Digital Commons Network^™

Why Assessment Matters: On The Road For Change, Kelsey P. Bowen, Kate A. Bergey, Shannon S. Edmond

Showcase of Graduate Student Scholarship and Creative Activities

In higher education, assessment is used to intentionally develop, implement, and modify programs that are grounded in student learning outcomes (SLOs). Assessment results may highlight program effectiveness, or lack thereof. This gives educators the chance to revise components of the program in order to improve student learning (Meixner, 2016). Assessment also creates a sense of accountability by offering methods to justify the value of a program, especially when time and resources are limited. We offer a model for assessment as foundational to program development by highlighting our course-related consulting work with the Dux Leadership Center’s pilot On the Road for …

Learners’ Perspectives On The Use And Support Of Student Created Video Assignments At James Madison University, Annette Bruff Liskey

Showcase of Graduate Student Scholarship and Creative Activities

This research is an exploratory analysis of the use of student created video assignments at JMU, a pedagogical strategy that is increasingly common but not widely researched. The study collected quantitative data via an online survey of JMU students with the objective of examining the use, design, and outcomes of student created video assignments at James Madison University. Survey topics included the requirements of the assignment, the course that included the assignment, resources available and/or used to complete the assignment, students’ perceptions of the learning outcomes, as well as non-identifying information about each respondent’s demographics and academic experience at JMU. …

Facilitated Departmental Dialogues Assessment, Kathryn Kinniburgh, Caitlin Powell

Showcase of Graduate Student Scholarship and Creative Activities

In the fall of 2016, PYSC 600 students consulted with James Madison University’s Office of Access and Inclusion to create assessment efforts for the Facilitated Departmental Dialogues. The Dialogues are the result of a collaborative effort among the Office of Access and Inclusion, Human Resources, and the Provost’s Faculty Diversity Council. They were developed following the 2013-2014 Diversity Task Force to give departments the space to discuss crucial matters of values, diversity, access, and inclusion within the context of their academic unit.

Utilizing notions of the Assessment Cycle, the decision was made, in collaboration with Arthur Dean, Executive Director of …

Read And Publish: What Can Libraries Expect?, Josh Horowitz

Charleston Library Conference

The author provides a publisher's perspective on the challenges and opportunities faced by a mid-sized society in navigating the current transition to open access licensing models.

Library-Supported Scholarship: Increasing Faculty Scholarly Reach With Author Services, Russell Michalak, Monica Rysavy

Charleston Library Conference

The researchers’ primary goal when working with faculty on the research and publication process is to empower them to independently write literature reviews, deploy surveys, collect data, analyze data, and submit manuscripts to peer-review journals and edited book collections. The authors coach faculty in doing so in a variety of ways, from one-on-one trainings to small group workshops. For faculty who have recently earned their PhD, librarians have worked with them to narrow their dissertation topic into a publishable product. As part of the publishing process, the authors have shown them how to select potential publication outlets by reviewing the …

Spring Forward: Collaborating To Build And Assess A Collection Of Learning Objects, Stephanie A. Jacobs, Audrey Powers

Charleston Library Conference

Delivering innovative information literacy instruction to an ever-growing student population requires some resetting of previous practices and ideas. Collaboratively developed interactive learning activities that address library skills and the research process presented in a flipped-classroom style may represent a useful innovation in this area. This paper addresses the ongoing project at the University of South Florida (USF) Tampa Library in which interactive digital learning objects are developed, embedded into all sections of a university course via the online learning management system, assessed, and reworked.

Beyond Circulation: Assessing Collections In The Age Of Student Success, Alicia Willson-Metzger

Charleston Library Conference

In a time of decreasing collections budgets and expectations of increased fiscal accountability in libraries, collection management librarians are increasingly expected to justify expenditures through the provision of usage data to their stakeholders. Yet traditional methods of collection assessment, often focused upon summary circulation statistics, are only marginally useful in demonstrating collection strength to patrons. To paint a more complete picture of a library’s successful collection development program, librarians need to identify and verify a relationship between circulation statistics and improved student outcomes, as well as support of faculty scholarship and teaching. While this task can seem daunting, many methods …

Imagist Poetry Of Twentieth Century American Poets Ezra Pound, Amy Lowell And Hilda Doolittle, Halil Bashota, Vlera Ejupi

UBT International Conference

This article elaborates key aspects of the imagist poetry of twentieth century American poets E. Pound, A. Lowell and H. Doolittle. Twentieth century Imagism belongs to a literary movement in American modern era that is characterized by a tendency to break from the past of traditional literary styles, to a movement that reflects the simplicity, clarity and precision of reflective images. It covers a period from imagism to symbolism, a period of free expression, direct topics as well as images as an exact description. The study remains with highest relevance, despite that there is a wide range of articles, papers, …

