Education Commons^™

Understanding The American Subaltern: An Exploration Of Complex Literary Characters Through Socio-Cultural Lenses, Sophie Gioffre

English Summer Fellows

This project involves the analysis of three novels — Stephen Crane’s Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, Ann Petry’s The Street, and Toni Morrison’s Sula — featuring main characters who are forced to navigate realistic socio-economic environments rooted in racist, sexist, and classist systems of oppression in the United States of America. Through the process of completing close-readings of the novels, conducting extensive secondary research on historical contexts, and examining other scholarly criticisms and interpretations of these novels, I develop new insights into the main characters’ plights. To transfer this conceptual understanding into a more personal and empathetic …

A Mile In My Shoes: A Website For First-Generation Immigrants, Chelsey Thomas

International Relations Summer Fellows

What are the most important variables to consider when applying for college? What really makes a school worth it? This project looks to tackle questions such as these by analyzing Pell grant rates, graduation and admission rates, and default rates among colleges as well as their social and cultural pros and cons. The overall goal of this is a push for transparency as well as bridging the gap between higher education and students.

Examining Alumni Perceptions Of Social And Cultural Capital Accumulation Through Ursinus’S Summer Fellows Program, Sydney Dickson

Anthropology Honors Papers

A common offering among undergraduate institutions is an intensive summer research program, which allows students to complete a project independently without any other academic obligations. These programs are designed to foster useful skills, valuable relationships, and scholarly work. Ursinus College, a small liberal arts college in Pennsylvania, has such a program: Summer Fellows. With colleges attempting to appeal to a decreasing number of high-achieving applicants, student desire to pursue intellectual interests, and employers looking for skilled job candidates, it is worthwhile to examine the perceived efficacy of this program. This paper utilizes the perspectives of alumni reflecting on what they …

Millennial Culture And Epistemology: Exploring The Meaning-Making Discourse Of An Emerging Generation, Sophia Driscoll Gamber

Sociology Honors Papers

Millennial Culture and Epistemology takes a mixed methods approach to understanding the culture and epistemological processes of the current cohort of millennial undergraduate students at a small residential liberal arts college. The study first identifies specific trends in epistemological frameworks, ethics, and claimed spiritual/religious identities among a sample of undergraduate students and finds that students are commonly utilizing subjectivist epistemological frameworks that are built around cultural relativism and skepticism. The study then unpacks markers of undergraduate millennial culture as they relate to epistemology and finds that students’ stances on issues of community, social ethics and responsibility, religion, and spirituality are …

Imls Sparks Ignite Il Framework Cooperative Project Final Performance Report, Appendix F: Outcomes & Indicators For Student Performance, Jessame Ferguson

IMLS SPARKS Ignite IL Framework Cooperative Project for At-Risk Student Success in Smaller Colleges

This document is an appendix to the Final Performance Report for the IMLS Sparks Ignite IL Framework Cooperative project. It contains the four outcomes and the performance indicators for each outcome.

Imls Sparks Ignite Il Framework Cooperative Project Final Performance Report, Appendix D: Focus Group Report, Joel M. Wright, Jessame Ferguson

IMLS SPARKS Ignite IL Framework Cooperative Project for At-Risk Student Success in Smaller Colleges

This appendix to the Final Performance Report for the IMLS Sparks IL Cooperative Project grant is the report on the focus groups. The focus group research summarized herein represents a segment of the overall IMLS grant proposal process, and should be viewed not as a separate endeavor, but rather as an integrated approach to the overall research questions in the grant proposal. In conjunction with the pre-test/post-test survey driven component, the findings from the focus group research help to strengthen the case for the value of librarian-driven pedagogy in positively impacting the academic and intellectual growth of all students, and …

Imls Sparks Ignite Il Framework Cooperative Project Final Performance Report, Jessame Ferguson

IMLS SPARKS Ignite IL Framework Cooperative Project for At-Risk Student Success in Smaller Colleges

