Education Commons^™

Agro/Hort 403/803: Scientific Writing And Communication—A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Inquiry Portfolio, Brian M. Waters

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

Scientific writing is a skill that is useful for science students, since many of them will write about their research in a thesis, dissertation, or in journal articles. The goal of my course is to provide students with practice and training in scientific writing so that after they take the course they are confident and ready to write drafts independently. The class uses many learning activities, such as reading, writing, peer reviewing, revising, and class discussions. However, the first two iterations of the course did not have built-in ways to practice sentence and paragraph editing, or to gauge quality of …

Ae 2250: Construction Graphics And Design—A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Benchmark Portfolio, Asregedew Woldesenbet

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

This course portfolio designs and documents AE 2250 (Construction Design and Graphics) course that is taught in Spring 2016 at UNL's College of Engineering under the Durham School of Architectural Engineering and Construction program. The course is intended to introduce BIM (Building Information Modeling) to architectural engineering, construction engineering, construction management and civil engineering students ranging from freshman to juniors. This course portfolio documents the challenges associated with delivering this course, tailors the course objectives, activities and tracking measures to meet the course objectives throughout the semester. This portfolio uses quantitative and qualitative measures to track student performances and learning …

Plpt 496/892: Disease Dynamics & Evolution—A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Benchmark Portfolio, Sydney E. Everhart

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

This benchmark course portfolio was developed as a component of the University of Nebraska Peer Review of Teaching. The course selected for this portfolio was a new course developed and taught as an Independent Study PLPT 496/892. The working title for the course was Disease Dynamics and Evolution. This course was designed to cover core concepts of disease ecology and pathogen emergence/evolution. Concepts were organism-agnostic and important for understanding infectious diseases of humans, animals, and plants. The course format was lecture-based and inquiry driven, using primary literature as case studies. The goal of this course was to use interesting and …

Modl: 398: Women In Quran—A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Inquiry Portfolio, Abla Hasan

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

This project highlights the experience of teaching Quran as a literature through MODL 298: “Women in Quran”. This course is an attempt to read Quran as a diachronically approached literature and discover what would the analytic, linguistic as well as the critical study of both the Qur’anic text and its exegesis reveal when it comes to feminism and gender issues in Islam.

Alec/Adpr 207: Communicating To Public Audiences—A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Inquiry Portfolio, Karen J. Cannon

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

A significant amount of research in teaching and learning is conducted exploring large enrollment courses. Often it seems as if we believe that the panacea is smaller class sizes. However, challenges exist in smaller enrollment courses as well. This inquiry portfolio explores an introductory, sophomore level course in strategic communication with an enrollment of 20 students. Despite the smaller number of students in the course, significant challenges exist and over the five spring semesters I’ve taught the class, one consistent challenge remains – how to bridge the wide range of student ability, knowledge, and experience of students in the course. …

Pols 430: Political Communication—A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Benchmark Portfolio, Brandon Bosch

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

This course portfolio was created to articulate, assess, and reflect upon my course objectives for a political communication class that I taught in Spring 2016. Of particular note was my objective in trying to use a Verbal Exam to assess student learning. Although I encountered some difficulties in implementing the Verbal Exam, students seemed to be either neutral or somewhat supportive of having a Verbal Exam, with students generally inclined to thinking that they learned something about interviews from the process and showing some mild support for them being used in other classes. It is worth noting that the Verbal …

瑞吉欧·艾米利亚的教师研究： 一个充满活力并不断演变的角色的精髓 / Teacher Research In Reggio Emilia: Essence Of A Dynamic, Evolving Role (Chinese Translated Version)., Carolyn P. Edwards, Lella Gandini

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

The Reggio Emilia approach to early childhood education has been studied for more than 50 years. Today, following the influx of new families, tighter financial situation in local government and a generational turnover of educators, there are changes seen in the role and practice of teachers, but also continuities with the past. Teachers are seen as researchers, where research is not only an attitude and approach in everyday living in and outside early childhood programs, but also a questioning attitude and inquiry process. Besides, as colleagues within a network and organization, teachers, with mutual collaboration, and observing and documenting child’s …

