QUEST EMPORIA STATE UNIVERSITY
2017
QUEST 2017
2017 GRADUATE STAFF Pam Fillmore, Jan Gerstner, Ashley Brandt, Jenny Jiang, Jerry Spotswood Yesenia Vazquez, Ashley Ewy, Brandi Turner, Mary Sewell, Kerri Jackson
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Contents 1 Letter from the Dean 3 A Multimodal University 5 Songbird and Equations 7 Exploring New Depths 11 Face-to-Face with Online Math 13 Space for Creation 15 Live Academics
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17 Connecting Through Apps 19 Advancing Economics 25 A Social and Technological Experience 23 Under the Microscope 27 Teaching Through Augmented Realities 29 Drones in the Classroom 31 Faculty Awards 31 How to Apply
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Letter from President
LETTER FROM THE DEAN This issue of Quest focuses on faculty and their use of technology and applied, highimpact learning experiences which enable students, whether on campus or online, to hold a competitive edge. Emporia State University, founded in 1863, has long been recognized as a premier teaching and research institution. That tradition continues, in part, through the many applied, high-impact learning experiences that occur each year. Faculty have also taken the initiative to build upon the tradition of teaching excellence through technology, flipping their classrooms and bridging the distance between on-campus and online students. “A Multimodal University: The Evolving Classroom at ESU” gives a good overview of how faculty have technologically adapted their classrooms to better serve their students. Examples of technological innovation include the use of Lightboards by Dr. Chad Wiley and Dr. Thomas Mahoney in Mathematics, Dr. Yeol Huh’s use of Aurasma and augmented realities in Instructional Design and Technology, and Dr. Marcia Shulmeister’s use of Zoom technology to connect with her students in Earth Sciences. Zoom technology is also featured within the Writing Center, connecting distance students to campus resources. Dr. Melissa Bailey’s use of Panopto enables her to flip her Forensic Science classroom so that factual information is presented in video lectures, and class time is spent on higher-order problem solving. Dr. Qiang Shi’s use of wavelet technology to track songbirds with his Mathematics student and Dr. Amanda Lickteig’s work with Teacher Education students to create apps demonstrates the intersection of technology and high impact learning experiences. Further accounts of applied, high-impact learning experiences can be found in the articles featuring Dr. Marc Fusaro’s work with students in developing a model for economic forecasting, Dr. David Edds’s guidance with Biology students at the forthcoming Aquatic Research and Outreach Center, and Amy Sage Webb’s handson approach to teaching at the Reichardt Center for Publishing and Literary Art. I hope you enjoy this issue of Quest featuring our dedicated and innovative faculty as they carry forward the tradition of teaching and research excellence at Emporia State University. Jerald W. Spotswood Dean, Graduate School and Distance Education
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Letter from Dean
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A MULTIMODAL UNIVERSITY Emporia State University began as a Kansas Normal School in 1863. The renowned Normal School, now The Teachers College, has been a monumental institution for students pursuing a degree in the education field. It’s not hard to see why, either; the students themselves, referred to as “teacher candidates” by those in the program, are quickly pressed into live classrooms to observe teaching methods used by those who have come before them and have years upon years of valuable experience. To top it all off, the average length of time ESU alumni spend in the classroom is five years – almost double that compared to those from other colleges. Needless to say, advanced and effective instruction methods are a way of life at ESU. As the school enrollment grew, so did the program availability, evolving the institution into a University with five components: The Teachers College, the School of Library and Information Management, the School of Business, and the College of Liberal Arts and 3
Sciences. Make no mistake, though, unique and high-quality pedagogy and teaching techniques have been maintained as the core of the university, adapting with the times. Before the advent of technology, the most basic and recognized form of teaching in the world was monomodal with the educator situated at the center of the classroom reciting lesson plans and having them repeated back. New forms of learning eventually began to resonate with teachers; the teacher began to implement moving around the classroom, having the students’ attention further stimulated by having them actively observe. From there, reading and writing became commonplace, adding further stimuli for the wide variety of students with different learning styles. This kind of teaching is a kind known as multimodal, relying on multiple modes to engage the students. With different modes of teaching also comes the challenge of different modes of learning. Individual students have their own
by Nicolas Thomsen methods of retaining the most information, and no two students are exactly the same. Most styles can be narrowed down to the senses: visual (graphs, charts), aural (music and sound), linguistic (words, both written and spoken), kinesthetic (physical activity, most notably writing), logical (mathematics, reasoning), social (learning in groups) and solitary (studying alone). Some students may find that they value one form of style with little use for the rest, whereas others may find that all serve a purpose depending on the scenario. There is no perfect mix, nor are preferences fixed. Since the beginning, The Teachers College has seen countless advances in technology, a variety of them having the ability to harness the learning styles of different students; since moving into the digital age, nearly everyone has access to the internet from their computer or cell phone. ESU understands that students have different styles, and began experimenting with technology to reach out to students. With these capabilities comes
the ability to attend class anywhere in the world besides the classroom alone. Through the advent of the Internet, students have been able to access a vast array of knowledge, and today have that same ability at the tip of their fingers through computers and phones. With the rise of online chatrooms came an idea that changed the nature of education: online classrooms. ESU prides itself on its virtual classrooms, with education able to go everywhere and bring students together, though miles apart. Through the use of discussion boards, conversation, debate and connection are maintained while still having educational material presented directly to the student. This practically engages all
forms of learning, as students can interact with one another or study alone, and the material can be presented in text or video which raises interest from visual, linguistic and aural thinkers. The act of typing itself is kinesthetic in nature as well. Through the use of applications such as Zoom, students can connect with their professors and peers without requiring a physical space to convene, negating travel time, scheduling, and the conflicts that can arise with both. ESU’s very own Writing Center in the William Allen White Library utilizes this technology for all ESU students, providing them the ability to have face-toface interaction with editors to revise their papers without leaving the comfort of their
homes. This is made easier by the fact that Remote Desktop Connection allows the editors to directly show where in the paper corrections need to be made. With so much information that can be retained through an array of procedures, ESU has dedicated itself to providing every student an opportunity through technology, a goal of reaching out to all students by speaking their language of learning, bringing everyone onto common ground for the common good. Throughout this issue of Quest magazine, you’ll find stories of the evolving classroom at ESU, a unique and constantly changing environment providing for the student near and far.
