Education Commons^™

A New Charter Challenges Popular Paradigms, Levi Sharpe

Capstones

Many popular charter schools in New York City, which are highly rated, are known for being heavy on test prep and rigid in structure. Success Academy, the largest charter network in New York City, is the paragon of this type of model. But these models, known as "no-excuse" charters can burn out teachers. Critics also say they squelch students' creativity and their desire to be in class. A New York Times article from April 2015 described Success’ “polarizing tactics," which lead to high teacher turnover. Six months later, The Times also reported on a Success Academy charter in Fort Greene …

College Senate Minutes December 10, 2015, Bronx Community College Senate

BCC Governance Archives

Minutes for the meeting of the College Senate on December 10, 2015.

Senate Executive Committee Minutes December 7, 2015, Bronx Community College Senate Executive Committee

BCC Governance Archives

Minutes for the meeting of the Senate Executive Committee on December 7, 2015.

Mapping The Futures Of Higher Education: Community, Equity And Innovation, Janey Oliphint Flanagan, Deborah Greenblatt, Katina Rogers, Danica Savonick, Lisa Tagliaferri, Kalle Westerling

Publications and Research

This session explores the impact of student-centered pedagogy and digital innovation in the Futures Initiative’s 2014-2015 inaugural year. The pilot year integrated high- and low-tech student-centered learning approaches to flexibly target specific needs of CUNY students and instructors, and to promote equity in CUNY classrooms. Evaluators conducted an independent analysis to assess the pilot’s effectiveness. The session includes perspectives from Futures Initiative fellows, students, website developers, evaluators and program administrators.

When The Due Date Is Not The “Do” Date!, Theresa M. Mastrianni

Publications and Research

Our students consistently hand in assignments late, or complete them at the last minute. Why is it that they know about assignments all term long yet only begin them the night before the assignment is due? Based on a career-focused learning community at Kingsborough Community College of the City University of New York, this article looks at ways to help our “millennial” students develop better time management skills. It shows how time management and prioritizing can be introduced as a tool for success in college and life and offers suggestions to better engage students in getting assignments done in a …

College Senate Minutes November 19, 2015, Bronx Community College Senate

BCC Governance Archives

Minutes for the meeting of the College Senate on November 19, 2015.

Senate Executive Committee Minutes November 16, 2015, Bronx Community College Senate Executive Committee

BCC Governance Archives

Minutes for the meeting of the Senate Executive Committee on November 16, 2015.

“I Am More Productive In The Library Because It’S Quiet”: Commuter Students In The College Library, Mariana Regalado, Maura A. Smale

Publications and Research

This article discusses commuter students’ experiences with the academic library, drawn from a qualitative study at the City University of New York. Undergraduates at six community and baccalaureate colleges were interviewed to explore how they fit schoolwork into their days, and the challenges and opportunities they encountered. Students identified physical and environmental features that informed their ability to successfully engage in academic work in the library. They valued the library as a distraction-free place for academic work, in contrast to the constraints they experienced in other places—including in their homes and on the commute.

Using Relationship Marketing To Develop A Successful First Year Library Workshop Program, Mark Aaron Polger

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

College Senate Minutes October 22, 2015, Bronx Community College Senate

BCC Governance Archives

Minutes for the meeting of the College Senate on October 22, 2015.

Senate Executive Committee Minutes October 19, 2015, Bronx Community College Senate Executive Committee

BCC Governance Archives

Minutes for the meeting of the Senate Executive Committee on October 19, 2015.

