Education Commons^™

College As Capability Enhancement, Cristina Lee

CMC Senior Theses

In this thesis I wanted to apply the Sen’s framework in Development as Freedom to college campuses. In my experience at Claremont McKenna College, I have seen how some students are able to take advantage of the resources better than others. Given that we were all accepted by the same admissions office, I always questioned why did some students know how to take advantage of the system. In order to explore this, I first discuss Sen’s capability approach. Then, I show how the capability approach is more comprehensive than social networking theory and William Deresiewicz’s account on elite colleges. Finally, …

Biomimicry A “Natural Lesson” In Steam, Steve Pauls

The STEAM Journal

The introduction of biomimicry as a theme in the classroom has some significant advantages when developing a STEAM curriculum. This growing field has many natural overlaps between the different disciplines within STEAM. There are many fascinating stories surrounding biomimicry connecting nature to simple solutions for many of our most difficult problems, especially related to the sustainability of our planet. Biomimicry cannot but help capture the imagination of our students.

Nursing Students’ Knowledge And Attitudes Toward Care Of The Dying, Betsy N. Ward, Elizabeth Nora Ward

Doctorate of Nursing Science Dissertations

Abstract

Most nursing students fear death or care of the dying and thus question their abilities to give compassionate and competent care to patients or families at end-of-life (EOL). Research has shown positive results when students have experiences with dying patients in environments where interdisciplinary palliative and end-of-life practices are delivered. The purpose of this mixed methods comparative group study was to assess BSN students’ knowledge and attitudes toward care of the dying guided by Bandura’s social cognitive theory, which addresses learning under difficult circumstances. Nursing students in a palliative and end-of-life care elective course were compared to students in …

Charism That Lives: Translating The Message Of St. Vincent De Paul For Today’S Teacher Education, Donald Mcclure, Judith F. Mangione

Journal of Vincentian Social Action

One way that St. Vincent’s mission of compassion has expanded in modern times is through the work of Catholic Vincentian universities such as St. John’s University in Queens, New York. Consistent with Vincentian charism, the university’s mission statement proclaims, “Wherever possible, we devote our intellectual and physical resources to search out the causes of poverty and social injustice and to encourage solutions that are adaptable, effective, and concrete.” By working with and supporting preservice teachers, we can meet St. Vincent’s call to serve those in need. First, we provide a short biography of St. Vincent de Paul’s life, selecting parts …

What Does It Mean To Follow? An Exploration Of A Followership Profile In Hospitality And Tourism, Cynthia S. Deale, Donald G. Schoffstall, Eric Adam Brown

Eric A. Brown

Although leadership has received considerable attention from many scholars, much less research has focused on those who follow leaders; yet, followers contribute much to the success of an organization. This study explored the followership profiles of stakeholders in hospitality and tourism education. The findings summarize the followership dimensions of a sample of hospitality students, educators, and industry professionals. For each of the five followership dimensions the mean scores for industry professionals were rated higher when compared with students and educators, with courage to participate in transformation being the highest rated among all three groups. Implications for hospitality education are presented.

250 Words Of I Don't Understand: Reading Struggles For Freshmen College Students, Alicia Bushey

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

The focus of this Capstone project is on the reading struggles of first year college students. This is important because reading is a fundamental need in secondary education and in our society. If people are challenged in this area, they will struggle both in higher education, as well as certain aspects of daily living. The three primary stakeholder perspectives examined were college teachers and tutors, because of their relevant expertise, as well as their roles and responsibilities. Based on an analysis of the data and the relevant research literature, action was taken to help first-year college students overcome their reading …

The Road To Postsecondary Education, Oscar Bacilio Ordonez

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

Hispanic/Latino students pursuing postsecondary education is too low. Central Coast High School is an alternative School which provides students with a second chance in the path to graduation. The program to be held in this agency is an outreach program to educate and provide information for students about the importance of going to college. Another purpose is to encourage students to apply for college and explain the different types of financial aid available for them. The expected outcome of this program is to have about 75% of the twelve-grade level students invited to be present and participate. The implementation will …

Ldentifying And Characterizing Cognitive Factors Significant To Practicing And Learning Meteorology, Peggy M. Mcneal

