List of Fellows' Final Projects
List of Fellows' Final Projects
During the last third of the Faculty Fellows program, faculty teams work independently on a project of their choosing to improve the teaching of writing within their department. On the final day, each team presents their project to the other teams and invited guests in a showcase celebration. These final projects have ranged from course modifications to creating new courses to beginning the work of redesigning an entire graduate curriculum. Projects have come from over 20 disciplines and every division at Miami.
The full list of these projects is provided below to give you a sense of what's possible and to highlight the innovation of Miami's Faculty Fellows.
Spring 2026
Anthropology: Cameron Hay-Rollins, Mark Peterson and Leighton Peterson
- Developed a discipline-grounded answer to teaching AI use in the discipline: a new Program Learning Outcome (PLO 6: Knowledge Systems) supported by an AI specific seven-competency framework, a four-dimension assessment rubric, and purpose-built assignments embedded in the four required courses every Anthropology major takes.
Entrepreneurship: Michael Conger, Greg Dern, and Sid Vedula
- Established a new set of threshold concepts to serve as the conceptual framework for updating curriculum and programming.
- Future work will include mapping these concepts to their curriculum, and communicating them to various stakeholders.
Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering: Clayton Cooper, Kathy Ehlert, and Mark Sidebottom
- Replaced a general English course with an advanced writing track to improve outcomes for MME students.
- Prepare engineers to document and communicate their decision-making processes and technical choices by embedding advanced writing assignments and assessments throughout their curriculum.
Music Education: Reina Dickey, Robin Heinsen, and Beth Reed
- Developed a comprehensive bank of reflective questions covering everything from lesson preparation to the formulation of a distinct music teacher identity. The questionas are designed to cultivate the critical self-assessment skills necessary to sustain a lifelong professional growth.
- Implement these questions throughout their curriculum sequence
Fall 2025
Computer and Information Technology: Deepak Dawar, Jie Cheng, Joseph Kennedy
- Updated the CIT curriculum by weaving AI-assisted programming into a new Accelerated Application Development bachelor’s program. Students should leave with solid programming skills and the ability to use AI as a real development tool.
- Built a 3-year degree around rapid application development with AI built into the learning.
- Developed a project to build the threshold concept of working in teams into the upper-level courses in PSY and create new Honors opportunities.
- Developed slides and talking points for the PSY department and scheduled a presentation.
- Develop a community of practice among WGS instructors to help navigate the changing composition of GIC and pressures on both graduate and undergraduate curriculum in WGS.
- Align the graduate curriculum with needs of students and the department.
- Develop a sample capstone course comprised of modules, short assignments tied to these assignments, and a final project tied to our objectives.
Spring 2025
Entrepreneurship: Kerri Cissna, Greg Dern, Jenifer Domenico, Beth Troy, David Eyman
- Identifed areas where students struggle most in trying to understand a new type of course and curriculum. Next steps involve developing a course curriculum and textbook that explain creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurial thinking as a threshold concept.
- Re-imagined aims of program through threshold concepts, thought about how to develop particular research and writing skills relevant to the POP focus of the Ed.D. program, and planned a revision of current research sequence, including the 2-credit Scholarship of Practice courses.
Fall 2024
Art and Design: Stephanie Danker, Luke Meeken, Zack Tucker
- Named shared threshold concepts, designed assignments for integrating them across the curriculum, wrote a "Reflective Journaling Guide" and a "Portfolio Writing Guide."
- Named shared threshold concepts for the Disability Studies minor, developed a new mission and vision statement for the minor, engaged in curriculum mapping, and redesigned three course descriptions and SLOs.
- Named threshold concepts for the genres that school psychologists need to write; wrote an ecological thinking checklist; created a sample ETR report and explanations of why the new report proceeds from a strengths model rather than a deficit model; created genre analysis assignment for students.
Spring 2024
Art, Architecture, Arts Mgmt, Studio Art: Dilge Dilsiz, May Khalife, Joel Armor
- Interdisciplinary teaching modules/resources for threshold concepts of art.
