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Advanced Intercultural Competency Pedagogy Training for Faculty

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Advanced Intercultural Competency Pedagogy Training for Faculty

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·       Problem:              While faculty is encouraged to create meaningful assignments that reflect institutional commitment to excellence, equity and inclusivity in our learning process, there is a dearth of opportunities available on campus to advance faculty’s professional development in the area of personal understanding of high-impact learning practices, social justice, civic engagement, cross-cultural and global perspectives on the issues we teach our courses on.

·       Proposed solution:

Advanced Professional Seminars Abroad to foster Intercultural Competency Acquisition and Preservation at the level of High-Impact Learning that we teach to our students in the form of outreach, project-based learning, service learning, etc.  Creating a fund dedicated to supporting travel for summer professional seminars abroad can dramatically improve the quality of our courses, and the value we are capable to deliver in our course content and assignments. Some Global Seminars stand out as examples of exceptional value and potentiality to create lasting institutional growth and legacy, such as Dr. Carol Conzelman’s “Democracy and Development in Bolivia,” to name but one.

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Center for Contemplative Learning  Solutions & Neuro- Diversity

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Center for Contemplative Learning  Solutions & Neuro- Diversity

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Problem: While campus has a number of units dedicated to advancing student success, such as Office of Student Success of the Undergraduate Education Office, Student Academic Success Center, ODECE, CAPS, etc., not all of these offices offer their work to the same audiences, or are known to faculty in exact parameters of their services; often their efforts are not coordinated; and most importantly, they do not focus on providing solutions and support to faculty dealing with increasing numbers of neuro-diverse student populations, which is a composite group in itself, including such impacted learners as students from underserved backgrounds, student-athletes, veteran students, students with alternative learning needs (some are expressly requesting accommodation through appropriate CU offices, some end up dropping out of classes in the last week of a semester), etc.

·       Proposed solution:

a)         Contemplative Neuroscience is a branch of Neuroscience that offers highly effective learning and self-regulating practices that can dramatically improve student’s ability to calm the mind, focus better, improve memory, speed of processing and acquisition of new information, help regulate emotional reactions and build resilience to stressors. Creating a cross-campus interdisciplinary center for applied learning practices for increased accessibility and neuro-diversity of learning solutions can significantly improve our class-completion success rates, thus translating into better retention rates, ultimately translating into better performance rates of our students, their improved ability to handle transition to university better and our institutional capacity to create a more inclusive and equitable institutional success in teaching excellence.

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Problem: a) Quality of achievement of learning outcomes and their alignment with the vision and mission of our programs and institution are rarely visible in the FCQ-style assessments available currently, thus remaining unrecorded in the evaluations

b) Faculty do not have a consistent support system in place in the form of trainings relevant to the creation of assignments aligning course learning outcomes with those of respective programs and institution and thus may not be able to effectively translate the value of course work to their students

c) FCQs do not offer inclusive and diversified perspective on how we, the faculty, are serving our diverse student populations with a variety of course work, including high-impact learning practices that take our students outside the classrooms to connect with community, complete service projects and otherwise apply course content to practical and meaningful use in their lives

·       Proposed solution:

a)         Inclusive Pedagogy Pod: regular (annual, or bi-annual) stipend-supported trainings for faculty in equity and inclusive excellence pedagogical practices, and effective design of assignments to align course content and required coursework with course learning outcomes (to engage in high-impact pedagogy) and institution and program missions (to promote inclusive excellence);

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Inclusive Pedagogy Pod
•	Problem: 	a) Quality of achievement of learning outcomes and their alignment with the vision and mission of our programs and institution are rarely visible in the FCQ-style assessments available currently, thus remaining unrecorded in the evaluations
b) Faculty do not have a consistent support system in place in the form of trainings relevant to the creation of assignments aligning course learning outcomes with those of respective programs and institution and thus may not be able to effectively translate the value of course work to their students
c) FCQs do not offer inclusive and diversified perspective on how we, the faculty, are serving our diverse student populations with a variety of course work, including high-impact learning practices that take our students outside the classrooms to connect with community, complete service projects and otherwise apply course content to practical and meaningful use in their lives

•	Proposed solution: 	
a)	Inclusive Pedagogy Pod: regular (annual, or bi-annual) stipend-supported trainings for faculty in equity and inclusive excellence pedagogical practices, and effective design of assignments to align course content and required coursework with course learning outcomes (to engage in high-impact pedagogy) and institution and program missions (to promote inclusive excellence);
b)	With an additional task of think-tank-modeled mission: a faculty group to collect, process and implement data, aggregated as a result of ICP work. Namely, best practices, examples, proposals, presentations archived digitally and documenting successful creation of effective assessments, meaningful high impact learning practices, as well as effective and transparent, mission-aligned course assignments.
c)	Resulting in a continuous body of knowledge and tracking of successful practices that can be integrated into college-wide assessments such as FCQs, and advance the level of institutional vision awareness for both faculty and students. 

