Education Commons^™

Spring 2010 Follow-Up Survey Of Freshmen Who Entered Western In Fall Of 2008: Descriptive Statistics, John M. Krieg, Beth Hartsoch, Linda D. (Linda Darlene) Clark, Grant Fosheim

Office of Institutional Effectiveness

The Spring 2010 Follow-Up Survey of Freshmen Who Entered Western in Fall 2008 (2nd Year Survey) holds particular importance to Western in that it focuses on student experiences in first year programs and GUR courses. Together with the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education and the Committee for Undergraduate Education, the Office of Survey Research (OSR) created this survey in an attempt to shed light on the efficacy of and satisfaction with programs designed to foster student success early in their Western careers. The 2nd Year Survey consists of a mixture of open ended, multiple choice, and numerical response questions. This …

2010 Exit Survey Of Graduate Students Completing Degrees Fall 2009, Winter 2010, Spring 2010, And Summer 2010, Descriptive Statistics: Addendum, John M. Krieg, Beth Hartsoch, Linda D. (Linda Darlene) Clark, Grant Fosheim, Michael Barr

Office of Institutional Effectiveness

The graduate exit survey is a quarterly survey of all graduate students set to finish their degrees. This survey is fully explained and documented in “2010 Exit Survey of Graduate Students Completing Degrees Fall 2009, Winter 2010, Spring 2010, and Summer 2010” which may be found on the Office of Survey Research’s website (http://www.wwu.edu/socad/osr/). This addendum breaks down the data from that survey by college and department. Hopefully, this data will provide a finer degree of analysis allowing departments and colleges greater latitude in their self-evaluation efforts.

The Heart Of Sustainability: Big Ideas From The Field Of Environmental Education And Their Relationship To Sustainability Education Or What's Love Got To Do With It?, Donald J. Burgess, Tracie Johannessen

Secondary Education

A common raven suddenly begins to call from Cornwall Park. I rush to the front porch trying to see what the commotion is all about. Two adult ravens are flapping high over the green canopy, croaking vigorously. Like vigilant Block Watch captains protecting the integrity of a neighborhood, ravens exhibit exceptional observational prowess coupled with intense fidelity to family and place. I scan the forest with binoculars and notice three raven fledglings perched in a scraggly birch tree at the edge of the forest. Scanning higher, I finally detect a distant bald eagle circling over the urban park where the …

Klipsun Magazine, 2010, Volume 40, Issue 05 - Fall, Michael Homnick

Klipsun Magazine

The difference between inside and outside can be surprisingly small. Outside my window right now is dirt, wind and pouring rain. Meanwhile inside it is a cozy 65 degrees, and my computer, iPod and guitars are at no threat from the elements. This difference is due to less than two feet of wall and fiberglass.

In an unassuming shopping center in Edmonds, this same thickness of wall separates families enjoying pizza dinners and gym-goers from shelves lined with varieties of medical marijuana, its pungent smell shielded by a thick door.

Sometimes these barriers are made of other material. Plastic surgery …

Klipsun Magazine, 2010, Volume 41, Issue 01 - Fall, Angelo Spagnolo

Klipsun Magazine

Dear reader, I just consumed a Big Mac, fries and a Dr. Pepper. The cows used for my burger probably grazed where the Amazon Rainforest stood before it was devoured to make way for the crowd of lumbering bovine. The soda was sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup. Furthermore, I could have walked to the restaurant, but instead I wasted a non-renewable resource by driving.

And I don’t really care.

Our campus community is highly aware of consumption. We’re powered by green energy. Instead of dumping our trays into an all-encompassing receptacle, we sort trash into a variety of containers marked …

Democracy In Teacher Education: Learning From Preservice Teachers’ Understandings And Perspectives, Allen Trent, Jaesik Cho, Francisco Rios, Kerrita Mayfield

Woodring College of Education Faculty Publications

This article provides an overview of a teacher education inquiry project focused on teaching in a democracy. The research was conducted by the faculty in a university educational studies/foundations department (EDST) as they engaged in a curriculum development and implementation project designed to better prepare teachers for democratic participation and teaching. In this context, ongoing curriculum examination and revision and embedded data collection and analysis are utilized as important activities in evolving a curriculum delivered to teacher education candidates.

