Interactive Classroom Sensory with Arduino Boards
John Chrispell, Tim Flowers, Christoph Maier, Gary Stoudt, Yu-Ju Kuo, David Smith, Amanda Foust, Francisco Alarcon, Channa Navaratna
The objective of our teaching circle is to explore the potential of emerging technology and its use in classroom teaching. Finding creative and exciting ways to engage students with mathematics, modeling, simulation, and computer programming is at the core of our department and this teaching circle. Arduino micro controllers and sensor attachments show great potential to allow students to do practical mathematical modeling and simulation. Hardware from this mini-grant shows potential to allow both students and faculty to work with and code in an emerging development framework that builds high- demand career skills. Given the variety of sensors available for data collection, we will be only limited by our imaginations when formulating mathematical models, and simulations.
Introducing Open Educational Resources "Guest Speaker Grant"
Dana Driscoll, Aleea Perry, Matthew Vetter, Shijuan Liu, Stanley Sobolewski, Veronica Paz, Ken Coles, Joann Migyanka, Bradley Markle, Theresa McDevitt, Tim Flowers, Brandon Vick
Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching and learning materials, in any medium, that are freely available for use in classrooms and for individual learning. These are materials that have been typically released under a license (such as a Creative Commons or into the public domain) that allows for the free use, distribution, and in some cases, modification of materials. Materials may include textbooks, full courses, course materials (handouts, worksheets, activities), tests, software, videos and other tools. The OER teaching circle seeks grant funds to bring a guest speaker to IUP's campus to help spearhead a faculty-led OER initiative on campus to help improve learning outcomes and increase college affordability using these open educational resources.
Improving Nursing Students' Clinical Judgment Skills through Faculty Development Opportunities
Taylor Edwards, Johanna Boothby, Janis Barner, Julia Greenawalt, Elaine Little, Benjamin Martin, Pamela O'Harra, Elizabeth Palmer
The purpose of this mini-grant application is to seek funding to support faculty development in teaching and assessing nursing students' clinical judgment skills. Clinical judgment has emerged as a key skill that is vital to the practice of new nurse graduates. In the latest practice analysis by the National Council of State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN) clinical judgment is at the top of the list of the Top 10 High Priority Skills for inclusion on the National Council Licensure Exam for the Registered Nurse (NCLEX-RN) (NCSBN, 2018). Furthermore, all programs of nursing that are accredited by the Commission for Collegiate Nursing Education (CCNE), which includes IUP's Nursing Program, must maintain a pass rate of 80% success for first-time test takers on this exam. Thus, it is imperative for nursing faculty to develop skill in both teaching students how to use clinical judgment and then assessing how well they are implementing clinical judgment skills.
Freewriting for Ease and Fluency: The Peter Elbow Method
Bryna Siegel Finer, Veronica Paz, Elaine Little, Jirayu Sinsiri, Luz Ramirez, Geoffrey Tickell, Theresa McDevitt, Carrie Bishop, Nicol Epple, Sara Parme, Elin Woods, Nancy Hutchinson, Mercan Derafshi, Rajwan Alshareefy
For this project, our teaching circle is asking for funding to purchase two materials that we will use to further our own writing practices, and also use with our students. These include Peter Elbow's book, Writing Without Teachers, and a basic molskine-like journal. Elbow encourages writers to freewrite (stream of conscious writing) in a journal for at least ten minutes a day. The book includes several other exercises a writer can then do with the freewriting they have accumulated in their journal. In between teaching circle meetings, we will do our ten minutes of writing a day. At our sessions, we will continue our writing (perhaps working on “shitty first drafts” based on Anne Lamott's idea from her book, Bird By Bird - a book most of us have from the September Reflective Practice Saturday workshop), using exercises from Elbow's book, or continuing with freewriting. Our overall goal is fluency - getting more and more comfortable with putting words on a page in an effort to gain confidence toward our scholarship goals.
Implementing Integrative Assignments in Living-Learning Communities: Professional Development, Campus-Wide Impact
Dawn Smith-Sherwood, Mimi Benjamin, Dan Burkett, Justin Fair, Theresa McDevitt, Veronica Paz
The objectives of the LLC TC special project, “Implementing Integrative Assignments in Living-Learning Communities: Professional Development, Campus-Wide Impact,” are: 1) to receive training in the ‘nuts and bolts' of integrative assignments from Dr. Emily Lardner, a nationally-recognized figure in high-impact pedagogical approaches, 2) to use that training to provide professional development locally to the wider IUP campus community.