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Curriculum alignment and comparison across departments

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Curriculum alignment and comparison across departments

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The proposal involves using a text mining tool for characterizing curriculum, especially critical thinking skills. The project will be collaborative among IPHY (Teresa Foley and Janet Casagrand), GEOL (David Budd), EBIO (Brett Melbourne and colleagues), ENVS (Lisa Dilling and colleagues), PSCI (Sarah Sokhey) and potentially Biofrontiers). The approach involves developing word and phrase libraries that describe learning goals, quantitative estimation of how multiple courses emphasize the same or different learning goals within a department, and comparing the results across departments as way of working towards better curricular alignment.

Janet Casagrand, IPHY
Teresa Foley, IPHY

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Integrating Teaching and Community Engagement

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Integrating Teaching and Community Engagement

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I'm interested in the creation of a platform to facilitate the integration of community-based activities into our regular teaching modules. In my classes on Italian and media I find it increasingly necessary to encourage students to bring their learning beyond the classroom setting to become more active and responsible local citizens. Whether this is through interaction with local high schools, non-profit organizations, or local companies, I have found that students are generally better focused and more motivated when they have a clearly identifiable public and/or interlocutor. I believe that numerous courses at CU could benefit from this approach and a platform of this kind. There are indeed several colleagues who have already included a community component to their teaching modules.

This project could take a variety of formats:
- a repository of potential local partners (organized by area/sector);
- ideas about specific class projects that could involve a collaboration between CU classes and the Boulder/Denver community;
- some tech tools that could be implemented to facilitate and develop this level of student engagement beyond the classroom.

Michela Ardizzoni, French and Italian
(michela.ardizzoni@colorado.edu)

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An August 2018 article in The Atlantic suggests that the “crisis in the Humanities” relates to the undergraduate perception that Humanities majors have poor job prospects in comparison to other fields of study.  As a result, STEM-related fields such as nursing, engineering, computer science, and biology enjoyed the greatest rise of enrollments in the last decade. In fact, in the top 30 universities, “there are now about as many degrees awarded in computer science as in history, English, languages, philosophy, religion, area studies, and linguistics put together.”[1]  I believe that one way to encourage students to major in the Humanities and to help them feel confident in their employments prospects is to combine the humanistic and the technical in order to enhance student creativity and flexibility.

I propose a project that brings together faculty from across disciplines to create a repository for digital assignments for use in the undergraduate classroom.  These assignments would take both written and digital video form, thereby conforming to Universal Design principles.  I can imagine a number of projects that might be applicable across fields:  R programming, web design and editing, digital mapping, 3D visualization, digital storytelling, podcasts and digital gamification.  The shared repository would encourage Humanities instructors to teach undergraduate students the digital skills that students and parents perceive to be employable.  Additionally, this repository would provide a jumping-off point for anyone at CU with an interest in leveraging technology in the classroom.  These open access, community-generated materials would also prove useful in training graduate students to teach in the Digital Humanities:  a pedagogical approach that we see mentioned with increasing frequency in tenure job advertisements for English literature.  Finally, this shared information would be useful in creating a minor in Digital Humanities.

[1] Schmidt, Benjamin. “The Humanities Are In Crisis,” The Atlantic, 23 Aug. 2018, https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/08/the-humanities-face-a-crisisof-confidence/567565/, accessed 20 November 2018.

Rachael Deagman Simonetta, English and Continuing Education
deagman@colorado.edu

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My proposal is related to student engagement and lack thereof.  In the past few years I have flipped my large lecture classes in the hope of increasing engagement and retention.  While the experience has been rewarding in terms of the student interaction, I have been surprised at the results of preliminary data I have collected.  In particular, preliminary data suggests that more students are dropping out of the class, either by failing to attend or withdrawing from the course.  So far I have analyzed clicker data and withdrawals from the course.  I hope to expand this inquiry by examining COPUS and BERI data collected by ASSETT.  I will also begin to survey students who are engaged in this behavior in order to understand their decision to disengage.

