Education Commons^™

You Live Where? Maximizing O&M Services In Rural And Remote Areas Through Distance Consultation, Amy T. Parker, Mary J. Tellefson

Special Education Faculty Publications and Presentations

The region served by Portland State University’s Orientation and Mobility (O&M) and Visually Impaired Learner (VIL) hybrid preparation program is geographically vast. The states of OR, WA, ID, MT, AK, and HI comprise 28% of the US's geography, covering more than 1,061,000 square miles. Because of regional personnel shortages, faculty must prepare candidates to serve geographically dispersed children and adults with visual impairment or deaf-blindness using technologies that support distance-based consultation.

As a part of a federally funded grant from the US Department of Education, faculty in the O&M program developed an online learning module for candidates to use as …

Pedagogy Of The Edges: Anarchism And The Implicate Order, Jenka Soderberg

Leadership for Sustainability Education Comprehensive Papers

The ecological, structural and epistemological crisis that the planet is facing right now cannot be resolved within the modern educational model. Education can be a means for the transformation of society to a more just, sustainable future – but only if education itself is transformed and re-envisioned by looking to the perspectives that have been most marginalized. This new kind of pedagogy will develop outside the realm of an academic discourse, and will be found in transformative social justice movements and the relationships that are formed in these movements.

Capstone Assessment As Faculty Development, Rowanna L. Carpenter, Seanna M. Kerrigan, Vicki Reitenauer

University Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

Portland State University (PSU) is a public institution in Portland, Oregon, serving 28,000 students, including 23,000 undergraduates. PSU implemented Capstone courses in 1995 as the culminating experience in the revised general education program, University Studies (UNST). Capstones at PSU are community‐based courses composed of interdisciplinary teams of students actively engaged with community partners, designed to address the UNST learning goals (inquiry and critical thinking; communication; ethics and social responsibility; and diversity, equity, and social justice). Each Capstone course creates one or more collaboratively developed final products intended to serve the community partner.

In this article, we describe the evolution of …

University Campus Climate Survey: Report On Campus Faculty Responses, Diversity Action Council And Global Diversity & Inclusion, Portland State University

Global Diversity and Inclusion Publications and Presentations

After PSU’s Diversity Action Council identified the need for a campus-wide climate survey in the spring of 2016. PSU’s office of Global Diversity and Inclusion (GDI) convened a meeting with faculty, staff, and students to discuss the criteria for the survey and determine a vendor to administer the survey. GDI contracted Campus Climate Survey, LLC, to administer the Viewfinder® online survey. Viewfinder® is a campus climate survey instrument that measures the extent to which diversity and inclusion play an integral role within the infrastructure of our college campus.

After providing a copy of the survey and an administrative plan to …

University Campus Climate Survey: Report On Campus Staff Responses, Diversity Action Council And Global Diversity & Inclusion, Portland State University

Global Diversity and Inclusion Publications and Presentations

After PSU’s Diversity Action Council identified the need for a campus-wide climate survey in the spring of 2016, PSU’s office of Global Diversity and Inclusion (GDI) convened a meeting with faculty, staff, and students to discuss the criteria for the survey and determine a vendor to administer the survey. GDI contracted Campus Climate Survey, LLC to administer the Viewfinder® online survey. Viewfinder® is a campus climate survey instrument that measures the extent to which diversity and inclusion play an integral role within the infrastructure of our college campus.

After providing a copy of the survey and an administrative plan to …

University Campus Climate Survey: Report On Campus Administrator Responses, Diversity Action Council And Global Diversity & Inclusion, Portland State University

Global Diversity and Inclusion Publications and Presentations

After PSU’s Diversity Action Council identified the need for a campus-wide climate survey in the spring of 2016, PSU’s office of Global Diversity and Inclusion (GDI) convened a meeting with faculty, staff and students to discuss the criteria for the survey and determine a vendor to administer the survey. GDI contracted Campus Climate Survey, LLC, to administer the Viewfinder® online survey. Viewfinder® is a campus climate survey instrument that measures the extent to which diversity and inclusion play an integral role within the infrastructure of our college campus.

