Education Commons^™

A Study Of Online Assessment Tools To Practice Programming And Their Effect On Students Grades, Jose Reyes Alamo

Publications and Research

“Practice makes perfect” is an old phrase that proves truth in many aspects of the life of a computer engineer. Students in programming courses are reminded constantly by their instructors to practice in order to become better developers. Traditionally, book exercises have been used or assigned to students for practicing programming. However unless these exercises are counted for credit, some students will lack the motivation to do them. On the other hand, assigning too many problems for credit can become a time consuming activity for both students and faculty as well as a grading burden for instructors. It is also …

Employers Seeking Skills, Not Robots, Aldemaro Romero Jr.

Publications and Research

There is a new obsession among higher education administrators and the politicians who oversee them. That new obsession can be summarized as follows: Colleges must prepare students for jobs. While this new mantra might seem innocuous and even well intentioned, there is more to it than meets the eyes.

In the first place, in the world we live today the specific requirements for different jobs continue to change at a dizzying pace. What we think is most important today will most likely not be tomorrow. Leading to these changes are factors including technological transformations, as well as changes in the …

Fighting Fire With Fire: Reinvigorating The Language Of American Universities, Aaron Barlow

Publications and Research

Might academia co-opt the concepts and language of the corporate world, repurposing them to meet the actual (and traditional) ends of our higher education institutions?

Facilitating Video Analysis For Teacher Development: A Systematic Review Of The Research, Laura H. Baecher, Shiao-Chuan Kung, Sarah Laleman Ward, Kimberly Kern

Publications and Research

Video analysis of classroom practice as a tool in teacher professional learning has become ever more widely used, with hundreds of articles published on the topic over the past decade. When designing effective professional development for teachers using video, facilitators turn to the literature to identify promising approaches. This article offers a comprehensive, systematic review of the international literature on video viewing in teacher education and professional development. Over 100 articles published in a five-year period between 2012-2016 were collected and findings examined as data in regards to the contexts for the use of video in teacher learning, the type …

Outcomes Of An Academic Scholarship Program At The City University Of New York – New York City College Of Technology, Sunghoon Jang

Publications and Research

We are on a threshold of a revolution in technology education where human knowledge is increasing at an extremely rapid rate. In the wake of these technological advancements, the required workforce skills and competencies are constantly changing. This combination of human knowledge and technological advancements is placing a demand on educators to prepare students with strong integrated technical skills in their selected educational discipline, as well as professional skills such as critical thinking and problem solving. The purpose of the Academic Scholarship Program at the New York City College of Technology – City University of New York was to develop …

Demagoguery Hurting Higher Education, Aldemaro Romero Jr.

Publications and Research

In the last few years a ghost has been wandering the political landscapes of many countries. Whether it is Trumpism in the U.S., the Five Star Movement and the League Party in Italy, the Podemos and Catalan separatist parties in Spain, or the Venezuelan Chavism, they all have something in common: a mixture of populism and nationalism.

Populism is characterized by the rejection of the establishment, the so-called privileged elites. Nationalism is a movement that promotes the alleged interests of a tribe, whether it is a group tied by geography, culture, or ethnicity.

They are both anti-historical in the sense …

Gun Violence Requires Better Prevention, Aldemaro Romero Jr.

Publications and Research

In the last few weeks we have seen an impressive mobilization by our nation’s high school students to tackle one of the most nefarious political issues that affects this country: gun violence. Many people question whether anything can be done about it given the power that lobbyists, most notably from the National Rifle Association, have over cowardly politicians. Yet, that does not mean that we lack information about what we need to do to stop this epidemic.

In a study published just a few days ago by the Interdisciplinary Group on Preventing School and Community Violence titled, “Call for Action …

Textual Revolution: Reading And Writing About Terrorism And Counter-Terrorism In High School Humanities Classes, Jacqueline Darvin

Publications and Research

This article provides a rationale for why high school humanities classes need to discuss the sensitive topics surrounding terrorism and counter-terrorism. It provides lesson plan ideas on the topics of lone wolf killings, domestic terrorism, the language of terror, related current events and larger social issues, and counter-terrorism. These lessons have the potential to reimagine secondary English and Social Studies classrooms to further focus on human development, relationships, and social justice

Proceedings Of The Cuny Research Summit: Creativity In Stem, Malgorzata Marciniak, Bronislaw Czarnocha

Publications and Research

The Research Summit “Creativity is STEM” was organized by the Mathematics Teaching Research Journal (MTRJ) and the CUNY Research Foundation. The event gathered over 70 participants from across CUNY and beyond. We spent time discussing various aspects and approaches to creativity and shared our observations about facilitating creativity in the classroom, during research projects, and in our daily life.

