Education Commons^™

Enthusiasm In Teaching, Bob Schoofs

Scholarly Papers and Articles

Author discusses the importance of enthusiasm for effective teaching, and methods to improve you enthusiasm.

The Nature Of Science As A Foundation For Fostering A Better Understanding Of Evolution, Craig E. Nelson, Lawrence C. Scharmann, Jean Beard, Lawrence I. Flammer

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

Misunderstandings of the nature of science (NOS) contribute greatly to resistance to evolutionary theory especially among non-scientific audiences. Here we delineate three extended instructional examples that make extensive use of NOS to establish a foundation upon which to more successfully introduce evolution. Specifically, these instructional examples enable students to consider evolutionary biology using NOS as a lens for interpretation of evolutionary concepts. We have further found, through our respective research efforts and instructional experiences, that a deep understanding of NOS helps students understand and accept the scientific validity of evolution and, conversely, that evolution provides an especially effective context for …

Project On Designing Activities For Teaching Grammar, Sunny Hyon

Q2S Enhancing Pedagogy

This document outlines a project for a course in second language acquisition taken by undergraduates who intend to be high school or university teachers/professors. The project asks the undergraduates to design a sequence of activities for teaching English language learners (ELLs) a particular English grammatical construction, and to connect those activities to reading or writing assignments in their future classrooms. The students also must explain how their activities will facilitate ELLs' grammatical learning, drawing on research on language acquisition presented in the course.

Teaching And Beyond: Exploring The Educational Landscape, Anaghaa Wagh

Teacher India

Teaching offers a range of experience that provides a foundation for subsequent roles in the education sector. Anaghaa Wagh shares her personal journey as a volunteer with Teach for India.

Information Literacy For Effective Utilization Of Information Resources In Academic Libraries In Nigeria, Ifeyinwa Blessing Okoye

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

This work is on information literacy for effective utilization of information resources in academic libraries in Nigeria. Four hundred copies of questionnaire were administered to students of four academic institutions- Federal University of Technology Owerri Imo State, Imo State University, Federal Polytechnic Nekede and Alvan Ikoku Federal College of Education. The result indicated that most of the students were aware of importance of information literacy although some of them could not identify some aspects of plagiarism. Practical component were not taught and use ICT in teaching was lacking. It was recommended that practical components of teaching should be included, that …

Harry Flechtner--A True Teacher/Scholar, With Rhythm, Ronald A. Brand

Articles

This is a tribute to Professor Emeritus Harry Flechtner upon his retirement from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. Professor Flechtner was a leading scholar on the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG), a stellar teacher, a musician who used that skill in the classroom as well as the Vienna Konzerthaus, and a genuinely nice person.

Evolution And Nature Of Science Instruction: A First-Person Account Of Changes In Evolution Instruction Throughout A Career, Lawrence C. Scharmann

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

In this article, I provide an analysis of my work (1985–present) with non-major biology students and science teacher candidates in developing strategies for teaching and enhancing learning with respect to evolutionary science. This first-person account describes changes in evolution instruction over the course of a career based on personal experiences, research-informed practices, and a critical collaboration with colleague Mike U. Smith. I assert four insights concerning the influence and efficacy of teaching nature of science (NOS) prior to the introduction of evolution within college courses for science non-majors and science teacher candidates. These insights are: (a) teach explicit NOS principles …

Leading School-Based Coaching To Evaluate Open Education Resources, Kathryn Moyle

Digital learning research

This presentation was a people's choice session at the 2018 ISTE conference and engaged participants in conversations about coaching approaches that when coupled with strategies to evaluate Open Educational Resources (OER) can build the capacity of teachers and improve the learning by students. The session provided participants with opportunities to discuss leadership approaches to the evaluation of OER resources that are consistent with education policies, build the capacity of educators and improve the quality of learning by students; and coaching methods for school leaders that enables the identification, analysis, curation and incorporation of OER resources into classroom practices.

