Education Commons^™

A New Approach To Evaluating Information: A Reflection On Radar, Kevin Tanner, Kim Mcphee

Western Libraries Presentations

For instruction librarians, teaching information literacy (IL) skills is often an important aspect of any lesson plan. One area of IL includes the critical evaluation of sources, an essential skill that students need to succeed as aspiring scholars and researchers. This ability to differentiate “good” from “bad” information is beneficial to students beyond their academic careers, and will help them navigate the “sea of information” for the rest of their lives. Typically, such evaluation skills are taught through applying the CRAAP test: Currency, Relevance, Authority, Accuracy, and Purpose. While humorous and memorable, the name of this test devalues the usefulness …

Leveraging Resources Across Units And Universities To Address Academic Literacies And Research Skills In Ontario Graduate Students, Melanie Mills, Elan Paulson

Western Libraries Presentations

Student2Scholar (S2S) is a fully online and open course that aims to teach academic literacies and research skills to social science graduate students. Set to launch in December 2015, S2S was conceived of and created by a diverse and distributed team of academic librarians, university staff, and graduate students from three Ontario Universities: Western, the University of Toronto, and Queen’s. Members of the project team brought with them varying degrees of experience and expertise across a range of disciplinary and teaching and learning backgrounds, including: adult education, information literacy, and online learning (to name only a few).

S2S serves as …

Finding The Sweet Spot: Network Structures And Processes For Increased Knowledge Mobilization, Patricia Briscoe, Katina E. Pollock, Carol Campbell, Shasta Carr-Harris

Education Publications

The use of networks in public education is one of a number of knowledge mobilization (KMb) strategies utilized to promote evidence-based research into practice. However, challenges exist in the ability to effectively mobilizing knowledge through external partnership networks. The purpose of this paper is to further explore how networks work. Data was collected from virtual discussions for an interim report for a province-wide government initiative. A secondary analysis of the data was performed. The findings present network structures and processes that partners were engaged in when building a network within education. The implications of this study show that building a …

Interrogating Course-Related Public Interest Internships In Communications, Sandra Smeltzer

FIMS Publications

This article examines the benefits and drawbacks of for-credit, unpaid internships geared towards the public good. Attention is focused specifically on communication internships with non- governmental, non-profit, and community-based organizations. Drawing on a series of semi-structured interviews with students, staff, faculty, and host organizations, the author advances a critical model of service learning that more fully recognizes the labour of community partners and encourages students to consider what role they can and should play in advancing the public good. The article also highlights two key issues vis-à-vis public interest internships that are of particular relevance to the field of communications. …

Complexity And Volume: An Inquiry Into Factors That Drive Principals’ Work, Katina E. Pollock, Fei Wang, David Cameron Hauseman

Education Publications

Background

The work of contemporary school principals is intensifying in terms of its complexity and volume. Many factors moderate and drive such work intensification. This study aims to understand what and how factors interact to complicate principals’ work.

Methods

Focus groups and an online survey were used for data collection. Three focus group sessions with eight principals were conducted to help develop and refine the online survey. The survey covers 12 key areas in principals’ work and was distributed among the members of Ontario Principals’ Council. Descriptive statistics, correlation and factor analysis were conducted on survey results. Results: The study …

Awareness And Perception Of Copyright Among Teaching Faculty At Canadian Universities, Lisa Di Valentino

FIMS Presentations

In this talk I discuss the results of a survey of Canadian university faculty members undertaken from October to December 2014. The survey sought to determine teaching faculty awareness of copyright law and institutional policy and training, and how they would respond in various scenarios.

Analysis of the results suggests that while faculty members are aware of the existence of their institution's copyright policy, much fewer know whether their institution offers training. Of those who do know about training, only one-third have attended. However, faculty who have attended copyright training find that their knowledge is enhanced by the experience.

It …

A Systematic Review Of The Critical Factors For Success Of Mobile Learning In Higher Education (University Students' Perspective), Muasaad Alrasheedi, Luiz Fernando Capretz, Arif Raza

Electrical and Computer Engineering Publications

The phenomenon of the use of a mobile learning (m-Learning) platform in educational institutions is slowly gaining momentum. However, the enthusiasm with which mobile phones have been welcomed into every aspect of our lives is not yet apparent in the educational sector. To understand the reason, it is important to understand user expectations of the system. This article documents a systematic review of existing studies to find the success factors for effective m-Learning. Our systematic review collates results from 30 studies conducted in 17 countries, where 13 critical success factors were found to strongly impact m-Learning implementation. Using these results …

Acts Of Courage: Leaping Into Mindful Music Teaching, Cathy Benedict, Patrick K. Schmidt

Music Education Publications

The authors explore the idea of courage in the classroom focusing on two populations of teachers: pre-service undergraduate students and in-service teachers. They articulate their own paths toward their own understandings of facilitating and recognizing acts of courage and share how their educational and pedagogical experiences have led them to think differently about the opportunities of doing and being differently as teachers.