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Data Science in the Humanities and Beyond

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Data Science in the Humanities and Beyond

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My proposal is to develop a platform or infrastructure for facilitating data science work in the humanities, with a primary goal of increasing student involvement in computer-assisted research projects in the classroom and out.  The initiative could involve a number of components:

·       A faculty and student working group oriented towards developing professional networks across campus of faculty involved in teaching or research utilizing data science, developing expertise in computationally-oriented research and pedagogy for interested faculty, and facilitating research collaboration within the humanities and across divisions, all with an eye to creating educational opportunities for students.

·       Support for curricular development, helping faculty in CAS, primarily the humanities but potentially in the arts and social sciences, incorporate data science projects into their existing coursework, develop courses around data science in the given discipline, create programs (minors or tracks within majors, joint-majors between departments, cross-disciplinary certificate programs, or the like), and (potentially) lay the groundwork for a cross-campus data science undergraduate program (possibly along the lines of what has been developed at UC Berkeley: https://data.berkeley.edu/education/courses).

·       An incubator for sponsoring student-involved or student-driven computer-assisted research projects in the humanities and/or other divisions.  The incubator would provide a venue for involving students in advanced research in the discipline; students would work under faculty supervision on independent studies, UROP grants, individual projects related to existing coursework, or courses built around these projects.

·       A mechanism for furthering technical support for digital humanities work on campus.

The proposal builds on the existing resources of ASSETT, the Norlin Library’s Center for Research Data and Data Science (CRDDS), the Laboratory for Interdisciplinary Statistical Analysis (LISA), and potentially the Research and Innovation Office (RIO).  The goal would be to leverage and augment the existing expertise and resources in these various units and programs to 1) enable faculty collaboration across units to enhance research and teaching, 2) in a way that creates opportunities for students to expand their technological literacy and to gain research experience in emergent areas of their disciplines.

David Glimp, English
david.glimp@colorado.edu

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I propose creating a working group of faculty interested in games (simulations, role-playing, video/online and face-to-face) and gamification as pedagogical tools across the curriculum. Some of the digital technologies I have in mind are Slack (for team-based communication) and GradeCraft (for course management of gamified classes); but also possibly developing digital games in collaboration with interested faculty in Computer Science. Non-digital technologies include short-term and long-term games/simulations that faculty have developed themselves or have been developed elsewhere (such as Reacting to the Past). I've got a group of interested faculty across the humanities, social sciences, and sciences, but there's always room for more! Email me if you are interested.

Michaele Ferguson, Political Science (michaele.ferguson@colorado.edu)

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The learning management system that helps instructors build gameful courses & encourages students to focus on the craft of learning

What is "Gameful Learning?"

Gameful learning is a pedagogical approach inspired by techniques and methods found in well-designed games. It utilizes concepts such as:

Want to learn more about Gameful Pedagogy?

Check out these featured resources from GamefulPedagogy.com

What is Gameful?

Learn more about the core elements of gameful learning

Getting Started with Gameful

Learn how to implement gameful design in your course

Get started

Example Syllabi

Example syllabi from courses using gameful pedagogy

View examples

GradeCraft Supports Your Gameful Design

Our tool helps you utilize gameful methodologies and apply them to the design of your learning environment. We do this through state-of-the-art Learning Management System (LMS) features such as:

Integration with Existing Platforms

We know that integrating with other platforms is key, so we support Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) 1.1 as both a Tool Provider and Consumer. Your data is your data-and should always be available to you to download and dig into.

GradeCraft Supports You!

We believe your effort as an instructor shouldn't be spent trying to figure out how a system works. We work with instructors to make sure GradeCraft is as easy to use as possible so you can create a rich learning environment for your students.

We are constantly working to improve our grading features in response to instructor feedback. Rubrics? Yup. Analytics? Got it. Downloadable data? Always. What's next? That's up to you!

Ready to Get Started with GradeCraft?

Are you an instructor who believes learning should be gameful?
Do you want to get started with your gameful course design?

Learn More About GradeCraft

Want to learn more about the research behind GradeCraft, the team that built this tool, or just curious about how this all began? Learn more about us

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Do you want the latest and greatest news in GradeCraft? Subscribe to our newsletter!

