Education Commons^™

The Farnet Journey: Effective Teaching Strategies For Engaging Māori Students On The Virtual Learning Network, Michael K. Barbour, Carolyn Bennett

Education Faculty Publications

The Virtual Learning Network (VLN) provides schools, particularly those in rural and remote areas, with the opportunity to cooperate to expand curricular offerings for their students. Each school that participates in a VLN cluster contributes at least one course delivered by an e-teacher, allowing member schools access to any course offered through the VLN that they cannot offer locally. At present, there is no formal national training for the e-teachers, although individual clusters offer a range of training opportunities. This case study focused on the e-teachers’ perceptions of the learning curve required for them to be adequately and effectively prepared …

Mobile Teaching And Learning In The Classroom And Online: Case Studies In K-12, Michael M. Grant, Michael K. Barbour

Education Faculty Publications

In this chapter, we describe two projects to integrate mobile teaching and learning into K-12 schooling. First, we consider the rationale for increased use of mobile devices with today’s students, and we describe a professional development program to deploy iPads to classroom teachers. Next, we discuss the growth of K-12 online learning, and we describe a project for students enrolled in an online Advanced Placement course was delivered through a mobile learning content management system. Lastly, we discuss some of the lessons learned from these pilot projects and some of the promise and challenges of mobile teaching and learning.

“Opening” A New Kind Of High School: The Story Of The Open High School Of Utah, Delaina Tonks, Sarah Weston, David Wiley, Michael Barbour

Education Faculty Publications

The use of online learning at the primary and secondary school level is growing exponentially in the United States. Much of this growth is with full-time online schools, most of which are operated by for-profit companies that use proprietary online course content. In this article we trace the development of, and philosophy behind, a full-time online school that uses open access software and open educational resources for course content. As more nations begin to put in place plans for primary and secondary education in the event of natural disasters (e.g., the Christchurch earthquakes) or pandemics (e.g., avian flu or H1N1), …

Academic Performance, Course Completion Rates, And Student Perception Of The Quality And Frequency Of Interaction In A Virtual High School, Abigail Hawkins, Charles R. Graham, Richard R. Sudweeks, Michael K. Barbour

Education Faculty Publications

This study examined the relationship between students’ perceptions of teacher–student interaction and academic performance at an asynchronous, self-paced, statewide virtual high school. Academic performance was measured by grade awarded and course completion. There were 2269 students who responded to an 18-item survey designed to measure student perceptions on the quality and frequency of teacher–student interaction. Quality of interaction was subdivided into three constructs representing feedback, procedural, and social interaction. A confirmatory factor analysis helped to establish the fit of the statistical model for teacher–student interaction. Hierarchical logistical regression indicates that an increase in the quality and frequency of interaction resulted …

Entrepreneurial Orientation In Public Schools: The View From New Jersey, Steven E. Phelan, Ane T. Johnson, Thorsten Semrau

New England Journal of Entrepreneurship

We utilize a sample of New Jersey schools to explore the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and school performance. The results indicate a significant relationship between several dimensions of EO and performance after controlling for a number of relevant variables. Charter schools were found to have higher EO than traditional schools. The implications of these findings for education and entrepreneurship research are discussed.

The Evolving Role Of Department Chair: Leading Faculty Through Times Of Change, Domenick Pinto

School of Computer Science & Engineering Faculty Publications

How does one manage conflict and change in a very volatile economic climate where academia is experiencing greater accountability, increased emphasis on outcome assessment, declining enrollment and great uncertainty for the future? The role of department chair has, in many cases, become one entrenched in conflict between the role of faculty and administrator and has experienced a tremendous evolution over the last 25 years.

The role of department chair has changed as economic, social and student climates have changed. This paper will summarize collected data from chairs of departments of various sizes and types in order to discuss and understand …

Shu Prof Receives $1.8m Grant From Albania, Robert Mccloud

Robert McCloud

No abstract provided.

