The 2017 NACTA Conference will serve as a venue for faculty in agricultural, environmental, natural, and life sciences to share their information through the theme of  "INnovation IN Learning, IN the Heartland” as well as to share innovative teaching or advising ideas, scholarship of teaching, and other pertinent information. Authors will be given the option to request an oral or poster presentation, but it will be up to the host committee to determine the presentation date and time. Abstracts are to fall within one of the four following topic areas:
 
1. Innovative Teaching Approaches – Teaching that facilitates learner-centeredness, shared power, deep processing, student engagement, empowerment, and responsibility. New creative teaching ideas may include; experiential learning,  interdisciplinary learning, problem-based learning, service-learning, and technology-enhanced learning.
 
2. Learning Outcomes – Scholarly assessment of students, courses, curricula, and programs. Empirical evidence of impact can be documented through an array of dependent variables because learning develops human capital in a variety of forms, such as knowledge, problem-solving skills, attitudes, motivation, responsibility, communication skills, personal development, teamwork, and interpersonal skills.
 
3. Scholarly Research Approaches – The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning is grounded in how professors systematically investigate the teaching-learning process. Challenges, critical reflections, and effective applications of action research methods and procedures can be highlighted regarding the use of interviews, observations, journals, content analyses of student work, achievement or performance measures, and questionnaires.
 
4. Other Educational Topics – Approaches that do not fit into one of the three topic areas described above.
 
Abstract Format
 Accepted abstracts will be a concise summary of factual information and not simply a general description of what the author plans to present. A high-quality abstract contains the following key elements (without designating them as such): (1) a brief introduction, including objectives of the presentation; (2) relevant experimental conditions indicating the scope of study or survey (authors of predominately philosophical works may substitute other appropriate criteria); (3) observations, results, or data (however, data should be in summary form and not presented in tables or graphs) - philosophical abstracts must demonstrate application of said philosophy; and (4) a concise summary.
 
Guidelines for NACTA Abstracts
  • Abstracts are limited to one paragraph of 250 words, not including title and by-lines.
  • Create the abstract with MS Word or compatible software, using Times New Roman, 12 point font or similar
  • Title of abstract should be brief and precise and in bold. (The title must not exceed 70 characters including spaces.)
  • Author(s) name(s) and affiliation(s) follows the title. 
  • First author/submitting author should be the contact author.
  • Presenting author’s name should be followed by an asterisk (*).
  • Body of the abstract is single spaced in 12 point Times New Roman font or similar.
  • Use single space.
  • Do not include illustrations or bibliographical references in the abstract.
  • Indicate if you would like to be considered for an oral presentation. Those accepted abstracts but not chosen for oral presentations will be posters.
  • If an author submits multiple abstracts, the topic and content of each must differ substantially.
  • Abstract should stand alone and contain valuable information for both those in attendance as well as those who read it in the NACTA Journal. Abstracts are subject to editing before publication in the NACTA Journal, volume 61, supplement 1.
 
An abstract is unacceptable if it:
  • Contains significant grammatical errors and (or) meaningless statements such as: "The results will be presented."
  • Includes no results or statements relating to the objective(s).
  • Fails to comply with submission requirements.
  • Presents opinion/speculation with no demonstrated application for teaching or advising efforts.
  • Is submitted after the due date.
 
The author submitting the abstract will be notified of its status l three weeks after the deadline.
 
Conference information will be available at the conference website: https://www.conf.purdue.edu/landing_pages/NACTA2017/