Implementation Of Intercultural Education In The Republic Of North Macedonia, Natka Jankova

UBT International Conference

The intense nature of intercultural processes in today's society alters communication at a fundamental level - both in practice and in behavior. Modern socio and psycholinguistic theories call for intercultural discourse to be the key in interpreting social interactions among people in global society. At the same time, it is normal to change the requirements of individual competence, understood as a complex of knowledge, skills and attitudes, allowing the individual to deal effectively with situations that are increasingly determined by cultural differences. This paper points out that the learning process should extend from the teaching individual grammatical structures and theoretical …

Instructional Supervision And Educational Administration. Goal Setting, Monitoring And Feedbacking Practices As Performance Management Mechanisms., Sheena Mae T. Comighud

UBT International Conference

Performance management is important for an organization. In a top-down perspective, it emphasizes the strategic alignment of the agency's thrusts with the day-to-day operation. Also, from a bottom-up approach, it aligns and optimizes individual performance with the common goal of the group. This paper examined the extent of school heads’ implementation of the Results-based Performance Management System (RPMS) as performance management mechanism in the Department of Education (DepEd). It focused on the 61 school heads and 271 teaching personnel of Bayawan City Division, Negros Oriental, Philippines for SY 2018-2019. It utilized the descriptive, comparative, and correlational methods of research in …

The Attitudes Of Albanian Teachers Towards Multicultural Education In Kosovo, Feride Lohaj

UBT International Conference

This is a survey study that determines the Albanian teachers' attitudes toward multicultural education and the participants of the study were 50 teachers who are teaching different subjects in various grades and schools in region of Ferizaj. The data for this study was collected through a 5-point Likert scale called "Teachers' Multicultural Attitude Scale". According to findings, it is determined that teachers have positive attitudes towards multicultural education. Their attitudes differ in a statistically significant way according to their gender, age, and professional seniority. Art and Sports teachers were found to have more positive attitudes than class teachers, but history …

Russian Language Use In The United States: Demographics And Implications, Julie Brock, Sadia Zoubir-Shaw

Posters-at-the-Capitol

As a large nation covering 1/9 of the Earth’s surface, Russia and its language necessarily draw linguistic attention. Between the time of the Russian Revolution (1917) until now, Russian speakers (both from Russia itself and former Soviet territories) immigrated to the United States in four or five waves. Russian is currently identified as one of the world’s Critical Languages, according to the U.S. State Department. U.S. Census data indicate that Russian language spoken in respondents’ homes increased by 393% between 1980-2010, with just under a million people speaking Russian in their homes in 2011. English language use among this population …

Proposal For A Joint Cybersecurity And Information Technology Management Program, Christopher Simpson, Debra Bowen, William Reid, James Juarez

KSU Proceedings on Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

Cybersecurity and Information Technology Management programs have many similarities and many similar knowledge, skills, and abilities are taught across both programs. The skill mappings for the NICE Framework and the knowledge units required to become a National Security Agency and Department of Homeland Security Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense Education contain many information technology management functions. This paper explores one university’s perception on how a joint Cybersecurity and Information Technology Management program could be developed to upskill students to be work force ready.

Adversarial Thinking: Teaching Students To Think Like A Hacker, Frank Katz

KSU Proceedings on Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

Today’s college and university cybersecurity programs often contain multiple laboratory activities on various different hardware and software-based cybersecurity tools. These include preventive tools such as firewalls, virtual private networks, and intrusion detection systems. Some of these are tools used in attacking a network, such as packet sniffers and learning how to craft cross-site scripting attacks or man-in-the-middle attacks. All of these are important in learning cybersecurity. However, there is another important component of cybersecurity education – teaching students how to protect a system or network from attackers by learning their motivations, and how they think, developing the students’ “abilities to …

Ethics And Methods Of Human Rights Work: Exploring Both Theoretical And Practical Approaches, Shayna Plaut, Maritza Felices Luna, Christina Clark Kazak, Neil Bilotta, Lara Rosenoff Gauvin

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

This workshop will explore both theoretical and practical approaches to methodologies and ethics as it relates to human rights work.

