The Center for Faculty Excellence (CFE)
Staff
Hyah Herbawi, Coordinator
Campus Location: BH 212
Cleveland, OH 44115
cfe@csuohio.edu
The Teaching Enhancement Awards were established to promote the scholarship of teaching and learning at Cleveland State University. The Center invited faculty teams to submit their proposals aimed at revitalizing a lower division course. The awardees receive a 2-part stipend for the team and participate in over a yearlong project applying their proposed solutions.
Past Awardees and Project Information
| Year of Award | Team Members | Project Title | Brief Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2022-24 | Melanie Gagich & Emilie Zickel (English) | ENG 100/101 Open Access Ancillary Materials | The course(s) to which we will apply the Teaching Enhancement Award are ENG 100/101. We will create open-access interactive content for our programmatic textbook, A Guide to Rhetoric, Genre, and Success in FYW. This is significant to our students because it will provide opportunities to practice key skills related to college writing. Success in gateway courses such as ENG 100/101 has been shown to increase graduation rates. |
| 2022-24 | Maria Gigante & James Joyce (Film & Media Arts) | Film & Media Arts 151 Learning Outcome Redistribution | FMA Production is being revamped to accommodate a new complimentary course Technical Foundations. Production I emphasizes the aesthetic applications while Technical Foundations addresses the Physical "how to" component of filmmaking. Students receive more time to learn "how to" and "who to" make specific technical and aesthetic choices, encouraging greater proficiency, satisfaction, and retention. Learning outcomes divide between the two courses; curricular assessment reflects this new approach of more time for experimentation and guidance. |
| 2021-23 | Sara Froehlich & Todd Romutis (Mathematics & Statistics) | Modernizing Homework to Deliver Actionable Feedback in Calculus I | We will pilot a new homework platform in MTH 181 called Gradarius. This platform is unique compared to others in that it gives students meaningful feedback as they work their homework problems, requires students to show their work, and awards partial credit based on that work. Detailed feedback is also provided to instructors, showing exactly which concepts are causing the most trouble for students. We will use this feedback to create frequent, low-stakes assessments which will correct students' misconceptions and solidify their knowledge prior to the large-stakes exams. |
| 2021-23 | Jodi DeMarco, Manuella Crawley & Gina Kubec (School of Health Sciences) | Implementing CSU Equity Task Force Recommendations to Improve Academic Success | We propose reviewing and implementing some recommendations of the College of Sciences and Health Professions Equity Task Force Report in order to improve academic outcomes such as students grades, and retention & graduation rates. Our goal is to develop tools and resources for all program faculty that can help support students, especially those with high risk for drop out, identify their chosen career path and succeed in pursuing it. |
| 2020-22 | Erin Avram & W. Chris Boyd (Chemistry) | Group Problem Set Implementation in College Chemistry 1 | In an effort to decrease the percentage of DFWs for CHM 251 College Chemistry I, group problem sets will be designed and implemented in each unit of the course. These student-centered activities will include case studies, guided inquiry activities based on simulations, and problem-solving practice in order to increase student engagement and improve the transparency of the relevancy of the course content to the field of nursing. |
| 2020-22 | Jessica Bickel & Jearl Walker (Physics) | Utilizing Collaborative Textbook Reading to Improve Student Learning in Introductory Physics | Implement collaborative reading of the textbook so that students come to class more prepared and thus improve student learning in introductory physics. |
| 2019-21 | Heidi Meier, Dan Kaminsky, Jan Rose (Accounting) | Partnering Accounting and Excel | We believe with our proposed changes in the ACT 222 curriculum, students will be interested and engaged so they will succeed in this and future classes. We can show them the relevance of accounting activities and assignments by incorporating Excel into the course. Giving them an option to take the Excel certification exam, we feel they will be more interested and motivated to succeed and earn a valuable credential. |
| 2019-21 | Shamone Gore Panter, Emily Rauschert, Ralph Gibson (BGES) | Testing for Long-Term Improved Learning in a Large Lecture Course | To promote better long-term student learning, we propose to majorly change how we assess student performance in BIO 202 Introductory Biology II, based on best practices in the literature. We will change to more frequent, lower stakes quizzes, use group testing, and develop questions based on recent examples from the primary literature. |
| 2018-20 | Michael Wiitala & Marcus Schultz-Bergin (Philosophy & Comparative Religion) | Introduction to Philosophy Course Redesign | We propose to transform PHL 101 Introduction to Philosophy from a traditional lecture-based course to a flipped classroom, Team-Based Learning course with a Specifications Grading scheme. In this way we expect to enhance student-learning, increase student satisfaction with the course, reduce the course’s DFW rate, and narrow the gap in the DFW rate between underrepresented minorities and white students. |
| 2018-20 | Kelly Wrenhaven, Shelley Rose, and Meshack Owino (History) | Ancient World History to 1300 AD | This new survey course will be the first ancient history survey in the History Department. It will be the first team-taught survey, the only survey that fulfills the Social Science requirement, and the only survey that uses an Open Access textbook. By not focusing as heavily upon writing as our other survey courses, we hope to have a higher success rate amongst non-History majors. |
| 2017-19 | Anne Berry & Sarah Rutherford (Art & Design) | Introduction to Visual Technology Course Redesign |
Adjust the curriculum of ART 244 Introduction to Visual Technology to enhance student engagement and knowledge retention in line with newly developed core competencies. Curricular changes will incorporate a flipped classroom approach and be generated using backwards design. Proposed alterations also aim to retain majors and help recruit students to the Graphic Design major concentration. |
| 2017-19 | Marcus Schultz-Bergin & Allyson Robichaud (Philosophy & Comparative Religion) | Improving Moral Reasoning for Engineers | We propose introducing engineering ethics students to a principle-based framework for moral reasoning and restructuring the engineering ethics course in accord with Team-Based Learning pedagogy. These two interventions are aimed at improving students’ moral reasoning and communication skills. These are two areas where engineering students tend to have difficulty but which are critical student outcomes for ABET accreditation of engineering programs. |
| 2016-18 | Emily Rauschert & Ralph Gibson (BGES) | Revitalize BIO 202 Course Lectures Through the Incorporation of Case Studies |
We propose to revitalize the lectures of BIO 202 Introductory Biology II and make them more learner-centered through the incorporation of weekly case studies into the class meetings. We will assess whether this is effective through student surveys and nationally recognized, validated instruments to measure biological content knowledge and experimental design skills. |
| 2016-18 | Steven Gubkin, Daniel Munther & Shawn Ryan (Mathematics & Statistics) | Enhancing Calculus 1 Using Microsoft OneNote | We will use Microsoft OneNote to facilitate communication in MTH 181. Much of mathematics is communicated symbolically or graphically, not just verbally; students cannot even begin to ask questions without showing the instructor a piece of paper. With OneNote, 1. students can ask questions involving formulae and pictures, 2. the instructor can see, in real time, student work on problems (allowing differentiated instruction), and 3. a student’s digital portfolio allows greater insight into their current knowledge. |
Staff
Hyah Herbawi, Coordinator
Campus Location: BH 212
Cleveland, OH 44115
cfe@csuohio.edu