2022 Agenda and Program

The purpose of this project was to enhance the current Clinical Performance Evaluation (CPE) tools that are being used in an undergraduate nursing program to provide a more meaningful clinical evaluation experience for students and clinical instructors.

A literature review was conducted, as well as networking with different nursing schools to gain an understanding of what their CPE tools looked like. After extensive research, the QSEN competencies and the new Essentials were leveraged as the framework for creating the new tool.

The planned evaluation for the project included collecting data through all clinical courses piloting the new CPE tool. The methodology encompassed obtaining data from senior traditional undergraduate students on ease of use, clarity of rating and if the tool allowed for usable feedback.

The implications for this project are essential to ensure the clinical component of nursing education being delivered is valuable and representative of an excellent student experience. This newly created CPE tool leverages evidence-based topics (identified through QSEN and the Essentials) to ensure that students are being measured on relevant and evidence-based topics. This data collection enhancement will evaluate program outcomes for the college. Preceptor involvement through the utilization of a QR code linked to the CPE tool would allow real time communication and evaluation between the student, preceptor and clinical instructor.

Senior nursing students in the leadership course have not understood how to apply EBP principles of the dissemination process once becoming a practicing nurse. Lack of knowledge in application and dissemination of EBP results can have a negative impact on patient care and professional progression for newly graduated nurses.

Instructors created an EBP project that spanned an 8 week course. Each student selected a concern related to their specific clinical placement, developed a PICOT question, conducted a literature search for recommendations, and presented findings and recommendations to classmates in a poster presentation. Students use the health system template from annual research day.

Positive feedback from survey results regarding understanding the importance of EBP, how to develop a PICOT question, and EBP dissemination as a new graduate nurse. Recommend implementing EBP education in all courses in curriculum to form a strong foundation for future practice as a nurse. The instructors plan to follow- up with students within 1 year of graduation to see if they are actively engaged in EBP practice and dissemination in collaboration with the Director of Institutional Effectiveness at the CON. Students reported positive feedback regarding the EBP project, including feelings of increased understanding of the EBP process and methods to disseminate information after graduation and in the role of a new nurse.

Instructors will collaborate with the health systems Senior Statistical Analyst, allowing select students the opportunity to participate in an interprofessional research day to expose them to a professional conference and professional engagement prior to graduation.

In the fall of 2020, following a summer of heightened racial awareness and conflict, the Law School offered a free, online course, open to the general public. It was intended to be the Law School's response to the moment. Over 5,000 people enrolled, from across the country and even across the world. The instructor will share what he learned: How to deliver material to a large audience in a free course. How to talk about race to a very broad audience. What you need to say first.

Employers today increasingly demand that newly hired business students have both a deep understanding of their discipline, but also additional skills and abilities allowing students to quickly and effectively contribute to the organization. Although prior studies have identified the skill sets that prospective employers want from graduates, there has been little research conducted on how business schools in general, and marketing programs, in particular, can develop project management skills within their curriculums. Therefore, the primary goal of this presentation is to present how an experiential senior-level class can utilize an agile methodology during client projects and have a strong impact on business skills acquired in the course. Due to the increased interaction with the business community, some schools are re-evaluating the skills that are needed and assessing how best to integrate these into their curriculum. Schools have responded in a number of key areas. For example, in the area of teamwork, business administration classes have assigned students to team projects throughout the curriculum in order to train students how to work effectively in teams. At the University of Akron, students are assigned to team projects throughout the majority of their marketing curriculum, and at least 70% of their classes are experiential learning-oriented. One major gap in the research has been the impact of the use of project management methodology in marketing courses that utilize experiential learning as the main component. The gap exists because not many marketing programs are utilizing a specific project management methodology. On the other hand, the industry is proving that marketing can benefit from a structured and disciplined project management process that has been used for years in software development programs. Companies such as Cleveland Clinic, Goodyear, and Publicis Sapient have all implemented a project management methodology within their marketing teams.

