funds of Knowledge? A Collaborative Approach to Education

  Janna M. Bernstein

  It is important as educators to have a holistic understanding of students’ identities as these experiences influence classroom dynamics. As noted by Dugan (2017), “…identity, knowledge, and power are influenced profoundly by ideology and hegemony and in turn play a role in shaping people’s stocks of knowledge” (p. 40). “Stocks of knowledge” are characterized by five principles: they are familiar, serve to help navigate the world, “shaped by lived experience, altered only through novel situations, and socially constructed based on identity” (Dugan, 2017, p. 34). These “stocks of knowledge” are also known as “funds of knowledge” by multicultural educators.

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  UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo 2019

  Doris Blackwell

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  Reducing Anxiety While Boosting Creativity: Lessons from the Progymnasmata

  Bryan Blankfield

  The fear of public speaking is a widely shared among individuals. This can be difficult to overcome when students are assigned several large, heavily-weighted speeches with few opportunities to become acclimated to standing in front of an audience. Several times throughout the semester students are assigned a 2–3 minute long speech inspired by the progymnasmata (a series of rhetorical exercises from Ancient Greece). The speeches vary widely from presenting a fable to impersonating an individual.

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  Critically Thinking about Real-World Content and Practices: The Theory Show & Tell

  Erika Engstrom

  Analytical and communication skills list high on employers’ priorities. Beyond assessing comprehension through exams and research papers, this project requires, pilot research using content analysis, in-class presentation, short-form synthesis of findings.

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  Double-Loop Learning: An Approach to Critical Thinking

  Joe Ervin and Nathan Slife

  There is a general consensus that critical thinking is an essential part of college. Instructors should therefore be aware of the following: How they define and conceptualize critical thinking, how they are teaching critical thinking to their students, expectations for how students can exhibit critical thinking. Research-based how to strategies would be an example of single-loop learning, one form of critical thinking.

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  Engaging Assignments Increase Performance

  Jorge Ramon Fonseca Cacho

  It is well known that students who complete homework assignments and other outside of class activities related to the course lead to improve student outcomes. However, engaging a student and motivating them to complete their assignments is no easy feat. To address this, we developed new assignments for two sections of the Fall 2018 course CS135.

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  Benefits of Formative Teaching Observations

  Dan Gianoutsos

  Formative teaching observations by peer teaching faculty can provide helpful advice about small changes to teaching that can improve teachers’ and students’ experiences during the term (see reference list). The researcher posits that the UNLV Teaching Observation project catalyzed real-time changes to the participating faculty’s teaching and generated short-term solutions to some of their teaching challenges.

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  Enacting Agency through Influence on Power Relationships

  Steve Hayden

  Agency is the temporal and ecological understanding of the capacity to make choices, take principled action,and enact positive change. Why is agency important? Because teaching is complex! 1. New policy directions 2. Wider variety of stakeholder voices 3. Increase in student diversity 4. Power relationships are embedded in school context: Hierarchical structure, Accountability Measures, Evaluative components

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  Career Development in Curriculum: COLA 100E

  Jenna Heath

  Engagement with Professionals, from the local community, in the classroom allows for students to learn about a variety of career paths and gain career advice. This practice also provides the institution a tangible way of preparing students for their graduation plans and allows for mentorship to develop naturally among the students and professionals.