Education Commons^™

Learning Considered: Emergent Design In Student Affairs, Carl F. Ericson

Critical and Creative Thinking Capstones Collection

This paper is an argument for how Student Affairs practitioners in Higher Education can do a better job pursuing and living up to the profession’s stated goals for student learning. It is not a balanced or thorough presentation of facts and theories and it makes no attempt to review all of the pertinent literature. It does use extensive quotations from key documents and authorities in relevant fields and those excerpts are intended not only to support the argument and display the ideas and language necessary to develop a learning centered culture, but to also point out that people working in …

Partnerships In Employment National Transition Systems Change Project: Building A Transition-To-Employment Agenda, Institute For Community Inclusion, University Of Massachusetts Boston

All Institute for Community Inclusion Publications

The national Partnerships in Employment (PIE) National Transition Systems Change Project was established in 2011 by the Administration on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities. This five-year project focuses on improving, developing, and implementing policies and practices that raise community expectations and overall employment outcomes for youth with intellectual/developmental disabilities (I/DD). Now in the last phase of the funding cycle, the eight state projects involved in the PIE initiative (Alaska, California, Iowa, Mississippi, Missouri, New York, Tennessee, and Wisconsin) are uniquely positioned to provide youth employment recommendations to federal, state, and local agencies. In this document, we share several of the findings …

Making The Invisible Challenges And Opportunities Visible, Maureen A. Scully, Lisa Deangelis, Katie Bates

Emerging Leaders Program Team Projects

The 41 fellows in the 2015 Emerging Leaders Program worked with community partners to generate the theme, “Making the Invisible Challenges and Opportunities Visible: Collaborative leadership for economic and social well-being."

The projects provide fellows an opportunity to practice elements of collaborative leadership in peer-led teams working with multiple stakeholders. The projects focus on civic engagement, building a leadership base for Greater Boston that is ready to tackle the big challenges that ensure the broader economic and social well-being of the region. The project sponsor with whom each team works is a nonprofit or governmental organization with big goals. Each …

Transitioning From Following To Making Your Own Path Through Critical And Creative Thinking, Cassie Tighe-Hansen

Critical and Creative Thinking Capstones Collection

In my experience Critical and Creative Thinking (CCT) will work to open minds and help transition a person. It can take someone from a place of not being open to challenges and having a closed mindset to one of openness and allowance for ambiguity and new ideas. This paper shows the transitions I have made in my career by way of a tragic incident and the structure I hope to create in a new class focusing on the college freshman. Included is a sample of the CCT curriculum I hope to teach to this class- both more thorough, concrete plans …

Creative Problem Solving: A High School Curriculum Satisfying The Needs Of 21st Century Learner, Steve Guenin

Critical and Creative Thinking Capstones Collection

Designing Creative Problem Solving (CPS) – A High School Curriculum Designed to Satisfy the Needs of 21st Century Learners is my answer to the driving question: “How do teachers prepare students for an uncertain future?” Several processes influenced the curriculum design:

1) I reflected on the lessons I learned during my time in CCT. I looked back on the importance of having supportive instructors to accompany you on your journey. I realized practical and useful assignments motivate students to produce their best work. I gained a greater appreciation for the power of productive teams.

2) My growth as a stained …

“Save Our History!” Collaborating To Preserve The Past At Umass Boston, Meghan Bailey, Patricia Bruttomesso, Andrew Elder, Carolyn M. Goldstein, Jessica R. Holden, Joanne Riley

Joseph P. Healey Library Publications

Sparked by the 50th anniversary of the founding of the University of Massachusetts Boston in June 1964, University Archives and Special Collections (UASC) staff in the Joseph P. Healey Library collaborated with departments across campus to carry out a wide range of initiatives, all focused on locating, accessioning, preserving, and sharing the physical evidence of the university’s history. This poster outlines the various collecting activities, outreach methods, digitization projects, and dogged detective work that resulted in the addition of more than 2,500 linear feet of unique historic materials to the University Archives, as well as a number of well-received public …

Cosmic (Center Of Science And Mathematics In Context), Roxane Johnson De Lear

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

The Center of Science and Mathematics in Context (COSMIC) is a joint venture of the College of Education and Human Development and the College of Science and Mathematics at UMass Boston. This presentation highlighted their STEM initiatives for English Language Learners (ELLs), engineering learning in urban elementary schools, and professional development for teachers of Advanced Placement courses.