Does An Evidence-Based Healthy Relationships Program For 9th Graders Show Similar Effects For 7th And 8th Graders? Results From 57 Schools Randomized To Intervention, Claire Crooks, K L. Scott, Ryan Broll, Suzanne Zwarych, Ray Hughes, David Wolfe

Education Publications

Integrating social and emotional learning (SEL) programming throughout curricula to support the development of healthy behaviors and prevent violence is critical for a comprehensive approach to school health. This study used a post-test comparison design to evaluate a healthy relationships program for eighth grade students that applies a SEL approach. The program was adapted from the Fourth R, an evidence-based program for ninth graders, but matches the curriculum and developmental context for eighth graders. Surveys were collected post-intervention from 1012 students within 57 schools randomized to intervention or control conditions. Multivariate multilevel analysis accounted for the nested nature of students …

An Empirical Study Of Critical Success Factors Of Mobile Learning Platform From The Perspective Of Instructors, Muasaad Alrasheedi, Luiz Fernando Capretz

Electrical and Computer Engineering Publications

Mobile learning is newest learning platform and based on the rapid rate of proliferation of mobile technology throughout the world is expected to grow at a rapid rate. However, the adoption of m-Learning is proceeding at a cautious rate. This mismatch in the rate of growth of the technology itself and the use of the technology in learning is a subject of extensive interest to researchers. However, research in the area has been mostly focused on understanding the success factors of the platform from learners’ perspective. In this research, we have conducted an extensive analysis of the extent to which …

Transitioning & Preparing Library Students: Canadian Pd Programs, Amanda R. Kelly, Sajni Lacey

FIMS Publications

In an increasingly competitive job market, extra-curricular professional development (PD) opportunities prepare and equip Masters-level LIS students to secure employment and excel in their careers. In addition to reviewing and examining existing extra-curricular PD initiatives available through current ALA accredited Masters-level programs in Canada, a potential structure for developing, framing, and delivering PD programs is proposed. Findings from a review of university websites reveal a lack of consistency across schools in PD opportunities geared to transitioning and preparing students for future careers. Prospective directions for educational organizations to further develop their program offerings for students and recent graduates are explored.

Not So “Black And White” An Examination Of The Theoretical Perspectives And Empirical Research Of The Afrocentric School Debate, Emma Rose Bonanno

2015 Undergraduate Awards

This paper explores the public debate of "Afrocentric Schools", as an alternative education system. In an attempt to explain the relative underachievement of African-American students, various theoretical perspectives concerning the black-white achievement gap are presented. Furthermore, the author examines existing empirical evidence concerning the achievement/underachievement of African-American students, offering either support or disapproval for Afrocentric Schools. In addition, The Africentric Alternative School in Toronto is utilized as a case study to examine the efficacy of Afrocentric Schools. The examined empirical evidence illustrates that the Afrocentric School debate is not so "black and white". Rather, the black-white achievement gap depends on …

A Systematic Review Of The Critical Factors For Success Of Mobile Learning In Higher Education (University Students’ Perspective), Muasaad Alrasheedi, Luiz Fernando Capretz, Arif Raza

Electrical and Computer Engineering Publications

The phenomenon of the use of a mobile learning (m-Learning) platform in educational institutions is slowly gaining momentum. While this can be taken as an encouraging sign, the perplexing part is that the fervor with which mobile phones have been welcomed into every aspect of our lives does not seem to be evident in the educational sector. In order to understand the reason, it is important to understand user expectations of the system. This paper documents a systematic review of various research studies seeking to find the success factors for effective m-Learning. A total of 30 studies were included in …

Promoting First Nations, Metis, And Inuit Youth Wellbeing Through Culturally-Relevant Programming: The Role Of Cultural Connectedness And Identity, Claire Crooks, Dawn V. Burleigh, Ashley Sisco

Journal Articles

Objectives: Although culturally relevant programming has been identified as a promising practice for promoting resiliency among First Nations, Métis, and Inuit (FNMI) youth, the specific ways in which these programs contribute to wellbeing are unclear. The Fourth R: Uniting Our Nations programs include an array of strengths-based culturally relevant programs for FNMI youth that have been found to increase wellbeing. The purpose of this study was to explore how culturally relevant programming provides a forum for intrapersonal and interpersonal growth.

