Education Commons^™

A Study Of The Perceptions Of Career American Missionaries In The Countries Of Kenya And Tanzania Relating To Their Overseas Field-Based Orientation Experiences, John S. Basham

Department of Educational Administration: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The purpose of this study was to examine the lived field orientation experiences of 12 missionaries living in Kenya and Tanzania relative to their perceptions of personal effectiveness. This study was driven by how a segment of missionaries described their field orientation in relation to perceived effectiveness on the field. Four major themes relative to field orientation emerged. Recommendations relating to missionary field orientation programs were offered.

Every year thousands of new missionaries relocate overseas with the intent of ministering in a new culture. All experience cultural shock and problems. Orientation experiences and personal definitions of effectiveness could impact why …

Gamma Sigma Delta Newsletter - Nebraska Chapter, Issue #39, December 2009

Gamma Sigma Delta, Nebraska Chapter: Newsletters

President’s Message: We thank the seminar panelists and the seminar committee for an outstanding seminar. New Outstanding Graduate Student Award. Initiation and Awards Banquet, January 24, 2010. Rick Rasby elected to Chapter office.
Award of Merit for Service: Elbert C. Dickey
Extension Award: Dennis E. Bauer
Teaching Award: Tiffany M. Heng-Moss
Research Award: Clinton J. Jones
Gamma Sigma Delta Initiates
Gamma Sigma Delta Outstanding Graduate Student Award Fund

Graduate Connections- November 2009

Graduate Connections: A Newsletter for UNL Graduate Students

In This Issue:

Click on links to navigate the newsletter

Navigating Graduate School ...... 1

Seven Keys to Success

Non-Traditional Students

Keeping Connected at a Distance

Good Practices in Graduate Education ...................................... 5

Types of Plagiarism

Essential Connections .................. 6

Tips for Forming Your Supervisory Committee

Top Ten Teaching Mistakes

Improving Teaching through Student Feedback

Teaching Tip ................................. 8

MERLOT

Professional Development ......... 11

Writing a Research Article

Transferable Skills

Funding Opportunities ............... 16

Announcements .......................... 17

Fellowship Competition

Insurance for Grad Assistants

Student Accounts

Volunteer Opportunities

Interactions ................................. 18

Fellowship Winners

GSA News

Events .......................................... 19

NAGPS Conference

Calendar …

Gamma Sigma Delta Newsletter - Nebraska Chapter, Issue #38, September 2009

Gamma Sigma Delta, Nebraska Chapter: Newsletters

President’s Message
The Gamma Sigma Delta 2009 Seminar: How Far Can Energy Conservation and Novel Biofuels Go Towards Reducing Reliance on Fossil Fuels?, Shirley Niemeyer, Ron Yoder, Don Weeks
Award of Merit Nomination
Extension Award Nomination
Research Award Nomination
Teaching Award Nomination
In Memoriam: Willard F. Jones, R. Burt Maxcy, Earle S. Raun, James G. Emal, Paul J. Mattern
Gamma Sigma Delta Committees 2009
MEMBERSHIP RENEWAL FORM

Graduate Connections- August 2009

Graduate Connections: A Newsletter for UNL Graduate Students

In This Issue:

Click on links to navigate the newsletter

Navigating Graduate School......1

Ten Things to Do the First Ten Weeks of Graduate School

Career Talk: Learning the Lingo

Goo Practices in Graduate Education......................................4

Key Practices for Integrity in Research

Essential Connections..................6

Who Are Our Students

Syllabus Checklist

Teaching Tip .................................8

Creating a Positive Climate

Professional Development...........8

How to Read a Job Posting

Funding Opportunities...............11

Events..........................................13

Campuswide Workshops for Graduate Teaching Assistants

New Student Welcome

International Student Orientation

Graduation Information Sessions

Announcements..........................15

Health Insurance

Call for Graduate Award Nominations

Syllabus Policy

Interactions.................................17

GSA News

Calendar......................................18

Events

Degree Deadlines

Readers’ Corner.........................19 …

Leadership Development Of Registered Dietitians, Anne Marie Bigley Hunter

Department of Nutrition and Health Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This study investigated leadership development of Registered Dietitians in nationally elected or appointed leadership positions of the American Dietetic Association. An explanatory sequential mixed method design: participant selection model was used collecting qualitative data after a quantitative phase. Demographic data were collected via a mailed survey questionnaire followed by, with consent, a web based validated Sentence Completion Test International- Maturity Assessment Profile Research Version (2) (SCTi- MAP) to determine their stage of leadership development. Of the 97 participants, 86% (n=83) responded to the survey questionnaire with 92% (n=79) rating the importance of dietitians being leaders as very important; 100% (n=83) …