Interprofessional education (IPE) is widely recognized in the healthcare literature as significant to the development of teamwork, communication skills, and interprofessional collaboration that will ultimately translate to comprehensive, quality patient care (Buring et al., 2009; Homeyer et al., 2018; Paola et al., 2018., Xavier & Brown, 2022). The value of IPE cuts across the university mission. This session will describe and invite participants to use the virtual synchronous IPE simulation, which is one strategy that has proven successful on learner, faculty, and field development. The World Health Organization describes IPE as “when participants and facilitators from two or more professions engage in a simulated healthcare experience.” The College of Health & Human Sciences hosts IPE within its schools and neighboring institutions. This panel will discuss their experiences planning, designing, and implementing recent interprofessional simulation events. Emphasis will be placed on the collaborative work of faculty, staff, and community professionals across various disciplines, and the use of university and college resources in developing these education events. The panel will also address outcome and assessment considerations for simulations. This panel will contribute to the professional development of the audience in several ways. First, it will provide a general introduction to simulation pedagogy. Information on how to conceptualize and develop interprofessional simulations including navigating challenges, will also be provided. Finally, an applied component will be included where the audience (regardless of academic department, discipline, or profession), will use information and ideas presented earlier to develop an initial plan for their own interprofessional event.

Ashland University instructional designers present the use of 360-degree videos to connect students to ancient artifacts and professors from the Ashland Theological Seminary. This hands-on presentation will showcase videos using mobile devices, computers, and even the Meta Quest 2. Participants will have the opportunity to try the 360 camera and experience 360 videos from various devices.

Student feedback articulated a need to formalize a process to identify and acknowledge engaging online courses. The UAkron Online Promise is a student focused course improvement initiative that offers a digital certification to instructors that complete our process of using student evaluations as a guide for continuous improvement. Activity #1: Participants will create a mind map around the following question: What makes a good online course? (Ex: Courses that had undergone nationally-recognized, faculty-driven peer review processes sometimes received inconsistent student evaluations). Our Online Promise uses student evaluations as a guide for course improvement and incorporates 6 reciprocal guarantees between instructors and students. Instructors that enroll in the promise course, attend at least 3 meetings, and exemplify the Online Promise, receive a digital badge. Activity #2: An instructional designer will align the UAkron Online Promise guarantees to the map developed in Activity #1 and describe additional details of the course and process to earn a badge. Activity #3: A first-hand account of the experience of putting a course through the promise will be shared by a faculty member including aspirations, apprehensions, and of course, student feedback. 4 Takeaways then Q&A: #1: Recharge your course with student-focused strategies to increase content engagement and program enrollment #2: Recharge our commitment to inclusive pedagogy through opportunities to utilize student feedback for meaningful course and program improvement #3: Recharge your students with an online culture that emphasizes the value of instructors and students. #4: Recharge faculty with intrinsic (student satisfaction) and extrinsic (badges) motivation

In the asynchronous online environment, student engagement and active learning are common struggles that concern educators. The present paper discusses the employment of a few methods and technologies, such as interactive lectures (H5P), multimodal teaching, and social annotation, that assist with student engagement and interactive learning in a humanities/social sciences class. Details are presented on the process and impact on student experience through qualitative and quantitative results which show that these tools help increase student engagement and satisfaction, promote active learning, and deepen students’ engagement with the subject matter. The paper also underlines the importance of institutional support (e.g. UA Akron Online Promise) and cooperation between faculty and instructional designers.

The sharp increase in the percentage of college students who have experienced depression, stress, anxiety, and other mental health diagnosis has been widely reported. Faculty, too, have experienced similar stressors. One way to address the mental health needs of individuals across college campuses is to shift our understanding of teaching and learning from that of “subject matter content delivery” to that of a helping profession in which the development and nurturing of trusting relationships becomes the foundation of the teaching and learning process. In this panel discussion we will discuss the trends and patterns in K-12 education in which social-emotional-learning and the importance of developing meaningful and trusting relationship has become a foundational discussion within school districts nationwide. We believe that a parallel mind-set should be adopted in higher education. Strategies for self-care and wellness will be presented, and resources available to the University of Akron community such as Zip Assist and Mental Health First Aid will be described.

