11:00 a.m.

Community Engaged Service In and Beyond the Classroom: Restoration of a 1930's Art Deco Theater in Allendale

Karen Heid, Faculty, College of Arts & Sciences

This session will describe a course which integrates learning in and beyond the classroom through community service engagement through the interior restoration of a 1930’s art deco theater in Allendale, SC. The USC Columbia Art Department (Art Education Program) is collaborating with USC Salkehatchie in order to help restore the interior of the old Carolina Theater in order that it might once again become a vital part of the community. Additionally, this course concentrates on the practice of teaching methods for the secondary art classroom. Up to 50% of the three-hour class requires practical experiences in studio techniques that are appropriate for the 9-12 classroom. In addition to the typical content of this course, this opportunity will give students hands-on experiences for engaging in beyond the classroom learning experiences and service learning that are not normally introduced in this class. Together, these skills and techniques, as well as a hands-on approach within a community engaged setting, will broaden the skills, knowledge and abilities of the pre-service art teacher.

Task the Task, and Test the Test

Wei-Kai Lai, Faculty, Math, USC Salkehatchie

In many classes, tests are still the main method to measure how well the students learn, especially in math courses. We often focus on finding new ideas, maybe interesting examples or fun projects, for our lectures. For the past four years, I have tried a similar approach to bring new ideas in the tests, making them an additional educational tool. In this session, I will introduce several alternative tasks used in math tests. Many students become interested in math because of these creative test ideas. Some examples are from my classes and some are from colleagues at other institutions. These examples either enhance the desire of student learning or provide students a different way to apply their math knowledge. And they all bring fun into the tests! Participants are also invited to share their own ideas of a creative test in their discipline. Hopefully after this session we all will be able to actually think of a test as part of the teaching, and not just a test itself!

Science Inside and Outside the Classroom: Involving Students and Reaching Out to the Community

Helene Maire-Afeli, Faculty, USC Union

Regional campus students are, for the majority, first generation students, and are often not familiar with science in general and chemistry in particular. Thus, at USC Union we use several teaching strategies and activities within and outside of the classroom to improve learning and to show that science is part of our everyday lives. Toward that end, we use PowerPoint lectures with embedded videos, references to contemporary TV shows (The Big Bang Theory, CSI, NCIS, Bones...), and hands-on activities. We also celebrate National Chemistry Week in the fall and Earth Day in the spring. In addition, students have to create a chemistry activity or a magic trick to present to local elementary school students, study the chemistry involved in it (related to the topics learned in the classroom), practice their activity/trick in the laboratory and finally, present it to youth in our community. Specifically, elementary and home school students are invited to our campus and the chemistry students put on a magic show and provide fun hands on activities for them. These projects have a tremendous impact on regional campus students' learning as they have to demonstrate a deep understanding of what they are presenting (it is graded). These projects also expose children in our community to science which may spark their interest in science and show them that science is real, practical and present all around us!

11:30 a.m.

I'll Give It a Try!: Creating ePortfolios in Blackboard

Sara Corwin, Faculty, Arnold School of Public Health

BlackBoard 9.1 offers ePortfolio for demonstration of student learning and for showcasing student work. In addition, as noted by USC Connect, ePortfolios are "an ideal tool to help students plan their college experience, identify areas of interests, reflect on experiences they have and connect many experiences to one another and to their coursework." As with traditional academic portfolios, ePortfolio allows students to create personalized artifacts of many types: video, photos, audio, text, and documents. This presentation will describe incorporating ePortfolio into two public health undergraduate majors' courses (i.e., UNIV 101 and capstone/senior seminar). Feedback from students regarding their experiences in creating their ePortfolio will be shared. Instructor tips and lessons learned will also be presented.

Where Should Beyond-the-Classroom Go?