This article includes an overview of theoretical perspectives that guide and inform teacher education efforts in this department and presents a …

The Planet, 2010, Fall, Mitch Olsen, Huxley College Of The Environment, Western Washington University

The Planet

No abstract provided.

Window: The Magazine Of Western Washington University, 2010, Volume 03, Issue 01, Mary Lane Gallagher, Office Of University Communications And Marketing, Western Washington University

Window Magazine

No abstract provided.

2010 Exit Survey Of Graduate Students Completing Degrees Fall 2009, Winter 2010, Spring 2010, And Summer 2010: Descriptive Statistics, John M. Krieg, Beth Hartsoch, Linda D. (Linda Darlene) Clark, Grant Fosheim, Michael Barr

Office of Institutional Effectiveness

Executive Summary: The 2010 Exit Survey of Graduate Students Completing Degrees continues the Office of Survey Research’s (OSR) survey of Graduate students first initiated in 2009. The current survey was administered at the end of each quarter to graduate students slated to graduate that quarter. This report summarizes responses from students who graduated in Fall 2009, Winter 2010, Spring 2010, and Summer 2010. With the help of the Assistant Dean of the Graduate School, this survey was designed to elicit information on program satisfaction, the frequency and scope of academic interaction on and off campus, barriers to success, and plans …

2010 Exit Survey Of Graduate Students Completing Degrees Fall 2009, Winter 2010, Spring 2010, And Summer 2010: Descriptive Statistics, John M. Krieg, Beth Hartsoch, Linda D. (Linda Darlene) Clark, Grant Fosheim, Michael Barr

Office of Institutional Effectiveness

Executive Summary: The 2010 Exit Survey of Graduate Students Completing Degrees continues the Office of Survey Research’s (OSR) survey of Graduate students first initiated in 2009. The current survey was administered at the end of each quarter to graduate students slated to graduate that quarter. This report summarizes responses from students who graduated in Fall 2009, Winter 2010, Spring 2010, and Summer 2010. With the help of the Assistant Dean of the Graduate School, this survey was designed to elicit information on program satisfaction, the frequency and scope of academic interaction on and off campus, barriers to success, and plans …

Electronic Course Evaluations At Western Washington University: A Report Of The Spring Quarter, 2010 Pilot, John M. Krieg, Beth Hartsoch

Office of Institutional Effectiveness

Electronic course evaluations are becoming a popular, inexpensive substitute for traditional paper course evaluations. Electronic evaluations are easy to implement, reduce the impact on instructor time, are more uniform in their administration, and can reduce printing and paper costs. Further, some usually unexpected benefits can accrue from electronic evaluations. For instance, students appear to respond in more detail to open ended electronic questions than they would to the same question posed in paper format. While there are clear benefits from electronic course evaluations, there also exist pitfalls. Research suggests students view electronic evaluations as less anonymous thereby bringing into question …

Klipsun Magazine, 2010, Volume 40, Issue 04 - Spring, Allison Milton

Klipsun Magazine

You may not realize it, or acknowledge it in any way, but you're doing it right now. Your eyes are going from right to left as you read these words. Time is passing, the clock is ticking and somewhere in the world, someone is fighting for social justice and maybe even for his or her right to party.

Movement. It s not just a physical action. Of course, movement is incorporated into our workouts and daily routines. We move from one place to another. We move up in the professional world. And we even move our hips when Shakira tells …

Klipsun Magazine, 2010, Volume 40, Issue 05 - Spring, Angelo Spagnolo

Klipsun Magazine

Abstract expressionist painter Hans Hoffman said “The whole world, as we experience it visually, comes to us through the mystic realm of color.” Really, color is just vary­ing wavelengths of light, reflected and absorbed by surfaces in our world. That's all. Why then, is it so hard to define color? Mystic, maybe; certainly mysterious. Color manifests itself in every aspect of our daily lives.

For some, color represents money; a flick­ering flash of gold hidden in a riverbed. For the great Pacific Northwest Orca whale, color is an evolutionary tool of stealth and survival.

Maybe you've never considered why certain …

The Planet, 2010, Spring, Kaylin Bettinger, Huxley College Of The Environment, Western Washington University

The Planet

No abstract provided.

Window: The Magazine Of Western Washington University, 2010, Volume 02, Issue 02, Mary Lane Gallagher, Office Of University Communications And Marketing, Western Washington University

Window Magazine

No abstract provided.

