Teacher Education and Professional Development Commons^™

Building Automation And The Contextualization Of Information Technology: The Journey Of A Midwestern Community College In The U.S., Neal Grandgenett, Pam Perry, Thomas Pensabene, Karen Wegner, Robert Nirenberg, Phil Pilcher, Candi Otterpohl

Teacher Education Faculty Publications

The buildings in which people work, live, and spend their leisure time are increasingly embedded with sophisticated information technology (IT). This article describes the approach of Metropolitan Community College (MCC) in Omaha, Nebraska of the United States to provide an occupational context to some of their IT coursework by organizing IT instruction around the context of building automation systems (BAS). This contextualization allows IT students not only to study IT as a standalone discipline but also to study its integrated use within a specific occupational context. The article also describes MCC’s focused curriculum design efforts funded by the National Science …

Karen Rowan Tssa Winter 17, Karen Rowan

TRC Year End/Quarterly Reports

Enhances faculty's teaching by attending a conference devoted to university teaching, a high-impact practice, evidence-based practice or a newly developing teaching practice.

“Inquiry Is Confidence”: How Practitioner Inquiry Can Support New Teachers, Rachel Wolkenhauer, Angela Hooser

Journal of Practitioner Research

This paper focuses on the profile of “Hannah,” who was having a successful first year of teaching until February when her principal shifted gears. At this point administration expected, as Hannah quoted her principal, “to walk into your classroom, at any point of the day, and see you in front of the classroom and the kids sitting at desks answering bubble-in questions and not talking to each other.” Hannah teaches first grade. Rather than being discouraged by this, Hannah turned to her knowledge of practitioner inquiry to systematically study and stand behind the professional decisions she knew she needed to …

Reaching Below Level Ell’S Reading Comprehension, Olivia T. Braunworth, Yvonne Franco Ph.D.

Journal of Practitioner Research

The number of English Language Learners (ELLs) in mainstream classrooms is increasing every year. Developing reading comprehension skills in lower level ELL students can be a challenging but important task for educators. It is crucial for classroom teachers to identify students’ proficiency levels, and then differentiate instruction to meet the reading needs for each of these students. As an elementary classroom teacher, this teacher inquiry study investigates four strategies including: visuals/realia, graphic organizers, language objectives, and building background as a means to support reading comprehension skills among three participants in a third grade classroom. The study investigates the research question, …

Teachers’ Experience Of Blended English Language Learning, Raed Ali Alhemairi, Sarah Bond, Danielle Karine Montes

International Journal for Research in Education

Abstracts:

To address current Emiratization goals for teachers who teach English Medium Subjects, the Abu Dhabi Education Council partnered with a for-profit English language professional development provider to conduct a 6-week trial of a blended English language learning program for Emirati teachers. The current qualitative narrative study was undertaken to learn more about the lived experiences of 11 participants in the program. Participants had access to an online training program and spent 60 to 70% of the training program time in self-paced online learning, and attended face to face sessions with an English trainer for 30-40% percent of the training …

Stacie Robertson Tssa Winter 17, Stacie Robertson

TRC Year End/Quarterly Reports

Enhances faculty's teaching by attending a conference devoted to university teaching, a high-impact practice, evidence-based practice or a newly developing teaching practice.

Fear, Anxiety, And The 2016 Presidential Election: What Are The Effects On Student Achievement?, Kayla Mette, Katherine Bertolini

Empowering Research for Educators

The student fear and anxiety exhibited in the aftermath of the recent election are unlike anything most teachers have seen. The long-term ramifications of persistent fear and anxiety are too serious to ignore. The academic consequences of living in a perpetual state of fear are dire and affect the most vulnerable students. Current literature relating to the impact fear and anxiety have on achievement is examined with suggestions for teachers and administrators wanting to better inoculate their students against the deleterious effects of stress, fear and anxiety. This article issues an urgent call for increased examination of this phenomenon.

