Education Commons^™

Open Educational Resources: A Catalyst For Innovation, Dominic Orr, Michele Rimini, Dirk Van Damme

Concepts in Animal Parasitology Textbook

Foreword:

Open educational resources (OER) are rapidly becoming a major phenomenon in education across OECD countries and beyond. Initiated largely at the level of institutions by pioneers and technology advocates, the OER community has grown considerably over the past ten years and the impact of OER on educational systems has become an issue of public policy. The open education community is increasingly well organised and enjoys support from various institutions and foundations. National governments have developed, or are in the process of developing, open policies to support access to and use of OER.

It is the task of the OECD …

Exploring Teachers’ Perspectives Of Cooperative Learning To Create Music In Orff Schulwerk Classrooms, Nicole A. Chapman

Glenn Korff School of Music: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Creative Work, and Performance

The Framework for 21st Century Learning identifies four learning and innovation skills to prepare students for a changing world. The 4Cs identified are critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity (Framework for 21st Century Learning, 2015). With the adoption of this new teaching framework, it is important that music educators evaluate their own teaching methods to meet the needs of their students in a changing society. The purpose of this study was to examine how cooperative group learning is currently integrated in the Orff-Schulwerk certified teachers’ elementary music classroom as part of the creative music process. In this qualitative study, I …

The Power Of Nature: Developing Prosocial Behavior Toward Nature And Peers Through Nature-Based Activities, Ibrahim H. Acar, Julia C. Torquati

Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies: Faculty Publications

An early childhood teacher nurtures children’s perspective taking and respect for another living thing. These interactions happen daily at the Schlitz Audubon Nature Center (SANC) Preschool in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Experiences like this promote children’s development of prosocial behavior, consistent with the Early Childhood Environmental Education Programs: Guidelines for Excellence (NAAEE 2010). This article examines the research question, How can teachers nurture the development of prosocial behavior for preschool-aged children through nature-based play and activities? To address this question, five researchers (including the second author) conducted 74 running record observations of children’s behavior and social interactions over the course of two …

Journal Of The National Collegiate Honors Council, Volume 16, Number 2, Fall/Winter 2015 (Complete Issue)

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

50th Anniversary Issue

Forum on the Value of Honors

with essays by James Herbert and by 39 college and university presidents:

Paul W. Ferguson, President of Ball State University; Honors Dean: James S. Ruebel

J. David Armstrong, Jr., President of Broward College; Honors Director: Sheila Jones

Soraya M. Coley, President of Cal Poly Pomona; Honors Director: Suketu P. Bhavsar

Elizabeth A. Dinndorf, President of Columbia College; Honors Director: John Zubizarreta

Quintin B. Bullock, President of Community College of Allegheny County; Honors Director: Julia Fennell

Michael T. Benson, President of Eastern Kentucky University; Interim Honors Director: David Coleman

Jake B. Schrum, …

Imagination: Active In Teaching And Learning, Christopher Cunningham

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

This autoethnography tells the story of the author’s endeavor to examine my teaching during a sculpture lesson in three 2^nd grade art classes in a mid-western suburban Title I elementary school. I analyze my planning, teaching, reflecting through the lens of Stuart Richmond’s Characteristics of Imaginative Teaching as well as noted educational theorists’ conceptions of imagination and imaginative teaching and learning. These theorists include but are not limited to Maxine Greene, Kieran Egan, John Dewey, and The Lincoln Center Institute’s Capacities for Imaginative Learning. I conclude that imaginative teaching is an intentional act and that there is no …

The Writing Process: Using Peer Review To Develop Student Writing, Jennifer M. Troester

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The following thesis will explore how peer review through an online writing exchange influences student writers during the writing process. I propose that when students participate in this online writing exchange to peer review, it will assure that they will have a better understanding of the writing process, and more confidence in analyzing their own writing and in themselves as writers. It also makes these students more conscientious of the writing they share with peers because they have a wider audience than just their teacher, and this motivates them to improve their writing. The last part of the document features …

Transforming Precalculus Instruction: Evidence-Based Course Design, Wendy M. Smith

DBER Speaker Series

The UNL Mathematics Department has been focused on transforming precalculus instruction since 2012, with a goal of greater levels of student success. A short-term measure of student success is the passing rate (C or better), which has jumped from an average of 62% (2007-2011) to 80% for the past two falls. A longer-term measure of student success is recruiting and retaining undergraduates to STEM disciplines and careers. In this talk I will share specifics of the reform efforts (the who-what-when-where-why-and-how), and also share preliminary results from the research we have simultaneously been conducting into the reform efforts.