Representing Teachers As Criminals In The News: A Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis Of The Atlanta Schools’ “Cheating Scandal”, Theresa Catalano, Lauren Gatti

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

On April 1, 2015, 11 Atlanta teachers accused of changing answers on their students’ standardized tests were convicted of racketeering and sentenced to 5–20 years in prison. Despite ample news coverage, few sources investigated teachers’ motivations for altering students’ responses or explored what the consequences would have been if student scores had not been changed to passing. Moreover, the fact that the teachers’ actions resulted from systemic problems associated with working within a high-stakes testing environment is glossed over and all but lost in the reporting of the “Cheating Scandal” events. The authors conduct a critical multimodal analysis of how …

Three Reading-Intervention Teachers’ Identity Positioning And Practices To Motivate And Engage Emergent Bilinguals In An Urban Middle School, Jung-In Kim, Kara Mitchell Viesca

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

This study investigated three urban middle-school teachers’ practices with respect to motivating and engaging emergent bilinguals in reading-intervention classrooms by exploring the teachers’ identity positioning. The three teachers’ sociocultural and sociopolitical positioning of their students (e.g. students as individuals, as monolithic learners, or as problems) was found to be related to their practices for motivating and engaging the students (e.g. hybrid, calibrated, or imposed practices). The teachers’ historical and current resources partially shaped how they positioned their students. The findings support that teachers should not only learn motivational practices but also reflect critically on positioning processes in the classroom.

Multilingual Pedagogies And Pre-Service Teachers: Implementing “Language As A Resource” Orientations In Teacher Education Programs, Theresa Catalano, Edmund T. Hamann

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

While Ruiz’s (1984) influential work on language orientations has substantively influenced how we study and talk about language planning, few teacher education programs today actually embed his framework in the praxis of preparing pre-service and practicing teachers. Hence, the primary purpose of this article is to demonstrate new understandings and expansions of Ruiz’s language-as-resource (LAR) approach and ways in which teacher education programs can model this orientation in their own classes, including those programs, like ours, that prepare mostly monolingual preservice and in-service teachers to work with bi/multilingual students. The authors pursue this by laying out the theoretical framework for …

Representations Of Power: A Critical Multimodal Analysis Of U.S. Ceos, The Italian Mafia And Government In The Media, Theresa Catalano, Linda R. Waugh

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

In September 2008, the collapse of the bank Lehman Brothers led to a financial crisis and the worst recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s, threatening the entire global financial system. Some of the effects of the crisis included evictions, foreclosures and high and prolonged unemployment. Despite the fact that bankers and corporate executives are widely known to bear much of the blame for the crisis (“The origins of the financial crisis,” 2013), very few have actually been convicted of any crime. In addition, recent investigations of the relationship between the New York Federal Reserve and banks such as …

What Does Motivated Mean? Re-Presenting Learning, Technology, And Motivation In Middle Schools Via New Ethnographic Writing, Justin Olmanson

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

This article offers a critique of the way middle schoolers are often positioned as generalizable objects that can be acted upon to produce measurable increases in motivation and learning. The critique invites a reconsideration and cultural analysis of some of the dominant discourses and perceptions of technology, young adolescence, and the study of motivation. The use of New Ethnographic Writing—a method that performs a cultural critique via extended scenes—connects to the roles and status of motivation, technology, and educational research methods deployed within public schools. Coupled with weak theory, this approach offers a way to understand young adolescents as navigating …

Being The “First”: A Narrative Inquiry Into The Funds Of Knowledge Of First Generation College Students In Teacher Education, Jeong-Hee Kim, Amanda Morales, Rusty Earl, Sandra Avalos

