Teaching Academy Annual Report | 2024

February 9 | Attendance: 11

Facilitators

Description

This 4 hour in-person workshop addressed how to effectively present participants’ contributions to teaching and learning in their promotion packets. Participants learned effective guidelines to follow and began applying these in showcasing their own work.

Learning objectives

• Describe the stages, timelines and components of the WSU CVM promotion process
• Access guidelines and resources to begin developing your promotion packet
• Compare and contrast examples, critically reflecting on these to strengthen your portfolio
• Organize your portfolio strategically, managing themes and supporting evidence to effectively tell your professional story

Workshop topics

• Preparing Your Educator’s CV – Dr. Philip Mixter
• Framing Your Teaching Portfolio/Reflective Document – Dr. Steve Lampa
• Writing Your Teaching Portfolio/Educator’s Reflective Document and Appendices – Drs. Susan Matthew and Jeffrey Abbott

March 9 | Attendance: 10

Facilitators

Description

This 4 hour in-person workshop addressed the fundamentals of effective teaching in class-rooms and laboratories:

• How to write clear learning objectives
• How to implement active learning strategies
• How to evaluate progress in learning
• How to integrate objectives, assessments and teaching activities

Workshop topics

• Intentionally Designing for Learning – Dr. Susan Matthew
• Writing Learning Objectives – Drs. Samantha Gizerian and Steve Lampa
• Multiple-Choice Exams as Problem Solving Assessment – Drs. Lynne Nelson
• Non-MCQ Assessments – Dr. Jeffrey Abbott
• Enhancing Teaching: Active Learning Strategies – Drs. Rachel Halsey
• Further Resources and Feedback – Drs. Susan Matthew and Lynne Nelson

March 31 | Attendance: 16

Facilitators

Description

This 3 hour in-person workshop addressed the fundamentals of effective clinical teaching:

• How to create active learning in rounds
• How to maximize case-based clinical teaching and feedback
• How to assess progress in learning

Workshop topics

• Creating Active Learning in Rounds settings – Drs. Jillian Haines and Sarah Guess
• Maximize case-based feedback – Dr. Jeffrey Abbott
• Assessing Progress in Clinical Learning – Dr. Lynne Nelson
• Further Resources and Feedback – Dr. Lynne Nelson

• All sessions were in hybrid fashion (classroom & video conferenced via Zoom)
• There were 8 Seminars (2 Spring; 6 Fall) and 7 Panel Discussions. (2 Spring; 5 Fall)
• Attendance totaled 253
• Average attendance per session for 2024, 17 people

January 19 | Panel discussion: Peer observation from all sides

Description

This panel focused on the CVM Teaching Academy Peer Observation of Teaching program. Participants heard from three different perspectives on what it was like to be part of the Peer Observation of Teaching program.

Panelists

• Peer Observation Co-Chairs: Drs. Philip Mixter & Jeffrey Abbott
• Observer: Dr. Susan Matthew
• Both Observee & Observer: Drs. Yoko Ambrosini & Mara Varvil

February 13 | Fall Conference Takeaways by Professional Development Travel Grant Recipients

Description

Participants were encouraged to attend this seminar where travel grant recip-ients shared their experiences and insights gained from their professional development conferences. Attendees discovered what they had learned and how they could apply those lessons to their work environments.

Primary investigators

• Drs. Jeffrey Abbott & Philip Mixter

April 4 | Team Based Learning: Once You See It, It Can’t Be Unseen

Description

After I had the chance to sit-in on a few team-based learning (TBL) courses in the veterinary curriculum at University of Arizona, I was curious about how TBL worked and if it was something that could be done in our curriculum at WSU. I did additional TBL training over the summer, then implemented TBL in 10 hours of the fall internal medicine course in 2023. Along the way, I kept notes on my experiences learning and implementing TBL and gathered data on TBL from the students’ perspective, which I shared during this session.

Presenters

• Dr. Sarah Guess

April 18 | Panel Discussion: Educational Research Grant Presentation & Panel Discussion

Description

WriteSTEM: Virtual Tools to Help Students Improve Their Writing Skills – PI: Philip Mixter, Martina Ederer & Michael Dunn.

