Digital Commons Network^™

Revealing The Superintendency: Developing The National Longitudinal Superintendent Database And Evaluating Trends In K-12 Superintendent Attrition, Sarah A. Harper

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Assessing The Effectiveness Of Nuclear Security Training And Education In Ghana, Michael Nii Sanka Ansah, Boris Stepanov Pavlovich, Paul Atta Amoah, David Okoh Kpeglo, Simon Adu, Bright Kwame Afornu

International Journal of Nuclear Security

Growing attention is being given to nuclear power across several African countries, including in Ghana. The world is depending on nuclear energy as a reliable and efficient means of energy generation. Ghana as a country is developing nuclear energy; thus, equal attention must be directed toward nuclear safety and security. Ghana is gradually developing interest in and is devoting substantial required resources to educating and training on nuclear security to meet the standards required by international bodies. Institutions such as the Nuclear Safety and Security Centre and the School of Nuclear and Allied Sciences of the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission …

Remote Laboratory For Nuclear Security Education, Anthony R. Galindo, Craig Marianno

International Journal of Nuclear Security

Laboratory experiences for online students are very limited. To fill this gap, educators in the Department of Nuclear Engineering at Texas A&M University developed a series of radiation detection experiments for their remote students. Radiation detection is only one piece of nuclear security. The objective of the current research is to describe the development and execution of three online laboratories that investigate the basic application of physical security sensors that use light, ultrasonics, and heat to detect adversaries. This laboratory complements lecture material from the department’s Nuclear Security System and Design course. Using the Remote Desktop Application, students connect to …

Student Choice-Of-Text In An Upper Secondary Independent Reading Program: A Quasi-Experimental Study, Brian M. Deloach

Doctoral Dissertations

This study examined the effects of student choice-of-text and reading comprehension outcomes in a 12-week independent reading program in an upper-secondary school. Students aged 17-18 (N = 52) were divided into two groups with one receiving an assigned text of age-appropriate Lexile estimate and genre; the other group was given free choice-of-text from an appropriate Lexile level from a classroom library. This quasi-experimental study followed a pretest-posttest, one-way ANCOVA model with both groups receiving the Gates-MacGinitie Reading Test series before and after the intervention. Both groups made modest gains; however, the ANCOVA results revealed no statistically significant difference between the …

Use Of Research As A Tool To Enhance Nuclear Security Education, Mostafa Kofi, Zenobia S. Homan, Jason Timothy Harris, Lamiaa E. Fiala Prof.

International Journal of Nuclear Security

Introduction: Nuclear security education covers essential topics related to the security of nuclear materials. In order to provide effective training, educators are faced with the challenge of improving the trainees’ ability to retain and utilize knowledge. This project investigated whether academic research is beneficial for educators seeking to enhance nuclear security education.

Methods: A survey using Google Forms was sent to nuclear security educators in academic and research institutes. The survey included questions on their experience with different aspects of nuclear security education, how research may influence nuclear security education, and how to increase knowledge retention.

Results: In total, 45 …

Adapting Nuclear Security Education Programs In Arab Countries, Ahmed Ahmed M. Alqasimi Alanazi, Mostafa Kofi

International Journal of Nuclear Security

Recent times have witnessed considerable international efforts in developing and supporting nuclear security education. However, Arab countries continue to face certain obstacles in the development and implementation of nuclear security education programs. By providing an overview of the nuclear security program at Naif Arab University for Security Science, this study highlights the hurdles faced by Arab countries in implementing new academic programs and improving the quality of current programs in nuclear security. It also discusses the state of the art in nuclear security education and highlights important issues related to such education in the Arab world. However, the influence of …

Innovating Cultural Competence Education For Nurses, Darian A. Frieson, Jennifer Patrick, Walker Ray Corless, Abigail Taylor Coulthard, Rebecca R. Fogerty

Graduate Publications and Other Selected Works - Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP)

Objective

To improve cultural competency levels of registered nurses on the Mother/Baby unit by educating nurses.

Background

Demographics are shifting in the U.S. with an increase in minority populations. Research has revealed insufficient education or a complete absence of education, resulting in nurses that are not equipped to adequately care for culturally diverse patients.

Methods

The Evidence-Based Practice Improvement (EBPI) Model guided the development and implementation of the project. A cultural competence education module was developed utilizing resources from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Outcomes were measured using a pretest/posttest design tool, the Inventory for Assessing the …

Highlighting Teacher Voices: Discussions On Race And Racism In The Elementary Classroom, Carrie Lynn Buckner

Doctoral Dissertations

Throughout my career in education, I have observed that teachers are challenged by engaging in discussions involving race and racism. This study seeks to understand teachers’ feelings further when discussing race and racism in the elementary classroom by answering the research question: How do elementary teachers experience race and racism in their schools and classrooms?

