Individual Fellow Initiatives
Valuing Humanities Education at the University of Texas
Cohort: 2019
Fellow: Julia Mickenberg
For some time now the humanities have been “in crisis,” but the crisis is becoming acute: majors in nearly all humanities fields have been sharply declining, enrollments are down, hiring of tenure-track faculty is down, and, at some colleges and universities across the United States, whole departments are being eliminated. Here at the University of Texas, majors that are growing seem to be ones that promise a literal return on investment (invest money in a degree and get that money back, in the form of a well-paying job upon graduation) or at least suggest an obvious and practical use.
STAMP of Success in Doctoral Education: Student Training, Advising, and Mentorship Practices
Cohort: 2018
Fellow: Jessica Toste
Success in a doctoral program can be captured by students’ adjustment to the academic community and their achievement. In recent years, growing concerns have been raised by media, policy makers, and academics about reported mental health issues amongst PhD students. Research suggests that the mental health of PhD students can be improved when there are available supports related to management of work-life balance, workload, decision-making, and leadership styles that lead to satisfactory and constructive work relations (Levecque et al., 2017).
Teaching in Real Time
Cohort: 2018
Fellow: Diane McDaniel Rhodes
We teach in challenging times. As the world, and our campuses, become more connected our students grapple with the impact of challenging events both on and off campus. Faculty have asked for support and guidance for how to proceed within the framework of semesters and syllabi in order to cope or respond. Our faculty needs resources to help recognize critical moments and support for our pedagogical resiliency.
Data Analysis Tools: Integrating Computational and Statistical Techniques in the Environmental Engineering Curriculum
Cohort: 2018
Fellow: Paola Passalacqua
The goal of this project is to train the next generation of environmental engineers in computing and statistical techniques to solve big data problems. Current undergraduate students in the Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering have little to no exposure to computational and statistical methods for data analysis (e.g., big data collected from sensor networks). I proposed to integrate computational techniques in several courses throughout the Environmental Engineering Degree.
Global Learning Experiences
Cohort: 2018
Fellow: Stephanie Seidel Holmsten
Cross-cultural connections can deepen student engagement in the world around them and encourage their creativity about the course material. Such connections can happen in a UT classroom if the student body is particularly diverse, or if students participate in study abroad programs. Global connections are also being created through the Global Classrooms Initiative that connect UT students with students at universities from other countries through classroom activities, conversations and projects intentionally designed to encourage collaboration.
A Sustainable Way to Teach Data Mining and Mapping: Proof of Concept For a Flipped Computational Skill Instruction Module
Cohort: 2017
Fellow: Lars Hinrichs
This project is directed at students with no prior knowledge of computer programming languages. When introducing complex and new skills such as computer programming in a classroom, teachers are often confronted with a lot of worried students and great numbers of very different questions, especially in humanities departments. The lecture setting is not well suited to address the needs of individual students.
Curriculum Integration Through a 4-year Design Project and Cross-course Educational Tools
Cohort: 2017
Fellow: Matthew Balhoff
In many curricula students find it difficult to understand the common thread and themes between their courses until near graduation (or ever). Thus, students are unable to benefit from the synergistic nature of a fully integrated program. Courses are taught by different instructors with different teaching styles and nomenclature (a potentially good thing), but all too often even the instructors are unaware of the material or educational objectives taught in complementary courses.
Sustainability Teaching and Research Network
Cohort: 2017
Fellow: Lucy Atkinson
UT holds sustainability to be a core part of its mission and the Office of Sustainability is a central engine in incorporating issues of sustainability across “university policies, practices and curricula.” The university has taken important steps toward meeting these goals, yet these efforts are often isolated with little cross-campus conversation or exposure. My goal is to establish a network that serves as both an incubator and clearinghouse for sustainability-related teaching and research.
Online Drivers Exercise
Cohort: 2017
Fellow: Clint Tuttle
Since my first semester at UT (Fall 2011) I’ve taught about 10,000 students across all colleges. From this immense amount of student interaction, I’ve come to believe that many of our students lack the tools and techniques to define their own personal path to success and are not confident in how to best make decisions about their future. As a result of this, I believe many students are seeking what they see as a “safe path” (e.g.
Undergraduate Survey Research in Interpersonal Health Communication
Cohort: 2016
Fellow: Erin Donovan
Each semester in CMS 330:Interpersonal Health Communication, students ask excellent questions that have not been answered yet in the academic literature. My project proposal is to give students the opportunity to collect high-quality survey data that would help students answer their questions. Students would create interpersonal health communication survey that would be administered by a research company to gather nationally representative data on important health communication topics that have currently been unexamined.
Measuring the Effectiveness of Active Learning Methods in Cell Biology
Cohort: 2016
Fellow: Arturo De Lozanne
Despite ample evidence that implementing active learning methods in the classroom leads to better outcomes, most courses in Biology continue the use of traditional lecturing. Anecdotal conversations with many of my colleagues who teach upper division biology courses indicate a widespread perception that the traditional lecture is the most effective way to transmit information to students.
Inclusive by Design: Increasing Access to Education for all Students
Cohort: 2016
Fellow: Stephanie Cawthon
(Project completed 2018) Course structures are often not as fully inclusive as they could be for students with diverse learning needs. More specifically, students with disabilities and those who have English as a second language may benefit from practices that make content more accessible (without changing the rigor or learning goals for the course). This is particularly true for courses at the undergraduate level that may include face-to-face, lecture, interactive activities, and online components.