Edited by Malgorzata Marciniak and Bronislaw Czarnocha, the proceedings contain six presentations by professors of Mathematics, Sciences and Engineering from across CUNY and beyond, and five presentations by students reporting their research conducted in the context of student-faculty research.

Humanities And The Pursuit Of Happiness, Aldemaro Romero Jr.

Publications and Research

One question that is commonly asked of people who pursue a career in the humanities (like philosophy, literature, history and the like) is, “But what are you going to do for a living?” Even former President Barack Obama once ridiculed those following an art history career. These concerns are even more amplified in the case of first generation college students whose parents often- times expect them to follow more conventional careers, such as medicine, law or engineering.

Also, in the last few years there has been great hype about the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) disciplines as the only …

Engaging Biomedical Engineering In Health Disparities Challenges, Maribel Vazquez

Publications and Research

Health Disparities (HD) are community-based, biomedical challenges in need of innovative contributions from Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) fields. Surprisingly, STEM professionals demonstrate a persistent lack of HD awareness and/or engagement in both research and educational activities. This project introduced Health Disparities (HD) as technical challenges to incoming undergraduates in order to elevate engineering awareness of HD. The objective was to advance STEM-based, HD literacy and outreach to young cohorts of engineers. Engineering students were introduced to HD challenges in technical and societal contexts as part of Engineering 101 courses. Findings demonstrate that student comprehension of HD challenges increased …

Academia Is Running For Congress, Aldemaro Romero Jr.

Publications and Research

Midterm elections usually reflect strong opposition to the party in the White House, and the 2018 elections do not seem to be any different. Women, many who see themselves as targets of the current political environment, have achieved great success in special elections since 2016, and they seem to be heading to even greater success in this year’s elections.

According to Emily’s List, the largest national organization devoted to electing female candidates, in the 10 months before the election in 2016 about 1,000 women contacted that organization about running for office or getting involved in other ways.

Since the election, …

Cultivating Critical Reading: Using Creative Assignments To Promote Agency, Persistence, And Enjoyment, Nate Mickelson

Publications and Research

Skillful and attentive critical reading is crucial for success in college. Research has shown that pedagogies that foreground the transactional nature of reading are more effective than those that frame reading as a process of decoding meanings transmitted in the text. Despite this, existing approaches to reading instruction often reinforce a transmission model of reading that prioritizes the decoding of textual meaning over more active engagement. Assignments that explicitly or implicitly define reading as a process of identifying correct interpretations in this way risk reinforcing the shame and frustration students experience as they struggle to interpret texts. As an alternative, …

Meddling Goes On In Higher Education, Aldemaro Romero Jr.

Publications and Research

On February 16, the Justice Department issued a detailed indictment of 13 Russians and three Russian companies that worked since 2014 in subverting the 2016 U.S. elections. According to the indictment filed by the office of special counsel Robert S. Muller III, these foreign agents developed a sophisticated network aimed at supporting the Trump campaign, especially in battleground states.

These agents, who worked from an office in St. Petersburg, Russia, stole the identities of American citizens, posed as political activists, and stirred debate on politically sensitive issues such as immigration, religion, and race, all in an attempt to favor the …

Opening Up To Oers: Electronic Original Sourcebook Vs. Traditional Textbook In The Introduction To American Government Course, Shawna M. Brandle

Publications and Research

Traditional American Government textbooks are expensive and often unpopular with students. New technologies and Open Educational Resources (OERs) open up the potential for change, but questions of quality are ever present: can OERs really help students learn better, or are they just cheaper? I developed an OER based on original sources and compared student learning outcomes with the OER section to those in a free digital textbook section. While the OER I created did not work as well as I had hoped, I nonetheless developed a redesign of my course and my approach to teaching, which is the true benefit …

The New Federal Budget And Higher Ed, Aldemaro Romero Jr.