After providing a copy of the survey and an administrative plan to …

University Campus Climate Survey: Report On Student Responses, Diversity Action Council And Global Diversity & Inclusion, Portland State University

Global Diversity and Inclusion Publications and Presentations

After PSU’s Diversity Action Council identified the need for a campus-wide climate survey in the spring of 2016, PSU’s office of Global Diversity and Inclusion (GDI) convened a meeting with faculty, staff and students to discuss the criteria for the survey and determine a vendor to administer the survey. GDI contracted Campus Climate Survey, LLC, to administer the Viewfinder® online survey. Viewfinder® is a campus climate survey instrument that measures the extent to which diversity and inclusion play an integral role within the infrastructure of our college campus.

After providing a copy of the survey and an administrative plan to …

Building A Culture Of Collegiality Through Transformative Faculty Support, Rowanna L. Carpenter, Celine Fitzmaurice, Maurice Hamington, Annie Knepler, Vicki Reitenauer

University Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

Portland State University’s (PSU) motto Let Knowledge Serve the City identifies a key piece of the University’s DNA as a community-engaged institution. As educators in PSU’s signature general education program, University Studies, we work intentionally as colleagues to catalyze transformative teaching and learning to build--with our students--a just world.

In AY 2016-17, through an iterative process involving faculty, administrators, staff, and students, University Studies adopted vision and mission statements to reflect and ground our efforts:

Vision: Challenging us to think holistically, care deeply, and engage courageously in imagining and co-creating a just world.

Mission: University Studies’ inclusive pedagogy

• provokes students …

The Ouroboros Of Rubrics: A Conundrum, A Case, And A Call, Anita Bright

Curriculum and Instruction Faculty Publications and Presentations

In this think piece, the author explores a conundrum and tension related to using rubrics to evaluate doctoral work. She ponders whether the use of rubrics provides beneficial ways for students to “crack the code” of academia, and/or whether the use of rubrics is perhaps a tool to engender conformity. With these competing ideas in mind, the author considers in what ways one might press for means to provide this on-ramp of access for students to the existing power structures, while at the same time seeking to change academia, to more equitably provide spaces for a range in ways of …

Using Problems Of Practice To Leverage Clinical Learning, Maika Yeigh

Curriculum and Instruction Faculty Publications and Presentations

Teacher preparation is a complex endeavor. Preparation programs are designed to transform regular humans into adept teachers through carefully constructed coursework and clinical experiences. University programs and the K-12 school systems both play important roles in the process; however, tensions have persisted between university coursework and clinical field work—a divide between "theoretical" and "clinical". The 2010 NCATE Blue Ribbon Panel Report issued a call to action, and asked teacher preparation programs to reconceptualize approaches to pre-service teacher learning by placing clinical experiences at the heart of the work in an effort to bridge traditional theoretical and clinical divides. This article …

Pedestrian Pedagogy Of Place: Nurturing An Ecological Consciousness Through Slow Explorations Of The Public Realm, Kevin M. Pozzi

Leadership for Sustainability Education Comprehensive Papers

As increasing institutional paralysis and polarization demonstrate, citizens are not engaged or motivated by ecological challenges because they struggle to identify with our catastrophic relationship to nature in this urban, anthropocentric, and climactically-fraught modern era. Rather than focus solely on natural areas as a pathway to ecological consciousness and action, educators can inspire citizens through a “Pedestrian Pedagogy of Place” that brings wonder and enchantment into our urban public realm. Using the principles of sustainability education and place-based education as a framework, this pedagogy recognizes the sidewalk and pedestrian experience as a shared classroom through sensory, awareness-based learning modalities.