You'll get updates about features, upcoming conferences and events, new things we're working on, and other exciting GradeCraft things. You can expect to hear from us every 3-6 months.

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The learning management system that helps instructors build gameful courses & encourages students to focus on the craft of learning Gameful learning is a pedagogical approach inspired by techniques and methods found in well-designed games. It utilizes concepts such as: Check out these featured resources from GamefulPedagogy.com What is Gameful?

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Research shows that students fare best when they feel connected and that they belong at an institution.  Peer mentoring can be a powerful means to build a sense of connection and belonging in large institutions.  Enabling experienced students to serve as mentors to first-years is a good way to enhance their feeling of commitment to CU Boulder, while providing mentors to first-year students can help them navigate the transition to college.

Running a robust mentoring program is a labor-intensive endeavor.  It requires considerable attention to training mentors and setting expectations. To make good matches, students must be able to select the factors that matter most to them, from factors including high school (or community college) from which they have graduated or transferred; neighborhood, city, or region of origin; race, gender, ethnicity, or first generation college student status; major in college; interest undergraduate research, etc.  Interactions between mentors and mentees must be tracked.  A mentoring platform would allow peer mentoring to be done at scale in ways that enable meaningful data to be gathered and evaluated.

Daryl Joji Maeda, Associate Dean for Student Success, College of Arts and Sciences.

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I would like to explore opportunities to get undergraduate students to undertake inquiry projects in which they (1) ask important questions that existing data could answer; (2) get the data; (3) prepare it for analysis; (4) analyze it; (5) visualize it; and (6) design a deliverable that communicates the results to a particular audience for a particular purpose. I already do something similar in my technical communication and design course (WRTG 3035), but I’d like to shoot bigger. In particular, I have found that step 2 (get the data) often takes more time and, especially, more political weight than my students and I have. Example: the CU administration is very reluctant to divulge certain data about itself, because nowadays, control of data allows control of narrative. But if managed properly, this very tension between CU and its administration can get students fired up about data storytelling. In a project like this I can contribute expertise on the rhetorical side and the design side, but could really benefit from collaboration on the computational side and the political side.

Nathan Pieplow, Program for Writing and Rhetoric
nathan.pieplow@colorado.edu

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We propose kick-starting an interdisciplinary curriculum in Computational Biology, such as a cross-college minor. It would provide BA and BS students with a cohesive avenue to develop computational and quantitative skills appropriate for the Natural Sciences, which does not currently exist at CU Boulder, yet is in high demand in the workforce and essential to BA disciplines with the growth of open-source tools and big, complex datasets. This curriculum must inherently be built around technology and experiential learning, and we would focus on open-source platforms in the classroom—Python and collaboration tools (Github, Jupyter notebooks) in use with compute clusters (this is done currently through BioFrontiers and MCDB 4521 for example) and open-source dataset repositories like GenBank. Big project, and there is some momentum on this—we are launching a (hopefully core) course Spring 2019, CSCI 4314/5314 Dynamic Models in Biology, which is a project-based, interdisciplinary course, and have brainstormed with students, postdocs, faculty, departments, and undergraduate advisors on other courses that integrate bioprocesses with technology-based learning (making and using libraries, reproducibility in software design, data input and output). However, any cohesive course building is impossible without cross-unit support, and ASSETT’s approach seems timely with Academic Future’s decision to also prioritize interdisciplinary teaching, research, and creative work.

Kristin Powell, BioFrontiers Director of Interdisciplinary Education

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In medical fields, the use of simulated and standardized patients has become commonplace, but the use of such technology in speech language pathology and audiology is in its infancy. Such 'hands-on' experience helps to prepare our students for clinical work while reducing the anxiety and risk that go hand-in-hand with a medical professional who has little experience working with patients. I'd like to propose the development of simulated and standardized patients and cases (this can be done via computer and via video) for our graduate students as they start their graduate work. Evidence has shown that these types of learning experiences are valued by students (it exposes them to what we do in the field, but without the risk of working with a real patient and allows them to practice without the supervision of a licensed speech pathologist or audiologist) and the learning that occurs via simulated and standardized patients carries over into the 'real world'. A partnership with engineering, IT, education, and fine arts would lead to the development of modules for learning that are evidence-based and able to help prepare our graduate student clinicians in ways that haven't been possible in the past. Research into the effectiveness of the modules and their development would be welcome at national conferences and in journals. Ultimately, such modules could be shared with other programs.
Tammy Fredrickson, SLHS
tammy.fredrickson@colorado.edu