Publications and Research

The Roman Empire was one of the largest and most powerful regimes in human history, despite its many faults. Most historians will agree that the causes of why that empire fell were a combination of factors including, but not limited to, the invasion by the Barbarians from the north, the loss of traditional values, and military overspending.

Last week I reported in this column on how a fiscal shutdown of the federal government would affect higher education. Now that a two-year budget has passed, allowing the government to run until late March, we have a better idea of what is …

The Disruption And Diversification Of Higher Education Funding: Cryptocurrency For Higher Education Wealth Generation, Edward Lehner, John R. Ziegler

Publications and Research

This work conceptualizes a process for cryptocurrency to diversify traditional methods of higher education funding in the United States. Higher education funding has seemingly reached an impasse, and opinions remain divided over both which societal parties should bear the educational costs for the vast majority of Americans and how to remedy the student debt crisis. Cryptocurrency funding augments traditional revenue streams, and shifts the discussion of education costs from expenses to a more robust conversation about innovative avenues to wealth generation as a potential solution to fund the mission of American higher education. Historically, higher education has been rooted in …

Designing A Summer Transition Program For Incoming And Current College Students On The Autism Spectrum: A Participatory Approach, Emily Hotez, Christina Shane-Simpson, Rita Obeid, Danielle Denigris, Michael Siller, Corinna Costikas, Jonathan Pickens, Anthony Massa, Michael Giannola, Joanne D'Onofrio, Kristen Gillespie-Lynch

Publications and Research

Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) face unique challenges transitioning from high school to college and receive insufficient support to help them navigate this transition. Through a participatory collaboration with incoming and current autistic college students, we developed, implemented, and evaluated two intensive week-long summer programs to help autistic students transition into and succeed in college. This process included: (1) developing an initial summer transition program curriculum guided by recommendations from autistic college students in our ongoing mentorship program, (2) conducting an initial feasibility assessment of the curriculum [Summer Transition Program 1 (STP1)], (3) revising our initial curriculum, guided by …

A Shutdown’S Effect On Higher Ed, Aldemaro Romero Jr.

Publications and Research

When we read or hear about the federal shutdown in the media, we learn that it is due to the inability of our politicians to compromise, that all federal employees who are not considered essential are subject to a furlough, and that national parks and museums usually close. Yet, one may ask, how such shutdowns affect higher education. After all, most of higher education – including student aid – is supported directly or indirectly by the federal government.

To begin with, we need to remember that although no new federal dollars can be spent during a shutdown, money that has …

Logemann Studies, Practices Corporate Communication In Today’S World, Aldemaro Romero Jr.

Publications and Research

“It’s a good thing for the communication degree to be combined with business knowledge. Business acumen is more and more necessary in corporate communication. My own history has been full of twists and turns, and it’s brought me finally to the subject of communication. I simply didn’t know as a young person that you can study communication. I didn’t know what to do, so I ended up in a business school.”

That’s the way Dr. Minna Logemann explains how she became an expert in a field that is more and more in demand today: corporate communication. She is originally from …

Interactive Whiteboards In Library Instruction: Facilitating Student Engagement And Active Learning, Maureen Richards, Marta Bladek, Karen Okamoto

Publications and Research

Determined to keep up with the ever-changing instructional trends, academic libraries have been quick to adopt emerging teaching and learning technologies. Recent literature features many examples of technologies that have found a place in libraries’ instructional programs: learning management systems, clickers, online tutorials, reference chats, and mobile devices, to mention the most popular ones. Curiously enough, despite their popularity in business and K-12 contexts, interactive whiteboards (IWBs) are rarely discussed in the context of academic libraries’ efforts to embrace innovative teaching methods. This article addresses this omission. Present-day IWBs have evolved to include features that accommodate a variety of teaching …

Evidence-Based Instructional Strategies For Adult Learners: A Review Of The Literature, Rebecca Carlson Mccall, Kristy Padron, Carl Andrews

Publications and Research

Students who are older than age 25 are increasingly becoming a higher portion of enrollments in higher education. These students, known as adult learners, have different educational needs, expectations, and interests than traditional college students because they enter college with life and work experiences as well as responsibilities. Andragogy is the main theory of adult learning that addresses ways to teach adult learners. While the construct of andragogy is subject to debate, the education field draws on its findings to create learning environments for adult learners. Academic libraries can apply andragogy in their library and information literacy instructional practices. This …