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Song Birds and Equations Not many people can build the bridge between birds and mathematics, but Dr. Qiang Shi has recreated the music of nature with numbers. He has had quite the journey before placing himself at Emporia State University. Shi received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Xi’an Jiaotong University in Xi’an, China. After completion of those degrees, he decided to pursue a doctoral program in the United States. He found himself at the University of Missouri-Columbia where he received his Doctor of Philosophy in Mathematics degree. The very year he graduated from the University of MissouriColumbia, he was fortunate enough to find a temporary position here at Emporia State University in 2006. The temporary position morphed into a permanent one, and he has remained at ESU a little over 10 years now, during which his teaching focus evolved from inside the classroom to incorporate distance teaching. With such changes, he recognized that his role of an instructor has also evolved into more of a mentor duty. “Within my first two years I really focused my efforts on becoming a good teacher in the classroom, but as my experience kept going I realized that there were so many other opportunities to engage and be involved with other students outside of the classroom,” said Shi. Shi has mentored several students, and most recently has worked with Ryan Frier, an ESU graduate student, on a project titled Wavelet-Based Acoustic Classification of Bird Species. “Dr. Shi advised me through the whole thing. What we wanted to see is if we could take recordings of bird calls and use just the recordings to identify their own species,” said Frier, who graduated with his M.S. in Mathematics in May 2017. Through this intensive research, Frier and Shi were able to acquire recorded calls of the Whip-poor-will, the Northern Bobwhite, the Barred Owl, the Eastern Kingbird, and the Common Raven, segmenting the calls, and 5
transforming the data from the recordings through a process called Wavelet Packet Decomposition. Through this process, they were able to successfully identify roughly 70% of the calls through the mathematical equations that were produced. “Dr. Shi has been extraordinarily helpful in this project, even though he had a lot of other responsibilities to attend to. Not only has he helped me with this project, but he has been a great mentor to me, in general. He has taught me the little things about being an academic that you can’t learn in a classroom,” said Frier. As Shi recalled his teaching career over the last decade, he remembered his humble beginnings at the University of Missouri. “I was a teaching assistant at the University of University. When I came here [to ESU] you could immediately feel the difference. Mizzou had some large math classes with more than 200 students and here I have about 15-30 students in my classrooms. That’s really helped me to, not only be able to give individual attention, but also help learn students’ names and where they are from and their background and how to help them more.”
by Zachary Palmer Shi enjoys the environment of Emporia State University and how student-orientated Emporia State University is. He believes that ESU provides plenty of opportunity for students to grow and expand individually, rather than being lost in a massive lecture hall. “As an instructor here, my highest priority is always teaching. As a teacher, there’s always room to improve. There are always some new things you can try. There are always some new teaching methods you can implement in the classroom.” Shi views his role as a mentor as something ever-growing. Through conferences and a growing network, he strives to continuously bring new ideas to the classroom. “As faculty members, we have the responsibility to continue the scholarship of students in research and knowledge.”
“As faculty members, we have the responsibility to continue the scholarship of students in research and knowledge.”
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Exploring New Depths by Ralvell Rogers II
In the near future, Emporia State University will have its very own Aquatics Research and Outreach Center. Over $431,00 have already been dedicated to the construction of the Aquatics Center, which will give students an opportunity to participate in aquatic biology research. “Aquatic biology is the study of things that live in water,” said Dr. David Edds, aquatic biology professor. “Since we’re a land-based mammal, we’re kind of biased. We don’t think about the water so much, and a lot of times it’s kind of out of sight, out of mind.” According to Edds, the Aquatics Research and Outreach Center will be a real hands-on learning environment that will give students an opportunity to get dirty, get wet and give them a feel of aquatic biology. “We’re going to be focusing on teaching in some of our various classes in aquatic biology, ecology, fisheries management, invertebrate zoology, but also on research,” Edds said. “Research is done both by professors and students. Most of our research is done with students. That’s an opportunity that Emporia State University provides that a lot of other universities don’t, and that is a chance for students to get in, even as a freshman or upperclassman, and actually work on projects.” According to Dr. Erika Martin, aquatic ecology professor, the aquatics center will be a mix of scientific research and community outreach. “There will be a dry laboratory space for sample processing and data analysis, and an indoor and outdoor wet lab space,” Martin said. “The wet lab will consist of numerous identical experimental mesocosms that will 7
be used to study aquatic ecosystems. These mesocosms can be lentic, like lake or pond environments, or lotic, like rivers and streams. These will allow mechanistic study of aquatics across multiple trophic levels, as well as nutrient dynamics, behavior of organisms, etc. Basically, they are as close to natural as we can get without losing the control and replication needed to pinpoint cause and effects.” The Aquatics Center will not function as much as dissection environment as much as a collections environment, according to Edds. “We would go out into one river or another and make collections of organisms, and we bring those back to the lab,” Edds said. The center will also be used as a sort of storage for new equipment. “It gives us a chance to have equipment and a place to store that equipment, which we don’t have right now for nets, boots, and things that get wet and muddy, and collect gear so that we can go down there, and we can head right down to the river or lake, bring those things into the lab, and investigate,” said Edds. ESU’s Aquatics Research and Outreach Center will undergo construction near Campus Woods on the north end of campus and adjacent to I-35 in fall 2017. Potential classes that will be utilizing the center including ichthyology, fisheries management, aquatic entomology, and others related to amphibians, reptiles and waterfowl.
“ Research is done both by professors and students. Most of our research is done with students. That ’s an opportunity that Emporia State University provides that a lot of other universities don ’t, and that is a chance for students to get in, even as a freshman or upperclassman, and actually work on projects.”
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Face-to-Face with
Online Math by Kerri Jackson
With a growth of 1,700% in graduate student enrollment since 2007, the Mathematics Department at Emporia State University is not new to innovative academic technologies. It all started when they decided to offer their Master of Science in Mathematics online less than a decade ago, and realized that this type of online program was just what many had been waiting for. “Before we went online, most of our students were local, they were working full time, and they weren’t taking a bunch of classes all at once,” said Dr. Chad Wiley, associate professor of mathematics. “Going online was just something we could do to benefit the people who really wanted to go back to school but couldn’t go back full time.” The rapid rise in enrollment that ensued soon thereafter was a bit of a surprise. “We weren’t really expecting it when it first happened. It turned out we were sort of filling this gap in graduate education that we didn’t know existed. We didn’t know there was such a demand for it. There just aren’t very many online graduate programs in mathematics. You can find a number in math education, but in terms of online programs in pure math, there are very few, and we are very competitively priced compared to the others,” explained Wiley. “Once people found out that we were out there, it turned out that there were a lot of people that were waiting on a program like this and just didn’t know that we were offering it. We didn’t know they wanted it. 9
So we kind of discovered each other at the same time.” Offering an online M.S. in Mathematics was the first of many updates to instruction methods within the department. The latest? The use of Lightboard technologies to teach those distance students. “I initially saw the demo for Lightboard and thought of our online graduate students, especially those from other areas that never actually get to come to campus. In most of the lectures that we were recording for them, we were standing at a whiteboard, and they could only see the back of our heads. That’s fine if you’re talking to students in a classroom because they’re going to see you in your office, in the building, and before and after class, but if this is the only thing that they see, it’s going to be impersonal,” said Dr. Tom Mahoney, who spearheaded the implementation of Lightboard. “The Lightboard allows me to face the camera, so the students can actually see my face. They can see my expressions, see where I’m pointing, and I can direct them with my eyes. That’s a lot more interactive and personal than looking at the back of my head when I’m at my chalkboard … The Lightboard integrates all of those things and lets me speak directly to my students,” Mahoney explained. “Compared to using a webcam in the classroom, the end result has a more professional look. With this, you’ve got a black backdrop, quality lighting, neon markers, and I can insert slides and other materials onthe-fly– it’s a very professional result.”