Faculty Development Initiatives: A Prerequisite For Capacity Building And Enhanced Productivity In A Medical Institution, Rehana Rehman, Hassan Mehmood, Syeda Fatima, Irfanullah Baig, Zohaib Rana, Mohammad Iqbal

Department of Biological & Biomedical Sciences

Objective: To determine the contribution of teaching, learning and assessment forum's initiatives on professional development of faculty and staff.
Methods: This retrospective study was conducted at the Department of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, Aga Khan University, Karachi, from July to December 2016, and comprised teaching, learning and assessment activities carried out from 2012 to 2015. The responses acquired from feedback evaluation were recorded at the end of activity on a Likert-type scale ranging from 1-5. Positive responses were presented for each variable with respective activity type across the study years. The association of the effectiveness of teaching, learning …

“There’S Nothing Wrong With Fun”: Unpacking The Tensions And Challenges Of Human Centered Design For Learning With Pre-Service Teachers, Zoe Falls, Justin Olmanson

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

Research into practices of making within formalized education has primarily focused on K12 settings, inservice teachers in professional development, and pre-service teachers facilitating a maker experience for K12 students. Less is known about the professionalizing impact making and human centered design can have on pre-service teachers, especially in relation to how or if the experience deepens their understanding of content, pedagogy and human centered design. This study traces a group of pre-service social science teachers’ development of a meme generator to support learning history. By studying their process from inception to conclusion, we found students were less inclined to engage …

2018 Master Of Arts In Teaching Teacher Education Programs Offered By The Otterbein University Education Department, Otterbein Office Of Graduate Programs

Graduate School

A graduate handbook for the Master of Arts in Teaching Teacher Education Programs offered by the Otterbein University Education Department.

Seeing Mathematics Through Different Eyes: An Equitable Approach To Use With Prospective Teachers, Christa Jackson, Cynthia E. Taylor, Kelley Buchheister

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

Teacher educators need to prepare prospective teachers by encouraging them to critically examine their current beliefs about the teaching and learning of mathematics while also providing opportunities for prospective teachers to develop an equity-centered orientation. Attending to these practices in teacher preparation programs may help prospective teachers observe actions that occur in classrooms and determine effective strategies that provide the opportunity to enhance all students’ access to high-quality mathematics instruction. As mathematics teacher educators, we must recognize what prospective teachers attend to as they direct their attention to various classroom events and how they relate the events to broader principles …

Assessing The Impact Of A Faculty Book Club On Self-Reflection And Teaching Practice, Scott Moncrieff, Anneris Coria-Navia

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Is Teaching About Selling? Absolutely., Norman Eng

Publications and Research

In this post, Dr. Norman Eng gives his perspective on the much-debated question of whether teaching is about selling. It comes back to our understanding (or perception) of selling.

Teachers Supporting Students Affected By Trauma, Madeleine Smyth

Social Justice and Community Engagement

Although many people would like to think of childhood as a relatively peaceful and happy time, research has indicated that for many children this is far from the case. One study in the United States has estimated that 26% of children will witness or experience a trauma-causing event before they enter kindergarten. Trauma can have a serious impact on a child’s learning and overall classroom experience. Teachers and other school staff can play an important role in recognizing and responding to students presenting with symptoms of trauma in the classroom and mitigating possible adverse impacts on their education. A qualitative …

Shaking Up Shakespeare: Teaching For The Contemporary High School English Classroom, Megan Sampson

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Contemporary high school English students find Shakespeare distant because they believe Shakespeare is hard to understand. Pairing Shakespeare with thematically-similar contemporary texts can make his works more accessible to students. Using different angles on the same theme shows students that Shakespeare presented some universal issues that still have relevance today. The Literacy Design Collaborative modules included within this thesis use Shakespeare in cooperation with other texts to focus on a specific theme. Using the module structure, teachers can organize the unit’s overarching goals and can include all handouts and necessary materials. This structure of design incorporates literacy-centered practices in order …

Thinking About Students' Learning: Metacognition Across The Disciplines, Saryn R. Goldberg, Jennifer Gundlach, Amy M. Masnick, Jennifer A. Rich, Jessica R. Santangelo

Hofstra University Distinguished Faculty Lecture Series

The ability to think about one’s own thinking—metacognition—is identified as one of the keys to subject mastery in most, if not all, disciplines. It is clear that being able to be one’s own critic — assessing and reassessing one’s understanding — is of critical importance to learning. Rarely, however, is metacognition explicitly taught or discussed as a centerpiece of learning in a content-heavy classroom, even with the best intentions of the professors.

