Education Commons^™

Learning By Doing In The Segregated South: The Robert Hungerford Normal And Industrial School For African Americans In Central Florida, Wenxian Zhang

Faculty Publications

The development of the Robert Hungerford Normal and Industrial School is an important chapter in the history of African American education in Florida. Through careful examinations of the school publications, records, archival correspondence, and newspaper clippings, the article seeks to document the history of the Hungerford School from its founding in the late nineteenth century until it became a public school in the Orange County, Florida in the early 1950s. Following Booker T. Washington’s ideals, the school was established with a great emphasis on economic self-help and individual advancement for African Americans. Its mission was to teach vocational skills to …

Community Engagement In The Liberal Arts: How Service Hours And Reflections Influence Course Value, David Painter

Faculty Publications

Background: In response to critics’ charges that the liberal arts lack practical value, most colleges have incorporated service-learning in their curricula. Ideally, these service-learning activities not only benefit the community but also enhance the course’s (a) pedagogical effectiveness as well as the students’ (b) civic engagement and (c) professional development.

Purpose:This investigation uses a survey to measure the extent to which service-learning in community engagement courses at a liberal arts college achieved these three outcomes.

Methodology/Approach:Specifically, we parsed the influence of service hours and reflection activities on 740 students’ ratings of pedagogical effectiveness, civic engagement, and professional development. …

Common Intellectual Experiences And Academic Libraries, Susan Montgomery, Jonathan H. Harwell

Faculty Publications

As discussed throughout this volume, colleges and universities have explored ways to integrate high-impact practices into their campus learning. At Rollins College, a small liberal arts college with a graduate business school in Winter Park, Florida, faculty members have been essential in fostering initiatives that center on creating a common learning experience for their students. As library faculty members at Rollins, we have been heavily involved with the rFLA (Rollins Foundations in the Liberal Arts) curriculum for undergraduates. This chapter presents our work as a case study.

From Design To Delivery: Teaching Supply Chain Management To Ib Majors, Emmanuel T. Kodzi

Faculty Publications

Curricular development is critical for preparing students in a coordinated fashion for life after graduation – especially when their roles will involve cross-border business decisions. The design of specific courses in any curriculum must be purposeful in terms of what is taught, how it is taught, and how all the course components fit together. For a supply chain management course targeted at international business (IB) students, one key purpose is to understand how competitiveness is developed across the extended enterprise, rather than within the confines of individual companies. This “winning together” view helps foster capabilities for connectedness and cooperation in …

The Crossroads Of Sotl And Signature Pedagogies, Nancy L. Chick

Faculty Publications

The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) and signature pedagogies invite librarians to delve deeply into student learning within the particular contexts for teaching and learning that are unique to librarians.

Theory And The Scholarship Of Teaching And Learning: Inquiry And Practice With Intention, Nancy L. Chick

Faculty Publications

Theory in the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) is the conceptual basis for the practice of SoTL—or, more precisely, the conceptual bases for the practices of SoTL—as well as the bodies of knowledge, methodological assumptions, and explanations of phenomena that are deployed (explicitly or implicitly) from a range of contexts within SoTL. Put another way, theory is thinking on a meta level, a metacognitive move in which practitioners become aware, critical, and intentional of how and why they are doing their practice. It involves taking stock of the existing conversations to move beyond definitions, to critically evaluate gaps and …

An Undergraduate Laboratory Manual For Analyzing A Crispr Mutant With A Predicted Role In Regeneration, Susan Walsh, Ashley Becker, Paxton S. Sickler, Damian G. Clarke, Erin Jimenez

Faculty Publications

Exposing students to undergraduate research has reportedly improved students’ development of knowledge and skills in the laboratory, self-efficacy, satisfaction with their research, retention, and perseverance when faced with obstacles. Furthermore, utilizing authentic course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) includes all students enrolled in the class, giving those who may not otherwise have access to an independent undergraduate research project an opportunity to engage in the scientific process in context of an original, unanswered question. In the fall of 2016, second semester introductory biology students conducted a semester-long research project on the transcription factor Lin28a to determine the effect of Lin28a on …

Of All Days: Critical Pedagogy Outside The Classroom, Lisa M. Tillmann Ph.D.

