Education Commons^™

Ideological Misalignment In The Discourse(S) Of Higher Education: Comparing University Mission Statements With Texts From Commercial Learning Analytics Providers, Leif A. Nelson

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

This study analyzes, interprets, and compares texts from different educational discourses. Using the Critical Discourse Analysis method, I reveal how texts from university mission statements and from commercial learning analytics providers communicate and construct different ideologies. To support this analysis, I explore literature strands related to public higher education in America and the emerging field of study and practice called learning analytics. Learning analytics is the administrative, research, and instructional use of large sets of digital data that are associated with and generated by students. The data in question may be generated by incidental online activity, and it may be …

Somebody Has To Pay Rent: The Critical Autoethnography Of A Low Income Student, Shelbi M. Schadendorf

Journal of Undergraduate Research at Minnesota State University, Mankato

Conducted through the qualitative research method of autoethnography, and presented through the lens of critical analysis, this study explores the oppressive experience as a low income student in an institute of higher education. Written as an attempt to make the struggle as a low income students more visible, the focus of this study is both an exploration into the commodification of higher education and the culture surrounding how we treat, or don’t acknowledge, low income students.

Through the presentation of the author’s experience as an autoethnography, the insight gained from first hand experience can be shared through an accessible, but …

Authorial Intent In The Composition Classroom, Ian Barnard

English Faculty Articles and Research

This article examines the disjunction between, on the one hand, critical theory’s critique of the privileging of authorial intent in protocols of textual interpretation, and, on the other hand, continued obeisance to authorial intent in composition textbooks and pedagogy. By unpacking the implications of this disjunction, I show the limitations that the reification of authorial intent creates for composition pedagogy and student writing. I conclude by suggesting how bracketing authorial intent in the composition classroom might enhance composition pedagogy and student writing, while also challenging fundamental epistemologies of the field.

Anti-Ethnography?, Ian Barnard

English Faculty Articles and Research

"Many of the ongoing difficulties teachers face revolve around the 'translation' of disciplinary knowledge—especially critical theory—into pedagogical praxis. It often seems that our teaching lags behind our theoretical knowledge by about two decades, and sometimes we wonder if it will ever catch up. This sense of disjunction has been compounded by the difficulty of teaching postmodern understandings of subjectivity, truth, and epistemology in an increasingly commodified teaching context, where consumers expect to purchase a clear, identifiable, and literally usable product, and where 'knowledge' often means easily digestible and repeatable content rather than analytic skills, critical understandings, or complex world views. …