The department has been using videos of Lightboard since fall 2016 and has received rave reviews from many students. “I’m creating 3-4 videos per week. Some weeks, I’ll create three or more hours of content for my students,” said Mahoney. “Students are really positive about it. They like that they can see my facial expressions and my eyes. Many students are excited for it to be incorporated into other courses.” The benefits of using Lightboard technology is not limited to distance students. Both Mahoney and Wiley have found value in it through use in on-campus undergraduate courses as well. “Online is certainly the area where the Lightboard has the best benefit, but I am finding it useful for the face-to-face courses as well. If I want to create a solutions video for a calculus course, rather than spending class time to go over the quiz, I can go downstairs to Lightboard, write out the solutions, upload it, and it is available for the students to look over before the next class period. Because only some students need to see the solutions, we can skip going over it in class and spend that time on other topics. I’m finding that to be a nice application of the Lightboard, which I originally only considered for its applications to the online courses,” said Mahoney. The Lightboard technology is not limited to instructor use, but on-campus students can create videos of themselves using Lightboard for school-related projects as well.
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QUEST 2017 Once the videos are made, Mahoney has set up software to make the video flip and upload quite an easy process. “My biggest contribution to the Lightboard was in knowing the software side of things really well … I use Open Broadcaster Software, which is both free and open source, to do all kinds of manipulations to produce a single streaming video feed. One of the things you can do is flip the video from left to right,” said Mahoney, who took the lead on setting up the software. “It’s set up right now to walk in, press a single key, record the lecture, press the same key to stop, then upload to Canvas, and you’re done.” Currently, there are over 200 combined degree-seeking and non-degree seeking students enrolled in the graduate program alone. Due to the high enrollment and time restrictions of faculty, the department has made efforts to make all processes as simple as this, limiting as many of the pre- and postproduction requirements as possible. “We look for ways to make things as streamlined as we can in our department, especially when the graduate program was getting so big. We needed more and more people to teach online classes. Some people had been doing it a while and were comfortable with it, and some people didn’t really like teaching online classes and they weren’t used to it,” explained Wiley. “One of the ways we wanted to entice people to get in on these online classes was to make things as easy as possible to set up and to run. That’s kind of the same approach we’re taking with Lightboard, and Dr. Mahoney has done a really nice job with that.”
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When asked why they continue to pursue innovations like Lightboard, Mahoney replied, “Advances in mathematics frequently have exciting applications in other areas, but inside the classroom, mathematics tends to be more pencil-andpaper based. Any type of technology you can bring to the classroom to make it more visual or to add animation helps students learn the information better.” Lightboard isn’t where it ends. In fact, the Mathematics Department already has plans to incorporate new unique teaching methods in the near future. “I just applied for an I3 grant and was accepted to get the virtual reality headset and capable computer within the department. Using this very exciting mathematical software, you can stand in a threedimensional virtual space that lets you view curves and surfaces and vectors and force fields, and all the things that are impossible to do at a chalkboard,” said Mahoney. “There are two primary applications. First, I can design something in a 3D space and record a video of me walking around the objects so the students get a better idea of how to visualize it. Second, students can come in and experience it for themselves, walking around an object or demonstrating their understanding by drawing lines or curves in three dimensions through the virtual reality.” With a continuously increasing demand for enrollment, the department is over capacity with faculty loads. As a result, two new faculty members will be added in the fall 2017 semester. As they enter, the emphasis
on technology will be encouraged, as it is all across Emporia State’s campus. “My time at ESU has really impressed on me the importance of technology in teaching. When I first started at ESU, I was very much a traditionalist. I didn’t really want students to use calculators in the classrooms, and I’d want to just use chalk and a chalkboard … Both of us are working with the Kansas City Math Technology EXPO, a conference that runs every fall, a group a people from the region who get together to talk about technology in the classroom. I’ve pulled a lot of ideas from there, and I think now technology has become one of the central facets of my teaching. Straight lecture with a chalkboard is not really very effective. You need to get students engaged in the material, help them visualize what’s happening, show them what’s out there, and give them the tools so they can create visualization or work of their own … There’s too much good stuff out there to ignore the value of it. If you want to be effective, you need to think about how to apply those things to the classroom to help the students out,” said Wiley. “Technology allows us to do things that were previously impossible. The online program is the prime example – it just was not feasible to teach those students like this before. With each new piece of technology, our ability to reach more students becomes more and more feasible … Technology continually makes impossible things possible and hard things easier, and knowledge of technology gives our students a leg up over the competition when they apply for jobs,” Mahoney agreed.
