Education Commons^™

Teacher Perspectives On Professional Development Needs For Better Serving Nebraska's Spanish Heritage Language Learners, Janet Marie Eckerson

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

A growing number of heritage language speakers of Spanish are enrolling in Spanish language courses during secondary school. Current scholarship has suggested that these heritage language learners (HLLs) have very different instructional needs than learners of second or foreign languages. Because Spanish language instruction in Nebraska secondary schools has been traditionally conceptualized only as foreign language instruction, classroom teachers may not be adequately prepared to meet the needs of HLLs. This dissertation examined the experiences of Nebraska secondary Spanish teachers who worked with HLLs in order to inform the creation of relevant professional learning experiences for pre- and in-service teachers. …

Imagination: Active In Teaching And Learning, Christopher Cunningham

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This autoethnography tells the story of the author’s endeavor to examine my teaching during a sculpture lesson in three 2^nd grade art classes in a mid-western suburban Title I elementary school. I analyze my planning, teaching, reflecting through the lens of Stuart Richmond’s Characteristics of Imaginative Teaching as well as noted educational theorists’ conceptions of imagination and imaginative teaching and learning. These theorists include but are not limited to Maxine Greene, Kieran Egan, John Dewey, and The Lincoln Center Institute’s Capacities for Imaginative Learning. I conclude that imaginative teaching is an intentional act and that there is no …

One Foot In, One Foot Out: A Qualitative Study Of Frequently Truant Latino High School Graduates Who Nearly Dropped Out, Chandra Diaz-Debose

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Given the continued growth of the Latino population in the United States and the long history of schools not serving Latino students, it would be hazardous for the education community to not address their needs. Under the premise that it can reveal, both obstacles and sources of resilience/perseverance, this research study will examine the schooling experiences of Latino graduates who nearly left high school or did leave but then returned to complete their diploma requirements. The data were collected during the summer of 2014. The purpose of this study was to better understand and acknowledge, from the graduates’ perspectives, what …

Honoring Diversity In An Online Classroom: Approaches Used By Instructors Engaging Through An Lms, Jacob Petersen

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This is an inquiry into how online instructors embrace the diversity of their student body while facing the inherent differences between a traditional face-to-face class and one that is taught online. Current research suggests that diversity in a traditional classroom is an asset if the instructor is sensitive to students’ backgrounds. This paper examines if such philosophies in traditional classrooms translate well into a distance education environment, where the student body may be even more diverse than a face-to-face class, but possibly unrecognizable because of the lack of physical cues. Research on the topic of multiculturalism in an online classroom …

Climate Change Skeptics Teach Climate Literacy? A Content Analysis Of Children’S Books, Julie Thomas

DBER Speaker Series

This research focused on skeptical climate change literature designed for children and parents. The purpose of the research was to explore how these pseudo‐educational materials convey a logic of nonproblematicity about climate change (McCright & Dunlap, 2000). Using rhetorical analyses procedures developed from previous excavations in skeptical discourses, this study identified: (a) common forms of climate skepticism, (b) frames for climate change policy making, (c) areas of contested scientific knowledge, and (d) appeals for managing the uncertainty of climate change. The results suggest that the logic of non‐problematicity about environmental problems is bolstered by contradictory forms of climate change skepticism …

Do Your Homework First, And Then Go Play!, Larry Andrews

National Collegiate Honors Council Monographs: Chapters

In the fall of 2006, after five years of planning, the Kent State University Honors College inaugurated in the heart of the campus a new honors center: two residence halls framing an office, library, and classroom space came to life. The new center overlooked the Commons, an open green space home to student games and student protests. The hill above the Commons was the site of the National Guard shootings of May 4, 1970, and the relationship of this tragedy to honors at KSU became an important part of the thinking about this new location.