Teamwork is a learning objective for many programs, as students will work in teams when they begin their professional careers. Many students, however, do not like team projects because often only a few of the students on the team complete all or most of the project, while others do practically nothing, and all students receive the same grade on the project. Because of this, a team grade on a project does not measure teamwork. Instructors are often unaware of proper ways to measure teamwork. This proposal will identify three components of teamwork – the Team Contract, the Peer Assessment, and the Team Assessment – that can be used to measure teamwork accurately. All three components can be completed within the D2L management system thereby reducing unnecessary work by the professor. This method works for single-submission team projects to determine how well the students performed as a team. This method also works especially well for a team project that has multiple submissions because the instructor can provide feedback after each submission and thereby measure changes (hopefully improvements) in teamwork throughout the project.

The Center for Teacher Effectiveness will present the Time to Teach program designed for classroom teachers to create an empowering, classroom learning environment. The Time to Teach program is built on research-based techniques that are proven to create a positive learning environment for all students to explore the curriculum. Time to Teach can be immediately implemented to create a classroom with established learning expectations and become a learning environment where students can safely explore new ideas along with creative learning opportunities. At all grade levels, students must learn how to be a member of the learning community including how to relate to their team members and master the skills of being in a learning relationship with others. We expect students to arrive in our classrooms with interpersonal relationship skills as they engage in teamwork activities. However, these essential expectations need to be taught through an approach to classroom management that will empower the teacher, encourage the students, and develop an excellent classroom learning environment. During the Time to Teach session, participants will explore a program of instructional scenarios and techniques that are necessary to build a classroom with a safe learning environment. Classroom teachers from all levels will explore the Time to Teach program with the goal to build a classroom learning culture on a foundation of expectations, promoting positive relationships, and encouraging students to engage in learning.

During a Spring 2022 semester-long [Un]Class, through the EX[L] Center for Experiential Learning, students from a variety of majors collaborated to uncover the natural history mysteries hidden for decades in some of the University of Akron’s closets and cabinets. Through a combination of detective work, biology, archives, art, and education/outreach, they worked collaboratively to prepare a collection of taxidermied birds donated to UA by the Rhodes family in the early 1900s for public access and exhibition. Students had the opportunity to learn from leading experts regarding the historical significance of biological collections, proper preservation protocols, digitizing and archival practices, and the urgency of science education and communication for a public audience. This exhibition is a culmination of interdisciplinary and experiential learning processes that include critical and abstract thinking, exploration, and cultivating curiosity. As part of the process of research and collaboration, students at the Myers School of Art were invited to respond to the [Un]Class projects and their work is incorporated into the exhibition. More than a century later, our wish is to bring the university’s original, and forgotten, “Museum of Zoology” to a new audience and to inspire future generations. This project and exhibition was a collaboration between the University of Akron’s Department of Biology, UA Field Station, Lebron James Family Foundation School of Education, Cummings Center’s Institute for Human Science and Culture, Mary Schiller Myers School of Art, and the Akron Summit County Public Library. The presenters will share how this highly collaborative course inspired all of us.

Background/Purpose: Due to COVID19, nursing pathophysiology courses were thrust online and student outcomes (pass rates) declined. It was decided for AY21/22 the courses would remain online in synchronous/asynchronous format. Faculty involved were charged with revising courses to improve outcomes. Faculty content experts plus an online online course design expert partnered for revisions. Methods: Revisions were in response to evidence found in literature, pre-intervention student outcomes, and course evaluations. Evidence-based course design standards and relevant active learning strategies were selected that support student engagement. Final course grades were evaluated. Feedback data was gathered through end-of-course evaluations. Revisions to Canvas LMS were made and an online flipped classroom approach was utilized. Final grades, average scores, and end-of-course student evaluations from semesters SP 2021 and SU 2021 were compared to outcomes from Fall 2021 and SP 2022. This provided a baseline for evaluating course effectiveness. Results: After course revisions, pass rates in SCIE230 & SCIE231 increased 10%. Pass rate in SCIE290 minimally decreased yet remained strong. SCIE291 pass rates remained at 100%. Quantitative data from student feedback was demonstrated by positive comments on end of course evaluations. Conclusion: Improved student outcomes were demonstrated in the Traditional Undergraduate Program pathophysiology courses. A decreased yet strong student outcome rate was reported in SDAP pathophysiology courses. Positive feedback on course redesign was received. The comparison of pre-intervention data to post-intervention data suggests the approach improved course pass rates and comprehension of pathophysiology. Data will continue to be analyzed to identify factors affecting continued improvement.