A panel of Hofstra faculty from the disciplines of psychology, biology, law, engineering and writing studies will share results from their ongoing research about the impact of integrating …

Engl 487: English Capstone Experience—A Peer Review Of Teaching Benchmark Portfolio, Kelly Stage

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

This portfolio documents the teaching objectives, strategies, and assessments for a capstone course in the English major at UNL. As the English Studies Capstone and as an ACE (Achievement-Centered Education) 10 course at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, English 487 must help students meet key outcomes for the department and the University, but it also allows flexibility and creativity in the methods chosen to meet these requirements and structure the course. This portfolio thereby reflects on the intellectual labor of designing a particular version of these requirements and on guiding students through the design. The assessments included here are measuring traditional …

Meng 3250: Mechanics Of Elastic Bodies—A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Benchmark Portfolio, Jinying Zhu

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

This portfolio focuses on mechanics of materials (course title: Mechanics of Elastic Bodies), a sophomore level course taken primarily by civil engineering and architectural engineering majors on Omaha campus. It is a prerequisite for broad range of courses in mechanical, civil and agricultural engineering majors. This course studies the mechanics of solids with applications to science and engineering, including stress, strains and deformation in structural elements (axial, torsional and bending), shear and moment diagram for beams, and a brief introduction to material failure mechanisms.

This portfolio describes the teaching methods used to help students understand the fundamental knowledge about material …

Flipped Classroom As Blended Learning In A Fluid Mechanics Course In Engineering Technology, Orlando M. Ayala, Otilia Popescu, Vukica M. Jovanovic

Engineering Technology Faculty Publications

Flipped classroom has gained attention in recent years as a teaching method in which the time allocated for introducing new concepts and the time used for practicing them are inverted, in order to provide more time for problem based learning and class interaction under direct supervision of the instructor. The implementation of this teaching method is comprised of two main components, the pre-class activities, which consist of individual student work and are largely based on pre-recorded videos, and in-class activities, which are group activities supervised by the instructor. This paper discusses the implementation of the flipped classroom method in a …

Adpr 221: Strategic Writing For Advertising And Public Relations—A Peer Review Of Teaching Benchmark Portfolio, Michael D. Hanus

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

The objective for this course portfolio was to document the changes implemented to a core advertising and public relations writing course. The portfolio outlines five proposed goals for the revised course: students should be able to write for an audience, give and receive quality feedback, prepare for novel situations in the workplace, see writing as rewarding, creative, and fun, and learn professional conventions and industry standards for strategic writing. The course was significantly restructured in order to better reach these goals on student assignments, activities, and during lectures. Each goal was assessed with a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods. …

Explaining The Sociological Factors Associated With The Children's School Participation In Elementary Level, Melanie P. Tolentino, Tereso S. Tullao Jr

Angelo King Institute for Economic and Business Studies (AKI)

This paper identifies the factors such as demographic, economic, and sociological factors that influence the children’s school participation in elementary level. Highlight of this study is explaining the context of mother’s absence in a household as it influences the children’s school participation. This paper utilized both quantitative and qualitative techniques in the data collection and analysis. The data set from Annual Poverty Indicators Survey 2011 was analyzed using descriptive statistics, correlation, and regression analysis. Selected families with 6-11 years old children whose mothers are working abroad were also interviewed to provide an understanding of the relevance of social resource within …

Lifelong Learning: A Strategic Analysis Of Education, Iwasan D. Kejawa Ed.D

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

Are outdated traditional education, distance education, information technological infrastructure, partnerships and financial resources common problematic issues facing many of the educational institutions in our world today? With this into considerations, are these issues vital in order to stabilize the political and economic embroidery of an institution or organization, and its psychological and sociological awareness? What is it that is to be learned and thought in our institutions and, what really is lifelong education; and how is to be carried out in the society of ours? It is found that education may be the training of the mind to perform desire …

Engl 352: Intermediate Fiction Writing—A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Benchmark Portfolio, Chigozie Obioma