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QUEST 2017 Amy Sage Webb, professor of English, has been teaching in the same classrooms in Plumb Hall for 20 years now, though that isn’t to say her memories at ESU are droll. She has also sat on numerous councils and committees. Webb has been part of the Honors Program and Honors College, sat on the General Education Council and the Ethnic & Gender Studies committee, chaired the Academic Affairs Committee of the Faculty Senate, acted as President of the Faculty, served as moderator of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and currently serves as one of ESU’s Kansas Leadership Center Faculty residents. During her
stay at ESU, she has been witness to many cultural and educational changes, both influencing each other simultaneously throughout history. “We find ourselves in the midst of this national education reform called assessments which has been the major force of my generation of teaching college. That has certainly affected everything we do and how we do it. We’re also seeing students come out of public education who have come through the assessment-driven system, and I think that has changed the dynamic. I think there’s a greater desire for interpersonal connections. Students have a greater anxiety
about assessments; they want rubrics, they want clear guidelines, but at the same time they feel constrained by them. So teaching has to meet those two directives — we have to be accountable and accessible, but at the same time we have to open the door for experimentation, invention and growth. That has to be built into the class,” Webb explained. As an English professor and director of the Creative Writing Program, this is very evident through paper assignments. “Everyone wants to go ‘fix’ their paper like it’s broken, and that’s what we’ve trained students to do … which doesn’t help them to
r o f e c n a o p i S Creat sen Thom s a l o ic by N
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become resilient and creative on their own. We really want students to engage in the process in productive ways.” One method Webb implements is through the use of process pedagogy, letting students learn through experimenting without becoming the ultimate authority on their products. “The most dynamic moments are when you disappoint the students’ expectations about authority. I think that’s what really happens in a class, when students come in and make these very clear black and white decisions, or they at least think they want that. But nobody’s really learning if somebody else is laying down the law and everybody else is obeying … it’s messy … but we learn so much from it.” One of the biggest moments in the English department that helped with student growth and experimentation was the opening of the Donald Reichardt Center for Publishing and Literary Arts. “We’ve always had the Walker room for journalism and creative writing classes,
but we didn’t have that kind of space for these student projects.” Those not involved would probably be in for a show during that time, Webb noted. “We carried everything around in boxes into that room, and we had boxes everywhere in the English office; even in some storage closets!” The center, which has been open for three years now, has been very helpful to students working with publications. It has also given rise to internships for those participating in Flint Hills Review and Quivira — opportunities that were not available before the time of the Reichardt Center. “Prior to that center, those publications didn’t have anywhere to live. There were some very rigid parameters about what you could do, how those publications could grow, the kinds of things students could do … having that space has been a game changer. We’re now able to engage students in a range of literary activities that get them involved in the community of literary arts,” said Webb. Ranging from publications to internships, chapbooks and podcasts, the space has
opened up a venue for students wanting to expand their knowledge and experience with publishing related fields. “That wasn’t possible without the space.” Since the opening of the Reichardt Center, publications have been much easier for students to handle, giving them a space to work, exchange ideas, and create. It’s not uncommon to see English majors catching up with one another while working on the semester’s publications. During those times is when students truly come together in the space through self-directed goals. “The best classes always happen when there is great collaboration in achieving a learning goal,” Webb said. “There’s a difference between me standing at the center of the wheel as the authority with everyone trying to meet my expectations versus all of us in this circle working on something in the middle together.” When asked if there was a teachable moment at ESU, her response was, “Every single day … I have to go into every class ready to be surprised and delighted by something that occurs there. If I didn’t have that expectation, it wouldn’t be worth teaching.”
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LIVE ACADEMICS Emporia State University strives to make distance students feel not so, well, distant. Innovative technologies allow faculty and staff to bridge the geographical gap, affording students both near and far live, real-time interaction. Zoom, a video communications software, is one technology that is being used all across campus, from student writing support services to search committees to undergraduate and graduate classrooms. Here are just a few ways Zoom is utilized at Emporia State to make connections, build relationships, and offer a value-added experience to students across the nation.
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by Ralvell Rogers II and Kerri Jackson
Real-Time Teaching One of the most pivotal uses of Zoom across campus is in the classroom, where distance students can connect with on-site faculty and students during class time to take part in presentations, group discussions, or ask questions during a lecture. “It’s an opportunity to get all of my graduate students together at the same time, even though they’re all over the country,” said Dr. Marcia Schulmeister, earth science department head and hydrology professor. “So, I’ve got four different students who are on the screen at the same time and then somebody presenting, but people are dialing in in real-time from all over the place. And usually there’s a handful, maybe 3 to 5 students, who are here on campus.” Although there are moments where it is difficult to get students to speak up because they feel anonymous, Zoom has proven to work really well, according to Schulmeister. “When they (students) present, it’s fine,” Schulmeister said. “Everybody else on the other end can hear their presentations just as well as we can. This is like what you do at KU or K-State or another big school. You have a research group meeting with
your professor every once in awhile, but my research group meetings are all over the country.” Sarah Spoon, junior in Spanish and English, has never used Zoom herself, but she has been in a class where it has been used by others. “It’s a benefit to students off campus as they can watch lectures in real time,” Spoon said. According to Adam Sergeant, Learning Spaces Coordinator with the Information Technology department, ESU has been using Zoom for at least a year now and has received positive feedback from faculty and students who have used it. “Even people who are more familiar with Skype that have used Zoom feel that the interface is more simplistic and easier to use, with better quality of the video and audio on your conference calls or meetings,” Sergeant said. Panopto is a software that is to be used by faculty to record their lectures while they teach classes, according to Sergeant. “Panopto was more of just a recording, and then once the lecture was done, they could make the file available for people to go back and view it on Canvas,” said Sergeant.
“Whereas Zoom, you can do a recording like that, save it, and then people can go back and look at it, but you can also do realtime live-streaming. Zoom does both.” The possibility of Zoom replacing Panopto entirely seems to be evident in an increasing interest by faculty, and students who are not able to physically be on campus and in the classrooms. Support Services Joelle Spotswood is the director of the Writing Center, located in the William Allen White Library, where she and her team have implemented the use of Zoom for collaborative writing sessions for distance students. Spotswood began using Zoom to assist distance students in 2016, when she was regularly getting papers emailed to her for assistance. “We believe that having synchronous writing sessions are more effective than doing asynchronous, which would basically be students emailing us their papers to look over, which kind of equated to fixing it and sending it back. That’s a model we don’t like because we try to make better writers, not just better papers,” said Spotswood. The implementation of Zoom in the Writing Center has provided distance students with the option of a synchronous, face-to face learning session rather than simple corrections to a paper. It has also allowed distance students to feel more connected to and supported by Emporia State University. “A lot of what the technology allows is that face-to-face replication and I think that’s important, because when you’re learning from a distance, if you just have an online class with no face-to-face component, you have a lot of disconnect. There’s no real engagement if you don’t have face-to-face time with somebody. You can kind of feel separate from your peers, from
your professor,” said Spotswood. “For us, Zooming allows a real connection to occur because it’s a live person who cares about what the student is doing and it’s not just an email address.” Distance students can set up a Zoom appoint via the Writing Center’s webpage, and the appointments can be set up anytime during the Writing Center’s normal hours, Sunday through Thursday. Once the appointment is set up, the students can send any relevant information (copy of the paper, guidelines, rubric, course syllabus, etc.) to the Writing Center staff so they can look it over in advance. The Writing Center also offers support to distance students through a newly developed online Canvas shell. “All students, whether on campus or distance, undergrad or graduate, have access to a writing center Canvas shell. They don’t actually have to do anything to get signed up for it,” said Spotswood. The modules are set up to provide for each students’ unique needs. “There are different modules for students, even faculty, where they can find tailored information. The undergraduate module has topics more tailored to undergraduate needs, whereas the graduate module has topics like literature reviews, writing proposals, thesis-specific topics.” As the distance student population continues to grow at Emporia State, the Writing Center plans to continue to provide unique student writing support services.
