Browsing by Author "Baum, Liesl M."

Now showing 1 - 9 of 9
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    Active Art: 1930s Instructional Plan
    Baum, Liesl M. (Institute for Creativity, Arts, and Technology: Center for the Arts, 2012)
    Students will take a webquest to a series of videos, vignettes, photos, and websites to gain an understanding of the Great Depression, the New Deal, the role of arts played in the New Deal and abstract expressionism, specifically including the work of Jackson Pollack...
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    The Center for Research in SEAD Education: Moving Beyond Boundaries to Optimize Impacts
    Magliaro, Susan G.; Baum, Liesl M. (2016-10-17)
    Objectives:
    • Explain the vision, mission, activities, and plan for the new CRSE
    • Engage you in an ideation to demonstrate our process
    • Lead an open forum on participants’ related activities, problems, and solutions
    • Solicit your input into a national study of STEM education networks
    • Open the discussion for networking among the participants
  • Fostering partnerships for institutional impact
    Baum, Liesl M. (2017-04-28)
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    Impact of a regional community of practice for academic developers engaged in institution-level support for SoTL
    Lukes, Laura A.; Abbot, Sophia; Henry, Dayna; Wells, Melissa; Baum, Liesl M.; Case, Kim; Brantmeier, Edward J.; Wheeler, Lindsay (Routledge, 2023-04)
    Academic developers play a key role in advancing instructor engagement in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) at their higher education institutions, but face structural and epistemological isolation. To leverage the knowledge and experience of developers leading SoTL efforts at their respective institutions, a group of academic developers co-created a regional community of practice (CoP) centered on developing evidence-based strategic plans and programming models to advance SoTL at their. We describe the development and outcomes of this regional CoP. Future directions for the use of such a regional CoP model to collaboratively develop cross-institutional offerings are also discussed.
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    Innovation Pathways Minor
    Fralin, Scott; McNair, Lisa D.; Junkunc, Marc; Baum, Liesl M.; Zacharias, Kari (Virginia Tech, 2016-03-25)
    Informative exhibit featuring courses from the Innovation Pathways minor. The Innovation Minor is a step towards an interdisciplinary learning experience where students can study innovation and ideation techniques and be immersed into the entrepreneurial process through courses in multiple colleges and disciplines – mirroring the experiences they will be facing in the industrial sector. The courses featured in this exhibit, Innovation: Collaboration, Culture, Context, CREATE!, and Startup: Managing Technology Commercialization, are the core of the Innovation minor.
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    The Reconciliation of Art + Sci
    Mitchell, Gregory Condy (Virginia Tech, 2012-05-01)
    In current higher education paradigms, art and science are often siloed fields rather than subjects that inform each other. This dichotomy or hyper-specialization of art and science in higher education is a result of the industrial revolution with production as the telos. The product of this educational paradigm divorces art and science from each other. But how should we educate students for jobs that don't exist today? What learning environments are most conducive to creativity and innovation? What are the potential benefits of teaching art and science as one? What disciplines would work best together? Are their patterns in ones perception of the relationship between art and science? Are trans-disciplinary learning environments a possibility or an ideal? This thesis investigates the hypothesis that the walls between art and science exist only in our minds. This research consists of 27 one-on-one interviews conducted with students, professors and other higher education affiliates, who visualize the relationship between art and science.) The interviews use everyday objects as prompts to build a baseline to the investigation. The instrument consisted of seven questions that investigated if the use of quotidian, everyday, objects as prompts expose the false dichotomy between art and science. Additionally, the research tries to uncover the possible patterns that exist in how disciplines visualize/diagram the relationship between art and science. Each participant was asked to draw how they view the relationship between art and science. The researcher used these drawings as data points to lead the analysis. The researcher developed a series of field notes (thinking sketches) as interpretations of the themes of the participant's drawings. These thinking sketches were then translated into four thinking prototypes (three-dimensional models) which later inform the development of four simple yet profound findings called quotidian proverbs.