Gamma Sigma Delta Newsletter - Nebraska Chapter, Issue #37, May 2009

Gamma Sigma Delta, Nebraska Chapter: Newsletters

President’s Message -- Clayton Kelling
GAMMA SIGMA DELTA COMMITTEES ‐ 2009 OUTSTANDING SCHOLARLY ACHIEVEMENTS IN 2008‐2009
Kelly Ingram -- Outstanding Gamma Sigma Delta Underclassman
Lindsay Calhoon -- Outstanding Gamma Sigma Delta Senior
2008 GAMMA SIGMA DELTA NEW MEMBERS
2008 INITIATION AND AWARDS BANQUET: Dr. Martin Massengale received the 2008 Gamma Sigma Delta International Distinguished Achievement in Agriculture Award.
Excellence in Extension Award: Dr. Rick Rasby
Excellence in Teaching Award: Dr. Bryan Reiling
Excellence in Research Award: Dr. Andrew Benson
IN MEMORIAM: James V. Drew, Rose Marie Tondl, Wallace W. Wilhelm
Renewal of Active Membership / Dues for 2009

Graduate Connections- April 2009

Graduate Connections: A Newsletter for UNL Graduate Students

In This Issue:

Click on links to navigate the newsletter

Navigating Graduate School......1

Working with Your Supervisor

Tips for Publishing

How to Think and Act as a Writer

Good Practices in Graduate Education......................................4

The Ethics of Authorship

Essential Connections..................5

How Does Your Teaching Impact Undergraduates?

Creating a Syllabus

Teaching Tip .................................6

Helping Students Read Research Literature

Professional Development...........8

Academic Job Search Timeline

Is a Postdoc in Your Future?

Launching Your Career

Funding Opportunities...............11

Events..........................................13

Research Fair

ITA Institute

SPEAK Test

TA Campus-wide Workshop

Announcements..........................15

Calendar......................................16

Interactions.................................16

GSA News

Readers’ Corner.........................17

Professors as Writers

Seward Casa Board Development Workshop, Heartland Center For Leadership Development

Heartland Center for Leadership Development Materials

Agenda from the Seward CASA Board Development Workshop, February 21, 2009, presented by the Heartland Center for Leadership Development.

Graduate Connections- February 2009

Graduate Connections: A Newsletter for UNL Graduate Students

In This Issue:

Click on links to navigate the newsletter

Navigating Graduate School......1

Advice for Completing a Thesis or Dissertation

Good Practices in Graduate

Education.................................... 3

How to be Fair and Ethical in the Classroom

Essential Connections.................. 4

Helping Students: A Peer Mentoring Approach

What You Should Know about Programs of Study/Memoranda of Courses, Graduate Level Courses

Teaching Tip .................................5

Handling Disruptions

Professional Development...........6

Individual Professional Development Plan

Interactions...................................8

Graduate Award Winners

GSA News

Funding Opportunities.................9

Resources for Researchers........11

Lab Safety Initiative

Events..........................................12

Announcements..........................13

Calendar......................................15

Word to the Wise.......................16

Dissertation Support Groups for Ph.D. Students

Readers’ Corner.........................17

Resources for Writing …

Cyberbullying, Phyllis I. Schoenholz, Deborah J. Weitzenkamp, Jennifer S. Nixon

Kimmel Education and Research Center: Faculty and Staff Publications

Technology now allows people — often children — to bully online. Social messaging sites can open up the user to a variety of bullying techniques outside of the playground. How parents and other adults can help reduce bullying over the Internet is examined in this NebGuide. ...

What can a parent do about cyberbullying? First, it’s important that parents and youth not reply or respond in any way to cyberbullies. Research indicates that being responsive may, in fact, escalate the activity. Instead, parents will need to think like a detective or lawyer. Document the activity with dates and times and …

Ethical Guidelines For Educational Developers

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Ethical guidelines for educational developers, prepared by Mintz, Smith, and Warren, January 1999. Revised March 1999, September 1999, and March 2000.

