Education Commons^™

Use Of Wikis In Second/Foreign Language Classes: A Literature Review, Mimi Li

Mimi Li

Wikis, as emerging Web 2.0 tools, have been increasingly implemented in language classrooms. To explore the current state of research and inform future studies, this article reviews the past research on the use of wikis in second/foreign language classes. Using Google Scholar and the ERIC database, the researcher examines twenty-one empirical studies published in fourteen peer-reviewed journals from 2008 to 2011. Specifically, the researcher takes a holistic review of this body of literature, including theoretical frameworks, research goals, contexts and participants, tasks and wiki applications, and research methods and instruments. The researcher identifies four main research themes investigated in the …

Advocating For Mother Earth In The Undergraduate Classroom: Uniting Twenty-First Century Technologies, Local Resources, Art, And Activism To Explore Our Place In Nature, Christina Triezenberg, Ilse Schweitzer Vandonkelaar

Christina Triezenberg

Despite the growing evidence of humanity’s impact on the natural world and the urgent need to shape citizens who understand the impact that their choices and actions have on their local and global environments, colleges and universities throughout the United States have been slow to add environmental education as a core component of their undergraduate curricula. Harnessing our shared interest in environment issues and the humanities, we designed and taught an experimental course in environmental literature for the honors program at Western Michigan University that we hope will become a template of what is possible in postsecondary environmental education. Using …

Book Review Of Sustainable Knowledge: A Theory Of Interdisciplinarity. December 2015. Journal Of Higher Education Outreach And Engagement 19(4): 219-222., Danielle Lake

Danielle L Lake

Technology Pedagogy And Content In Web-Based Language Instruction For Secondary Vocational Students, Eleni Papantoniou, Thanasis Hadzilacos

Eleni Papantoniou

Students in vocational schools in Greece are less motivated and have low performance in courses demanding academic skills, like language learning with reading and writing tasks (e.g. essay writing). If they were asked, they would say that they prefer to do things rather than study or get involved in traditional classroom language activities. School cannot provide them with language materials and methodology adjusted to their needs. Language teaching and learning is an academic task-oriented subject and teachers find it extremely difficult to arise their students' interest. So, from this point of view there is a gap between need and supply. …

Hands On My Hips: Politics Of A Subversive Fish, Eric D. Teman J.D., Ph.D.

Eric D Teman, J.D., Ph.D.

The Middle Landscape Of The Private College: A Bicentennial Perspective, George W. Geib

George W. Geib

America's Private Colleges and Universities have entered the bicentennial year expressing deep concern for their individual and collective futures. They seem constantly engaged in a search for new students and additional financial contributors; they darkly aver that they may be forced to close forever if their search fails; and they point to the dozens of others campuses that passed from the scene in the last decade as proof of the urgency of their case. To some observers these forebodings of doom may appear, like the associated press reports about Mark Twain's demise, greatly exaggerated. But the immediacy and intensity with …

"Indiana Territory And Early Statehood, 1800-1825", George W. Geib

George W. Geib

This handbook was developed to encourage more effective state citizenship through the teaching of state history. Attention is given to geographical factors, politics, government, social and economic changes, and cultural development.

"The Old Northwest Under British Control, 1763-1783" And "Indiana A Part Of The Old Northwest, 1783-1800", George W. Geib

George W. Geib

This handbook was developed to encourage more effective state citizenship through the teaching of state history. Attention is given to geographical factors, politics, government, social and economic changes, and cultural development.

High-Leverage Teaching Practices: Toward A Practice-Based Model Of Ta Professional Development, Heather W. Allen

Heather Willis Allen

No abstract provided.

Authentic Texts And Oral Language Development Across Instructional Levels, Heather W. Allen, Kate Paesani, Beatrice Dupuy

Heather Willis Allen

No abstract provided.

Maximizing Student Performance In Written Presentational Communication For Ap French, Heather W. Allen, Deborah Reisinger

Heather Willis Allen

No abstract provided.

Undergraduate Music Therapy Students’ Experiences In Short-Term Group Music Therapy, Nancy Jackson, Susan Gardstrom

Susan Gardstrom

Education of undergraduate music therapy students poses numerous difficulties because of the need for personal development, as well as specific clinical and musical skills. This collaborative qualitative study examined the potential benefits of students’ participation as clients in short-term personal music therapy. Qualitative analysis of participants’ writings revealed the impact on the students’ personal and professional development, and raised questions about potential curricular changes.

Personal Therapy In Music Therapy Undergraduate Education And Training In The Usa: Prevalence And Potential Benefits, Nancy Jackson, Susan Gardstrom

Susan Gardstrom

No abstract provided.