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    Student Persistence Through Uncertainty Toward Successful Creative Practice
    Mouchrek, Najla; Baum, Liesl M.; McNair, Elizabeth D. (2016-06)
    To increase creative practice among students in engineering and other disciplines, an interdisciplinary instructor team developed a cross-college undergraduate course aimed at open ideation and creative inquiry. One skill in the development of creative practice is identifying and addressing uncertainty avoidance behaviors, which are high in engineering students. We leverage research grounded in professional identity and cognitive design processes to study impacts of curriculum designed to address student persistence through, or indifference toward, uncertainty in creative practice. Questions we seek to explore are: What role does uncertainty avoidance play in developing creative practice, especially in interdisciplinary teams? What strategies can be used to overcome that uncertainty? To explore the role of uncertainty avoidance in the course, we analyze observational data of classroom activities, including ideation workshops, public critiques, team discussions, and artifacts of student work. Findings are used to draw conclusions about processes that are teachable in engineering and interdisciplinary learning environments, in terms of uncertainty avoidance and creativity. To this end, we offer initial directions and questions for future work that would contribute to a pedagogical model that helps engineering students succeed in interdisciplinary contexts.
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    Teaching with Data in the Social Sciences at Virginia Tech: An Ithaka S+R Local Report
    Baum, Liesl M.; Feerrar, Julia; McNabb, Kayla B.; Porter, Nathaniel D. (2021-09-30)
    This report recounts an exploratory investigation of the needs and experiences of instructors who teach with data in the social sciences at Virginia Tech, as part of an ITHAKA S+R project. The landscape of teaching with data in the social sciences at Virginia Tech is complex, involving instructors with a variety of interests and expertise, courses across the undergraduate curriculum, and students with a range of prior knowledge and personal goals related to their own learning. Participants discussed a variety of needs related to student competency, access and technology, program structures, and pedagogy. Multifaceted approaches from multiple university collaborators will be key to addressing these needs. By building on existing digital literacies programming, expanding shared resources like online modules, and exploring opportunities for peer education and further professional development, we can better prepare Virginia Tech students to learn, create, and take action with data throughout their lives.
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    Work in progress: Creating a climate of increased motivation and persistence for electrical and computer engineering students: A project-based learning approach to integrated labs
    Ball, Arthur; Baum, Liesl M.; McNair, Lisa D. (2019-06-15)
    This work in progress studies the impact on students and faculty and their perceived value of integrating project-based labs with lectures on student learning in a sophomore-level electrical and computer engineering course. Historically, engineering courses have been structured with a division between the theoretical lecture and the applied lab, preventing students from making clear connections between the two. Today's students do not find this legacy approach effective [1], [2]. In order to enhance student learning and concept retention in a large electrical and computer engineering program, a faculty team is redesigning the sophomore year experience using a project-based learning approach. This study describes the work of one instructor teaching a freshman-level course as part of the experience of exploring the full integration of labs and lectures that incorporate industry-level, real-world problems. The questions we seek to address are: How does integration of project-based lab and lecture contribute to students' perceptions of value, motivation and success? How does integration of project-based lab and lecture contribute to instructors' perceptions of value and motivation to modernize instruction? In this paper we discuss the historical approach to the design of the course, which we discovered was from the early 1980s, the time of the last major curriculum revision. In addition, using the MUSIC Model of Academic Motivation together with course data, we present baseline data from current students and instructors in regards to overall performance. Finally, using the MUSIC Model and course data from instructors and students in the revised course, we report some insight on perceived value and performance in order to make comparisons between the old and revised curriculum. Additional data sources were pulled from student feedback as well as analytic memos from the instructor. For the purpose of this paper, the combination and cross-analysis of this data resulted in a set of lessons learned and recommendations for faculty looking to adjust the design of their course to be more integrative. For the broader purpose of this grant project, this data will be used to influence the trajectory of the course and refine methods for more thorough integration of the labs. While our original expectation was that the integration of project-based labs would increase student success, as measured by course grade distribution as well as self-reported perceptions through the use of the MUSIC survey, we actually found little to no change in these measures. In addition, we anticipated the results from the research would reveal that having students participate in industry-level, real-world scenarios would contribute to increased authenticity students assign to the course content, also to which we found little to no change. Even though our original presumptions were unfounded in these two specific quantitative measurements, there are several other factors that have arisen that allow us to nevertheless make meaningful recommendations to other electrical and computer engineering instructors, as well as department administration, as we continue to modernize the student experience.