- The team identified the following threshold concepts
- Art is a process;
- Art is collaborative and social; and
- Art/Design engages us to reconsider ways of thinking and solving problems by building on existing precedents.
- As specific areas of concentration each team member is tasked with a focus on research, reflection, and presentation in areas where overlap occurs within their respective fields. Initially, they aim to create individualized modules within their own disciplines with the idea to expand into other corresponding departments.
- The next step will be the creation of the modules and their implementation in their courses. They will provide guidelines to better incorporate these forms of writing in art and design courses.
- Designed an assessment plan for a new degree to reflect the importance of the written communication skills.
- Embedding writing across the courses in their major to satisfy the Advanced Writing requirement.
- Next steps include:
- Develop a writing guide for faculty and students that also demonstrates how and why we are incorporating writing into our curriculum
- Facilitate the incorporation of learning-to-write and writing-to-learn assignments in CPB courses.
- Create assignments for new graduate-level interdisciplinary course in Implementation Science.
- Drafted 12 assignments for the course. These assignments include discussion board posts, one-pagers, reflection papers, and peer-reviews.
Fall 2023
Accountancy: Qing Burke, Po-Chang Chen, Jon Pyzoha
- Accountancy faculty established threshold concepts for accountancy curriculum (including specific threshold concepts for generative AI), explored how generative AI is used in the accounting profession, and designed course projects that utilized generative AI to some degree. Additionally, they conducted a survey of accounting faculty and departmental use of generative AI, and drafted a departmental guiding principle on the use of generative AI for accountancy curriculum. Next steps include continuing to work with their departmental colleagues to create generative AI policies in their courses in accordance with threshold concepts.
- Sociology faculty identified writing assignments for various SOC courses, as well as the writing genres and threshold concepts associated with each of them across course levels. Additionally, faculty developed ideas for alternative writing genres and assessments. Faculty found that the Fellows program offered a place for collaborative conversation and problem solving, and their next steps involve creating a Canvas site to house best practices and host open discussions on writing amongst colleagues.
- Project Dragonfly faculty focused their efforts on examining Conservation Science and Community, a foundational Master’s-level course for the program and a so-called “monster of a course,” according to students. Faculty broke down writing assignments and identified declarative and procedural knowledge for each, looking for opportunities to merge assignments and redefine student learning outcomes. The Project Dragonfly work group plans to continue their work finalizing the merging of assignments based on commonalities, as well as building worksheets to act as guides for program instructors. They will also revisit the student learning outcomes for Conservation Science and Community and how they connect to the program’s threshold concepts.
Summer 2023
Family Science & Social Work: Kevin Bush, Amy Roberts, Sherrill Sellers
- Review of writing in the FSW curriculum and the genres, skills, and values taught in those courses. Made plans for next steps, including: a department-wide writing assignment inventory, a strength of coverage matrix, a discussion of resource allocation, adding writing across the curriculum as a standing item for faculty meetings, reviewing course assignment title, analyzing writing assignments, engaging their Professional Advisory Committee, working with Center for Career Exploration and Success, developing student ePorftolios, and engaging alumni.
- Determined needs of both faculty and students around writing and their team's threshold concepts; creates a model for a writing inventory to introduce in a core class; created models of possible student ePortfolios.
- Created a workshop for their department to deliver in the fall, introducing threshold concepts for their BA and considering implications for the curriculum they are currently revising; designed a model for longitudinal reflective practice that students in their major can complete.
Spring 2023
Sports Leadership and Management: Adam Beissel and Ryan Chen
- Revision of the Sports Analytics curriculum overall and of one course in the curriculum
- Revision of two courses to meet the Advanced Writing requirements
- Creation of a new Writing for the Arts course to fulfill the Advanced Writing requirement
Fall 2022
Accountancy: Michele Frank, Anne Farrell, and Matt Wieland
- Surveyed faculty in the department regarding their use of writing in courses, audiences for whom students write, and non-financial topics incorporated; defined threshold concepts and revised in light of advisory board and faculty feedback; began planning future work with the full department to intentionally and systematically incorporate writing across the accountancy curriculum.