In Service Together: University Students And Incarcerated Youth Collaborate For Change, Deborah Smith Arthur, Jamie Valentine

University Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

Through the lens of two courses at Portland State University (PSU), this article addresses critical service learning pedagogy as transformational for both incarcerated youth and university students. In one course, PSU students share a writing/art workshop with youth in juvenile detention though The Beat Within (https://www.thebeatwithin.org). Another course brings together PSU students and young men incarcerated at MacLaren Youth Correctional Facility in an inside/out course format (https://www.insideoutcenter.org). Working collaboratively, students have developed a variety of service-learning projects. This article explores the impact of critical service learning courses on both incarcerated young people and university students.

Engaging Extended Family And Friends In Young Children’S Education, William A. Parnell, Ellie Justice, Laure Pearson Patrick

Education Faculty Publications and Presentations

Currently in our Reggio-inspired lab school, we continue experimenting with ways to connect extended family and friends to the school’s everyday practices, curricula, and philosophy. One approach that has been particularly valuable is our annual Friends and Family Day. This opportunity for engagement is not simply a demonstration of what and how the children have been learning—it is an event in which we all learn together. Friends and Family Day includes hands-on curriculum-based events in which children’s relatives and friends join in theory building, experimentation, and learning at our school (Parnell 2011b). We see such events as a way for …

Building Successful P-3 Initiatives: Foundations And Catalysts For Systems Change, Lindsey Brianna Patterson, Beth L. Green, Callie H. Lambarth, Mackenzie Burton, Diane Reid

Early Childhood

Across the United States, there is a growing recognition that early education and K-12 systems require transformative changes to address racial, ethnic, linguistic and economic disparities in school readiness and success.

Prenatal-through-Grade-3 (P-3) initiatives address these disparities by coordinating, strengthening and aligning fragmented support systems for families and children from birth through third grade.

These increasingly popular initiatives:

• Are based on accumulating evidence that standalone early childhood and school-based programs are not sufficient to sustain long-term success for children facing early childhood inequities
• Take a collective impact approach that brings families, early childhood providers, K-12 staff and other partners together …

Metamorphosis Inside And Out: Transformative Learning At Portland State University, Vicki Reitenauer, Katherine Elaine Draper-Beard, Noah Schultz

Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

In this article, the authors (a faculty member and two former students) describe the trajectory that Portland State University has taken over its history to institutionalize transformative learning opportunities within its comprehensive general education program, University Studies. Following a description of the institutional changes that resulted in the community-based, experientially focused courses at the heart of University Studies, the authors explore one particular community partnership involving both a state agency and the national Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program, dedicated to offering transformative experiences in which incarcerated and non-incarcerated students learn together inside correctional facilities. Finally, each author shares a reflective essay …

Catching The Wave: Are Biology Graduate Students On Board With Evidence-Based Teaching?, Emma C. Goodwin, Jane N. Cao, Miles Fletcher, Justin L. Flaiban, Erin E. Shortlidge

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Graduate students hold a critical role in responding to national calls for increased adoption of evidence-based teaching (EBT) in undergraduate classrooms, as they not only serve as teaching assistants, but also represent the pool from which future faculty will emerge. Through interviews with 32 biology graduate students from 25 institutions nationwide, we sought to understand the progress these graduate students are making in adopting EBT through qualitative exploration of their perceptions of and experiences with both EBT and instructional professional development. Initial inductive content analysis of interview transcripts guided the holistic placement of participants within stages of Rogers’s diffusions of …

Fostering Collaborations And Partnerships Through Osep Grants, Amy T. Parker, Katina Lambros, Carol Robinson Zanartu, Robert Wall Emerson

Special Education Faculty Publications and Presentations

Presenters from three universities discussed how Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) grant projects have fostered interdisciplinary collaborations and school/community partnerships. This session discussed the powerful lessons that have emerged from those collaborations, which have involved related services personnel in schools (e.g., school psychology, school counseling, special education, speech and language pathology, and school social work), as well as community partners (e.g., transportation specialists, urban designers, and geographers).

