Education Commons^™

The State Of Latino Education: 2010-2020, Fabián Torres-Ardila, Nyal Fuentes

Gastón Institute Publications

In this report, we will provide a descriptive analysis of the main trends in educational achievement for Latinos in Massachusetts in the period 2010-2022. We highlight areas in which Latino students have made considerable progress since the publication of the 2010 Gastón report “The State of Latinos and Education in Massachusetts: 2010,” along with other areas in which progress has stalled and/or been reversed. The data presented cover only until 2020, before the full effects of the Covid-19 pandemic were felt. We end with recommendations for further development of a Latino Education agenda.

Paths Of My Development In The Cct Program, Russell Suereth

Critical and Creative Thinking Capstones Collection

This paper shows the development of a view of personal transformation and social transformation, and the creation of art that depicts that view through courses in the Critical and Creative Thinking program at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. The paper is a focus on the courses and their impact on the view and the associated art, rather than an analysis of the view and art. Since the program is centered around critical and creative thinking, the paper also describes how thinking in critical and creative ways benefits a project of vision and art. Self-reflection is also an important component of …

On A Mission: Examination Of Graduate Resources For Multicultural Women At The University Of Massachusetts Boston, Annmarie Mccluskey

Critical and Creative Thinking Capstones Collection

This paper discusses significant issues affecting Multicultural Women Graduate Students at the University of Massachusetts Boston, a Predominately White Institution, for creating a centralized graduate resources weblink on the Office of Graduate Studies website. The intervention seeks to address navigating gender and race inequalities that create a double bind experience of stress within a dominant academic culture that reinforces isolation, intersectional barriers, microaggressions, and pressure to assimilate to the dominant culture. Facilitation of this proposal will impact Multicultural Women Graduate Students, the Office of Graduate Studies, the Provost’s Office which oversees the OGS, and the entirety of the University of …

Writing To Learn: A Course Design And Educational Resources, Geoff Keston

Critical and Creative Thinking Capstones Collection

Higher education students write in many courses, but often as only a small part of a class and without guidance about how to use writing to learn. This paper describes the design of a dedicated course, Writing to Learn, in which students practice many genres and study the science of learning. A focused approach to using writing as a way to learn aims to give students extensive and diverse practice, which isn’t done in many published case studies. And making ideas from psychology, neuroscience, and the theory of pedagogy a part of the course content shows students why and how …

Hip-Hop History: Grades 9-12 Local History Curriculum, Sivia K. Malloy

Instructional Design Capstones Collection

As the founders and trailblazers mature, and sadly depart this life, a new generation is left behind with limited to no knowledge of the influence hip-hop has on current popular culture locally, nationally, or internationally. Research for this learning intervention determines what and how local hip-hop history incorporates into a social studies/history course with high school (9-12 grade) students, bridging local stories to the national and international trends and events of the past. Informal discussions took place with local hip-hop subject-matter experts throughout the northeast region of New England with ties to Massachusetts. Their recommendations were to wrestle with the …

Developing A Theater Skills-Based Workshop To Facilitate Exploration Of Self-Identity For Young People, Natasha N. Goss

Critical and Creative Thinking Capstones Collection

This synthesis will explore the premise of a working outreach platform comprised of experiential methodology, and practical tools and strategies to serve the intended audience. The paper presents an in-depth example of a workshop curriculum created for middle-school aged youth, (12-14 years old), who may struggle with self-esteem, understanding their self-worth, and making responsible decisions. The work explores two intersecting ideas that 1) poor self-concepts and misperceived thinking can lead youth to behave negatively and make detrimental decisions, and 2) theater involvement can produce a theater-based skillset capable of combating those poor self-concepts and misperceived thoughts and changing the trajectory …

Assessing The Role Of Motivational Factors In Facilitating Artists’ Personal And Professional Development, Ece Gurler

Critical and Creative Thinking Capstones Collection

Various factors exert influence on an artist’s impetus. If artists can learn about different ways to use these both external and internal factors to facilitate their personal and professional development, their creative process and productivity will be affected positively. According to the research, individuals display three types of orientation during the exploration and development process -and so creative process: The desire to be effective (White, 1959), autonomous (DeCharms, 1968), and related to significant others (Deci & Ryan, 1991). Effective-oriented personalities tend to be motivated by extrinsic rewards or punishment, whereas autonomously oriented people are more intrinsically motivated. However, understanding the …

