OAI 2019 Innovation in Teaching Award Winners

About the Award

The 2019 OAI Innovation in Teaching Award honors faculty who have implemented outstanding innovative teaching approaches shown to increase student learning and success. Innovative teaching is defined broadly and may include the use of new instructional technologies, the use of traditional technologies in creative ways, novel approaches to instruction, and new ways to engage students in the learning process.

A campus-wide Award Review Committee also considered the following criteria for each project:

1. Positive impact(s) on teaching effectiveness, student learning, supporting diverse student learners, student readiness, and/or retention rates.

2. Relation to current teaching and learning trends, research, practices, issues, and/or Towson University’s Presidential Priorities.

Project Index

Acting the Part: Psychiatric Nursing Simulation................................................................................................2

Evidenced-Based Thinking in Towson Seminar.................................................................................................7

Open Educational Resources, Active Learning, and Gamified Simulations in an Online Course.....................11

Technology-Delivered Instructions in Teaching HRM......................................................................................16

Towson University Students in the Upheaval of the 1960s and 1970s............................................................20

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Acting the Part: Psychiatric Nursing Simulation Ms. Mary Sharon Curran, Clinical Associate Professor, NursingMs. Tara Ryan, Clinical Assistant Professor and Simulation Lab Coordinator, Nursing Dr. Briana Snyder, Assistant Professor, Nursing

Project

“Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths theater” – Gail Goodwin

Project Background

Experiential practice clinical activities are considered essential components of undergraduate nursing training at the bachelorette level. Clinical simulation supports diverse student learners expanding on the evidence based concepts of cognitive, affective, and psychomotor domains, challenging the learn to become competent and confident through experience and self-assessment. Clinical simulation as a whole included three parts - pre-briefing, simulation experience and debriefing. During the pre-briefing psychological safety is set to ensure the learning environment is viewed as a safe place to learn and grow. Students are challenged to “tap in” and explore their emotional responses sharing both a pre and post simulation (debriefing) word. After simulated experienced is complete, students then reflect upon in the debriefing. The art of debriefing challenges students to reflect upon their feelings, knowledge, communication and critical thinking. This time of reflection and feedback is aimed at sustaining or improving future performance while increasing student confidence. It is considered by many simulation educators to be a critical activity for learning, the heart of simulation-based education.

Given the power of clinical simulation, it became standard within baccalaureate nursing programs. With the need for additional simulation experiences within the nursing curriculum, the Simulation Lab Coordinator, Tara Ryan was hired in 2015 to plan and implement a new curriculum and enhance the existing student simulation experiences. At this time, with any new program, there were limitations regarding resources, physical spaces, faculty trained subject matter simulation experts.

Previously, simulation was a small part of the curriculum, with consistent incorporation of simulation in NUR 360 Adult Health only. It was identified that NUR 358C Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing was not the priority during the beginning phases due to the overwhelming needs of several other courses. Additionally, logistical and scheduling issues specifically related to NUR 358 proved challenging due to the resource limitations.

Project Preparation

In an effort to ensure the junior level, second semester (J2) students would have a simulation experience replicating the clinical environment within the safe and non-judgemental world of simulation, the NUR 358C Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing, Sharon Curran began working to develop an experience that mirrored other baccalaureate nursing program within the State of Maryland.

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Sharon Curran attended a national simulation conference and simulation workshops specific to curriculum development, debriefing, and the use of Standardized Patients in effort to become increasingly knowledgeable in both theory and practice of clinical simulation. Sharon and fellow faculty member and subject matter expert, Briana Snyder sought information on psychiatric nursing simulation practices at other UMMS Universities and made site visits to guide the planning and implementation. They visited, consulted and sought guidance with the simulation faculty at such institutions on the many components of simulation such as scenario creation using community based volunteer actors to portray patients, pre-briefing and debriefing. Furthermore, Sharon and Briana developed training for both the community volunteer actors/patients related to the scenario content, medical, social and emotional histories and behaviors. Training sessions were held and resources were made available for the clinical faculty who would assist in facilitating the simulation. Written training materials were provided to both volunteers and clinical faculty.

Innovative Approach

Sharon and Briana worked together to create clinical scenarios that reflected real-life clinical psychiatric experiences utilizing resources from the National League of Nursing (NLN), designed using the NLN Simulation Design Template and planned for the implementation of the simulated scenarios without the initial resources made available to the other nursing courses. The psychiatric scenarios were specifically developed to provide students with practice opportunities utilizing the community volunteer actors/patients in clinical scenarios that the student may not have the opportunity to participate in their assigned clinical settings for the following reasons:

1) An inherent safety risk to the student exist in the clinical setting due to the unpredictable and potentially aggressive nature of an actual patient’s behavior. The simulation provides for safety of the student and and actor/patient while the student practices their skills.

2) The clinical setting may not provide an opportunity for all students to practice clinical skills and therapeutic communication strategies with similar patients presenting with severe psychosis, opioid overdose, profound depression or severe panic. The simulation ensures consistency for student practice ensuring all students have the opportunity to care for a specific scenario-based patient.

3) With proper training utilizing the resources from the Association of Standardized Patient (ASPE), the community based volunteer/actors could provide thoughtful and meaningful feedback to the learner. The student would have the rare opportunity to hear from the patient directly felt in their care. This a unique and powerful experience as it helps to foster compassionate and thoughtful care.

Sharon and Briana collaborated to find and select community based volunteers to portray the patients in the psychiatric nursing simulation. Tara ensured the demo doses of narcan were orderd and prepared moulaged effects (vomit), props such as alcohol and cigarettes as well as community emergency medical equipment. Utilizing community based patient volunteers within the simulation curriculum supports the Towson University Presidential Priority incorporating the strategic vision for the design, promotion, and delivery of best-practice diversity, inclusion and cultural competency efforts within the NURS 358 simulation curriculum. These individuals bring diverse backgrounds and cannot compare with the traditional mannequin based simulations used to learn assessments, procedures and tasks.

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Implementing real people provides the student with emotional realism creating the ability to evoke emotions of compassion, empathy and human kindness. The power of the human spirit can be displayed in such realistic simulation experiences. This unique simulation experiences showcases both the art and science of the nursing profession.

Space at the University was reserved to hold the simulations and the project was born.

The subject matter experts, Sharon and Brianna selected scenarios as follows:

1) Patient with opioid overdose with administration of Narcan2) Patient with an Antisocial Personality Disorder that becomes aggressive and threatening 3) Patient in acute alcohol withdrawal 4) Patient post-suicide attempt in denial

Together Sharon and Briana led and facilitated the first mental health simulation within the nursing program.

Impact

The students were surveyed to provide quantitative and qualitative feedback regarding their perception of the psychiatric nursing simulation experiences. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive and lead to what was to be the proposal for NUR 358C Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing simulation enhancement. Both qualitative and quantitative data are summarized below.

Survey Monkey Data (172 responses)

5-point Likert Scale (5 = strongly agree; 1 = strongly disagree)

1. The role play simulation improved my comfort level with interacting with persons with mental illness.

Average score – 4.33

2. The role play simulation was helpful in understanding the difficulties a nurse might have when interviewing a person with mental illness.

