UMBC Faculty Development Center (FDC)

Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/11603/10893

The goals of the work of the FDC align with those of the UMBC Strategic Plan to:

Provide exemplary support for educators in creating state-of-the-art undergraduate and graduate curricula delivered through innovative and effective approaches to teaching and learning.
Continue to build a culture of academic assessment to support our faculty as the primary drivers of continuous improvement in student learning outcomes.

We support faculty and instructors in their teaching role at the University by providing a comprehensive program of services and resources, including:

Individual consultations and classroom observations
Help in gathering student feedback through the CATALyst process
Workshops and book discussions on teaching and learning topics
Support for pedagogical innovation and research
Learning assessment services
Consultations in writing and communication in the disciplines
Management of the Hrabowski Innovation Fund grant program
Support for faculty learning communities (FLCs)

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Now showing 1 - 20 of 35

Curriculum Mapping with Jennifer M. Harrison and Vickie Rey Williams
(Intentional Teaching Podcast, 2024-05-21) Bruff, Derek; Harrison, Jennifer M.; Williams, Vickie
Jennifer M. Harrison and Vickey Rey Williams are the authors of the book A Guide to Curriculum Mapping: Creating a Collaborative, Transformative, and Learner-Centered Curriculum, published by Routledge in late 2023. Jennifer is the associate director for assessment at the Faculty Development Center at the University of Maryland Baltimore County (or UMBC), and Vickie is a senior lecturer in education at UMBC.
The Use of Guided Reflections in Learning Proof Writing
(MDPI, 2024-10-04) Hoffman, Kathleen; Williams, Tory; Kephart, Kerrie
We investigated written self-reflections in an undergraduate proof-writing course designed to mitigate the difficulty of a subsequent introductory analysis course. Students wrote weekly self-reflections guided by mechanical, structural, creative, and critical thinking modalities. Our research was guided by three research questions focused on the impact of student self-reflections on student metacognition and performance in the interventional and follow-up class. To address these questions, we categorized the quality of the students’ reflections and calculated their average course grades within each category in the proof-writing, the prerequisite, and the introductory analysis courses. The results demonstrated that writing high-quality self-reflections was a statistically significant predictor of earning higher average course grades in the proof-writing course and the analysis course, but not in the prerequisite course. Convergence over the semester of the students’ self-evaluations toward an experts’ scorings on a modality rubric indicates that students improve in their understanding of the modalities. The repeated writing of guided self-reflections using the framework of the modalities seems to support growth in the students’ awareness of their proof-writing abilities.
Disciplinary Differences in STEM Faculty and Student Use of Learning Objectives: Implications for Teaching and Learning
(Taylor & Francis, 2024-07-22) Leupen, Sarah; Williams, Tory; Hodges, Linda C.; Ott, Laura E.; Anderson, Eric C.; Cui, Lili; Nanes, Kalman M.; Perks, H. Mark; Wagner, Cynthia R.
Using learning objectives to guide course design is often considered an educational best practice, but little research exists that explores how students use them over time and across courses. We surveyed students on their use and perceived value of learning objectives as the semester progressed across four science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines, examined students’ ability to match exam questions with learning objectives, and analyzed how their course performance related to these qualities. We also gathered instructors’ information on their implementation of learning objectives in these courses. We identified distinct disciplinary differences both in students’ use and perceived benefit of learning objectives and in instructors’ implementation of them. Students in less quantitatively focused courses, i.e., biology and organic chemistry, reported valuing and using learning objectives more than students in more quantitatively focused math and physics courses. Students’ ability to match learning objectives with exam questions, however, positively correlated with exam score and final course grade in all our study courses. Our results have implications for considering disciplinary practices for use of learning objectives as instructors design and implement courses, educational researchers plan studies, and assessment specialists formulate institutional assessment plans.
Synaptic silencing of fast muscle is compensated by rewired innervation of slow muscle
(AAAS, 2020-04-08) Zempo, Buntaro; Yamamoto, Yasuhiro; Williams, Tory; Ono, Fumihito