Designing A Toolbox To Improve Creative Output: A Guide For Cultivating Critical, Creative, And Conceptual Thinking Skills In An Increasingly Distracted Society, Cara Tuttle

Critical and Creative Thinking Capstones Collection

Frequent digital distractions can hamper undergraduate design students’ ability to perform the kind of deeper level thinking needed for creative problem solving and creative output, yet there are tools that can help students focus on the present and delve deeper into their creative work. This paper focuses on the details of a pedagogical toolbox created for educators of undergraduate design students to target critical thinking, creative thinking, and conceptual thinking (the 3Cs) in order to improve creative output. I explain how critical, creative, and conceptual thinking work holistically to develop and promote creative output. By demonstrating 3Cs tools and activities, …

Racialized Aggressions And Sense Of Belonging Among Asian American College Students, Kevin J. Gin

Institute for Asian American Studies Publications

This naturalistic, qualitative inquiry explored how Asian American college students’ encounters with racialized aggressions on social media impacted their sense of belonging at a predominately White institution (PWI). Participants indicated that encounters with racism on social media, especially on the anonymous mobile app Yik Yak, engendered racial distrust, and alienation from their institution. These findings suggest the virtual components of campus culture play a critical role in determining how Asian American college students feel they are welcomed, valued, and included at a PWI.

Latinx Students In Boston Exam Schools: Growing But Consistently Underrepresented, Ava Marinelli, Fabián Torres-Ardila

Gastón Institute Publications

Boston Public Schools exam schools – Boston Latin School, Boston Latin Academy, and the John D. O’Bryant School of Mathematics and Sciences – are widely considered some of the most elite schools not only in Boston Public Schools, but also in the country at large. They have also been the subject of numerous lawsuits and investigations, alleging racially biased admission standards, racism among faculty and students, and disproportionate enrollment numbers. The Mauricio Gastón Institute for Latino Community Development and Public Policy finds that while the enrollment of Latinx students has trended steadily upwards in Boston Public Schools and exam schools …

Design For Living Complexities, Peter J. Taylor

Working Papers in Critical, Creative and Reflective Practice

Lectures from a 12-session course that addresses the intersection of design with critical thinking. Design in this course means intentionality in construction, which involves a range of materials, a sequence of steps, and principles that inform the choice of materials and the steps. Design also always involves putting people, as well as materials, into place. This happens by working with the known properties of people, as well as the known properties of material, and trying out new arrangements to work around their constraints (at least temporarily). Critical thinking, as I define it, involves understanding ideas and practices better when we …

How Do Latino Students Fare In Massachusetts Charter Schools?: An Analysis Of Student Outcomes, Enrollment, Teacher Preparation, And Discipline Across 10 Districts, Michael Berardino, Lorna Rivera, Trevor Mattos

Gastón Institute Publications

The objective of the research was to better understand the experiences and outcomes of Latino students in Massachusetts charter schools. To reflect the diversity of the Latino population in Massachusetts, this research is built on comparisons of demographics and student outcomes between traditional public school districts and the charter schools that serve each school district.

Thinking Deeply, Creating Richly: Learner Transformation Through Narrative, Kaylea Hascall Champion

Critical and Creative Thinking Capstones Collection

Narrative methods support transformative teaching and learning by accessing human cognitive strengths, including memory, reflection, and self-awareness. This paper explores the enduring and mindful use of narrative in education – as a method for transformative teaching and learning. A narrative is the intentional conversion of a group of events, participants, and details into a constructed reality that illustrates causes, characters, and results. Narrative development is a native human process by which we teach, learn, and remember. Narrative educational methods incorporate two key characteristics: integrative sense making, and shared connection building. Diverse disciplines – including biology, psychology, economics, literature, medicine, history, …

Asian American Studies Praxis And The Educational Power Of Boston's Public Chinese Burial Grounds, Peter Kiang

Asian American Studies Faculty Publication Series

Asian American Studies Praxis and the Educational Power of Boston’s Public Chinese Burial Grounds This article explores the educational significance of the historic Chinese immigrant burial grounds located within Mount Hope Cemetery – the public cemetery of the City of Boston. Approximately 1500 gravestones, most of which are marked principally with Chinese characters displaying names and village origins (predominantly males from Taishan), are clustered in three notable, contiguous, sections of one corner of the cemetery. With years of death ranging mainly from the 1930s through 1960s and years of birth reaching as early as the 1870s, the Mt. Hope Chinese …