Pearl Fernandes, Faculty, Biology, USC Sumter

Enhancing student interest and learning, and making academic experiences meaningful are the goals educators have for students. In order to achieve this, I have used a variety of strategies such as real-world examples, collaborative learning, technological tools such as YouTube videos, along with beyond-the-classroom activities in my science courses to foster active learning and to engage students in real-world problems. Students were divided into groups and asked to work and gather data on a scientific topic that could be connected to the world around them. Students presented their projects in the classroom, campus or community using technology. Formal and informal evaluations indicated that the combination of in-class and beyond-the-classroom activities stimulated learning, developed a rich interaction and a sense of community among students and the faculty member, made students more aware of problems around the world, and increased professional development opportunities.

Critical Interactives: Interdisciplinary Classroom Teaching in Computer Science and the Humanities

Heidi Rae Cooley, Faculty, College of Arts & Sciences Duncan Buell, Faculty, College of Engineering and Computing

Heidi Rae Cooley in Media Arts/Film and Media Studies and Duncan Buell in Computer Science and Engineering have been team-teaching courses that bring together computer science students and humanities students to produce "critical interactives," software applications that borrow techniques from games to deliver a message in the humanities. Such interdisciplinary classes are not without their problems, but Buell and Cooley believe many of those problems have been mitigated or solved and that learning on both sides has been enhanced by the experience of the combined classes. The general requirements for and opportunities deriving from such classes will be discussed as well as the specific issues surrounding the Fall 2012 course being taught that is developing a mobile application regarding the University of South Carolina and its antebellum relationship to slavery.

1:30 p.m.

Classroom Response Systems - Clickers in the Large Lecture

David Tedeschi, Faculty, College of Arts & Sciences

Classroom response systems, sometimes known as "clickers," have become popular and are being used across disciplines at the university level. The technology allows polling of students with real-time feedback available to the professor during lecture. However, the technology by itself does not increase student learning. It is well understood that students learn more effectively when they take an active role in lecture as opposed to the traditional passive mode of note taking. However, in large introductory classes with several hundred students, meaningful participation is difficult to achieve. In this presentation, I will describe the process of "Peer Instruction" - a teaching method developed by Eric Mazur at Harvard - and how I have applied it to our introductory physics courses to engage the students in meaningful way. Peer Instruction involves discussions among students during lectures in response to questions posed by the professor. The lecture is then adapted to the responses of the students. This approach creates a more active classroom and an improved student experience.

Service-Learning: A Pathway to Integrative Learning in the Classroom

Dottie Weigel, Assistant Director for Student Engagement and Service-Learning, Office of Student Engagement

Faculty who incorporate service-learning into their courses report a number of benefits including adding new insights and dimensions to class discussions, working with highly motivated and engaged students, building community partnerships, networking with faculty from different disciplines, and supporting the Carolina Core Curriculum. In this session, the presenters will provide an overview of the hallmarks of service-learning and discuss how faculty from a spectrum of disciplines can help students integrate service experiences into their learning. The presenters will provide participants with data from past USC service-learning courses and will offer several resources to help with course development and management.

Fieldwork and Placed-Based Education: Opportunities for Beyond the Classroom Learning

Stephen Criswell, Faculty, USC Lancaster

This presentation will discuss the presenters' experiences developing and implementing service-learning cultural documentation projects in African American communities, student research activities in local Native American communities, and writing-across-the-curriculum courses involving folklore fieldwork.

2:00 p.m.

Big Picture Thinking in a One-Page Outline: Teaching Students to Write for their Discipline

Michelle Maher, Faculty, College of Education

Teaching students to write for their discipline is an important but at times difficult pedagogical activity. Participation in disciplinary writing, whether for a class assignment or a manuscript submission, immerses undergraduate and graduate students in their chosen discipline. However, students often find it difficult to contextualize their writing within the broader disciplinary landscape and to understand the often tacit disciplinary knowledge-making practices. In response, this session introduces the use of a one-page writing outline that can assist both students and their instructor to coherently frame various disciplinary writing components. Using the common format of a research article as an example, the outline is best used prior to in-depth writing efforts. In this example, before undertaking focused writing, students are asked to reflect upon and identify the area of supporting literature, conceptual framework, research questions, methods, anticipated results and implications, as well as possible journal 'homes' for their writing. In considering and discussing these components in concert, the student is encouraged to increase the internal consistency and cohesion of the writing they produce. Instructors can use the outline to introduce and discuss the purpose and place of various components, emphasizing how each component contributes to the larger whole. One-page outlines can be used across disciplines and can be tailored to align with different components within various disciplines.