This qualitative, critical narrative inquiry dissertation focused on three participant interviews with public-school elementary teachers in Tennessee. The data generated from these interviews informed narratives and were then analyzed through the lens of Critical Race Theory. This was followed by In Vivo and structural coding …

Science Education To The Rescue? Assessing The Relationship Between Scientific Literacy And Carbon Emissions, Anthony Schmidt

Doctoral Dissertations

Human activities have radically changed the climate, negatively impacting all life on earth. The technical means to address this climate crisis exist, but there are major social and political hurdles that stand in the way. Education has been touted as one possible means for helping to move forward necessary action on climate change. A hybrid model of planned behavior and human capital helps explain how education can affect climate change. The current dissertation sought to assess what relationship may exist between changes in per capita carbon emissions and science education as measured by the Programme for International Student Achievement (PISA). …

Reducing Youths Unemployment In Nigeria: The Development Of A Technical And Vocational Education And Training Survey Instrument, Omotola Olabisi Akinsola

Doctoral Dissertations

Youth unemployment has been on the rise for many years in Nigeria. Despite the high number of youths enrolled in formal education in Nigeria and the number of graduates each year, job opportunities to absorb these graduates are few. TVET has been proposed as an educational intervention in reducing youth unemployment.

A systematic review revealed that the interventions aimed at reducing youth unemployment were pooled into four categories: the use of technical and vocational education and training (TVET) in schools, the introduction of entrepreneurship education in schools, the engagement of public-private partnership (PPP), and career guidance counseling for students.

In …

The Challenge Of Counseling Research In Developing A Signature Pedagogy For Quantitative Methods, Richard S. Balkin

Teaching and Supervision in Counseling

Research in counseling is at risk of becoming impertinent, if not irrelevant, with an over-emphasis on perceptions of counselors or counselors in-training, and a lack of evidence supporting client-centered outcomes and community needs. Students seeking doctoral degrees in training may have limited interest in research, and research courses are typically taught outside of the discipline by individuals unaffiliated with the counseling profession. Research courses may not be aligned with the needs of counseling researchers who focus on individuals and small groups. Developing a signature pedagogy emphasizing tools and methods consistent with the needs of emerging counseling researchers may be important …

Rhetoric And Emotion Save Science: Lessons From Student Eco-Activists, Jesse Priest

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

This essay is a qualitative study of the experience of undergraduate students learning how to teach issues of sustainability to their campus communities through an innovative outreach program at a large northeastern research university, while at the same time learning to navigate complex emotional labor required by their outreach and activist work. While most previous work on science writing and rhetoric focuses on disciplinary, publishing, or genre practices, I examine the holistic student experience by placing outreach, writing, and the classroom in conversation with each other, illuminating how discourses can cross institutional and contextual borders. Additionally, while most previous work …

“So, That’S Sort Of Wonderful”: The Ideology Of Commitment And The Labor Of Contingency, Sarah V. Seeley

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

This article explores the emotional outcomes related to language commodification within an organizational context: the first-year writing program at Binghamton University, which is a public research university in upstate New York. In this setting, the meanings of effective writing instruction are discursively constructed in terms of a multi-faceted commitment to ‘the process.’ This entails an ideological commitment to both recursive process writing and the process of collaboratively evaluating the product that derives from it. I first offer an overview of the Binghamton context, including the details of collaborative portfolio assessment. I then analyze a specific sociolinguistic strategy: pep talking. I …

Fyc Students’ Emotional Labor In The Feedback Cycle, Kelly Blewett

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

This essay explores the emotions first-year composition students experience when receiving feedback on their writing. Culling data from 32 hours of interviews with students, as well as two different data streams students provided regarding their emotional reactions to feedback, I argue that students undergo what Arlie Hochschild calls transmutation as they process feedback on their writing. Two implications are suggested: first, that future studies should utilize non-alphabetic tools for capturing emotion; second, that teachers wishing to assist student reception of feedback should be attentive to building rapport in the classroom. Finally, the essay calls for additional study of the impact …

The Toil Of Feeling: Education As Emotional Labor - Teaching At The End Of Empire, Wendy Ryden

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

The editor's introduction to the Special Section, The Toil of Feeling: Education as Emotional Labor.