Average score – 4.74

3. The role play simulation helped me implement more effective and therapeutic communication skills.

Average score – 4.43

4. Overall, the simulation provided me with valuable personal and professional learning experiences.

Average score – 4.74

5. Overall, I would recommend this clinical activity to other students in the psychiatric and mental health nursing course.

Average score – 4.77

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Sample free-text student responses:

I really liked how after the scenario we were able to reflect on the pros and cons. Seldom, do we get this when on site to debrief and work through errors or applaud ourselves for what we did correct. The time set aside to discuss helped contribute to a further understanding of how to handle certain patients and interactions.

I really enjoyed working with the psych actors because I was able to actually see and apply what we learn in lectures.

The best part was not knowing what to expect. I think it reflects a real life scenario. The actors were very believable.

The role play part was very helpful because it made me more comfortable about how to communicate with patients and stay calm but also realize that safety is main priority for both the patient and nurse

Interacting with the actors, they brought up practical scenarios that we may encounter without the consequences of failing

I will have a much deeper understanding and empathy for those who hear voices and will subsequently be able to interact with and provide care to them more effectively

I now understand that I will always have to be prepared mentally because patients can change their behavior in a matter of seconds. I also know now that it is better to ask for help as a nurse then to handle something alone.

I will use my knowledge on the scenarios presented today in my actual nursing career. If I were to encounter a similar scenario, I would know what actions to take.

I will work on my therapeutic communication skills more thoroughly and think further into ideas of safety. It has caused me to be more empathic and understanding towards those with mental illnesses

Project Enhancement and Innovation

Based on the responses, the team was determined to continued to build and enhance this project. Belief in the project was growing! In March of 2018, the TU Nursing Simulation Coordinator, Tara Ryan and the Psychiatric and Mental Health Clinical Course Coordinator, Sharon Curran and fellow faculty, Briana Snyder worked together to draft a proposal to standardize simulation across the curriculum, more specifically to include NUR 358 in the courses offered under the direction of the Simulation Lab Coordinator. The proposal also included implementing this at the University System of Maryland Hagerstown Campus.

The partnership between the Simulation Lab Coordinator and Course Coordinator ensured simulation best practices were being met using the International Association of Clinical Simulation and Learning (INASCL) standards, providing the students with a robust and memorable, content rich simulation experience. Brianna Snyder remained onboard as general consultant, acting as an additional subject matter expert and editor.

The proposal was accepted. In April 2018, the Simulation Coordinator, Tara Ryan began working with the University of Maryland School of Nursing to develop a contractual agreement for UM SON to provide this course with currently trained and Standardized Patients and provide feedback on the simulation case scenario’s proposed. The partnership ensured that the Association of Standardized Patient Educators (ASPE)

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were being met and the SP’s were receiving formal training regarding the scenario and the art of debriefing. During the SP training, Mini Mental Status Exams (MMSE) were provided to depict where abnormal findings may occur to guide the SP when asked questions by the students throughout the simulation experience. The standardized patients were coming inhabiting the characteristics of the patient assigned to them. The realism is profound and remarkable. The SP’s not only took on the emotional characteristics of the patient but the physical characteristics necessary for the scenarios to mirror reality. Examples include as growing a beard, appearing disheveled and so on.

Over the next several months, Tara and Sharon collaborated to select Psych cases specific to the use of SP’s and implemented the simulation experience in fall 2018. The cases depict true to life, substance specific physiologic and emotionally charged scenarios that challenge the students in a way didactics cannot offer. With the inclusion of the formally trained Standardized Patients, the written cases were brought to life enhancing student opportunities and provided them with an opportunity to encounter a patient they might not have the opportunity to care for otherwise. More specifically, the simulation scenarios include a patient experiencing chronic paranoid Schizophrenia as well as Alcohol Misuse Disorder.

Evaluations are conducted post-simulation and represent an enhanced and meaningful experience as reported by the students. Quantitative data collection is ongoing as the project runs throughout the length of the semester. A sample of free text data can be viewed below. Additionally, Sharon, Tara and Briana will meet with the SP’s at the completion of the project in December 2018 to discuss further growth and advancement of the current project based upon the data.

Sample of free text responses:

Great way to practice therapeutic communication skills and receive feedback from real people.

I was anxious for psych clinical and simulation made be feel more confident.

The patients felt very real and helped me practice my communication skills.

The instructors were welcoming and helpful. The simulation was a very good learning experience and way to see things you do well and things you need to improve on.

I learned a lot about myself. Thank you.

This was not what I was expecting. Sim was so real, I believed I was the nurse taking care of a patient with schizophrenia.

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Evidenced-Based Thinking in Towson SeminarDr. Rebecca Shargel, Associate Professor, Department of Educational Technology & LiteracyDr. Lisa Twiss, Lecturer, Department of Educational Technology & Literacy

Project

Background Information

We implemented our innovative approach of evidenced-based thinking in multiple sections of Towson Seminar for the past five years. Before we describe the innovation, we provide the context for our method. TSEM is a general education requirement for Towson University’s four year students. Our department, Educational Technology and Literacy (EDTL), provides all of the TSEM sections in the College of Education, offering 15-20 sections taught each semester. Our course, which focuses on controversial topics in education and is populated by mostly non-education majors representing all seven colleges of the University. We have impacted hundreds of students over the past several years.

This innovation is a result of a problem we identified by studying departmental data on achievement scores on the final research paper across all TSEM sections. All faculty utilize the same rubric for scoring the final papers, and submit the breakdown of the rubrics to the department chair each semester. While studying the data on students’ achievement across all sections over several years, we noted that students’ lowest scores in their final papers occurred in the area of critical thinking. While investigating this problem, we noticed that in our own classes, averaging 21 students in a section, we found that only few students could go further past naming a single fact or statistic to make a case. More specifically, we noticed that students struggled to effectively use evidence from scholarly sources and compare and contrast findings in their literature reviews to support their final paper arguments.

As a result of their struggle, we re-tooled our TSEM sections to focus on the critical thinking skill of identifying, evaluating, and using evidence. Indeed critical thinking is a top priority in higher education (Bok, 2006; AAC& U, 2011) and yet research shows that many students do not develop critical thinking skills during their studies in university (Bok, 2006; Arum & Roska, 2011). Though critical thinking involves several skills, such as following reasons and evidence, questioning information, tolerating new ideas, clarity of thought, and interpreting information and perspectives (Pascarella & Teranzini, 2005), we identified evidenced-based thinking as our goal for the course and as a starting point for teaching critical thinking.

Since our students had little-to-no experience reading educational research, we developed a new framework for instruction, a typology of evidence, to help our students learn to identify and discern between different types of evidence. This typology included: statistical, qualitative, anecdotal, legal, and expert opinion. We call our approach evidenced-based thinking. To exemplify statistical and qualitative evidence, students read studies in educational research that employed either statistical or qualitative measures. One example of required reading for our students was the Tennessee STAR Project (Biddle & Berliner, 2002). This study, one of the largest quantitative experiments ever conducted in education, included numerical information comparing students’ achievement in standardized tests in smaller verses

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larger class sizes. As students learned to analyze tables and trends from the study’s results, they also learned to build a case on the impact of class size reduction using statistical evidence.