- Revised ATH 155: Intro to Anthropology to maintain consistency in assignments, expose students to a variety of written genres, and help students develop and adopt best writing practices.
- Analyzed REL 201 to determine why students struggle and imagined a new course sequence to scaffold knowledge and writing assignments.
- Conducted an assessment of writing in the strat comm major in order to learn where and what kinds of writing students are being assigned.
- Revised Geology capstone course to be a project-based course.
Summer 2022
ACE: Ebru Duffield, Irena Kola, Eun Chong Yang
- Named threshold concepts for their programs, designed exploratory writing tasks that aligned with their threshold concepts, and created explanations for students.
- Documented how writing is being used in BLS 342: The Legal Environment of Business, explored resources to support student writing in that course, and created a student guide to writing in BLS 342.
- Began to rethink key assessments to align with one of their department’s threshold concepts across three key courses in their graduate program.
- Named and explored one threshold concept integral to their community work, planned and design future worksessions to continue the work with their community partners and stakeholders.
- Revised writing assignments in two public health courses to align with the accreditation competencies for public health and to shore up students’ abilities to write for public audiences.
Summer 2021
History: Kimberly Hamlin, Andrew Offenburger
- Developed new scaffolded assignments to help Honors, BA/MA, and MA students learn to synthesize primary sources; began a list of primary source repositories for assignments; will present to the department in Fall semester to begin discussion of ways to add this learning into the curriculum.
- Building on their SPN 101-102 pilot curriculum, the team developed a curriculum map of linguistic functions and goals at each level; plan to realign prompts and rubrics for the new model.
Spring 2021
Architecture and Interior Design: Mary Rogero (Chair), Mary Ben Bonham, Gulen Cevik, Diane Fellows, Elizabeth Keslacy, Jeffrey Kruth
- Surveyed department faculty to create a curriculum grid of writing genres taught in every course (from 100 level through graduate), along with other criteria such as feedback and revision. Plan to engage entire department and evaluate the effectiveness of writing in their curriculum.
- Created an introductory module for specific Commerce courses to help students learn core disciplinary skills (define situation, summarize, analyze, recommend).
- Identified two cultural music threshold concepts (cultural awareness/competency/sensitivity and affective experience) and began redesign of three large GMP courses in order to teach those threshold concepts more effectively.
- Developed a set of threshold concepts for their faculty to move them forward toward realizing their department’s social justice mission statement; drafted a pilot plan to pair up AYA faculty as critical partners who will work together over the fall semester to set goals, engage throughout the semester, and reflect on their progress; plan to extend to the whole program.
Fall 2020
Havighurst Center: Hannah Chapman, Scott Kenworthy, Neringa Klumbyte, Steve Norris, Zara Torlone
- Began a Faculty Teaching Guide for their cross-listed 254 course that explains their threshold concept of “Interdisciplinarity” that provides resources for non-disciplinary faculty to teach the course, including explanations of disciplinary approaches to the material and suggested readings and assignments from their respective fields.
- Surveyed writing assigned and taught throughout their curriculum (in collaboration with department colleagues); plan to continue post-Fellows with student round tables and writing awards.
Spring 2020
Special seminar for graduate students who individually developed scaffolded assignments for a course based on learning theory and threshold concepts of their field.
Fall 2019
Geography: Bruce D’Arcus, Roxanne Ornelas, David Prytherch, Damon Scott
- Researched and developed plans to begin an eportfolio program for their majors. See disciplinary writing guide.
- Redefined their program goals and values; identified the writing genres taught in courses; produced a student writing guide. See disciplinary writing guide.
- Surveyed department to see where and how faculty teach writing across their department; developed a detailed writing guide for engineering graduate students.
- Expanded a disciplinary writing guide on writing as a political scientist to be embedded in Canvas. See disciplinary writing guide.
- Developed new assessment and rubric for teaching team writing in a psychology research methods course. Piloted the course after Fellows. See disciplinary writing guide.