The Anala Collaborative: Umass Boston’S Asian American, Native American, Latin@ And African Diaspora Institutes, Barbara Lewis, Carolyn Wong, Cedric Woods, Elena Stone

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

The ANALA Collaborative is the newly-formed umbrella for the four UMass Boston racial and ethnic institutes. This year, with help from a team from the College of Management’s Emerging Leaders Program, we have come together to form ANALA in recognition of the area’s increasing racial and ethnic diversity and the need for majority-minority communities to work together toward common goals. While each of the four institutes will retain its separate identity and programs, we will also place greater emphasis on collaborative efforts in the service of our common mission and vision.

The Academic And Cultural Adaptation Of Chinese International Students At Umass Boston: The Struggles And Progress From The Perspectives Of Students And Professors, Pingping Chen, Theodora Chocos, Lorena Fuentes

English Faculty Publication Series

This panel will articulate the struggles and progress of Chinese international students in their learning processes at UMass Boston. Additionally, the challenges some professors have faced in teaching Chinese international students and the pedagogical practice they have used to engage these learners in their courses will be addressed.

This panel was presented as part of the 2014 8th Annual University Conference on Teaching, Learning, and Technology on May 15, 2014. The theme of the conference was "Teaching both What and How for Deep Learning at Every Level."

Community University Project For Literacy (Cupl), Carol Chandler-Rourke

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

The Community-University Project for Literacy (CUPL), now in its third decade of service, provides an academic structure for UMB students to provide 40 hours of service each semester as tutors at community-based learning centers while attending a credit-bearing seminar at UMass/Boston.

Indigenous Women, Mother Tongues, And Nation Building In New England: A Tribal Policy Leadership Series, Amy Den Ouden, Chris Bobel

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

In collaboration with the Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project (WLRP), Indigenous women educators and leaders, the Dept. of Women’s and Gender Studies is redesigning WOST/WGS 270, Native American Women in North America, to incorporate a lecture series on nation building and a semester-long community engagement project fostering student leadership in a research and policy formation project focused on legislating and funding a Native American language education law in Massachusetts.

Boston Writing Project, Glenn Mitchell, Peter Golden

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

The Boston Writing Project focuses on the core mission of improving the teaching of writing and improving the use of writing across the disciplines by offering high-quality professional development programs for educators, at all grade levels, K–16 and across the curriculum.

Word On The Street: Instilling A Relationship Between Art And Community, Joyce Peseroff

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

The project “Word on the Street” will be integrated into ENGL 210: Introduction to Creative Writing. Beginning as a pilot in one course section in Spring 2014, the course will partner with the Black Seed Writers’ Workshop, a group of homeless writers supported by the Cathedral Church of St. Paul’s Wednesday Lunch Program. Professor Joyce Peseroff and Master of Fine Arts graduate student Teaching Assistants (TA) will participate in the Civic Engagement Scholars Initiative (CESI) to build capacity for course redesign, implementation, assessment, and scholarship.

Providing Staff And Program Development For Boston-Area Adult Basic Education Programs, Adult Literacy Resource Institute, University Of Massachusetts Boston, System For Adult Basic Education Support (Sabes), College Of Education And Human Development, University Of Massachusetts Boston

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

The Adult Literacy Resource Institute (part of UMass Boston since 1983, and 100% grant-funded) serves as the Greater Boston Regional Support Center for SABES, the state’s System for Adult Basic Education Support. We provide staff and program development services to adult basic education programs in the Boston area, especially the approximately 40 programs in the region (most located at community-based organizations) that are funded by the state’s Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and that offer ESOL, basic literacy and numeracy, high school equivalency preparation, and other classes (including family literacy, civics education, career pathways, and college transition).

Working With Data In Archival Settings, Joanne M. Riley

Joseph P. Healey Library Publications

Structured data plays a vital role in archival administration, preservation and access activities. Three case studies are presented that demonstrate different applications of metadata: Medici Archive Project: Documentary Sources for the Arts and Humanities 1537 – 1743 (Relational database); The History of the Accademia di San Luca, c. 1590 – 1635: Documents from the Archivio di Stato di Roma (Text markup – TEI); Healey Library’s OpenArchives (Dublin Core Schema in a proprietary data system).