Magicians Of The Golden State: The Csu Center Director Disappearing Acts, Cynthia Desrochers

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

The California State University (CSU) Teaching and Learning Center directors perform daily feats of magic, often culminating in one particularly dramatic trick at the end of the academic year—their own disappearing acts. This chapter traces the history of the center director position in the CSU system, reports where directors go when they leave the position after only a few years, and proposes how frequent turnover might be reversed through organizational factors aimed at promoting retention of these Magicians of the Golden State.

Teaching Learning Processes—To Students And Teachers, Pamela E. Barnett, Linda C. Hodges

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Our teaching and learning center serves faculty and graduate students as teachers and undergraduates as learners. Here we share the experiences of graduate student facilitators whom we trained to lead problem-solving skills workshops for undergraduates. Our aim was to help these graduate students see themselves as teachers of disciplinary thinking as much as of disciplinary content. However, they also began to reexamine their teaching beliefs and practices, recognize and respond to the needs of novice learners, and become more conscious of the demands of learning their disciplines. We offer this program as a model for developing future facuity.

Preface, Volume 27 (2009), Linda B. Nilson

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Preface to volume 27 (2009) of To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development, by Linda B. Nilson of Clemson University.

Meeting New Faculty At The Intersection: Personal And Professional Support Points The Way, Ann Riley

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Faculty developers can play a significant role in increasing the retention of new faculty. This chapter presents a study conducted at a public research university that reveals that first-year faculty need personal, relational, and professional support. However, the importance of each type of support shifts during this first year, suggesting that faculty development efforts aimed toward new faculty should adjust accordingly. This study uses a sequential mixed-method design and is grounded in adult development theory, which views new faculty as adult learners in a career-life transition and faculty developers as adult educators.

Romancing The Muse: Faculty Writing Institutes As Professional Development, Elizabeth Ambos, Mark Wiley, Terre H. Allen

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Conclusion
Given the tremendous success of the SWIs, we intend to continue to offer them for the foreseeable future, maintaining the features that faculty value most: space, sustenance, and editorial, statistical, and coaching assistance. But we will also make changes based on faculty feedback gathered during the final day’s luncheon debriefing and from the written evaluations. In addition, we intend to conduct formal research on the Institutes’ long-term effects on faculty productivity, satisfaction with scholarly work, and faculty retention. Important questions remain. For example, what is the return on investment in these Institutes, in terms of faculty productivity, career advancement, …

Bibliography, Volume 27 (2009)

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Bibliography for volume 27 (2009) of To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development.

Starting And Sustaining Successful Faculty Development Programs At Small Colleges, Michael Reder, Kim M. Mooney, Richard A. Holgren, Paul J. Kuerbis

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

This chapter complements a recent chapter in To Improve the Academy by Mooney and Reder (2008) that discusses the distinctive features and challenges of faculty development at small and liberal arts colleges. As a continuation and expansion of that more conceptual discussion, we aim to convey practical strategies for relatively new faculty developers at small institutions with incipient programs. The suggestions offered in this chapter are grounded in our experiences as faculty developers at liberal arts colleges and developed through numerous national conference presentations and conversations with colleagues in the field over the past decade. Although our recommendations are particularly …

Essential Faculty Development Programs For Teaching And Learning Centers In Research–Extensive Universities, Larissa Pchenitchnaia, Bryan R. Cole

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

This research highlights the imperative nature of designing programs to address the full range of faculty develapment needs. It presents a framework for essential faculty development programs for teaching and learning centers in research-extensive universities for introducing, enhancing, and improving faculty develapment offerings. The nationwide Delphi study of faculty development programs identified eighteen currently essential and twenty-eight future essential faculty development programs for teaching and learning centers in research-extensive universities. This list of programs may serve as a baseline for evaluating existing faculty development programming and guiding the expansion of established programs and the planning of new ones.

About The Authors, Volume 27 (2009)

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

About the editors and authors of volume 27 (2009) of To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development.

