2014-2015 Teaching Circles
*indicates an active (ongoing) circle
AAC&U LEAP Project
Topic Group: Fostering Engagement in the Classroom
Circle Contact: Yuan Yuan Kang (Lecturer, Natural Sciences)
Circle Contact Info: kangy<at>uhd.edu, 713-222-5378
Additional Members: Rachna Sadana, Adriana Visbal, John Kelly, Creshema Murray
Circle Description: The members of this teaching circle are
representing UHD in AAC&Us LEAP project entitled “Advancing Underserved
Student Success Through Faculty Intentionality in Problem-Centered Learning.”
Through a competitive process, UHD was selected as one of 7 institutions in the
nation to participate in this campus-based research project that explores the
role of problem-centered design for promoting learning, particularly
integrative learning, for underserved students. The team has successfully
completed all goals as outlined in the proposal including attending AAC&U
transparency project and the summer institute at Edmond, OK. At the institute,
the team has designed an action plan (Attachment file 1) in order to facilitate
UHD’s reform on general education using transparency methods and practices.
This project will
• engage faculty in an inter-institutional learning community to develop
promising practices for increasing transparency and clarity of assignment goals
and learning expectations for students. (Attachment file 2)
• assist campuses in developing their capacity to implement and to gather direct
assessments of learning using students’ own work. (Attachment file 3)
Circle Artifact(s): 
Kang_et_al.zip
Certification of ENGL 3302 Online Course as a Quality Course by Quality Matters
Topic Group: Online Course Design & Content Delivery
Circle Contact: Richard Ogle (Lecturer, English)
Circle Contact Info: ogleric<at>uhd.edu
Additional Members:
Circle Description: ENG 3302, Business and Technical Report Writing is widely taught upper division courses taught at UHD. In the 2013-2014 academic year 42 sections of the course were taught. To establish a standard of quality for the online course this revised and submitted Teaching Circle submitted its course for certification by Quality Matters as a quality course. This certified course will be used by other members of the English Department faculty who wish to begin teaching the course online and new faculty members who want are assigned to teach the course online.
Circle Artifact(s): 
NoticeofCertification.pdf
Collaborative Classroom Observation & Fostering Engagement in the Classroom
Topic Group: Fostering Engagement in the Classroom
Circle Contact: Robin Jose (Assistant Professor, Natural Sciences)
Circle Contact Info: joser<at>uhd.edu, 713-221-8115
Additional Members: Tyra Hessel, Hamida Qavi
Circle Description: The purpose of our Teaching Circle proposal was
to identify some effective classroom strategies each of the circle member uses
in their classroom and try it in our own classroom. For this purpose, each
member of the circle observed the others class and identified the strategy they
want to try. Dr. Jose fully implemented the flipped classroom strategy in
organic chemistry lectures. Dr. Hessel implemented partially implemented it in
her organic chemistry II class. Both Dr. Jose and Dr. Hessel implemented TBL
with IRAT. Dr. Qavi gave descriptive pre-lab lectures for the organic Iab. The
success of the strategies was assessed by student performance in the classroom
and through survey. Flipped classroom had mixed success. It was effective in
student learning in organic I lecture however it was not effective for organic
II lecture. Student opinion survey shows that they liked the idea of flipped
classroom with TBL but they said it did not foster collaborative learning
outside classroom. On the other hand, students liked extensive prelab lecture
and prefer to have online video lectures for prelab. Overall, these strategies
created a positive attitude towards the subject. However it did not translate
into spectacular test performances. This could partly be due to students not
dedicating enough time for watching and understanding video lectures. However,
we observe that the student learning as a whole has improved which warrant continued
implementation of these strategies in the future with modifications.
We have generated video lectures and TBL problems as artifacts. Also, we are
including the survey results as artifacts. Answers to the TBL problem are based
on IRAT form C012 and C009.