Faculty Publications

A student at the author’s college pens a racist column on immigration for the school newspaper. Two departments, including the author’s, send campus-wide emails denouncing the rhetoric. A firestorm erupts, as much over the emails as over the op-ed. Years later, the student visits the author unannounced.

The Secret Between Storytelling And Retelling: Tea, School, And Narrative, Jie Yu

Faculty Publications

In this paper, I will tell two of my personal stories to try to explore the secret or opaque space between the original telling and retelling of stories in narrative inquiry. Based upon my difficult struggles with the two stories of tea, school, and narrative, I suggest that narrative inquiry has to be a complex loop of relationship, reflexivity, responsibility, and recursion.

Integrated Or Isolated Experiences? Considering The Role Of Service-Learning In The Spanish Language Curriculum, Gabriel Ignacio Barreneche, Héctor Ramos-Flores

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Redesigning Introductory Biology: A Proposal, Eileen Gregory, Craig Lending, Amanda N. Orenstein, Jane P. Ellis

Faculty Publications

With the increasing complexity and expansion of the biological sciences, there has been a corresponding increase in content in the first-year introductory biology course sequence for majors. In general this has resulted in courses that introduce students to large amounts of material and leave little time for practicing investigative science or skill development. Based on our analysis of data compiled from 742 biology faculty at a variety of institutions across the United States, we verified that there is strong agreement on the content appropriate for introductory biology courses for majors. Therefore, we propose that faculty teaching these courses focus primarily …

A Proposal For A Common Minimal Topic Set In Introductory Biology Courses For Majors, Eileen Gregory, Jane P. Ellis, Amanda N. Orenstein

Faculty Publications

A common complaint among instructors of introductory biology courses is the course covers too much material. Without a national consensus specifying which topics are essential, instructors are leery of excluding material. A survey was administered to Two-Year College and Four-Year College and University section members of the National Association of Biology Teachers (NABT) to identify the topics and skills college and university biology instructors believe students completing introductory biology should know and comprehend. Analysis identified a strong consensus for twenty topics and seven skills that should be included in all year-long introductory college biology course sequences for majors.

Labor Pains In The Academy, Lisa M. Tillmann Ph.D.

Faculty Publications

This piece offers autoethnographic reflections on crossroads to which many academics come: whether to seek (or postpone or avoid) parenthood and when. The author deeply explores the personal (her own trajectories from daughter and sister to potential mother and from graduate student to full professor) in order to reflect on structural constraints associated with graduate education, the academic job market, and institutional policies and politics.

Lessons From A Dominican Republic Field Study, Michael M. Gunter Jr.

Faculty Publications

Utilizing student-centered pedagogy, this case study explores an increasingly prominent and instructive addition to traditional academic coursework - the field study experience. This is particularly true in the arena of environmental education where students learn best by experiencing environmental problems first-hand and then interacting with those involved. From a teaching methods and styles perspective, then, this paper espouses a mix of experiential and active learning strategies. The central message of this essay, however, is curriculum-based, to report on an engaging two-week field trip to examine sustainable development in the Dominican Republic. From this report, the analysis highlights student feedback mechanisms, …

Switzerland's Nation Branding Initiative To Foster Science And Technology, Higher Education And Innovation: A Case Study, Marc Fetscherin, Pascal Marmier

Faculty Publications

This article presents a case study about Switzerland's initiative to promote its science and technology, higher education and innovation environment. This is accomplished through a worldwide network of science and technology outposts run by the Swiss State Secretariat for Education and Research in cooperation with the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs. In this article, we specifically discuss the outpost located in Boston. swissnex Boston acts as a physical and virtual environment to foster closer ties between Switzerland and the Boston region in various fields of interest to academia, industry, business and society. We present the history and mission of swissnex …

Mother Mentor: A Tribute To Carolyn Ellis, Lisa M. Tillmann Ph.D.

Faculty Publications

This poem honors the legacy and influence of the author's mentor, Carolyn Ellis, Distinguished University Professor, University of South Florida.