Methods: In-depth interviews were conducted with 12 adult FNMI community and education stakeholders who have had extensive involvement with the …

Introduction Unsettling The Colonial Places And Spaces Of Early Childhood Education In Settler Colonial Societies, Veronica Pacini-Ketchabaw, Affrica Taylor

Education Publications

No abstract provided.

Attention During Visual Search: The Benefit Of Bilingualism, Deanna Friesen, Vered Latman, Alejandra Calvo, Ellen Bialystok

Education Publications

Recent research has produced mixed results about the existence of a bilingual executive control advantage in young adults. The current study manipulated both task demands and task difficulty to investigate the conditions under which a bilingual advantage may be observed during a visual attention task. Bilingual and monolingual young adults performed visual search tasks in which they determined whether a target shape was present amid distractor shapes. In the feature searches, the target (e.g., green triangle) differed on a single dimension (e.g., color) from the distractors (e.g., yellow triangles); in the conjunction searches, two different types of distractors (e.g., pink …

Beginning In The Middle: Networks, Processes And Socio-Material Relations In Educational Administration, Melody Viczko

Education Publications

No abstract provided.

Effects Of Persuasion And Discussion Goals On Writing, Cognitive Load, And Learning In Science., Perry Klein, J. S. Eharhardt

Education Publications

Argument writing is challenging for elementary students. Previous experimental research has focused on scaffolding rhetorical goals, leaving content goals relatively unexplored. In a randomized experiment, 73 students in Grades 5, 6, and 7 wrote persuasive texts about difficult-to-classify vertebrates. Each student received one of three sets of writing prompts: a persuasive goal only (control); persuasive goal + rhetorical subgoal prompts; or persuasive goal + content subgoal prompts. Rhetorical subgoals increased text quality, variety of rhetorical moves, number of complex propositions, and classification knowledge. Content subgoals increased the number of simple propositions in text. A path analysis indicated that content subgoal …

Learning How To Inherit In Colonized And Ecologically Challenged Life Worlds In Early Childhood Education, Veronica Pacini-Ketchabaw, Affrica Taylor, Mindy Blaise, Sandrina De Finney

Education Publications

No abstract provided.

Co-Constructed By Design: Knowledge Processes In A Fluid “Cloud Curriculum”, Kathryn Hibbert, Mary Ott, Luigi Lannacci

Education Publications

Two concurrent trends converge in contemporary education: the first acknowledges educational activities as social and situated prompting us to imagine new roles for community in teaching and learning; the second attends to our abilities to differentiate and individualize activities, to be responsive to learner needs. Multiliteracies theorists contend that learning can be understood as a process of ‘weaving’ backward and forward across and between different pedagogical moves. Using ‘knowledge processes’ as a theoretical lens, we explore the pedagogical moves possible when we take an award winning curricular approach to teaching Shakespeare and work with it in the context of a …

Orchestrating Literacies:Print Literacy Learning Opportunities Within Multimodal Intergenerational Ensembles, Lori Mckee, Rachel Heydon

Education Publications

This exploratory case study considered the opportunities for print literacy learning within multimodal ensembles that featured art, singing, and digital media within the context of an intergenerational program that brought together 13 kindergarten children (4 and 5 years) with 7 elder companions. Study questions concerned how reading and writing were practiced within multimodal ensembles and what learning opportunities were afforded the children while the participants worked through a chain of multimodal projects. Data were collected through ethnographic tools in the Rest Home where the projects were completed and in the children’s classroom where project content and tools were introduced and …

Editorial Introduction: Assemblage, Enactment And Agency: Educational Policy Perspectives, Melody Viczko, Augusto Riveros

Education Publications

No abstract provided.