Our abrupt transitions from "remote"/"online" learning to in-person instruction have undoubtedly shaped students' interactions with others and their commitment to academic success. Educators recognize that the ever-growing "at-risk" population in their classrooms needs additional mechanisms for support, course content delivery, and skill development. While many proponents have encouraged instructors to gamify aspects of their pedagogy or incorporate memes into the curriculum—even as a form of assessment—Quizizz has rarely been mentioned in national and international education research. Based on its current functionality, this tool seems to have the most tremendous potential for engaging every student and fostering an inclusive culture within each learning community. Moreover, quiz game hosts can enable memes to appear while students move through the activity; this feature offers "brain breaks" while still relating to academics. When I first began my action research process with Quizizz, I intended to focus only on formative assessment for at-risk students in my English Composition courses and the functional differences between that tool and more popular ones like Kahoot! and Quizlet Live. However, Quizizz facilitates opportunities for "customized" quiz game experiences driven by students' progress and even creates spaces for them to reflect as well as communicate directly with their instructors. This interactive presentation will include live demonstrations in which attendees can participate in a Quizizz Student Check-in and learn about the application's various functions from the "teacher's" perspective.

For many of us, these past two years have presented us with the most difficult challenges we have ever faced as teachers. The pandemic has forced us to adopt new and unfamiliar technologies, adapt to ever-changing student needs, chipped away at our physical and mental health, and exacerbated political and ideological divides that now find their way into virtually every subject matter. Teaching has always been hard. Properly understood for all that it is - the instilling of knowledge, curiosity, discernment, character, wisdom, and skill in the next generation - the art of teaching is what the poet Rilke would call "a Great Thing." It is impossible to get exactly right, unconscionable not to try. But as Rilke notes, "growth is in being profoundly conquered again and again by greater and greater things." In this talk, we will explore how this mindset of seeing teaching as the impossible task that it truly is can actually energize us, center us, humble us, and most importantly, help us feel connected to our students and fellow teachers as we confront this mysterious great thing together. We will also share a few little things - tips, techniques, and technologies - that might be helpful as we gather around the Great Thing for one more round this semester.

How could implementing new learning strategies lead the way to student success in forensic science? In this interactive presentation, I will take you through an investigation of Walsh University’s first forensic science course. From its creation in 2007 to its new online format in 2022, I will highlight successes and improvements over the past 15 years. Just like a processing a crime scene, this presentation won’t overlook the evidence. I will share “clues for success” such as problem-based learning strategies, activities to increase student engagement, and ideas to make the course relatable and meaningful. Areas where significant improvements were made include creating accessible content and applying QM standards to the new online format. The investigation continues as we look at more evidence of student success to collect, preserve, and process. After looking at the course through a magnifying glass, the addition of unique course assessments, called forensic reflections, were created for each lesson. These contributed to student success in the achievement of the module-level outcomes through new perspectives in learning. Additionally, higher levels of cognition were evidenced through these assessments, particularly showing how this addition made a positive impact for learners. Never underestimate the power of small changes made year after year because you, too, could discover your fingerprints of student success!