From Stuck To Spark: Career Planning, Brenna Miaira Kutch, Sarah Johnston

Office of Information Technology Publications and Presentations

Knowing what to do next in one’s career is often really hard. We will review some career development concepts such as developing a purpose, discussing tips for those with a less-than-supportive boss, and thinking about what to do next. We’ll work through example personas to help generate ideas and get started on planning development via a worksheet and some small group discussion.

Moving Beyond Alpha: A Primer On Alternative Sources Of Single-Administration Reliability Evidence For Quantitative Chemistry Education Research, Regis Komperda, Thomas C. Pentecost, Jack Barbera

Chemistry Faculty Publications and Presentations

This methodological paper examines current conceptions of reliability in chemistry education research (CER) and provides recommendations for moving beyond the current reliance on reporting coefficient alpha (α) as reliability evidence without regard to its appropriateness for the research context. To help foster a better understanding of reliability and the assumptions that underlie reliability coefficients, reliability is first described from a conceptual framework, drawing on examples from measurement in the physical sciences; then classical test theory is used to frame a discussion of how reliability evidence for psychometric measurements is commonly examined in CER, primarily in the form of single-administration reliability …

Are Private Universities Exempt From Student Concerns About Textbook Costs? A Survey Of Students At American University, Lindsay Renee Murphy, David Rose

Office of Academic Innovation Publications

A survey conducted in the fall of 2015 at American University in Washington, DC shows that rising textbook prices similarly affect students at an expensive private university as those at community colleges and state schools. Research on high textbook costs that has demonstrated corollary unwanted behavior changes in students, including not purchasing the book, resorting to illegal online downloads, and poor study habits, were confirmed at American University as well. Solutions that have been proposed to this problem of prohibitive textbook prices, including Open Educational Resources (OER), could have an equally profound impact at American University, and potentially similar private …

Prediction Of Children's Early Academic Adjustment From Their Temperament: The Moderating Role Of Peer Temperament, Sarah K. Johns, Carlos Valiente, Nancy Eisenberg, Tracy L. Spinrad, Maciel M. Hernández, Jody Southworth, Rebecca H. Berger, Marilyn Thompson, Kassondra M. Silva, Armando A. Pina

Psychology Faculty Publications and Presentations

The goal of the study was to examine whether target children’s temperamental negative emotional expressivity (NEE) and effortful control in the fall of kindergarten predicted academic adjustment in the spring and whether a classmate’s NEE and effortful control moderated these relations. Target children’s NEE and effortful control were measured in the fall via multiple methods, academic adjustment was measured via reading and math standardized tests in the spring, and observations of engagement in the classroom were conducted throughout the year. In the fall, teachers nominated a peer with whom each target child spent the most time and rated that peer’s …

Who Teaches Technical And Professional Communication Service Courses?: Survey Results And Case Studies From A National Study Of Instructors From All Carnegie Institutional Types, Sarah Read, Michael J. Michaud

English Faculty Publications and Presentations

In this article, we offer answers to the question, “Who teaches the technical and professional communication service course and in what institutional situations?” We present data from a national online survey of technical and professional communication instructors from across all Carnegie institutional types (2- and 4-year). In addition, we share four case-studies of survey respondents whose situations present the greatest challenges facing those who seek to improve or reform the technical and professional communication service course. We close the article by putting the case studies into the context of the reported survey data and arguing for how advocates for the …

Assessing Scrum Project Management And Teamwork In Electrical And Computer Engineering Courses, Branimir Pejcinovic, Robert B. Bass, Phillip Wong

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Teamwork and project management are essential skills for engineering students, as recognized in the proposed new ABET topic area 7. Our team of instructors exposes students to project management techniques at multiple levels within our undergraduate ECE program. By learning project management early and practicing it often, students improve their teamwork efficacy in projects, courses, and in their future careers. Scrum is a cyclical project management technique commonly used in high-tech industries. Scrum provides a framework that facilitates teamwork through an adaptable and incremental process. Our variant of scrum is tailored to students working on engineering projects in a higher-education …

The Trade-Off Between Graduate Student Research And Teaching: A Myth?, Erin E. Shortlidge, Sarah L. Eddy

