Scholarly Events on Campus that Contribute to Intellectual College Life

In this section, I describe several ways I have contributed to the intellectual life while at Florida Southern College.

Hosting "Fall Faculty Forum" Sessions

Each year at Florida Southern, the school hosts a "fall faculty forum", where faculty volunteer to give a small talk or presentation about a topic of their choice that is relevant to the upcoming academic year. Like many other teachers, I needed to re-think assessments during the COVID-19 semesters.  To help keep the grading information in the Florida Southern learning management system, I learned how to use Canvas to keep track of progress on individual learning outcomes. This feature is essential for specifications grading. I also used the quiz feature in Canvas to create quizzes and tests that students would complete during the class period (or sometimes over the weekend). After I learned those features, I volunteered to give a talk at the fall faculty forum describing how to set up the mastery grade book in Canvas. 

Here was my talk description:

In this session, I will describe how to set up the pieces necessary to use the mastery grade book in canvas that are used to assess individual learning outcomes in a course. I will demonstrate the steps of creating outcomes, rubrics, and how to attach outcomes to a graded assignment in canvas. The graded item in canvas can even be left blank to hold the place of turn-in assessments.  

In August 2018, I led one of the fall faculty forum presentations on specifications grading. I explained the different facets of the grading scheme using what I have done in my classes as examples. I knew beforehand that some faculty were interested in learning more about how mastery grading works. In particular, the biology chair, Nancy Morvillo, was interested in adopting the concept in her BIO 1500 course. Some other biology faculty were also present at my presentation and we had discussions about how they could implement some of the ideas behind specifications grading. I continued to work with the biology faculty after my presentation as they decided how to structure reassessments of their quizzes. The department now has a grading policy for their BIO 1500 courses that every professor follows. 

These were my slides for this presentation. Here was my talk description:

Specifications grading is an innovative creative scheme which has students focus on mastery goals instead of performance goals, which are typically elicited by a weighted-average grading scheme. This breakout session will include a brief presentation about specifications grading, then faculty will discuss how they might adopt this grading scheme for their own courses.

Mentoring "Fiat Lux" Presentations

The goal of Fiat Lux at Florida Southern is twofold: to provide students a platform for their ideas, and to provide the wider community a window into the creative and intellectual energy that pervades our campus. I have been very supportive of Fiat Lux, as it is an excellent venue for students to practice presentation skills and communicating complex ideas to people outside their discipline. I have mentored several presentations given at Fiat Lux based on my work with students. Of those presentations include the following students:

• Anthony Stefan in 2018: "The SCUDEM differential equations modeling challenge and other opportunities for undergraduates"

• Andrew Boesenberg in 2018 and 2019: "The Black-Scholes option pricing model and alternative pricing models"

• Nathan Hallmark in 2020 and 2021: "On the difference of two numbers raised to the same exponent"

I will describe more about my work with students in the next section of this portfolio.

Hosting a "Professional Development Initiative" on Specifications Grading

At Florida Southern College, the professional development initiative (PDI) is a paid workshop for faculty to gain knowledge or learn something new. In spring 2019, I co-hosted a PDI on alternative grading with Christian Robertson (the computer science chair). This PDI was meant to introduce faculty to the paradigm of specifications grading and assist them as they try to restructure one of their courses to be more mastery-based. Through this PDI, I met several faculty on campus that I did not know had already been implementing a form of mastery grading. Among these faculty was the biology chair, Nancy Morvillo. She and some of her faculty were considering restructuring their BIO 1500 general education course to be more mastery based. I talked with them throughout the workshop, trying my best to understand their needs and how biology problems and assessments were structured. I continued working with Nancy even after the workshop had ended, and the biology department at Florida Southern has since been using mastery grading with their BIO 1500 quizzes.  

Below is an outline of the sessions of our PDI and a snapshot of one of our virtual meetings.

A Workshop in Adopting Mastery Based Assessment

Faculty are encouraged to sign up with a course they teach for which they want to adopt a form of mastery grading. This PDI will investigate the facets of using mastery based assessment by showcasing what the facilitators do that has been successful. In the first session, the facilitators describe how they use mastery grading and field questions from the faculty. The other sessions serve as individual workshops for faculty to brainstorm how they would incorporate a certain aspect of mastery grading into their course and create course materials they could use the next semester. Many examples are outlined in Linda Nilson’s book, Specifications Grading.

Facilitators: Jason Elsinger & Christian Roberson

Session 1:  Introduction to Mastery Based Assessment.

Session 2:  Creating a Standards Checklist and Grade Bundles.   

Session 3:  Organizing and Creating Reassessments.   

Session 4:  Creating a Grade Book and Student Buy-In.   

Co-organizing the 2019 Florida Southern Hartje Lecture Series

The Hartje lecture within the mathematics department of Florida Southern is an endowed lecture series which aims to bring in speakers to popularize and disseminate research in mathematics to undergraduates and the general public.  In the spring of 2019, I helped organize and secure a speaker for our annual Hartje Lecture Series. The speaker was Will Cousins, a data analyst for the Tampa Bay Rays. Will discussed what machine learning is, and how those concepts are being used in the game of baseball. Below are some pictures from the event. Link to the flyer. 

Hosting the SIMIODE Challenge Using Differential Equations Modeling (SCUDEM)

In spring 2018, I decided to be a team coach for the SIMIODE Challenge Using Differential Equations Modeling (i.e., SCUDEM). SIMIODE is a community of educators focused on a modeling-first method of teaching when it comes to differential equations (as opposed to a strictly theoretical treatment). The SCUDEM challenge within SIMIODE comprises undergraduate student teams of up to three students to create and justify a mathematical model for a given situation. The students are given three problems to choose from (one each from biology, physics, and the social sciences). They have one week to create their model and type a two-page summary including an elementary analysis of their model and a description of its limitations. After the week is over, each team presents their work in a conference style at a local site. The students and faculty often get to see different ways students have approached the same problem. Throughout the day of presentations, students also have the opportunity to meet students from the other teams. 

In October 2018, I hosted the second annual SCUDEM challenge at the Florida Southern campus. In the endeavor, I worked closely with our administrative assistant to reserve the building and the rooms, and to set up catering. New College of Florida was the only other team that attended this event. The event was very successful, and the students greatly enjoyed meeting other students from a different school and sharing their work with others. 

I hope that more schools will participate when I host this event again in the future. Below are some pictures of the event.