For decades, numerous studies have proposed that fast muscles contribute to quick movement, while slow muscles underlie locomotion requiring endurance. By generating mutant zebrafish whose fast muscles are synaptically silenced, we examined the contribution of fast muscles in both larval and adult zebrafish. In the larval stage, mutants lacked the characteristic startle response to tactile stimuli: bending of the trunk (C-bend) followed by robust forward propulsion. Unexpectedly, adult mutants with silenced fast muscles showed robust C-bends and forward propulsion upon stimulation. Retrograde labeling revealed that motor neurons genetically programmed to form synapses on fast muscles are instead rerouted and innervate slow muscles, which led to partial conversion of slow and intermediate muscles to fast muscles. Thus, extended silencing of fast muscle synapses changed motor neuron innervation and caused muscle cell type conversion, revealing an unexpected mechanism of locomotory adaptation.
Responsible Computing: A Longitudinal Study of a Peer-led Ethics Learning Framework
(ACM, 2022-09-15) McDonald, Nora; Akinsiku, Adegboyega; Hunter-Cevera, Jonathan; Sanchez, Maria; Kephart, Kerrie; Berczynski, Mark; Mentis, Helena
We studied the impact of introducing first-year computer science (CS) students to ethical thinking about the social justice impacts of data collection, tracking, bias, internet privacy, and competitive “real world” system design and critique activities. While basic content was consistent for all, one group was involved throughout the course in peer discussions designed to foster greater engagement, with the anticipation that this would enable students to reach new levels of sensitivity through peer-to-peer interaction. This article reports on our observation of this design, interview, and project data collected throughout the course as well interviews conducted eight months later to learn about how students were retaining and applying what they learned. We found that students are sensitive to the technology-related risks and vulnerabilities encountered by individuals based on race, gender, and, to some extent, age, but they struggle to assess who is responsible for these risks, what to do about bias in technology design, and how to mitigate harms for individuals whom they perceive to be vulnerable, furthering the argument for an integrated ethics curriculum. We explore the value of formal peer-led discussion to evolve social justice thinking with a focus on identity, though note that opportunities for any group discussion are meaningful to students’ thinking about social justice. Over the longer term, students tend to recall and apply ethics that is closely related to their identity, suggesting that empathy has limits.
Student Responses to Spaced Practice in Two Large Gateway Chemistry Courses
(ACS, 2024-01-11) Carpenter, Tara; Hodges, Linda C.
Spaced practice is a recognized effective study approach that fosters mastery of learning and retention of information. In this paper, we share one instructor’s experience in introducing a spaced practice intervention in a large general chemistry course and in encouraging students to continue the strategy in the next semester organic chemistry course. The curricular implementation spanned two years during the COVID pandemic and encompassed the instructors’ ongoing responsive efforts to enhance students’ success. Student perspectives of the perceived value and their use of spaced practice varied with the instructor’s conditions of the implementation. Offering spaced practice midway in a semester as an optional approach to homework garnered a positive student response and outcomes. However, moving to a required format for spaced practice in a subsequent semester resulted in much more mixed student feedback and outcomes. The instructor also encouraged and guided students in utilizing the strategy in the following organic chemistry course, and although over 70% of students planned to use it, only about a third actually persisted in the practice. When offering students effective study approaches through course design, instructors also have the challenge and opportunity to cultivate students’ intrinsic motivation and self-regulation, skills that enhance their success more broadly. Instructors need to consider investing time in promoting and demonstrating the impact of the method on students’ learning, nudging and encouraging students to persevere, and demonstrating metacognitive approaches to learning throughout the course to help students realize its rewards.
Issues of Question Equivalence in Online Exam Pools
(National Science Teacher's Association (NSTA), 2023-04) Goolsby-Cole, Cody; Bass, Sarah M.; Stanwyck, Liz; Leupen, Sarah; Carpenter, Tara; Hodges, Linda C.
During the pandemic, the use of question pools for online testing was recommended to mitigate cheating, exposing multitudes of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) students across the globe to this practice. Yet instructors may be unfamiliar with the ways that seemingly small changes between questions in a pool can expose differences in student understanding. In this study, we undertook an investigation of student performance on our questions in online exam pools across several STEM courses: upper-level physiology, general chemistry, and introductory physics. We found that the difficulty of creating analogous questions in a pool varied by question type, with quantitative problems being the easiest to vary without altering average student performance. However, when instructors created pools by rearranging aspects of a question, posing opposite counterparts of concepts, or formulating questions to assess the same learning objective, we sometimes discovered student learning differences between seemingly closely related ideas, illustrating the challenge of our own expert blind spot. We provide suggestions for how instructors can improve the equity of question pools, such as being cautious in how many variables one changes in a specific pool and “test driving” proposed questions in lower-stakes assessments.