This panel focused on the CVM Teaching Academy Educational Research Grant. Participants heard from four different perspectives on the Educational Research Grant program.

Presenter

• Michael Dunn, Emma Ledbetter, Dr. Sarah Guess & Dr. Jane Wardrop

August 8 | Innovate and Inspire: Discover ‘How Learn-ing Works’ with Our Learning Community

Description

How Learning Works: Seven Re-search-Based Principles for Smart Teaching can influence and shape philosophies of reflective teaching. This book puts many teaching and learn-ing concepts into a clear relatable language which were shared during this brief introduction to the revised version of How Learning Works: Eight Research-Based Principles for Smart Teaching. The book, chapter topics and formats were intro-duced as we began the enlightening journey that this book provides in the CVM TA Fall 2024 learning community.

Presenter

• Dr. Steve Lampa

August 23 | Panel Discussion: Peer Observation from All Sides

Description

This panel focused on the CVM Teaching Academy Peer Observation of Teaching program. Participants heard from three different perspectives on what it was like to be part of the Peer Observation of Teaching program.

Panelists

• Peer Observation Co-Chairs: Drs. Philip Mixter & Jeffrey Abbott
• Observer & Observee: Dr. Jessica Bell
• Observee: Dr. Martin Suarez
• Both Observer & Team Leader: Drs. Lynne Nelson & Jessica Bunch

September 4 | Panel Discussion: Byte-Sized Learning: AI’s Impact on the Classroom Experience

Description

The first of three engaging & for-ward-thinking panel discussions, which delved into the evolving role of artificial intelligence in higher education, took place. In this initial ses-sion, the expert panel and audience members col-laboratively explored how AI was reshaping the learning environment, enhancing teaching meth-odologies, & offering new ways to engage and support students. From AI-driven assessments to personalized learning experiences, insights, suc-cesses, & challenges in adopting these cutting-edge technologies were shared.

For instructors curious about incorporating AI into their curriculum or students concerned about aca-demic integrity surrounding the use of AI tools, the seminar provided valuable perspectives & practical advice. The conversation highlighted how AI was transforming the educational experi-ence for both instructors & students.

Presenters

• Drs. Samantha Gizerian, Liam Broughton-Neiswanger and Hanna Shihler

September 17 | Designing Surveys for Education Research

Description

Like exam questions, education research survey questions needed to be thoughtfully selected & written to enable accu-rate measurement. During this workshop, par-ticipants learned to address key principles for designing robust education research surveys & received tips & tricks for writing survey ques-tions to reduce measurement error.

Presenter

• Dr. Susan Matthew

September 25 | Inclusive Excellence: Strategies for Developing and Implementing Inclusive Syllabi

Description

Participants discovered how to create & implement an inclusive syllabus in their courses. They were encouraged to bring their syllabi for interactive discussions, as prac-tical strategies for fostering inclusivity & equity were explored. This seminar examined best practices & provided personalized guidance to ensure syllabi reflected a commitment to diver-sity & supported the success of all learners.

Presenters

• Rocky Lucas, Eric Winzenried, Dr. Samantha Gizerian, Dr. Emily Qualls-Creekmore & Dr. Hannah Cohen

October 9 | Panel Discussion: Byte-Sized Medicine: AI’s Impact on the Clinical Experience

Description

The second of three panel discus-sions delving into the evolving role of artificial intelligence in higher education took place. In this session, the expert panel & audience mem-bers collaboratively explored how AI was re-shaping the clinical environment, enhancing methodologies, & offering new ways to treat pa-tients & support clients. From AI-driven diag-nostic tools to personalized medicine, insights, successes, & challenges in adopting these cutting-edge technologies were shared.

For clinicians curious about incorporating AI into their practice or uncertain about the ethical implications surrounding the use of AI tools in the clinic, this seminar provided valuable per-spectives & practical advice. The conversation highlighted how AI was transforming the clinical experience.