Supporting Teachers’ Learning About Mathematical Modeling, June L. Gastón, Barbara A. Lawrence

Publications and Research

In the United States, one of the Standards for Mathematical Practice of the Common Core Curriculum (Common Core State Standards Initiative, 2010) is Model with mathematics. This standard requires that students be taught in a manner that will enable them to ―apply the mathematics they know to solve problems arising in everyday life, society, and the workplace‖ (p. 7). However many prospective and practicing teachers acquire a pedagogical style that does not support this standard. To promote higher levels of student thinking associated with mathematical modeling, teachers must thus be taught not only what mathematical modeling is, but how it …

School Leadership Along The Trajectory From Monolingual To Multilingual, Laura Ascenzi-Moreno, Sarah Hesson, Kate Menken

Publications and Research

This article explores the critical role of school leaders in language policy change, and specifically in shifting their language education policies and practices from monolingual to multilingual. We examine the process of language policy change in three schools that were involved in a project aimed at increasing the knowledge base of school leaders about bilingualism and language learning, and which required that participating schools use bilingualism as a resource in instruction and cultivate a school-wide ecology of multilingualism. The project encouraged translanguaging pedagogical strategies that engage the entire linguistic repertoire of emergent bilinguals flexibly. Our findings demonstrate that the school …

Learning From “Dirty Jobs:” Reflection On Work In The Classroom, Nicola Blake

Publications and Research

This article will examine how the work environment presented through popular culture can enrich and extend ideas of work in a community college curriculum. The article presents the context and pedagogy of utilizing notions of “dirty jobs” in the classroom and highlights the discoveries made about theories of work in the process. Students documented these discoveries using three writing assignments. These scaffolded assignments created individual ethnographic responses to the key question: “What is Work”? By using meta-cognitive teaching practices and popular culture, students were able to use the guided writing activities to explore their individual notions of work, career, and …

Advocate, Fall 2015, Vol. 27, No. 1, Advocate

The Advocate

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

CUNY NEWS (p. 7)

DEBATE: Those Fools You Call Intellectuals: “Digital India” and a Defense of Dissidence (p. 9)

CONVERSATIONS: Portable India: A Vision of Responsible Literacy in a Digital Democracy (p. 14)

THE CUNY EXPERIENCE:

- Reforms to Sexual Harassment Policies on Campus: Cases Still Underreported (p. 17)

- Speak-Out! Stop Racist Terror! (p. 20)

- Open Letter to the President and Provost (p. 22)

FEATURES:

- Bernie Sanders: Capitalist Pig in Socialist Drag (p. 24)

- “Democracy Rising”: Fighting Austerity in Greece (p. 29)

- (Mis)Understanding Gang Violence in El Salvador (p. 32)

REVIEWS:

- …

Advocate, Fall 2015, Vol. 27, No. 2, Advocate

The Advocate

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

EDITOR'S NOTE (p. 3)

CUNY NEWS:

- PSC calls for Disruptive Action and Strike Authorization Vote (p. 5)

- Wake Up Chancellor Milliken!: Photos from the PSC’s October Protest (p. 6)

- What the Union Wants: PSC CUNY’s Contract Demands (p. 8)

DEBATE: Not a Woman’s Issue: Gender Parity in the Workplace (p. 12)

CONVERSATIONS: Two Letters to Chancellor Milliken (p. 15)

FEATURES:

- Raising the Flag of Palestine (p. 17)

- How to Fly High Without Moving Forward: The Continued Drug War Waged by Prohibitionists (p. 20)

- A Genealogy of Violence: Understanding the Massacre in …

Advocate, Fall 2015, Vol. 27, No. 3, Advocate

The Advocate

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Editor’s Note. Dadland Maye (p. 4)

Letters:

- NYPD Surveillance on CUNY? Chancellor Milliken Responds Todd Fine Replies (p. 6)

- Defunding Dean K. Harrison Award Recipients? Provost Lennihan Responds. Naomi Podber (p. 8)

Debate:

- An Honest Commitment to Diversity. Paul L. Hebert (p. 12)

Conversations:

- An Open Letter to My Students and Anyone Else... Jerry Gafio Watts (p. 16)

- The Enduring Legacy of Jerry Gafio Watts. Christine A. Pinnock (p. 24)

Features:

- Disgrace! An Open Letter Addressing Diversity at the Graduate Center (p. 28)