Use of Integrative Learning for Educators

Matthew Irvin, Faculty, College of Education

This presentation will provide a brief overview of the instructional activities, within- and outside-the-classroom, that are being used and developed to promote integrative learning in a graduate level course on adolescent development. Most of the students in the course are working on a master's degree in teaching. Thus, ensuring that students acquire a more advanced level of integrative learning is vital so that they can effectively use what they have learned in this and other courses in their important role as teachers. Accordingly, the following types of instructional activities that are intended to promote integrative learning are being used in the course and will be discussed in the presentation: weekly reading reflections, analysis of case studies, and course project.

Service-Learning and Online Courses: The Challenges and Success of Blending Ideas in Non-traditional Settings

Elise Lewis, Faculty, College of Mass Communications & Information Studies

Service-learning can be found in many classrooms across campus. The benefits of incorporating service-learning are well documented in scholarly literature. In the spring of 2012, a CTE service-learning grant was awarded with the intention of adding a service-learning component to an online graduate course. The course, which is currently being taught in the School of Library and Information Science, focuses on web technology and emerging standards on the web. The path for incorporating service-learning into the curriculum is not straight-forward. Many obstacles and challenges become evident while planning the course. Students are spread out geographically, have different interests and expertise, and the course content are just a few of the challenges that had to be addressed. This presentation will highlight the lessons learned up to this point in the semester. It will also discuss initial reactions and discoveries the students have shared while exploring the concept of service-learning and how it may be used in their future careers. Finally, it will highlight some of the unintended benefits emerging as the semester progresses.

Task-Based Foreign Language Teaching and Learning

Xiaohu Wu, Instructor, College of Arts & Sciences

This presentation is designed to show how task-based teaching can enhance foreign language teaching. I will reference my own experience in teaching Chinese to learners of all levels and all age groups. Task-Based Language teaching (TBLT) means that the lesson is organized around a meaningful and authentic task, rather than a linguistic/grammatical thing. More specifically, a pedagogical task can engage learners in comprehending, manipulating, producing or interacting in the target language while their attention is focused on mobilizing their grammatical knowledge in order to express meaning. Thus, the focus of TBLT is on meaning rather than grammatical form. In this session, I will illustrate with detailed examples how I utilize TBLT in my language teaching. The process starts with needs analysis to identify learners' real-world needs. Then, curriculum and lesson plans can be designed by following steps and selecting activities. This session will detail this approach in order to show how task-based language learning is significant in motivating learners and in focusing the attention of teachers and learners on meaning and communicative language use.

2:30 p.m.

Can You Hear Me Now? Developing New Courses in Response to Industry Needs

Karen Edwards, Instructor, College of Hospitality, Retail, & Sport Management

The primary mission of the University of South Carolina is to educate the state's diverse citizens, providing all students with the highest-quality education, including the knowledge, skills and values necessary for success. Toward that end, the Department of Retailing is working to better prepare its graduates for management positions in the retailing industry. Many of the 28 million Americans working in the retailing field hold positions which include multiple aspects of loss prevention and risk management. Both industry practitioners and academia agree on the importance of retail managers being educated and informed regarding current issues in risk management. In fact, our industry partners have articulated a general need for more instruction in this area. The new undergraduate retailing course Loss Prevention for Retailers (RETL 330), developed in collaboration with various industry partners, incorporates integrative learning processes, providing students with important experiences and skills they need to be prepared for and competitive in the retailing industry. The collaborative process used to develop this course is significant because it can easily be adopted by numerous departments across the USC campuses in their efforts to update and enhance the curriculum.

Wikipedia: A Valuable Teaching Tool!