Teacher Evaluation Systems And Multi-Cultural Commonalities And Challenges: England, Mexico, Portugal, Finland, Ireland, And Turkey, Jacqueline P. Kelleher, Sandra Kase

Education Faculty Publications

Our hope is that policymakers, educators, and concerned citizens will focus on teacher evaluation (in the United States) as a way to ensure high quality teaching and to promote both professional development and reflective self assessment. We advocate for credible tools and appropriate preparation of evaluators conducting the assessment of teachers and school-based staff. Further, we argue for time - time allocation for school leaders to observe and evaluate in meaningful ways, followed by targeted, rich dialogue about practice and professional growth. District level policies will need to be developed and 17 implemented to ensure this exchange can occur right …

Review Of Overcoming The Governance Challenge In K-12 Online Learning, Michael K. Barbour

Education Faculty Publications

Review by Michael K. Barbour.

Chubb, John E. Overcoming the Governance Challenge in K-12 Online Learning. Washington, DC: Thomas B. Fordham Institute, 2012.

This fifth and final paper in the Fordham Institute’s series examining digital learning policy is Overcoming the Governance Challenge in K-12 Online Learning. The purpose of this report is to outline the steps required to move the governance of K-12 online learning from the local district level to the less restrictive state level and to create a free market for corporate innovation in K-12 online learning. Unfortunately, the report is based on an unsupported premise …

Narratives From The Online Frontier: A K-12 Student’S Experience In An Online Learning Environment, Michael K. Barbour, Jason Paul Siko, Jacinda Sumara, Kaye Simuel-Everage

Education Faculty Publications

Despite a large increase in the number of students enrolled in online courses, published research on student experiences in these environments is minimal. This article reports the narrative analysis of a series of interviews conducted with a female student at a brick-and-mortar school enrolled in a single virtual school course. Her narratives describe a student who often struggled with the content in her online course and was reluctant to interact with her online teacher. When she interacted with people online, it was using text, because she was shy and the hardware often did not work. Darlene’s experiences, likely typical of …

Online Learning, Michael K. Barbour, Richard E. Ferdig

Education Faculty Publications

K-12 Online Learning has exponentially grown in the last 15 years. An estimated 1.2 million K-12 students took online classes last year; 45 states currently have some form of online learning at the state-level; and some states mandate some sort of online experience prior to high school graduation. Given its dramatic growth and ubiquity in K-12 schooling, it is critical that administrators learn more about K-12 schooling and the role it may play in their district or building. Unfortunately, there is not one single model of K-12 online schooling. Therefore, there is not one suggested set of recommendations, learnings, or …

Odyssey Of The Mind: Social Networking In Cyberschool, Michael Barbour, Cory Plough

Education Faculty Publications

K-12 online learning and cyber charter schools have grown at a tremendous rate over the past decade. At the same time, these online programs have struggled to provide the social spaces where students can interact that K-12 schools are traditionally able to provide. Social networking presents a unique opportunity to provide these kinds of social interactions in an online environment. In this article, we trace the development and use of social networking at one cyber charter school to extend the space for online instruction and provide opportunities for social interaction that online schools are often unable to provide.

Mission And Catholic Identity [Booklet], Office Of Mission And Catholic Identity

Mission Integration & Ministry Publications

‌The Office of Mission and Catholic Identity at Sacred Heart University has as its primary purpose the articulation, promotion and transmission of the Catholic Intellectual and Spiritual Tradition.

Seeing With Feeling, Michael W. Higgins

Mission Integration & Ministry Publications

Book review by Michael W. Higgins.

Haughey, John C. In Search of the Whole: Twelve Essays on Faith and Academic Life. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2011.

State Of The Nation: K–12 Online Learning In Canada, Michael K. Barbour

Education Faculty Publications

A variety of initiatives are driving online and blended learning in each of Canada’s provinces and territories. From teachers’ unions in Nova Scotia fighting to ensure online learning is an accepted method of educational delivery, to Ontario’s College of Teachers creating an e-learning endorsement for teachers or the British Columbia government creating policies to expand the growth and opportunities online learning provides, there are multiple, isolated initiatives happening across the country.

