The Center for Teaching Excellence is pleased to announce the following four Teaching Circle Mini-Grant Award Winners for 2021–22:
“Rescuing Socrates: Books for Big Ideas”
Teaching Circle: Big Ideas: Transformative Culture and the Professions
Teaching Circle members: Bryna Siegel Finer, Lynn Botehlo, Melanie Holm, Tami Whited, John Marsden
Our teaching circle is proposing funding for copies of Rescuing Socrates: How the Great Books Changed My Life and Why They Matter for a New Generation by Roosevelt Monta. We are all members of the working group for the Certificate in Big Ideas: Transformative Culture and the Professions, which aims to enhance students' humanities awareness and skill-set as a compliment to their majors in STEM. The book has been called a "powerful, persuasive...and poignant defense of liberal education" by Inside Higher Education. We plan to use it as the foundation of our teaching circle conversations.
“Assessing the Effectiveness of Teaching Online Laboratories in the Safety Sciences”
Teaching Circle: Safety Sciences
Teaching Circle members: Wanda Minnick, Majed Zreiqat, Tracey Cekada, Laura Rhodes, Bryan Seal, Luz Marin, Chris Janicak
There has been no empirical research on the effectiveness of online laboratories for the safety sciences. Objective outcomes from the forced pivot to online laboratories during the pandemic may be hard to assess, as instructors balanced rigor with empathy knowing the pandemic was affecting each student in potentially different ways. However, it would be futile to not analyze information from this time-period to help shape the design of future online laboratories, if necessary.
“Clinical Judgment Curriculum Integration”
Teaching Circle: Improving Clinical Judgment
Teaching Circle members: Taylor Edwards, Janis Barner, Rebecca Beer, Riah Hoffman, Elaine Little, Benjamin Martin
The American Association of Colleges of Nursing has updated the Essentials: Core Competencies for Professional Nursing Education which drives curricular change and provides content that needs integrated across the curriculum (AACN, 2021). IUP’s nursing program has initiated a curriculum revision to adhere to these guidelines that will require a transition to concept-based learning. Included in these changes is the integration of clinical judgment through learning activities and next generation questioning. The teaching circle is requesting funds to assist the department in professional development related to these concepts.
“Developing Arduino Workshops for IUP Community”
Teaching Circle: Arduino Group
Teaching Circle members: Andrew Zhou, Frederick Adkins, Majid Krimi, Sean Derry, Shijuan Liu
As an open-source electronics platform (both hardware and software) for people without a background in electronics and computer coding, this programmable microcontroller board “Arduino” has been used by students, artists, musicians, programmers, and professionals in thousands of their projects/applications. This teaching circle will (1) investigate strategies for integrating Arduino and Arduino based projects into the classroom, especially PHYS 231 Electronics, and (2) provide a showcase to any faculty members and students who are either interested in bringing Arduino into their curriculums or creating Arduino projects through workshop to be conducted based on the teaching plan and instruction method developed.