The Good Enough Teacher, Natalie Davey

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

This paper puts forward a pedagogical model of care for K-12 educators that is specifically focused on alternative classroom educators. In conversation with educational theorists and psychologists, a model of care that is translatable to both teachers and students in non-traditional classrooms is presented. Looking first at Arlie Hochschild’s “emotion work” in the context of alternative classroom teaching, a link is made to Nel Noddings’s “ethics of care” as a pedagogical starting point. The author then riffs on psychoanalyst D.W. Winnicott’s notion of the “good enough mother,” the one who “manages a difficult task: initiating the infant into a world …

Complaint As ‘Sticky Data’ For The Woman Wpa: The Intellectual Work Of A Wpa’S Emotional And Embodied Labor, Anna Sicari

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

There is rich scholarship on emotions in writing program administration, and the labor this work requires from WPAs (Holt; Micciche; McKinney et. al; Ratcliffe and Rickley; Vidali) and on the feminized nature of writing programs and the way gender informs this type of emotional work (Enos; Flynn; Miller; Schell). Many WPA scholars advocate that our administrative work is intellectual work, yet little attention has been given to the emotional and embodied labor of WPA work as intellectual and as defining components of WPA work. Drawing from Sara Ahmed’s recent work on complaint and data I collected from thirty interviews with …

Invictus: Race And Emotional Labor Of Faculty Of Color At The Urban Community College, Kerri-Ann M. Smith, Kathleen T. Alves, Irvin Weathersby Jr., John D. Yi

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

This article shares the counter-stories of four junior faculty members of color, whose lived experiences provide concrete examples of what emotional labor sometimes entails in higher education. Grounded in Critical Race Theory and antiracist methodologies, these academics identify specific ways in which they experience emotional labor: guilt, silence, anger, navigating double-consciousness and liminality, and self-regulating physical and mental health. They seek to buttress their experiences with counternarratives and, consequently, recommendations for how community college leaders may help to alleviate the emotional labor associated with junior faculty members of color through promotion, leadership, mentoring, and recognition of diverse perspectives and contributions …

"Because It's Free": Interviews Of Successful Tennessee Promise Students On How They Value Their Community College Experience, Susanna C. Miller

Doctoral Dissertations

Tennessee Promise is a tuition-free community college scholarship program for high school graduates that was initiated in Tennessee in 2015. This program is part of the State of Tennessee’s Drive to 55 initiative, the goal of which is to have 55% of the state’s workforce with a post-high school credential by 2025. This qualitative study was designed to learn how students who used TN Promise and graduated between 2015 and 2019 value their community college education experience. The research questions are: 1) What value do TN Promise students place on their education given that it is tuition-free? 2) What are …

Understanding Cultural Competence Among In-Service Teachers: A Review Of The Literature, Amanda R. Kuipers

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Eği̇ti̇m Si̇stemi̇mi̇z Ve 21. Yüzyil Hayali̇mi̇z: 2045 Hedeflerine İlerlerken, Türkiye Için Stem Odaklı Ekonomik Bir Yol Haritası, Mehmet Aydeniz

Theory and Practice in Teacher Education Publications and Other Works

Bilimsel ve teknolojik gelişmeler, yeni sanayilerin oluşmasında, ülkelerin askeri savunma kapasitelerini artırmada, mevcut sanayilerde üretkenliği tetiklemekte, hayat kalitesinin yükselmesinde ve eğitimin erişebilirliğinde önemli bir rol oynamaya devam etmektedir. Dolayısıyla bir Ülkenin ekonomik gelişimi, bilimsel çalışma yapabilme kapasitesine, teknolojisinin gelişimine, girişimcilik ortamı ve inovasyon yapabilme kapasitesine bağlıdır.

Ekonomiye önemli katkıları olan bilimin ve teknolojinin gelişmesi, STEM alanlarında gerekli ön bilgi ve becerilere sahip, problemlere yaratıcı bir bakışla yaklaşabilen, özgür düşünebilen, sorgulayan, inovatif çözüm üretebilen, dayanışmayı önemseyen bir nesil yetiştirebilen okulların varlığına bağlıdır.

Peki Türk Eğitim Sistemi, Ülkemizin ekonomik yarışabilirlik potansiyelini yükseltecek, savunma kapasitesini artıracak, bölgesel liderliğinin bir adım öne çıkmasını sağlayacak …

Let's Get Physical! Teaching Mathematics Through The Lens Of Physics, Peggy Bertrand Ph.D., Lauren Jeneva Clark Ph.D.