Circle Artifact(s): jose-et-al.pdf
Communication Studies Teaching Circle
Topic Group: Freshman & University Seminars
Circle Contact: Ashley Archiopoli (Assistant Professor, Arts & Humanities)
Circle Contact Info: archiopolia<at>uhd.edu, 713-221-5092
Additional Members: Elizabeth Hatfield, Lucas Logan, Creshema Murray
Circle Description: Our teaching circle worked this year to improve
the student experience in Communication Freshman and Transfer Seminars. We
worked together to share best practices, create materials, and develop new
topic areas for seminars. Our work this year helped to advance the mission of
communication studies as well as improving materials and activities presented
to students. This was a successful endeavor. We have attached the activity we
created and submitted to the National Communication Association (NCA) as a
sample of the work we completed this year.
Circle Artifact(s): Archiopoli_et_al_circle_artifact.pdf
Creating eStorybooks for Bilingual Children in Spanish & English
Topic Groups: Fostering Engagement in the Classroom, Online Course Design & Content Delivery
Circle Contact: Irene Chen (Professor, Urban Education)
Circle Contact Info: chenl<at>uhd.edu, 713-221-8038
Additional Members: Maria Bhattacharjee, Christal Burnett
Circle Description: Three instructors (Drs. Bhattacharjee, Chen, and
Burnett) will be involved with the same group of bilingual future teachers to
facilitate their process of creating the hard-copy children’s books by paying
attention to students’ literacy needs, the technical aspects of converting
hard-copies to electronic copies, and teaching reading to K-12 students by
using the hard-copy and electronic books. The future teachers will gain an
interdisciplinary experience that is not possible with regular Urban Education
course structure.
Circle Artifact(s): 
eStorybooks.jpg
Engagement & Succcess in Calculus I
Topic Group: Fostering Engagement in the Classroom
Circle Contact: Sergiy Koshkin (Assistant Professor, Mathematics & Statistics)
Circle Contact Info: koshkins<at>uhd.edu, 713-226-5567
Additional Members: Volodymyr Hrynkiv, Arati Pati, Ryan Pepper, Tim Redl, Plamen Simeonov, Jeong-Mi Yoon
Circle Description: We introduced preview and pre-testing of
prerequisite skills early into the course with follow-up engagement measures
for students who perform poorly, developed an online homework master course,
calculus resources webpage, and created a common final exam component. The
outcomes were surveyed based on assessment of itemized data from the common
component of the final exam, the entire final exam, course grades, and student
self-assessment of learning gains. This data gave us unique insight into
influence of different elements of the course on its outcomes, in performance
and student perspective, measure outcomes more uniformly, try new approaches
and see if they worked, and develop revisions to improve the course. They include
moving integration to Calculus 2, expanding the common component of the final
exam, continuing prerequisite reviews and final review sheets, utilizing
supplemental instructors for recitation type sessions, and making online
homework explicitly influence grades.
Circle Artifact(s): teaching-circle-calc-artifact.pdf
GOVT 2305 Teaching Circle
Topic Group: Fostering Engagement in the Classroom
Circle Contact: John Osterman (Lecturer, Social Sciences)
Circle Contact Info: osermanj<at>uhd.edu, 713-221-8497
Additional Members:
Circle Description: As a result of our work, we came to a level of
awareness which we did not have before regarding how each of us taught classes
and interacted with students. From this, we plan to continue to work on a plan
which would produce a best practice for each course. We are considering a
common text and a orientation lecture which all students would attend at the
beginning of the semester.
Circle Artifact(s):
MATH 1310 Teaching Circle
Topic Group: Fostering Engagement in the Classroom
Circle Contact: Nancy Leveille (Associate Professor, Mathematics & Statistics)
Circle Contact Info: leveillen<at>uhd.edu, 713-221-2723
Additional Members: Ron Barnes, Susan Beane, Vien Nguyen
Circle Description: As proposed, we have established a standard
departmental master platform for Math 1310 that addresses new state core
requirements, objectives and standards. We have developed many course materials
for the Fall 2014 semester and then revised again for Spring 2015 to
incorporate a new book as well as various improvements.