- When the Right is Right: A Left-Wing …

Interdisciplinary Teams In The First Year Experience, Nicola Blake

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Crowdsourcing As An Approach To Customer Relationship Building In Academic Libraries, Lisa A. Ellis, Aisha Pena

Publications and Research

Library initiatives to first-year students not only present an opportunity to offer information literacy instruction for student advancement but they also serve a key marketing function by communicating the library’s ongoing value and building customer relationships. Library orientation tours are an example of how to effectively market to first-year students. Combining peer-to-peer learning and user-generated content via social media known as crowdsourcing, Newman Library sponsored a contest challenging first-year students to create a video sharing a useful library tip. The contributions and benefits of this co-creation approach to fostering relationships are examined and the implications to strengthening other library-user bonds …

Toward A Deeper Understanding Of Disability: Physical Therapy Educators’ Reflections, Clarence Chan, Debra Engel, Jacqueline Ross

Publications and Research

This article describes the unique journey both of a blind student in our Physical Therapist Assistant (PTA) Program and of the faculty who taught him as they all navigated through uncharted territories. Despite the fact that the physical therapy profession trains practitioners to help clients with disabilities to maximize their physical function and teaches them how to adapt to the challenges of daily activity, we initially assumed that a blind student would not be able to complete the program or be able to become a self-sufficient practitioner. We were very wrong. This article describes our learning process over the course …

Opening Up The Dialogue Across Disciplines: Making Room For Inquiry And Creativity From Pre-Kindergarten Through University, Amanda Nicole Gulla, Limor Pinhasi-Vittorio, Alison Lehner-Quam

Publications and Research

Professional development with teachers, whether they are in pre-K-12 schools or in higher education, creates opportunities for discussions among teachers and teacher educators about how to find spaces for creativity and the imagination within the struc- ture of the Common Core State Standards, a set of national standards adopted on a state- by-state basis in the U.S. Two education faculty members and an education librarian from a large city university held workshops, bringing together university faculty in arts and humanities, science, mathematics and education, and pre-K-12 teachers to explore the potential for inquiry and creativity in the Common Core State …

Teacher-As-Researcher Paradigm For Sign Language Teachers: Toward Evidence-Based Pedagogies For Improved Learner Outcomes, Russell S. Rosen, Meredith Turdetaub, Mary Delouise, Sarah Drake

Publications and Research

In the teaching of sign languages as foreign languages (FLs), teachers instruct learners in vocabulary and conversational grammar. In doing so they frequently notice that some learners are able to learn and produce vocabulary and use correct grammar, whereas others struggle. For a better understanding of learners' learning processes and their own pedagogical approaches, FL teachers turn to research studies on the teaching and learning of FLs. However, those studies are often largely inapplicable to their in-classroom practices. To resolve this problem, this article proposes and explicates teacher-as-researcher as a research paradigm for teachers' pedagogical development to bring about improved …

View From The Front Gate: A Comparative Study Of Nyc Schools From A College Admissions Perspective, Sharon Hardy

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study evaluated patterns of college applications from NYC Schools to CUNY. Specifically, a cohort of former large high schools that were reorganized into small schools of choice (SSCs) under the City's Children First education plan were studied. Coupled with the assessments of college admissions directors, the study concluded that despite an increase in applications, the outcomes of student academic quality and college preparation from a college admissions perspective were mixed.