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

Absent the elements of effective writing, there has been a strong debate on whether or not other aspects of creative writing can be taught. Many practicing writers like myself who teach have concluded that a student writer can be guided towards fully actualizing their talent, and this “guidance” is what mostly constitutes teaching. How then do we evaluate the effectiveness of this teaching, and to what extent do students’ individual talent help or stand in the way of effective instruction? How do we plan various learning outcomes and test the success of such strategies over the duration of the ENGL …

Nsst 475: Security In The 21st Century—A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Benchmark Portfolio, Tyler R. White

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

This benchmark course portfolio is the culmination of a year’s long planning and execution process to improve an existing capstone course NSST 475. This course has two goals: to teach students about subject matter and to expose them to structured analytic techniques (SATs) before they graduate. This course is a minor capstone which means that the students come from a diverse set of disciplinary backgrounds. I targeted two course objectives to examine for this project with the intention of employing backward course design to think through what students should be learning and how I can improve that process. This portfolio …

Aecn 436: Commodity Price Forecasting—A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Inquiry Portfolio, Fabio Mattos

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

This study explores the impact of distinct teaching approaches on students’ learning. In my course, we cover two main topics, technical analysis and fundamental analysis, which I decided to teach in different ways. I used activities associated with active learning to teach technical analysis, and traditional lectures (recitation) to teach fundamental analysis. Then I compared students’ performance in two exams to assess how much they learned about each topic. Students generally performed better in the exam on technical analysis than they did in the exam on fundamental analysis, suggesting that they learned technical analysis better than they learned fundamental analysis. …

Searching For The Divine: An Autoethnographic Account Of Religious/Spiritual And Academic Influences On The Journey To Professor, E. James Baesler

Communication & Theatre Arts Faculty Publications

This autoethnographic account chronicles my academic and religious/spiritual path to becoming a professor of Communication. Spiritual influences and significant life events related to prayer, education, teaching, and research serve as sign posts marking the way. The journey begins with a child scientist experimenting with life—and an adolescent discovering the joy of reading through an illness. The journey continues with a crisis in undergraduate years followed by indoctrination stories of graduate school. Securing and retaining an academic position in Communication reveals the complexities of negotiating research and teaching in higher education. After tenure and promotion, a concurrent spiritual awakening begins a …

Differentiating Instruction Through Math Stations And Literacy Centers, Olivia Bates

Faculty Curated Undergraduate Works

Differentiating instruction based on students’ readiness, interests, and learning profiles is essential for creating effective and meaningful learning activities. Identifying these characteristics allows teachers to meet students’ needs and engage them in learning. By differentiating instruction, educators target specific students’ strengths and challenges in developing lessons to support their understanding of content. Two useful strategies for differentiating math and literacy instruction include stations and centers. In stations and centers, students work on specific skills catered to their educational needs while rotating activities in flexible groups. This guide supports teachers in identifying strategies and understanding the benefits of differentiating math and …

Forgotten Memories Of A Social Justice Education: Difficult Knowledge And The Impossibilities Of School And Research, Debbie Sonu

Publications and Research

This paper is about memory, the elusive process of remembering and of an encounter between a researcher and a participant who after five years reunited to remember. The object under study is a high school social justice curriculum with a central focus on the development of social action projects. Grounded in Pitt and Britzman’s work on difficult knowledge, this paper asks: What do 10th grade students who spent four years attending a school committed to the Freirian principles of political engagement remember about their high school experience? Past and recent interviews are woven together to surface three emergent lines of …

Efficacy And Implementation Of Automated Essay Scoring Software In Instruction Of Literacies To High Level Ells, Aaron J. Alvero

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explored the integration of automated essay scoring (AES) software into the writing curriculum for high level ESOL students (levels 3, 4, and 5 on a 1-5 scale) at a high school in Miami, Fl. Issues for Haitian Creole speaking students were also explored. The Spanish and Haitian Creole speaking students were given the option to write notes, outlines, and planning sheets in their L1.

After using AES in the middle of the writing process as a revision assistant tool, 24 students responded to a Likert Scale questionnaire. The students responded positively to the AES based on the results …