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Many current faculty believe that teaching effort and research success are inversely correlated. This trade-off has rarely been empirically tested; yet, it still impedes efforts to increase the use of evidence-based teaching (EBT), and implement effective teaching training programs for graduate students, our future faculty. We tested this tradeoff for graduate students using a national sample of life science PhD students. We characterize how increased training in EBT impacts PhD students' confidence in their preparation for a research career, in communicating their research, and their publication number. PhD students who invested time into EBT did not suffer in confidence in …

Using Quenching To Detect Corrosion On Sculptural Metalwork: A Real-World Application Of Fluorescence Spectroscopy, Cory Hensen, Tami Lasseter Clare, Jack Barbera

Chemistry Faculty Publications and Presentations

Fluorescence spectroscopy experiments are a frequently taught as part of upper-division teaching laboratories. To expose undergraduate students to an applied fluorescence technique, a corrosion detection method, using quenching, was adapted from authentic research for an instrumental analysis laboratory. In the experiment, students acquire fluorescence spectra of sensing molecules in the presence of mock sculpture samples and discuss the condition of the sculptures based on the levels of soluble iron detected. This real-world-based experiment allows students the chance to engage with ongoing research and further understand the challenges with early detection of corrosion. Most students successfully completed the experiment, wrote a …

Onboarding: Engagement From Day One, Brenna Miaira Kutch

Office of Information Technology Publications and Presentations

This webinar will outline best practices, tips, and tools for onboarding new employees into your organization for manager and administrative support. The goals of this webinar are to understand why onboarding is essential to engagement and what steps managers can take to ensure an effective onboarding experience for new employees including staff, faculty, and student employees. Participants will share their own experiences, and return to their organizations with ideas for improving their processes and creating tools to facilitate an awesome and supportive environment from day one.

‘Locations Of Possibility’: Critical Perspectives On Partnership, Rhiannon M. Cates, Mariah R. Madigan, Vicki Reitenauer

Library Faculty Publications and Presentations

This article offers critical perspectives on collaborative partnerships and feminist teaching that revise paradigms of power, prioritize student agency, enrich curriculum and scholarship, and sustain empowered communities of learning that challenge institutional compartmentalization. The authors reflect on how co-created curriculum can catalyze new professional partnerships that in turn contribute to refreshed learning experiences and communities. This article presents evidence of how a partnership orientation effectively encompasses an ethic and practice of feminist teaching, posits a framework of feminist pedagogy and praxis into the discourse of partnership, and exemplifies possibilities of these practices as important steps towards a (re)vision of liberatory …

Hidden In Plain Sight: Findings From A Survey On The Multi-Major Professional Writing Course, Sarah Read, Michael J. Michaud

English Faculty Publications and Presentations

In this article, we report on findings from a survey of writing instructors who teach the multimajor professional writing course (MMPW) across diverse institutional contexts. We marshal these findings to advance a series of arguments about the situation of the MMPW course in U.S. higher education.

Comparative Use Of The Ages And Stages Questionnaires In Low‐ And Middle‐Income Countries, Jason W. Small, Hollie Hix-Small, Emily Vargas-Baron, Kevin P. Marks

Special Education Faculty Publications and Presentations

Aim: To map the breadth of use of the Ages and Stages Questionnaires (ASQ) in low‐ and middle‐income countries (LMICs) across world regions, and examine procedures for ASQ translation, adaptation, psychometric evaluation, and administration.

Method: We conducted a review of all original, peer‐reviewed studies written in English referencing use of the ASQ in LMICs. We used a consensus rating procedure to classify each article into one of four categories: feasibility study, psychometric study, prevalence study, or research study.

Results: We analysed 53 peer‐reviewed articles written in English detailing use of the ASQ in LMICs. We found evidence …

Documenting Accessibility, Eric Nambo

Office of Information Technology Publications and Presentations

This lightning talk presentation discusses ARIA, style guides, and pattern libraries for accessible web experiences.