Curriculum and Social Inquiry Commons^™

Demonstrating The Value Of Honors: What Next?, Jerry Herron

National Collegiate Honors Council Monographs: Chapters

Our professional organization, the National Collegiate Honors Council (NCHC), has provided a good general definition of honors education while at the same time recognizing the “diversity of honors experiences across many institutions of higher learning.” Here’s how the definition reads, in part, from the NCHC website:

Honors education is characterized by in-class and extracurricular activities that are measurably broader, deeper, or more complex than comparable learning experiences typically found at institutions of higher education. (NCHC 2013)

"Fuck Tha Police": The Poetry And Politics Of N.W.A., Sandra Young

English Faculty Publications

No one withdrew after syllabus day. In the semester I piloted a first-year seminar course, the “Rhetoric of Protest Songs,” on the first day of class, I introduced the topic of the class and myself. However, before I gave students the syllabi, I confessed that I knew little about music. I told them I Googled and YouTubed, and read our text to gain knowledge about protest songs. I told them the “Rhetoric of Protest Songs” was a writing class, and rhetoric means persuasion. “In this class, you’ll write academic essays about protest songs. And we’ll listen to some music.”

My …

Parent Involvement In Contested Times: A Brief Analysis Of The Effects Of Anti-Immigrant Policies On Latinx Immigrant Parent Involvement, Maria Isabel Morales

CGU Theses & Dissertations

How do perceived community and school cultural values affect Latinx immigrant parents’ decisions to engage with their children’s schools? What lessons might their experiences have for our understanding of parent involvement beyond the parameters of traditional models of parent involvement? Engaging parents as advocates for school success in the home is particularly important for English Language Learners (ELs). Tapping into the experiences of EL parents is a resource educators can use to increase parental involvement and, consequently, student academic achievement.

This qualitative case study grounded in Critical Inquiry and Cultural Historic Activity Theory examined the perceptions and experiences of 5 …

Youth Researchers Wrestling With Gender And Sexuality, Tiffany A. Dejaynes

Publications and Research

Working in research teams, public school students in New York approaches questions about gender identities and sexualities and then, based on their findings, advocated for institutional reforms.

History And Current Practices Of Assessment To Demonstrate Value Added, Patricia J. Smith

National Collegiate Honors Council Monographs: Chapters

With more than 1,500 honors programs currently in operation and hundreds of millions of dollars being spent throughout American institutions, external pressure is building for accountability in honors programs (Scott and Smith 2016). Today’s society “expects colleges and universities to graduate students who can get things done in the world and are prepared for effective and engaged citizenship” (Keeling et al. 2004:5). Doyle (2004) also has noted the increasing scrutiny of higher education:

the attention given to higher education’s success at fostering student learning has increased in recent years. The rapidly rising cost of higher education and the increased attention …

Adding Value Through Honors At The University Of Iowa: Effects Of A Pre-Semester Honors Class And Honors Residence On First-Year Students, Art L. Spisak, Robert F. Kirby, Emily M. Johnson

National Collegiate Honors Council Monographs: Chapters

Activities that take place early in students’ college career can strongly influence their academic engagement and success. Two experiences that honors programs may provide during the initial phases of the undergraduate experience are pre- or earlysemester programs and honors residence halls. This study compares honors students who lived in an honors residence hall and/or took part in a pre-semester academic, credit-bearing class upon entry into college to their honors peers who did not elect these options. It tracks the degree of the students’ subsequent engagement with the honors program and also several measures of their academic success, such as grade …

Contributions Of Small Honors Programs: The Case Of A Public Liberal Arts College, George Smeaton, Margaret Walsh

National Collegiate Honors Council Monographs: Chapters

The Keene State College Honors Program began as the vision of a former college president to attract more high-achieving students to this particular public liberal arts college. In the fall of 2007, after the college had secured initial funding, a small cohort of twenty first-year students were selected for the honors program by admissions staff for their achievements and promise. The numbers were intentionally small, but the goals were ambitious for a rural college that serves a high percentage of first-generation college students (43%). The students selected for admission into honors would enroll in an honors-level writing course and live …

Introduction: The Demonstrable Value Of Honors Education, Andrew J. Cognard-Black

National Collegiate Honors Council Monographs: Chapters

In May of 2016, a small cadre of scholars was called to the campus of Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan, for the Honors Education Research Colloquium, a two-day meeting focusing on the future direction of research in honors education. The participants were assembled by Jerry Herron, who at the time was president of the National Collegiate Honors Council (NCHC), close on the heels of a decision by the NCHC Board of Directors in June of the previous year to make research—along with professional development and advocacy—one of three strategic priorities.