Dissertations

To see the world as a meteorologist, one must understand and interpret atmospheric processes through representations depicted on two-dimensional weather charts and maps that encode large amounts of spatial and numerical data. This is a cognitively demanding and spatially challenging task, especially for students with burgeoning levels of meteorology knowledge, who lack the expertise of practiced meteorologists that read such charts and maps with ease. With little prior work informing meteorology and meteorology education through a cognitive science lens, this study surveys the literature and follows models of discipline-based education and cognitive science research to identify the discrete intelligence factors …

Editorial Introduction To Pedagogy & (Im)Possibilities Across Education Research, J. Spencer Clark

Pedagogy & (Im)Possibilities across Education Research (PIPER)

The editorial board is excited to publish our first issue of Pedagogy & (Im)Possibilities across Education Research. We have spent nearly a year conceptualizing, shaping, and producing the journal and this first issue. We hope you find it engaging and thought provoking. We, therefore, formally welcome submissions to the journal and look forward to facilitating the advancement of research in education.

Continuing Derrick Bell's Devotion In Creative Action, Angela Mae Kupenda

Journal Articles

I remember my first time seeing Derrick Bell in person and hearing him speak, just a few years before he passed away. I was in awe of him for many reasons, but primarily for two reasons. First, I noted from watching him with his devoted students, how mutual was the devotion coming from him—devotion to them as people and as those who would surely carry on his great work of seeking to forge equality in America and beyond. And second, I was in awe of him because of his devotion to the elimination of racism, while at the same time …

The Impact Of Information Literacy Instruction On Student Success: A Multi-Institutional Investigation And Analysis, Joni Blake, Melissa Bowles-Terry, N. Shirlene Pearson, Zoltan Szentkiralyi

Fondren Library Research

The GWLA Student Learning Outcomes task force analyzed the data from over 42,000 first-time, first-year freshmen and over 1700 distinct courses from 12 research institutions to determine the impact(s) of information literacy instruction integrated into course curriculum on several student success measures.

Key findings include:

• Student retention rates are higher for those students whose courses include an information literacy instruction component.
• On average, First-Year GPA for students whose courses included information literacy instruction was higher than the GPA of students whose courses did not.
• Students exposed to library instruction interactions successfully completed 1.8 more credit hours per year than their …

Open Source And Open Learning, Ryan Beare, Vidhi Goti, Seth Trojacek

Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial (FOSS4G) Conference Proceedings

We are the Geospatial Information Systems Club from Texas A&M University - Commerce in Commerce, TX. Over the past year, we have cultivated an incredible community of researchers, data analysts, programmers, and writers to make our club one of the top academic clubs on our campus. Our first project even won a first place award. How did we do it? We used Foss4G software. As beginners, we came together as a community of close friends, learned QGIS and undertook a project that highlighted and celebrated the rich 125 year history of our university. Together we continue to use QGIS to …

11.001 Lesley College Schools For Children, 1909-2002, Alyssa Pacy

Finding Aids

The Lesley College Schools for Children collection contains catalogs produced annually and other records from the schools (the Carroll-Hall School, the Lesley-Dearborn School, and the Lesley-Ellis School) that the former Lesley College acquired. Each catalog contains a history of the school, information about faculty, admission, buildings, course descriptions, academic calendars, school policy, and tuition and expenses. The collection also contains a book of published poems from students in Lesley-Ellis Schools' creative writing class from 1958 - 1964.

2017 Fall Faculty Conference: Telling Our Stories, Demonstrating Excellence In Teaching, Academic Affairs

Fall Faculty Conference

The 2017 Fall Faculty Conference featured teaching showcases by Kyriacos Aristotelous (Business, Accounting, and Economics), Phyllis Lynne Burns (English), Terry Hermsen (English), Mike Hudoba (Engineering), and Leesa Kern (Sociology, Criminology, and Justice Studies).

Breakout sessions followed.