Presenters

• Drs. Liam Broughton-Neiswanger, Hannah Cohen, Sarah Guess & Patrick Doyle

October 23 | Grades and Ranks: Performance Feedback in Professional Programs

Description

This session included a review of the history and use of grading systems other than conventional letter grades in professional health sciences programs. A discussion of how the WSU DVM program approached the decision to adopt a modified pass/fail grading system served as an evidence-based illustration of implementa-tion in an authentic context. Finally, we consid-ered the pros and cons of using ranks as a meas-ure of student performance in a professional pro-gram, again using data from our own program as a basis for discussion.

Presenters

• Dr. Leslie Sprunger

October 31 | Panel Discussion: Optimizing Teaching with House Officers

Description

This panel focused on how fac-ulty could optimize their teaching with resi-dents and house officers. It was especially in-tended for new faculty who had recently been residents themselves and were still building their confidence and skills in leading teaching with house officers.

Presenters

• Dr. Julie Cary, Ryan Baumwart and Karen Kline

October 31 | Panel Discussion: Byte-Sized Learning: AI’s Impact on the Research Experience

Description

The third panel discussion delv-ing into the evolving role of artificial intelli-gence in higher education took place. In this session, the expert panel & audience members collaboratively explored how AI was reshaping the research environment, enhancing research methodologies, & offering new ways to explore and discover. From AI-driven data analysis to specialized methodologies, insights, successes, & challenges in adopting these cutting-edge technologies were shared.

Presenters

• Drs. Liam Broughton-Neiswanger, Arden Baylink & Jasson Makkar

In 2024, a total of 15 peer observations were conducted: 8 in the spring semester, including 6 didactic and 2 clinical observations, and 7 didactic peer observations in the fall semester.

More than 75% of U.S. public school students struggle significantly with writing skills (National Assessment for Educational Progress; NCES, 2017); these challenges can contin-ue into their university education (Artemeva and Fox, 2011; Reiff and Bawarshi, 2011). This study is designed to help upper-division STEM students at Washington State University Pullman (MBioS 304 N=96, each fall and spring; MBioS 430 N=35, fall only) improve their writing skills (e.g., lab reports) through strategy instruction that supports writing transfer and genre awareness specifically. Drs. Mix-ter, Ederer, and Dunn will create web tools, e.g., 5-7 instructional videos explaining rubrics for writing assignments addressing the writing styles included in the genre of lab reports, supplemented short video about the features of low and high-quality exemplars.

Students in these classes can then apply the writing strategies and techniques to improve their STEM-writing skills. The research questions for this study are: what are participants’ perspectives about writing? Do participants improve with respect to writing content and quality with the use of WriteSTEM? How do instructor(s) and students evaluate the WriteSTEM approach?

Dr. Dunn developed a number of creative webtools which pilot tested during spring and fall 2020. A small number of STEM students volunteered to participate. We will develop additional genre-specific webtools and incorporate these WriteSTEM resources into the class curricula. Drs. Mixter, Ederer, and Dunn aim to make WriteSTEM part of the class writing routines for all lab sections . To further incentivize students, we can offer extra credit opportunities to encourage all students to participate . We are planning to present the data and results obtained from this study at a STEM education conference and prepare a manuscript in a STEM education journal. Ultimately, we will use the data from this study to seek additional funding from an external grant agency. All of these efforts will help identify best practices supporting writing skills development in upper-division STEM courses.

December 2024

Assessments of high school stu-dents about to enter university indicate that more than 52-75% cannot write at a basic level (e.g., National Assessment for Educational Progress, 2021; Washington State Smarter Balanced, 2021); these challenges can continue into their university education. The project’s aim was to explore participants’ perspectives about writing and determine what types of webtools could help to improve their skills. STEM instructors (n=13) and students (n=74) completed a survey about students’ writing skills, follow-up interviews (students n=6; instructors n=5), access to a se-ries of online webtools. Students were also offered live 1:1 editing feedback at a campus classroom of via Zoom. The results are in Table 1 (below). Stu-dents found writing STEM lab reports to be challenging. Use of rubrics, exemplars, and class discussions can help. Students liked the webtools and their asyn-chronous accessibility.