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

This study documents the life stories of eight First Generation College (FGC) students and alumni in education. Using narrative inquiry as our methodology, we the researchers sought to better understand the lived experiences, struggles and triumphs shared through stories of three postgraduates and five current students in teacher education. With this approach, we aimed to explore what it means to be a FGC student in teacher education. FGC student narratives serve as windows of understanding into their lives—bringing to the surface evidence of their funds of knowledge and what makes them successful teacher candidates and in-service teachers. The compelling stories …

Personal Agency Inspired By Hardship: Bilingual Latinas As Liberatory Educators, Amanda Morales, Gail Shroyer

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

This qualitative multiple case study focused on eleven non-traditional, bilingual, Latinas within a teacher education program. The study explored various factors that influenced participants’ desire to pursue and ability to persist as pre-service teachers. The overarching theme identified among participant discourse was personal agency inspired by hardship. Findings indicated that, as a result of their cultural and experiential understandings, participants enacted culturally responsive teaching with their Latino/a students. Furthermore, participants demonstrated a strong sense of personal agency to improve the educational outcomes of culturally and linguistically diverse students and a desire to advocate specifically on behalf of English learner Latino/a …

Fostering Connections, Empowering Communities, Celebrating The World, Aleidine Kramer Moeller

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

Selected Papers from the 2016 Central States Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages

Editor: Aleidine Moeller, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

1. Analyzing Song Lyrics as an Authentic Language Learning Opportunity — Georgia Coats

2. Prose Combat: Contemporary Target Language Songs as Authentic Text — Kirsten Halling & Pascale Abadie

3. Enhancing the Use of Music in Language Learning through Technology — Nick Ziegler

4. The Case for Integrating Dance in the Language Classroom — Angela N. Gardner

5. Digital Language Learning: Bringing Community to the Classroom — Leah McKeeman & Blanca Oviedo

6. Digital Storytelling in the Foreign Language Classroom …

Personal Practical Knowledge Of Teacher Educators, Vicki Ross, Elaine Chan

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

We introduce the notion of personal practical knowledge (PPK) and, then, explore complexities of knowledge and knowing in the lives and work of teacher educators. To do so, we draw heavily on existing literature based upon and addressing personal practical knowledge (Connelly & Clandinin, 1988) to better understand tensions at play in the field of teacher knowledge, and to offer research literature and methods that value, document, and fold in details of teachers’ experiences to inform understanding of the work of teacher educators.

We begin with a definition of the term ‘personal practical knowledge’, proposed by Connelly and Clandinin (1988), …

Being “In A Limbo”: Perceptions Of Immigration, Identity And Adaptation Of Immigrant Students In South Africa And The United States, Theresa Catalano, Jill Fox, Saloshna Vandeyar

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

Much research is available that details student experiences of immigration and adaptation to receiving countries and schools, but few studies analyze the metaphors used by immigrant students (IS) when talking about the immigration experience, or offer a comparative lens through which to view identity negotiation in two very different contexts. The present paper aims to address these gaps by conducting a comparative linguistic analysis of 20 interviews conducted with IS at universities in South Africa and the United States in order to gain a greater understanding of immigration and the types of identity negotiation processes learners undergo in these very …

Understanding Energy: Primary Students Investigate The Effects Of Energy, Deepika Menon, Blake Shelby, Christine Mattingly

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

Energy is a term often used in everyday language. Even young children associate energy with the food they eat, feeling tired after playing soccer, or when asked to turn the lights off to save light energy. However, they may not have the scientific conceptual understanding of energy at this age. Teaching energy and matter could be challenging at the K–2 level because they are abstract concepts. Nevertheless, developing a concrete understanding of energy at an early age is important for children in order to rationalize why we need energy from food or why wearing gloves helps keep our hands warmer. …

Preservice Elementary Teachers’ Science Self-Efficacy Beliefs And Science Content Knowledge, Deepika Menon, Troy D. Sadler