Research And Education In Parallel: Scientific Outreach Through On-Site Experiments At The Museum Of Science Boston Living Laboratory, Vivian Ciaramitaro, Hiu-Mei Chow

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

Our world is multisensory, as is our perception of it: we see lips move while we listen to what is being said, we smell food as we taste it, we touch a surface as we feel its texture as we look at. Cross-modal sensory processing, the way information from our different senses interacts and influences our conscious perceptual experience is ubiquitous in everyday life, yet, it is not well understood, compared to unimodal sensory processing, processing information from a single sensory system. One of our research goals is to standardize a set of computer-generated stimuli and procedures to study sound-shape …

Success Boston: College Completion Initiative, Liliana Mickle

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

Success Boston provides intensive coaching support and wraparound services to Boston Public Schools students and graduates to ensure they are Getting Ready, Getting In, and Getting Through college so they are equipped to lead productive lives after graduation.

Pre-Collegiate And Educational Support Programs: Celebrating 50 Years Of Educational Access, Opportunity, And Success, Terri Slater Morgan, Andrea Dawes, David Lemmel, Edgar Deleon

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

The Department of Pre-collegiate and Educational Support Programs provides low-income and first-generation students, students at high risk for academic failure, and students with disabilities with the skills, knowledge, and motivation to successfully enroll in and complete programs of post-secondary education. This mission is achieved through seven programs that address a range of learning needs and serve pre-collegiate students (middle and high school, veterans) and UMass Boston undergraduates.

A Breakthrough Series Collaborative To Support Trauma-Informed Practice In Early Care & Education Programs, Anne Douglass, Leigh Perreault, Lucas Dangler, Rachel Chickerella

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

The Breakthrough Series Collaborative to supports trauma-informed practice in early care & education programs and aims to close the gap between theory and practice by creating collaborative learning opportunities that use emerging science to address barriers and promote quality improvements in focus area.

Inclusive Concurrent Enrollment Partnership, Aimee D'Avignon, Amy Cook, Colleen Regal, Felicia Wilczenski

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

The Inclusive Concurrent Enrollment Partnership has enrolled students with disabilities from local public high schools for the past 6 semesters, since the Fall of 2012. These students audit courses that match their personal interests or career goals in order to experience a fully inclusive higher educational setting.

The Anala Collaborative: Umass Boston’S Asian American, Native American, Latin@ And African Diaspora Institutes, Barbara Lewis, Carolyn Wong, Cedric Woods, Elena Stone

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

The ANALA Collaborative is the newly-formed umbrella for the four UMass Boston racial and ethnic institutes. This year, with help from a team from the College of Management’s Emerging Leaders Program, we have come together to form ANALA in recognition of the area’s increasing racial and ethnic diversity and the need for majority-minority communities to work together toward common goals. While each of the four institutes will retain its separate identity and programs, we will also place greater emphasis on collaborative efforts in the service of our common mission and vision.

Promoting College And Career Readiness For All Middle School Students, Lori Cooney

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

Future Quest is designed around national and state college and career readiness standards to assist all middle school students to prepare for high school and postsecondary education and employment after high school. Future Quest provides online activities that promote student self-discovery, self-advocacy, self-exploration, organization, and technology literacy skills. Project personnel from the Institute for Community Inclusion are working closely with middle school teachers, students, administrators and families in Massachusetts to embed these college and career readiness skills into the middle school curriculum.

Building Effective School-Family-Community Partnerships Through Community Dialogues; And Super Friends, Super Readers! Engaging Community To Support Young Children's Social Emotional Development, Angel Fettig, Kaitlin Gould, Lauren Brodsky

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

Super Friends, Super Readers! guides children through interactive shared reading sessions by using dialogic reading techniques that aim to support the development of social emotional skills. In a separate project, UMass Boston and the YWMC offered a series of community dialogues among a diverse group of parents and educators to instill a greater sense of trust and overcome unintentional racial divides that have impeded effective parent engagement and student achievement.

Sparc – A Community-Based Participatory Research Project With Youth With Autism Spectrum Disorders, Richard Fleming

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

SPARC (Supporting Physical Activity and Recreation in the Community) aims to meet a community-identified need for more physical activity programming for youth with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). SPARC’s collaborative approach addresses the unique social, cognitive, behavioral, and physical needs of this growing population of children by infusing diverse perspectives into its model. This project incorporated a CBPR conceptual and methodological model, a strong community partnership, and an evidenced-based instructional approach, to develop and evaluate a community-based walking program for adolescents with ASD.

