Education Commons^™

The Effects Of Student Engagement On Retention: Comparing Male Undergraduate Stem Majors To Non-Stem Majors, Tourgee D. Simpson Jr.

STEMPS Theses & Dissertations

Researchers suggest certain benchmarks of student engagement (i.e., student-faculty interaction, level of academic challenge, enriching educational experiences, active and collaborative learning, and supportive campus environment) positively influence student success. This study investigated the relationship between student engagement and the retention of male, full-time undergraduate students in STEM majors by comparing male, full-time undergraduate students in select science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) majors to male, full-time undergraduate students in non-STEM majors to identify best practices to improve retention and increase degree completion among men in STEM fields.

Students were invited to participate in the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE). …

Microblogging As A Facilitator Of Online Community In Graduate Education, Vincent Anthony Rhodes

English Theses & Dissertations

Part-time and distance-learning students can experience a sense of isolation from their peers and the university. Concern about this isolation and resulting student attrition has increased in the midst of explosive growth in online course enrollments. One possible solution: building a stronger sense of community within the online graduate classroom using microblogging technology such as Twitter. Unfortunately, scholars across disciplines define community in different ways with some rejecting the concept altogether in favor of other theoretical constructs. And, few scholars have examined the notion of online classroom community from an English Studies perspective exploring the rhetorical exigencies that underpin this …

A Grounded Theory Of The College Experiences Of African American Males In Black Greek-Letter Organizations, David Julius Ford Jr.

Counseling & Human Services Theses & Dissertations

Studies have shown that involvement in a student organization can improve the academic and psychosocial outcomes of African American male students (Harper, 2006b; Robertson & Mason, 2008; Williams & Justice, 2010). Further, Harper, Byars, and Jelke (2005) stated that African American fraternities and sororities (i.e., Black Greek-letter organizations [BGLOs]) are the primary venues by which African American students become involved on campus. This grounded theory study examined the relationship between membership in a BOLO and the overall college experiences of African American male college students at a Predominantly White Institution (PWI). Eleven themes were identified in the study indicating that …

"That Doesn't Sound Like Me:" Student Perceptions Of Semiotic Resources In Written-Aural Remediation Practices, Jennifer Johnson Buckner

English Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation examines students' composing practices when working with unfamiliar modalities, attending to students' messy material and cognitive negotiations prior to their production of a polished multimodal project. Working from a conceptual vocabulary from composition studies and semiotics, I frame composing as an act of semiotic remediation, attending to students' repurposing and understanding of written and aural materials in composition and their impact on their learning. Specifically, this research uses a grounded theory methodology to examine the attitudes, experiences, and composing practices of first-year writing students enrolled in a composition II course at a private, liberal arts institution in the …

Auschwitz-Birkenau: A Memorial, Nichole Delasalas

OUR Journal: ODU Undergraduate Research Journal

In the 1940s, Nazi Germany was an unstoppable force spreading throughout Europe. Hitler’s agenda was to take control of Europe and make it part of his pure Aryan race. As a result of his actions and his “final solution”, many people suffered. The concentration camp of Auschwitz I was created out of an old Polish military compound for three main reasons. The first was to incarcerate real and perceived enemies of the Nazi regime and the German occupation authorities in Poland for an indefinite amount of time.¹ The second was to have available a supply of forced labor for …

A Diachronic Overview Of Mobile Learning: A Shift Toward Student-Centered Pedagogies, Helen Crompton

Teaching & Learning Faculty Publications

This chapter provides a brief historical overview of the technology contributing to mobile learning (mLearning) and the concomitant progression towards student-centred pedagogies. To begin, mLearning is defined. The theoretical, pedagogical and conceptual underpinnings of it are then explained, with a focus on the technologies and the pedagogies of each decade, from the 1970s and Kay’s futuristic vision of a mobile learning device, to today’s mobile learning technologies that have surpassed Kay’s vision.

Historical Fiction In English And Social Studies Classrooms: Is It A Natural Marriage?, Kaavonia Hinton, Yonghee Suh, Lourdes Colón-Brown, Maria O'Hearn

Teaching & Learning Faculty Publications

(First paragraph) The authors report outcomes of a collaborative, interdisciplinary effort through a study group developed to make connections across content areas (English and history/social studies) and grade levels (middle school, high school, and college).