Moreover, our students read and analyzed qualitative studies in education, in order for them to appreciate the power of observational, field-based research in order to understand participants’ perspectives. In addition, they learned the value of anecdotal evidence from viable news stories (found through Cook Library databases) as well as legal evidence from court cases. They used both of the aforementioned types of evidence to support their arguments on a controversial topic in education. Example of topics that they investigated included: Is single-sex education preferable over co-education or what is the role of educators and schools in preventing school violence? Additionally, this typology provided a tool for students to look more critically at all textual material, including websites and other materials found online.

An in-class participation activity is described below.

Innovative Approach

This approach is innovative because it teaches students how to use evidenced-based through an easy-to-use framework that meets students’ unique needs as first-year students. While they are often most familiar with legal and statistical evidence, we learned that most of them had not encountered qualitative or anecdotal evidence as viable forms for an academic argument. This innovation provided them academic language to discern different potential sources for their research paper, it also provided them a way to transfer academic learning to their real lives. This approach is also innovative and meaningful because the skill of critical thinking and evidenced-based thinking crosses over from academic learning into their person life. In researching the effects of our method we convened focus groups over several semesters and found that students, as they became more critical of academic information, so too became more critical of sources on social media. In the words of one student,

“Before this course I was very easily persuaded. Now I realized that there’s a lot of ways

people can manipulate things to make it look their way. I’m a lot more skeptical about what

people tell me [on social media]. I like having a well-informed opinion, and if I care about

what I’m talking about, then I’ll go into it for myself and see.”

Below, we describe an activity that promoted evidenced-based thinking and use of the typology. In the following simulation students solved a problem together.

Sample Lesson Exemplar: The Bubba Murder Mystery

Students arrived to class and found caution tape draped across the door. Prior to entering, we told them they would be involved in helping Towson’s campus police solve a mystery. The police asked us to find and identify the different types of evidence that are located in the classroom in order to determine how Bubba, a chimpanzee, might have died. As students walk in, they are given a worksheet to complete as they walk around the room.

What happened to Bubba?

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The Towson University Police Department has asked for our help. Complete the table below to keep track of evidence in an organized, detailed, and systematic way. Study the evidence in the room, ask questions to your team members, and take good notes so that your group can come up with a compelling narrative based on the evidence to answer the question of what happened to Bubba, the chimpanzee. Please note that you will add more than six items. Continue to do so on the back of this handout.

Describe Evidence

What type of evidence is this? (Statistical, qualitative, legal, anecdotal, expert opinion, physical).

Connect this piece of evidence to other ones.

What else do you want to know about this piece of evidence?

Additional notes towards building your case:

1.2.3.4.5.6.

As they entered, they found Bubba, a stuffed chimpanzee, on the floor presumed dead. Bubba is surrounded by more caution tape and is holding two bananas. Near him, a bike lock lies on the floor. As students circulate the room, they read pieces of evidence and learned that Bubba escaped from the Maryland Zoo. They also learned how closely related chimpanzees’ DNA is to humans’ DNA, how far the zoo is from Towson’s campus, the weekly weather report, an eye witness account, photographs, a video, and a variety of facts on the habits of chimpanzees. Encountering these pieces of evidence, they had the opportunity to identify each type of evidence in the typology: statistical, qualitative, etc… in order to consider the possibilities of Bubba’s death. Students collaborated in small groups to read the evidence, describe it, compare it, question it, use some of it, and skillfully disregard some of it in order to develop a claim. They needed to discern between helpful evidence and a few items planted there for them to disregard, such as a photo of an aggressive chimpanzee holding a gun that came from a movie. In teams, they came up with a story to answer the question, “What happened to Bubba?” Each student wrote down a story using all of the typologies of evidence such as statistical, qualitative, anecdotal, expert opinion, and legal evidence to make a case. Each team made a “pitch” by telling the story and including as many pieces of evidence as possible. The instructor, along with students’ help, determined which group had the strongest evidenced-based story.

Impact

In order to measure the impact of our evidenced-based thinking approach, we designed a qualitative research study, from 2014-2016, over four semesters where we gathered data from a sample of 160 students, including their assignments, our lesson plans, as well as students’ comments in focus groups. About a third of our students (n=69) volunteered to participate in optional focus groups and we recorded and transcribed their comments in such groups. This study was approved by Towson’s Institutional Review Board.

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Impact on Students.

Through both focus groups and their written work, we discovered the impact of this evidenced-based method with regards to their shifts of thinking. While students began the semester most valuing and trusting statistical evidence because they saw it as “hard facts, unbiased, and repeated the refrain “numbers don’t lie”, by the end of the semester they began to question only using statistical evidence to support an argument. Students noted that qualitative research provided them an advantage of a researcher gathering information in the natural setting of participants, such as schools, and the abilities of researchers to observe body language and emotions and hear firsthand testimonies from participants about their perceptions. Moreover, students also found news stories compelling anecdotal evidence, noting that a story has potential to stir emotions more than numbers. An excerpt from one focus group is included in the supplemental material.

In addition, we studied students’ written work in order to gauge the impact of the approach. Please find examples of students’ work in the supplemental materials attached to the application that was emailed to OAI.

As a result of this course, students also noted that they are much more critical of all information that they read, particularly on social media. Not only did they become more critical of academic material but also applied this to their daily lives. One student commented:

“Before this course I was very easily persuaded. Now I realized that there’s a lot of ways people can manipulate things to make it look their way. I’m a lot more skeptical about what people tell me. I like having a well-informed opinion, and if I care about what I’m talking about, then I’ll go into it for myself and see.”

Impact on instructors.

This work has impacted us as instructors in that we have found meaningful ways to collaborate around purposeful instruction focused on critical thinking skills. This teaching approach has provided us a thread with which all of our instructional decisions are held together. Our selections of readings, assignments, and activities provide students an opportunity to practice the critical thinking skill of identifying, evaluating, and using evidence. This has made our role as TSEM instructors more focused and allows us to better support our students’ growth in this important area of critical thinking.

At the same time, our research around this work has afforded us opportunities to see where we need to improve. For example, through one of our focus groups, we learned that some students were confused about the difference between anecdotal and qualitative research. As a result, more clearly presented lessons to differentiate between the two are now in place.

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Open Educational Resources, Active Learning, and Gamified Simulations in an Online CourseDr. Yongchen Zhao, Assistant Professor, Economics

Project

Summary

The online version of the traditionally face-to-face course, ECON 202 Macroeconomic Principles, was developed and implemented over a three-year period. The online course features gamified learning using sophisticated simulators of economic policy, follows effective practices according to active learning principles, and employs open educational resources as well as instructor-created multimedia contents. These innovative changes not only made the course more affordable and accessible, but also enhanced learning outcomes and improved student satisfaction. According to the data collected during a one-year period when both the online and the face-to-face formats are offered, the cost of course materials was reduced from over $200 (for proprietary textbook and web platform access) to zero; the average GPA improved by 19%; and the course evaluation improved by over 7%.

Background, motivation, and general approach

The course is a part of TU’s Core Curriculum and a required course for all the students in the College of Business and Economics (CBE). It is very popular among freshmen and sophomores, with a significant and growing annual enrollment. Traditionally, the course is taught face-to-face. Being a study of the economy as a whole, as opposed to individual decision-making units in an economy such as a company or a consumer, it is sometimes difficult to create an environment in which students can relate the course materials to their own experiences and apply the knowledge in real-world decision making. This project was initiated in order to produce an online format of the course that is not only scalable, but also effective, modern, and affordable. To improve effectiveness, the online course was designed according to active learning principles and the latest pedagogical research. The online course also features modern technology, such as computer simulations and interactive web-based data analysis tools. Affordability is guaranteed with the adoption of open educational resources (OER) and instructor-created multimedia contents.