Building Community: From Faculty Development to Pedagogical Innovation and Beyond
(Springer, 2022-12-01) Hodges, Linda C.; McDermott, Patrice
This chapter offers a compelling case study of one center’s approach to building community around teaching and learning. The 20-year history of the Faculty Development Center at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, draws on theories of organizational development to document the importance of matching faculty development approaches to an evolving institutional culture and vision. The authors recount stories of connecting with faculty through the professional practice of creating courses and curricula and, later, through the scholarly work involved in pedagogical innovation. By forming interrelationships with integral institutional units and responding to institutional needs and priorities, the Faculty Development Center works within the community to act as a generative force in advancing the university’s vision of inclusive excellence in undergraduate education.
The Social Science of Board Games w/ Dr. Kerri Evans
(UMBC Center for Social Science Research, 2022-06-13) Anson, Ian; Evans, Kerri; Lee, Jiyoon; Allen, Keisha; Chen, Eric; Gawens, Sarah; Li, Xiaoming; Javed, Shahana Abdul; Pereira, Ashley; Alonso, Diane; O’Brien, Eileen; Brodsky, Anne
The Challenge of Choices When Teaching During COVID-19
(The Scholarly Teacher, 2020-07-23) Hodges, Linda C.
Mapping the Curriculum: A Low-tech Model for Synthesizing Assessments and Improving Learning at Multiple Levels
(Association for the Assessment of Learning in Higher Education (AALHE), 2017-06) Harrison, Jennifer M.; Williams, Vickie
Identifying Effective Assessment Technologies
(EDUCAUSE, 2018-01-29) Braxton, Sherri; Harrison, Jennifer M.
Defining and Dashboarding Student Success: Jump-Starting Data-Driven Decision-Making
(EDUCAUSE, 2018-11-02) Braxton, Sherri; Harrison, Jennifer M.
Supporting Academic Continuity by Building Community: The Work of a Faculty Development Center During COVID-19
(Journal on Centers for Teaching and Learning, 2021-02-22) Hodges, Linda C.; Harrison, Jennifer M.; Kephart, Kerrie; Swatski, Sarah; Williams, Tory
In the initial rush to remote instruction during COVID-19, educators focused on technologies to ensure academic continuity and relied on instructional technology teams to teach them how to use them. Soon after, instructors turned to educational development professionals for more comprehensive help to rethink face-to-face pedagogy to fit the affordances and constraints of online teaching. Historically, our Faculty Development Center (FDC) had focused primarily on pedagogical support for face-to-face classes. During the crisis, we needed both to re-envision our work to support remote instruction and distinguish our work from that of our in- structional technology colleagues. We also needed to re-evaluate our work in two other areas of our mission: pedagogical research and assessment of student learning outcomes. We recognized that a key goal of our FDC’s work provided a guiding principle in the new situation: to build faculty community around teaching and learning. Although faculty needed instruction and solutions for teaching online, they also needed a venue to think through the existential change in their teaching practice and the multiple challenges and choices they faced. In this paper, we discuss our three-pronged approach to build a vibrant, virtual faculty community: provide a sense of continuity through our offerings and services; prioritize program content to meet immediate needs; and promote complementarity between our support and that of instructional technology. Our efforts resulted in significantly expanding our reach, renewing the culture of inquiry around teaching among our faculty, and refining and reinforcing our role as complementary to, but distinct from, instructional technology.
Synthesizing Outcomes at Scale: Connecting the Dots to Inform Institution-wide Decision Making
(Association for the Assessment of Learning in Higher Education (AALHE), 2020-04-15) Harrison, Jennifer M.; Braxton, Sherri
Measuring Pedagogy and the Integration of Engineering Design in STEM Classrooms
(Springer Nature, 2018-11-03) Williams, Tory; Singer, Jonathan; Krikorian, Jacqueline; Rakes, Christopher; Ross, Julia
The present study examined changes in high school biology and technology education pedagogy during the first year of a three-year professional development (PD) program using the INSPIRES educative curriculum. The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) calls for the integration of science and engineering through inquiry-based pedagogy that shifts the burden of thinking from the teacher to the student. This call is especially challenging for teachers untrained in inquiry teaching and engineering or science concepts. The INSPIRES educative curriculum materials and PD provided a mechanism for teachers to transform their teaching to meet the NGSS challenges. This study followed a longitudinal triangulation mixed methods design. Selected lessons were video recorded, scored on the Reformed Teaching Observation Protocol (RTOP) rubric, and examined for qualitative trends. Year 1 results indicated that teachers had begun to transform their teaching and pointed to particular lessons within the INSPIRES curriculum that most facilitated the reform. Instructional practices of participants improved significantly as a result of the INSPIRES PD program and also aligned with previous, similar studies. These findings provide insights for rethinking the structure of professional development, particularly in the integrated use of an educative curriculum aligned with intended professional development goals.