Calderwood Writing Initiative At Umass Boston, Denise Patmon, Carolyn Wong, Cedric Woods, Elena Stone

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

Founded in 2003, the Calderwood Writing Initiative is dedicated to improving the teaching and practice of expository writing. In the past, the Initiative has sponsored a wide variety of experimental programs & approaches.

Family Gym: A Novel Initiative To Prevent Obesity Among Families With Young Children, Ronald Iannotti, Patrick Filanowski, Emily Mccular

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

Family Gym is a program that occurs every Saturday at one of three community centers. In this program, parents bring their child(ren) in for up to 90 minutes to play in areas equipped with engaging, age-appropriate activities. Each area is staffed by student activity leaders trained to make the experience safe and fun. Parents are encouraged to play with their child(ren). The research aspect of Family Gym is observing the families and how they interact as well as their activity level. As a research team, we want to learn how parents participating in physical activity with their child(ren) affects both …

Batch Uploading To Contentdm With The Help Of Ms Access, Joanne M. Riley

Joseph P. Healey Library Publications

Microsoft Access is a great tool for minimizing headaches, streamlining data entry and ensuring quality control in preparing batch uploads for CONTENTdm collections. At UMass Boston, we store our descriptive metadata in MS Access tables by way of easy data entry forms. Then we use Access queries to automatically create all of the other necessary fields, to check for errors and, finally to generate a delimited text file that imports easily into the Project Client - almost always ;). This process has saved staff a great deal of time and effort and keeps their metadata safely backed up and available …

Pedagogy Of Curiosity: Initial Explorations Of Instructional Practice In A Critical Thinking And Curious Classroom, Michael Chalukian

Critical and Creative Thinking Capstones Collection

Through research on critical thinking, instructional practice, and curiosity I have developed the Pedagogy of Curiosity. This approach is implemented in the Curious classroom and a workshop for secondary teachers. The Curious classroom creates a structure and focus to encourage and develop curiosity and critical thinking of students. A questioning and research design redefines the learning expectations and the corresponding teacher and student roles in the classroom. An environment is constructed for students to take steps to become autonomous reflective learners.

This synthesis identifies two sources that inform my endeavor: 1) The accountability and results driven focus of No Child …

Crp Organizational Change (Bringing Employment First To Scale, Issue No. 2), Thinkwork! At The Institute For Community Inclusion At Umass Boston

All Institute for Community Inclusion Publications

Federal and state policy shifts have opened the doors to meaningful community employment for individuals with intellectual/developmental disabilities (IDD). Progress is apparent across the country: creative outcomes for individuals with significant support needs through customized jobs and self-employment, innovative practices at the provider level, and state investment in an Employment First philosophy. Despite these achievements, the number of individuals supported in integrated employment by state agencies that serve individuals with IDD has remained the same since 2000. While some community rehabilitation providers (CRPs) across the country have transformed their services to focus on integrated employment, including closing facility-based programs, most …

Teaching Leaders, Lisa Deangelis, Sherry H. Penney

Center for Collaborative Leadership Publications

In an age of instantaneous information sharing and increased interdependence, today’s leaders must learn to work collaboratively, leveraging the strengths, skills, and experiences of those around them, in order to address the challenges they face. The Center for Collaborative Leadership is uniquely situated in the College of Management at the University of Massachusetts Boston. The purpose of the Center’s Emerging Leaders Program is to challenge and inspire the adult participants in the program to act collaboratively, identify and rethink boundaries, build purposeful relationships, and become better leaders and citizens. In this brief, the authors reflect on how this program is …

Think College National Coordinating Center: Annual Report On The Transition And Postsecondary Programs For Students With Intellectual Disabilities: Fy2014, Meg Grigal, Debra Hart, Frank Smith, Jennifer Sulewski, Daria Domin, Cate Weir

All Institute for Community Inclusion Publications

The FY2014 annual report of data from the The Think College National Coordinating Center on the Transition Postsecondary Education Programs for Students with Intellectual Disabiities (TPSID) projects. These annual reports share data and analysis from data collected from a total of 54 TPSID projects annually from 2010-2015 on the programmatic structures and student characteristics and student outcomes.

