2008-2009 OLN Learning Communities

1. 2008-2009OLN Learning Communities

2. NORTHEAST REGIONAL CENTER “Integration of Calibrated Peer Review into the Ursuline Studies Core and Biology Satellite Courses” Lita Yu, Ursuline College In upgrading student assessment processes, Ursuline College has adopted the Collegiate Learning Assessment program for freshmen and seniors. Preliminary results indicate the need for increased attention to writing and critical thinking in our core curriculum, the Ursuline Studies Program (USP), and its satellite courses To address these issues, we will integrate Calibrated Peer Review (CPR), a collaborative, internet-based writing program, into USP and biology satellites. Effectiveness will be evaluated through CPR-designed assessment tools, a comparison with control sections not using CPR, and a variety of student responses. The information will be disseminated to the community through workshops and, potentially, publications.

3. “Assessing the Effective Use of Technology in a Liberal Arts Curriculum” Simon Gray, The College of Wooster While The College of Wooster has long invested in and enjoyed the benefits of information technology, it has been slow to adapt to the creative use of technology in the classroom. This proposal focuses on the use of the Sympodium™ interactive pen display and SMART Notebook™ in two Astronomy courses. We see these courses as a vehicle for exploring various teaching and learning methods and strategies not fully realized in “techless” environments. The learning community will also consider the issues raised by these courses from the broader perspective of technology and the institution’s mission.

4. “Learning Objects Across the Curriculum” John DiGennaro, Baldwin-Wallace College Baldwin-Wallace College will create a Faculty Learning Community that will explore, design, create, evaluate, share and catalog Learning Objects to increase student learning and engagement. Faculty will engage in the process of exploration through cataloging of learning objects across common courses, departments and divisions for the systematic use of student created learning. Sharing of common course objects, and the use of the creation of learning objects by students as a learning tool will be explored. Partnerships in this FLC will include Faculty, Information Technology, Library Services and the Center for Transformation Learning.

5. “Hybrid Course Learning Community” Kathleen, Buttermore, Walsh University Walsh University will create a learning community in which members (6 core participants and 12 faculty associates) will study and then create hybrid courses (combining technology, online learning, and face-to-face interaction) that will be then implemented at the University in subsequent academic years. This year-long process will be multi-disciplinary and include best practice as it relates to the teaching learning process.

6. “Excellence in Action: A Collaborative Effort to Improve Student Learning Through Advising” Charity Snyder, Kent State University The Kent Academic Support and Advising Association (KASADA) plans to collaborate through a learning community involving several of the collegial units at Kent State University, to assess the learning outcomes in the Master Advising Plan during the common “FlashPoint “ course that all first year students take at Kent State University. The Learning Community, made up of collegial units, Residence Services, First-Year Experience, Career Services, and the KASADA Executive Board and KASADA Advisory Council, will be challenged to utilize technology, such as the Web-Scheduler, Blogs, Podcasts, and other forms of multi-media to communicate information to students and follow through with an assessment of the student learning outcomes across the University.

7. CENTRAL REGIONAL CENTER“REFLECT: Using Blogs and Wikis to Improve Reflection and Critical Thinking across the Disciplines” Marsha Huber and Shirine Mafi, Otterbein CollegeThis Professional Learning Community (PLC) will focus on helping students develop reflection and critical thinking in their disciplines. Professors from six disciplines will adopt blogs and wikis (BWs) in their classes to facilitate student learning. The purpose of this grant, named REFLECT, will focus on two issues: (1) adopting Dee Fink’s Integrated Course Design (ICD) to explore technology adoption and (2) assessing how and if BWs promote learning. Participants will share their experiences with both their cohorts and the larger academic community.

8. “Multimedia Instruction and Performance Assessment Practices for Teachers” Clare Kilbane and Karen Robinson, Otterbein CollegeTeacher educators in the Early Childhood Licensure program at Otterbein College will participate in this PLC to explore, test, evaluate, and improve classroom learning and assessment practices using multimedia (iPod and digital video technologies) and a web-based e-portfolio system. The PLC participants will: 1) expand their skills in using multimedia, 2) deepen their understanding of performance assessment, 3) enhance their ability to document and assess learning through multimedia, 4) strengthen the implementation of a department-wide digital portfolio assessment program, 5) develop strategies for the integration of multimedia performance assessment practices programwide, and 6) build collegiality and program coherence.