Manuscript

The authors are now writing the manuscript for the results of this study.

Manuscript Currently Under Review: Dunn, M., Mixter, P., Ederer, M., Ledbetter, E., & Aldousari, A. WriteSTEM: Virtual tools to help students improve their writing skills. Submitted to Co-gent Education on December 18, 2024.

External Grant Awarded: April 2022 (WSU)

Awarded the Samuel H. and Patricia W. Smith Teaching and Learning Grant from the Vice Provost for Academic Engagement and Student Achievement in the amount of $5,000.00 for your proposal entitled, “ImproveWRITING: Mixed-Method Access Tools to Improve Student STEM Writing.”

The Smith project’s data collection has ended, and we are now ready to begin writing the manuscript:
Dunn, M., Mixter, P., Ederer, M., Ledbetter, E. WriteSTEM: Online videos and infographics of strategies and techniques to help undergraduate students improve STEM-writing skills. Manuscript in preparation.

• Dunn, M. (2024). Project ImproveWRITING: Under-graduate students and instructors’ perspectives on writing webtools [Poster or multi-presentation ses-sion]. Council for Exceptional Children’s 2024 An-nual Convention, San Antonio, Texas, United States.
• Dunn, M., Mixter, P., Ederer, M., Ledbetter, E., & Aldousari, A. WriteSTEM: Virtual tools to help stu-dents improve their writing skills. Manuscript sub-mitted September 30, 2023, to the Canadian Journal of Action Research.
• Mixter, P., Dunn, M., Ledbetter, E., s & Ederer, M. (2023, March 30). WriteSTEM: Virtual Tools to Help Students Improve Their Writing Skills [poster session]. Washington State University’s (Research) Showcase, Pullman, Washington, United States.
• Dunn, M., Yuan, W., s Gregory, K., s Mixter, P., Alharbi, H., s Aldousari, A. s (2023, March 2). Re-search-based solutions for struggling writers’ learned helplessness [Poster session]. Council for Exception-al Children’s 2023 Annual Convention, Louisville, Kentucky, United States.
• Dunn, M., Olson, W., & Zajic, M. (2022, October 30). SkribaTools: Web tools to help people improve their writing skills for educational and career oppor-tunities. Submitted to the Honda USA Foundation.
• Dunn, M., Yuan, W., Gregory, K., Mixter, P., Alhar-bi, H., Aldousari, A. (submitted November 9, 2022). Research-based solutions for struggling writers’ learned helplessness [Poster session]. Council for Exceptional Children’s 2023 Annual Virtual Conven-tion, Louisville, Kentucky, United States.
• Dunn, M., & Yuan, W. (2022, February 1-4). Inte-grating writing interventions into classroom practic-es: Text tools for transition-aged STEM students [Poster session]. Council for Exceptional Children Virtual Conference, Orlando, Florida, United States.

WSU committee members: Heloisa Rutigliano, Raelynn Farnsworth, Samantha Gizerian, Briedi Gillespie, Sarah Guess, Susan Matthew, Tania Perez Jimenez

The group comprises the subcommittees below.

VETS Fundamentals and VETS Selectives: In February 2024, VETS Fundamentals was presented as a 1.5-day workshop at MidWestern University, in conjunction with the RTA Winter meeting. Members of the VETS Fundamentals team also presented on the history of the VETS Fundamentals workshop and the newly-developed “Incorporating Artificial Intelligence into Course Design and Planning Artificial Intelligence (AI)-Powered Education: Leveraging AI for Constructive Alignment” module at the International Symposium of the Veterinary Schools Council conference (VetEd 2024) in Dublin, Ireland in July. VETS Selectives presented a Veterinary Education Research Workshop in June 2024 at Colorado State, and plan to present this again as a pre-conference workshop at the 2025 Summer Biennial Conference.

Clinical Teaching: At the Winter Meeting, plans were set for a 2025 clinical teaching workshop, building on the 2023 Biennial Summer Meeting’s themes of clinician well-being, active learning, and formative feedback. Discussions with the Wellness Committee explored joint initiatives on wellness, AI-assisted feedback, and case-based teaching. The 2023 OSU Workshop reinforced structured feedback and learner engagement. Moving forward, the CTC will integrate emerging technologies, support faculty resilience, and enhance collaboration to improve clinical education.