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CONNECTING THROUGH APPS
“THE RULES AREN’T NECESSARILY BLACK AND WHITE.”
by Nicolas Thomsen
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To Dr. Amanda Lickteig, assistant professor in the Department of School Leadership, Middle and Secondary Education, the ethics and philosophy that comes along with education is just as important as the teaching itself. “Part of my teaching philosophy comes back to Aristotle and he has some components that he talks about techne (technique of teaching), episteme (science of understanding particular phenomena), phronesis (wisdom pertaining to practical ideas), and that is applying all of your content and technical knowledge and understanding of the students and situations in your class, and so it’s more of a whole, well-rounded approach to education,” said Licktieg, Conveying this philosophy through her teaching to her students is important to her, as they will become the next generation of educators. “…that has influenced a lot of what I do, teaching students not only to learn their content area and know the techniques of teaching those best practices, but also how to teach with empathy and with an understanding of what students bring to the table,” Licktieg said. Having been a part of distance teaching at Emporia State University for almost two years now, Lickteig has formed close relationships within her department and helped to foster relationships between her students. “In conversations that follow some of our course discussions, there is frequently dialogue that emerges about our current education system - about why things are the way they are, about budgets, about
the new Secretary of Education … it’s refreshing to see students follow through on things that makes a connection with them. The questions they ask are revealing of things that maybe we should address more of, because those are things we are generally curious about. We also have a lot of questions from students that go beyond their undergraduate career. It’s nice to see in the middle of their undergraduate experience that they’re already looking ahead at how they can continue their education as a graduate student, what they can do with their career and how they can help the public good. “I am definitely a technology advocate,” she said, as she began to talk about one app her students use in her class. “We piloted it during the spring 2017 semester. That was the first time we tried it out. I got an I3 grant through the IT department here last year and that supplied funding to help create the forms that went into the app as well as a year subscription to the app itself,” Licktieg explained. “We use it in the Secondary Education Phase 1 classes as part of their Secondary Teacher Expanded Practice internship.” The app contains forms used for the students and the teachers that they are interning with. It also contains calendars that inform them of the dates and times of events. ESU students have been placed in the middle and high schools in Emporia and surrounding school districts, so they have several events and places to keep track of. “This was to be a one-stop resource as a liaison between the teachers, students and faculty here at ESU,” said Licktieg.
Historically, there were rules of what a classroom should look like. If those rules were not abided, students would face the consequences. But Lickteig goes past viewing her students as just students; they are also people whose experiences extend past the classroom, and often times, they need adaptations to be made to meet their needs, as with the app. “They don’t come to our classrooms as blank slates; they are dynamic and very unique individuals who have situations that extend beyond the school day that need to be taken into consideration,” she said, explaining the need for such an app to assist the students. She recalled a prior experience with a middle school student who was part of her class, “I used to teach at a public middle school that was on an army base. One eighth grader that I taught whose parents were both deployed was only 14 years old and was responsible for getting all their younger siblings out the door. He was routinely late because he was getting all his younger siblings to their schools first, and in that situation, the late policy didn’t necessarily need to apply to him. He wasn’t being chronically late for reasons that were within his control, so not giving him a detention after his third tardy was one of those instances of working with the school to find the best solution.” Lickteig believes that those traditional rules are more like guidelines, and she prefers a more utilitarian approach to them, putting spirit into behind the words on paper. “The rules aren’t necessarily black and white.”
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ADVANCING by Nicolas Thomsen
ECONOMICS As a new face in the School of Business at Emporia State University, Marc Fusaro is no stranger to the push and pull that is money. Having taught at Northwest University, East Carolina University, and Arkansas Tech University before coming to ESU, Fusaro has numerous academic and professional presentations to his credit and much experience to bring to the students in the School of Business. Being Hired in August 2016, Fusaro saw a research opportunity in gross domestic product (GDP) forecasting. During his interview at ESU, Fusaro was asked if he would be willing to replicate his previous research in that area for the state of Kansas. Fusaro responded with, “Let’s make it bigger.” Fusaro has been creative with his work. “It is groundbreaking in the sense that we’re making two innovations. We’ve been lacking data, and there are these two 19
big problems with the GDP data on the state level: it takes forever to get, and it is too coarse. By the time you get it, you’ve forgotten what the economic weather was at the time. What’s really unique about this is that it’s not the typical research project where a question is given and we provide an answer to that question through the scientific method. It’s an ongoing investigation where we provide the information on a monthly basis. We are constructing something. It is more like engineering than like scientific inquiry.” Fusaro’s crowning achievement is the Arkansas Tech Business Index (ATBI), an idea that formulated six years ago when he was working at the Arkansas Tech College of Business. The idea itself went into application two years later, with 16 Arkansas cities being ranked against each other in terms of retail consumption on a monthly basis.
“We tracked other measures as well, like housing sales and unemployment rates, but retail was the main measure of economic activity,” Fusaro added. “It did take a lot of physical leg work to get it going. We started releasing the monthly index and made calls and visits. A lot of rubber was burnt between Russellville and Little Rock.” To combat all the time and energy his work requires, Fusaro said, “There is no substitute for being organized.” Fusaro worked with ESU graduate student Thomas Houk in an effort to develop an index system that would track the GDP of Kansas and the surrounding states of Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, and Oklahoma. Fusaro hopes to expand upon his earlier concept of creating a tracking system for the economy. But where the Arkansas index was a crude average of economic indicators, the Kansas index will produce monthly state
“THERE IS NO SUBSTITUTE FOR BEING ORGANIZED.” predictions six to eight months earlier than when it is normally predicted by the Bureau of Economic Analysis and have the data released on a monthly basis. The new index draws on economic theory — Okun’s Law — to use the high frequency (monthly) and timely data they have to estimate GDP on the same high frequency and timely pace. “First we look to the quarterly data to understand the relationship between the monthly indicators (employment, housing, and others) to specify an Okun’s Law relationship between those indicators and GDP at the state level.” Once they have specified that relationship they use it to simulate the state GDP data. Finally, they use the actual quarterly GDP data to refine that simulation. “That last step seemed like the easy part before we got into it, but after some trial and error, we came to a tough math problem.