Implementation

Similar to the face-to-face version, the online course is organized into five units. The first unit introduces basic vocabulary of economics. The second unit discusses the economic indicators needed in the analysis of the overall economy. The third unit relates the workings of the financial market and institutions to that of the economy. The last two units introduce economic policies and economic policymaking. The nature of the course is such that the knowledge in earlier units helps students understand later units, and applications of the economic theories presented in the first three units are introduced only in the last two units. Active

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learning, gamified simulation, and open educational resources are incorporated into the course in this context.

Active learning: To promote active learning and create an environment where students have to do more than just passively read some texts or watch some videos, the online database and data analysis tool FRED is introduced through a series of learning modules in the first two units. This tool is developed and maintained by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. It is the leading online platform where economic data can be obtained, visualized, and analyzed. Through instructor-created web-based learning modules, students are taught how to locate, transform, visualize, and interpret economic indicators using the FRED platform. Three progressively more challenging and comprehensive active learning activities are developed to give students valuable opportunities to apply this newly acquired skill. In Unit 1, students are asked to find one economic indicator of their choice, visualize the data in FRED, and interpret the data in writing. Furthermore, they are asked to post their work to the discussion forum in Blackboard and comment on the work of others. This way, not only will students receive feedback from their instructor, they will also engage with their peers. Unit 2 contains a similar activity, except that this time, students need to find two or three economic indicators. They are asked to discuss the relationship between the indicators, in addition to interpreting the data of each indicator separately. In Unit 3, students are asked to demonstrate a higher level of understanding and skill: rather than finding some indicators of their choice, they must find data that clearly demonstrate a theoretical result discussed in the unit. In other words, they are required to understand the theory, locate relevant data, visualize the data appropriately, and formulate a strong argument as to why the data support the theory.

Gamified simulations: Gamified learning activities are widely recognized to be more effective in motivating and encouraging the involvement of students than traditional prescriptive activities are. A competitive gaming/learning environment is created through two simulation games in the last two units of the course. In Unit 4, where students learn about the goals, tools, and effects and effectiveness of monetary policy, the game Chair the Fed is introduced. This is a web-based simulation game developed by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. In the game, students play the role of the chair of the Fed and set the federal funds rate for a period of four (simulated) years. During this time, different events, such as an oil price hike, will impact the economy. Students need to adjust the interest rate to keep the economy on a balanced path of growth, with low and stable levels of unemployment rate and inflation rate. In Unit 5, a more sophisticated simulation engine is used, where in addition to managing monetary policy, students make fiscal policies as well as structural reform decisions. Compared with the previous game, students’ performance is also measured along several additional dimensions. For example, they now need to achieve economic growth and stability without incurring too much debt in the process. Students are asked to play each game multiple times, each time addressing a different challenge an economy could face (the challenges are generated randomly by the simulations). After they come up with a specific set of policies and receive feedback from the game as to their effectiveness, students are to post the results as well as their reflections to the discussion forum, where they may receive feedback from both the instructor and their peers. To successfully complete the game, students need to have a deep understanding of the economic indicators they worked with in previous units, a thorough appreciation of the intricacies in economic policymaking, as well as a good skill set to translate predictions of economic theory to concrete, numerical, policy proposals.

Open educational resources: To ensure that the course is affordable and accessible to all students, open educational resources are used instead of proprietary textbooks and web platforms. The book Principles of

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Macroeconomics (ISBN: 978-1-946135-17-9), available on University of Minnesota library’s website, is adapted by the instructor and is used as the primary textbook. However, rather than having the entire book indiscriminately assigned as required reading, a number of carefully selected chapters are reorganized and presented to students in the form of nine web-based learning modules. Each learning module features the contents from the textbook, as well as annotations and highlights created by the instructor. In addition, learning guides authored by the instructor, additional videos hosted on YouTube, as well as example test questions are placed throughout each learning module to help students better understand the contents. The example questions are provided without correct answers, and students are encouraged to discuss these questions (and reach consensuses) in the discussion forum. Three additional learning modules on how to work with FRED are created by the instructor, since FRED is not covered by the textbook. To clearly illustrate how FRED works, the instructor also recorded six video demos. All of the learning modules are created following the latest responsive web design (RWD) principles, ensuring that all the contents are accessible to all students, on all devices.

Assessment

Over the period from Fall 2016 to Spring 2017, assessment data are collected from five sections of the course, two in the traditional face-to-face format (one in each semester) and three in the newly developed online format (one in the fall and two in the spring semester). All five sections have the same instructor, cover the same contents, and use the same assessment instruments. As detailed below in the section on the impact of the project, these data clearly demonstrate the effectiveness and the impact of the new online format. Student performance and satisfaction in the online sections far exceed those in the face-to-face sections.

Innovative Approach

None of the individual pieces of the course is the instructor’s invention. Quite to the contrary, the course is designed to capitalize on well-established pedagogical principles and technologies. The innovativeness of the project lies in its effective use and careful selection of best practices and modern technologies in the context of teaching economics.

The most recent nation-wide survey of instructors of economic principles courses (Watts, Schaur 2011) shows that 83% of the class time is occupied by traditional lectures, where the instructor writes text and draws graphs on a chalkboard. Only 6% of class time is used for student-to-student interactions (e.g., discussions). The time students spend working with databases online is also 6%. In fact, two-thirds of the instructors are found to clearly prefer traditional lectures to other means of instruction. Technology use in classrooms of economics is also scarce. As recent as 2018, published research on simulations that supports the teaching of macroeconomics is all but non-existent (Rogmans 2018).

In this context, the newly developed online macroeconomic principles course is innovative in its effective combination of instructional materials, technologies, and approaches. The course is completely self-contained and organized around open access materials as well as instructor-created contents. The selection and compilation of materials ensure that students no longer have to spend hundreds of dollars on rental textbooks and web access cards that are simply expire at the end of the course. The course employs new instructional technologies such as web-based responsive and accessible learning modules and online data

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analytics and simulation platforms to enhance learning experience. It also utilizes traditional technologies such as discussion forums in innovative ways in connection with gamified simulations to help create an open, active, competitive, and enjoyable learning environment. Moreover, the course features progressively more challenging active learning activities that promote student engagement and interaction.

Integrating the instructional materials, technologies, and approaches, the online course sees significantly improved learning outcomes and student satisfaction, as well as dramatically reduced rate of failures and withdrawals. This course could serve as a starting point for wider adoptions of open educational materials and active learning principles in the teaching of macroeconomic principles and beyond.

Impact

Students who are enrolled in the online course benefit from open educational resources, active learning opportunities, gamified simulations, and various resources and technologies. As a result, the online sections show improved teaching effectiveness and learning outcomes. This is clearly demonstrated by data on the following metrics. Unless otherwise noted, the data are from Fall 2016 and Spring 2017, when both online and face-to-face sections are offered in parallel. These sections have the same instructor, cover the same contents, and use the same assessment instruments. Face-to-face sections are not offered beyond Spring 2017. Since then, seven online sections have been offered. Average enrollment in a section is 33 students, same for both online sections and face-to-face sections.