9. “Bridging the Gap – Supporting the Transition from Pre-Nursing to Nursing” Cheryl Mace, Mount Carmel College of Nursing, Partner: Ohio Dominican UniversityIn 2007 Ohio Dominican University (ODU) and Mt Carmel College of Nursing (MCCN) began a unique relationship for students interested in a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN). The students take their general education courses at ODU and their nursing courses at MCCN. A community from ODU and MCCN is investigating how to make this program more successful by engaging in conversations about academic support. This grant will allow ODU and MCCN faculty from both schools to collaborate on connections in assessments, outcomes, assessment practices, and rubrics for assignments to help integrate the transition from pre-nursing to nursing. This community is new and will include constituents from both institutions. The goal of the community will be to establish a community, select a common assessment criterion, and then explore and select technology to aid in the assessment across institutions. The core community feels it is essential to the continued success of the community, beyond the grant, for faculty to select the technology to explore and implement.

10. SOUTHEAST REGIONAL CENTER “Beyond the Brain” Kim Goudy, Central Ohio Technical College-Ohio State University, Newark Our project aims to devise a collaborative instructional experience to enhance the learning of students from both Central Ohio Technical College (COTC) and The Ohio State University-Newark (OSU-N). As they learn about neuroanatomy, Behavioral Neuroscience students from OSU-N will have the opportunity to view/examine brain specimens. Human Anatomy and Physiology students from COTC will have the opportunity to learn how structural abnormalities can be linked to certain psychological and neurodevelopmental disorders. Students will develop their e-learning abilities of students through the use of on-line discussion boards and podcasts.

11. “Developing an Assessment Tool to Measure Interdisciplinary Clinical Behaviors” Becky A. Thiel, Shawnee State University, Partner: Southern Ohio Medical Center The purpose of the Professional Learning Community (PLC) is to design an assessment tool that can evaluate the clinical behaviors and critical thinking skills of an interdisciplinary health care team within the safe environment of a simulated hospital maternity unit. A partnership between expert nursing faculty, hospital clinicians, and a physician of obstetrics and gynecology will develop a simulated high risk mother/baby case scenario. The partners will evaluate clinical behaviors of nursing students, licensed RNs, and medical students during the simulation scenario using the newly designed assessment tool.

12. “Ohio University Chillicothe Technology-Rich Creative Writing Learning Community” Jan Schmittauer, Ohio University – Chillicothe This learning community will be engaged in exploring, evaluating, and applying web-based collaborative writing tools, reading widely regarding effective writing assessment, and exploring Open Course Ware and pertinent web sites in an effort to enhance peer response and foster a strong sense of community and engagement in online creative writing classes for middle-childhood education majors. The intent of the community is to carry this learning forward and apply our knowledge to all writing classes at Ohio University Chillicothe and, through workshops and in-service days, with middle-school and high school teachers throughout Ross County.

13. Southwest Regional Center “From Classroom to Community: Increasing Faculty Effectiveness in Student Learning Communities at an Access Institution” Amy Hobbs, Central State University Students often arrive at access institutions with limited academic preparation and little exposure to an academic community. This PLC (professional learning community) will investigate ways to develop community at an access institution to increase retention of first-year students. The PLC will develop curriculum and co-curricular activities to support Central State University’s new student learning communities program. Faculty members in the new program have three goals for their paired courses: reflective learning, active engagement with source material, and intentional community building. To achieve these goals, this PLC will investigate best practices for community development, student leadership, and the use of technology in curriculum design.

14. “Supporting Online Teaching and Learning through Continuous Quality Improvement” Andrea Han, Miami University This fall Miami University will begin to offer online nursing courses. These courses will be taught by content experts with limited or no experience teaching online. This learning community will address faculty concerns about online teaching and learning (by providing the support needed to ensure improved student learning) while integrating timely and continued course improvement. Consequently, the goals of this learning community are: create a supportive community of peers, develop assessment rubrics for online nursing activities, assess effectiveness of online courses/identify areas needing improvement, make immediate changes to courses to maintain student learning and to create a network of mentors.

15. “Rethinking Teaching: Designing Blended Courses” Mary Romanello, College of Mount St. Joseph The College of Mount St Joseph proposes a Learning Community for designing blended courses including a faculty development course for teaching in a blended format. In the Fall Term (S109), the Learning Community will explore online components of the College’s course management system, followed by a blended train-the-trainer workshop. Subsequently, each participant will design a blended course that integrates best practices in face-to-face classroom delivery with best practices in online delivery. Additionally, LC members will explore how to prepare students for participating in blended courses. Program effectiveness will be assessed using multiple formats.

