Adult and Continuing Education and Teaching Commons^™

Journal Of Qualitative Research In Sports Studies Issn 1754-2375 Overview: Guide To Contents, Editorials And Themes By Volume, Clive Palmer

Clive Palmer

Collaborating Across National Boundaries For Narrative Teaching And Learning, Haji Karim Khan, Theresa Y. Austin

Journal of Practitioner Research

University faculty members always learn through their collaborative engagement in teaching and research. This article reports on collaborative efforts between a Pakistani and US university professor to develop and teach a graduate seminar on narrative inquiry. We used a self-study approach to record, analyze, and report on our experience of teaching narrative inquiry in a graduate research course. We used our reflective journals, course outline, course description, session plans, class-notes, and students’ reflections as data for analysis. As a result, we developed our analytical stories of experiences under several themes.

Findings showcase insights arising from philosophical (ontological and epistemological) underpinnings ...

Clinical Field Experiences Of Nontraditional Pre-Service Teachers: Issues And Beliefs, Melanie Diloreto

Journal of Practitioner Research

According to the American Association for Colleges of Teacher Education (AACTE, 2010), effective teaching practices and good clinical experiences share a mutually beneficial relationship. Additionally, according to research reported by AACTE (2010), an important link exists between future P–12 student-achievement and effective clinical practices experienced by pre-service teachers. This case study sought to determine experiences deemed effective or important by nontraditional pre-service teachers while engaged in fieldwork completed in an elementary and/or middle school classroom setting. Four themes were derived from the qualitative data obtained through semi-structured interviews of four junior or senior teacher education students engaged in ...

Adapting Self-Directed Online Professional Development For Nebraska Public Librarians, Holli Duggan

Theses, Student Research, and Creative Activity: Department of Teaching, Learning and Teacher Education

From Ainsworth to Yutan, from library systems with twelve branches (i.e., Omaha) with a legal service area population of 537,709 to single libraries serving a population of less than 1,000 (which describes 60% of all public libraries in Nebraska), the Nebraska Library Commission serves very different constituencies all with different needs and different resources. Given that diversity of librarianship, as a “Problem of Practice” (Carnegie Program for the Education Doctorate, 2014) I needed to learn how to optimize the continuing education opportunities offered by the Nebraska Library Commission to this diverse constituency. This included attending to the ...

Rooted In Resilience: A Framework For The Integration Of Well-Being In Teacher Education Programs, Jessica Spurgeon, Lauren Thompson

Master of Applied Positive Psychology (MAPP) Capstone Projects

The process of teaching students is incredibly difficult. Oftentimes, the adversities of the profession sway highly effective teachers into social and emotional deficits, and eventually lead to burnout (Spilt, Koomen, & Thijs, 2011; Wisniewski & Gargiulo, 1997). Emotional depletion, burnout, and high attrition in the profession may be costly for the educational system – both financially and academically (Klusmann, Richter, & Lüdtke, 2016). We suggest that the key to preventing burnout, and cultivating flourishing students, is through the educators themselves. Educators who are taught, practice, and implement the skills of well-being at the onset of their careers are more likely to positively adapt and endure the ...

Reflective Documentation As A Movement Potential: Two Digital Platforms Building A Professional Learning Community, John Taylor, Defne Erdur

Proceedings from the Document Academy

Creating dance and training dancers is a collaborative and co-creative process, and teaching has a central role in the co-creative artistic processes. Yet dance teachers, whether free-lance or working in an institution, often develop and maintain their physical teaching practice in isolation. Additionally, because of the ephemeral nature of dance and the relational nature of dance education, these practices usually do not end up being recorded or documented as a body of knowledge. In the face of such a reality the online database IDOCDE.net provides a platform for the development and maintenance of an inclusive professional learning community through ...