The Effects Of An Early Intervention Mastery Activity In The Mathematics Department, Nathan Wakefield, Joe Champion, Doug Dailey, Jessalyn Bolkema

DBER Speaker Series

At the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, nearly 1000 students sign up for one of College Algebra, or College Algebra and Trigonometry every fall. Of these students, more than 75% are first time freshman. Finding ways to motivate and encourage these students together with early identification strategy for struggling students is critical to success not just in the math course, but also in a student’s university career. This presentation will discuss the design and outcomes an early intervention mastery activity with the broad goals of helping students recall previously learned mathematics, and identifying students who are at risk for failure, all within …

Journal Of The National Collegiate Honors Council, Volume 16, Number 1, Spring/Summer 2015 (Complete Issue)

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Forum on “Honors and the future of the humanities”

Larry Andrews

Frances McCue

Angela Marie Salas

Andrew Martino

Amaris Ketcham

Annmarie Guzy

Barbra Nightingale

Joe Kraus

Research essay

Naomi Yavneh Klos, Kendall Eskine, and Michael Pashkevich

Portz-prize-winning essay, 2014

Sam Shearer

The Disabled Teacher: A Memoir Of An Interrupted Pedagogical Career, A Life With A Chronic Illness, And An Encounter With Real Barriers To Inclusive Education, Dorothy M. Bossman

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

This dissertation is a narrative exploration of multiple themes relevant to education research: the relationship between the university and school, epistemology, teacher identity, disability studies, researcher subjectivity, and the retention of quality educators. This work of “autoethnography” (Ellis, Bochner, & Adams, 2011) approaches these topics through the tellings of a teaching career, the awakening of an education scholar, and the development of a chronic illness. While the focus of this inquiry often returns to the researcher’s pedagogical identity, the three storylines interact in myriad ways that relate to the larger field. Removal of one of these narrative threads would, metaphorically, …

Introduction To Educational Measurement: Cramming A Semester­Long Course Into A One‐Hour Presentation, Tony Albano

DBER Speaker Series

1. Test design 1. Construct – the unobservable trait or attribute we want to measure; 2. Operationalizing – translating the construct into something observable; 3. Measurement – using scores to represent amounts of the construct via operations; 4. Scale – a set of operations (items) used to create composite scores; 5. Inference – assuming our scores describe some change in the construct; 6. Reliability – extent to which inferences are consistent; 7. Validity – extent to which inferences are accurate; 8. Purpose – the who, what, and why

2. Item writing — Standards or learning objectives – define what students …

Climate Change Skeptics Teach Climate Literacy? A Content Analysis Of Children’S Books, Julie Thomas

DBER Speaker Series

This research focused on skeptical climate change literature designed for children and parents. The purpose of the research was to explore how these pseudo‐educational materials convey a logic of nonproblematicity about climate change (McCright & Dunlap, 2000). Using rhetorical analyses procedures developed from previous excavations in skeptical discourses, this study identified: (a) common forms of climate skepticism, (b) frames for climate change policy making, (c) areas of contested scientific knowledge, and (d) appeals for managing the uncertainty of climate change. The results suggest that the logic of non‐problematicity about environmental problems is bolstered by contradictory forms of climate change skepticism …

Engaging Teenagers With Science Through Comics, Judy Diamond

DBER Speaker Series

Graphic novels or comics are powerful tools to motivate youth to become interested in science. Embedding science concepts into a story with graphics that appeal to teen culture makes abstract content approachable, stimulates youth interest, and promotes learning. This presentation will discuss the goals of the NIH‐funded World of Viruses and Biology of Human comic series and the research results that support using these approaches.

Do Your Homework First, And Then Go Play!, Larry Andrews

National Collegiate Honors Council Monographs: Chapters

In the fall of 2006, after five years of planning, the Kent State University Honors College inaugurated in the heart of the campus a new honors center: two residence halls framing an office, library, and classroom space came to life. The new center overlooked the Commons, an open green space home to student games and student protests. The hill above the Commons was the site of the National Guard shootings of May 4, 1970, and the relationship of this tragedy to honors at KSU became an important part of the thinking about this new location.