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

Self-efficacy beliefs that relate to teachers’ motivation and performance have been an important area of concern for preservice teacher education. Research suggests high-quality science coursework has the potential to shape preservice teachers’ science self-efficacy beliefs. However, there are few studies examining the relationship between science self-efficacy beliefs and science content knowledge. The purpose of this mixed methods study is to investigate changes in preservice teachers’ science self-efficacy beliefs and science content knowledge and the relationship between the two variables as they co-evolve in a specialized science content course. Results from pre- and post-course administrations of the Science Teaching Efficacy Belief …

Visualizing Revision: Leveraging Student-Generated Between-Draft Diagramming Data In Support Of Academic Writing Development, Justin Olmanson, Katrina Kennett, Alecia Magnifico, Sarah Mccarthey, Bill Cope, Duane Searsmith, Mary Kalantzis

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

Once writers complete a first draft, they are often encouraged to evaluate their writing and prioritize what to revise. Yet, this process can be both daunting and difficult. This study looks at how students used a semantic concept mapping tool to re-present the content and organization of their initial draft of an informational text. We examine the processes of students at two different schools as they remediated their own texts and how those processes impacted the development of their rhetorical, conceptual, and communicative capacities. Our analysis suggests that students creating visualizations of their completed first drafts scaffolded self-evaluation. The mapping …

Conceptual Limitations In Curricular Presentations Of Area Measurement: One Nation’S Challenges, John P. Smith Iii, Lorraine Males, Funda Gonulates

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

Research has found that elementary students face five main challenges in learning area measurement: (1) conserving area as a quantity, (2) understanding area units, (3) structuring rectangular space into composite units, (4) understanding area formulas, and (5) distinguishing area and perimeter. How well do elementary mathematics curricula address these challenges? A detailed analysis of three U.S. elementary textbook series revealed systematic deficits. Each presented area measurement in strongly procedural terms using a shared sequence of procedures across grades. Key conceptual principles were infrequently expressed and often well after related procedures were introduced. Particularly weak support was given for understanding how …

Science Teachers’ Professional Growth And The Communication In Science Inquiry Project, Elizabeth Lewis, Dale Baker, Nievita Bueno Watts, Katrien Van Der Hoeven Kraft

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

The Communication in Science Inquiry Project (CISIP) a National Science Foundation-funded, standards-based model of a scientific classroom discourse community (SCDC) was designed to meet the need for highly-qualified teachers and science education reform. The model included: (a) inquiry; (b) oral discourse; (c) written discourse; (d) academic language development, and (e) learning principles. Research and evaluation feedback were mechanisms by which CISIP become self-regulating, promoting instructional change and incorporating more aspects of inquiry-based learning with academic language development strategies. The program underwent a philosophical shift from teachers-as-consumers to teachers-as-producers based on classroom observations using a professional development-aligned classroom observation instrument that …

New Media Literacies, Justin Olmanson, Zoe Falls

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

From Pleistocene-epoch cave drawings to texts produced via movable type, to on-demand video content accessed via personal mobile devices, the means of message production and distribution has expanded from exclusive and local to inclusive and international. During the same period, media have evolved from one-way mono-modal communication to interactive, multimodal, social experiences.

New media platforms provide educators with the means to connect academic literacy with learner literacies. A growing body of new media literacies research highlights some of the ways educators have integrated new media literacies into learning spaces without colonizing learner practices to align solely with conventional literacy goals …

The Road To Reform: A Grounded Theory Study Of Parents’ And Teachers’ Influence On Elementary School Science And Mathematics, Julie Thomas, Sandi Cooper

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

Though elementary teacher educators introduce new, reform-based strategies in science and mathematics methods courses, researchers wondered how novices negotiate reform strategies once they enter the elementary school culture. Given that the extent of parents’ and veteran teachers’ influence on novice teachers is largely unknown, this grounded theory study explored parents’ and teachers’ expectations of children’s optimal science and mathematics learning in the current era of reform. Data consisted of semistructured, open-ended interviews with novice teachers (n = 20), veteran teachers (n = 9), and parents (n = 28). Researchers followed three stages of coding procedures to develop …

Learning To Teach In An Urban Teacher Residency, Lauren Gatti

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

In this article, I employ sociocultural theory to analyze the learning to teach process of two novice teachers enrolled in one Urban Teacher Residency (UTR). Findings show that Genesis and Jackie were differentially drawing on programmatic, disciplinary, relational, experiential, and dispositional resources as they learned to teach in an urban context. I show that programmatic resources of supervision and classroom management requirements (i.e., Doug Lemov’s Teach Like a Champion) not only differentially influenced teachers’ learning and development but also differentially impacted the development of trust with students.