Average GPA: The average GPA of the students in the online sections is 19% higher than the average GPA of the students in the face-to-face sections. The average GPA of the post-Spring 2017 online sections shows another 8% increase over the online sections offered in Fall 2016 and Spring 2017.

Rate of high achievement: The average percentage of students earning As and A-s in the online sections is 16.4 percentage point higher than that of those in the face-to-face sections. Comparing the semester-long online sections offered since Fall 2017 with those offered during Fall 2016 and Spring 2017, there is an improvement of another 2.1 percentage points.

Rate of failures and withdrawals: The average percentage of students receiving a grade of F or W in the face-to-face sections is 80.2% higher than that of the students in the online sections. The rate of failures and withdrawals declined by another 50.5% since Fall 2017.

Quantitative teaching evaluations: In terms of the average quantitative ratings between the online sections and the face-to-face sections, that of the online sections is 7% higher. More specifically, compared with the face-to-face sections, the online sections see the average rating for the course related questions (i.e., the first part of the course evaluation) improved by 5.4%. The largest amount of improvement in this section (7.6%) is on the rating of the statement “Course learning objectives were met.” Improvements that are even more significant are observed on the three overall statements: (1) “Overall, cost of text and other required materials were appropriate to the course.” – rating improved by 12.8%. (2) “The text and other required materials were necessary for successful completion of the course.” – rating improved by 21.9%. (3) “Overall, the technologies used greatly facilitated my learning.” – rating improved by 12.2%.

Qualitative teaching evaluations: Since no student took both the online section and the face-to-face section at the same time and student comments are anonymized, there is no meaningful way to compare the qualitative teaching evaluations from the face-to-face sections and the online sections. Therefore, a

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selected set of comments from the online sections are reproduced below to serve as examples of student satisfaction. (Certain parts of the comments are set in bold to highlight the connection to the innovative aspects of the course. Comments are not abbreviated or otherwise edited, except to remove a reference to a brand name.)

“I loved the online activities they really helped me apply the concepts I learned to the real world.”

“The class was very organized and easy to manage having four other classes. The expectations were very clear and the activities and homework helped me grasp the concepts we learned.”

“Using FRED was interesting and made it easier to make connections to the material.”

“I liked the unusual things used to explain the course, like the use of FRED. It really helped to show concepts in a real world sense instead of just reading the items out of a textbook.”

“Very organized and fairly graded. Awesome professor. He even supplied an online version of a MACRO textbook, which saved me a ton of money!”

“Generally, I like this course. I liked how inflation and unemployment related to each other and how these two factors affect GDP. Although those three activities were challenged, I liked them.”

“I liked that it did NOT use [the name of an expensive, proprietary online platform redacted].”

“Although it was an online course, I felt that my Professor Zhao was accessible at any time. He always put comments on our online activities. I can remember for one he said good job on the activity (which was a ECON game), but to also play again and see different outcomes. This made me feel like he valued the class even though we had never met in person.”

References

Rogmans, Tim (2018): Teaching Macroeconomics with the Econland Simulation Game and Learning Platform. In Journal of Economics Teaching 2 (2), pp. 92–103.

Watts, Michael; Schaur, Georg (2011): Teaching and Assessment Methods in Undergraduate Economics. A Fourth National Quinquennial Survey. In The Journal of Economic Education 42 (3), pp. 294–309.

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Technology-Delivered Instructions in Teaching HRMDr. Nhung Hendy, Associate Professor, Management

Project

Technology delivered instruction (TDI), defined as the delivery of instructional materials in digitized format to build job-related knowledge and skills both asynchronously (meaning the content is delivered to trainees at different times) and synchronously via videoconferencing and chatrooms, has become increasingly popular in human resource training and development in recent years as companies manage their talent retention (Cascio, 2014). Simulation games, considered a type of TDI, referred to as a computer-based simulation work environment that is delivered via personal computer to immerse learners in decision making and see the consequences of their decisions in a simulated work environment. In a meta-analysis of the effectiveness of simulation games as an instructional method, Sitzmann (2011) reported that post-training self-efficacy was 20% higher when simulation games was used as the instructional method compared to that of a control group receiving no simulation game as an instructional method (Cohen’s d = .52). In terms of other learner outcomes such as declarative and procedural knowledge, simulation games were also associated with more learning than that of a comparison group (Cohen’s ds = .28 and .22 respectively) (Sitzmann, 2011).

Given the well-documented evidence concerning the effectiveness of simulation games, it is surprising to see a lack of simulation games adopted in the classroom. In this proposal, I documented how I used a simulation game in teaching two undergraduate courses, MNGT 381 – Human Resource Management (both as a hybrid and online) and MNGT483 – Strategic Human Resource Management (as a hybrid course) in the fall semester of 2017. The HRM simulation was used as part of the course instructional design in addition to lecture, class discussion, and end of chapter quizzes. Based on a meta-analysis of technology-delivered instructions (TDI), simulation games were more effective when embedded in a course content than used as a stand-alone instructional method (Sitzmann, 2011).

The simulation was designed to help students or student teams of 4 members manage an HR department of a medium-sized manufacturing company of 650 employees over a period of two years. In the simulation project, students had to assume the role of a HR Director managing their HR department. Students also had the option to rotate through other roles including a Wage and Benefits administrator, Training Director, and HR Liaison.

Students were required to manage a budget of $1,400,000 for the first year and $1,200,000 for the second year (the reduced budget is to simulate an economic recession). For every thousand dollars that they exceeded the budget, one point will be deducted from their final project grade (worth 30% of their course grade). Thus, the very first competency they had to learn and develop during this simulation is planning and budgeting. During each quarter of the simulation competition (equivalent to one week of course material instruction), students had to make a series of decision regarding staffing, wage and benefits, training, HR programs (employee participation, Affirmative Action, HRIS, Grievance procedure, Orientation program, and

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Performance Appraisals) in addition to making decisions on quarterly special incidents so that their firm performance was profitable compared to the industry. The incidents were different for MNGT 381 vs. MNGT 483. Specifically, the incidents in MNGT 483 were more strategic whereas the ones in MNGT 381 were more tactical to fit the objectives of respective courses.

The simulation performance was measured using both objective and subjective measures. Objective measure was as a weighted score for each of the two years (8 quarters) of competition throughout the 15-week semester of Fall 2017. The class was the industry and each team received a grade for their industry ranking to motivate them to perform at their best. The weighted score was calculated by the simulation algorithm based on 11 HR metrics (e.g., turnover rate, productivity, quality index, employee morale, absenteeism, accident rate, grievances, staffing differences, proportion of female workforce, proportion of minority workforce, and decision quality). Each of the above metrics contributed 10% to the weighted score, except for the proportion of female and minority workforces each contributed 5% to the weighted score reflecting firm performance. Subjective measure was the quarterly memos (8 memoranda one for each quarter), the first-year audit report and the final report. Thus, in addition to developing budgeting and planning competency, I also integrated writing skill development in this course. Students were required to write a memo (no more than two-page long) addressed to me as the CEO in which the explained their decisions made in the quarter and how their decisions supported the firm’s business and corporate goals and strategies.