16. “A Multifaceted Pedagogical and Technological Approach to Online Learning” Suguna Chundur, University of Cincinnati The main goal of this Learning Community is to retool and restructure the online delivery of the course titled Introduction to Information Processing, to maximize student learning through the use of technology and innovative assessment techniques. This is a critical introductory computer course taken by most students entering our college. The uniqueness of this course is that it involves learning a combination of basic hardware, software and applications of computer technology. The online sections of this course have been attracting increasing number of students over the past year. The community would look at current data on online students of this course, assess student learning and performance, and develop innovative methods of delivery and assessment of student learning based on principles of good practice for distance learning.

17. “Breaking Down Boundaries: Using Moodle to Build & Nurture a Community of Practice” Jennifer McVay-Dyche, United Theological Seminary With 95% of our student population consisting of mid-life career-change professionals, building a sense of community during the ministerial formation process is a significant challenge. The purpose of the online Community of Practice (CoP) is to increase student connectedness and learning in our face-to-face and online courses. A consortium of key Faculty, Staff and Student members will be trained and responsible for nurturing the CoP. Measurements reflecting levels of participation, engagement, community formation, and knowledge growth will be collected for intra-project feedback loops. These data will also be used for end-project analytics and planning for future CoP environments.

18. “Preparing Urbana University’s Faculty to Facilitate Distance Learning” William Blizzard Jr., Urbana University Urbana University’s entire learning community is dedicated to developing distance-learning programs. While our initial endeavor will be outsourced through Connected Learning Network, and will develop core curriculum courses within our four colleges, the future growth of new academic programs and graduate degrees will eventually require Urbana University to develop an in-house program.

19. NORTHWEST REGIONAL CENTER “Your Professional Second Life: Mercy in a Virtual World” Holly Baumgartner & Garrick Ducat, Mercy College of Northwest OhioMercy College, a leading educator of health professionals in Northwest Ohio, will pilot an interdisciplinary course involving the critical exploration of Second Life and its connection to society and healthcare. The course sequence is original in its outcomes model and its collaboration with hospitals to create Second Life critical settings. Student achievement will be tracked utilizing our outcomes model of retention, immersion, motivation, and engagement (RIME), with results assisting in the development of future course offerings. Goals of this course sequence are to supplement and extend student learning and technology-based assessment strategies resulting in better-prepared health care practitioners.

20. “Service-Learning Assessment” Jane Rosser, Bowling Green State UniversityThe goals of this learning community are: 1) Development of a plan for assessing student learning in service-learning (SL) experiences that reflects best practice in SL course design and delivery and is integrated within the broader framework of learning outcomes assessment at BGSU, 2) Development of criteria, rubrics, and other tools for assessment of student learning in SL classes related to university learning outcomes, 3) Identification of models for use of e-portfolios and other media, as tools to demonstrate student learning outcomes in SL classes, and 4) Development of professional development plan that supports implementation of the SL assessment tools.

21. “Leadership Studies Faculty Electronic Portfolio” Deborah Schwartz & Stephen Ball, Lourdes CollegeThe learning community’s project is to integrate an e-portfolio system into the Master of Organizational Leadership (MOL) program to improve student learning and assessment. The goals of the project are: 1) to prepare department faculty for effectively using an e-portfolio system as a teaching/learning and assessment tool; 2) to provide professional development and peer collaboration opportunities related to pedagogy and using e-portfolios for managing program assessment; 3) to develop a corps of campus e-portfolio experts who can mentor faculty from other departments; and 4) to create a web-based library of resources for faculty and students on using e-portfolios.

22. “Enhancing Financial Literacy: Developing a Cooperative Online Learning Resource for Teachers” Dan Yates, University of FindlayThe Amended Substitute Senate Bill 311, as codified in Ohio Revised Code 3313.603(C)(6), requires the integration of economics/financial literacy within social studies classes or another class prior to high school graduation. This will be in effect for the current 6th grade students. A professional learning community comprised of business representatives, students, university faculty, and in-service teachers will develop an online repository/website to serve as a resource for Ohio teachers and college educators. By developing this learning community through OLN, our purpose is to document these resources and develop professional relationships through regular dialogue, special events and technological resources.

23. “Using Webcams to Bring Advisors and Students Together” Gary Carr, University of ToledoThe purpose of this learning community project is to improve retention rates of those students who complete degrees at the University of Toledo (UT) through distance learning. These students completed their first two years of their degree at either Columbus State Community College (CSCC) or Northwest State Community College (NSCC). This project will pilot the use of webcams as a means for students and both academic and peer advisors to meet via video face to face. The goal of this project is to improve student retention by 50% and to provide improved student-centered services via webcam interactions.