The Why And Where Of Big History: Building A Program, Mojgan Behmand

Mojgan Behmand

The goals of our First Year Experience program are aligned with our institutional mission, our core values, and the goals of our General Education program. The program is designed to promote: recognition of the personal, communal, and political implications of the Big History story; critical and creative thinking in a manner that awakens curiosity and enhances openness to multiple perspectives; and, development of reading, thinking, and research skills to enhance one’s ability to evaluate and articulate understanding of one’s place in the unfolding universe.

Radical Academia: Beyond The Audit Culture Treadmill, Rowan Cahill, Terry Irving

Rowan Cahill

The pathos of radical academia: notes on the impact of neo-liberalism on the universities, especially the audit culture, the production-model, casualization, academic scholarship, academic writing, peer reviewing, and open access. The authors suggest ways scholars can be radical within, and outside, of neoliberal academia. Part I, 'Missing in Action' appeared as an Academia.edu session in May 2015, where it attracted many comments. Part II, 'What Can Be Done?' is the authors' response to these comments. The whole piece was posted on the Cahill/Irving blog 'Radical Sydney/Radical History' on 22 October 2015.

Attending To The Act Of Reading: Critical Reading, Contemplative Reading, And Active Reading, Paul Corrigan

Paul T. Corrigan

How students read influences how they learn. In particular, in order for students to learn to read more deeply or on a /oig/oer level, they need to learn to read actively. While many scholars and teachers appear to take active reading for granted, possibly assuming students will come into such “study skills” on their own, I propose that we should make concerted efforts to help students understand and adopt such habits as underlining, writing comments in the margins, asking questions, rereading, and so forth. In this essay, I survey recent work on critical reading, contemplative reading, and active reading and …

The Digital Mind And The Future Of Liberal Arts Education, Harlan Stelmach, Martin Anderson

Harlan Stelmach

Today higher liberal arts education is challenged by the continuing emphasis on vocational, business, and science majors among administrators and the decline in the demand for humanities majors among students anxious about their economic future. More fundamental and far-reaching, however, are the historic changes in the physical form in which ideas are preserved and communicated, the time people allocate to contemplating those ideas, and the ways people process them as society shifts from the book age into the digital age.1 Those who grew up in the book age can visualize the problem by thinking of this question: What is your …

Slimmer, Brighter, And Nearly Perfect: The New Big History Textbook Is Here, Mojgan Behmand

Mojgan Behmand

Rarely has the appearance of a new textbook been the cause of such delight as broke out amongst the First Year Experience faculty at Dominican University of California in August 2013. The book that triggered such reaction is a seemingly unassuming volume, Big History: Between Nothing and Everything (2013), written by historians David Christian, Cynthia Stokes Brown, and Craig Benjamin, and published by McGraw-Hill. Why was the book greeted with such enthusiasm, you might ask? Was it that the world needed another textbook on history? That the Dominican faculty felt a special bond with one of the authors, Dominican professor …

“The Researcher’S Challenge: Entertainment Or Epistemology?”, Mary Ann Bolger, Clare Bell

Mary Ann Bolger

The number of journals dedicated solely to the publishing of research in the fields of typography and visual communication is slowly growing. However, very little of this material finds its way back into the studio at undergraduate level. Further, research published in discipline-focussed peer-reviewed journals does ‘not tend to be highly valued by those engaged in practice.’ As a result of this, as Robin Kinross has written, ‘the academic discussion of typography, and design in general, is too often hermetic and unreal: in unholy partnership with the proud anti-intellectualism of many practicing designers’. This has a variety of consequences. In …

Music For Life; A Self-Reflective Study On Childhood Experiences Formulating Music Education Perspectives And Philosophies., John Heyworth

John Heyworth

The State Of Writing In The Health Sciences Major At Jmu: Survey And Interview Instruments, Lucy Bryan Malenke

Lucy Bryan Malenke

I used these survey and interview instruments in an IRB-approved investigation of the state of writing in the Health Sciences major at James Madison University, which took place during the Spring 2015 semester. The purpose of this mixed-methods study was to assist the University Writing Center in developing and facilitating evidence-based responses to the discipline-specific writing needs of Health Sciences students. The 20 study participants were faculty members who taught in the Health Sciences major. Each took an online Qualtrics survey and participated an in-person follow-up interview with a predetermined set of questions. The instruments explored participants’ pedagogical practices, attitudes …

Audacious Translation: On Being Haunted And Getting Lost On The Way To Translating Spivak. A Reflection On Spivak’S “Translating Into English”, Susan R. Adams