Innovative Approach

According to the 2017 State of the Industry Report released by the Association for Talent Development, U.S corporations increased their spending on employee training from $1,252 per employee in 2015 to $1,273 per employee in 2016 in which most of the training investment was allocated to Technology delivered instructions (TDI) including simulation games, gamification, and virtual reality. This means that to ensure the success of our students, we need to bring the technology to the classroom. Thus, the first innovative feature of the HRM simulation is in the simulation itself, which prepares students for their work in the field of HR upon college graduation. Nothing prepares them better than learning to decide whether to freeze hiring and implement job sharing due to budget cut or conduct a large-scale layoff to achieve the same purpose by having to make that decision and see the impact of their decision on the firm’s productivity and morale as well as other relevant key performance indicators.

Another innovative feature of the HRM simulation is that the simulation allows students to be active learners, rather than passive learners. Specifically, the HRM simulation enables students to apply what they learned through the lecture to making decisions that develop not only their technical competencies in HR, but also their problem solving and critical thinking skills as well. My role as an instructor was no longer that of a lecturer, but a facilitator of learning with the use of the HRM simulation. Below is an example of the difference between textbook learning as relied on lectures and application as enabled using the HRM simulation:

Textbook learning: Based on the chapter discussion, write a definition of strategic HRM and contrast that with traditional HRM.

Application: Using the background information of your simulating firm, conduct a strategic plan including developing a mission, vision, and values (MVVs); conducting a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis, and developing Specific, Measurable, Aligned, Realistic, Timebound (SMART) goals for your firm's first year of operation. Justify your reasoning in the audit report.

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An additional innovative feature of using the HRM simulation approach in teaching HRM is it helps improve student engagement in the course materials. One principle of universal design for learning (UDL) is to use multiple ways of delivering the same course content. Thus, rather than relying on the traditional methods of delivery such as lecture, I used the HRM simulation as another supplemental way to engage student interaction with the course content. According to the literature on training and development, of the three types of interaction namely student-teacher interaction, student-student interaction, and student-content interaction, student-content interaction was the most significant predictor of learning. Thus, the HRM simulation enables students to interact with the course material in a more hands-on approach than the traditional lecture method.

Impact

The HRM simulation as a teaching innovation had a positive impact on student learning, student readiness, supporting diverse student learners, student retention rates, and my teaching effectiveness. First, in terms of student learning, a quasi-experimental study design was used to measure the effectiveness of the HRM simulation in teaching human resource management outlined above. The experimental group included 69 students enrolled in 2 sections of the MNGT381 course and 1 section of MNGT 483 course whereas the control group included 56 students enrolled in 2 sections of the MNGT381 course in the spring 2018. The experimental group received the HRM simulation as part of the course design whereas the control group did not receive the HRM simulation. Students were asked to complete a questionnaire asking them to assess their HR competencies at the beginning of the semester and then again at the end of the semester. At the end of the semester, students were also asked to rate their self-efficacy in mastery of the HR content area attributable to the HRM simulation. The results showed that students improved their HR competencies by 40% from the beginning of the semester to the end of the semester. Relative to the control group, students from the experimental group improved their HR competencies 15% more because of using the HRM simulation. In terms of post-training self-efficacy, students reported an average of 5.2 out of 7-point scale suggesting that they enjoyed the HRM simulation, they learned a lot from the simulation and would retain such knowledge after completing the course. The HRM simulation performance (i.e., the weighted score) was positively correlated with the HR exam performance, supporting the application learning and textbook learning linkage.

In terms of student readiness, 3 of my students who completed this course with me successfully passed the SHRM-CP certification exam designed for HR professionals (please see the attached testimonial from Zoe Sparer, a student who graduated in May 2018). All learning outcomes based on the course learning objectives which were designed to help students achieve both the technical and behavioral competencies as outlined in the Society for Human Resource Management's Body of Competency and Knowledge (BoCK) were achieved. First, students were expected to achieve the mastery level of technical competencies in HRM (15 functional areas of HRM). Second, students were expected to know how HR functions influence organizational performance. Third, students were expected to be able to assess the impact of an organization's strategy on the design of appropriate HR programs. Fourth, students were expected to assist an organization's adaptation to change. Fifth, students were expected to assess the impact of an organization's HR practices on its overall performance; cultural and international variations of HR practices that impact global competitiveness. Sixth, students were expected to manage a budget, and seventh, students were expected to know the role of a line manager as an HR manager.

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As I mentioned above, the HRM simulation is consistent with the principles of UDL in not only allowing for multiple ways of content delivery but also enabling students to express their learning in multiple ways as well. Thus, in this respect, the HRM simulation supports diverse student learners.

The HRM simulation is also effective in retaining students. Across three sections, only 1 out of 80 students withdrew with a grade of “W”; indicating a 98.8% student retention rate.

My student evaluations also reflect a high level of teaching effectiveness. Across the three course sections, my student evaluations were 4.20; 4.05; and 4.71 with corresponding average grade of 2.88; 2.48; and 2.84. These numbers support my teaching effectiveness while maintaining rigorous academic standard.

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Towson University Students in the Upheaval of the 1960s and 1970s Dr. Christian J. Koot, Professor and Chair, HistoryMs. Ashley Todd-Diaz, Head of Special Collections and University Archives, Albert S. Cook Library

Project

Introduction

This teaching innovation focused on a TSEM designed by History professor Christian Koot, “Towson University Students in the Upheaval of the 1960s and 1970s.” As a TSEM this section is designed to introduce students to college-level reading, writing, critical thinking and presentation skills. Students in this TSEM write a 10-page research paper, produce a publicly-facing digital project, and give an oral presentation. Students are also placed in peer-editing and presentation groups to emphasize collaboration and group discussion.

A primary aspects of what makes this course innovative is the partnership between Koot and Ashley Todd-Diaz, Head of Towson’s Special Collections and University Archives (SCUA), that helps students understand this turbulent period through the eyes of Towson students who went before them. This course allows students to literally put their hands on history and relate to the national events and movements they discuss in the classroom in a new way by exploring student publications like weekly newspapers or yearbooks, photographs, the records of the Student Government Association, ephemera created by student organizations, handbooks for resident students, alumni recollections, and correspondence written to and from administration, students, and community members. This element adds a laboratory experience to the course that encourages students to find their own voices and ideas about certain topics by welcoming a diversity of historic, yet relatable voices to the table.

Koot and Todd-Diaz offered the course twice, in Fall 2017 and Spring 2018. Both experiences were similar, though possessed some differences. Each section enrolled 20 students from a variety of majors who are assigned to the course; the instructors played no role in selecting the students. Each course is 3 credits, though the schedule for each course differed; the Fall course met for 75 minutes twice a week, and the Spring course met for 50 minutes three times a week. Despite these differences, internal and external assessment measures indicated that both classes were effective at reaching learning outcomes and well-received by students.

TSEM

Koot designed this TSEM to help Towson freshman better understand the history of Towson and to connect them to the campus in their first semester. The course investigates the history of students at Towson University in the 1960s and 1970s. These decades were years of rapid transformation in American politics

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and culture as the rights revolution, the Vietnam War, the rise of counterculture, and student activism reshaped society. At the forefront of driving these movements were students. Away from home for the first time, exposed to new ideas, and surrounded by new friends students pushed against cultural and political boundaries and helped reshaped the United States. The course is structured in three overlapping sections.