Student Assessment: Developed and piloted a survey aimed at gauging veterinary educators’ use of assessment as well as barriers and desires they have in their use of assessment. In the Spring of 2025, the subcommittee plans to send the survey to all RTA member institutions and ask for leadership, faculty, and academic support staff to respond. We are hosting a workshop at the RTA Biennial Conference at WSU, where we will both share the results of the survey and facilitate an activity designed to provide direction on future initiatives. Doing this allows our subcommittee to rely on data-informed decision making and the collaborative efforts of those attending the workshop to prioritize our efforts going forward.

Educator Wellbeing: Continued working on the results of the educator well-being initiative from 2022. The results from the Maslach Burnout Inventory, Professional Quality of Life, and Areas of Work Life surveys were presented at the VetEd in summer 2024. The initiative is working on designing and implementing a happiness challenge in Spring 2025, as well as working with the VETS: Clinical Teaching initiative on a collaborative project to promote well-being in the clinical arena.

WSU committee members: Jeffrey Abbott, Philip Mixter, Sarah Guess, Steve Lampa, Susan Matthew

Four promotion/review packets were reviewed and are pending news. Additionally, from 2018-2024, 21 faculty partici-pated and were successfully promoted. Our group’s work was recognized by the AAVMC for potential integration of our rubrics and process in credentialing by the Academy of Veterinary Educators and in Distinguished Teaching Award selection to streamline submissions using our Educator’s CV. Our group had an extremely productive Winter Meeting in January 2025 using generative AI to assist with development of a workshop for the 2025 Biennial Confer-ence on Teaching Portfolios and to enhance our Veterinary Educators Rubric used in packet review

WSU committee member: Jillian Haines

This working group has finalized the teaching effort calculator that will be available for download to any institution. The teaching effort calculator is designed to capture time dedicated toward teaching efforts while also integrating com-ponents of quality of teaching. It is purposely modifiable to accommodate unique requirements at different institu-tions. Current efforts are directed toward data collection from user groups to validate the instrument with the intent to publish in the Journal of Veterinary Medical Education.

WSU Committee Members: Samantha Gizerian

In 2024 the Fellows Committee renamed themselves to better reflect that the committee is engaged with the individuals that make up the RTA (the Fellows) rather than the institutions that sponsor it (the Members). The committee also for-malized two subcommittees to enhance the focus of our work: the Application Review subcommittee which will focus on new and renewing fellowship applications, and the Partners in Education (PIE) subcommittee, which is focused on helping new Fellows engage with the RTA. The PIE coordinated short 3-minute, standardized presentations to serve as an introduction to that committee.

WSU Committee Members: Jillian Haines, Sarah Guess, Rachel Halsey

The theme of the 7th Biennial Conference will be “ Making Teaching Matter: Empowering Educators to Navigate Challenges and Foster Success”. Our first keynote speaker will be Dr. Katherine Fogelberg, DVM, PhD, and author/editor of “Educational Principles and Practice in Veterinary Medicine” delivering three sessions within the 3 day con-ference entitled: “Encouraging agility and adaptability in veterinary medical education”, “Why active learning and how to incorporate it into your teaching” and “Qualitative research in veterinary education”. Additionally, Dr. Lauren Grid-er, DVM, MA, ALC, NCC, CCFP will be delivering two sessions entitled “The Perfectionism Problem” and “Building Better Boundaries”. The conference will include workshops delivered by the RTA Initiative groups as well as educa-tional scholarship and teaching innovation presentations. Pre-conference, the Faculty Development Initiative will de-liver their workshop on educational research.

WSU Committee Members: Samantha Gizerian & Susan Matthew

The steering committee is focusing on communication. They are working with an external website developer to im-prove the flow and function of the current RTA website and adopted the AAVMC Connect platform for membership communication. The committee is drafting a proposal to formalize the process of converting an interest group into a working group.