The Kent State University Honors …

Honors Housing: Castle Or Prison?, Richard Badenhausen

National Collegiate Honors Council Monographs: Chapters

In its “Basic Characteristics” of fully developed honors programs and colleges—lists that have become increasingly prescriptive over the years—the National Collegiate Honors Council (NCHC) identifies “best practices that are common to successful” honors programs and colleges (2014a). One of those practices includes the establishing of separate honors residential opportunities for students, despite the fact that such dedicated space is a bad idea in many instances. In light of the old saying that “one man’s castle is another man’s prison,” I will lay out some of the reasons why honors housing is not a good in itself. I hope to complicate …

Pick Your Battles: It Is Possible To Have Belonging Without A Space To Belong To, Mariah Birgen

National Collegiate Honors Council Monographs: Chapters

When Wartburg College began its new honors program 10 years ago, its architects thought they had done everything right. They sent a team to the National Collegiate Honors Council National Conference. They studied the “Basic Characteristics of a Fully Developed Honors Program” (National Collegiate Honors Council, 2014). They even decided to start small. Unfortunately, even meticulous preparation cannot overcome all difficulties. One of the characteristics, however, is to have a location to house the honors program. Wartburg’s 10-year saga of honors locations and lessons learned about honors space has produced this wisdom: honors directors and supporters should never give up …

One Size Does Not Fit All: When Honors Housing May Not Work, Laura Feitzinger Brown

National Collegiate Honors Council Monographs: Chapters

The gracious donor, the dean, and the other honors program director and I walk down the corridor of an old campus building needing repair but possessing a great deal of charm. While a science classroom building is being renovated, this hall houses temporary offices for displaced faculty. We look at the high ceilings in a room now used as a faculty break room and admire the way the morning sunlight plays on the walls. This room would make an amazing honors student lounge. Renovating the entire building would create a terrific honors dorm that could attract talented prospective students and …

It Came With Everything: A Baby Grand Piano, Hardwood Floors, Regular Flooding, 200 Honors Students, And A Live-In Scholar, Gloria Cox

National Collegiate Honors Council Monographs: Chapters

When the University of North Texas (UNT) opened its new Honors Hall on a hot Sunday in late August 2007, it was a residence hall in which everyone took considerable pride. Students loved the many amenities that the building featured, and they took pride in being able to call Honors Hall home. From the perspective of the honors college, the most significant feature was an apartment in which a scholar would live—a scholar who would be involved in the life of the hall and would, therefore, be engaged with the students who lived there. At that time, no other residence …

Images For Part Ii: Profiles Of Spaces And Places In Honors

National Collegiate Honors Council Monographs: Chapters

No abstract provided.

Where Honors Lives: Results From A Survey Of The Structures And Spaces Of U.S. Honors Programs And Colleges, Linda Frost, Lisa W. Kay

National Collegiate Honors Council Monographs: Chapters

The ninth item on the National Collegiate Honors Council’s (2014b) list of “Basic Characteristics of a Fully Developed Honors Program” reads:

The program is located in suitable, preferably prominent, quarters on campus that provide both access for the students and a focal point for honors activity. Those accommodations include space for honors administrative, faculty, and support staff functions as appropriate. They may include space for an honors lounge, library, reading rooms, and computer facilities. If the honors program has a significant residential component, the honors housing and residential life functions are designed to meet the academic and social needs of …

What We Talk About When We Talk About Housing Honors, Linda Frost

National Collegiate Honors Council Monographs: Chapters

When I went to college in the early 1980s at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, I entered as a freshman in the honors program. I have very specific memories of those first classes I took as an honors student—a section of honors sociology in which I wrote a case study of my German immigrant grandfather; an honors seminar in 1930s avant garde theatre in which the students wrote and performed plays based on the dreams they recorded nightly in their dream journals; an honors marine biology lab that ended at the professor’s house with a dinner where the group …

Building Honors Community Through Honors Housing, Barry Falk

National Collegiate Honors Council Monographs: Chapters

A strong sense of honors community is a fundamentally important characteristic of a vibrant honors program or college. In fact, I am fond of saying that “community, community, community” are the three most important characteristics of a strong honors program. The idea of community does not appear, however, in the National Collegiate Honors Council’s “Basic Characteristics of a Fully Developed Honors College” or the “Basic Characteristics of a Fully Developed Honors Program.” Perhaps that absence is because this characteristic, regardless of how it is expressed, would be difficult to verify.

Living In Hogwarts: The Experience Of A Dean Of Honors And His Wife While Living In An Honors Residence Hall, Keith Garbutt, Christine Garbutt

National Collegiate Honors Council Monographs: Chapters

On Friday, May 17, 2013, we watched the class of 2013 Honors Scholars at West Virginia University (WVU) enter the Honors Convocation to the sound of Non Nobis Domine. While certainly not our first Honors Scholars graduation since Keith had been running honors at WVU, it was nonetheless special. This cohort of graduates was the first freshman class to live in the specially built residence hall that houses the honors college administrative offices, each new freshman class of the honors college, and an apartment for faculty living in-residence.