The Kent State University Honors …

Honors Housing: Castle Or Prison?, Richard Badenhausen

National Collegiate Honors Council Monographs: Chapters

In its “Basic Characteristics” of fully developed honors programs and colleges—lists that have become increasingly prescriptive over the years—the National Collegiate Honors Council (NCHC) identifies “best practices that are common to successful” honors programs and colleges (2014a). One of those practices includes the establishing of separate honors residential opportunities for students, despite the fact that such dedicated space is a bad idea in many instances. In light of the old saying that “one man’s castle is another man’s prison,” I will lay out some of the reasons why honors housing is not a good in itself. I hope to complicate …

Pick Your Battles: It Is Possible To Have Belonging Without A Space To Belong To, Mariah Birgen

National Collegiate Honors Council Monographs: Chapters

When Wartburg College began its new honors program 10 years ago, its architects thought they had done everything right. They sent a team to the National Collegiate Honors Council National Conference. They studied the “Basic Characteristics of a Fully Developed Honors Program” (National Collegiate Honors Council, 2014). They even decided to start small. Unfortunately, even meticulous preparation cannot overcome all difficulties. One of the characteristics, however, is to have a location to house the honors program. Wartburg’s 10-year saga of honors locations and lessons learned about honors space has produced this wisdom: honors directors and supporters should never give up …

One Size Does Not Fit All: When Honors Housing May Not Work, Laura Feitzinger Brown

National Collegiate Honors Council Monographs: Chapters

The gracious donor, the dean, and the other honors program director and I walk down the corridor of an old campus building needing repair but possessing a great deal of charm. While a science classroom building is being renovated, this hall houses temporary offices for displaced faculty. We look at the high ceilings in a room now used as a faculty break room and admire the way the morning sunlight plays on the walls. This room would make an amazing honors student lounge. Renovating the entire building would create a terrific honors dorm that could attract talented prospective students and …

It Came With Everything: A Baby Grand Piano, Hardwood Floors, Regular Flooding, 200 Honors Students, And A Live-In Scholar, Gloria Cox

National Collegiate Honors Council Monographs: Chapters

When the University of North Texas (UNT) opened its new Honors Hall on a hot Sunday in late August 2007, it was a residence hall in which everyone took considerable pride. Students loved the many amenities that the building featured, and they took pride in being able to call Honors Hall home. From the perspective of the honors college, the most significant feature was an apartment in which a scholar would live—a scholar who would be involved in the life of the hall and would, therefore, be engaged with the students who lived there. At that time, no other residence …

Images For Part Ii: Profiles Of Spaces And Places In Honors

National Collegiate Honors Council Monographs: Chapters

No abstract provided.

Where Honors Lives: Results From A Survey Of The Structures And Spaces Of U.S. Honors Programs And Colleges, Linda Frost, Lisa W. Kay

National Collegiate Honors Council Monographs: Chapters

The ninth item on the National Collegiate Honors Council’s (2014b) list of “Basic Characteristics of a Fully Developed Honors Program” reads:

The program is located in suitable, preferably prominent, quarters on campus that provide both access for the students and a focal point for honors activity. Those accommodations include space for honors administrative, faculty, and support staff functions as appropriate. They may include space for an honors lounge, library, reading rooms, and computer facilities. If the honors program has a significant residential component, the honors housing and residential life functions are designed to meet the academic and social needs of …

What We Talk About When We Talk About Housing Honors, Linda Frost

National Collegiate Honors Council Monographs: Chapters

When I went to college in the early 1980s at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, I entered as a freshman in the honors program. I have very specific memories of those first classes I took as an honors student—a section of honors sociology in which I wrote a case study of my German immigrant grandfather; an honors seminar in 1930s avant garde theatre in which the students wrote and performed plays based on the dreams they recorded nightly in their dream journals; an honors marine biology lab that ended at the professor’s house with a dinner where the group …

Building Honors Community Through Honors Housing, Barry Falk

National Collegiate Honors Council Monographs: Chapters

A strong sense of honors community is a fundamentally important characteristic of a vibrant honors program or college. In fact, I am fond of saying that “community, community, community” are the three most important characteristics of a strong honors program. The idea of community does not appear, however, in the National Collegiate Honors Council’s “Basic Characteristics of a Fully Developed Honors College” or the “Basic Characteristics of a Fully Developed Honors Program.” Perhaps that absence is because this characteristic, regardless of how it is expressed, would be difficult to verify.

