Other Education Commons^™

Communication Climate, Comfort, And Cold Calling: An Analysis Of Discussion-Based Courses At Multiple Universities, Tasha J. Souza, Elise J. Dallimore, Eric Aoki, Brian C. Pilling

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

One of the challenges in discussion facilitation is creating a climate that allows multiple voices to be heard. Although the practice of calling on students whose hands are not raised has been used to engage the entire class in discussions, many believe that cold calling sabotages the communication climate and makes students extremely uncomfortable. This study examines the impact of cold calling on student comfort and communication climate. The results suggest that when instructors choose to cold-call, they must create a supportive communication climate to ensure student comfort. This study challenges the assumption that cold calling makes students uncomfortable.

Access To Success: A New Mentoring Model For Women In Academia, Amber Dailey-Hebert, Emily Donnelli, B. Jean Mandernach

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

The scarcity of women leaders in academia influences policies, procedures, and expectations and in turn perpetuates a climate that deters development of future women leaders. Despite research supporting the need for institutional change to create leadership avenues for women faculty, little evidence of such change exists. The Presidential Leadership Program for University Women was developed as a proactive, integrative mentoring model to link female academics. Crucial to the program’s success are networking opportunities, peer mentoring in a group setting, and a culminating “legacy project” designed to improve the campus climate and services for women.

Preface, Volume 28 (2010), Linda B. Nilson

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Preface to volume 28 (2010) of To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development, by Linda B. Nilson of Clemson University.

Theoretical Frameworks For Academic Dishonesty: A Comparative Review, Michele Dipietro

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Academic dishonesty has so far been understood using theoretical frameworks derived from criminology literature. These frameworks contribute pieces of the puzzle and even enjoy some empirical support, but conceptualizing students as delinquents is problematic and ultimately ineffective. This chapter reviews the current frameworks, including their theoretical underpinnings, empirical support, and strategies they suggest, and goes on to analyze their limitations and suggest alternative frameworks.

Strategic Committee Involvement: A Guide For Faculty Developers, Phyllis Blumberg

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Faculty developers should seek purposeful involvement in committee service because committees are essential to the functioning of higher education institutions. The unique expertise and perspectives that faculty developers bring to the table help committees execute their tasks and benefit faculty development efforts. Given the number of possible institutional committees and limitations on time, developers should decide carefully about their service. Offered here is a framework for making strategic decisions about committee membership on five criteria: committee characteristics, individual’s impact on the committee, personal characteristics, conditions that should discourage service, and pitfalls to consider before deciding to serve.

Transforming Teaching Cultures: Departmental Teaching Fellows As Agents Of Change, Cassandra Volpe Horii

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

The Departmental Teaching Fellows (DTF) program of the Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning at Harvard University employs doctoral students as peer teaching mentors. Four years of program assessment data include quantitative work inventories, surveys and self-reports, interviews of faculty and administrators, and a survey of all graduate students recently teaching in arts and sciences. Observed program outcomes include (1) better informal support for teaching, (2) higher quality and quantity of interactions between graduate students and faculty on teaching, and (3) more systematic opportunities for teaching-related professional development. Qualitative assessment data suggest that the DTFs occupy several liminal positions …

Macgyvers, Medeas, And Bionic Women: Patterns Of Instructor Response To Negative Feedback, Allison P. Boye, Suzanne Tapp

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Few studies have examined instructor responses to negative feedback and their interplay with gender, but faculty developers must be cognizant of and sensitive to the needs of the instructors with whom they work. This chapter identifies six general patterns of response among male and female instructors to negative feedback from students and consultants, based on survey results, interviews, and observations. A combination of empathy, resources, and time is the key to understanding and responding to those patterns and meeting the needs of individual instructors. Further, comparisons across gender reveal interesting differences related to language use, internalization versus externalization of feedback, …

Creating Sustainable Education Projects In Roatan, Honduras Through Continuous Process Improvement, Arjan Raven, Adriane B. Randolph, Shelli Heil

Faculty and Research Publications

The investigators worked together with permanent residents of Roatán, Honduras on sustainable initiatives to help improve the island’s troubled educational programs. Our initiatives focused on increasing the number of students eligible and likely to attend a university. Using a methodology based in continuous process improvement, we developed tutoring programs, college preparation workshops, long-term plans for a local school, and solicited involvement by an island educational coalition. Lessons learned from these initiatives may be used to expand other efforts on the island and can be generalized to other programs in Central America.

Participation In Positive Youth Development Programs And 4-H: Assessing The Impact On Self-Image In Young People, Karen Bloomquist

Department of Agricultural Leadership, Education and Communication: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Scholarship

The purpose of this study was to identify relationships between youth involvement in 4-H and self-image. The study also explored whether there were relations between self-image and development of the 5 C’s (confidence, competence, caring, connection and character) of Positive Youth Development. The study focused specifically on the differences in self-image between youth who participate in 4-H and youth who do not.

Participants included 180 youth from grades eight through twelve in the state of Nebraska. Demographic responses indicated that 47% of respondents were male and 53% were female. Approximately 72% of the respondents were not participants in a 4-H …

Supporting The Literacy Development Of Children Living In Homeless Shelters, Laurie Macgillivray, Amy Lassiter Ardell, Margaret Sauceda Curwen

Education Faculty Articles and Research

Insights into how educators can create greater classroom support for homeless children, particularly in literacy learning and development, are provided in this article.

