Professor of Botany
Curator of the Herbarium

Project: Online Alaska Flora Botany Lab

Dr. Ickert-Bond brought the dissection of flowers directly to the student via high-resolution video microscopy in her classroom, empowering students to explore their immediate flora and make contributions to the documentation of biodiversity in the state of Alaska and beyond by contributing to the iNaturalist platform and ultimately the Museum database Arctos. Working with  UAF eCampus Instructional Designer Christen Bouffard, Ickert-Bond also created solutions for home microscopy and developed a set of botany playing/reference cards for Alaska.

• View her online course at:  https://introtoflora.community.uaf.edu/
• ‘Botany course turns students’ surroundings into a lab’ — https://news.uaf.edu/online-botany-course-utilizes-students-surroundings-instead-of-lab/
• ‘Museum to create online database of Alaska Flora’ —  https://news.uaf.edu/museum-will-update-flora-of-alaska/

Professor of Atmospheric Science

Project: Expanding STEM-Focus Place-Based Learning Online

Dr. Collins investigated how to expand scope of STEM education in and of Alaska to engage students in experience- and place-based learning. Specifically, Collins worked with    UAF eCampus  Instructional Designer Sean Holland to use 360 video techniques in studying weather.  Collins and Holland have tested investigations that combine 360 video and meteorological measurements with students in ATM101: Weather and Climate of Alaska.  

• Collins, R.L. and S.M. Holland, ‘STEM Education through a Distance Meteorology Class: Studying Weather and Climate as a Network of Observers in Alaska’. American Meteorological Society 28th Symposium on Education, January 2019. Submitted.
• S.M. Holland S.M., and R.L. Collins, ‘Active Learning in a Distance Meteorology Class: Sky Watching with 360 Video’, American Meteorological Society 28th Symposium on Education, January 2019. Submitted.

Associate Professor of Psychology

Project: Best Practices for Large-Scale Online Courses

Dr. Sheppard investigated quality educational practices in large-scale online courses in order to outline the costs and benefits of delivering online courses with large enrollments. Determining the characteristics and factors that impact quality and attainment of learning objectives was important for maximizing student success and faculty balance.

The project involved a literature review and attendance of the Online Learning Consortium — Accelerate in November, 2017 and the project was presented during radio interviews in December 2017 at KIAK 102.5 FM and KFBX 970 AM. Sheppard worked with  UAF eCampus Instructional Designer Dan LaSota.

Associate Professor
Department of Biology and Wildlife and Institute of Arctic Biology

Project: In a Time of Change — Microbial Worlds

Mary Beth Leigh created a cross-disciplinary collaborative exhibit: fourteen artists and writers magnified the physical beauty of microbes and illuminated the many roles they play in human and environmental health. “Microbial Worlds’ was the culmination of more than a year of collaboration between visual artists, writers, and scientists. Through the course of the program, the artists interacted with over 30 scientists, ranging from infectious disease microbiologists to ecosystem ecologists, and then developed original works inspired by their forays into the microbial realm.

Assistant Professor  
School of Natural Resources and Extension

Project: Live Field Workshops for Rural Communities

Heidi Radar held ten, weekly virtual workshops, most of which took place at the Georgeson Botanical Garden though other locations, including Terry Reichardt’s garden and the UAF Community Garden, were used as well. Right after each workshop, Heidi and her students also filmed at least  one or two YouTube videos. The UAF eCampus Design Team supported this project from idea-phase through production, including a small film crew to record the workshops.

Assistant Professor
College of Liberal Arts, English Department; Women, Gender, & Sexuality Studies

Project: Ancient, Medieval, Early Modern Interdisciplinary and Interactive Timeline

Eileen Harney created an interactive and interdisciplinary timeline from the Ancient to the Early Modern World is designed to address students’ need regarding an understanding of historical relationships. Students enrolled in early-period classes frequently have difficulty placing events, artistic and literary works, and political and philosophical ideas within a mental timeline. All too often, historical awareness gained in a given class remains fixed to that class and fails to transfer to classes with related content.  This timeline will provide information directly relevant to a number of courses students are taking at UAF.