Students We Share Are Also In Puebla, Mexico: Preliminary Findings From A 2009–2010 Survey, Víctor Zúñiga, Edmund T. Hamann, Juan Sánchez García

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

Increasingly, emigrants from Mexico to the United States are taking their children with them when they migrate. Additionally, children born to Mexican parents living in the United States may have dual US and Mexican citizenship. Later their parents may return to Mexico with their children who have now learned English and adapted to the US way of life. The US Supreme Court decision Plyler v. Doe allows undocumented children living in the United States to attend US public schools through grade twelve, which means that when their immigrant parents return to Mexico or send their children back to Mexico to …

Learning The Language Of Nature: Young Children As Mathematical Thinkers, Carolyn P. Edwards, Courtney Boise

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

Math Early On, funded by the Buffett Early Childhood Fund, involves a partnership between the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) and the Educares of Nebraska, part of a national network of highquality child care centers for low-income children from birth to age 5. Th e goal of the Math Early On project is to off er professional development opportunities that build on the past successful professional development efforts of UNL’s NebraskaMATH and its Primarily Math initiative. The Primarily Math curriculum for primary teachers was adapted and redesigned to create new experiences for the purpose of enriching preschool teachers’ mathematical knowledge for …

Nutrition Education Resources In North Carolina–Based Head Start Preschool Programs: Administrator And Teacher Perceptions Of Availability And Use, Sarah Lisson, L. Suzanne Goodell, Dipti A. Dev, Kristi Wilkerson,, Archana V. Hegde, Virginia C. Stage

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

Objective: The purpose of this study was to provide new insight into common barriers to the availability and use of nutrition education (NE) resources in Head Start preschool programs based on administrator and teacher perceptions.

Methods: In-depth, semistructured phone interviews (n = 63) were conducted with administrators (n = 31) and teachers (n = 32) from North Carolina–based Head Start programs. Interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. Data were analyzed qualitatively using content analysis to identify common themes.

Results: Five emergent themes were identified within the areas of NE resource availability and use and barriers to NE resource availability and …

Noyce Science Teacher Master Of Arts With Emphasis In Science Teaching Program: Meeting Challenges Of 21st Century Classrooms. Unl Noyce Track I, Phase I, Final Report., Elizabeth B. Lewis, Lindsay Augustyn, Amanda Garrett, Lyrica L. Lucas, Aaron A. Musson, Ana Rivero, Andy Frederick

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

To meet the state’s and the nation’s need for more highly qualified science teachers, the 14-month Master of Arts with emphasis in science teaching (MAst) program was established in the College of Education’s Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, along with a Robert Noyce, Track I, Phase I grant from the National Science Foundation, awarded in 2010. This report presents a summary of the accomplishments of this Noyce grant, in which 60 post-baccalaureate science majors and professionals were provided with Noyce stipends to become science teachers. The MAst program is now in its sixth …

Csce 411h: Data Modeling For Systems Development—A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Inquiry Portfolio, Hongfeng Yu

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

A new course CSCE411H has been developed in 2015-2016. The course tackles the learning of traditional and emerging data modeling techniques in big data related areas from the system and application perspectives. The students have mixed background in Business, Engineering, and Art and Science with different levels. These have introduced a unique set of challenges in the development of this new course. In this inquiry portfolio, I investigated if the adjustment of assignments can benefit the team work of the students with a variety of background. Through the data collection and analysis, the investigation showed that the new assignment design …