The Genesis Of Barrett, The Honors College At Arizona State University, Mark Jacobs

National Collegiate Honors Council Monographs: Chapters

The honors college at Arizona State University (ASU) had its roots in the distributed honors programs in departments and schools that began in 1958 as ASU became a university by a statewide popular vote. It started as an honors college when it was created in 1988 by order of the Arizona Board of Regents (ABOR), the only honors college in the state established in this way. The founding dean of what was at first called the ASU University Honors College was Ted Humphrey, who had earlier directed the university honors program. Professor Humphrey had very specific ideas about what the …

The Colliding Cultures Of Honors And Housing, Melissa L. Johnson, Elizabeth Mcneil, Cory Lee, Kathy Keeter

National Collegiate Honors Council Monographs: Chapters

The University of Florida’s honors residential college was completed in 2002. It remains the newest and most expensive residence hall on campus to this day, housing more than 600 honors students, a faculty-in-residence, a classroom, and a multiroom study lounge. On paper, the residential college is a beautiful partnership between Florida’s University Honors Program and the Department of Housing and Residential Education. In practice, however, two distinct cultures have emerged between the two offices.

Living To Learn, Learning For Life: Housing Honors Classrooms And Offices In An Honors Residence Hall, Karen Lyons

National Collegiate Honors Council Monographs: Chapters

I left the interview with high-hopes: being Assistant Director of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Honors Program sounded like an excellent fit for me. A full-time job, a real income, and no longer having to depend on year-to-year contracts as an adjunct were appealing. The opportunity to teach tied into my strengths, and since I had taught UNL honors classes previously, I knew the high quality of the students. I also knew the director and was excited about the prospect of working with him. As I wended my way, in heels and suit, through the extensive construction going on in the …

Building Community In Árbol De La Vida, Patricia Maccorquodale

National Collegiate Honors Council Monographs: Chapters

Building community has been part of the mission of the University of Arizona Honors College since its founding in 1962. In 2011, a new honors residence hall opened that epitomizes its community of scholars. This essay explores how an honors hall— through its design and programming—can build community, emphasize sustainability, facilitate learning, and encourage an outward focus. This housing experience reinforces the values and goals of honors education and contributes to a personalized, close-knit community in the context of a large, public university.

Honors Students’ Perceptions Of The Value And Importance Of Honors Housing, Angela D. Mead, Samantha Rieger, Leslie Sargent Jones

National Collegiate Honors Council Monographs: Chapters

In 2011, we participated in a panel presentation, entitled “Where Honors Lives,” about the new honors college complex then under construction at Appalachian State University (ASU). This complex was to consist of two new buildings: a ten-story residence hall for the honors college students and a three-story building with honors offices and classrooms on the top two floors. Unfortunately, between initial planning in the mid-2000s and building five years later, University Housing changed its mind and decided freshmen would not be allowed to live there because suite-style housing was deemed inappropriate for that population. Current honors students could live there, …

Honors Space: What To Do When There Isn’T Any, Joy Ochs

National Collegiate Honors Council Monographs: Chapters

I direct a small honors program from my faculty office in the English Department at Mount Mercy University, which is an institution that is outgrowing its tiny campus. It is an exciting time, with new graduate programs and athletic facilities being added. But there is not enough space. At the end of May 2013, a memo from Academic Affairs made this request: “please contact your students to pack up any personal items they have left in the Honors Lounge, as we need to repurpose that room over the summer.” I have received a memo like this about every year or …

Life Of The Mind/Life Of The House: “This Place Matters”, Vicki Ohl

National Collegiate Honors Council Monographs: Chapters

“This Place Matters,” the slogan of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, proclaims the importance of a physical property to the understanding of history, traditions, and values (“This place matters,” 2013). “This Place” may be a single room, a building, a neighborhood, or an entire city. The National Collegiate Honors Council has long recognized the power of place by dedicating an extended session at its annual meetings to the exploration of the host city, its popular City as Text™ explorations. Although a community is ultimately defined by its people, the location and architecture contribute to a setting and a history …

It’S All In The Family: The (Honors) Ties That Bind Us, Jamaica Afiya Pouncy

National Collegiate Honors Council Monographs: Chapters

For many years, the Texas A&M Honors Program functioned in an extremely fluid manner. Students were deemed “honors eligible” according to their grade point average; if that average dropped below the set requirement, they became “honors ineligible.” If the GPA rose, they were eligible again. Under this policy, students continuously floated in and out of the honors community. The recent shift to an application-based process has created an official cohort of honors students as well as the challenge of building a community in a program that has had little sense of continuity.