The transition to online learning was challenging, but Cuyahoga Community College’s Plant Science Department has embraced the changes and come out stronger. Plant Identification courses traditionally relied on traditional lectures and on-campus plant walks. With the shift to remote instruction, faculty partnered with Tri-C’s Center for Learning Excellence to redesign courses and develop a series of video plant walks shot in various regional locations, which allowed the students to gain a better understanding of plant characteristics while also building strong working relationships with faculty. The videos led to a deeper exploration of partnerships in the community, particularly with local company, Davey Tree. Faculty now have access to professionally produced interactive training modules created by Davey, which are used to enhance plant science courses and provide practical, hands-on experience for the students in a virtual environment. Faculty now integrate interviews, guest lectures, and tours from other industry members into the class to provide students with diverse learning experiences. The plant identification courses have drastically improved as a result of these partnerships and are being offered exclusively in an asynchronous online modality. This allows a level of flexibility that attracts a new demographic of students who are working in the green industry, while also making content more accessible to students with disabilities. Students report deeper engagement and improved readiness for upper-level courses. Faculty have been able to utilize multiple channels to differentiate instruction and have revamped assessment methods to be more authentic and provide more timely, targeted feedback to students.

Designing a course to address open pedagogy and learner equity at its core can yield higher student success rates, engagement, and preparedness. In this panel presentation, participants will have the opportunity to hear from multiple faculty members who have engaged with The University of Akron's Affordable Learning Initiative (ALI). Since its inception, the ALI has saved students over one million dollars in course material costs and incorporated strategies to increase student agency and efficacy. We will discuss how these projects were created, where to find resources, and share ideas for how to get started with your own project or initiative.

We successfully made it through the Pandemic! Or did we? Was it just luck? We are now setting in to a new normal of higher education. As we adjust to the changes in how we teach, are you feeling full of doubt and inadequate? Do you question your expertise and feel you don’t belong? This mindset can lead to self-doubt, stress, and be critical to our professional performance. Participants will explore impostor phenomenon and discuss strategies to flip the script on this phenomenon and ways to overcome and regain confidence in their roles as educators and instructional designers.

MimicSocial is a simulation tool that allows students to produce social media posts on various platforms and assess the effectiveness of those posts on a week-by-week basis. This technology is used in courses for both undergraduate and graduate social media certificates as a way to incorporate experiential learning into the coursework. In this presentation, I will be able to demonstrate the simulation, discuss the pros and cons of using MimicSocial, and help others explore ways they might be able to incorporate this technology into their classrooms at both the undergraduate and graduate level.

Grading student work is never easy. It can be stressful judging student work and determining what level it represents. Rubrics, standards, and criteria are advances from the last thirty years that have helped objectify the process and make the expectations more transparent to the students. However, those advancements have also created a “gaming” system of assessment where points are valued over learning and savvy students can create a game of doing the least amount of work for the optimal number of points. Books such as Grading for Equity (Feldman, 2019) have begun a discussion about further issues and advancements in assessment that can help to make the process of assessment one that is a better reflection of what the student knows. Current equitable grading practice discussions suggest strategies that instructors can use to help better summarize how well a student has learned and to better engage students in the learning process. Strategies include: eliminate points for participation, use other measures of central tendency instead of a sum, enter the lowest D- or highest F instead of any score that is below, grade on a 4-point scale instead of a 100-point scale, provide written feedback instead of or before sharing a letter or number score, and require a mastery level of learning on each assignment.

Gamification elements such as levels, badges, leader boards, and avatars increase student achievement through persistence, repetition, collaboration and fun and friendly competition with peers (Zainuddin et al., 2020). Virtual reality (VR) of video games stimulate the brain’s visual center and enhance student memory retention (Yun et al., 2014). Metaverse is an interactive decentralized virtual world of connected people with the potential to be an even more inspiring, engaging, and collaborative environment for learning. Instructors can recharge any course with gamification elements, but games are more than just a pedagogical strategy to recharge students. Video games are also relevant in a variety of careers. Our panel will include easy game elements for beginners along with insight for the future. A member of the University of Akron’s Online Learning Services team will share simple games that are ready to be used in any course. The panel will also include a faculty member from Computer Science who teaches interactive game and game engine design to describe literature trends actively explored by researchers around the world and the techniques, benefits, and limitations of utilizing metaverse’s virtual environment in classroom and online teaching. The third panel member is a representative of the UAkron Esports department to discuss scholarships and opportunities in higher education along with some unexpected game-related career pathways in communications, health and wellness, and other fields that build esports arenas, broadcast games, design materials, and assist with training and nutrition. To compliment the game-changing conversation, there will also be a game for attendees!