Spring 2019
Art History: Annie Dell'Aria, Jordan Fenton, Pepper Stetler
- Wrote a disciplinary writing guide with annotated sample assignments for undergraduates. Updated assignments and teaching approaches to include threshold concepts. See disciplinary writing guide and writing spotlight.
- Mapped graduate writing curriculum to standardize guidelines for the graduate research project and develop vision statement for graduate academic curriculum. See writing spotlight.
Fall 2018
Biology: Joyce Fernandes, Kathleen Killian, Haifei Shi, Hank Stevens
- Developed an Advanced Writing proposal for the department that included writing across 4 required courses in the major; inventoried genres, purposes, amount of writing and writing instruction across those courses.
- Developed an inventory of writing activities and assignments in the department (300-400 level); verified integration of threshold concepts into Student Learning Outcomes.
- Created videos for their online graduate program courses on topics such as writing about concepts and disciplinary citation practices. See disciplinary writing guide.
Summer 2018
International Studies: Dilchoda Berdieva, Carl Dahlman, Naaborle Sackeyfio, Charles Stevens
- Revised advanced writing course: redefined SLOs; added scaffolding to prepare students for the larger assignment; enhanced the persuasive public writing assignment to help students understand the genre.
- Developed a detailed "writing in philosophy guide for students" with annotated sample student writing assignments. See disciplinary writing guide and writing spotlight.
- Created a Canvas module that situates various courses in the EDP discipline; created a “Writing in EDP” guide; created a semester-long writing experience focused on threshold concepts.
Spring 2018
ACE and ESL Composition: Larysa Bobrova, Kyung Min Kim, Nugrahenny Zacharias
- Revised assignment to be more explicit and add scaffolding.
- Developed set of scaffolded assignments to help 300-level students improve their understanding of psychology journal article conventions, reading comprehension, and psychology disciplinary writing values. See writing spotlight.
- Addressed changes/integration in various areas to align with the EDT strategic plan (EDT 190 Intro to Education course, TESOL curriculum, and Assessment of Readiness to Teach). See disciplinary writing guide and writing spotlight.
Fall 2017
Family Science and Social Work: Karleah Harris, Kate Kuvalanka, Anne Roma, Sherrill Sellers, Carolyn Slotten, Jon Trauth
- Developed an Advanced Writing course. See disciplinary writing guide and writing spotlight.
- Developed a repository of shared resources for faculty to include syllabi, assignments, etc. See disciplinary writing guide.
- Developed a set of videos for their asynchronous online graduate program courses. See disciplinary writing guide.
Summer 2017
- FSB First-Year Integrated Core: Julie Alexander, Rob Morris, Rebecca Morrison
- Redesigned the curriculum of the integrated core.
- Gerontology: Kate de Medeiros, Jennifer Kinney, Suzanne Kunkel
- Redesigned graduate curriculum; began developing their "gerontological voice" concept for which they later published an article. See disciplinary writing guide, writing spotlight, and writing assignments.
- History: Wieste de Boer, Erik Jensen, Lindsay Schakenbach Regele, Dan Prior
- Presentation to department about threshold concepts; updated own courses to include more scaffolding, peer review and instructor feedback earlier in process, being more explicit. See disciplinary writing guide, writing spotlight, and writing assignments.
Spring 2017
- Anthropology: James Bielo, Jeb Card, Yang Jiao, Leighton Peterson
- Developed a disciplinary writing guide; modified courses based on concepts learned in Fellows. See disciplinary writing guide.
- Economics: Jacob Brindley, Janice Kinghorn, Ling Shao
- Developed plans to design an Advanced Writing course; surveyed department to determine where writing was already happening; after Fellows, developed a curricular writing plan for multi-course Advanced Writing requirement; modified courses to align with learning from Fellows. See writing spotlight and writing assignments.
- Interdisciplinary and Communication Studies: Jeff Kuznekoff, Caryn Neumann, Leland Spencer
- Developed a set of videos and guides for their online courses.
Howe Writing Across the Curriculum Programs
The mission of the Howe Writing Across the Curriculum Programs is to ensure that all Miami faculty and graduate teaching assistants can effectively include writing as a means to support learning in their courses and programs.
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