Karen Patten, Faculty, College of Hospitality, Retail & Sport Management
Lynn Keane, Instructor, College of Hospitality, Retail & Sport Management

Many college students are advised to not use Wikipedia in any class research projects. However, studies into the pedagogical value of using Wikipedia to achieve course learning outcomes have shown promising results. The Wikimedia Foundation established the Wikipedia Public Policy Initiative (WPPI) in Spring 2010 to explore its potential value to improve information literacy, collaborative learning, and student engagement. By May 2011, more than 800 students at 24 U.S. universities participated in the pilot project. The WPPI was renamed the Global Education Program (GEP), expanded in August 2011 to include 60 American courses in many academic disciplines, and continues to grow. Several USC iIT courses are included in this GEP initiative. Dr. Karen Patten and Dr. Lynn Keane will share their experience with implementing Wikipedia projects into their USC courses to address digital literacy, collaborative learning, and student engagement course objectives. Additionally, presenters will share the wealth of support and resources available to faculty as they consider implementing Wikipedia projects into their courses, as well as their syllabi and Wikipedia project documents.

3:00 p.m.

Content-related Blogging and Course-related Performance

Kathleen Kirasic, Faculty, College of Arts & Sciences

This presentation explores the use of blogs as a transformational technology in higher education. Blogging has, over the past decade, become a popular tool for web based communication. Blogging has been used a s a self-publication vehicle, to a forum for personal diaries, to the most recent incarnation as a collaborative tool for global problem solving at an international level. Only recently has blogging been considered as a tool in the promotion of the educational experience. While traditional blogs have been used to freely express one's views and ideas, the blog topics utilized in this study were course-content related and assigned as part of the course expectations. Data was collected from students attending two Psychology classes (N=150). Blogs were evaluated as to the bloggers Level of Perceived Investment. Average Level of Perceived Investment blogging scores and mean exam scores were entered into a correlational analysis to determine the impact of blogging on overall course-related performance. Results of the analysis yielded a significant positive correlation between the Level of Perceived Investment blog score and the Average Exam Score. Further comparison of final grade and Level of Investment score indicated that those students demonstrating higher Levels of Investment blog scores earned better final grades than those with lower Levels of Investment blog scores. The immediate implications of these findings are strongly in favor of including a blogging component to supplement the learning context of a class. Blogging, taken out of the social media and incorporated into the educational environment, has the potential to redesign the entire concept of education.

Pedagogical Approaches to Enhance Learning in Service-Learning Courses

Aidyn Iachini, Faculty, College of Social Work

Service-learning is becoming an increasingly popular pedagogical approach because it has the potential for students to not only apply course content, but also to develop leadership skills while serving community groups. The potential benefits of service-learning, however, may not be realized unless courses are structured to maximize learning through service. In this presentation, we provide examples of strategies employed to facilitate learning through a service-learning project that connects graduate students from two social work program evaluation classes with local community-based organizations (CBO). We will describe the process of recruiting and orienting CBOs to participate in the project, negotiating a memorandum of understanding between the students and the CBO, and preparing students to develop collaborative leadership skills through engagement with participating CBOs. Attendees will benefit from this presentation by gaining practical strategies for integrating service-learning into course content.

Using Google Tools to Enhance Interaction

Ed Gatzke, Faculty, College of Engineering & Computing

Do your students do group work for papers, projects or class presentations? Do they conduct surveys or use spreadsheets? Are you looking for ideas for remote help sessions or office hours? Several Google tools may be of use in your teaching. For example, Google Docs allow users to work on documents, presentations, and spreadsheets using freely available online tools, requiring nothing more than a browser with an internet connection. Multiple users can edit documents simultaneously, allowing for group interaction. Google Forms can be used to quickly develop web-based forms where respondent information populates a Google Doc spreadsheet. A g+ Hangout is a multi-person interactive video chat that is available for multiple platforms (PC, Mac, iPad, Android phone). Experienced and novice Google tool users are invited to join this discussion as we explore these tools that might just energize you and your students!