A Personalized Automated Email Tool to Connect Faculty with Students in Large STEM Courses
(The Chemical Educator, 2019-12-31) Carpenter, Tara; Bass, Sarah M.; Hodges, Linda C.
Undergraduate student success in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors often hinges on the satisfactory completion of large gateway introductory courses such as general chemistry. First-year or transfer students’ achievement in such courses may be affected by their first exposure to the large class format. Specifically, a sense of belonging, a factor shown to be important for student engagement and effort in STEM classes, may be difficult to attain in large classes. We report here on the development and implementation of a personalized, automated email tool as a way for instructors to connect with students, signal their concern for students’ performance, and offer them support. Instructors across the two-semester sequence in a large university general chemistry course used a spreadsheet to sort students into email categories based on their exam performance, differentiating by degree of grade improvement or decline. The corresponding messages offered advice, encouragement, or cautions and invited students to avail themselves of various resources. The emails were sent batchwise but personalized using a Google script function. In an end-of-course survey, students indicated that the emails made them feel the instructor cared, helped support and encourage them, lessened their feelings of anonymity, and helped them improve. This tool provides an easy way for instructors to create a sense of connection and caring in a large class and contribute positively to students’ motivation and achievement.
A Methodology to Analyze Self-Reflection in E-Portfolios
(IEEE) Sanchez, Maria; Kephart, Kerrie; Jones, Kiplyn; desJardins, Marie
This Research to Practice Work-In-Progress offers an approach toward assessing self-reflections in e-portfolios written by undergraduate student-Scholars in a Grand Challenge Scholars Program within the College of Engineering at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. The proposed approach applies two existing frameworks—Robert Grossman’s levels of reflection and the Reflection and Self-Assessment criterion in AAC&U’s Integrative Learning VALUE Rubric—to develop a methodology that could facilitate the assessment of self-reflections as instruments of students’ learning. Preliminary analysis of portions of the e-portfolios submitted by Scholars in the first two cohorts to complete the program shows that the Scholars did not reach high levels of self-reflection when guided only by a generic prompt that asked them what they learned about themselves and how it changed or broadened their perspectives. Our analysis of portfolios is ongoing as additional Scholars graduate from the program, and we expect to see evidence of deeper levels of self-reflection and greater transformation in these newer portfolios as a result of the changes in expectations and prompts.
Effect of Exam Wrappers on Student Achievement in Multiple, Large STEM Courses
(NSTA) Hodges, Linda C.; Beall, Lisa C.; Anderson, Eric C.; Carpenter, Tara; Cui, Lili; Feeser, Elizabeth; Gierasch, Tiffany; Nanes, Kalman M.; Perks, H. Mark; Wagner, Cynthia
Metacognition, the ability to think about and regulate one’s thinking, is an important factor in effective student learning. One intervention to promote student metacognition is the exam wrapper—a reflection students complete after an exam noting how their performance related to their preparation. Results are mixed on the effect of the exam wrapper use on student achievement in single STEM courses. In this study, we implemented exam wrappers in five large science and math courses and examined their impact on students’ course outcomes, as well as students’ self-reported behaviors on the Metacognitive Awareness Inventory (results for over 1,100 distinct individuals). Our data include a subset of students who completed exam wrappers in multiple courses simultaneously. We observed a modest but statistically significant positive relation between exam wrapper use and course grades in each course. The relation between exam wrapper use in multiple courses and cumulative grade point average was also statistically significant for male students. These results did not correlate with students’ metacognitive awareness, however. These findings have important implications for how instructors construct and implement wrappers to maximize their potential usefulness.
Engineering Teacher Pedagogy: Using INSPIRES to Support Integration of Engineering Design in Science and Technology Classrooms
(Cadre One) Singer, Jonathan; Rakes, Christopher; Ross, Julia; Williams, Tory; Krikorian, Jacqueline
This Engineering Teacher Pedagogy project implements and assesses the promise of an extended professional development model coupled with curriculum enactment to develop teacher pedagogical skills for integrating engineering design into high school biology and technology education classrooms.

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