Education Commons^™

Reflections ~ How Stem Becomes Steam, Ruth Catchen

The STEAM Journal

Reflections from designing a STEAM class for high-risk students.

Towards A “Cloud Curriculum” In Art And Science?, Roger Malina

The STEAM Journal

Recently an email hit my desk from Paul Thomas in Australia with a proposal to work together on a “Cloud Curriculum for Art and Science”. I immediately agreed to collaborate. I don’t yet have a clue of what a cloud curriculum is, but what I do know is that we are ‘backing into the future’ in educational institutions and we desperately need a ‘cloud curriculum.’ We need to look over the ten year horizon. And in the emerging art-science field I doubt that the usual approach to curriculum development will work.

A Distributed Intelligence Approach To Multidisciplinarity: Encouraging Divergent Thinking In Complex Science Issues In Society., Jarod Kawasaki, Dai Toyofuku

The STEAM Journal

The scientific issues that face society today are increasingly complex, open-ended and tentative (Sadler, 2004). Finding solutions to these issues, not only requires an understanding of the science, but also, concurrently dealing with political, social, and economic dimensions that exist (Hodson, 2003). For example, 40 years after the first congressional hearing on climate change held by Al Gore in 1976, the 2012 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report states that climate change is still getting worse, despite efforts by governments, businesses, social actors such as Non-Government Organizations, and scientists. With the top minds in the world, across all disciplines, …

Steam...Now!, John Eger

The STEAM Journal

With America slowly awakening to the need to turn out creative and innovative workers who can join the 21^st century (its already 2012) workplace -- because they have the new thinking skills --we have to change the current emphasis on STEM, for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math to STEAM, by insuring that the whole brain is nurtured through the arts: thus STEAM.

Merging Science And Art: The Bigger Picture, Natasha Hall

The STEAM Journal

It has been stated that artists comprehend and chronicle the completeness of the visible world (Wallach & Bret, 1987), defining Art as the creative expression of knowledge about the visual world. But to what extent does that awareness extend into a scientific appreciation of the world? The acronym STEAM is an abbreviation of Science, Technology, Electronics, Arts and Mathematics. Weaving interactions between Science and Art, have been shown by Clarke and Button (Clarke & Button, 2011), to intensify interconnections between nature, with Landscape, and ultimately with sustainability.

On Cultural Polymathy: How Visual Thinking, Culture, And Community Create A Platform For Progress, Whitney Dail

The STEAM Journal

Within the last decade, the commingling of art and science has reached a critical mass. Science has long infused the arts with curiosity for natural phenomena and human behavior. New models for producing knowledge have given rise to interaction and collaboration across the globe, along with a renewed Renaissance.

Getting Real About The E In Steam, James Catterall

The STEAM Journal

STEM and STEAM are in the news. Researchers and educators in my field (cognition, art, and creativity) argue reasons for adding the A to STEM. While I visit this below, my focus is elsewhere. In this brief essay, I want to explore the meaning and importance of the E appearing in both STEM and STEAM. What’s engineering doing in this mix? And what are some reasons for affirming the arts when the role of engineering is clarified?

A Letter To The Steam Journal Readers, Deborah Freund

The STEAM Journal

A letter to the readers from the President of Claremont Graduate University, President Deborah Freund, welcoming the inaugural issue of 'The STEAM Journal'.

At The Gate Of Discovery, Jan Nordgreen

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

This is the story of how a mathematical problem was discovered. Although it was never solved, it gave great joy to the discoverer.

Developing A Healthy Scepticism About Technology In Mathematics Teaching, Peter J. Rowlett

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

A reflective account is presented of experiences which took place alongside a research project and caused a change in approach to be more sceptical about implementation of learning technology. A critical evaluation is given of a previous e-assessment research project, undertaken from a position of naive enthusiasm for learning technology. Experiences of teaching classes and designing assessment tasks lead to doubts regarding the extent to which the previous project encouraged deep learning and contributed to graduate skills development. Investigations of the benefits of another technology – in-class response systems – lead to revelations about learning technology: its enthusiastic introduction in …

Incorporating Pólya’S Problem Solving Method In Remedial Math, Shenglan Yuan

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

György Pólya’s problem solving method has influenced generations of mathematicians and non-mathematicians alike. Though almost all math teachers have come across Pólya’s problem solving method, his ideas are not regularly implemented in the classroom. Few studies have examined the effectiveness of his approach in teaching remedial math. In this article we revisit this once well-known teaching method and show how it can be used in basic skills math classes to ease student fears of math, and potentially change their common misconceptions of the subject.

Teaching The Complex Numbers: What History And Philosophy Of Mathematics Suggest, Emily R. Grosholz

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

The narrative about the nineteenth century favored by many philosophers of mathematics strongly influenced by either logic or algebra, is that geometric intuition led real and complex analysis astray until Cauchy and Kronecker in one sense and Dedekind in another guided mathematicians out of the labyrinth through the arithmetization of analysis. Yet the use of geometry in most cases in nineteenth century mathematics was not misleading and was often key to important developments. Thus the geometrization of complex numbers was essential to their acceptance and to the development of complex analysis; geometry provided the canonical examples that led to the …

Changing The Order Of Mathematics Test Items: Helping Or Hindering Student Performance?, Kristin T. Kennedy, Allison G. Butler

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

This paper recounts an experiment by a mathematics professor who primarily teaches mathematics majors. The main question explored is whether the ordering of the questions makes a difference as to how students perform in a test. More specifically we focus here on the following research questions:\ (1) Does arranging a math test with easy-to-hard items versus hard-to-easy items impact student performance? and (2) If so, does item order impact male and female mathematics majors and non-majors in unique ways? We examine data collected over multiple semesters with several different classes. We find that for most of the mathematics students who …

The Lesson Of Grace In Teaching, Francis Su

All HMC Faculty Publications and Research

I want to talk about the biggest life lesson that I have learned, and that I continue to learn over and over again. It is deep and profound. It has changed the way I relate with people. It has reshaped my academic life. And it continually renovates the way I approach my students.