State of the Nation: K-12 Online Learning in Canada is now in its fourth year of publication and can be seen as a national guide for understanding the field …

Keeping The Lid On Charter Schools: Capping And The Politics Of Education Reform In Connecticut, Lesley A. Denardis

Political Science & Global Affairs Faculty Publications

Charter schools, public schools that operate with greater autonomy than their traditional counterparts, first opened in Minnesota in 1991. Between 1991 and 2010, they spread to 40 states and the District of Columbia. In recent months, they have received renewed policy attention under the Obama administration’s Race to the Top competitive federal grant program which rewarded states for educational innovation including the creation of charter schools. While experiencing impressive growth, charter schools lag behind traditional public schools in size and in number, accounting for only 2.9% of the total public school population nationwide. State factors that are predictive of a …

Developing And Managing I-O Online: What’S Behind The Virtual Classroom?, Maura J. Mills, Patrick A. Knight, Kurt Kraiger, William F. Mayer, Kathryn Lafontana

Psychology Faculty Publications

In recent years there has been an increase in the number of courses and degree programs offered online. This is particularly true in the field of industrial and organizational psychology, wherein many students are working professionals who, while unable to leave their jobs, are seeking convenient ways to supplement their experience with the necessary education. Despite this surge in student interest, many educators lack explicit training in making the transition to online education. Here, a variety of individuals experienced in various aspects of developing online I-O degree programs—both undergraduate and graduate—discuss best practices for such a program as well as …

The Promise And The Reality: Exploring Virtual Schooling In Rural Jurisdictions, Michael Barbour

Education Faculty Publications

The history of online learning at the K-12 level is almost as long as its history at the post-secondary level, with the first virtual school programs beginning in the early 1990s. While these opportunities were designed as a way to provide rural students with access to more specialized courses, as opportunities have become organized into virtual or cyber schools the nature of students served by these institutions have broadened. Unlike online learning in general, much less is known about virtual schooling – even less of which is based on systematic research. Regardless, the growth and practice of virtual schooling has …

An Examination Of Government Policies For E-Learning In New Zealand’S Secondary Schools, Allison Powell, Michael K. Barbour

Education Faculty Publications

In 2006 the North American Council for Online Learning surveyed the activity and policy relating to primary and secondary e-learning, which they defined as online learning, in a selection of countries. They found most were embracing e-learning delivery of education as a central strategy for enabling reform, modernising schools, and increasing access to high-quality education. While North American countries appeared to be using the internet as a medium to provide distance education at the secondary level longer than most countries, the lack of a guiding vision has created uneven opportunities for students depending on which state or province they live …

Shu's Robert Mccloud Teaches Class Of 2 Million Children: Computer-Aided Learning In Albania, Robert Mccloud

Robert McCloud

No abstract provided.

Distributed Learning In British Columbia: A Journey From Correspondence To Online Delivery, Tim Winkelmans, Barry Anderson, Michael Barbour

Education Faculty Publications

Canada is characterised by a large geographic area, rugged terrain, and many rural communities whose schools cannot offer the same educational opportunities as their urban counterparts. The province of British Columbia exemplifi es this situation. Since 1919, British Columbia has embraced open and distance learning to provide education opportunities across the vast province. British Columbia now has over 50 public and independent (i.e., private) schools offering distributed learning to almost 60,000 students in primary and secondary education.

Plagiarism: The Legal Landscape, Robert Berry

Librarian Publications

In Chapter 10, Robert Berry discusses legal issues regarding plagiarism and academic cases of intellectual dishonesty.

From the Introduction: Colleges and universities with plagiarism policies that are fundamentally fair—and that are applied consistently—enjoy three significant advantages over those that do not. First, these schools enjoy greater legitimacy in the eyes of the people who must live with their decisions. They exercise genuine moral authority in their decision making, which is much more consistent with the goals of education, and they avoid the exercise of raw power that often accompanies ad hoc decision making. Second, educational institutions with fair policies are …

The Human Journey: Embracing The Essential Learning Outcomes, Michelle Loris

English Faculty Publications

At the beginning of the second decade of the twenty-first century, a new vision for college learning is clearly in view. Through its Liberal Education and America's Promise (LEAP) initiative, the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) has outlined what contemporary college students need to know and be able to do--in ever-changing economic, political, environmental, global, and cross-cultural contexts. The LEAP essential learning outcomes provide a framework to guide student learning in both general education and the major. The LEAP initiative calls upon college administrators and faculty members to give priority to these essential learning outcomes in order to …