The first section of the course is designed to introduce students to the historical background they will need to understand Towson University in the 1960s and 1970s. Through lecture, secondary readings, and documentaries students also learn about the significant social and cultural transformations of the period focusing on Civil Rights, the Vietnam War, Anti-War activism, and the Women’s Movement. Students are also introduced to the major changes in US Higher Education in the 1960s and 1970s, an era characterized by rising enrollments, desegregation, and the broadening of academic programs.1 While discussing each of these topics Koot emphasizes how what was happening on college campuses was tied directly to national stories. Units on the 1964-1965 University of California, Berkeley Free Speech Movement (FSM) and the role of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in the Civil Rights movement emphasize the connections between college students and these pivotal events.

The second section of the course focused on introducing students to primary sources and how to analyze them. This was accomplished in two parts: 1) via primary source literacy sessions with Todd-Diaz in SCUA, and 2) via course readings selected by Koot that featured primary sources from the 1960s and 1970s that provided introductions to major topics. For example when discussing the evolution of the Civil Rights movement and the rise of Black Power students read and discussed Stokely Carmichael’s “Black Power Address at UC Berkeley” from 1966 and when discussing Women’s activism and Feminism they analyzed documents relating to the Redstockings’ (a feminist activist group) protest of the Miss America Pageant in Atlantic City, New Jersey in 1968.

The final section of the course was structured around students acquiring and practicing the skills of framing historical questions, finding secondary and primary source materials, analyzing these, and presenting their findings in written and oral format. So as to maximize student-time in the archives conducting their own directed primary source research, the course met almost exclusively in the SCUA where two archivists and Koot were on hand to aid student research. This approach allowed students to explore and dive progressively deeper into the university archives, following leads, investigating different viewpoints, and identifying gaps in the collection. While students were conducting their research they were also beginning to write, completing a series of scaffolded assignments including a research proposal, a thesis statement, a discovery draft, a rough draft, and a final paper. Through this process the students not only honed their research and writing skills, but they also learned how to cite a variety of formats beyond books and scholarly articles.

Information literacy, archival literacy, and primary source literacy

Information literacy can be described as the skills to ”recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed information.”2 Increasingly, information literacy is 1 John R. Thelin, A History of American Higher Education (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004), 260-362.

2 American Library Association, Presidential Committee on Information Literacy: Final Report (Chicago: American Library Association, 1989), 1, http://www.ala.org/acrl/publications/whitepapers/presidential

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being recognized as an important skill set students benefit from to support academic success while in school, but also to be informed information consumers and critical thinkers following graduation. Primary sources are a type of information, often found in archives, that provides a particular viewpoint of an event or topic, such as diary entries, photographs, letters, or works of art. They are pieces of raw evidence that provide an authentic view into the personal side of history. Archival literacy and primary source literacy are related subsets of information literacy that both focus on interacting with primary sources, though they do so in different ways. Archival literacy is focused on the skills necessary to conduct research in an archives, including becoming familiar with archival institutions and how they differ from libraries, how to iteratively conduct research while navigating uncertainty, and how to navigate between reference tools (ex. catalogs) and the materials they describe. Alternatively, primary source literacy takes these archival skill sets a step further by encouraging critical thinking and evaluation of resources by considering a resource’s authority, trustworthiness, accuracy, context, and specific attributes both individually and in conjunction with other resources.3

As Head of Special Collections and University Archives (SCUA), Todd-Diaz places an emphasis on empowering students to gain archival and primary source literacy skills and feel comfortable researching with and creating new knowledge from these often unfamiliar resources. Following discussions with Koot about what he would like his students to gain by conducting research in Towson’s SCUA, Todd-Diaz developed the following learning objectives for two interactive archival instruction sessions:

1. To become familiar with archives and the process of conducting archival research.2. To identify and communicate information found in primary sources, including summarizing the

content of the source and identifying and reporting key components such as how it was created, by whom, when, and what it is.

3. To critically evaluate the perspective of the creator(s) of a primary source, including tone, subjectivity, and biases, and consider how these relate to the original purpose(s) and audience(s) of the source.

4. To examine and synthesize a variety of sources in order to construct, support, or dispute a research argument.

The majority of these learning objectives are drawn from the Guidelines for Primary Source Literacy co-developed by a joint-taskforce of representatives from the Society of American Archivists and the Rare Books and Manuscripts Section of the Association for College and Research Libraries.4

During the course of the semester, the TSEM students met in the SCUA’s classroom where Todd-Diaz introduced the students to archives and engaged them in collaborative, problem-based learning

3 Elizabeth Yakel and Doris Malkmus, “Contextualizing Archival Literacy.” In Teaching with Primary Sources, edited by Christopher J. Prom and Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe, 5-67. Chicago: Society of American Archivists, 2016.

4 Association for College and Research Libraries Rare Books and Manuscripts Section-Society of American Archivists Joint Task Force on the Development of Guidelines for Primary Source Literacy. (2018). Guidelines for primary source literacy. Retrieved from: https://www2.archivists.org/sites/all/files/Guidelines_for_Primary_Souce_Literacy-18_January_2018_Revision.pdf

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experiences that emphasized active analysis and evaluation of primary sources.5 This was accomplished through two structured lessons that occurred within the first few weeks of the semester. The first lesson was aimed at introducing students to SCUA and providing them with a laboratory experience to conceptualize what a primary source is and how to identify key pieces of information such as the creator, date, and format. Working in small groups, students rotated around the SCUA classroom to interact with various prominent types of primary sources from the 1960s and 1970s, including university publications, correspondence, photographs, ephemera, and official records. For each format, the students were asked to answer an analytical question that challenged them to consider contextual details such as the original purpose for the item, the intended audience, level of bias or subjectivity, and tone. Not only did this activity allow the students to relate to the personal side of this era by seeing familiar events and campus locations through the lens of past TU students held in these primary sources, but it provided them with the opportunity to apply the broader historical knowledge they were learning in the classroom to better understand the context of new resources. Additionally, it challenged the students to work in small groups to consider what types of unpublished, un-peer reviewed resources are created on a day-to-day basis that can inform the study of history when we are mindful of acknowledging issues of bias and context.

The second lesson was structured around problem-based learning strategies that challenged students to further hone their analytical skills. They were presented with a case study that examined the development of the Black Student Union at TU by drawing on eight primary sources created by a variety of students and administrators. After being presented with the background context for this case, each group was assigned a primary source to evaluate and was challenged to create an infographic on a movable whiteboard that depicted who, when, and why the primary source was created, as well as communicating the major theme or message present in the document (See supplementary materials). When the groups came back together, they were further challenged to arrange their infographics in chronological order to create a timeline of the event. Based on that order, the students then shared the details of their primary sources to report the information details of the case as well as uncover the more subtle aspects of contradiction between viewpoints, marginalization, gaps in the record, and evidence of power. This was an engaging and relatable case study because it concerns Towson students, addresses diversity and inclusion on TU’s campus in the 1970s, and allows students to connect current events they are personally familiar with, such as #OccupyTowson, to historic events that reflect national themes and events. The session also drew on problem-based learning strategies to engage learners with the process of evaluating primary sources both individually and in a cooperative learning activity to explore the timeline and motivations of a real life event through varied perspectives.