The goal of the workshop is to create a dynamic space that encourages participants to share and learn from our own experiences navigating the messiness of human rights ethics and methods. We specifically address formal education and systems and structures so that we may all design, do and teach research and practice related to human rights in a more critical and sustainable manner. We recognize the tensions of creating research, programs and advocacy that is seen as “legitimate” to educational …

Reclaiming Impact In The Age Of Awareness-Raising For Human Rights, Azadeh Pourzand, Ali Arab

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

In the last decade, the practice of awareness-raising for human rights has appeared as notably common across the board. Nevertheless, widespread awareness-raising has not necessarily always resulted in meaningful and sustainable impact. Accepting that awareness raising is not a panacea, we challenge the global collective fascination with big impact, while considering the power of small strategic impact that invests in education, and building alliances, and has the potential to last and to expand by way of gradual encroachment through contextually-defined grassroots means natural to its course.

Empowered through social media, advocates are increasingly enthusiastic about reaching massive audiences by way …

The Legislative History Of Mental Disorders In Federal Education Programs, Mary Kay Bacallao

Georgia Educational Research Association Conference

In recent years, the diagnosis of mental disorders in school age children such as Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Early Onset Bipolar Disorder (EOBD), and Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) have increased as a percentage of the total school population. This paper looks at the development of federal education policies based on legislation that includes the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, No Child Left Behind, and the recent Every Student Succeeds Act. It also includes the development of federal education policies through legislation regarding students with disabilities.

Terms related to the diagnosis of childhood mental disorders will be defined …

Technological Tools To Support Virtual Group Projects, Herbert Fiester, Jamie Workman

Georgia Educational Research Association Conference

In today’s global, technology-driven society, educational institutions must constantly evolve in order to deliver instruction in a way that meets the ever-changing needs of students who may be geographically and demographically diverse. A variety of technologies exist that allow students to work collaboratively to complete project-based assignments online. Course management systems (CMS) such as Blackboard and D2L Brightspace (D2L) are designed to promote that collaboration. However, researchers have found that students tend to gravitate towards technologies that are familiar, rich, and synchronous (Albayrak & Yildirim, 2015; Karim & Heckman, 2005; Rowe, Bozalek, & Frantz, 2013; Wang, Woo, Quek, Yang, & …

Addressing Mass Atrocity In Chile: Learning And Unlearning As A Function Of Social Memory, Irving Epstein

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

In this presentation, I reference a chapter, that is taken from my newly published book, Affect Theory and Comparative Education Discourse: Essays on Fear and Loathing in Response to Global Educational Policy and Practice (Bloomsbury Academic, 2019). I argue that when schools fail to address issues of social memory or basic existential questions involved in the pursuit of meaning-making for the purposes of understanding human rights issues, popular support evolves for other institutions to fill the void. Through examining the case of Chile, efforts to memorialize victims of the Pinochet dictatorship occur in the absence of robust initiatives to address …

Pre-Service Teachers And Middle School Students: A Collaboration For Social Justice Art Education, R. Darden Bradshaw

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Our lives are mediated through the visual which informs, in multiple and conflicting ways, our views, our beliefs, attitudes and mores, our choices, and thereby our resulting actions. This barrage of the visual impacts the postmodern student encountered in K-12 education. Students readily gain access to information that was once the sole domain of adults yet the prevailing system of education has not adapted. Visual culture is seldom used as an engagement strategy in school despite its ubiquitous role as hidden curriculum and ever-present place in the world beyond the school.

Social justice education underscores humanizing pedagogy as it examines …

Effect Of Promoting Psychosocial Resilience In Adolescents With Diabetes: An Integrative Literature Review, Britney Sandino

Grace Peterson Nursing Research Colloquium

Background: Adolescent obesity and diabetes increase the risk of numerous physiological health threats and psychosocial stress disorders. Educating this population on how to cope with physical and psychosocial stressors improves their health status and health-related quality of life (HRQOL).

Objectives: The purpose of this review was to provide the nursing community with insight on the health promotion effects of fostering psychosocial resilience in diabetic adolescents aged 7 to 17 and suggest specific methods to integrate into their plan of care.

Methods: An integrative literature review was performed using PubMed, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Health Literature, Ovid Medline, ProQuest …

Evaluating I2s2: An Inquiry-Based Indigenous Science Program For Years 5 To 9, Caja Gilbert

2009 - 2019 ACER Research Conferences

The Indigenous STEM Education Project, funded by BHP Billiton and implemented by CSIRO, aims to increase participation and achievement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education and career pathways. It consists of six programs that cater to the diversity of students as they progress through primary, secondary and tertiary education and into employment. One of these programs is I2S2 (Inquiry for Indigenous Science Students). I2S2 is an inquiry-based science program for Years 5 to 9 that has involved over 7600 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students and 1154 teachers since 2016. It …

Fostering Metacognitive Skills: A Longitudinal Cohort Study, Paul Welch, Annie Van Homrigh

2009 - 2019 ACER Research Conferences

Metacognitive awareness, which is part of self regulated learning, includes the domains of knowledge of cognition and regulation of cognition. Students with effective metacognitive skills are more aware of their strengths and weaknesses and strive to further improve their learning skills. This longitudinal cohort study uses the Junior Metacognitive Awareness Inventory (Jr. MAI) to measure student metacognitive awareness across Years 7 to 10 in a north Queensland girls’ Catholic college.

