2016-17 Teaching Circles
Eleven Teaching Circles were funded.
Circle Contact: Reynaldo Romero (Assistant Professor, Arts & Humanities)
Circle Contact Info: romerore@uhd.edu, 713-226-5549
Additional Members: Olin Bjork, Creshema Murray
Circle Description: The teaching circle central problem was how to assess service learning and community
engagement (SLCE) projects in disciplines not typically associated with social services
(Spanish, Communications, English). We met to discuss readings on the topics of assessment
for SLCE projects. We also attended the International Association for Research on
Service Learning and Community Engagement in New Orleans, LA. Based on all these data,
we developed a grid to assess our SLCE projects, which is included in the PowerPoint
presentation herein attached. The timing was not right to apply it to two of the courses,
however we managed to apply the grid in setting up a post-service learning project
assessment activity, and we modified projects to be used in future courses.
Circle Artifact(s): Assessing Community Engagement Beyond Social Services Disciplines
Circle Contact: Raquel Chiquillo (Associate Professor, Arts & Humanities)
Circle Contact Info: chiquillor@uhd.edu, 713-221-2743
Additional Members: Paul Mandell, William Nowak
Circle Description: Our Teaching Circle focused on creating oral video assignments for the fully online
Beginning Spanish classes (SPAN 1401 and SPAN 1402) using Voicethread.com. Before
this project, the fully online Beginning Spanish classes only had oral comprehension
assignments and we felt that assignments where students are required to respond by
speaking needed to be added do that all four areas of foreign language instruction
were covered: reading, writing, oral comprehension and speaking. While Beginning Spanish
students are not expected to produce complicated oral output, they are capable of
expressing basic factual information (My name is..., I am from...,My birthday is on...etc.),
expressing likes and dislikes, as well as creating and answering basic questions (What
is your name?) Where are you from? What is your favorite class? etc.). For this reason,
these assignments will allow students to practice speaking. In addition, we believe
that these video assignments will allow students to feel more connected to the class
and to their instructors, therefore fostering better student engagement in the class
and a more personalized feel to the class. We hope this will help with student retention
and learning, as students realize that they can speak Spanish even in a Beginning
Spanish class, and that they understand the questions or statements that are being
posed to them in the videos. A total of 12 videos were created using Voicethread,
6 for SPAN 1401 and 6 for SPAN 1402. The videos for SPAN 1401 have been incorporated
into the online sections of 1401 since Spring 2017. Student response on the whole
has been positive, but we would like to see a higher rate of participation from students.
Using Voicethread does mean that students must have a webcam to record their answers
and post them as part of the video thread. We also decided that the videos would become
part of the TAREA sections, and would be graded in the following manner: 1 point for
students stating their name, 1 point for answering the question posed, and 1 point
for posting their own question or statement. So each video is worth 3 points. The
videos for SPAN 1402 are ready and will be incorporated into the online sections of
1402 starting Fall 2017. We do not have data yet to be able to report whether students
feel more connected to each other and to the instructor, or whether they are more
engaged, though making a video answer and posting it does imply a higher level of
engagement than just turning in written work online. We believe the videos enrich
the online sections of 1401 and 1402, help to fulfill the requirement of speaking
in a foreign language class and are fun for the students!
Circle Artifact(s): Creating Oral Assignments in Beginning Spanish Online Classes through Voicethread.com
Circle Contact: Meghan Minard (Lecturer, Natural Sciences)
Circle Contact Info: minardm@uhd.edu, 713-221-8015
Additional Members: Gabriela Bowden, Lisa Morano, Sanghamitra Saha
Circle Description: The teaching circle was composed of four Natural Sciences faculty members who taught
Freshman Seminars during the Fall 2016. The courses were: ‘The Microbiome: Strangers
Amongst Us (Bowden),’ ‘Biology of Food (Minard and Morano),’ and ‘The Biology of Women
(Saha).’ Our teaching circle goals were to design an effective A+CE critical thinking
assignment, implement the assignment, and then design an effective rubric for grading
the A+CE critical thinking assignments. The A+CE critical thinking Signature Assignments
were designed in Summer 2016 and implemented in Fall 2016 in our respective courses.
These assignments and A+CE courses were to be evaluated using the AACU Value Rubrics,
therefore, thee rubrics guided the assignment design. However, the AACU Value rubrics
include skill levels for freshman through seniors and may not be appropriate for scoring
freshman assignments and therefore there was a need for a rubric for grading the A+CE
assignments. We designed simplified, assignment-specific rubrics to use to grade the
assignments at a freshman level. These rubrics were modified from the AACU rubrics
that were utilized to evaluate the A+CE courses. Our expectations for the teaching
circle were that students would have increased critical thinking and writing skills
at the conclusion of the Fall 2016 semester, and that the A+CE critical thinking assignment
would improve overall student success in the indicated course, which hopefully will
extend to other courses.