Great Libraries Open Doors: Collaborating With Career Services To Support Library Employees At James Madison University, Jennifer A. Keach, Chandra Lane

Libraries

Supporting the career development of your library faculty and staff can help you retain highly qualified employees and develop your next leaders. In 2017, the presenters’ university library embraced a new initiative to support our employees in their career goals. Through a partnership with the university Career & Academic Planning office, the mid-sized academic library developed and implemented an immersive program focused on the participants’ career goals. The blended program included self-assessments, 360-degree feedback, expert panels, informational interviews, networking strategies, resume reviews, and interview practice during in-person class sessions and online. This poster provides details about the program objectives, curriculum, and ...

Communicative Equality: Needs Assessment Of Sign Language Interpreters In South Dakota, Cyndi Fisher

Master's of Arts in Interpreting Studies (MAIS) Theses

Data compiled for this research will be used as a pilot study to support further research needed to consider an interpreter education program in West River region of South Dakota. Surveys were distributed to businesses, individuals in the Deaf community, and interpreters who are registered in the state of South Dakota. Face-to-face interviews were scheduled with two owners of two interpreting agencies that schedule interpreter requests throughout South Dakota. Data collection hinted at the need for qualified interpreters in the state, with a more enhanced focus on the western region of the state. Survey results suggest that interpreters are needed ...

Zero Tolerance, Zero Justice: Teacher Perceptions Of Using Restorative Justice, Ajayi Monell

Doctor of Education in Teacher Leadership Dissertations

While many schools are spending millions on instructional programming, new technology, and colorful chart paper for data walls, an area that often takes a back seat to improving achievement is the social and emotional learning of students (SEL). Until the education community starts focusing on the well-being of our students, closing the achievement gap will continue to be a nice catch phrase and not a reality. The purpose of this study was to investigate the perceptions of K-8 teachers to determine how they felt about the use of Restorative Justice, with a focus on Peace Circles. This study explored this ...

In Pursuit Of Transformative Learning: Exploring The Stimulation Of Curiosity Through Critical Reflection In The College Classroom, Bo Y. Bae

Dissertations

Educators in higher education are faced with growing pressures to shift pedagogical practices in order to accommodate the growing population of learners and improve student learning outcomes. While the acquisition of knowledge and skills are important to the learning process, they are insufficient in preparing students to function in rapidly changing environments. Curiosity is a vital component in the learning process that, when stimulated, has the potential to increase students’ capacity to think critically. Implementing teaching practices that intentionally focus on how curiosity can be stimulated and enhanced develops students’ abilities to access higher levels of thinking that are essential ...

The Experiential Journey Of Teacher-Scholars: “If You’Re Not A Teacher, You Just Don’T Get It”, Ashleigh L. Pelafigue

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The Center of Graduate Schools (2015) published a report detailing applications, enrollment, and trends in graduate schools across the nation showing that approximately one third of all first-time graduate school applicants in master’s degree programs utilizing the GRE assessment identify their career path in either business or teacher education. The purpose of this study was to examine the lived experiences of classroom teachers who concurrently pursued graduate studies to earn a master’s degree in education and to understand how adult learning provided opportunities for personal growth and the attainment of professional goals. Individual interviews and two focus groups ...

Thinking Outside The Box: Incorporating Critical Thinking Strategies In Esl Reading & Writing Instruction, Johanna Carranza

Master's Projects and Capstones

ABSTRACT

ESL students in the United States avail the resources of community college to achieve their goal of academic excellence. However, many community colleges struggle to prepare their students for mainstream four-year institutions. Aside from reading, writing, and speaking, learning a second language requires the development of critical thinking skills which are not emphasized enough for many ESL students in contemporary American academia.

As such, there are two major problems that this project aims to address. The first is that English as a Second Language (ESL) and English instructors have different expectations for ESL students. ESL instructors do not focus ...

Employability Skills And Trends In The Outdoor Power And Equipment Industry, Antoine J. Alston, Ryan Anderson, Chastity W. English, Dexter B. Wakefield

Journal of Research in Technical Careers

The Power, Structural and Technical Systems (PST) Career Pathway is one of eight within the Agriculture, Food, and Natural Resources Career Cluster; this pathway provides the curriculum that includes outdoor power equipment content. The perceived workforce readiness and skills needed in this pathway and related future trends were analyzed for entry-level jobs within the outdoor power equipment industry. The respondents expressed concern with being able to find qualified entry-level employees. Respondents indicated that the major skill categories of interpersonal skills, communication skills, computer skills, character skills, technical competency, and their corresponding subskills, were important for entry-level employment. The respondents indicated ...