Living In Hogwarts: The Experience Of A Dean Of Honors And His Wife While Living In An Honors Residence Hall, Keith Garbutt, Christine Garbutt

National Collegiate Honors Council Monographs: Chapters

On Friday, May 17, 2013, we watched the class of 2013 Honors Scholars at West Virginia University (WVU) enter the Honors Convocation to the sound of Non Nobis Domine. While certainly not our first Honors Scholars graduation since Keith had been running honors at WVU, it was nonetheless special. This cohort of graduates was the first freshman class to live in the specially built residence hall that houses the honors college administrative offices, each new freshman class of the honors college, and an apartment for faculty living in-residence.

The Genesis Of Barrett, The Honors College At Arizona State University, Mark Jacobs

National Collegiate Honors Council Monographs: Chapters

The honors college at Arizona State University (ASU) had its roots in the distributed honors programs in departments and schools that began in 1958 as ASU became a university by a statewide popular vote. It started as an honors college when it was created in 1988 by order of the Arizona Board of Regents (ABOR), the only honors college in the state established in this way. The founding dean of what was at first called the ASU University Honors College was Ted Humphrey, who had earlier directed the university honors program. Professor Humphrey had very specific ideas about what the …

The Colliding Cultures Of Honors And Housing, Melissa L. Johnson, Elizabeth Mcneil, Cory Lee, Kathy Keeter

National Collegiate Honors Council Monographs: Chapters

The University of Florida’s honors residential college was completed in 2002. It remains the newest and most expensive residence hall on campus to this day, housing more than 600 honors students, a faculty-in-residence, a classroom, and a multiroom study lounge. On paper, the residential college is a beautiful partnership between Florida’s University Honors Program and the Department of Housing and Residential Education. In practice, however, two distinct cultures have emerged between the two offices.

Living To Learn, Learning For Life: Housing Honors Classrooms And Offices In An Honors Residence Hall, Karen Lyons

National Collegiate Honors Council Monographs: Chapters

I left the interview with high-hopes: being Assistant Director of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Honors Program sounded like an excellent fit for me. A full-time job, a real income, and no longer having to depend on year-to-year contracts as an adjunct were appealing. The opportunity to teach tied into my strengths, and since I had taught UNL honors classes previously, I knew the high quality of the students. I also knew the director and was excited about the prospect of working with him. As I wended my way, in heels and suit, through the extensive construction going on in the …

Building Community In Árbol De La Vida, Patricia Maccorquodale

National Collegiate Honors Council Monographs: Chapters

Building community has been part of the mission of the University of Arizona Honors College since its founding in 1962. In 2011, a new honors residence hall opened that epitomizes its community of scholars. This essay explores how an honors hall— through its design and programming—can build community, emphasize sustainability, facilitate learning, and encourage an outward focus. This housing experience reinforces the values and goals of honors education and contributes to a personalized, close-knit community in the context of a large, public university.

Honors Students’ Perceptions Of The Value And Importance Of Honors Housing, Angela D. Mead, Samantha Rieger, Leslie Sargent Jones

National Collegiate Honors Council Monographs: Chapters

In 2011, we participated in a panel presentation, entitled “Where Honors Lives,” about the new honors college complex then under construction at Appalachian State University (ASU). This complex was to consist of two new buildings: a ten-story residence hall for the honors college students and a three-story building with honors offices and classrooms on the top two floors. Unfortunately, between initial planning in the mid-2000s and building five years later, University Housing changed its mind and decided freshmen would not be allowed to live there because suite-style housing was deemed inappropriate for that population. Current honors students could live there, …

Honors Space: What To Do When There Isn’T Any, Joy Ochs

National Collegiate Honors Council Monographs: Chapters

I direct a small honors program from my faculty office in the English Department at Mount Mercy University, which is an institution that is outgrowing its tiny campus. It is an exciting time, with new graduate programs and athletic facilities being added. But there is not enough space. At the end of May 2013, a memo from Academic Affairs made this request: “please contact your students to pack up any personal items they have left in the Honors Lounge, as we need to repurpose that room over the summer.” I have received a memo like this about every year or …

Life Of The Mind/Life Of The House: “This Place Matters”, Vicki Ohl

National Collegiate Honors Council Monographs: Chapters

“This Place Matters,” the slogan of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, proclaims the importance of a physical property to the understanding of history, traditions, and values (“This place matters,” 2013). “This Place” may be a single room, a building, a neighborhood, or an entire city. The National Collegiate Honors Council has long recognized the power of place by dedicating an extended session at its annual meetings to the exploration of the host city, its popular City as Text™ explorations. Although a community is ultimately defined by its people, the location and architecture contribute to a setting and a history …