Faculty Teaching Fellowships

Serie Leamos: Students Applying Design and Language Curriculum to Create a Multilingual Reading Library
Our College to Career Fellowship entails an interdisciplinary collaboration of faculty from two colleges (Rodrigo from World Languages and Cultures, and Prewitt from Ernest G. Welch School of Art & Design), and collaboration of students from two disciplines (Spanish and Art & Design). Students in Spanish and Art & Design courses have collaborated to write and illustrate original stories. The stories are used as reading material for inexperienced student-readers of Spanish in Lower Division courses. The final product becomes part of Serie Leamos, an online library for language acquisition through reading, which is accessible to teachers and students worldwide.This experiential learning project raises students’ awareness of their career readiness by allowing them to connect the work they do in their major to career competencies. Furthermore, it allows students to demonstrate their proficiency in career-transferable skills by using those skills to create real value for audiences within the University and far beyond. In this project, our students learn by doing, which will prepare them to face the challenges they can encounter when working in the real world.

The purpose of this project is to develop design principles and technological infrastructure for distance learning in immersive reality. The goal is to discover best practices, best experiences, and best content when using virtual spaces as a teaching and training environment. While studying the innovations in the media industry, I will apply them to teaching and learning in a design thinking process of discovery. I will focus on the question - How might we redesign education both spatially and cognitively for students to participate fully in distance learning where the experience is more uniquely engaging than in-person learning? The tangible outcomes will be public discourse in the immersive learning landscape and a refined course prototype.

Sites of Discussion: Teaching the Humanities Online through Discussion Forums and Place-based Pedagogy
I propose a SoTL project that examines how discussion forums and mapping technology benefit online teaching in the humanities. Using research in online learning communities and place-based pedagogy theory, I will use an online discussion forum and a digital mapping tool in my fall 2020 Victorian novel class and assess the results. I will develop and use rubrics that assess the technologies’ effectiveness of building a learning community and for student learning outcomes for the course..

Our project: Criminal Justice and Criminology Sophomore Learning Community
The sophomore year creates some unique challenges that, for many, results in the “sophomore slump” (Virtue, Wells, & Virtue, 2017). Historically, campus resources have focused on first-year student efforts rather than on sophomore needs. The creation of a Sophomore Learning Community model can help address concerns regarding sophomore attrition. While managing the logistics of a sophomore LC can be difficult, with proper faculty, staff, and administrative support, positive results can be produced. Further, creating SLCs that relate to specific majors or career paths improves the likelihood that courses will fill and that students, as well as faculty, will have a positive Learning Community experience (Gahagan & Stuart Hunter, 2006; Virtue et al., 2017).Modeled after the FLC program (Dabney, Green, & Topalli, 2006), this SLC program draws upon a cohort model to foster student belonging, connections to the university, and student success. At the core of the program is a newly created course Proseminar in CJ (CRJU 2010). This 3-credit course will count as an CJ Area I elective. It will be a WAC designated class with the support of a graduate writing consultant. The content of the course is designed to orient students to the CJ major, enhance their connections to the faculty and subject matter, provide remedial support in the areas of social science writing and statistics, and serve as a first step in the college-to-career progression.Students will participate in coordinated trips and field experiences, collaborate to identify and propose solutions to real-world challenges, consider the impact of their proposals, identify errors in reasoning, set goals, prioritize tasks, and meet deadlines. Additional course modules will expose students to department policies and support programs (i.e. AYSPS Office of Academic Assistance and AYSPS Career Services), introduce them to faculty members, and prepare them for the job and graduate school prospects that follow. This course will serve as a valuable second-year extension for native students who participated in the FLC program. Importantly, it will serve as a vital orientation and remediation course for first-year transfer students who historically struggle to keep pace with the rigors of a research university program.

Culturally Responsive Teaching and Learning
The focus of this project is to explore in depth how faculty can create equitable, culturally responsive teaching and learning (CRTL) experiences for students. Using an exploratory and collaborative research-based approach, I aim to convene faculty across my department, college and GSU interested in engaging in teaching, learning and research focusing on culturally responsive teaching and learning (CRTL) in higher education. Drawing upon my expertise in preparing culturally responsive pedagogues and also conducting translational science and collaborative research, this project will represent a culturally constructive process, intentionally building and drawing upon the experiences, skills and knowledge of participating faculty. The following are the overall aims of the project:
• Examine how faculty create a culturally responsive environment for undergraduate and graduate students. The focus will address individual processes within teaching and learning that may negatively impact CRTL (i.e. implicit and explicit bias when interacting with students; the need to decolonize our coursework and the theories we use; lack of diverse perspectives within course assignments/ readings; beliefs and values that counter a culturally responsive ethos, etc.).
• Identify a focus area within CRTL and develop a plan of action in teaching, learning and research individually or collectively.
• Critically reflect upon lessons learned and ways to advocate and support other faculty members across the department, college and university to implement a culturally responsive environment for students and to inform policy at the individual, department, college and university levels that are racially equitable and dismantle those that are not.