Conceptually, it was not too hard, but it was a really long equation to solve. Yeah, those were fun times,” said Fusaro, smirking. Houk, who is working on his Master of Business Administration degree from Emporia State University, was approached by Fusaro for his business background coupled with his knowledge of statistics, programming, business theory, and web design. Houk also presented at the Capitol Graduate Research Summit for economics alongside Fusaro, delivering the results of the research to the public as well as state legislators and representatives. Houk’s presentation resulted in an academic award from BioKansas. “It was a valuable experience for me to see so many people take an interest and appreciate the efforts made to improve state economic tracking,” Houk said. “I was able to interact with representatives and business
leaders to listen to their concerns regarding the economy and learn how my research may make them more informed decision makers.” Fusaro will continue working with the media to ensure good media coverage of the monthly data releases. In the fall of 2017, Fusaro plans to begin releasing the monthly Emporia State Economic Index which will show monthly state level GDP growth for all seven states arranged on an index, allowing people to see not only state GDP growth, but also relative standard of living in those states. Fusaro closed by saying: “Hopefully during your morning drive time you will be hearing things like ‘According to the Emporia State Economic Index the Kansas economy grew last month by a two percent on an annual basis.”
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e h t r e d Un
e p o c s o r c i M by Ralvell Rogers II
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Dr. Melissa Bailey, coordinator of the M.S. in Forensic Science program, uses technology in the classroom to help students maximize their learning experiences in the lab and ultimately maximize their experience at Emporia State. “One thing that I’ve done with my anatomy and physiology class is that I’ve used Panopto to allow us to spend more time in class discussing the more difficult concepts,” Bailey explained. Panopto is a video capture system that allows professors to record and upload their lectures to Canvas, the online learning portal, for students to select and review outside of class. This tool is beneficial for students who may not have comprehended the entire lecture in realtime, or for students who have to miss class for excusable reasons. EMPORIA STATE UNIVERSITY 22
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“Several agencies don’t have microscopes of the quality we do. We also have access to a ton of chemical analysis instruments that are not normal for a typical chemistry program. We have been able to practice the skills that are going to be used day to day in the crime lab, so we’ve already had our first experience.”
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“So for instance, if I have a subject that I think is pretty straightforward, I’ll record a Panopto lecture on that subject, and they’ll listen to it, come to class, ask me questions, and then we spend more of our lecture time going over things that they might have difficulty understanding.” According to Bailey, Panopto has proven to be beneficial to her students because there are times when they do not receive all of the information that she may lecture over. Whenever this is the case, students have the ability to access Panopto on Canvas and stop and start the lecture whenever they feel the need. “For me,” Bailey said. “There’s not really a downside. We meet face-to-face as well and so I’m able to answer any questions that they (students) may have.”
Bailey has recently added another tool that benefits her lab courses: the microscope camera. “We do use cameras quite a bit for our microscopes,” Bailey said. “So I use that for both anatomy and physiology lab and the criminalistics lab. I’m able to livestream whatever I’m seeing on my microscope to the big TV, so it really enhances the lecture because we can point at something and the students don’t have to wonder ‘Am I looking at the same thing the instructor is?’” As a result of implementing Panopto and microscope cameras into lectures and lab settings, ESU students will be able to not only be more engaged in the lessons presented by their professors, but they will be able to retain information in more precise manners.
Students in this program have found unique opportunities that they would not have discovered elsewhere. “Several agencies don’t have microscopes of the quality we do. We also have access to a ton of chemical analysis instruments that are not normal for a typical chemistry program. We have been able to practice the skills that are going to be used day to day in the crime lab, so we’ve already had our first experience,” said Lindsy Whitlow, a graduate student in her second year of the MSFS program. “When we get to a crime lab, it’s going to be much easier to acclimate to that situation.”
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A S oc i a l &
With technology advancing each year in many different avenues of life, professors and graduate teaching assistants at ESU are beginning to incorporate technology such as Canvas and different social media (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.) in order to make teaching in classrooms more relatable to students. “I think particularly for Emporia State, there is a ton of potential to incorporate social media into the classroom,” said Dr. Katherine O’Meara, assistant professor of rhetoric and director of composition. “In my rhetoric of public engagement class, students were using polling websites to get real-time feedback in their final presentations. English, modern languages and journalism has instituted a Facebook page, a Twitter account, and an Instagram page this academic year, so I think one definite positive of technology is to make what we do more visible. It’s nice to be able to advertise some of the cool things that are happening in EMLJ.” In addition to incorporating social media into the classrooms, O’Meara says that she uses her social media accounts as a way to advertise activities in her classrooms and education in her field of work overall. “If you’re my Facebook friend, you see that I’m posting a lot about my students,” O’Meara said. “I’m posting photos of what’s happening in my classes with the notes on the whiteboard. I’m also posting educationrelated articles that pertain to my own research interest.” As the use of technology in the classrooms has grown over the years, the possibility of a paperless classroom has increased, which means that students don’t necessarily have to print off drafts of their papers or final drafts and turn them in, according to O’Meara. She also said that GTAs have an opportunity to use other technologies including projector systems to display websites, play videos, use the document camera, or show paper documents.
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Graduate Teaching Assistants in the Classroom: by Ralvell Rogers II
l a c i g o eT chnol xperience “The most used technology in my classroom is the document camera,” said Tyler Johnson, GTA for American History to 1877 and American History Since 1877 in the English Department. “It allows for students to see primary sources or documents from the past up close, and allows us to explain key characteristics of the document.” According to Johnson, not only does technology appeal to prospective students, but also to GTAs in the classrooms because often times, GTAs are not much older than students which makes it easier to engage student-interest in technology. “In the psychology department, we are given guidelines and a few assignments we are required to incorporate into our courses, but ultimately the reins are in our hands when it comes to crafting the details of our courses,” said Danielle Carlson, GTA for Introductory Psychology. “I imagine that courses from any of us psychology GTA’s is interesting for students because their instructors grew up in the same era that they did and may feel more like esteemed peers as a result of this similarity.” Compared to many different online classroom platforms used on college campuses such as Blackboard and Moodle, Carlson says Emporia State’s use of Canvas is by far the most accessible of them all. “I love that I can post the PowerPoints I use for lecture online, update students on their grades in an instant, and also utilize helpful tools like TurnItIn.com at the click of a button,” Carlson said. “It’s incredibly helpful as a teacher and as a graduate student; I also find it to be wonderful from the student side of things.”
