Experiential Learning

Bridging the Internship Gap: Preliminary Findings from the Internship Project (International Communication Association)
PTF Wenhong Chen presented a paper at the International Communication Association 2023 Conference in Toronto, Ontario, Canada in June 2023.

Bearing and Sharing the Burdens of Mentoring in the COVID-19 Pandemic (TAPA)
PTF alum Deborah Beck authored this invited paper as part of a group of six articles on "rupture and repair" in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, which was published in Transactions of the American Philological Association, the journal of the professional organization for American Classicists. In the article, she explores the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic's social isolation and "New Normal" on faculty peer mentorship and how the landscape of academic mentorship has changed since the onset of the pandemic.

Preliminary Study on Teaching an Engineering Course Through Murder Mysteries (ASEE Gulf-Southwest)
PTF Krishna Kumar presented this paper at the American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE) Gulf-Southwest Section Annual Conference in March 2023. This paper discusses usage and results of the Murder Mystery-style assignments Kumar has developed as part of his PTF Initiative.
Read the complete paper <here,> or find the abstract below.

A Classics Podcast Gets Greek Greats Onto Your Phone (Life & Letters Magazine)
This profile of PTF Deborah Beck's PTF Initiative, "Musings in Greek Literature," appeared in the Spring 2023 edition of Life and Letters, the magazine of the UT College of Liberal Arts.

The Odyssey (1997), with Deborah Beck (Movies We Dig Podcast)
Dr. Beck made a guest appearance on the Classics media podcast "Movies We Dig" due to her work with "Musings in Greek Literature." On this podcast, hosted by several young Classicists including two graduates of the UT Classics Ph.D. program, Beck discussed the made-for-TV version of Homer's Odyssey starring Armand Assante and Isabelle Rosselini (1997).

Teaching as Well Being (UT System)
On April 11, 2024, three Provost's Teaching Fellows presented at the final session of the "Teaching as Wellbeing" mini-conference series, hosted by the UT System Academy of Distinguished Teachers in collaboration with UT System faculty developers. The series served as a monthly think tank about the relationship between teaching, learning, and wellbeing for educators and educational developers across UT system.

Musings in Greek Literature Podcast
"Musings in Greek Literature" is a podcast co-produced by Prof. Deborah Beck and advanced UT undergraduate students of ancient Greek. Episodes are available directly from UT's Liberal Arts Information Technology Services and also from Apple and Spotify.

Does Increasing Course Depth While Reducing Breadth Improve Learning in College Students?
Student-centered learning strategies have been effectively used to increase academic performance and learning in students. Educators have hypothesized that course content reduction can also improve student learning. However, support for this idea is lacking. In the present project, I am planning to assess whether a content reduction strategy increases the academic performance of upper-division stem students at the University of Texas-Austin.

SafeTeach Collaborative
The SafeTeach Collaborative is a learning community that aims to improve faculty and graduate students' ability to handle classroom safety issues by developing their knowledge, self-efficacy, and instructional strategies. The program utilizes interactive methods including role-play exercises, scenario-based learning, and case study analyses to engage participants in realistic safety situations. The project's design fosters peer support networks, ideally providing participants with ongoing resources for addressing safety concerns.

QR Learning for addressing social and racial injustice
The current proposal envisions developing alternative pedagogical materials for the “Measuring Racial Inequality” course, written in plain language and accessible to students from social sciences/humanities and underserved communities and families.