Susan Adams

In “Translating Into English” within An Aesthetic Education in the Era of Globalization (2012), Spivak eludes apprehension, spurns comprehension, and resists neat translation as I, an American educator, attempt to make sense of what is meant by an aesthetic education as Spivak translates the act of translation. Caught and othered as a language broker in learning the double bind of translation, I find no answers, only new questions as I grope toward ways to conceptualize and to name this moment for translators and language educators: (1) What does it mean to be a translator?; (2) Can and should the convenient …

Response To Commentary On “Rethinking Combined Departments: An Argument For History & Anthropology” By Stephen M. Lyon/Durham University, Uk; Yasar Abu Ghosh, Pavel Himl, Tereza Stöckelová, Lucie Storchová/Charles University, Prague; Robert Gibb/University Of Glasgow; Jakob Krause-Jensen/Aarhus University, Denmark; Veerendra P. Lele/Denison University, Ageeth Sluis, Elise Edwards

Ageeth Sluis

Contains response from the authors, Ageeth Sluis and Elise Edwards.

Rethinking Combined History Departments: An Argument For History And Anthropology, Ageeth Sluis, Elise Edwards

Ageeth Sluis

Many opportunities for more integrated teaching that better capture the interdisciplinary nature of contemporary scholars' work and better achieve the aims of liberal arts education still remain untapped, particularly at smaller schools where combined departments are often necessary. The disciplinary boundaries between history and sociocultural anthropology have become increasingly blurred in recent decades, a trend reflected in scholarly work that engages with both fields, as well as dual-degree graduate programmes at top U.S. research universities. For many scholars, this interdisciplinarity makes sense, with the two disciplines offering critical theoretical tools and methods that must be used in combination to tackle …

Response To Commentary On “Rethinking Combined Departments: An Argument For History & Anthropology” By Stephen M. Lyon/Durham University, Uk; Yasar Abu Ghosh, Pavel Himl, Tereza Stöckelová, Lucie Storchová/Charles University, Prague; Robert Gibb/University Of Glasgow; Jakob Krause-Jensen/Aarhus University, Denmark; Veerendra P. Lele/Denison University, Ageeth Sluis, Elise Edwards

Elise M. Edwards

Contains response from the authors, Ageeth Sluis and Elise Edwards.

Rethinking Combined History Departments: An Argument For History And Anthropology, Ageeth Sluis, Elise Edwards

Elise M. Edwards

Many opportunities for more integrated teaching that better capture the interdisciplinary nature of contemporary scholars' work and better achieve the aims of liberal arts education still remain untapped, particularly at smaller schools where combined departments are often necessary. The disciplinary boundaries between history and sociocultural anthropology have become increasingly blurred in recent decades, a trend reflected in scholarly work that engages with both fields, as well as dual-degree graduate programmes at top U.S. research universities. For many scholars, this interdisciplinarity makes sense, with the two disciplines offering critical theoretical tools and methods that must be used in combination to tackle …

Beginning With Me: Accounting For A Researcher Of Color’S Counterstories In Socially Just Qualitative Design, Cheryl E. Matias

Cheryl Matias

To avoid simplification, a methodological process that contextualizes decisions made in qualitative design must exist. Employing Critical Race Theory’s counterstorytelling, I examine how qualitative research void of personal contextualization that informs design, renders simple designs. Since counterstorytelling reveals a nuanced understanding of racism, it becomes an applicable tool that informs racially just research design; thus, counterstorytelling results in complexification, a process rendering research designs more sophisticated. I propose that too much personal distance between researcher and research ultimately masks White hegemonic designs while marginalizing designs brought forth by the contextualization of researchers of color. This paper humbly offers a step-by-step …

Arewa House Arabic Manuscript Conservation Laboratory, Michaelle L. Biddle

Michaelle Biddle

A brochure describing the services offered by the Arewa House (Ahmadu Bello University, Kaduna) Arabic Manuscript Conservation Laboratory

Archives Alive!: Librarian-Faculty Collaboration And An Alternative To The Five-Page Paper, Tom Keegan, Kelly Mcelroy

Tom Keegan

A Response To John Sommerville’S 'The Decline Of The Secular University', William Vance Trollinger

William Vance Trollinger Jr.

Introduction to William Vance Trollinger's plenary presentation: I agree with Prof. Sommerville that in too many places the secular university has trivialized religion and religious commitment, and that it is high time for religion to be welcomed into our academic debates. I say this even while I take issue with some of the particulars in Prof. Sommerville’s book. I will give two examples related to our discipline of history. First, Prof. Sommerville decries that “secularist humanities have declared war on metanarratives because of their hegemonic power.” But I confess that I am very pleased to see the demise of metanarratives …