Professor of Biology  
Department of Biology and Wildlife

Project: Massive Online Research Experience in Behavioral Neuroscience

Dr. Bult-Ito developed a fully online set of original behavioral neuroscience research lab courses using live mice. These courses are be widely available to community members, high school students, and undergraduate students in Fairbanks, Alaska, the US, and the world. They are also be fully accessible to rural students; reveal how instructors can become more involved with distance students; provide real-time experiments with students in rural locations; and, ideally, increase enrollment to a level that will be sustainable over time.

Assistant Professor of  Anthropology and Linguistics
Department of Anthropology

Project: Linguistics Through the Lens of Conlang Development

In this course, titled “Elvish, Klingon & Dothraki: The Art & Science of Language Creation,’ students built off popular culture and the work of hobbyist groups in the area of “conlang,’ or constructed languages. The product of the course was a new, collaboratively constructed language, a new approach in linguistics pedagogy. Students drew from the applied study of both real world languages and constructed languages to create their own “conlang’ and publish their results as a multimedia-rich presentation for the linguistics and hobbyist community.

Assistant Professor of Fisheries
School of Fisheries and Ocean Science

Project: Salmon and Society

Dr. Westley built and delivered a pilot course titled Salmon & Society where students explored the complex and sometimes contentious relationships between salmon and people. Together, Peter and his students learned about current pressing issues facing salmon — the decline of Chinook salmon in Alaska, interactions between hatchery and wild salmon, struggle for persistence by Sacramento River salmon, and culture wars in Cook Inlet- through weekly guest lectures by professionals working on these issues and by hands on learning in a laboratory session.

Assistant Professor of English & Creative Writing
English Department

Project: Creative Writing Graduate Students Develop Thesis Trailers

Daryl Farmer’s project focused on the development of a project framework for graduate writing students to create trailers for their theses as multimedia collaborations with other artists. Students distilled their projects into 3 minute trailer and collaborated with a visual artist to create the trailer. UAF eCampus assisted with marketing, producing the trailers, and an event designed to connect students with other artists interested in collaborating on these projects. Students showed their trailer in conjunction with MFA 3rd year readings at the Bear Gallery in April of 2016.

Assistant Professor of Business Administration
Northern Leadership Center Director

Project: Statewide Collaborative Leadership App

Dr. Cundiff’s project involved the development of a  collaborative application tool for handheld devices for the state of Alaska in order to enhance productivity across external and regional boundaries for leadership development programming and enhanced community learning.

Nicole and eCampus Instructional Designer Janene McMahan attended The Organizational Behavior Teaching Conference in June 2015 to present on some ideas stemming from this work on community leadership development. The presentations were titled  Leadership Development Online  and  Building Collaborative Community Development Tools. Further, Nicole  received QM  certification on her Leading Change online course in August 2017, using information and tools discovered during the CITE fellowship.

Assistant Professor of Environmental Analytical Chemistry
Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry

Project: Hybrid, Team-Taught Chemistry Course with Distance Lab

Dr. Hayes worked with faculty, eCampus, and a commercial partner (eScience Labs) to develop a course: Introduction to Environmental Science of the Arctic (CHEM 194).   This course was geared towards engaging students without prior science experience to connect the scientific course material with the arctic environment and connect with environmental health in the communities where students reside.  The lab  kit was developed with eScience specifically from this course and students participated in faculty-directed research by collecting and analyzing water samples from across the state and contributing their data to a growing database of Alaskan natural surface water quality parameters.

Associate Professor of Linguistics and Foreign Languages
PI Improving Alaska Native Language Education through Computer Assisted Language Learning

Project:  Augmented Reality Game for International Students

This project used a mobile augmented reality game to help international students improve their English ability and overcome culture shock through the game’s opportunities for human interaction and exploration of their campus environment. The game was delivered using the ARIS mobile platform on iOS, to allow students to interact with their environment and each other through place-based collaboration. Students also participated in a research study to evaluate the effectiveness of the game in terms of student learning outcomes and the linguistic interactions that naturally occur as part of the gameplay process.