Building The Capacity Of Teachers For Supporting 21st-Century Learning, Jenny Gore, Michelle Ware, Sui-Linn White, Lee-Anne Collins, Lloyd Bowen, Carole Hansen

2009 - 2019 ACER Research Conferences

Quality Teaching Rounds (QTR) was first conceptualised by Julie Bowe and Jenny Gore in 2007. It involves teachers working in professional learning communities (PLCs) to reflect on their classroom practice through the lens of the quality teaching model. This teacher-led process builds capacity for quality teaching with novice and experienced teachers alike. Following a set of protocols and adhering to essential features of the approach, one PLC member teaches a lesson, observed by all others. The lesson is coded individually and then collaboratively analysed, using the shared language of the model. This poster presentation graphically highlights evidence from several research …

Assessing Computational Thinking, Daniel Duckworth

2009 - 2019 ACER Research Conferences

This paper provides some context for the role of computation thinking (CT) in the Australian Curriculum, an abridged literature review of CT as a problem-solving framework from the International Computer and Information Literacy Study (ICILS) 2018 assessment framework and some examples of how CT has been used to solve real-world problems. Finally, this paper presents ways to teach and assess CT.

What Can Early Childhood Education And Care Settings Teach Us About Skills For The 21st Century?, Dan Cloney, Kellie Picker

2009 - 2019 ACER Research Conferences

Early childhood education and care (ECEC) settings are naturally oriented towards promoting 21st century skills. This can be seen in Australia, where learning is defined as the development of identity, social and emotional skills, problem-solving, and communication skills. A 21st century orientation is also seen in the playbased pedagogies implemented in ECEC settings. A gap, however, exists in the ability of the ECEC sector to communicate its successes. This gap relates to the lack of measurement tools to quantify the quality of the adult–child interactions in ECEC settings, and children’s growth in these 21 century skills and abilities. This paper …

Assessment In The Interpersonal Domain: Experiences From Empathy Assessment In Medical Education, Neville Chiavaroli

2009 - 2019 ACER Research Conferences

Frameworks for the teaching and assessment of 21st-century skills commonly recognise the importance of learning and skill development in the interpersonal domain. They also usually acknowledge the challenge of reliably and validly assessing students in this domain. In the field of medical education and in selecting students for medical courses, the concept of empathy has become central to representing the particular interpersonal understandings and skills expected of students and practising doctors. Attempts to assess these attributes during medical training are just as challenging as in school contexts. This presentation draws on several years’ experience of working with medical educators to …

Digital Literacy: Myths And Realities, Julian Fraillon

2009 - 2019 ACER Research Conferences

Digital literacy, under a wide variety of names, is routinely classified as a 21st-century skill and is frequently reported as an area of high priority in school education systems internationally. In comparison with students in other countries, Australian students have high levels of access to digital technologies both at and outside of school. With this access comes the expectations that students will be highly-proficient users of digital technologies and that schools will use digital technologies in transformative ways to support student learning. This session will examine how concepts of digital literacy have developed over time, what data from large-scale assessments …

Teaching And Assessing The General Capabilities In A Secondary School Context, Loren Clarke, Melissa Hughes

2009 - 2019 ACER Research Conferences

Education researchers, policymakers and private enterprise agree that, in addition to content knowledge, students in the 21st century need to acquire particular skills to equip them for active citizenship in the modern world. This is a real challenge for teachers today: how do they teach and assess the skills needed to live and work in the 21st century? This paper will explore the development of Eltham High School’s focus on teaching and assessment of collaboration, problem-solving, and critical thinking over the past seven years. It will explore the development of the assessment program, its connection to the school and state …

Using Learning Analytics To Measure 21st-Century Skills, Dragan Gašević

2009 - 2019 ACER Research Conferences

The unprecedented opportunities to collect data about learning and contexts in which learning occurs has attracted great attention in education. The use of data analytics and machine learning methods have offered much potential to address many relevant questions in education. This talk will focus on the use of learning analytics to measure 21st-century skills in education and outline the types of data commonly used. It will also discuss approaches that are used for analysis and modelling of relevant learning processes and outline the ways in which learning analytics can be used to track learning progression and how the validity of …