The Enactment Of Professional Learning Policies: Performativity And Multiple Ontologies, Augusto Riveros, Melody Viczko

Education Publications

While teacher learning has become a locus of school reform across many international settings, there is relatively little examination of the idiosyncratic ways in which policy discourses on teacher learning are enacted in schools. In this paper, we aim to investigate how these policy discourses are translated and configured into practices and thus, enacted into concrete realities. Using the conceptual notion of multiple ontologies, we argue that teacher learning is actualized in a multiplicity of sociomaterial entanglements, not as a single reality, but as a multiplicity of realities that coexist, simultaneously, in the mesh of assemblages that we call “school.” …

Do The Cognacy Characteristics Of Loanwords Make Them More Easily Learned Than Noncognates?, James Rogers, Stuart Webb, Tatsuya Nakata

Education Publications

This study investigates the effects of cognacy on vocabulary learning. The research expands on earlier designs by measuring learning of English–Japanese cognates with both decontextualized and contextualized tests, scoring responses at two levels of sensitivity, and examining learning in a more ecologically valid setting. The results indicated that Japanese learners could successfully recall the L2 forms of more cognates than noncognates, supporting earlier findings. However, when scoring was sensitive to partial knowledge of written form, the results indicated that greater knowledge of noncognates was gained. Because there was greater potential for learning noncognates due to the higher pretest scores for …

Unruly Raccoons And Troubled Educators: Nature/Culture Divides In A Childcare Centre, Veronica Pacini-Ketchabaw, Fikile Nxumalo

Education Publications

Current times of anthropogenically damaged landscapes call us to re-think human and nonhuman relations and consider multiple possibilities for alternative and more sustainable futures. As many environmental and Indigenous humanities scholars have noted, central to this re-thinking is unsettling the colonial nature/culture divide in Western epistemology. In this paper, through a series of situated, small, everyday stories from childcare centres, we relate raccoon-child-educator encounters in order to consider how raccoons’ repeated boundary-crossing and their apprehension as unruly subjects might reveal the impossibility of the nature/culture divide. We tell these stories, not to offer a final fixed solution to the asymmetrical, …

Second Language Vocabulary Learning Through Extensive Reading With Audio Support: How Do Frequency And Distribution Of Occurrence Affect Learning?, Stuart Webb, Anna C-S Chang

Education Publications

This study investigated (1) the extent of vocabulary learning through reading and listening to 10 graded readers, and (2) the relationship between vocabulary gain and the frequency and distribution of occurrence of 100 target words in the graded readers. The experimental design expanded on earlier studies that have typically examined incidental vocabulary learning from individual texts. Sixty-one Taiwanese participants studied English as a foreign language (EFL) in an extensive reading program or in a more traditional approach structured around a global English course book. A pretest, posttest, and delayed posttest were administered to all participants. The results indicated that vocabulary …

Extensive Viewing: Language Learning Through Watching Television, Stuart Webb

Education Publications

Television is a source of information and entertainment, and for many people it is an integral part of daily life. A survey of the average household television viewing time in 13 countries revealed that television was watched from 2.43 hours per day in Sweden to 8.18 hours per day in the United States (OECD, 2007). In fact, television might be the greatest source of first language input. Canadians and Americans watch television five times more than they read (Statistics Canada, 1998, United States Department of Labor, 2006).

Studying Treatment Intensity: Lessons From Two Preliminary Studies, Nicole Neil, Emily A. Jones

Education Publications

Determining how best to meet the needs of learners with Down syndrome requires an approach to intervention delivered at some level of intensity. How treatment intensity affects learner acquisition, maintenance, and generalization of skills can help optimize the efficiency and cost effectiveness of interventions. There is a growing body of research on the effects of treatment intensity but almost no systematic study of it with children with Down syndrome, providing little guidance about how to approach the study of intensity. In two preliminary studies we manipulated different aspects of the dose of treatment intensity and measured effects on skill acquisition …

Internationalization In Canadian Higher Education: A Case Study Of The Gaps Between Official Discourses And On-The-Ground Realities, Marianne A. Larsen

Education Publications

Abstract

This case study about one university’s internationalization initiative, known as North Goes South, provides a nuanced and finely grained understanding of what internationalization looks like in practice. The study was guided by a desire to probe the perceived impact of a Canadian–East African internationalization initiative on students, faculty, and Tanzanian community members. The article begins with a brief review of the literature on internationalization and higher education in Canada. The rationale for using a case-study methodology is presented, along with the background and context of the case. Following an outline of the research methods, the study results are reviewed …

Introduction: Working With, Against And Despite Global 'Best Practices': Educational Conversations Around The Globe, Sarfaroz Nivozov, Paul Tarc

Education Publications

No abstract provided.