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Students are often offered models or examples in textbooks or PowerPoint presentations, but rarely allowed to actively engage in the learning experience by touching, tinkering, and manipulating what they are viewing. To inspire a deeper understanding and engage more students, I am proposing student research opportunities using the X-Ray Microscope and associated 3D visualization software from the MIMIC Core Facility and Ferguson Lab in Mechanical Engineering. An X-Ray Microscope (or XRM) creates 3D scans of an object that students can then render using 3D software and thus manipulate to isolate and examine certain portions of the structure. Furthermore these 3D renderings can be used to print 3D models, create videos, and allow students to see inside what they are studying.

Already this instrument has been used to examine acid degradation of concrete, bone morphologies, a marsupial tooth holotype, batteries, fibers used on the International Space Ship, lichen growth into rocks, seed morphologies, neurons in the reward pathways of rats, and hydrogels. The proposed project would be highly interdisciplinary as the XRM can be used to examine materials from nearly any field of the Natural Sciences. Students with a range of interest can take part in this active, research-based approach to learning as part of an independent study or with ongoing projects in the MIMIC Core Facility.

In addition to providing students an opportunity to learn new technology and software, the deliverables of this project would be focused on scientific communication and outreach. Just as students will gain a deeper understanding of the material structure and composition by 3D visualization and virtual manipulation, sharing their work in venue such as the Fiske Planetarium or displays in the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History will engage the community (both University and Boulder) as a whole. Students will be asked to produce videos, images, and 3D printed replicas of the objects that they learned about which can then be used as tools when they present their research.

This project will allow students to take advantage of the technologies already available on the University to explore materials that otherwise were too small or too valuable for them to physically handle, and to take ownership of their learning experience by presenting and sharing what they have discovered with the public.

Potential Collaborators: Fiske Planetarium, University of Colorado Museum of Natural History

Jennifer Coulombe
PhD Student Mechanical Engineering

Ferguson Lab / MIMIC Core Facility

Jeco8124@colorado.edu

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Problem based learning course to build life skills

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Problem based learning course to build life skills

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We propose a freshman level course developed around project and problem based learning that will rely on technology to help students learn basic skills that are often lacking in the student population as a whole. With the help of ASSETT, we would like to implement technology that will promote a learning environment that nurtures effective group work; encourages metacognition; and fosters self-efficacy by creating a final product that might be usable by the CU or broader community.

Our preliminary idea is that the course will be developed around a theme (with many different themes possible) that highlights a research area of interest on campus. By teaming with faculty from different disciplines, many of these themes could be interdisciplinary. For instance, a Climate Change theme could include a project that looks at social, scientific, and communication issues.  Students might choose to explore different areas around climate change based on their interests. Students might also return as peer mentors in future semesters.

The goals of this course would be:

Goal 1: Improve student persistence by connecting students to faculty around campus.

Goal 2: Tap into curiosity and build a growth mindset.

Goal 3: Develop proper communication skills.

Goal 4: Promote self-efficacy through completion of a project. This could be an educational video; performance; how-to video, etc that would be archived and have an outreach component.

Goal 5: Learn how to work effectively in groups.

Technology will play a central role in how students will learn about the topic area, document their progress, communicate with groups, and develop and complete a final project.
Ruth Heisler- IPHY
Derek Sweeney-EBIO
Tammy Maldonado- Cont. Ed

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Electronic Greenhouse: a Student Publishing Lab

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Electronic Greenhouse: a Student Publishing Lab

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(Anonymous here is Jay Ellis and Laurie Gries--with student help)
Established in 2013, Journal Twenty Twenty—CU’s  undergraduate publishing home for creative nonfiction— currently includes staffers majoring in Neuroscience, Psychology, Math, IMAP Photography, Creative Writing, Business, and MCDB. This highlights an existing interest in student publication and media production across disciplines. We seek support from ASSETT to expand student publication learning across the college. While our current team of faculty has expertise in creative nonfiction, print and online journal publication, and visual and digital production, this team, (also including student Journal Twenty Twenty staffers), would benefit from more cross-disciplinary collaboration, funding to support more hands-on student learning, and more training in digital skills. We thus seek to establish a dedicated space for faculty advisors from across units to support these students, teaching publishing technology as well as critical “soft skills” in high demand by employers and graduate schools. Pedagogical development could include curricula design, additional courses, and 1, 2, and 3-credit Independent Studies and Internships, all of which would count toward the PWR’s new Interdisciplinary Certificate in Writing. Support for such learning—beyond classroom hours—could specifically include:

·         A Dedicated Publishing Technology Lab, with computers for collaborative student learning, a sound-proof podcasting booth for recording interviews and video voice-overs, simple backdrops for video shoots, etc. PWR has provided equipment for audio and video field production, but not for studio work.

·         Software Licensing and Advanced Instructional Support, in Adobe CS, MS Office, Audacity, and possibly non-Adobe software for Web development beyond Squarespace.

·         Team Taught Courses and Mentorship Programs, including participation from the sciences and social sciences to help expand content. Creative nonfiction includes more than “memoir,” such as Narrative Journalism, Medical Humanities, Critical Ethnography, and Science writing. We could publish a wider range of creative nonfiction, particularly by expanding web possibilities.

Team members (so far): Jay Ellis (Senior Instructor-PWR), Laurie Gries (Assistant Professor with Joint Appointment in PWR and Communication), and undergraduate journal staffers: EIC Maggie Ramseur (NRSC), Jerett Cherry and Reilly Friedman (Math), and Art Director Kate Kelly (AASA).

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A Visible, Digital Fairy Tale Bibliography

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A Visible, Digital Fairy Tale Bibliography

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Working with librarians in Special Collections and other faculty (and eventually students), I'd like to build a Digital Visual Bibliography of Norlin Library’s Fairy Tale Collection.  Norlin currently holds some 1500 fairy tale pieces (books, sheet music, stereoscopic cards) published between the 16thand 21stcenturies. These texts are currently spread across four different collections and are not easily searchable. We hope to build on past experiments to create the digital framework for a database of holdings that would be searchable by ATU Folklore Classification (e.g. ATU 510A Cinderella), date of publication, and place of publication. Typically in the fairy tale courses taught on campus, some part of the courses is dedicated to teaching students to utilize this classification system to identify examples of tale types (Sleeping Beauty, Dragon Slayers). I'd like to use the Digital Bibliography to change classwork into fieldwork, into “hands-on humanities,” by having students practice their classification skills in the context of adding texts and annotations to the database.  This would allow those of us who teach fairy tales to assess whether this sort of public writing improves student writing and engagement.
Step 2: Creating student teams (humanists + artists, or scholarists) who will use the database to "perform the archive", to create original fairy tales (danced, sung, played, painted written).  This would be an interdisciplinary course uniting Humanities and Arts departments.
Step 3: Going public with this resource to create outreach activities based  on the bibliography and archive holdings  for local schools and communities.

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Digital Pedagogy and Project-Based Work: Knowledge As Constructed, Not Ingested

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Digital Pedagogy and Project-Based Work: Knowledge As Constructed, Not Ingested

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I'm proposing making use of digital pedagogy - which ranges from fairly simple things like creating an online exhibit or map using available and approachable tools to applying more demanding skill like computational text or data analysis - to get students to approach course material from an unfamiliar angle and see themselves as producers of knowledge.

Students tend to see knowledge as floating "out there," while their job is to "acquire" it. To help them see knowledge as produced by people not that different from themselves, I propose the creation of more project-based, technology-leveraging undergraduate courses. Approaching humanities subject through technological tools or digital techniques and focusing on a project rather than on "covering" a topic helps jolt students out of their habitual learning rituals.

Ideally, such courses would target students from several disciplines, possibly with a view toward even developing a minor in digital humanities (with the humanities construed very broadly.) They would promote interdisciplinary collaboration not merely for its own sake but also as a way to help undergraduates grasp the underpinnings of academic disciplines as different ways of knowing the world.

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We envision to build a sustainable and accessible platform for the instruction and learning of Arabic language and culture. The material designed for the platform will help students independently learn the language and the culture by exploring, experimenting, and researching. The material as well aims to help teachers to redesign components of the courses to be flipped, online, or hybrid.