Circle Artifact(s): Critical Thinking and Writing in Natural Sciences Freshman Seminar Courses
Fostering Engagement through Democratic Dialogue
Circle Contact: Windy Lawrence (Associate Professor, Arts & Humanities)
Circle Contact Info: lawrencew@uhd.edu, 713-221-8472
Additional Members: Susan Beane, Aleha Cantu, Jonathan Chism, Beth Secor
Circle Description: For the 2016 – 2017 year, UHD CPD created a circle of new faculty across the curriculums
to support their development of deliberative engagement interventions in their courses.
Each faculty member went through a hybrid deliberation certification course where
they participated in weekly online discussions and watch lectures about deliberation
and pedagogy. Then each member of the circle team met with Windy Lawrence to co-create
an intervention for their course. Each faculty member agreed that the intervention
would take up one class period in two of their courses or two class days in one of
their courses. Each faculty member tailored the deliberation intervention to the subject
matter of the course. The purpose of the initiative, in partnership with CTLE, is
to bring more purposeful and institutionalized democratic engagement skills, theory
and thinking to UHD. The Democracy Imperative defines “democratic learning/education”
to “describe experiences that teach the knowledge, principles, and practices valuable
to a democracy as both a form of government and a culture.” They differentiate “civic
learning” from “democratic learning” by noting that civic learning, “while extremely
valuable, are often apolitical or separate from learning for and about democratic
governance and culture (e.g., volunteerism, service learning).” Our goals for this
initiative includes:
Circle Artifact(s): Fostering Engagement through Democratic Dialogue
Circle Contact: Ashley Archiopoli (Assistant Professor, Arts & Humanities)
Circle Contact Info: archiopolia@uhd.edu, 713-221-5092
Additional Members: Pam Auburn, Sarah Ceballos, Sujata Krishna, Jerome Socolof
Circle Description: This teaching circle focused on the need across the curriculum to support innovative
pedagogy. The issue guides present by the NIF are limiting in the sense that they
address only a handful of topics and don’t often align with course needs. Then, the
purpose of this teaching circle was to develop deliberative practice materials tailored
to courses taught at UHD. These materials address a series of topics that confront
“wicked problems” that we encounter in our daily lives. For example, in one project
students were presented with a surplus budget and a series of options for how to spend
the budget. Such exercises give students practice with needed 21st century skills
like problem solving, critical thinking, collaboration and team work.
Circle Artifact(s): Fostering Engagement through Issue Framing in the Classroom
Circle Contact: Mike Tobin (Assistant Professor, Natural Sciences)
Circle Contact Info: tobinm@uhd.edu, 713-221-8426
Additional Members: Amy Baird, Jeff Martz
Circle Description: Evolution is a central, organizing theme in courses taught by members of our teaching
circle. We each repeatedly use evolutionary trees – diagrams that represent the evolutionary
relationships among groups of organisms – while discussing evolutionary concepts in
our courses. Because evolutionary trees play a central role in our courses, we collaboratively
developed a set of three active learning exercises that engage students in the interpretation
and construction of evolutionary trees. We developed the exercises to be increasingly
more challenging and the conceptual emphasis of each exercise to be sufficiently unique
that all three could be used sequentially in a course. As appropriate, the final exercises
we developed include class handouts, exercise props (Tinkertoy sets), instructor notes,
and introductory presentation slides. Each of the exercises was implemented in one
or more of our courses and further refined based on these in-class experiences. Developing
these exercises as a team enabled us to produce three well documented and thoroughly
vetted active learning exercises. Formal membership in a Teaching Circle provided
a forum for collaboration and promoted extensive constructive feedback among group
members. Teaching Circle funds allowed the purchase of vital resources, including
Tinkertoy sets used in one of the exercises.
Circle Artifact(s): Fostering Evolutionary Thinking with Active Learning Exercises on Evolutionary Trees
Circle Contact: Connie Kang (Assistant Professor, Natural Sciences)
Circle Contact Info: kangy@uhd.edu, 713-222-5378
Additional Members: Jon Aoki, Jeff Flosi, Robin Jose, Eszter Trufan
Circle Description: The members of this teaching circle are faculty from the department of natural sciences
and are interested in the pedagogy of using ePortfolio to engage students in classrooms.
Portfolio has been used by many institutions across the country, including some departments
at University of Houston-Downtown. However, it has not been done with STEM disciplines.
The application of ePortfolio also varies greatly in platform, requirement and instruction,
depending on discipline, type and purpose of the ePortfolio. In the Fall and Spring,
each member incorporated at least one element of the ePortfolio in their respective
classes. Furthermore, we conducted a survey on both the faculty and students regarding
their experiences. To illustrate the advantages of ePortfolio, we thereby present
our project with artifacts and lessons learned in the ePortfolio format.
Circle Artifact(s): Fostering Student & Engagement in the Classroom & through the Use of ePortfolios
Circle Contact: Adriana Visbal (Lecturer, Natural Sciences)
Circle Contact Info: visbala@uhd.edu, 713-221-8284
Additional Members: Lea Campbell, Eszter Trufan, Elizabeth Villegas
Circle Description:
The main goal of the project was to utilize the College Student Inventory (CSI) questionnaire
to identify at risk groups in 4 freshman barrier courses and employ intervention strategies
based on individual student's profiles with the goal of improving pass and retention
rates. A portrait of students' affective skills including motivation, study habits,
coping mechanisms and receptiveness to support services was obtained and compared
to student's performance in the first semester of the project. The high dropout proneness
(HDP group) from the CSI questionnaire proved to be the best identifier of students
at-risk of failing these barrier courses. This group was targeted in the second semester
of the project and seemed to respond best to one-on-one interactions with instructor.
