Education Commons^™

Massachusetts School Discipline Policy Change: Exclusion, Alternatives, And Inequality In Public District And Charter Schools, Aster Richardson

School of Public Policy Capstones

School discipline reform is of growing interest to policymakers as ongoing research reveals the negative effects of current school discipline policies. In the U.S., the most popular models of school discipline use exclusionary practice, which includes suspension and expulsion. Studies have shown that exclusionary discipline contributes to undesired social outcomes such as poor academic performance, school drop out, unemployment, and even incarceration. Additionally, exclusionary discipline and its negative consequences disproportionately affect racial minorities and other vulnerable groups of students. Reform of current state policy is a necessary first step toward implementing alternative discipline practice in schools. In 2012 Massachusetts legislature …

Apprenticeship And Literacy Model For Women In Afghanistan: A Grounded Narrative, Mohammad Iqbal Halimi

Master's Capstone Projects

This study reviewed the Learning for Community Empowerment Project (LCEP-2), a five-year project designed by UN-Habitat and funded by the United States International Agency for Development (USAID). The project’s major goal was to empower marginalized communities in Afghanistan through activities in integrated literacy, community saving and investment groups, apprenticeships, and business development training.

The study examined the empowerment model of this project. It first investigated the work the social organizers did with the men and women residents of the project implementation locations in transforming patriarchal norms in conservative areas to improve women’s access to public space. It then looked at …

Aid Fragmentation, Commitments And Progress: A Textbook Provision Case Study From Afghanistan, Zia Andar

Master's Capstone Projects

This study reviews aid fragmentation and implementation effectiveness using a textbook production and distribution project in Afghanistan as a case study. The aid effectiveness debate has been part of the development discussion for both academics and practitioners since the beginning of modern aid. An overall consensus exists that development aid programs are not as effective as they should be. The debate over aid effectiveness has intensified in the last two decades and a series of international forums on aid effectiveness convened in this period, the most prominent of which are the High Level Forums on Aid Effectiveness, hosted by the …

Disability In Postsecondary Stem Learning Environments: What Faculty Focus Groups Reveal About Definitions And Obstacles To Effective Support, Genia Bettencourt, Ezekiel Kimball, Ryan S. Wells

Published Work

Students with disabilities lag behind their peers without disabilities in success outcomes related to access to, persistence within, and completion of postsecondary degree programs (National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], 2017). Faculty play a key role in shaping student success. To date, however, most of the work exploring faculty attitudes and behaviors has drawn from a broad sample (e.g., Buchanan, Charles, Rigler, & Hart, 2010; Kraska, 2003; Jensen, McCray, Krampe, & Cooper, 2004; Rao & Gartin, 2003), with only limited exploration of the attitudes and behaviors of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics [STEM] faculty (e.g., Milligan, 2010; Moon, Utschig, Todd, …

Engagement And Positive Psychology For Stem Learning And Beyond, Mark Tuominen, Lori Tuominen

Science and Engineering Saturday Seminars

Positive psychology is the study of how people flourish. A considerable amount of recent scientific research is now showing how the basic tenets of positive psychology used in schools can boost engagement, learning and wellbeing for students and teachers. These principles apply to any type of learning, including STEM courses. The concepts and practices of positive psychology effectively serve as affective multipliers, enhancing learning success and personal wellbeing. This seminar will introduce a sampler plate of ideas and activities from their course for first-year UMass students, entitled “Positive Psychology: The Science of Happiness, Creativity, and Accomplishment.”

18 Years Of Science And Engineer Saturday Seminars, Chris Emery, Morton Sternheim

Science and Engineering Saturday Seminars

The Science and Engineering Saturday Seminars (SESS) are in their eighteenth year of presenting engaging science and engineering half day seminars to STEM teachers. Offered for five Saturdays once or twice a year, there have been 140 sessions altogether. The average attendance is 30 or so middle and high school teachers. Each teaches about 100 students, so the potential impact is impressive.

Seminar Descriptions, Morton Sternheim

Science and Engineering Saturday Seminars

No abstract provided.

Collaborating Across National Boundaries For Narrative Teaching And Learning, Haji Karim Khan, Theresa Y. Austin

College of Education Faculty Publication Series

University faculty members always learn through their collaborative engagement in teaching and research. This article reports on collaborative efforts between a Pakistani and US university professor to develop and teach a graduate seminar on narrative inquiry. We used a self-study approach to record, analyze, and report on our experience of teaching narrative inquiry in a graduate research course. We used our reflective journals, course outline, course description, session plans, class-notes, and students’ reflections as data for analysis. As a result, we developed our analytical stories of experiences under several themes.

Findings showcase insights arising from philosophical (ontological and epistemological) underpinnings, …

Hepatitis C Virus Education For Nurse Practitioners In Primary Care, Michele Broskey

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) Projects

Purpose: The object of this Quality Improvement (QI) project was to appraise the effectiveness of a web-based education resource for APN’s knowledge of HCV recommendations.

Methods: An educational intervention was conducted for APNs working in primary care medicine to increase provider knowledge of screening, diagnosing and management of viral Hepatitis C which utilized a web-based provider-specific curricula. A pre-test and post-test survey was used to assess the APN’s Knowledge, Attitude and Practices (KAP) regarding the current published evidence. Continuing education credits and small financial incentives were offered for participation. The curriculum was evaluated by an Infectious Disease expert APN.

Results: …

Coloniality, And Subalterns In The Colombian English Language Teaching Policy: De-Silencing Teachers As Policy Actors, Rosa A. Medina Riveros, Theresa Y. Austin

College of Education Working Papers and Reports Series

The Colombian government has designed language policies to increase the level of English- Spanish bilingualism in the last decades. In 2014, the Colombian government launched 'Colombia: Very Well', the National Plan of English (NPE) that was created in consultancy with a private firm This study explores the English Language policy in Colombia through postcolonial sociology analyzing coloniality, imperialisms and subalternities and the connections across transnational agencies (macro- level), national actors (meso-level), and classroom teachers' enactments of the policy (micro level). It calls for de-silencing teachers and recognizing them as knowledgeable policy actors.