2008 Poster Sessions

Pain in the Assessment? Teaching Evaluations and the Tenure Track

Sarah Vonhof — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 12:00:00 PDT

Teaching assessment can be a pain; but it can also be an opportunity. This poster describes my experience with course evaluations and teaching assessment. Many colleges and universities require course evaluations, which are often used to assess teaching in the promotion and tenure process. The evaluations at my institution include ten questions, scored on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the most positive response. I am a tenure-track instructor, with an eighty percent teaching allocation. I teach two required courses for our general education curriculum. Enrollment averages ninety students per course per semester. Thus, when I am up for promotion and tenure review, teaching evaluations are an important component of my documentation. My evaluations have ranged from 3.7 to 4.0 over the past few years. While some administrators and colleagues view these numbers as outstanding given the context, not all take the context into consideration. Evaluation numbers for other faculty, other required courses, or other departments are not made available for comparison. Because my scores have been considered average or even low by some, and because my promotion and tenure are dependent in part on the criterion of “student reaction to teaching,” I developed a supplemental course assessment instrument. This survey was designed to address the college instrument questions with low scores. I also included questions that addressed various course components and the context of the course as required for general education. The surveys supply valuable information. Not only do they provide additional clarification of scores on the college evaluations, but they also furnish information about student assessment of course lectures, readings, and assignments. The ongoing course assessment can then demonstrate commitment to teaching and to self-assessment.

Literature Review Workshops for Graduate Students: Helping Students on the Journey to Becoming Successful Researchers

Hannah Gascho-Rempel — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 12:27:00 PDT

At Oregon State University Libraries, we discovered graduate students frequently run into several roadblocks while writing literature reviews for their theses or dissertations. As a result, several librarians created a workshop focusing on the literature review process. Most graduate students, regardless of discipline, are required to write some form of literature review, and they are often unsure of themselves at the beginning stages of this writing and research process. They have questions about how to use unfamiliar library resources, how to organize the information they find, how to keep up with the massive amounts of information available, and how to begin writing the actual literature review. From our experience working with students at the reference desk, in classes, and in individual consultations, we decided to approach these problems graduate students face by providing instruction to graduate students outside of a specific classroom setting. This allowed us to open up our instruction sessions to all graduate students on campus regardless of departmental affiliation or faculty buy-in. We began holding the literature review workshop in February 2007, and have been overwhelmed with the success of the program. Over 300 graduate students have attended the workshops, and an online version of the workshop has been added to serve students in our distance education programs. Workshop evaluations have been overwhelmingly positive. Elements of the workshop that have contributed to the workshop’s success have been thoughtful promotion of the event, a balance of lecture and demonstration with student discussions and participation, and an overview of the theory behind writing literature reviews. I will show why we chose to teach graduate students about the literature review process, how we promoted the workshops, what we cover in our workshops, and what we have learned from planning and implementing this instructional service.

Outdoor Classroom in Ozark Wilderness: The University of Missouri Ozark Forest Education Experience

Jason A. Hubbart — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 12:18:00 PDT

Taking Classroom to the Field: An Integrated Approach for Teaching Soil Science Courses at the University of Guam

Mohammad Golabi — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 12:09:00 PDT

Recent educational reports have suggested that the developments or key transferable skills, such as group working in the field, are a necessary outcome of higher education. A group working soil lab exercises were developed to evaluate the effectiveness of group field work by assigning formalized, individual group roles. Student responses and instructor observations suggested that there was considerable merit in this approach in terms of development of academic and transferable skills. It is suggested that this could serve as a precursor to a more formalized identification of group roles that would benefit both instructors and students alike in terms of successful field soil course delivery and meeting learning outcomes. Studies shown that field work is an essential element to learning soil science that provides a practical and stimulating supplement to classroom lectures. If facilitated appropriately, field work can provide an invaluable opportunity for students to develop many generic and subject-based skills, in addition to being a highly enjoyable experience. Field work can provide experiential learning in different environments, enabling students to compare and contrast knowledge acquired in the classroom with observations in the field. Field work also provides team building opportunities, produces a cohesive student body and develops instructor-students relationships. Despite the concerns regarding the quality of learning in the field, teaching/learning in the filed has been identified as essential for courses such as in Soil, Geography, and Environmental Sciences. The purpose of this article is to describe the use of group working in the field as a way of fostering active involvement of students in the natural resource classes that deal with natural settings. In this presentation some of the aspects of soil subject matter teaching and student learning in the field will be discussed and illustrated.

It's the Holes: On Teaching About Soils

Benno Warkentin — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 12:36:00 PDT

Today’s education, conservation and research in natural resources for both plants and animals focuses on watersheds. Soil has the unique functions of habitat, decomposition of organic material, routing of water, and others. These functions are tied to the spaces among soil solid particles—the holes (pores or voids). But our teaching about soils focuses on the solids. This poster is a suggestion to change our approach, focusing on these spaces and their unique functions.

OSU Press Book Display

Tom Booth — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 12:54:00 PDT

Got Groundwater?

Todd Jarvis — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 12:45:00 PDT

Approximately 40 to 50% of Oregon’s population relies on groundwater for drinking water. Groundwater supplies 90% of rural residential drinking water, amounting to approximately 400,000 Oregonians using individual home water wells. Of the 3,550 public water supply systems existing in Oregon, approximately 3,050 rely strictly on groundwater. The vast majority of Measure 49 claims (to subdivide rural lands) are located outside of Urban Growth Boundaries (UGBs). The claims, if approved and built as outlined in the respective applications, will result in low-density, large-lot houses relying on individual wells rather than by community water systems found within UBGs. Counties are increasingly taking the lead on the nexus between land use and water quantity; some are requiring pumping tests to *prove* that proposed subdivisions have sufficient quantities of groundwater prior to county approvals and permits. The Institute for Water & Watersheds has developed many learning tools to cater to growing needs for knowledge on groundwater resources by the increasing number of groundwater users. Many of these rely on linking groundwater to every day use of groundwater by consumers in products and foods like bottled water, and linking water problems to *place*. The tools have been used in audiences ranging from K-Gray as well as local government.