Visual critical-thinking maps (VizcritMaps) can be used in the classroom to engage students to think logically and connectively about learning content. This interactive presentation and workshop will engage participants in the learning process of collaborative mapping to answer a complex question together. The VizcritMaps allow students and teachers to logically categorize new concepts and ideas in a connected visual format so they can share how they think with others.

Senior-level nursing students do not understand the importance or value of lifelong learning and professional engagement for sustainability and success within the nursing profession. The profession is currently facing challenges related to ensuring adequate numbers of nurses can fill vacancies within the profession. Trends demonstrate that significant numbers of nurses leave the profession entirely within the first five years. It is imperative that nurse educators empower students to understand how critical these topics are to career success and patient safety.

The module was created to encompass evidence-based literature and multimedia to emphasize the importance of integration. Module content provided an avenue for students to discuss their “5-year” plan so they felt empowered and knowledgeable about career advancement opportunities prior to graduation. In addition to discussing their “5-year career plan”, students created a marketing flyer for a professional organization they researched and found interesting. The flyer included the mission and vision of the organization, along with a meeting topic that the organization may sponsor or conduct. The rationale behind this assignment was to provide an avenue for learning that extended beyond the typical assignment format typically used. Knowledge was measured through student reflection and professor feedback. Student Opinions were measured through a survey, which yielded positive results about the value of this learning activity.

In this session, Ashland University senior instructional Designer Chuck Piscitello will present the use of InSpace, a dynamic virtual classroom presentation software.

If you can edit a Word document, you can now edit video files. And with a click of a button, you can take advantage of futuristic functions to level up your video content creation.

After seeing the demand for video content increase, especially in the past two years, Ashland University wanted to lessen the burden on instructional designers to edit instructional videos. Thinking outside the box, the instructional design team discovered, tested, and implemented a piece of cloud technology that significantly simplified the workflow, saved time in post-processing, and helped create more polished videos for faculty and students.

It's a video editor, audio editor, and screen recorder all in one. But, the magic lies in some futuristic features that can elevate your content creation to another level. Automatically remove filler words, so those "ums" and "uhs" disappear in a click. Automatically have the transcript for your video. Automatically add subtitles. Convert audio-only content to visual audiograms that show animated soundwaves and transcriptions of what is being said.

Do you personally narrate your content? Backed by AI that learns your voice, you can edit what you say AFTER recording your content. Yes, this program can talk for you!

This new educational technology exploration can help staff, faculty, and our students. And this will allow you or someone on your team to recharge. On behalf of Ashland University's LearnAU team, I would appreciate the time to reconnect with you so you can steal my idea.

One of the most difficult challenges facing English Language Arts instructors is introducing students to new genres and writing tasks. This process is oftentimes messy and requires negotiation between student and instructor. It is imperative that instructors take a variety of considerations into account prior to engaging with this process. In order to analyze possible considerations, a case study was conducted in which I observed an educator attempting to introduce a new genre and writing task simultaneously. Through the observation and subsequent interview with the instructor, several categories of considerations were created which instructors should take into account in their decision making process. These categories include socioemotional needs, contextual needs, and transferable needs. By considering socioemotional needs, the instructor can choose a genre or writing task which avoids or confronts issues which directly impact students on a personal level. Contextual needs refers to applicability of the genre to the writing task and prior knowledge of students. Transferable needs references how students will be able to negotiate the knowledge gained from this genre or task to their future education, careers, and citizenship. Once these categories were cemented, I applied the consideration and negotiation process to my own classroom and documented my experiences through an academic paper and website format. The goal of these works is to provide instructors with the tools and resources to apply these considerations. By engaging with this process, instructors will be able to confidently select genres and tasks which are both relevant and beneficial to their students.