This is the Final Performance Report for the SPARKS Ignite IL Framework Cooperative Project for At‐Risk Student Success in Smaller Colleges. Through a partnership of five institutions led by McDaniel College, we developed new best practices for ensuring information literacy education programs at smaller institutions support success and persistence of at‐risk students in their critical first‐year. We used the newly adopted Association of College & Research Libraries Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education to develop and test new assessment methodologies and engaging educational experiences for first‐year students. The project took place in 2017. The report summarizes our successes, challenges …

Imls Sparks Ignite Il Framework Cooperative Project Mapped Learning Activities, Outcomes & Indicators, Jessica Barbera, Jim Huff, Christine Iannicelli, Marianne Sade, Samantha Martin

IMLS SPARKS Ignite IL Framework Cooperative Project for At-Risk Student Success in Smaller Colleges

This spreadsheet was used to collect learning activities, map learning activities to outcomes and indicators, and identify which outcomes and indicators would have the greatest impact. We invite others to review this map and use, modify, and/or add to this list. Please share your new creations with us, too.

• Key:
  • Learning activities that we identified as potentially impactful have blue text
  • Learning activities that we used in our final instruction plan are highlighted in pale yellow
  • “X” shows indicators that were addressed directly by the learning activity
  • “/” shows indicators that were indirectly addressed by the learning activity
  • Green indicators …

Imls Sparks Ignite Il Framework Cooperative Project Teaching Materials: Scaffolded Learning Activities, Jessica Barbera, Jim Huff, Christine Iannicelli, Marianne Sade, Samantha Martin

IMLS SPARKS Ignite IL Framework Cooperative Project for At-Risk Student Success in Smaller Colleges

This document shows the scaffolding used to develop the educational materials used for the instruction sessions.

Imls Sparks Ignite Il Framework Cooperative Project Pre-Test Qualtrics File (Mcdaniel College), Jessame Ferguson

IMLS SPARKS Ignite IL Framework Cooperative Project for At-Risk Student Success in Smaller Colleges

This is the Qualtrics file containing the information literacy skills Pre-Test that was used by McDaniel College.

Imls Sparks Ignite Il Framework Cooperative Project Post-Test Qualtrics File (Mcdaniel College), Jessame Ferguson

IMLS SPARKS Ignite IL Framework Cooperative Project for At-Risk Student Success in Smaller Colleges

This is the Qualtrics file containing the information literacy skills post-test that was used at McDaniel College.

Imls Sparks Ignite Il Framework Cooperative Project Pre-Test, Jessame Ferguson, Diane Skorina, Ronalee Ciocco, April Cunningham

IMLS SPARKS Ignite IL Framework Cooperative Project for At-Risk Student Success in Smaller Colleges

This is a pdf file of the pre-test that was administered to students before they received any information literacy instruction. The pre-test contains all the questions that were in the post-test, plus several extra that were only asked on the pre-test.

Imls Sparks Ignite Il Framework Cooperative Project Teaching Materials: Scholarly Vs. Popular, Jessica Barbera, Jim Huff, Christine Iannicelli, Marianne Sade, Samantha Martin

IMLS SPARKS Ignite IL Framework Cooperative Project for At-Risk Student Success in Smaller Colleges

This handout was used as part of the instructional materials for the project.

Imls Sparks Ignite Il Framework Cooperative Project Teaching Materials: Slide Presentation Template, Jessica Barbera, Jim Huff, Christine Iannicelli, Marianne Sade, Samantha Martin

IMLS SPARKS Ignite IL Framework Cooperative Project for At-Risk Student Success in Smaller Colleges

This slide presentation, adapted from Google Slides to PowerPoint, was used as a template by our cohort for the instructional sessions that were part of the information literacy grant project.

Imls Sparks Ignite Il Framework Cooperative Project Teaching Materials: Powerpoint Presentation (Ursinus College), Jessica Barbera, Jim Huff, Christine Iannicelli, Marianne L. Sade, Samantha Martin

IMLS SPARKS Ignite IL Framework Cooperative Project for At-Risk Student Success in Smaller Colleges

This is the PowerPoint presentation used by Ursinus College for the instructional sessions that were part of the information literacy grant project.