The Effect Of An Adult Esl Project-Based Literacy Training On Teacher Practice, Rachel Lynn Gerner

Theses and Dissertations

This case study evaluates the effectiveness of a project-based learning professional development training conducted at a literacy center for nine ESL teachers who are working in a workforce literacy environment. The researcher investigated principles of andragogy in the training and examined whether participants implemented the content of the training in their teaching environments via observation, self-reported answers on a questionnaire, individual interviews, and a focus group. There was no direct follow-up after six weeks of the training. The findings of the study indicate that none of the teachers implemented project-based learning in their teaching environment directly following the professional development ...

The Effects Of Code-Mixing On Second Language Development, Aimee K. Spice

Linguistics Senior Research Projects

Second language development is an important topic of discussion in an increasingly multilingual world. This study aims to examine and detail research on the effects of code-mixing (CM) on second language development, answering how CM facilitates or constrains second language acquisition. Peer-reviewed articles on the topic published between 2013 and 2018 were examined and synthesized. Language learners/multilinguals answered questionnaires about their views on CM and second language acquisition, and a language teacher was interviewed regarding use of L1 in the language classroom and CM as a pedagogical tool. This study found that CM can be a beneficial tool for ...

A Mixed Methods Study: The Impact Of Self-Regulated Learning On L2 Writing And Strategy Use, Mohammed Almazloum

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This convergent mixed methods study aimed to find out how a self-regulated learning (SRL) instructional intervention could impact the Palestinian students’ second language (L2) writing and strategy use. L2 writers face common writing challenges, including but not limited to a lack of competences, effective writing approach, proactive planning, motivation, and self-efficacy (Hammad, 2016). Helping the students to overcome their challenges, improve their L2 writing, and become self-regulated writers was an expected outcome of the study. The study was informed by the social cognitive theory of SRL that views successful writers as proactive and self-regulated learners. In the quantitative part, a ...

Foreword, Lee Burdette Williams

The Vermont Connection

No abstract provided.

Environmental Perceptions To Promote Self-Directed Learning In The Workplace, Trevor Marshall Bernard

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to identify perceptions of environmental changes that promote self-directed learning in the workplace by Human Resources Development (HRD) practitioners and to investigate possible differences of the dependent LPA score variables to independent variables of highest level of education achieved, race/ethnicity, age, gender, position title, industry, size of the organization, and years of HRD experience.

The research used a mixed method design. Qualitative data were recorded through four focus groups until a saturation of comments was reached. Quantitative Pearson product moment correlation and ANOVA statistics were used to show the possible differences of LPA ...

Advocating For Network Councils In Chicago Public Schools (Cps): A Policy Advocacy Document, Jeffrey Alstadt

Dissertations

To reinforce best practices at the building level in Chicago Public Schools (CPS), this study advocates that CPS enact a policy to create Local Network Councils (LNCs). Using an analysis of need, the impact of Local Network Councils is examined through educational, social, political, economic, and moral frames. It is determined that a Local Network Council system can reinforce best practices at the building level. This is defined as including: promoting teacher and staff excellence through continuous improvement to develop and achieve high expectations for all students, establishing professional learning communities guaranteeing learning for all students, developing a culture focused ...

Nontraditional Community College Students' Motivational Regulation In A Blended Core Technology Course, Jennifer Hart

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

There is a lack of empirical research on the motivational regulation and reactions of higher education students enrolled in blended courses. Studies that target this focus with nontraditional adult learners enrolled in the community college are even more difficult to locate. In this mixed-methods exploratory case study, I explored in what ways nontraditional adult learners' motivational regulation and their motivational reactions to course design relate to their perceived learning experience in a blended technology course with a flipped design. Specifically, I investigated how nontraditional community college students described their goals for participating in a blended course prior to the start ...