Statefulness And Tangible Interaction In Design Education, Alex Lobos, Tim J. Wood

Presentations and other scholarship

Interaction in Industrial Design is expanding from tangible realms to intangible digital experiences. In this new environment, Interaction Design provides logical sequences and behaviors that allow users to easily navigate through complex workflows. This paper discusses a framework in which interaction design provides an innovative approach to traditional industrial design. This includes the concept of ‘statefulness’, where the dynamic changes of complex systems are broken down into states that can be defined and manipulated in order to achieve a desired user experience. This framework goes beyond having physical components of a product control digital interfaces and develops experiences that jump …

Testing Acceptance Of Language Difference In Academia: Perceptions In A First-Year Composition Classroom, Crystal Rodriguez

Theses and Dissertations

In response to Bawarshi’s collective call for educators to be “more responsive and responsible users and teachers of English,” and motivated by the research of Michelle Hall Kells, I argue that it is necessary for educators to introduce first-year writing students to the historical and sociopolitical aspects of language use in academia through implementing lessons that focus on facets of language diversity. After describing a lesson plan focused on language diversity, I then analyze student feedback using Norman Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis as a lens. I also discuss the results of a Likert scale implemented during the three-phase study. Student …

Evaluating The Policies That Lead To Stem Educational Attainment At The University Of Arkansas For Transfer Students, Bryan Hill

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The US has a critical need to produce more STEM graduates and that need is exponentially more critical in Arkansas. Arkansas currently ranks last in the percent of STEM degrees conferred compared to overall degrees awarded. Students intending to pursue a STEM four-year college degree who start at a two-year college are significantly less likely to succeed in earning that degree. Arkansas passed Acts 672 and 182 aimed at strengthening the success of students who transfer from two-year colleges into four-year institutions. This study sought to evaluate the effectiveness of the Acts by determining if the University of Arkansas (UA) …

Effectiveness Of The Flipped Classroom Model In Anatomy And Physiology Laboratory Courses At A Hispanic Serving Institution, Gerardo Sanchez

Theses and Dissertations

A flipped laboratory model involves significant preparation by the students on lab material prior to entry to the laboratory. This allows laboratory time to be focused on active learning through experiments. The aim of this study was to observe changes in student performance through the transition from a traditional laboratory format, to a flipped format. The data showed that for both Anatomy and Physiology (I and II) laboratories a more normal distribution of grades was observed once labs were flipped and lecture grade averages increased. Chi square and analysis of variance tests showed grade changes to a statistically significant degree, …

Mining Capstone Project Wikis For Knowledge Discovery, Swapna Gottipati, Venky Shankararaman, Melvrivk Goh

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Wikis are widely used collaborative environments as sources of information and knowledge. The facilitate students to engage in collaboration and share information among members and enable collaborative learning. In particular, Wikis play an important role in capstone projects. Wikis aid in various project related tasks and aid to organize information and share. Mining project Wikis is critical to understand the students learning and latest trends in industry. Mining Wikis is useful to educationists and academicians for decision-making about how to modify the educational environment to improve student's learning. The main challenge is that the content or data in project Wikis …

At What Cost? The Ethics Of Student Debt, Kevin D. Gecowets

The Siegel Institute Journal of Applied Ethics

This paper summarizes recent research into the cost of higher education, and specifically the effects of growing student debt loads. It explores the utility of debt related to access to degree programs, entry into the job market, and economic impact in later life. It is not an economic analysis of higher education financing, but a consideration of the costs and benefits of education financing today. The central ethical consideration of “who benefits” applied to the current state of play in higher education financing leads to the questions: With constantly rising debt loads for individual students and the general population, is …

The Lecturer As Learner: Exploring That Digital Divide One More Time, Mary O'Rawe

Conference papers

Although there is widespread acceptance of the importance, and indeed superiority, of student-centred learning in the contemporary success equation (McCabe & O’Connor, 2014), charting the route to such success remains problematic. Many assumptions around the nature of digital learning, and inter-generational attitudes to such learning are still made.

Specific to the context of technology-enhanced teaching, learning and assessment in a higher education environment, a range of generic and particular debates around how to be student-centric arise. Technology-enhanced learning (TEL) has been examined extensively from both the student’s viewpoint, and the lecturer’s perspective (Waycott et al., 2010). But how can these …

Cooperating Teachers' Experiences Mentoring Preservice Teachers, David H. Lewis

Special Education ETDs

Abstract

Recent literature was reviewed to locate articles with perspectives and attitudes of cooperating teachers who work with preservice teachers at school sites in coordination with institutions that have teacher preparation programs in general and/or special education. The results showed an emphasis in reporting the external aspects of being a cooperating teacher such as the daily activities, and little was reported about the internal aspects of being a cooperating teacher such as personal experience and rationale for working a preservice teacher into a classroom. This led to the research question “What do cooperating teachers report as their experiences while mentoring …