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If used properly, social media is a good way to engage students in the classroom, according to Bryan Johnson, GTA for the Finance Lab in the School of Business. “I think creating a classroom Facebook page or Twitter account, and encouraging students to connect with it, then offering extra credit for random bonus questions posted would be a great way to encourage them to engage more,” Bryan said. According to O’Meara, any technology has the potential of being good for the classroom, but the first thing you have to think about is access. “You can’t just assume that every student has an iPhone or a laptop or immediate access to these technologies,” O’Meara said. “That’s something you have to really be aware of as a classroom teacher.” Since the use of technology in the classrooms has been growing quickly, ESU’s professors and GTAs have proven to stay ahead of the curb by incorporating different social medias, Canvas, document cameras, smart boards and much more to better engage students in education.
Students read drafts of papers in class using the Canvas app on their cell phones.
“Any technology has the potential of being good for the classroom. The first thing you have to think about is access. You can’t just assume that every student has an iPhone or a laptop or immediate access to these technologies. That’s something you have to really be aware of as a classroom teacher.”
Many professors encourage students to bring laptops to class for group work, drafting, and other in-class process work. Tweeted 3 days + 6 hrs ago
Posted to wall 3 days + 5 hrs ago
“If you’re my Facebook friend, you see that I’m posting a lot about my students. I’m posting photos of what’s happening in my classes with the notes on the whiteboard. I’m also posting education-related articles that pertain to my own research interest.”
Some professors take photos of daily notes and work on their cell phones and share with students on Canvas.
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Classrooms at ESU are equipped with projector screens, so professors can livestream Skype meetings, Twitter feeds, and more during class. Online video chat services like Skype allow scholars from across the country to visit ESU classes and share their expertise with students. Here, Second Language Writing scholar Dr. Paul Kei Matsuda Skypes in from Arizona State Unversity. Posted to wall 3 days + 7 hrs ago
Skype meetings allow for real-time conversations between students and professionals, creating a dynamic learning environment. Posted 2 days + 8 hrs ago
“There’s a bunch of other technologies that our GTAs use in the classroom. Many of them (GTAs) will log into the computer and use the projector system in the classrooms to display websites, to play videos, to use the document camera, to show paper documents. I know that a lot of them use the inbox feature in Canvas, so students can message them on there.”
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“It’s just incredible how quickly technologies and social medias especially have been incorporated into the classroom.”
Giving space for the use of technologies and social media creates a lively classroom experience for ESU students. Posted 2 days + 8 hrs ago EMPORIA STATE UNIVERSITY 26
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Teaching Through
Augmented by Nicolas Thomsen
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Since beginning his teaching career at Emporia State University in the fall of 2016, Dr. Yeol Huh has shown an incredible willingness to try new things by taking learning outside of the classroom. In his Instructional Technology for Educators course, Huh’s students use the app Aurasma as part of their assignments. Aurasma uses layering techniques to apply information to the physical surroundings of the one using it, almost like how an image editing program uses filtering on photographs. This capability has been found in an increasing number of new apps with an immensely popular one being Pokémon Go. In Pokémon Go, the player encounters Pokémon in the real world based upon their GPS coordinates and can see them through the use of their camera. Aurasma utilizes the same concept, allowing users to overlay images onto backgrounds found in the real world. This creates a scenario for the students to go beyond the physical borders of the classroom to seek out answers on campus. “I encourage active learning and critical thinking to keep students engaged, and this app helps with the learning process,” Huh said. “Cooperation is also encouraged for these exercises, though it’s fun witnessing friendly competition,” he added with a grin. With these exercises, students are literally on the quest for knowledge, which Huh feels is essential to keeping teachers just as
engaged as their students. Given that today’s phones practically double as computers, this is not impossible to foresee, and Huh believes it to be the way of the future. “This is new technology that should be used within the classroom, considering how connected we are in today’s world,” Huh said. Huh also encourages his students to think outside the box and wholeheartedly believes that there is more than one way to arrive at an answer. He has found that teaching how to work backwards is a great way to convey that. “Rather than teaching them how to arrive to the conclusion of the question, I asked them to work backwards from the outcome and figure out the methods through reverse engineering. It helped some students who just weren’t able to easily get the answer through common means,” explained Huh. This form of thinking was instilled in him by his mentor at Indiana University, Charles M. Reigeluth, and has greatly impacted Huh’s teaching style. “The teacher’s role has changed from sage on a stage to guide on the side,” he quoted his mentor. “In the Industrial Age, only those who had adapted to the traditional classroom setting went on to receive higher education while the rest weren’t so lucky. Now that we are in the Information Age, educators can cater to the individual skills and learning styles of their students to ensure that they receive the highest education possible.”
Huh said the education field has expanded enormously within the last couple of decades and he intends to utilize whatever methods reach out to his students. One trait of ESU that helps him with this goal is the smaller teacher-to-student ratio compared to other universities. “I teach four sections of Instructional Technology for Educators, with about 22 to 25 students in each one. It’s great to be able to remember the faces and names of my students.” One particular development he enjoys seeing from his students and colleagues is the changing of attitudes. Not only is he using Aurasma for his own assignments, but his students also used it to create their own quests and test them on their classmates. “It’s really amazing seeing people change from reluctance to seeing the potential, to not just stick with whiteboards. They are comfortable using augmented realities after realizing how much they’ve already done with it.” In Huh’s view, education is the most valuable resource a person can receive, and teachers are the way of the future. Huh’s innovation has been accepted and nurtured by the faculty at ESU, a trait unique to ESU that he is grateful for. “At Emporia State, I’ve received immense support from my colleagues who are willing to adjust to new situations and try out new things,” Huh said.
Realities
“The teacher’s role has changed from sage on a stage to a guide on the side.”