Policy Implications Of A Predictive Validity Study Of The Specialized High School Admissions Test At Three Elite New York City High Schools, Jonathan James Taylor

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Although admission to New York City's elite public high schools has been controversial because of the disproportionate representation by ethnicity and gender of students admitted, there has been no research on the Specialized High School Admissions Test (SHSAT), the sole admissions criterion. This dissertation had four primary questions: (1) What is the predictive validity of the SHSAT? (2) Would the use of NYC achievement test scores improve prediction? (3) Does the SHSAT exhibit equal predictive validity across gender? and (4) Do disadvantaged students admitted to the Discovery Program with test scores below the cutoff earn grades comparable to regularly admitted …

The Making Of Knowledge-Makers In Composition: A Distant Reading Of Dissertations, Benjamin M. Miller

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Combining qualitative coding with original algorithmic and quantitative analyses, this project aggregates and visualizes metadata from 2,711 recent doctoral dissertations in Composition/Rhetoric, completed between 2001 and 2010 (inclusive), in order to establish an empirical baseline of what new and established scholars in Composition/Rhetoric agree upon as acceptable research in the field. I find that both subject matter and methodologies largely collocate within a small number of clusters, but not without cross-over among these clusters, and I call for increased dialogue among schools focusing on these different methods and subjects.

Chapter 1, 'Disciplinary Anxiety and the Composition of Composition,' reviews the …

Surviving The Gauntlet: Adult Undergraduates In American Higher Education, David Bernard Monaghan

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In modern American higher education, people ages twenty-five and older account for nearly forty percent of all undergraduates. Though neglected by scholars, these students and their experiences are both important in their own right and can help shed light on the broader world of non-elite postsecondary education. In this dissertation, I combine qualitative and quantitative methods to address central questions relating to college-going among adults. I draw on data from a nationally-representative longitudinal study (the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1979 cohort) and from in-depth interviews with thirty-six adult undergraduates in order to explore factors that lead students to drop …

Blazing New Paths From Ancient Footprints: Enactment Of Mexican Traditional Dance And Music (Folklórico) In A New York Urban Community Of Early Childhood Learners, Pamela Proscia

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The research undertaken for this study centers on outside-of-school teaching and learning through the practice of traditional Mexican music and dance (folkloric musical culture or folklórico) as transmitted to children of early childhood age in a New York urban ethnocultural dance community. The study focuses on the ways in which the traditional Mexican music and dance community, as cultural producers, pass along knowledge and inherent values of Mexican heritage and on how the process of acculturation includes changes imparted through progressive western approaches to teaching movement.

The study incorporates a long-term sociohistorical perspective in order to contextualize the place …

Education As A Site For Ethical Transformation And Activism, Lindsay Sudeikis

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In adolescence, purpose, integrity, and wonder come to life. It is of paramount importance that ethics-in-action be taught in our high schools. There is a need for a broader vision of the purpose of education beyond instrumental uses, specifically beyond preparing young people only for the work force. In the twenty-first century, we are educating laborers, homo economicus, and not whole persons, homo sapiens. Does this mentality negate the heart, psyche, dignity, feelings, awe, and creativity of one's humanity? Likewise, does it negate one's ethical responsibility to their fellow human and to the natural world? Who has the …

Environmental Expertise In The Age Of Research: Institutional Process And Environmental Science In The American Far West, 1950-2014., Nathan D. Woods

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation focuses on how academic experts have gone about creating university- based programs in Environmental Science (ES). Since the 1940's, with the emergence of the postwar research economy, the U.S higher education system has increasingly become a vector of institutional change, innovation, and economic growth. This has had a dramatic impact on the social role of knowledge and collective expectations for faculty and expert work. In this context, academic experts in the mid 1960's championed a movement to develop university-based programs integrating interdisciplinary environmental research with the expert use of science in decision-making. I pay particular attention to the …

Imagining What Could Be: The Role Of Youth Leadership In Realizing College For All, Tara Bahl

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In New York City, there exists an uneven landscape of college guidance among high schools, creating a college "guidance gap". While some schools offer robust counseling that helps students contextualize college admissions information toward making relevant college decisions, other schools have elevated student-to-counselor rates and do not have access to other educational resources necessary to effectively support students. Using ethnographic research and survey data, anchored by dynamic narrative inquiry, this dissertation explores how young people enrolled in under-resourced schools can act as agents of change in the lives of their peers within the context of college planning. Youth Leadership for …