Academic Performance Of Native And Transfer Students, John M. Krieg

Office of Institutional Effectiveness

In the Fall quarter of 2009, Western Washington University enrolled about 900 transfer students, one-third of the incoming freshmen class that quarter. More transfers were later admitted in the winter and spring quarters. Given the large numbers of transfer students attending Western and the likelihood of increased reliance upon transfers in the future, it is important to understand what, if any, performance differences exist between transfer and native students. This report compares academic success of natives and transfers using two measures: grades earned after achieving 90 credits and earning a Western degree. In order to make as precise comparisons as …

Freshmen Who Plan To Transfer (Analysis), Beth Hartsoch, John M. Krieg

Office of Institutional Effectiveness

On the 2009 WELS baseline survey of incoming fall 2009 freshmen, thirteen percent indicate some likelihood of transferring prior to graduation. Western administrators are interested in the retention rate of these students, as well as demographic and educational history characteristics. This is a brief exploratory analysis of these questions.

Klipsun Magazine, 2010, Volume 41, Issue 01 - Winter, Allison Milton

Klipsun Magazine

After my high school graduation and just before I ventured north on the Interstate-5 corridor to Western, I was given a how-to book from a friend of mine. It was a how-to survive college handbook, conveniently titled “Your Guide to College Survival.”

The tips on how to prevent a hangover, how to slyly prank noisy neighbors and how to turn old milk crates into comfortable living room furniture mesmerized me.

It was one day when I was following the book’s advice by turning old CDs into decorative wall art, when I realized how much I would be lost without those …

Klipsun Magazine, 2010, Volume 40, Issue 02 - January, Jennifer Oato

Klipsun Magazine

I remember sitting in AP English Literature during my senior year of high school with six of my closest friends. We were discussing each of the seven deadly sins in regard to their reference in Dante’s Inferno. Being a typical high school filled with cliques and teenage angst, it did not take long before a nickname surfaced labeling my group of friends The Seven Deadly Sins. By the time I graduated, my friends and I were haunted by other nicknames such as The Heathers and Mean Girls.

Now, this is not a story I am particularly proud of. In fact, …

Educating Politicians As Playwrights: Toward A Sustainable World In Creative Conflict, Daniel Larner

Journal of Educational Controversy

If drama is the art of making the unseen visible, it is also the art of getting into the skin of another. This fundamental act of immersion and suspended judgment forms an extraordinary opportunity for teaching the power of point of view, examining contrary arguments about an issue, examining personal assumptions and boundaries, and illustrating what it takes to create and maintain justice and democracy. This paper tries to show how educating politicians as playwrights could help create the conditions for a democratic, sustainable polity to emerge.

We were in the middle of a discussion of a job description for …

Prologue To Art, Social Imagination And Action, Maxine Greene

Journal of Educational Controversy

I wish to express my appreciation to Lorraine Kasprisin and all those responsible for giving me the undeserved privilege of having an issue of this unique and significant journal named after me. As some of you know, I am committed to the notion of the incomplete. Like the narrator of Moby Dick (Melville, 1851), I am convinced that the finest achievements of human beings have been left incomplete. His book in process, he said, should be considered but "the draft of a draft." And then--"God keep me from finishing anything."

Can Literature Really Make A Difference? Toward A Chastened View Of The Role Of Fiction In Democratic Education, Trent Davis

Journal of Educational Controversy

The role of literature in democratic education has always been a subject of paramount importance to Maxine Greene. Sprinkled throughout her work are thoughtful accounts of the myriad ways that the reading of fiction can significantly contribute to an understanding of what it means to teach and learn. She has continually insisted that thoughtful engagements with poetry and prose can offer new perspectives from which to see, and thereby potentially remake, the world. Even while insisting that the embracing of complexity and possibility is central to such an aesthetic reading practice, she has never wavered in her deeply felt conviction …

Art, Social Imagination And Democratic Education: Maxine Greene And The Unfinished Conversation, Lorraine Kasprisin

Journal of Educational Controversy

Welcome to this very special issue dedicated to the life and work of Maxine Greene, philosopher, social critic, humanist, lover of the arts, existentialist, educator and a very special person in my life. When I studied for my Ph.D. at Teachers College, Columbia University, during the tumultuous years of the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War, I had the privilege of studying with Maxine. Actually there were three philosophers at Columbia at that time – all coming from a different perspective. Maxine gifted me an existentialist and aesthetic perspective; Jonas Soltis helped hone in my analytical skills during the …