Faculty Publications and Other Works -- Mathematics

In 2017, a professional development project, Let's Get Physical! Teaching Mathematics through the Lens of Physics, was funded by a Tennessee Higher Education Commission (THEC) Improving Teacher Quality (ITQ) grant, and was hosted by the University of Tennessee Department of Mathematics. These proceedings contain physics-based secondary mathematics lessons that guided this project. For example, in one lesson, tracking the behavior of live insects helps students learn about displacement, velocity, geometry, and measurement. In another, dropping coffee filters helps students learn about drag, logarithms, and graphical methods. Lasers and lenses can be used to teach reflection and refraction, and one …

Secondary Teachers’ Perspectives On Response To Intervention: A National Study, Rachelle Sarah Savitz

Doctoral Dissertations

Response to Intervention is a policy that has been implemented across the country to reduce the number of students incorrectly identified Specific Learning Disabled (SLD), and to enhance the educational outcomes for all students. While most states provide guidelines or frameworks for implementation, there generally is not much provided for individual states and districts regarding how to implement RTI in their schools. With implementation happening at the secondary level and most secondary educators not having a literacy background, there is a need to find out more regarding teachers’ perceptions. This mixed-methods sequential design exploration study first used a national survey …

Volume 7, Issue 1, Catherine Scott

Catalyst: A Social Justice Forum

The Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) field is greatly promoted as a career path for students in recent years, and the demand for individuals specializing in STEM disciplines is expected to rise. Often, when considering STEM, one thinks of careers related to medicine, laboratory settings, or the pure sciences. However, in examining only these aspects of STEM, we may errantly overlook the impacts that P-20 education may have in using STEM as a means for improving student lives. One unique aspect of STEM is its role in helping to improve our well being as individuals and society as a …

Editor's Introduction, Catherine Scott

Catalyst: A Social Justice Forum

This issue of Catalyst aims to present a collection of works that examines the role of STEM education in aiding in these opportunities not only for the PK-12 classroom, but also in the college classroom and through pre-service educator training.

Developing And Promoting A Nuclear Security Curriculum At Amity University, India: Beginnings, Successes And Challenges, Ms. Kawalpreet Kalra, Ms. Archana Yadav, Dr. Alpana Goel

International Journal of Nuclear Security

Amity University is one of India’s leading research- and innovation-driven private universities. The Amity Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology (AINST), established in 2009, contribute to Amity’s mission to promote national development through philanthropy, education and research. Very recently, courses related to nuclear security and security culture have been added to the existing AINST curriculum. The purpose of introducing this course was to enhance the understanding of technical, policy, and regulatory challenges associated with nuclear security and to create a nuclear security culture among relevant local institutions. This paper describes the process involved in establishing nuclear security as an elective …

Status Of Nuclear Security Education And Research In Bangladesh And Looking Forward, Md. Shafiqul Islam, Md. Mobasher Ahmed

International Journal of Nuclear Security

Bangladesh uses category I of nuclear materials and category 1-5 of radioactive materials in the field of research, medical and industries. The Government is going to implement its first nuclear power plant under an IGA between the Bangladesh and Russian Governments. With the emerging global nuclear and radiological terrorism by potential adversaries, enhancing nuclear security is the paramount importance for the country. The paper has found no established communication channels among stakeholders in order to work in a coordinated and collaborative manner for strengthening the nuclear security. This has resulted lacking importance of education, research, training and knowledge management initiatives …

Experiences With Teaching Nuclear Security Professional Development Courses For Health Physicists, Edward Waller, Jason Timothy Harris, Craig Marianno

International Journal of Nuclear Security

Health physicists are professionals that are experts in the recognition, evaluation, and control of health hazards to permit the safe use and application of radiation. They typically have broad knowledge in radiation (ionizing and non-ionizing), biology, ecology and safety. With this wealth expertise we believe the health physicists would be useful partners in an effective security culture. As such over three years, a total of seven professional enrichment courses have been offered by the authors to health physics and radiation protection professionals, both nationally and internationally. Five have been through the Health Physics Society meetings, one through the International Radiation …

Fostering Foreign Language Learning Through Game Design, Brooke Elyse Tybush

Masters Theses

This paper explores the effect of game design on foreign language acquisition through a French language game design project. The approach to language learning that this project explored touched on various L2 theories including the CLT approach, the multilingual approach, and the multiliteracies approach. The design aspect of the project served to create an interest-driven learning environment in which students could combine their academic and professional interests with language. This combination led to the development of a French language-learning game titled Bonne Chance, which is now a working product played by students at the University of Tennessee. The purpose …

The Use Of Outdoor Teaching Resources By Multidisciplinary University Faculty And Instructors At The University Of Tennessee: A Model For Establishing And Maintaining The Campus Landscape As A Significant And Dynamic Outdoor Classroom, Laboratory, And Therapy Center, Andrew J. Pulte

Doctoral Dissertations

Research has shown that plants and the landscapes around us impact our lives. Plants have been shown to reduce anxiety and blood pressure, and to have mentally restorative and psychological benefits. These benefits can include but are not limited to improving our ability to cope with stress and improving our ability to focus and concentrate. During the formative years of higher education, the physical grounds of our campuses have the potential to provide these restorative benefits. Understanding how these landscapes are maintained can provide useful information for their improvement. In regards to campus grounds maintenance, select peer institutions of the …