Editor's Introduction: The Educational Developer As Magician, Linda B. Nilson

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

After so many changes in the academy, faculty and educational developers face challenges that require magic to meet. Faculty members are supposed to perform the magic, and we educational developers are expected to teach them how. The trick is to teach more in the same amount of time to disinterested and unprepared students, under the conditions of larger classes, less authority, and lower rewards. College and university faculty are under attack for failing short, and educational developers are next in line to feel the heat. Perhaps we should start defending our faculties, explaining our challenges, and publicizing our efforts and …

Practical Tools To Help Faculty Use Learner–Centered Approaches, Phyllis Blumberg

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Instructors often resist dramatic changes in their teaching, and learner-centered approaches are not intuitive for most instructors. They need tools to help them adopt these approaches. This chapter describes four tools—1) a list of components of Weimer’s five practices of learner-centered teaching, 2) reflection questions to prepare instructors to determine the learner-centered status of their courses, 3) self-assessment rubrics, and 4) a Planning for Transformation form—to help instructors change their teaching. Taken together, these tools form a comprehensive system with which to plan for change. This system encourages and assists instructors to make incremental changes toward using learner-centered approaches in …

When Mentoring Is The Medium: Lessons Learned From A Faculty Development Initiative, Jung H. Yun, Mary Deane Sorcinelli

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Campuses across the country are investing considerable time, effort, and expense to replenish their faculty ranks with a new generation of scholars. How can mentoring help these new faculty juggle the many demands of surviving and thriving in academia? And how can institutions frame mentoring as a broader faculty development initiative in which faculty at all stages of the academic career can teach and learn from each other? This chapter addresses these questions by sharing the goals, design, and lessons learned from the Mutual Mentoring Initiative at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Searching For Meaning On College Campuses: Creating Programs To Nurture The Spirit, Donna M. Qualters, Beverly Dolinsky, Michael Woodnick

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Discussing spirituality on a secular college campus can be risky. Yet faculty and students have expressed a need to explore meaning in their lives and work. This chapter describes one university’s year-long efforts to develop a social web of activities around spirituality and meaning in community members’ lives. We describe the process of determining needs and the resulting programs. But more important, we share lessons learned, including advice on creating the climate for spiritually oriented programming to gain acceptance and be viewed as an enhancement to campus life.

Reported Long–Term Value And Effects Of Teaching Center Consultations, Wayne Jacobson, Donald H. Wulff, Stacy Grooters, Phillip M. Edwards, Karen Freisem

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

We regularly ask clients for feedback on their recent consultations with Center for Instructional Development and Research (CIDR) staff, but in the past we have not systematically assessed our longer-term contributions to the teaching of our clients. We recently surveyed faculty and teaching assistants who consulted with CIDR one to five years ago and found that many former clients highly valued CIDR’s contribution to the development of their teaching. However, some of the most highly valued benefits they identified were not limited to what they did each day in class. This chapter identifies benefits of consulting with a teaching center …

Acknowledgments, Volume 27 (2009), Linda B. Nilson

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Acknowledgments for volume 27 (2009) of To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development, by Linda B. Nilson of Clemson University.

Ten Ways To Use A Relational Database At A Faculty Development Center, A. Jane Birch, Tara Gray

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Providing quality support to faculty requires attention to administrative details and event logistics. As professionals, we must also assess the impact of our work and be prepared to report to those who will judge its worth and allocate resources. To do this we need current, accurate data that are easy to access and easy to use. We also need a simple way to manage faculty development activities and evaluate the outcomes. The best technology for achieving these goals is a relational database. This chapter describes ten ways a relational database can be used to support faculty developers in their various …

Lessons Learned From Developing A Learning–Focused Classroom Observation Form: Learning-Focused Observation Form, Steven K. Jones, Kenneth S. Sagendorf, D. Brent Morris, David Stockburger, Evelyn T. Patterson

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

At the United States Air Force Academy, we are attempting to go through a cultural transformation, making an overt shift toward a more learning-focused paradigm. In this chapter, we describe the nature of this transformation, as well as why we have chosen to move in this direction. We also describe one specific initiative we have undertaken: the development of a new learning-focused classroom observation form. We conclude by sharing a baker’s dozen lessons we have learned about classroom observation, effective teaching, and faculty development in general as a result of having developed this form.

Learning–Centered Evaluation Of Teaching, Trav D. Johnson

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Over the past decade, institutions of higher education have placed increased emphasis on promoting student learning. This emphasis has influenced thinking about teaching, course design, and faculty development, but it has had little effect on the evaluation of teaching. In other words, the evaluation of teaching remains focused on instruction (that is, teacher performance and course characteristics) rather than on student learning. Learning-centered evaluation of teaching provides a viable way to emphasize student learning in the evaluation process. This approach uses principles of program evaluation and emphasizes learning goals, learning activities, learning assessments, and learning outcomes in the evaluation of …