Teaching A “Racist And Outdated Text”: A Journey Into My Own Heart Of Darkness, Melody Wong

Journal of Educational Controversy

In wrestling with her teaching of Joseph Conrad’s frequently challenged novella, Heart of Darkness, a high school English teacher discovers her own complicity with and complacency about Western political, economic, and social hegemony. Ultimately, her research into the historical, social, and political contexts of the 19^th century novella enable her to understand its immediate relevance to the privileged world that she and her students live in, and to take her students on a personal journey in the modern “heart of darkness.”

Opening Minds: Aesthetic Engagement In The Language Arts, Jane S. Townsend, Patrick A. Ryan

Journal of Educational Controversy

We are concerned with possibility, with opening windows on alternative realities, with moving through doorways into spaces some of us have never seen before. We are interested in releasing diverse persons from confinement to the actual, particularly confinement to the world of techniques and skill training, to fixed categories and measurable competencies. We are interested in breakthroughs and new beginnings, in the kind of wide-awakeness that allows for wonder and unease and questioning and the pursuit of what is not yet (Greene, 2001, p. 44).

Supporting Maxine Greene’s call “to awaken” our perceptions through art, we, as English teacher educators, …

A Leap Of Faith: Aesthetic Education In The Mathematics Education Classroom, Edward S. Wall

Journal of Educational Controversy

We speak only for having been called, called by what there is to say, and yet we learn and hear what there is to say only in speech itself. Jean-Louis Chrétien (2004, p. 1)

For the past four years I have hosted Lincoln Center Teaching Artists in a graduate mathematics education course I teach for elementary school teachers and elementary school pre-service teachers. I find the hosting experience enjoyable and informative and my impression, gained from comments and short written reflections, is that many of my students find it likewise. Simultaneously, I believe in the pragmatic worth of this experience. …

Of Rocks And Hard Places—The Challenge Of Maxine Greene’S Mystification In Teacher Education, P. L. Thomas

Journal of Educational Controversy

Recently, a colleague talked with me about a field observation she had conducted the day before, an observation that left her between a rock and a hard place. The teacher candidate performed a flawless lesson—well planned, well implemented with students eagerly and fully engaged. As we talked about the observation, my colleague and I agreed that most people (professional educators and laypersons) observing the lesson would be at least satisfied if not thrilled with the beginning teacher’s work because the primary traditional parameters for assessing a teacher’s work include efficiency and structure.

Tilting The Machine: A Critique Of One Teacher’S Attempts At Using Art Forms To Create Postformal, Democratic Learning Environments, Tricia M. Kress

Journal of Educational Controversy

Ten years ago, shortly after being admitted to a graduate English program at a public college in New York City, I was also offered my first academic teaching position. The head of the English department hired me as an adjunct to teach 100-level writing courses. Looking back, I equate that moment in my life with being shot up into the metaphorical pinball machine that is public education. Let me explain.

Coming Into Presence: The Unfolding Of A Moment, Lynn Fels

Journal of Educational Controversy

We are always, always being swept along in a moment of becoming. Let us for once hold such a moment, brimming again with precious fragile life. (Dragland, 2008)

My husband teaches science in a junior high school (grades 8-10) and, every year, he co-directs a musical with his students. In a school of ninety students, sixty eager teenagers sign up for auditions. He and the English teacher assign roles for three casts because, as he insists, “anyone who shows up should be allowed to participate.” This practice of communal inclusion stems from his own experience of early disappointment in …

Lunch At Petra: Greene, Gargoyles And The Sixth-Grade Field Trip, Kathryn Lafever

Journal of Educational Controversy

“The world is not what I think, but what I live through,” said Maurice Merleau-Ponty (2002, p. xv). I am inclined to agree, murmuring those words like a prayer as I drive my two young sons to elementary school through a treacherous predawn snow. Through the darkness, I am enmeshed in morning rush-hour traffic as a hypnotizing snow pounds the windshield, completely obscuring the view between swipes. The Inuit have about a hundred words to describe different kinds of snow; I might call this type snow day or anticipate a wreck snow. Miles back, I tested the road …