Disrupted But Not Destroyed: Fictive-Kinship Networks Among Black Educators In Post-Katrina New Orleans, Daniella Ann Cook

Faculty Publications

Drawing on Adkins’ (1997) notion of reform as colonization and using ethnographic data from African American teachers in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, this article discusses how black educators’ fictive-kinship (Fordham 1996, Chatters, Taylor, and Jayadoky 1994, Stack 1976) networks have been altered in the changing landscape of reform. I argue that the importance of fictive-kinship relationships among educators and students was ignored in school-reform efforts in post-Katrina New Orleans. Post-Katrina school reforms disrupted, but did not destroy, these fictive-kinship networks. I discuss three themes: (1) fictive-kinship networks created before Katrina cultivated an environment centered on cooperation, collaboration, and solidarity, …

Evolution And The End Of A World, David Edward Long

University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation examines college student understanding and attitudes toward biological evolution. In ethnographic work, I followed a cohort of 31 students through their required introductory biology class. In interviews, students discuss their life history with the concept - in school, at home, at church, and in their communities. For some Creationist students, confronting evolution in class has meant confronting existential issues regarding both the basis of science and the basis of faith. For other Creationist students, claims of evolution's theoretical strength are eschewed for its direct challenge to their worldview. For most students, science holds minimal interest against other values …

"To Learn The Trade Of A Potter": Apprenticeship, Emulation, And Deviance In The Wachovian Tradition, Jessica Lauren Taylor

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

No abstract provided.

The Parent As (Mere) Educational Trustee: Whose Education Is It, Anyway?, Jeffrey Shulman

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The purpose of this Article is two-fold. First, the Article argues that the parent’s right to educate his or her children is strictly circumscribed by the parent’s duty to ensure that children learn habits of critical reasoning and reflection. The law has long recognized that the state’s duty to educate children is superior to any parental right. Indeed, the “parentalist” position to the contrary rests on an inflation of rights that is, in fact, a radical departure from longstanding legal norms. Indeed, at common law the parent had “a sacred right” to the custody of his child, and the parent’s …

Undergraduate And Graduate Programs In Environmental Science At Unlv, Scott R. Abella

Public Policy and Leadership Faculty Publications

The School of Environmental and Public Affairs at UNLV houses B.A. and B.S. degrees in Environmental Studies and M.S. and PhD degrees in Environmental Science. These degrees are flexible, multi-purpose, interdisciplinary programs that can be tailored for both breadth and depth.

An Analysis Of Teacher Satisfaction In The Seventh-Day Adventist Church Schools In Zimbabwe, Silas Masuku

Dissertations

Problem. Various studies have been conducted internationally on teacher satisfaction in private and public schools. Similar studies have also been done in Seventh-day Adventist church schools around the world. The importance of teacher satisfaction is crucial for the stability of education institutions in shaping students for success in their communities. The purpose of this study was to analyze perceptions of the level of satisfaction on factors deemed important to teachers in Seventh-day Adventist church schools in Zimbabwe. This research study also considered the pattern of teacher turnover in the schools.

Methodology. A stratified random sample of 442 teachers from …

The Effect Of Learning Management Systems On Student And Faculty Outcomes, Beth Rubin, Ron Fernandes, Maria Avgerinou, James Moore

Beth Rubin

This study examines the effects of interactive and learning structures enabled by different Learning Management Systems (LMS) on satisfaction and learner engagement in online courses. An LMS can support or hinder active engagement, meaningful connections between segments of the course, easy communication, and formative feedback by making it easier or more difficult for faculty to communicate course requirements, provide open-ended feedback, and place course elements that are used together contiguous to one another. This study compares sections of the same course, offered by the same instructors using the same course materials in at least two different LMSs. It examines whether …

Saddler, T. N., & Strayhorn, T. L. (2010, April/May). Using Mixed Methods To Understand Black Collegians Structured Research Experiences And The Role Of Complex Ecologies. Paper Presented At The American Educational Research Association (Aera) Annual Meeting, Denver, Co., Tonya Saddler

Tonya N. Saddler, Ph.D.

No abstract provided.

Strayhorn, T. L., Blakewood, A., Bonner, F., Devita, J., Holloman, D., Mcfeeters, B., Palmer, R.T., Saddler, T. N., & Winkle-Wagner, R. (2010, April/May) Understanding Complex Ecologies Of African American Collegians By Advancing Educational Research And Practice. Book Symposium Presented At The American Educational Research Association (Aera) Annual Meeting, Denver, Co. [Panel Of Book Chapter Authors], Tonya Saddler

Tonya N. Saddler, Ph.D.

No abstract provided.

Conteted Heritage In The Ancient City Of Peace, William Feighery

William Feighery

As the imperial capital of thirteen dynasties Xi’an, formerly known as Chang’an (eternal peace), houses a legacy of many of the most important periods of Chinese history and is one of the great archeological centers of the world. This legacy of political and cultural dominance places Xi’an at the forefront of debates on cultural heritage and its role in the evolution of China in the 21st century. Xi’an is currently under a triad of influences from processes of globalization, urban transition and domestic and international tourism. In recent decades and particularly since the dawn on the new millennium, the historic …