Teaching effectiveness in online environments
The focus of the current project is to build on an earlier investigation in the area of preferred pedagogical practices in online learning environment. In specific, the focus of this project is the evaluation of the instructor (and the instructional behaviors) in online learning environments. The research project has 3 phases. Researcher will start with a descriptive study focusing on instructors and instructional behaviors in online courses. The researcher will examine several online courses for identifying substantial variables of teaching and learning in online environment. In the second phase of this project, the researcher will focus on the development of a specific instructor and instructional behaviors in online courses rubric. This rubric will allow administrators, colleagues (or even self-observations) to measure the effectiveness degree on specific instructional behaviors in online settings. The third phase of this research project will include the validation of the evaluation system developed in phase 2. A panel of experts in online education or instructional design and technology will be recruited to share their opinions regarding the evaluation system (from phase 2) via a Delphi methodology (Content validity). In addition, researcher will conduct a correlation study between instructional behaviors and SEI in online course (Construct validity). The hope is that this research will help to establish the preferred pedagogical practices in the online teaching environment.

Security Requirements Engineering: A Hybrid Learning & Teaching Approach
Insecure software is threatening our financial, healthcare, defense, energy, education, and other critical infrastructure. Software Security Requirements Engineering (SRE) provides systematic mechanisms to address security issues early in software development process. SRE mechanisms are critical because building security into the early phases of the software development process is cost-effective and create more secure software. Number of systematic mechanisms have been proposed by security experts and researchers for tackling software security issues early at the requirement phase. However, learning and teaching SRE using those mechanisms is challenging for software developers, students and educators.
First, finding a mechanism for learning and teaching SRE that is pedagogically usable is challenging because SRE mechanisms designers focus mainly on capturing the technical aspects of security such as confidentiality, integrity, and availability and often neglect the inclusion of the pedagogical usability aspects such as the learning theory used, usage situation, learning goals, and learning situation. Second, how to effectively learn and teach SRE is difficult because software requirements are a type of problem that does not have a well-defined single solution and hence difficult to represent by teaching methods such as a lecture or a lap. Third, the provided common known security vulnerabilities knowledge such as the Common Weakness Exposure (CWE) and Common Attack Patterns Enumeration and Classification (CAPEC) that recur during requirements are critical for requirements engineers and systems analysts (let alone students) who often lack security experience. However, their use or adaptation during SRE is overwhelming because of the vast amount of security information provided, and this fact was evident while teaching Csc-4226/6226 introduction software security class at Georgia State University in Fall 2018.
In this project, we propose to address the learning and teaching SRE challenges by examining the effectiveness of using combinations of learning and teaching approaches including: Mini Case Studies, Security Requirements Antipatterns and Gamification, and in class Workshop Model. First, case studies, as an active learning tool, offer an effective approach to understanding a system or a phenomenon that is too large or too difficult to represent in a lecture or a lab setting. Second, the use of security requirements Antipatterns during security requirements development could reduce the security requirements knowledge’s overwhelmingness and thus bridge the gap between security experts and software developers (especially junior developers) and educators (instructors or trainers in universities, colleges, or industry). As Gamification learning method has shown success in motivating, engaging, and assessing and acquiring knowledge, using it to develop a self-teach method could help ease learning Antipatterns. Third, workshop model is an effective technique in conveying scenario-specific materials to participants.
We will assess the effectiveness of the hybrid approach by using Concept Mapping and Pedagogically Meaningful Learning Questionnaire (PMLQ). The resource materials delivered by this project will help train 180 undergraduate students who take software engineering class every academic year and 50 undergraduates and graduate students who take software security class once every academic year by providing them an opportunity to learn critical software security skills.

Serie Leamos online library: an innovative project to enhance language learning in the Lower Division Language curriculum
Dr. Rodrigo is Full Professor of Spanish, with concentration on Applied Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition, in the department of World Languages and Cultures (https://wlc.gsu.edu/profile/victoria-rodrigo/). Dr. Rodrigo’s project, entitled “Serie Leamos online library: an innovative project to enhance language learning in the Lower Division Language curriculum,” seeks to assess the effectiveness of Serie Leamos as a tool that can facilitate and enhance language learning at the beginning levels of competence in a foreign language. Serie Leamos is a reading project on which advanced students from World Languages and Cultures write stories for their peers at lower levels. The stories, which are based on the students’ personal experiences, are then illustrated by undergraduate students from the Ernest G. Welch School of Art & Design.
Research in the field of Second Language Acquisition has shown that pleasure reading, attained in the form of extensive reading, is a main source of language literacy in L1 and L2. Key to a successful extensive reading program is that readers keep a sustained level of motivation to read. In a pilot study, Dr. Rodrigo found that students at the beginning levels are motivated to read if they enjoy their reading activities. The study found that, for novice and inexperienced readers, enjoyment is reached when students experience a sense of accomplishment resulting from their ability to understand the reading material. These findings suggest that comprehension leads to enjoyment, enjoyment leads to a positive attitude toward reading, and this then leads to motivation to continue to read. If students are motivated to read, they will be ready to develop a reading habit, an essential factor for students to become independent learners and to accelerate language acquisition.
The present study will analyze whether a collection of titles produced by student-authors working together with student-illustrators can provide reading material of a quality that will lead to sustained motivation to read by Lower Division Language learners and whether extensive reading can indeed enhance foreign language instruction. Around 1000 low-proficiency students enrolled in first-year Spanish and inexperienced readers enrolled in second-year Spanish will participate in the study. The findings from this study will contribute to understanding the real impact of Serie Leamos as a learning tool for beginning students and will allow Dr. Rodrigo to implement significant theoretical claims: pleasure reading can and should be implemented starting at the beginning levels of instruction.
A second goal of the present project is to expand and improve the Serie Leamos online library by creating new titles and providing free access to a broader audience of language teachers and learners. In this regard, it is also a goal to make the digital collection accessible to learners of other foreign languages. For this, the stories in the collection will be translated and the experience replicated in several target languages.