Utilization of the Mid-year Assessment (MYSA) allowed for a direct comparison pre-and
post-interventions and demonstrated an increase in students' confidence in math and
science, increased confidence in study habits and improved attitude towards educators.
The project allowed instructors to test specific interventions and determine which
ones work best for which groups of students. The project also generated CPHS approval
of a study that is open for data collection for the next 9 years. We believe further
data collection may confirm results of HDP group and may serve as a useful tool of
targeting at risk students with the newly created mentoring program.
Circle Artifact(s): General Chemistry II Laboratory (CHEM 1108) Redesign
Circle Contact: Susan Beane (Lecturer, Mathematics & Statistics)
Circle Contact Info: beanes@uhd.edu, 713-223-7938
Additional Members: Bonnie Blumberg, Benny John, Vien Nguyen, Timothy Redl, Frankie Solomon
Circle Description: This mathematics teaching circle was formed with the purpose of refining the course
to improve student engagement, motivation, critical thinking, and success. As part
of the refinement, the course objectives were revised to parallel those of the Dana
Center Math 1332 Contemporary Mathematics or Quantitative Reasoning course to guarantee
transferability across Texas institutions of higher education. The Freshman Math committee
approved the circle’s request to change the course name to Contemporary Mathematics,
effective Fall 2017, to be more consistent with TX Academic Course Guide Manual (ACGM).
Our circle team created a new MyMathLab (MML) coordinator course platform which provides
capabilities to improve student’s critical thinking and improve success rate in the
course. The MML platform now includes a complete set of in-class exercises that parallel
and support three types of online student assignments: (1) vocabulary and media-based
questions to encourage the use and understanding of mathematical terminology and provide
video-guided example exercises, (2) objective-based conceptual homework exercises
to reinforce mastery of concepts and encourage critical thinking, and (3) sectional
quizzes to test mastery of the course objectives. Additionally, the platform is programmed
to allow students to produce an integrated personal study plan, as well as providing
instructor support documents and an option to present objective-based instant response
questions utilizing an instant response clicker or cell phone response system. As
part of the overall course revision, the team produced documents to parallel other
freshman-level departmentalized mathematics courses: (1) departmental student syllabus,
(2) departmental instructor syllabus, (3) suggested textbook homework assignment sheet,
(4) final exam review sheet, and (5) MATH1310 FINAL EXAM Formula Sheet, and to improve
student engagement, the team created several objective-based activities to be employed
with the purchased classroom sets of manipulatives for instructor’s use in the classroom:
(1) Estimation Token Activity Sheets, (2) Multi-Sided Dice Set Theory Activity, (3)
Deck of Cards Combinations and Probabilities, (4) Spinners and Probability Activity,
and (5) Colored Disks Probability and Statistics Activity, as well as multiple documents
to support active learning in the classroom and two suggested examples of the required
course project. The departmental QEP website was re-designed to include access to
student related support documents, and the course picture was changed to the picture
of the new UHD custom Pearson textbook created by the team, which significantly reduced
the student’s cost of course materials.
Circle Artifact(s): MATH 1310 Innovative Course Improvement Teaching Circle
Multimedia Artifacts as Learning Tools in Both Traditional and Online Communication Courses
Circle Contact: Elizabeth Hatfield (Associate Professor, Arts & Humanities)
Circle Contact Info: hatfielde@uhd.edu, 713-221-5515
Additional Members: Ashley Archiopoli, Felicia Harris, Lucas Logan, Creshema Murray
Circle Description: This teaching circle sought to meet the goal of Fostering Engagement in the Classroom
by connecting current students with innovative teaching methods that seek to improve
retention, learning, and in-class motivation. The abundance of new media options in
today's environment offers a rich resource for educators seeking "real-life" examples
for discussion and analysis. As instructors, this circle allowed us to try new media
tools or refine existing assignments to meet the needs of our students. I believe
the outcomes described in the attached document show that these methods were successful
in creating learning that will be retained beyond the classroom. Additionally, it
allowed several of us to present this work at conferences with our peers. These conferences
offer the opportunity for professional development and the sharing of academic ideas.
Circle Artifact(s): Multimedia Artifacts as Learning Tools in Both Traditional and Online Communication
Courses
Eszter Trufan (Assistant Professor, Natural Sciences)
Circle Contact Info: trufane@uhd.edu, 713-222-5306
Additional Members: Franklin Beckles, Yubo Fan, Nicolle Patterson, Vishakha Shembekar, Tracey Simmons-Willis
Circle Description: Co-requisite laboratory courses are often neglected sidekicks to many barrier science
courses. This Teaching Circle worked on redesigning, implementing and assessing the
effectiveness of the CHEM 1107 course. The proposed tasks were:
Circle Artifact(s): Synergy by Design for Co-Requisite Courses