After a day of presentations, in turn, by each …

The Value Added Of Honors Programs In Recruitment, Retention, And Student Success: Impacts Of The Honors College At The University Of Mississippi, Robert D. Brown, Jonathan Winburn, Douglass Sullivan-González

National Collegiate Honors Council Monographs: Chapters

In a recent essay, M. Roy Wilson (2015), President of Wayne State University, and Jerry Herron, Dean of the Honors College, discuss the value added of honors programs in terms that should be familiar to numerous constituencies associated with honors education. Wilson and Herron write about honors education largely in terms of the experiences it provides students:

the [honors] college is not tied to any particular academic discipline; instead, it represents the virtues of a liberal education that reaches across departments, schools, and colleges. For our students, the aim is to integrate the specialized—and essential—knowledge of the disciplines into a …

Honors Education Has A Positive Effect On College Student Success, Dulce Diaz, Susan P. Farruggia, Meredith E. Wellman, Bette L. Bottoms

National Collegiate Honors Council Monographs: Chapters

Over 1,500 U.S. universities and colleges have honors programs or honors colleges to provide extra support for their most prepared students (National Collegiate Honors Council 2018; Scott and Smith 2016). Honors programs typically provide additional financial support, faculty mentors, smaller class sizes, and other benefits compared to what institutions can typically offer all of their students. Students involved in an honors program usually earn higher GPAs compared to highly motivated students not in an honors program (Pritchard and Wilson 2003) and are more likely to stay in college and graduate within four years (Cosgrove 2004).

The additional success of honors …

Educating For Justice: Curricular Social Justice Education At Institutions Of Higher Education, Darby Ratliff

Jesuit Higher Education: A Journal

This study examined the efficacy of college and university outcomes that call for their students to have an understanding of justice before graduation. Situated at a small, religiously affiliated, private, four-year institution and utilizing its own “justice attribute” learning outcomes, this thesis considered the way that graduating students who have completed the “justice” designation understand justice and how they formed that particular understanding. In the end, this study found that students have an understanding of justice and social justice, but faculty members need to do more to translate this knowledge into skills for social change in order to become culturally …

Mathematics For Whom: Reframing And Humanizing Mathematics, Cathery Yeh, Brande M. Otis

Education Faculty Articles and Research

"In this paper, we share a process in which we, as mathematics teacher educators and education researchers, have worked in collaboration with K–6 teachers and students to analyze the purported neutrality of mathematics textbook word problems and to consider ways to use mathematics to analyze social inequities in the world. In the sections that follow, we describe the framework that grounds our development of justice-oriented mathematics curriculum and share an example of how textbook analysis can serve as an entryway to investigations that raise students’ awareness of social issues while developing their power as mathematics thinkers and doers. Drawing from …

Teaching Against The Grain: A Conversation Between The Editors Of The Griffith Journal Of Law & Human Dignity And Peter Mclaren On The Importance Of Critical Pedagogy In Law School, Peter Mclaren

Education Faculty Articles and Research

This article is a dialogue between the Editors of the Griffith Journal of Law & Human Dignity and leading scholar Peter McLaren, speaking to the importance of critical pedagogy within education and law.

In-Between Epistemic Paradigms Of Disablement: A Reflective Journey, Daniel James Mcnair

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

The author explores feelings of in-betweenness, hybridity, and dislocation (Aoki, 2005; Bhabha, 2007/1994; Saïd, 1994) as he contemplates the meaningfulness of a liminal placement between two epistemic worlds—that of his more recent experiences as a curriculum studies scholar and his previous training as a postpositivist practitioner of school psychology. This self-study engages pedagogical possibilities of in-between spaces (Aoki, 2005; He & Ross, 2012; Baszile, 2006) to construct a lived curriculum that challenges traditional stereotypes of autism and postsecondary disability services. To guide this critical self-reflective inquiry, the author applies the concepts of Joseph Schwab’s (1973) curriculum commonplaces along with William …

