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.
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
- Disability Studies: Meaghann O'Leary, Kathy McMahon-Kosterman, Ashely Johnson
- 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
- EDP: Cara Dillon, Briana von Mizener, Katy Mezher, Sujay Sabnis
- 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.
- Mathematics: Ebrahim Sarabi, Alim Sukhtayev, Anna Ghazaryan
- Design an assessment plan for a new degree to reflect the importance of the written communication skills.
- Chemical Engineering: Jason Boock, Jason Berberich, Cathy Almquist, Doug Coffin
- 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.
- Gerontology: Heather Menne, Katy Abbott, Saruna Ghimire
- 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: Stephen Lippmann, Ron Bulanda, Will Charles, Jennifer Bulanda
- 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: Katie Feilen, Laura Abondano, Michelle Szydlowski
- 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.
- Spanish: David Motta, Eugenia Blanco-Mazur, Morgan Smith
- 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.
- Theatre: Ann Elizabeth Armstrong, Marly Wooster, Matt Omasta
- 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
- Political Science: Anne Whitesell, Chris Kelley, Matt Arbuckle
- Revision of two courses to meet the Advanced Writing requirements
- Writing and Thinking about the Arts: Todd Stuart, Tyler Friedman, Toni Smith, Andrea Ridilla, Sam Reenan
- 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.
- Anthropology: John Schaeffer and Kelsey Ellis
- 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.
- Comparative Religion: James Hanges and Nathan French
- Analyzed REL 201 to determine why students struggle and imagined a new course sequence to scaffold knowledge and writing assignments.
- Strategic Communication: Hongmei Li, Jon Rutter, and Adam Rottinghaus
- Conducted an assessment of writing in the strat comm major in order to learn where and what kinds of writing students are being assigned.
- Geology: Yildirim Dilek
- 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.
- Business Law: Paul Becker, Chelsea Green, and Karen Meyers
- 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.
- Teacher Education: Literacy and Language: Catherine Haerr, Michelle Cosmah, Jenna Morvay, Kelli Rushek
- Began to rethink key assessments to align with one of their department’s threshold concepts across three key courses in their graduate program.
- Teacher Education: Urban Cohort: Robin Cooper, Raquel Radina, Tammy Schwarts
- 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.
- Public Health: Saruna Ghimire and Kelly Abshire
- 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.
- Spanish: Tamise Ironstrack, Julie Szucs, Katie Fowler-Córdova, Tiffany Belka
- 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.
- Commerce: Mary Kovach, Patrick Lindsay, Tom Mays
- Created an introductory module for specific Commerce courses to help students learn core disciplinary skills (define situation, summarize, analyze, recommend).
- Music: Thomas Garcia, Wallis Vore, and Aaron Pergram
- 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.
- Teacher Education (Adolescent Young Adult (AYA) Program): Kathy Batchelor, Nathaniel Bryan, Jeannie Ducher, Todd Edwards, Eva Howard, Ann Mackenzie, Tom Misco, Molly Sawyer, Robin Schell
- 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.
- Justice and Criminal Studies: Theresa Conover, John Forren, Jessica Warner
- 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.
- Latin American Studies: Jose Amador, Elena Jackson Albarran, Yuridia Ramirez, Juan Carlos Albarran
- Redefined their program goals and values; identified the writing genres taught in courses; produced a student writing guide. See disciplinary writing guide.
- Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering: Mark Sidebottom, Muhammad Jahan
- Surveyed department to see where and how faculty teach writing across their department; developed a detailed writing guide for engineering graduate students.
- Political Science: Ann Wainscott, Lisa Frazier, Benjamin Bartlett
- Expanded a disciplinary writing guide on writing as a political scientist to be embedded in Canvas. See disciplinary writing guide.
- Psychology: Jay Smart, Jennifer Quinn, Carrie Hall
- 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.
- Music: Claire Boge, Elizabeth Hoover, Tammy Kernodle, Brenda Mitchell
- 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.
- GRAMELAC: Mila Ganeva, Kazue Harada, Benjamin Sutcliffe
- Developed an inventory of writing activities and assignments in the department (300-400 level); verified integration of threshold concepts into Student Learning Outcomes.
- Project Dragonfly: Karen Plucinski, Amy Sullivan, Rachel Yoho
- 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.
- Philosophy: Keith Fennen, Elaine Miller, Gaile Pohlhaus
- Developed a detailed "writing in philosophy guide for students" with annotated sample student writing assignments. See disciplinary writing guide and writing spotlight.
- Teacher Ed and Educational Psychology: Martha Castaneda, Darrel Davis, Xiang Shen
- 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.
- Psychology: Brooke Spangler Cropenbaker, Yvette Harris, Vrinda Kalia
- 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.
- Teacher Education: Jeannie Ducher, Sheri Leafgren, Barbara Rose, Scott Sander, Brian Schultz
- 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.
- Political Science: Erica Edwards, Youn Ki, Michael Marshall, Abby Matthews
- Developed a repository of shared resources for faculty to include syllabi, assignments, etc. See disciplinary writing guide.
- Project Dragonfly and Hefner Museum: Jamie Anzano, Jill Korach, Kevin Matteson, Steve Sullivan (Hefner)
- 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.