A Program For Teacher Induction, Patricia Lager 7701725, Katherine Bertolini

Empowering Research for Educators

Even though many novice teachers are prepared academically to deal with subject matter, many of them enter the teaching field unprepared for many of the other aspects of teaching such as dealing with grading programs, insurance claims, inventory and various other matters that differ from school-to-school. Often these new teachers feel isolated and unsupported and possibly do not realize what they do not know or the proper questions to ask. This results in nearly 29% of them leaving the field within their first three years and around 39% leaving within their first five years. This project proposes creating a teacher …

The Purpose Of Education: What Should An American 21st Century Education Value?, Krista Shilvock

Empowering Research for Educators

A survey taken by 511 respondents dealt with such issues as past and current educational practice preparation, educational purposes in America, core class subjects, and soft skill teachings. Its results revealed a public opinion believing the primary goal of education as teaching students to adapt to any situation they find themselves in. Other results include a lack of preparation in current practices for life beyond education, although workforce preparation is adequate. Also, soft skills ought to see a curriculum of their own and taught explicitly to students in education instead of implicitly enforced, hoping parents alone taught these skills previously. …

Development Of One’S Teaching Philosophy: The Three “R’S” Of Relationships, Relevancy, And Rigor, Mary Bowne

Empowering Research for Educators

A common practice for educators is to develop a teaching philosophy which helps them become reflective practitioners on various teaching and learning strategies. This narrative will address how one faculty member identified common themes within her online and face-to-face classes that held students accountable, yet eager to come to class and learn the important content and develop the unique traits mentioned. Through the use of various data methods and current literature and research available, the author identified three common themes within her teaching and classroom environment. Those themes are identified as the 3 “R’s”: Relationships, Relevancy, and Rigor.

Sara Callori Tssa Fall 16, Sara Callori

TRC Year End/Quarterly Reports

Enhances faculty's teaching by attending a conference devoted to university teaching, a high-impact practice, evidence-based practice or a newly developing teaching practice.

Effective Instruction For English Language Learners With A Learning Disability In Higher Education In Egypt, Rania M Rafik Khalil

English Language and Literature

There is a large number of students with learning disabilities (LD) today in many private higher education institutions in Egypt. It is fair to say that their challenges although have gained some attention from academics and researchers that they are still under-studied. Many of those students also happen to be English language learners (ELLs). This complicates matters even more not just for the student with the learning disability, but for the untrained instructor in the classroom. Research indicates that ELLs with LD are less likely to engage actively in classroom tasks and are more prone to failing. Providing an inclusive …

Better Student Success Through Better Accessibility, Ellen Zimmerman, Kristen Stephens, Lori Wendt, Laura Wright

Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning Workshops

This is the supplemental slide presentation that accompanied a presentation detailing accessibility services offered to students with diverse needs at Parkland College.

Instructional Methods That Improve Outcomes For Unlv Students In The Virtual Classroom, Tiffiany Howard

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

The demand for online education programs has resulted in the expansion of course and degree offerings, and a steady increase in online student enrollment nationwide (U.S. News, 2016). While the goal of online education is to improve access to higher education, historically underrepresented groups experience lower course completion rates and poorer grade performance in online classes, when compared to underrepresented students enrolled in hybrid and in person courses.

Visualization For Spatial Comprehension, Gabriel Judkins

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

Mapping and understanding spatial data are fundamental necessities for geographers, yet challenging for many students (Rapp et al. 2007)

Enhancing Students' Learning With Word-Games: A Case Of Hospitality Ob Class, Cass Shum

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

Learning a new subject involves learning and memorizing a new set of vocabulary (Parry, 1995), a challenge for an increasingly international student population (e.g., Barron & Arcodia, 2002; McDowell, 1998; Zimmermann, 2009).

Are Dogs Better Than Cats?: Teaching Oral & Written Persuasion Skills, Sara Mathis

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

First generation students often come into UNLV underprepared for the rigors of speaking and writing. Student’s success in their courses and future careers depend on their abilities to persuade through oral and written skills.

Agile Instructional Design For Learning: A Case Example Of Agile Master Course (Amc) Development, Yeonsoo Kim, Heather Whitesides

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

Today’s higher education institutions need to “produce quality and relevant learning materials, capable of being reused and adapted in different learning situations” (Arimoto & Barroca, 2015). Agile principles and practices are being used by instructional design teams and are geared toward being adaptive and creative.

Working Groups As Classroom Management Style, Emma Frances Bloomfield, Kathryn Rafferty

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

There is a need at UNLV to improve student retention across disciplines, which can be done by improving students’ confidence in their performance, improving their satisfaction with classes and their major selections, and providing welcoming and open spaces for participation and inclusion.

A Teaching Method That Boosts Unlv Student Retention, Celeste Calkins, Mary-Ann Winkelmes

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

Nationally, underserved students are half as likely to graduate in 4 years as their white and Asian peers (US DoE 2014, Tough 2014, Ishitani 2006). UNLV proudly claims the most diverse undergraduate university population in the nation (US News 2017), including many first generation and low-income students. The majority of UNLV students fall into this underserved category, and our retention rates (re-enrollment rates after the 1st year) indicate that roughly ¼ of our 1st-year students do not re-enroll the subsequent year.