Instructor of Homeland Security and Emergency Management
School of Management

Project: Technology Tool Adoption and Use

Sean McGee developed and delivered one-on-one training for other faculty on specific tools designed to enrich both accounting and economics School of Management courses. This training demonstrated the specifics of Livescribe products to capture pencasts and make notes and voiceover materials available inside of Blackboard. He also taught faculty to use Cintiq graphic tablets along with drawing applications and screen-casting software to deliver lectures to students remotely around the State and Nation.

Assistant Professor of Journalism
Journalism Department

Project: Documentary Film Institute

The Documentary Film Institute incorporated an inter-class model in which students will collaborated on projects flowing from course to course across multiple sections. The Institute mimiced the film industry production model in that students had different roles in the production of a film that, by working together, produced a finished product. This project took multiple isolated courses and created one, narrative-bound professional film lab concept. The over-arching goal was to create a peer-learning environment in which students built collaborative relationships and felt responsible to fulfill their duties for the benefit of their classmates.

Assistant Professor of Biochemistry
Department of Chemistry

Mobile Gaming & Creative Engagement in the Chemistry Classroom

Kriya Dunlap developed a game inspired teaching methodology, meant to increase engagement in class.  She experimented with the viability of this approach, both for increasing student involvement in the study process and how it might scale for a much larger cohort.

In another piece of the project, students were required to go beyond the typical industry-standard presentation methods and were exposed to innovative creative presentation tools and practices such as augmented reality design and creation, complex multimedia presentations, and artistic melding with scientific pursuits.

Assistant Professor of Art
Art Department
Curator of Fine Arts, Museum of the North

Project: Augmented Reality with Stop-Motion Animation

Mareca Guthrie  worked with students in her Honors ART 200X class to create an animation about the history of glass that was exhibited as an augmented reality project alongside public artwork in the Murie Life Sciences Building. This was a pilot project for future interdisciplinary student-made augmented reality projects associated with art exhibits on campus and in the museum. The level of student engagement and effort was high and the strengths and weaknesses of the software and improvements for user experience were discovered.

Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering
Department of Mechanical Engineering

Project: Cold Climate Smart Plugins

Dr. Peterson designed, built, tested, and developed a deployment/marketing strategy for a “smart’ controller that connects in-line to the ubiquitous vehicle plug-in electrical cord found in extreme cold climates such as Fairbanks. The overarching goal/purpose of the smart plugins was to reduce overall power consumption by optimizing the times and duration that the vehicle is plugged in. The approach will be to install temperature sensor/sensors at critical locations for maintaining the necessary temperature for low-wear (viscous friction) and clean (low CO) starting. The design of the plugin occurred simultaneously with the spring offering of the Mechanical Engineering Measurement and Instrumentation Laboratory (ME308), a required junior level, discipline-specific course. Several learning activities throughout the semester were centered around the design process.

Assistant Professor of English
Director of Composition
English Department

Project: The Digital Eye – Reading in the New Classroom

Dr. Stanley’s CITE project slowed down, zoomed in, and got up close to reading processes in order to enable more critical literacy practices from advanced students enrolled in English 485: Teaching Composition in the Schools. The project used an eyetracker to record how students processed information related to the course. The results were used to shape the course content of English 111: Introduction to Academic Writing.

Associate Professor of Counseling
co-Chair of Counseling Program and Graduate Program
School of Education

Project: Higher Ed – Exclusionary to Inclusionary with Help from Visionaries

Following the theoretical framework of critical pedagogy and informed by an understanding of microaggressions in higher education, this CITE project created an asynchronous course, Foundations of Guidance and Counseling, for UAF’s School of Education, to help future educators understand how online communities can improve the retention rates for underrepresented student populations. The course was taught during Spring Semester with a 100% completion rate (all 10 students who registered did complete the class) and all student evaluations scored various aspects of the class with either a very good or excellent rank.