Innovative Approach

This course was innovative in three major ways: (1) It was a collaboration between a historian and a university archivist, (2) it employed inquiry-based active learning, and (3) it involved the production of outward-facing digital history products that foster civic engagement with the wider University community and helped students better understand the history of the University, their home for the next four years,

5 Anne Diekema, Wendy Holliday, and Heather Leary, “Re-framing Information Literacy: Problem-based Learning as Informed Learning,” Library and Information Science Research 33 (2011): 261-268.

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Collaboration between a Historian and a University Archivist

The collaborative approach we pursued throughout this course wove together the expertise of two complementary areas of academic knowledge, historical inquiry and archival literacy, to better prepare students as they begin conducting research at a college-level. Two of the key learning goals of the History Department focus on using and analyzing sources. (1) Marshal and arrange appropriate historical evidence from primary and secondary sources to support historical arguments. (2) Demonstrate information literacy, which includes technological competency. By partnering with SCUA the History Department was able to advance student learning in these key areas by giving students direct access to primary sources in their original format. The practicalities of the college environment and the obstacles to travel to remote archives makes it difficult to enable students to experience historical research as historians practice it. But this partnership overcame that obstacle by placing students in an actual archives and placing archival materials into their hands. Furthermore, this partnership provided a unique opportunity for SCUA to become embedded in a course and explore how the learning objectives outlined in the Guidelines for Primary Source Literacy could be achieved over the course of a semester rather than within the boundaries of one or two class sessions.

At the same time the collaboration helped students begin to understand the ways that the past is created. History, our students learned, is not the sum total of everything that happened in the past but rather is an interpretation of past events and that interpretation rests upon the foundation of archives, and archives in turn are not neutral institutions. The kinds of materials archives have historically retained and the ways they are organized have the power to shape the kinds of histories that can be told and in turn shape historical narratives.6 In decades past, Towson’s SCUA followed a traditional, top-down collecting priority that placed a focus on retaining the records of administrative offices over those documenting faculty or students. Thus, although SCUA holds records dating to the founding of the institution, the history they tell is fairly narrow. As the students refined their research topics and began conducting research in the archives, it was often surprising to them to identify where gaps existed in the historical narrative and successfully navigate them by developing strategies for locating evidence via indirect methods or unexpected locations. For example, when one student was researching the development of black studies on campus, she found important evidence by comparing course catalogs, meeting minutes from the curriculum review committee, class schedules, and student newspapers. Many students experienced a similar type of iterative process whereby their research would provide them with subtle clues from differing viewpoints that they were then challenged to weave together and dive further into the gaps to see what additional viewpoints might provide insight from a different perspective. The collaboration between Todd-Diaz and Koot made it possible to introduce students to these complex concepts through an inquiry-based approach.

Inquiry-Based Active Learning

Inquiry-based active learning is an approach where the instructor creates a supportive environment, providing the background information and research tools to allow students to solve problems important to them.7 Such an approach activates students’ imaginations and curiosity and ideally helps them to internalize new information and methods. Central to historians’ work is the development of inquiry-based thinking

6 Joan M. Schwartz, Terry Cook, “Archives, Records, and Power: The Making of Modern memory,” Archival Science 2 (102), 1-19.

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wherein they learn to understand, identify, and explain patterns of behavior amidst the messiness of the historical past. Inquiry-based projects are therefore typical in the History Department but this TSEM was innovative because it placed students with virtually no background in historical research, nevermind archival-based research, in the position of learning these skills through active problem-solving. An important part of this inquiry-based approach is that it teaches students that we cannot know everything. By asking our students to generate research questions about the history of Towson University and then to ask them to figure out how to answer those questions, our students quickly realized the limits of historical knowledge and began to understand why some narratives come to be accepted truth and others have been lost. We then encouraged students to be creative, to use inferences combined with reading between the lines of sources to make guesses about the past experiences of Towson students. We hope this work has given them the confidence to persevere when they leave Towson and encounter problems that do not have easy solutions. Instead of feeling despair, we hope they will rely on what they learned in our class to attack these problems creatively.

Incorporating Augmented Reality and Mobile Technology

In addition to writing a research paper students were also responsible for completing a digital project. Working in groups, these projects were designed to provide a public facing component to students’ research and to help students learn how to present their research in multiple ways. In the Fall of 2017 the class used the freely available app and website Clio to present their digital projects. This app uses geo-positioning and Google Maps to create virtual tours of historical sites. Students used their research to bring the TU campus alive by tagging sites on our campus where important historical events took place.

Impact

One measure of the courses’ success was the proficiency with primary sources that students developed. It is rare that undergraduate students have the chance to interact directly with archival materials, creating a barrier between the kinds of work that humanities scholars do and the work they are able to share with their students. This partnership broke that barrier down and brought students into direct contact with the “stuff” of history. A considerable success of this course was the increase in comfort the students developed with archival sources over the course of the semester. By building numerous archival research sessions into the course, over time the students seemed to consider the archives as an extension of the classroom. After a few visits, many students would jump into their research before the class period officially began so they could make the most of their research time. Compared to classes that only visit SCUA for one- or two-shot sessions, the students in this course demonstrated much more independence with the materials and more follow-up visits from students outside of class sessions. Furthermore, this TSEM course provided a unique learning and research experience that students enrolled in other TSEM courses did not have access to. Through Koot and Todd-Diaz’s partnership, these students were exposed to a broad spectrum of research resources that other courses do not tap into. As a result, these approximately 40 freshmen are beginning their college careers with a broader familiarity and confidence using primary and secondary resources.

7 AHA History Tuning Project: 2016 History Discipline Core,” American Historical Association. July 17, 2018. www.historians.org/teaching-and-learning/tuning-the-history-discipline/2016-history-discipline-core.

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One way to measure students’ proficiency with using primary sources is to look at their performance on their final research papers. The instructors used a grading rubric to assess the final papers and four elements of the rubric apply directly to the skills that Koot and Todd-Diaz focused on: Analysis, Quality of Research, Integration of Research, and Ethical/ Appropriate Attribution of Research. [The grading rubric was submitted as a supplement and it describes these skills). On these four elements students scored at the level of a B- or higher. Of the 37 final papers completed in the two sections of the course students scored on average a B- for Analysis, a B- for Quality of Research, a B- for Integration of research and a B for Ethical/ Appropriate Attribution of Research. For Freshman who have almost universally had never done primary source research and who had never used an archive before these results were impressive and testify to the hard work of the students and their willingness to embrace the challenges of archival research.

An external marker of the course’s success was that two students’ papers (“Black Representation on Campus” and “Black Women: The Forgotten Trailblazers”) were selected as the winners of the Towson Seminar Information Literacy Award in both the Fall 2017 and Spring 2018 semesters. This award, which is granted by TU’s Cook Library, offers outside validation of the success of the course. Each semester, instructors are encouraged to submit one paper for consideration of this award from each course section (there are usually 60 sections offered in the Fall semester) and one student paper is chosen as the best. Submissions are evaluated by a committee of library faculty based on a rubric that considers a variety of information literacy elements (ex. Does the paper demonstrate quality analysis, evaluation, and interpretation of sources; does it incorporate a variety and balance of research resources and perspectives; and does it place the topic in a broad context), as well as the clarity and writing skill evident. Notably, this is the first time two students from one course have won the award in two consecutive semesters.

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