- *Addresses a particular need to improve teaching;
- *Benefits UNLV students in particular; and
- *Applies in a variety of teaching contexts.
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Working Groups as Classroom Management Style
Emma Frances Bloomfield and Kathryn Rafferty
There is a need at UNLV to improve student retention across disciplines, which can be done by improving students’ confidence in their performance, improving their satisfaction with classes and their major selections, and providing welcoming and open spaces for participation and inclusion.
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A Teaching Method that Boosts UNLV Student Retention
Celeste Calkins and Mary-Ann Winkelmes
Nationally, underserved students are half as likely to graduate in 4 years as their white and Asian peers (US DoE 2014, Tough 2014, Ishitani 2006). UNLV proudly claims the most diverse undergraduate university population in the nation (US News 2017), including many first generation and low-income students. The majority of UNLV students fall into this underserved category, and our retention rates (re-enrollment rates after the 1st year) indicate that roughly ¼ of our 1st-year students do not re-enroll the subsequent year.
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Self-Assessment in the College Curriculum
Joe Ervin
The use of self-assessment in the college curriculum is an extensive and wide-reaching endeavor. In essence, through a variety of pedagogical and curricular methods, students are given the opportunity to think about themselves.
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Volunteering in the Community: Combining Service and Learning
Elena Gandia Garcia
Most of the patients who use the services offered by the Lied Pediatric Clinic are minorities (70%), and half of those patients are Hispanic. The clinic lacks of professional interpreters to help monolingual doctors and residents to communicate with their patients.
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Developing a Teaching Philosophy Statement
Steve Hayden
In the college of education it is common practice for students to write multiple versions of a concise and direct teaching philosophy statement (1,000-1,500 words).
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Instructional Methods That Improve Outcomes for UNLV Students in the Virtual Classroom
Tiffiany Howard
The demand for online education programs has resulted in the expansion of course and degree offerings, and a steady increase in online student enrollment nationwide (U.S. News, 2016). While the goal of online education is to improve access to higher education, historically underrepresented groups experience lower course completion rates and poorer grade performance in online classes, when compared to underrepresented students enrolled in hybrid and in person courses.
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Visualization for Spatial Comprehension
Gabriel Judkins
Mapping and understanding spatial data are fundamental necessities for geographers, yet challenging for many students (Rapp et al. 2007)
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Agile Instructional Design for Learning: A Case Example of Agile Master Course (AMC) Development
Yeonsoo Kim and Heather Whitesides
Today’s higher education institutions need to “produce quality and relevant learning materials, capable of being reused and adapted in different learning situations” (Arimoto & Barroca, 2015). Agile principles and practices are being used by instructional design teams and are geared toward being adaptive and creative.
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Interior Architecture’s Use of Rotating Teams
Dak Kopec
The inclusion of health conditions within the process of environmental modification for design students requires concurrent learning outcomes related to research, brainstorming, and ideation that can only be achieved through team projects.
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Lecture Capture / Flipping / Clickers
Darrell Lutey
Student Success – UNLV needs to improve retention
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Instructors Learn from Homework, too: Streamlining Data Collection to Facilitate Reteaching Before the Test
Erica J. Marti
Whether it’s for accreditation or simply as a good teaching practice to inform future instruction, gathering and analyzing data can be time consuming. This is especially true for large classes. How can you streamline the process for quick evaluation?
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Are Dogs Better Than Cats?: Teaching Oral & Written Persuasion Skills
Sara Mathis
First generation students often come into UNLV underprepared for the rigors of speaking and writing. Student’s success in their courses and future careers depend on their abilities to persuade through oral and written skills.
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Photo Assignments: An Exploration of Student Retention Rate
Lawrence Mullen
In an attempt to increase student retention and graduation rates, many colleges and universities have some sort of freshman course, or first-year seminar that serves to introduce students to college life. The course also helps students transition from high school.
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Tea-Searching with Undergrad & Grad Students: Moving Beyond the STEM Fields
Kim Nehls
Tea-searching is a blend of teaching and research in the college classroom. It is learning by doing with in-class exercises and assignments designed to study complex problems, collect and analyze data, and discuss findings – all to varying levels at the undergraduate, masters, and doctoral levels. In the past decade, research on these student experiences has revealed the extensive array of professional and personal benefits.
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Creative Student Engagement
Robyn Raschke
Many students do not feel comfortable asking questions in front of the whole class and stay quiet during class.
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Add Interactive Elements to Videos Using H5P
Benjamin Root
To increase student engagement, video materials can include interactive components.
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Enhancing Students' Learning with Word-Games: A Case of Hospitality OB Class
Cass Shum
Learning a new subject involves learning and memorizing a new set of vocabulary (Parry, 1995), a challenge for an increasingly international student population (e.g., Barron & Arcodia, 2002; McDowell, 1998; Zimmermann, 2009).
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Facebook Group in ACC 202
Daniel R. Siciliano
ACC 202 has three sections of 100-120 students in each section each semester.
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Internships for Accounting Students
Daniel R. Siciliano
ACC 400 is the first upper division class for accounting majors and students are introduced to the importance of internships.
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Dialectical Teaching Strategies for First and Second-Year Students
Nathan M. Slife
An oppositional or bi-polar understanding of meaning (Rychlak, 1976). This ancient understanding of meaning has many applications for instructors.
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Using A Breakout Box to Encourage the 4Cs in the Classroom
Erica S. Tietjen
Small groups can benefit from practicing the “4Cs” skills that will continue to be important in the 21st century (NEA, 2017): Critical thinking Communication Collaboration Creativity
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Web Based Classroom Management Enhanced by Personalized and Experiential Learning
Cecilia Turman
The purpose of this practice is to promote experiential and personalized learning in online instruction.
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Voluntary Web-Based Self-Assessment Quiz Use Improves Exam Performance, Especially for Learners with Low Prior Knowledge
Jenifer C. Utz and Matthew L. Bernacki
We examined students’ voluntary use of digital self-assessment quizzes as a resource for learning in a large anatomy and physiology lecture course. Students (N = 238) could use 16 chapter quizzes and four analogous unit quizzes to rehearse and self-assess knowledge. Repeated use was uncommon (12%), as was lack of use (13%). Most students (75%) engaged in occasional use of self-assessment quiz items. Exam performance differed between repeated use (84%), occasional use (76%), and no use (72%) groups. Differences were greater among students who lacked prior knowledge of course topics. Quiz use improved performance more for low prior knowledge students, and differences increased over the semester. Overall, repeated users significantly outperformed occasional users (+7.5%) and non users (+11.9%) on course exams
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To HY or Not to HY: Benefits of Hybrid (HY) Courses for Students & Faculty
Heather Whitesides and Yeonsoo Kim
The Hybrid (HY) model is being introduced to support our University’s student success equation. Defined as meeting half face to face and half online, the HY model opens space for more courses to be offered.