Minimum Education Requirements For Crime Scene Investigators, Araseli Saldivar

Themis: Research Journal of Justice Studies and Forensic Science

The initial crime scene investigation is critical since it is the primary step in the investigative process; therefore, individuals assigned to process a scene should be highly educated. Improperly educated (or uneducated) crime scene investigators (CSIs) can mishandle evidence during an investigation, affecting the outcome of cases. The minimum education requirement for CSIs should transition from a high school diploma—the current requirement—toward a bachelor’s degree. The importance of acquiring a college-level education is observed in a study conducted on crime scene examiners in Australia. To determine the educational requirement for CSIs in the United States, information was gathered electronically from …

How Scholarship Programs Facilitate First-Generation College Students’ Involvement, Maria C. Restrepo Chavez

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

As a first-generation college student, I am interested in the on-campus involvement and experiences of other first-generation college students. First-generation college students are those whose parents did not receive a university degree and tend to come from low-income families. This project explores programs designed to support and enrich the experiences of such students. The Centennial Scholars Program at James Madison University and the Presidential Scholarship Initiative at Virginia Tech aim to increase the socio-economic diversity on each campus. These programs provide students with full funding for four years, mentorship, professional development and social benefits, among others. In turn, students become …

2017 Great Expectations Spring Faculty Conference: Discovering The Life-Long Benefits Of General Education, Academic Affairs

Spring Great Expectation Faculty Conference

The 2017 Great Expectations Spring Faculty Conference feature a keynote speech by Dr. Richard Detweiler.

Rick. Detweiler is the president of the Great Lakes Colleges Association and the founder of the Global Liberal Arts Alliance, a coalition of 29 universities from 16 countries working to strengthen education in the tradition of the liberal arts and sciences.

His formative professional experience was time as a Peace Corps Volunteer on a small Pacific island, which led him to study social and intercultural psychology at Princeton University where he earned his MA and PhD. He began a faculty career at Drew University where …

Women's Education: An International Perspective, Nneka B. Dean

Honors College Theses

The purpose of this study is to dissect a topic that is heavily discussed around the world: women’s education and the many diverse ways in which it is practiced. One of the reasons women’s education is such a highly-debated topic is because there are still many differences in how people believe it should be accomplished while other places do not see the advantage or purpose of educating women. There are many countries with male dominated enrollment because of the women’s traditionally-held gender role of staying at home or because the family’s socioeconomic status. This study compared the experiences of women’s …

Communication Apprehension Among Community College Students: A Phenomenology, John R. Bragg Jr.

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A qualitative investigation was conducted to explore the phenomenon of communication apprehension among a purposeful sample of five community college students with high levels of communication apprehension. The phenomenon of Communication Apprehension (CA) is “an individual’s level of fear or anxiety associated with either real or anticipated communication with another person or persons” (Beatty, McCroskey, & Heisel, 1998, p. 197; McCroskey, 1970, p. 269). All individuals experience some level of CA, and between 30% and 40% of individuals are estimated to experience high levels of CA. For the community college student with high levels of CA, the introductory communication course …

The Best And The Brightest?: Race, Class, And Merit In America's Elite Colleges, Walter Chacon

Honors Projects

No abstract provided.

An Important Scholarly Exercise: What It Takes To Write A Valuable Book Review And Why, Charles F. Howlett Ph.D.

Faculty Works: EDU (1995-2023)

So, you’ve been asked to write a book review. Consider it an honor, not a burden. Younger scholars, in particular, often consider reviewing an onerous task detracting from their own scholarly research, interests, and desires, or that it takes up too much time. But I would argue that there are important benefits to be derived from writing book reviews. One of the most notable is that reviewing books not only expands one’s personal library of learning, but it also fosters disciplined reading habits. Failing to read and report on books deprives scholars of one of the academic opportunities of being …

A Path To Academic Success: Learning Disabilities, Finding A Way, John S. Cooper

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis will highlight the difficulties students with learning disabilities have in the post-secondary environment. Special interest is given to how colleges and universities help these students become successful and graduate from college. Two universities are examined, the University of the Ozarks and the University of Arkansas. Each school has its own programs that provide accommodations to students with learning disabilities. The thesis will follow a student from each university, as they attend classes and Social activities.