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DRONES IN THE CLASSROOM by Kerri Jackson
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Elementary students are getting a head start with advanced technologies thanks to the education that their teachers are receiving as graduate students at Emporia State University. The latest elementary STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) instruction methods incorporate the use of drones and robots in the classroom. Not only does this help the students begin learning applied STEM concepts at an earlier age, but it also keeps them engaged in topics that they commonly perceive as lackluster. “It’s an enhancement piece — a heavy discussional piece. Kids want to be engineers and want to engineer great things, but sometimes it is not in the curriculum. You’ve really got to work to make it part of the curriculum. Most people think curriculum is a test or exam, but curriculum is anything that makes up the school environment. It could be the water fountains, it could be the playground, it could be the asphalt, it could be the carpet. But when you bring it into the environment at a good-timed pace, then it can be an enjoyable experience for everyone,” explained Dr. Matt Seimears, chair of the department of elementary education, early childhood, and special education. Most recently, Seimears has been teaching his distance graduate students, who are often teachers, how to implement the use of drones in the classroom. “We teach a graduate class, Teaching Elementary Robotics and Engineering, so that’s where a lot of these drone technology protocols are being taught,” said Seimears. “We show them how some of these things can capture or grab a lot of things that the human eye can’t get. You can use balloons with cameras and things like that, but you can’t really get the views that a drone can get.” Similarly, Dr. Sara Schwerdtfeger encourages the use of robotics. In her classes,
graduate students buy a Dot or Dash robot instead of a textbook and put it to use in their classrooms. Through the use of these robots, elementary students learn the basics of coding. “It’s the beginning parts of coding for students. Once they’ve mastered that step of block coding, then they can go in and start coding for different games, like Minecraft or Farmville … it really is an avenue for students to get started with coding,” said Schwerdtfeger. Block coding is a type of code that is already written to some extent, and the children have to put those pre-made codes, or blocks, together in a pattern that accomplishes their goal. “Block code is a code of instruction for the robot that they can put together to make the robot do something. So maybe it’s turn right, go forward, change colors,” she explained. Schwerdtfeger has found that block coding works best for elementary students, and these particular robots are designed specifically for that age group. “They truly are meant for those elementary students. There’s no putting them together, there’s no circuitboard — those kinds of higher level robotics for high school kids — it takes that part away from it and they just get to enjoy block coding and creating those things with it,” said Schwerdtfeger. The graduate students have found many unique ways to utilize these robots in their elementary classrooms, where the children code the robots to navigate obstacle courses, act as the timekeeper for hot potato, launch balls toward cup pyramids, and other competitive and engaging activities. All coding can be done by the teachers or students through free apps on their iPhone, Android, or tablet, and the possibilities are endless. “There is so much cool technology out there, and we need to have them start
thinking out of the box in order to figure out a way to incorporate that into the classrooms. We want to tie it to the current standards that they’re using and figure out a way that the graduate students can fit it into their classrooms without adding one more thing to their day,” said Schwerdtfeger. “Their imagination is the limit.” Through these graduate courses, many students learn more than they expect about teaching elementary STEM, boosting their confidence and equipping them to spread the knowledge to other classrooms. “They are often anxious at the beginning of the class ... but it is so rewarding, because in the end, you can see how much they’ve grown,” Schwerdtfeger said of her graduate students. Teaching teachers better classroom practices allows for a more enjoyable learning experience for the elementary students as well. “I see engagement … The kids are always excited to use the robots. If you can incorporate some math and some science into that, they don’t even realize that that’s what they’re doing sometimes, which is probably the goal of education – to get in and have them do it and be excited about it and be willing to work on some harder task that they can persevere through instead of just doing a worksheet or something that they’re not engaged with,” said Schwerdtfeger. Seimears agreed, suggesting that it is necessary for teachers to understand and be able to use new classroom technologies. “As a teacher, what you permit, you promote. If you permit yourself to learn technologically new advances, then you’re going to promote them in your classroom and be comfortable with them. If you permit yourself to ignore them, then technology will pass you and it will start dating you as a teacher,” said Seimears.
“We show them how some of these things can capture or grab a lot of things that the human eye can’t get. You can use balloons and cameras and things like that, but you can’t really get the views that a drone can get.”
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ROE R. CROSS DISTINGUISHED PROFESSORSHIP The Roe R. Cross Distinguished Professorship, established in 1979 and funded by a gift from the Roe R. Cross Foundation, is by most measures the highest honor Emporia State University can accord to one of its faculty. No more than one faculty member can be so honored in a given year. While the Cross award primarily recognizes scholarly and creative accomplishment, the academic record of a recipient must be distinguished by excellence in university teaching, participation in professional activities, the fostering of an intellectual atmosphere, recognition or respect accorded to him or her by peers and students, recognition of extra classroom service to the university, and a record of distinction as a student mentor. 2017 – Patrick J. Martin 2016 – Marshall D. Sundberg 2015 – Jim Persinger 2014 – Charles Brown 2013 - David Edds 2012 - Amy Sage Webb 2011 - Richard Schrock 2010 - Jim Ryan 2009 - Karen Manners Smith 2008 - Gary Ziek 2007 - Betsy Yanik
2006 - Herbert Achleitner 2005 - Donald S. Miller 2004 - Larry Schwarm 2003 - Ronald T. McCoy 2002 - Harvey C. Foyle 2001 - Marie Miller 2000 - William H. Clamurro 1999 - Ken Weaver 1998 - Joella Mehrhof 1997 - Ronald Frederickson 1996 - Martha Hale
1995 - Gaylen J. Neufeld 1994 - James Aber 1993 - Roger C. Greer 1992 - Teresa A. Mehring 1991 - Philip L. Kelly 1990 - Cooper B. Holmes 1989 - Dan R. Kirkhhefer 1988 - Carl D. Prophet 1987 - Thomas D. Isern 1986 - Elaine V. Edwards 1985 - Melvin G. Storm
1984 - Stephen F. Davis 1983 - James F. Hoy 1982 - Helen McElree 1981 - DeWayne A. Backhus 1980 - Loren E. Pennington 1979 - William R. Elkins
Apply for Admission Submit your application The application is available online via emporia.edu/grad. Select the “Apply Now” link under the Admissions heading. Then select “Apply Now” under the online application heading to electronically submit. Pay your application fee The application fee can be paid upon completion of your online application utilizing Visa, MasterCard, American Express, or Discover. Submit your official transcripts Degree and Certificate Seeking Students Transcripts are considered official when they arrive in the Graduate Office in a sealed envelope from the issuing institution or are received through a secure electronic transcript service. Complete Departmental Requirements Degree and Certificate Seeking Students Most degree-seeking programs have additional admissions requirements. Please check with your major department for additional requirements.
MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS
§§ A bachelor’s degree from a regionally accredited college or university. §§ Adequate preparation in the proposed area of specialization (to be determined by the department of specialization). §§ A grade point average of not less than 2.5 in the last 60 semester hours of study or an overall grade point average of no less than 3.0 for a completed master’s degree.
GRADUATE ASSISTANTSHIPS
Information and application can be found at emporia. edu/grad by selecting the “Graduate Assistants” link on the top of the page, then selecting, “Graduate Assistant Application.”
emporia.edu