Living-Learning Communities: As Natural As Cats And Dogs Living Together, John R. Purdie Ii

National Collegiate Honors Council Monographs: Chapters

Fully achieving all the potential benefits of a living-learning community requires effective collaboration between academic affairs and student affairs. Unfortunately, because of differences in organizational structures, priorities, cultural norms, and even the types of people drawn to work in academic affairs and student affairs, collaboration between faculty and staff is as unnatural as cats and dogs living together. Understanding these differences and recognizing the two subcultures that operate within most college housing departments can mitigate the challenges that honors faculty and staff can face when collaborating with staff in housing.

The Place To Be: Designing A City-Connected Honors Residence In Rotterdam, Remko Remijnse

National Collegiate Honors Council Monographs: Chapters

Traditionally, university students in the Netherlands, even honors students, find accommodations on their own; they will rent a room in a house and live together with other students who have independently rented a room in that same building. The typical Dutch student residence is an old, centrally located house that will accommodate five to eight students. While these students would be complete strangers when they begin their time living together, they quickly become a cohesive community, deciding for themselves how their life in the space will be organized by setting up cooking schedules and other agreed-upon formats for using the …

Where Honors Lives: Old Central At Oklahoma State University, Robert Spurrier, Jessica Roark

National Collegiate Honors Council Monographs: Chapters

The story of where honors lives at Oklahoma State University is one of a series of twists and turns over the years and in many ways actually reenacts the proverbial rags to riches story.

Until 1988, honors space at Oklahoma State University (OSU) was limited to the office of the faculty member who had the title of Honors Director in the College of Arts and Sciences (A&S) and received 0.25 FTE reassigned time for his honors duties. When one of the co-authors of this chapter was asked to become A&S Honors Director in 1988, he already had an administrative office …

Anomalies And Ambiguities Of A Faculty-In-Residence, Paul Strom

National Collegiate Honors Council Monographs: Chapters

The idea of housing faculty with college students on a campus can certainly be traced back centuries to the college structures within universities such as the University of Paris, Oxford University, and Cambridge University. To be a faculty-in-residence at a modern university requires a conscious decision to live in an ambiguous and sometimes anomalous space that connects housing operations and academics. I occupy such a space, along with my wife and dog, a Golden Retriever, at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Winging It: Why Offering Honors Wings Works At Oral Roberts University, Ashley Sweeney, Hannah Covington, John Korstad

National Collegiate Honors Council Monographs: Chapters

Perhaps the first feature visitors notice about the campus of Oral Roberts University (ORU) is the drama and bravado of its futuristic architecture. With symbolic, gold-plated buildings and a Prayer Tower positioned at the campus’ center, ORU’s structural design certainly stands as a testament to the Jetsons-esque flavor of its 1960s and 1970s origin. ORU is a private Christian university located in Tulsa, Oklahoma. For many parents, one of the main draws of the school remains its strict policy against co-ed housing. Unlike some of its peer institutions, ORU only offers unisex dorms, which are divided into floors or wings. …

Lessons Learned From Nevada’S Honors Residential Scholars Community, Tamara Valentine

National Collegiate Honors Council Monographs: Chapters

For the past 30 years, intentionally structured living-learning communities (LLCs) have sprung up across residential college campuses in the United States. Recent research has suggested that LLC participation facilitates faculty and peer interaction (Blimling, 1993; Schoem, 2004), influences student learning and the development of critical-thinking skills (Terenzini, Springer, Pascarella, & Nora, 1995; Whitt, Edison, Pascarella, Nora, & Terenzini, 1999), improves retention (Campbell & Fuqua, 2008; Daffron & Holland, 2009), reflects a commitment to civic engagement, and promotes smooth academic and social transitions to college life (Inkelas, Daver, Vogt, & Leonard, 2007; Stassen 2003). In fall 2005, in response to growing …

The Commonwealth Honors College Residential Community At The University Of Massachusetts Amherst, Melissa Woglom, Meredith Lind

National Collegiate Honors Council Monographs: Chapters

This article provides a project overview of the newly constructed Commonwealth Honors College Residential Community, an historical context for the honors college at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, a description of the facility design, information on the collaborative planning process, and a brief discussion of initial impacts on the operations and services of the honors college.