Academic Support Experiences And Perceptions Of Postsecondary Students With Disabilities: A Public And Private University Comparision, Heather T. Wizikowski

CGU Theses & Dissertations

Legislation, social awareness, and advancements in medicine and assistive technology have created meaningful postsecondary opportunities for students with disabilities over the past 30 years. Mainstreaming, inclusion, and transition planning in elementary and secondary schools also greatly contributed to the increased achievement of students with disabilities. Today, 15% of students with disabilities attend four-year colleges. Current federal data show 88% of private and 99% of public universities report students with disabilities enrolled at their institutions. Much of the current research focuses on institutional practice and need. There is a gap in the research when looking at student needs and experiences.

This …

The Charter School Movement: The Impact Of School Form On Performance, Jeremy B. Wolff

CMC Senior Theses

Using data from the DataQuest and Ed-Data databases provided by the California Department of Education (2006-2012), this study assesses if charter schools provide a net benefit to students compared to non-charter schools. Further, it examines if charter management organizations improve the performance of charter schools. I find that charter schools have no net benefit across all grades. However, charter schools get significantly better performance on high school language arts tests. Minority and low-income students perform better at charter schools than traditional public schools, especially at the middle school level. Minorities in middle schools perform even better at CMOs than independent …

Creative Writing Thesis: Poetry, Desmond Bonhomme

CMC Senior Theses

The title of this compilation of my own creative writings is Trees, Breathe, Paper. This unique collection of poetry, short stories and prose contains a range of work, composed from 2002-2012. The thematic goal of this undertaking is to ballast as many implicit and explicit meanings as are comprehensible, and to extrapolate a distinct spectrum of latent and straightforward explanations with discernible psycho-analytical accuracy. We all know poetry is truly formless and based on springs of natural inspiration. Thus, we derive our purest inspiration from the natural world and we prune it in its unfiltered, raw state. Poetry is an …

How Many Barack Obamas Does It Take: An Analysis Of The Effect Of Charter Schools On Real Estate And Crime, Aananditaa Kakkar

CMC Senior Theses

This study looks at the relationship between charter school presence and neighborhood quality in Los Angeles. Using data from the Los Angeles Department of Education, Zillow Real Estate, and the Los Angeles Sheriff, this paper attempts to find whether changes in charter presence influence the price of surrounding real estate or the occurrence of serious and petty crimes. The results find that charter schools tend to be associated with a decrease in home sale prices. The results on crime imply that crime increases upon the opening of charter schools, however they are statistically insignificant.

A Conceptual Model On The Impact Of Mattering, Sense Of Belonging, Engagement/Involvement, And Socio-Academic Integrative Experiences On Community College Students’ Intent To Persist, Esau Tovar

CGU Theses & Dissertations

Community colleges continue to experience high levels of student attrition and low degree/certificate completion rates. Given extant literature, there appears to be a need to reexamine how interactions between students and the institution, and students and institutional agents are taking place, with the aim of identifying institutional practices that deleteriously or positively impact degree completion and thus guide colleges to develop action plans to improve conditions for student success.

This study examined how factors such as institutional commitment to students, mattering, sense of belonging, interactions with diverse peers, perceptions of the campus climate, engagement/involvement, socio-academic integrative experiences, and goal commitment …

The Brave New World Of Open Access & Creative Commons: A Humanistic Experiment In Mathematical Publishing, Gizem Karaali

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

In January 2011 the Journal of Humanistic Mathematics (JHM) published its first issue. JHM (http://scholarship.claremont.edu/jhm) is an online-only, peer-reviewed, open-access journal which has passed the all-important ten-thousand-download barrier in its first anniversary. In order to remain faithful to the fundamental principles of open access, JHM uses Creative Commons licensing, where authors retain copyright of their work, but others are free to reuse them (with proper attribution). In this note I share and reflect upon our experience with open access and Creative Commons.

The Path To Innovation And Efficiency In Higher Education, Jordan Stein

CMC Senior Theses

In this thesis, I discuss the emergence of the “non-traditional” post -secondary student and what is necessary to both narrow the socioeconomic education gap and make higher education more efficient for the vast majority of Americans. l explain how the current conglomeration of laws, regulations and proposed regulations stifle innovation and inhibit the achievement of a high Education Return On Investment. I discuss changes that are on the horizon and borrow from the success of certain innovations. In the final section, I suggest and review potential frameworks for education innovation and funding that can make a difference. I propose a …

Have Federal Sanctions Helped Failing Schools? The Impact Of No Child Left Behind In Texas, Ernest W. Hayhurst

CMC Senior Theses

This paper will assess the effectiveness of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) in the state of Texas. In order to do this, we examine how students’ performance levels from failing schools respond to sanctions imposed by the NCLB accountability system. Additionally, we explore achievement gap trends between white and minority students that attend these failing schools. By taking advantage of campus and year fixed effects, as well as controlling for student demographic characteristics, we find that sanctions employed by NCLB have had a statistically significant positive impact on academic achievement gains for all students. However, our results also …