Cybernetics, Cyborgs, And Bionics, Oh My!!: Counterstories Of The Intersection Of Disability + Technology And Its Impact On Identities Of Adults With Disabilities, Ellen M. Hotchkiss

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

In this dissertation inquiry, I explore the counternarratives of adults with disabilities relating to their identities and how their identities intersect and change with regards to technology and assistive technology. Theoretically building upon critical disability studies (Goodley, 2017; Davis, 2013, 2017; Erevelles, 2011) and posthumanism (Haraway, 1985/2016; Snaza & Weaver, 2015; Weaver, 2010) and methodologically drawing upon counternarrative or counterstories (Bamberg & Andrews, 2004; Carmona & Luschen, 2014; Delgado, 1989; Glenn, 2012; He & Phillion, 2008; He & Ross, 2012; Sandoval & Davis, 2008; Smith, 2006; Solazano & Yosso, 2002; Tuck, 2009), I explore the stories of seven participants with …

Enacting The Australian Curriculum: Primary And Secondary Teachers’ Approaches To Integrating The Curriculum, Julianne Moss, Sally C. Godinho, Edlyn Chao

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

Integrated approaches to curriculum planning and delivery are not a recent phenomenon. In the 1930s John Dewey advocated for a more cohesive conceptualisation of students’ learning. Yet, despite state and national endorsement of curriculum integration in Australia, it is generally considered an alternative curriculum design that has failed to gain traction in Australian schools. A qualitative case study, situated in two inner city government schools in the state of Victoria, explored the integrative approaches undertaken by primary and secondary teachers when planning and implementing their curriculum to account for their students’ needs, interests and the school and community context. …

3 Tips For Equitable Use Of Classroom Data, Jori Beck, Heather Whitesides

Teaching & Learning Faculty Publications

(First paragraph) For most new teachers—and even veteran teachers!—data can be a four-letter word. That’s understandable. Educationbased data collection practices, evaluation, and influences are often lumped together, misunderstood, and carry a negative connotation. New teachers may even have negative perceptions of testing based on their own experiences as students (Beghetto, 2005)

Experiencing Poverty In An Online Simulation: Effects On Players’ Beliefs, Attitudes And Behaviors About Poverty, Pedro Hernandez-Ramos, Christine M. Bachen, Chad Raphael, John Ifcher, Michael Broghammer

Teacher Education

Digital simulations are increasingly used to educate about the causes and effects of poverty, and inspire action to alleviate it. Drawing on research about attributions of poverty, subjective well-being, and relative income, this experimental study assesses the effects of an online poverty simulation (entitled Spent) on participants’ beliefs, attitudes, and actions. Results show that, compared with a control group, Spent players donated marginally more money to a charity serving the poor and expressed higher support for policies benefitting the poor, but were less likely to take immediate political action by signing an online petition to support a higher minimum wage. …

High-Impact Honors Practices: Success Outcomes Among Honors And Comparable High-Achieving Non-Honors Students At Eastern Kentucky University, Katie Patton, David Coleman, Lisa W. Kay

National Collegiate Honors Council Monographs: Chapters

Alexander Astin’s Inputs-Environment-Outcomes (I-E-O) model for longitudinal study of student success in higher education challenges researchers to account explicitly for the wide range of educational, social, and cultural backgrounds that students bring with them to college. Astin’s approach factors in an understanding that educational outcomes are associated not only with the various educational environments to which students are exposed during their college years, but also with the inputs of these students—the factors that shaped them long before they first arrived in a university classroom. Meaningful conclusions concerning factors that contribute to student success must take into account the complex interactions …

Gpa As A Product, Not A Measure, Of Success In Honors, Lorelle A. Meadows, Maura Hollister, Mary Raber, Laura Kasson Fiss

National Collegiate Honors Council Monographs: Chapters

Defining success is challenging. Yet schools and colleges across the country, indeed, around the world, seek to do it in order to demonstrate value. While we know that success depends upon a variety of skills that individuals develop into competencies, these can be difficult to measure in an academic setting. For example, as educators, we hope that success is an outcome of lifelong learning, but the measurement of lifelong learning requires sophisticated approaches that can be difficult to deploy across a broad population (Riley and Claris 2008). As a result, administrators and instructors will often gravitate toward more readily available …