Introduction To Community Life Engagement (Engage: A Brief Look At Community Engagement, Issue No. 1, 2015), Jennifer Sullivan Sulewski, Jaimie Ciulla Timmons, Thinkwork! At The Institute For Community Inclusion At Umass Boston

All Institute for Community Inclusion Publications

As national disability policy prioritizes greater support for community-based integrated employment for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD), the level of participation in services for other daytime activities continues to grow (Winsor & Butterworth, 2012). The role of services related to engagement and participation in community life has to date been largely undefined. The purpose of this brief is to offer a definition of Community Life Engagement, share reasons for its relevance and timeliness, and present results from a Community of Practice with administrators and personnel from seven state IDD agencies hosted by the Institute for Community Inclusion (ICI) …

Community Life Engagement: Data Sources, Definitions, And Measurement (Engage: A Brief Look At Community Engagement, Issue No. 2, 2015), Oliver Lyons, Allison Hall, Thinkwork! At The Institute For Community Inclusion At Umass Boston

All Institute for Community Inclusion Publications

As state and federal policy makers and Community Service Providers work to refine the concept of Community Life Engagement, they are able to draw upon multiple, public, national data sources. These include: Institute for Community Inclusion (ICI)’s National Survey on Day and Employment Outcomes, National Core Indicators (NCI), ICI’s National Survey of Community Rehabilitation Providers.

This brief provides an introduction to these data sources. It examines emerging Community Life Engagement trends shown in each source, as well as the implications for developing a better understanding of Community Life Engagement based on how it is currently being classified and measured.

The Truth Comes From Us: Supporting Workers With Developmental Disabilities, Max Barrows, Jason Billehus, John Britton, Allison Cohen Hall, Juliana Huereña, Nicole Leblanc, Eric Mcvay, Karen Topper, Thinkwork! At The Institute For Community Inclusion At Umass Boston

All Institute for Community Inclusion Publications

Employment professionals play a powerful role in the pursuit of true inclusion. This paper by self-advocates outlines key steps on how allies can move people with developmental disabilities out of poverty and into the heart of our communities.

Delphi Panel Findings, Brief #7: Paths Toward Fair Wages, Cindy Thomas, Jennifer Sulewski, Thinkwork! At The Institute For Community Inclusion At Umass Boston

All Institute for Community Inclusion Publications

This is the seventh and final brief in our series on the findings from a Delphi process conducted by the Employment Learning Community in 2013–2014. More information on the Employment Learning Community and the Delphi process can be found in Brief #1 (Introduction, Values, and Overall Themes). This brief focuses on the final priority area for policy and practice change: creating paths toward fairer wages for individuals with IDD.

Integrating Research, Training, And Knowledge Translation (Bringing Employment First To Scale, Issue No. 1), Thinkwork! At The Institute For Community Inclusion At Umass Boston

All Institute for Community Inclusion Publications

What our new center is about: People with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) can work and want to work--yet the majority don’t have jobs. State and national policies exist to increase employment, but systems have not aligned to make integrated employment a priority. To meet this need, the Institute for Community Inclusion (ICI) at UMass Boston is hosting a new rehabilitation research and training center, or RRTC. It’s called the RRTC on Advancing Employment for Individuals with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities. Because change is critical at multiple levels, the RRTC integrates four focus areas:

1. individual and family knowledge and engagement, …

Delphi Panel Findings, Brief #5: Processes Within State Agencies, Cindy Thomas, Jennifer Sulewski, Thinkwork! At The Institute For Community Inclusion At Umass Boston

All Institute for Community Inclusion Publications

This is the fifth in a series of briefs on the findings from a Delphi process conducted by the Employment Learning Community in 2013–2014. More information on the Employment Learning Community and the Delphi process can be found in Brief #1 (Introduction, Values, and Overall Themes). This brief focuses on the fourth priority area identified by the Delphi panel: improving policies and processes within state agencies related to employment for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). This is distinct from increased collaboration across agencies, which was a separate area.

Delphi Panel Findings, Brief #4: Education And Training For Job Seekers, Cindy Thomas, Jennifer Sulewski, Thinkwork! At The Institute For Community Inclusion At Umass Boston

All Institute for Community Inclusion Publications

This is the fourth in a series of briefs on the findings from a Delphi process conducted by the Employment Learning Community in 2013–2014. More information on the Employment Learning Community and the Delphi process can be found in Brief #1 (Introduction, Values, and Overall Themes). This brief focuses on the role of education and training for job seekers with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD), which was the third-ranked overarching priority among the Delphi panel members.