Elementos Persuasivos De La Citación En El Discurso Académico De Posgrado: Los Verbos Introductores De Las Citas En La Sección De La Conclusión, David Sánchez-Jiménez

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

On The Use Of Semantic-Based Aig To Automatically Generate Programming Exercises, Laura Zavala, Benito Mendoza

Publications and Research

In introductory programming courses, proficiency is typically achieved through substantial practice in the form of relatively small assignments and quizzes. Unfortunately, creating programming assignments and quizzes is both, time-consuming and error-prone. We use Automatic Item Generation (AIG) in order to address the problem of creating numerous programming exercises that can be used for assignments or quizzes in introductory programming courses. AIG is based on the use of test-item templates with embedded variables and formulas which are resolved by a computer program with actual values to generate test-items. Thus, hundreds or even thousands of test-items can be generated with a single …

Africa Has A Need For Higher Education, Aldemaro Romero Jr.

Publications and Research

One of the oldest words in the English language is bigotry. Although it has an obscure origin, everybody knows its meaning: intolerance toward the opinions, lifestyles, or identities of people who are different from the person expressing those opinions. The bigot bases such rejection of others on ignorance and usually takes such bigoted positions to insult.

In one of the many scandals that we are witnessing on a weekly basis, Donald Trump referred to all the countries of Africa, as well as Haiti and El Salvador, as “s***hole countries.” The problem with this statement is that it not only reflects …

Higher Ed Is In Need Of Fresh Ideas, Aldemaro Romero Jr.

Publications and Research

One common expression in the English language, particularly on this side of the Atlantic, is to refer to unexpected or crazy ideas as coming “out of left field.” The expression originated from baseball, specifically after Wrigley Field, home of the Chicago Cubs, was built in 1914. In what is today the left field of the stadium, there used to be what was then called a mental asylum. So when something crazy or unforeseen happened it was said to be “out of the left field.”

Some of the greatest ideas in the history of civilization came “out of the left field.” …

Transforming The Embodied Dispositions Of Pre-Service Special Education Teachers, Gene Fellner, Helen Kwah

Publications and Research

Teacher education programs seek to foster dispositions that welcome student differences in race, culture, language and ability. However, pre-service teachers’ dispositions are difficult to transform because they tend to be aligned with the field of schooling where differences are punished or excluded. This study examines an activity for transforming pre-service teachers’ communicative habitus that was inspired by Bourdieu’s theory that habitus or dispositions are unconsciously embodied and therefore require a bodily counter-training for change. The activity instructed 17 pre-service Special Education teachers to communicate an experience through sound alone rather than words in order to challenge teachers’ deeply embodied communicative …

Integrating Multiple Instructional Mediums To Teach Critical Literacy With The Adult Linguistically Diverse Learners, Kaemanje Thomas

Publications and Research

Critical reading is the apex of tertiary education and the chief focus in higher education courses as they prepare adults for the workforce. Without significant improvements in academic preparation and support, many linguistically diverse [LD] students will have higher drop out rates in their first year of college. Developmental reading instruction practices are designed to emphasize moving the first-year LD students from sub-par reading levels towards the application and development of critical reading skills, as demanded by their college courses. Many community colleges across the United States prepare assessments tests in reading and mathematics for most, if not all, newly …

U.S. Vs. Europe In Higher Education, Aldemaro Romero Jr.

Publications and Research

Last week, while in Spain, I had the chance to speak with several higher education officials about how academia compares between Europe and the U.S. As someone who received his under-graduate degree in Europe and his graduate education in the U.S. many years ago, I was very intrigued. And this is what I found out.

When I went to college at the Universitat de Barcelona in Spain, European undergraduate degrees were five years. During those five years, all the subjects that you took were both a year long, and also were all related to your field of study. The advantage …

Weissman Was My Destination, Aldemaro Romero Jr.

Publications and Research

The date was Monday, August 8, 2016. The coeditor of this book, Gary Hentzi, and I visited Baruch College’s archives to get an idea of the kind of photographic resources we would have available to use as illustrations. We were impressed by how much material the archives contained and by how well organized they were. The director of the archives, Sandra Roff, and her staff walked us through the collection and occasionally showed us a particular picture that they thought could be of interest.