Starting from novice levels of the language where students learn the sounds and writing of the Arabic alphabet, up to the Advanced levels where they can interact with videos, be exposed to authentic material, publish their writings and stories in Arabic, the platform will create an environment of edutainment, gamification, and immersion. As it is developing and sustained, the platform may host a channel/podcast of learning Arabic language and culture, a student journal and/or a blog, an open online learning source of Arabic, and online learning or speaking platform. Some of the components of this platform can be web-based, mobile applications, printable material, or any other new and relevant technologies.

Mona Farrag Attwa
Instructor of Arabic Language and Culture, ALC
mona.attwa@colorado.edu

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Cloud Computing To Support Data Visualization and Data Analysis

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Cloud Computing To Support Data Visualization and Data Analysis

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Classes where students need to perform data analysis, visualization or computing are challenging because students local compute environment (their laptops) might not be powerful enough to support the software that is needed. One example is the proposed Trimble technology lab. Trimble will provide all the software but no hardware. A cost-effective way to provide students with a good experience is cloud computing. For this pilot, I propose to explore how the Trimble software and other 3D visualization tools can be provided to faculty and students through cloud computing and how  of interactive 3D visualization will perform in comparison to local, high-end workstations.

Potential Collaborators: Henry Lovejoy (History), Digital Humanities Certificate, Engineering

Thomas Hauser
Director of Research Computing
Thomas.hauser@colorado.edu

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I would like to propose a project in which technology is developed for instructors of all disciplines to collect metacognitive reflections from students. Metacognition has been widely studied as a vehicle for increased student engagement in their own learning processes. Students that are aware of their strengths and weaknesses as learners, writers, readers, test-takers, and group members will be more likely to actively monitor their learning strategies and determine their readiness for particular tasks.

We could benefit from some type of functionality through Canvas that would allow the student to create an ongoing journal of reflections in any course. If the instructor could control the prompts and timing of these reflections, and could received reports, there would be powerful communication and relationship building happening in large classrooms. In addition to Canvas, we would investigate if other platforms could be used as metacognitive tools. I have discussed this project with the following collaborators/resources:

Potential collaborators: Cheryl Pinzone (EBIO), Elspeth Dusinberre (CLAS)
Shane Oshetski (Writing)

Resources: Katy Plath (CHEM), Brad Graham (OIT)

Email me if you are interested.

Becca Ciancanelli
STEM coordinator, Student Academic Success Center

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One proven way to engage students in active learning is a "studio" environment. Studio physics has replaced traditional lecture in many institutions across the nation. A cycle of lecture, conceptual group work, and hands-on activities has been associated with positive outcomes ranging from increased conceptual learning gains to improved retention. Technology plays a large role in a studio classroom as student groups work at their own pace with real-time feedback provided by a digital solution.

At CU, our freshman physics courses (although made somewhat interactive via clickers) remain a traditional large lecture environment. We can do better! I propose that we begin work on introducing studio physics at CU.

Daniel Bolton
Instructor, Physics
daniel.bolton@colorado.edu

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One of the things that RAP classes can, and do, provide are settings for HIPS (High Impact Practices) such as undergraduate research, collaborative assignments and projects, service or community-based learning, and e-portfolios. I would like to see a group of RAP faculty from diverse backgrounds develop criteria and strategies for using technology in RAP classes in ways that further our goals in regards to these High Impact Practices as well as developing assessment tools to measure their impact and effectiveness for our students. This might also be an opportunity to collaborate between RAP faculty and faculty teaching first year seminar courses. What could we create by bringing our collective knowledge and diverse teaching practices together that would be effective across a diversity of RAP and first-year seminars?

Nicole Jobin - Sewall RAP Instructor and Associate Director
nicole.jobin@colorado.edu

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Here's an example of what your Padlet post might look like. Please be sure to include your name and department so we can connect! Note that you can include attachments, images, and links, as needed.

Submitted by:
Joy Adams, ASSETT!

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Subject relevance, frequent exposure, and systematic continuity are key to computational literacy in non-programming majors.

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Subject relevance, frequent exposure, and systematic continuity are key to computational literacy in non-programming majors.

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I propose facilitating the development and implementation of discipline- specific computational exercises for (all? most?) existing classes across a given curriculum as a meaningful step towards achieving computational literacy in non-programming majors (bio, geo, literature, etc.). Who else is interested? (proposed technology: Jupyter  Notebooks with python, R, C++ on Binder or JupyterHub)

Sebastian Kopf, Geological Sciences