Community University Project For Literacy (Cupl), Carol Chandler-Rourke

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

The Community-University Project for Literacy (CUPL) provides an academic structure for undergraduates to provide 40 hours of service each semester as tutors at community-based learning centers while attending a credit-bearing seminar at UMass/Boston. Course are: Language, Literacy and Community (Fall) and ESL Tutor Training Seminar (Spring).

Asian American Studies Program: Community-Centered Commitments And Pathways In The Asamst Curriculum, Asian American Studies Program, University Of Massachusetts Boston

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

UMass Boston offers the most Asian American Studies courses, faculty, and community linkages of any university in New England. Through culturally-responsive instruction in the classroom and holistic practices of mentoring, community-building, service-learning, and advocacy, we address the social and academic needs of students as well as the critical capacity-building needs of local Asian American communities. Our alumni include teachers, social workers, health care providers, business entrepreneurs, and leaders of local Asian American community organizations where we sustain vital, long-term partnerships.

Eastern Pequot Archaeological Field School, 2003 - 2013, Stephen W. Silliman

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

The Eastern Pequot Archaeological Field School began in 2003 as a cooperative effort between Anthropology Professor Stephen Silliman and the Eastern Pequot Tribal Nation, a Native American community in southeastern Connecticut. It uses a six-credit summer archaeological field course to achieve four objectives set within a model of community-engaged scholarship.

Beacon Voyages For Service: 2013 Alternative Spring Break Trip To The Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota, Sherrod Williams

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

This March, fourteen UMass Boston students traveled to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota to address the pressing issues of poverty faced by the Oglala Lakota people by assisting in construction efforts such as repairing stairwells, building children’s bunk beds, and installing protective skirting around mobile homes to help increase the overall quality of life on the reservation. In conjunction with the service work, special attention was placed on fostering relationships and participating in a cultural exchange with the Oglala Lakota community that has created awareness about the tribulations faced by the United States of America’s most disadvantaged …

Highlights And Impacts: 2012 Naisa Conference & Other Events, J. Cedric Woods, Institute For New England Native American Studies, University Of Massachusetts Boston

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

The Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA) is the premier organization for scholars in Native and Indigenous Studies, representing numerous indigenous peoples and their non-indigenous allies. The Institute for New England Native American Studies (INENAS) played a key role in planning 2012 conference, with Director Cedric Woods serving as co-chair of Executive Host Committee.

Culturally Relevant Resources To Meet The Changing Priorities Of Tribal Communities, J. Cedric Woods, Institute For New England Native American Studies, University Of Massachusetts Boston

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

The mission of INENAS is to develop collaborative relationships, projects, and programs between Native American tribes of the New England region and all of the UMass campuses so that the tribes may participate in and benefit from university research, innovation, scholarship, and education. As the interests, needs, and demographics of Native New England shift, these changing priorities will be reflected in its programming, grant submissions, and outreach efforts.

Native Tribal Scholars; Strengthening Families-Grandparents Raising Grandchildren; Native American And Indigenous Studies Annual Conference 2012, Cedric Woods, Institute For New England Native American Studies, University Of Massachusetts Boston

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

Native Tribal Scholars is a pre-collegiate initiative developed and run as a collaboration between the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, the North American Indian Center of Boston, and UMass Boston (Institute for New England Native American Studies and Academic Support Services). Native youth in grades 8-12 consistently lag behind their non-Native peers on many key academic indicators contributing to fewer Native high school students adequately prepared for college. The goal of this initiative is to provide academic support to Native American youth in these age groups. This is a Massachusetts based summer residential program that focuses on teaching science, math and writing …

Early Literacy Matters, Lisa Van Thiel, Institute For Community Inclusion, University Of Massachusetts Boston

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

Early Literacy Matters (ELM) is a partnership between the University of Massachusetts Boston, Lynn Public Schools, and the Gregg Neighborhood House. Our goal is to create 8 preschool centers of excellence impacting 300 children per year identified as “at risk for academic failure.” ELM has transformed 17 classrooms that serve children speaking over 41 languages. 75% of ELM children speak a first language other than English or have limited English proficiency, and 16% receive special education services. ELM offers research-based curricula, professional development, and community/family involvement with intentional instruction proven to enrich children’s learning experiences. We offer professional development combined …