Miami University, Ohio
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Leading by Example: Instructional shadowing as a professional development tool
No full textAs instructors, we each have a style and specific strategies for engaging students and communicating information effectively.
Continued engagement, development, and improvement as instructors can be difficult when we have tried and true methods that seem successful. We have formal methods of evaluation in place, but where can we seek new ideas and continue to develop as instructors? Our colleagues serve as some of our best resources. We opted to create an informal peer shadowing program that allows instructors the opportunity to observe and learn from colleagues in practical settings.
This shadowing program is intended to function as a professional development option, useful for both new and experienced instructors. It is not evaluative but aspires to spark creativity and partnerships.
This poster details the process for starting your own instructional shadowing program, including steps, assessment measures, considerations, and lessons learned
Public transit systems and community planning: Reconnecting the city
No full textHow do you get from point A to point B within
a city? The most obvious answer would seem
to be to get in your car and simply drive there.
This works for many commuters and seems to
do well enough. But what if you don’t have a
car or traffic is a burden to navigate? You
could go by walking, biking, bus or rail,
depending on distance to the destination.
However, these options rely on major urban
planning in order for the systems to be an
attractive option. Why does it matter that we
rely on systems beyond cars? This essay will
delve into the benefits of a well-integrated city
transit plan as well as propose a new plan for a
typical sprawled Midwest American city - in this
case, Cincinnati, OH. Problems arise from the
disconnection of communities and overreliance
on cars. Neighborhoods become
isolated and priorities are set for cars rather
than people. This study looks to overcome
these issues by researching the successes and
failures of different city transit means as well
as the community and city plan integration into
the systems. Studies include American
systems, such as the Chicago transit systems,
as well as more creative answers, like the
Medellin gondola system, the Metrocable.
From these case studies and urban planning
research, I will synthesize a community
planning method that could be applied to
update an existing one. I will then design
specific community and transit plans for a
portion of Cincinnati to show how the plan
would work in action. With a revitalized transit
and community plan ideology, Cincinnati could
flourish equally for all its citizens, and this
study could help get it there
Racial/Ethnic and Gender Equity Patterns in Illinois High School Career and Technical Education Coursework
Get PDFThis study analyzed high school Career and Technical Education (CTE) enrollments in Illinois, with comparisons to national data when possible, by career cluster and pathway and with respect to gender and racial/ethnic makeup of students. Enrollment patterns in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) CTE programming were emphasized. Gender and ethnicity- based inequities were found in certain areas and more equitable patterns were apparent in others. Of concern, student enrollment in courses fitting within STEM pathways included substantially greater male than female participation (64.1% male vs. 35.9% female), whereas other pathways showed the reverse enrollment pattern (45.0% male and 55.0% female). With respect to ethnicity, all subgroups except White students were underrepresented in CTE programming in general. The underrepresentation was exacerbated for all but Asian students when concerning STEM CTE programming. Considering implications, we recommend heightened focus, support, and goal setting concerning equity of CTE programming
Undergraduate Publishing: The Miami Computing and Engineering Review
No full textA presentation on lessons learned from piloting an undergraduate research journal at Miami University
What Do Students Want? Small Group Instructional Diagnoses of STEM Faculty
Get PDFSmall Group Instructional Diagnoses (SGIDs) are informal, mid-semester evaluations of courses, which the
instructors request voluntarily. The facilitator of the SGID comes into a class, the instructor leaves, and the facilitator spends about 30 minutes with the students. The first part of the SGID is done in small groups of students. The facilitator asks students to consider two questions, "What are the strengths of this course?" and "What suggestions do you have to improve the course?" After students work in groups for 10 minutes to compose lists of strengths and suggestions, the facilitator calls the class back together as a whole, records the most important strengths and suggestions, and has the class vote on them. These results are then shared privately with the instructor of the course. We collected and analyzed student comments from 45 courses taught by 27 STEM instructors. We found that students value clear lecture and hands-on learning, fair and frequent feedback, flexible and caring instructors, organized classes and resources, and clear alignment between instruction and evaluation. Looking in more detail, we found that students perceived small classes to be more organized than large ones. Students in introductory classes provided the least amount of feedback. Students in introductory classes placed the most value on instructor characteristics such as support and caring about their success, while graduate students placed the least value on instructor characteristics. Finally, female STEM instructors received a disproportionately high number of comments
Returning children to the core of the town: challenging conventional daycare design
No full textThe migration of families and businesses out of the urban core has been as detrimental to American small towns as American cities. Architectural solutions to blighted small towns focus on economic revival, street design, residential development, but rarely connect children with the town core. This link is crucial. For towns to prosper rather than die from neglect, the next generation needs to personally connect with their town and absorb the world outside home and school through real life experience. How can architects revitalize the core of a small town so that it connects harmoniously with children?
This investigation explores how children benefit from a healthy town core, and how children, in turn, improve the social and economic life of a town core. These relationships disappear in a town core that is deprived of population and businesses, such as Middletown, Ohio, the primary case study in this research. The work of urbanists, as well as personal experience shows that the town core is safer at a greater density, and designed to balance cars and pedestrians. Designing for children is critical to achieving density, high pedestrian traffic, and livable neighborhoods. Therefore, children are vital to the revival of a town core, for a town core without children is simply incomplete and ultimately unsustainable
Stop sit look listen relax engage interact
Get PDFFaster phones, expanded use of personal computers, widespread access to digital bandwidth, and applications for the internet across multiple devices allows nearly instantaneous access to information and provides a means to stay in constant touch with remote friends and family. On the one hand, technology appears to benefit us socially and culturally by reducing perceived distances between individuals and groups – even between continents. On the other hand, such emersion in technology serves to isolate us from our immediate context by focusing our attention inward, toward ourselves and our devices, distracting us from being truly aware of our surroundings. It is what German philosopher Martin Heidegger would call living an “inauthentic existence
How far to the road not taken? The effect of psychological distance on counterfactual direction.
Get PDFUpward and downward counterfactuals serve the distinct motivational functions of selfimprovement
and self-enhancement, respectively. Drawing on construal level theory, which
contends that increasing psychological distance from an event leads people to focus on highlevel,
self-improvement versus low-level, self-enhancement goals, we propose that distance will
alter counterfactual direction in a way that satisfies these distinct motives. We found that people
generated more downward counterfactuals about recent versus distant past events, while they
tended to generate more upward counterfactuals about distant versus recent past events
(Experiment 1). Consistent results were obtained for social distance (Experiment 2). Experiment
3 demonstrated that distance affects the direction of open-ended counterfactual thoughts. Finally,
Experiment 4 explored a potential mechanism, demonstrating that manipulating temporal
distance produced changes in participants’ self-improvement versus self-enhancement
motivations when responding to negative events. Future directions and broader implications for
self-control, social support, empathy, and learning are discussed