Engaging The Catholic Intellectual Tradition - Sacred Heart University's Common Core: The Human Journey, Michelle Loris

Mission Integration & Ministry Publications

At Catholic universities we have lofty and ambitious learning outcomes for our graduates. We want to provide our students with the knowledge, ideas, skills, and critical abilities needed to understand} reflect upon, and act with purpose and effect in our increasingly complex, ever-changing, global-world. We want to equip our students with the intellectual abilities, spiritual discernment, and moral and ethical principles that will enable them to distinguish between those things which inspire the mind, satisfy the soul, and advance the human good - and those things which do not. We want to develop in them the intelligence and compassion needed …

“Good Politics Is Good Government”: The Troubling History Of Mayoral Control Of The Public Schools In Twentieth-Century Chicago, James C. Carl

Education Faculty Publications

This article looks at urban education through the vantage point of Chicago’s mayors. It begins with Carter H. Harrison II (who served from 1897 to 1905 and again from 1911 to 1915) and ends with Richard M. Daley (1989 to the present), with most of the focus on four long-serving mayors: William Hale Thompson (1915–23 and 1927–31), Edward Kelly (1933–47), Richard J. Daley (1955–76), and Harold Washington (1983–87). Mayors exercised significant leverage in the Chicago Public Schools throughout the twentieth century, making the history of Chicago mayors’ educational politics relevant to the contemporary trend in urban education to give more …

Beyond Volunteerism And Good Will: Examining The Commitment Of Schoolbased Teachers To Distance Education, Michael K. Barbour, Dennis Mulcahy

Education Faculty Publications

Two decades ago Newfoundland and Labrador introduced distance education in the K-12 environment. The program focused upon providing advanced-level courses to rural school students, and worked largely due to the widely known, but rarely documented significant amounts of content-based assistance from school based personnel. In the past seven years the province has moved to a virtual school model of distance education and more rural schools find that they must rely upon this virtual school to offer academic-level courses to students with a wide range of abilities. This has created many new responsibilities for teachers that have also gone undocumented. Studies …

Today’S Student And Virtual Schooling: The Reality, The Challenges, The Promise, Michael K. Barbour

Education Faculty Publications

Introduction:

In 2008 I was approached to deliver a keynote address at the biennial conference of the Distance Education Association of New Zealand (DEANZ) in Wellington on the topic of today’s student and K–12 distance education. Several months ago, Mark Nichols asked me if I would be interested in putting some of the ideas that I discussed as a part of that August 2008 presentation into a manuscript for the Journal of Distance Learning. This paper represents my best efforts to summarise and expand on those ideas.

As in my 2008 keynote, I want to discuss three main themes …

Determining The Role Of Technology In Supporting The Professional Growth Of Administrative Leadership Candidates, Antoinette P. Bruciati, Gail Nordmoe

Education Faculty Publications

School improvement planning that is guided through data-driven decision making has been recognized as a “best practice” among educational leaders for many years. Although national standards for school administrators routinely incorporate educational and information technology components, state boards of education do not currently mandate technology training for those enrolled in programs leading to administrative certification. As a result, many school administrators may not be adequately prepared to use computer and information technologies supportive of their roles and responsibilities. This investigation examined the perceptions and current technological literacy of individuals enrolled in a university-level Administrative Leadership Program. Research focused on the …

From Workout To Winning, Bridget Lyons, Robert Hardy

WCBT Faculty Publications

Over the past three years, executives at General Electric (GE) have taught administrators at Sacred Heart University, located in Fairfield, CT, how to use the workout technique to identify and improve inefficient institutional processes and practices. This article will explain how Sacred Heart implemented the workout process, with a particular emphasis on factors contributing to successful workouts and the issues nonprofits encounter. GE has credited the workout with both improving processes and empowering the workforce. The workout, which has led to accelerated change and enhanced Six Sigma efforts, begins with identifying a problem. Many at GE note that the workout …

Shu Prof Receives $1.8m Grant From Albania, Robert Mccloud

Robert McCloud

No abstract provided.