The Keys to Understanding History: Unlocking Digital Timelines
Cohort: 2016
Fellow: Erika Bsumek
This project started out with a simple idea: From my original proposal, we noted that “Current historical timelines are not interactive, nor do they enable students to understand connections between different events. They are good at showing chronology, but are not good at illustrating how specific events are influenced by a whole host of different historical factors.”
Learning To Just Do It: Get ‘Em While They’re Figs
Cohort: 2016
Fellow: Dixie Stanforth
Freshmen, often overwhelmed by perceived barriers of time, motivation, and knowledge don’t remain active, leading to weight gain and associated physical and emotional issues. Regular physical activity directly and positively impacts physical and emotional well-being and transfers to better scholastic outcomes. KHE majors need practical experiences to develop skills to develop programs that match personal goals and fitness levels. This project was unique in that it meets an identified need for freshmen and KHE majors.
Teaching the University: Enhancing Student Understanding and Appreciation of the University
Cohort: 2016
Fellow: Hina Azam
My project is intended to address a lack of understanding among most undergraduate students of the university both as an institution and as a space in which intellectual life is pursued. This lack of understanding among undergraduates is intertwined, I believe, with a broader lack of appreciation for higher education/academia in our cultural and civic life.
From Putting in Time to Meaningful Civic Engagement: Transforming Service Learning in an Undergraduate Social Work Program
Cohort: 2016
Fellow: Vicki Packheiser
As a Provost’s Teaching Fellow, Vicki Packheiser is transforming Experiential Learning in Social Work’s foundational courses. This two-course sequence has long required 45 hours of service learning per course with a community agency. Social Work pre-majors contribute 10,000+ hours of service to the Austin community, serving as UT ambassadors while they gain experience that grounds their academics in future years. But the implementation has not lived up to the potential.
Bevosourcing: Tools to Involve Students in Citizen Science and Online Data Publication
Cohort: 2015
Fellow: Adam Rabinowitz
Digital archives and the internet have made it possible for non-experts to make major contributions to research through crowdsourcing and citizen science. UT has fascinating and important collections of primary sources for the humanities, many of which have been digitized. But before my PTF project, there were no digital tools at UT to facilitate crowdsourcing as a pedagogical strategy, engaging students with historical documents while enriching the collections themselves. The project therefore proposed to develop two UT-based crowdsourcing platforms.
Animals, Sustainability, and the Environment: A Service Learning Model for the Humanities
Cohort: 2015
Fellow: Janet Davis
This project has provided my students with an experience in hands-on service learning, thus fostering a synergistic understanding of historical analysis and community engagement. “Animals and American Culture: Select Historical Perspectives” is an interdisciplinary upper-division undergraduate seminar that attracts a diverse student body in the liberal arts and natural sciences. During the first week of class, students are required to contact one of two local organizations--or, with my permission, an organization of their own choosing.
Nutrition in the Kitchen
Cohort: 2015
Fellow: Lydia Steinman
Compounding the challenge of consuming a healthy diet is the fact that many students have little or no familiarity with preparing their own food. The result is inadequate diets that do not support optimal health and academic performance.
Clinical Advancement in Simulated Environments
Cohort: 2015
Fellow: Courtney Byrd
Among the communication disorders considered to be fundamental to the scope of practice for speech-language pathologists, stuttering or what is also commonly referred to as a fluency disorder has historically been and continues to be the disorder for which most speech-language pathologists report minimal to no clinical or academic exposure and/or competency.
Professional Development for Undergraduate Students Majoring in the Biological Sciences
Cohort: 2015
Fellow: Christopher Shank
I seek the opportunity to create a professional development curriculum that would provide students a structured vehicle for developing professional confidence and self-awareness, and facilitate early success in an increasingly competitive ‘real-world.’ My desire to work on this idea as a Provost Teaching Fellow stems from the overwhelmingly positive student response to professional development activities that I have incorporated in several of my courses.
Dynamic Practice and Assessment System for Statistics Course(s)
Cohort: 2015
Fellow: Tasha Beretvas
Mastery of the use and interpretation of statistical techniques requires a lot of practice. Similarly, statistics is only mastered with a lot of practice. However, instructors unfortunately only have a finite amount of time available to create an endless supply of new problems and associated answers. They also do not have an endless amount of time to provide hints to help students find their own way past their misconceptions. In addition, it is very difficult for students to receive immediate feedback to understand what they are doing and what they need to do.
Thinking Beyond the Four Years: Assessing a Program for Coaching Career Success
Cohort: 2015
Fellow: Brad Love
The project is a longitudinal partnership with the Vick Center for Strategic Advising, College of Education faculty, Project 2021 staff, and other Longhorns to measure existing attempts to teach useful skills such as emotional intelligence so that students can make constructive decisions while at UT and then be prepared for the significant life transition that is one’s first career post-graduation. The key activities include semesterly surveys and interviews with students using Vick Center services such as in-person visits and online modules.
McCombs Student Journal
Cohort: 2015
Fellow: Sanford Leeds
The McCombs Business Journal was an effort to give students an opportunity to read and write about research. We recruited students, worked with the students to establish an organizational structure, set expectations for members, and selected student leaders. Students read a significant amount of research and wrote summaries, focusing on how that research impacts the real world.
Drama-Based Pedagogy: Refinement and Alignment for the University Context
Cohort: 2015
Fellow: Katie Dawson
Active, embodied learning and creative teaching is needed in higher education, yet many faculty struggle with how to take up the approach. My PTF project engaged six faculty members from across UT - American Studies, Biology, Art/Design, Classics, Education, and Theatre- in a 15 week faculty learning community focused on active and creative teaching strategies. Through the project, faculty members explored active and creative teaching methods in monthly meetings, and re-designed at least two lectures to use active/creative teaching approaches.