Shannon Hitchcock: A New Voice In Historical Fiction, Kaavonia Hinton

Teaching & Learning Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Historical Formation Of Academic Identities: Rhetoric And Composition, Discourse And Writing, Louise Wetherbee Phelps

English Faculty Publications

(First paragraph) This talk originated in my work as a consultant at the University of Winnipeg, where I spent six weeks on a Fulbright Specialist grant in Spring 2011. I was invited to advise the Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and Communications on its plans for “program architecture renewal,” which included critically assessing its programs, articulating levels of the curriculum, and charting future directions for the department. The grant had larger goals as well, charging me to study the development of writing and rhetorical studies in Canada as an emerging field seeking both definition and visibility. The Winnipeg faculty hoped that …

Introduction: Memory And Reflection, Annette Finley-Croswhite

OUR Journal: ODU Undergraduate Research Journal

During the spring semester of 2014, Old Dominion University offered a Study Abroad course called “Paris/Auschwitz” that I designed with funding from the Curt C. and Else Silberman Foundation and the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Over spring break, I led a group of eighteen students to France and Poland to study sites of Holocaust memory along with faculty team member, Dr. Brett Bebber. Dr. Bebber and I are both professors in the Department of History. The Study Abroad course was part of my attempt to create more Holocaust courses at Old Dominion …

Auschwitz As A Site Of Memory, Emma Needham

OUR Journal: ODU Undergraduate Research Journal

Auschwitz is known as the most substantial site of the Holocaust namely because Auschwitz-Birkenau was the largest concentration camp in Europe, and it is estimated that about 960,000 Jews and 125,000 others were murdered there.¹ Not only was the process of creating the memorial at Auschwitz filled with controversies, but the site also remains questionable today with regards to dark tourism, or thanatourism, “the tourism of death.”² For some, the thought of traveling to a place subsumed in death and despair sounds troubling as the consumption of dark tourism involves a process of “confronting, understanding and accepting death.” …

Mpati: The Midwest Program On Airborne Television Instruction (1959-1971), Monica W. Tracey, Jill E. Stefaniak

STEMPS Faculty Publications

It is 1964 and high in the sky, flying in a figure-eight formation over a 200-mile radius and six Midwestern states, is a plane with a large 24-foot antennae hanging from its belly. Transmitting 24 separate courses recorded ahead of time then played back to member schools in six states, the Midwest Program on Airborne Television Instruction (MPATI) was designed to meet the need of providing educational television to a wider audience. In the late 1950s, the FCC decided that certain channels would be allocated for non-commercial educational use. Schools were bursting with students; teachers were in high demand and …

Global And Criteria Based Judgments Of An Undergraduate Exit Writing Examination, Katrice Alexandria Hawthorne

Teaching & Learning Theses & Dissertations

The effect of a calibration strategy requiring students to predict and postdict their scores on a writing exam was investigated. The utility of rubric-referenced calibration and the interaction between achievement and self-efficacy on calibration accuracy were also explored. Five hundred ninety six undergraduate students enrolled in an urban, comprehensive, public university participated. Students were assigned to one of three calibration conditions: (1) a global condition (overall judgments only), (2) a global and criteria condition (a general rubric), or (3) a global and detailed criteria condition (a detailed rubric). Students in all three conditions provided global calibrations before and after the …

Stuck In The Last Ice Age: Tracing The Role Of Document Design In The Teaching Materials Of Writing Courses, Erin Duffy Pastore

English Theses & Dissertations

Teaching materials play vital roles in writing classrooms, yet they are understudied genres in English Studies. Teaching materials are inherently visual genres; the document design choices made by teachers illuminate values held about writing and writing classrooms. They are understudied genres, in part, because of the feminized position of composition. A professional writing investigation of the document design of teaching materials offers opportunities to rectify this. I developed a technofeminine genre tracing methodology focused on exploring the visual convention choices made by teachers and how these visual conventions are interpreted by students across the three levels of activity: the activity-driven …