All course materials are available to all Math 1310 instructors through the
MyMathLab departmental course (available for copy from the departmental Math
1310 MyMathLab account as ms131047798) and through bb2.uhd.edu for the Math
1310 Community of Practice Organization.
The Math 1310 pass rate was 60 % in Spring 2014. This is the last semester
before the New MS Department Syllabus took effect with a more cohesive,
organised course and the online homework requirement. In Fall 2014, the pass
rate was 66%. This is a ten percent increase in the pass rate for the first
semester with the new Syllabus from the MS Department Precalculus Committee
along with materials developed by the Teaching Circle such as the Formula
Sheet, Review Sheet, online homework, departmental review, comprehensive
departmental final, and supplemental materials. The calculators purchased for
this course have been well received by faculty and students. We hope to have
more class sets avaialble in the future.
Circle Artifact(s): math-1310-leveille-et-al.pdf
Natural Science University Seminar Teaching Circle
Topic Group: Fostering Engagement in the Classroom
Circle Contact: Mary Jo Parker (Director, Scholars' Academy)
Circle Contact Info: parkerm<at>uhd.edu, 713-221-8471
Additional Members: Lisa Morano, Rachna Sadana, Eszter Trufan
Circle Description: The Natural Science University Seminar Teaching
Circle (NSUSTC) began early in the Fall 2014 semester prior to all
participant’s first class. Why did this group form? Drs. Morano, Sadana, and
Trufan were first-time instructors of a course of this nature, while Dr. Parker
brought College Success Program course teaching experiences, she too needed
support in adapting the US course to meet the new core biological and physical
science core learning objectives. Coming together as a unit of peers seemed
natural, necessary, and supportive. The group began to ask questions of each
other (as each professor brought years of experience within their own areas of
expertise to bear upon the US course). All instructors began to share
assignments as well as gauge the success of each. Each, even after the first
class 1 meeting, had stories to share about how well students were engaging
with the content. Likewise, accounts of how best to integrate the “scientific
objectives” into the course remained a thread of discussion.
Circle Artifact(s): TC-Parker-Morano-Trufan-Sadana.pdf
Strategy Bank for Promoting Classroom Engagement & Student Success
Topic Group: Freshman & University Seminars
Circle Contact: Meghan Minard (Adjunct, Natural Sciences)
Circle Contact Info: minardm<at>uhd.edu, 713-221-8015
Additional Members: M. Gabriela Bowden, Poonam Gulati
Circle Description: This teaching circle (TC) was composed of three
Natural Sciences faculty members who taught Freshman Seminars for the first
time during the Fall of 2014. Members met weekly to discuss course development
and apply, design, and implement strategies that foster student engagement and
active learning in the Freshman Seminars, which directly impacted students and
improved student and teaching success at UHD. Successful and unsuccessful
strategies and activities tried in the classroom were reviewed. These
strategies have now been assembled into a “Strategy Bank” - a collection of
written descriptions for the activities performed during the semester. The
Strategy Bank is composed of detailed descriptions of in-class and out-of-class
activities and teaching strategies, and how they were applied in a Freshman
Seminar course. Strategies that were successful and unsuccessful are included,
with suggestions for future use if applicable. Each strategy includes (1) learning
outcomes, (2) a summary, (3) detailed instructions of how to implement the
strategy, and (4) the outcome and overall impressions (both positive and
negative; from multiple TC members if possible). Examples of Strategy Bank
items include but are not limited to: case studies and how they were
implemented/applied, assessment strategies, handouts, web resources, and
readings. Specific applications of known strategies and best practices are
included. A major goal of this TC was to assist and benefit other faculty
teaching Freshman and University Seminars in the future, therefore, the
Strategy Bank will be shared via the CTLE for all UHD faculty members (seminar
instructors and others) to use.
Circle Artifact(s): Bowden-Gulati-Minard-2014-2015 TC-Final.zip
