Teacher Education and Professional Development Commons^™

Engl 487: English Capstone Experience—A Peer Review Of Teaching Benchmark Portfolio, Kelly Stage

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

This portfolio documents the teaching objectives, strategies, and assessments for a capstone course in the English major at UNL. As the English Studies Capstone and as an ACE (Achievement-Centered Education) 10 course at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, English 487 must help students meet key outcomes for the department and the University, but it also allows flexibility and creativity in the methods chosen to meet these requirements and structure the course. This portfolio thereby reflects on the intellectual labor of designing a particular version of these requirements and on guiding students through the design. The assessments included here are measuring traditional …

Teac 908e: Critical Conversations In U.S. Teacher Education Policy And Practice—A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Benchmark Portfolio, Lauren Gatti

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

Since compulsory school began in the early 1900s, there have been lively and at times intense debates regarding how teachers ought to be prepared. Current debates are particularly pitched as the achievement gap persists and teacher attrition remains high, made more intense by the level of polarization in the country. Debates in the field of teacher preparation, like the country writ large, are often characterized more by heat than light. Given this reality, I opted to use this peer review of teaching opportunity to think about my graduate course as a place where students could practice perspective-taking and dialogue around …

Meng 3250: Mechanics Of Elastic Bodies—A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Benchmark Portfolio, Jinying Zhu

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

This portfolio focuses on mechanics of materials (course title: Mechanics of Elastic Bodies), a sophomore level course taken primarily by civil engineering and architectural engineering majors on Omaha campus. It is a prerequisite for broad range of courses in mechanical, civil and agricultural engineering majors. This course studies the mechanics of solids with applications to science and engineering, including stress, strains and deformation in structural elements (axial, torsional and bending), shear and moment diagram for beams, and a brief introduction to material failure mechanisms.

This portfolio describes the teaching methods used to help students understand the fundamental knowledge about material …

Cive 463: Traffic Engineering—A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Benchmark Portfolio, John Sangster

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

This course portfolio documents the backward design of a senior-level design elective course in traffic engineering within the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Nebraska. An extensive discussion of stakeholder needs for the course is followed by an analysis of formative and summative feedback assessments that are designed to meet the needs of a heterogeneous group of students in the course. As a senior-level design elective, there is a wide variety of interest levels among participants in the course, varying from those who have experience with internships in the topic and offer letters to conduct work in this …

Edad 925: Law And Higher Education—A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Benchmark Portfolio, Stephanie Bondi

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

This portfolio documents three learning outcomes of the EDAD925 Law and Higher Education course taught Spring 2017 in the Department of Educational Leadership. The learning outcomes include (a) understanding the role of the higher education administrator within the legal context, (b) using professional standards to inform decision-making, and (c) examining social justice concepts within professional practice in the legal context of higher education. The portfolio shows what was done and how students demonstrated learning on the outcomes. The portfolio includes suggestions of how to better address the three learning outcomes.

Aecn 436: Commodity Price Forecasting—A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Inquiry Portfolio, Fabio Mattos

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

This study explores the impact of distinct teaching approaches on students’ learning. In my course, we cover two main topics, technical analysis and fundamental analysis, which I decided to teach in different ways. I used activities associated with active learning to teach technical analysis, and traditional lectures (recitation) to teach fundamental analysis. Then I compared students’ performance in two exams to assess how much they learned about each topic. Students generally performed better in the exam on technical analysis than they did in the exam on fundamental analysis, suggesting that they learned technical analysis better than they learned fundamental analysis. …

(Mis)Reading The Classroom: A Two-Act “Play” On The Conflicting Roles In Student Teaching, Christi U. Edge

Journal Articles

This case study examined concentric and reciprocal notions of reading—that of high school students, a pre-service teacher, and a teacher educator. An intern charged with teaching students to read, interact with, and compose texts in an English/language arts classroom constructed her role in the classroom based on her reading the “text” of her internship experiences, relationships, and responsibilities. Using interviews and observations, a teacher educator read and interpreted the classroom “text” the pre-service teacher “composed” during her internship and then constructed a two-act “play” which details the conflict in the intern’s enacting the dual role of student-teacher and her subsequent …

Disrupting The Dominant Narrative: Beginning English Teachers’ Use Of Young Adult Literature And Culturally Responsive Pedagogy., Elsie L. Olan, Kia Jane Richmond

Journal Articles

In this multiple case study that uses narrative research methodology, two beginning English teachers’ stories, their use of young adult literature, and their dialogic interactions with university mentors are examined through a lens of culturally responsive pedagogy. This study is focused on how teachers’ stories indicate the difficulties they have incorporating culturally relevant young adult literature into their secondary English classes, how they establish connections between the texts, their students’ lived experiences, and their own lived experiences, and why they struggle with the application of culturally responsive pedagogy. Findings indicate that beginning teachers’ stories (a) express uncertainty regarding the place …

Storying Our Journey: Conversations About The Literary Canon And Course Development In Secondary English Education., Elsie L. Olan, Kia Jane Richmond

Journal Articles

Olan and Richmond present preservice English teachers’ stories about having little experience with canonical texts they are asked to teach in their field experiences.

Teaching In A Mixed Secondary Spanish Classroom: A Case Study Of Strategies And Successes Of Minnesota Teachers, Meredith Gunderson

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

The population of Spanish heritage language learners is increasing throughout the state of Minnesota. This change in demographics impacts schools in a variety of ways; one such consequence is the creation of classes for Spanish for Native Speakers in locations with high Latino populations. However, in most locations, such programs currently do not exist, resulting in Spanish heritage language learners enrolling in Spanish foreign language classes. These classrooms, called mixed classes due to the combination of second language learners and Spanish heritage language learners in the same classroom, pose a unique challenge to the foreign language instructors. This qualitative multiple …

Program Evaluation Of A Competency-Based Online Model In Higher Education, Karen Digiacomo

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

In order to serve its nontraditional students, a university piloted a competency-based program as alternative method for its students to earn college credit. The purpose of this mixed-methods study was to conduct a summative program evaluation to determine if the program was successful in order to make decisions about program revision and expansion. The conceptual framework for the study was grounded in Knowles's adult learning theory and Bandura's social learning theory as they relate to adult learners being self-directed and self-motivated to complete their educational goals. The pilot program involved 60 students taking 12 different courses over 3 semesters. Quantitative …

Faculty Self-Efficacy Instructing In A Hybrid Learning Environment At A Career College, Donna Gosselin Gosselin

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Since the inception of the hybrid instruction model at a career college in the western United States, there has not been an exploration of faculty members' understanding of hybrid instruction. Therefore, campus administrators do not have a clear understanding of the faculty perception of teaching in a hybrid learning environment. Using Bandura's social cognitive theory, this qualitative narrative inquiry study was conducted to explore faculty self-efficacy instructing in a hybrid learning environment at the career college. A purposeful sampling method was used to select 9 faculty who have taught less than 2 hybrid learning courses and attended the college professional …

Faculty Perceptions Of Instructional Strategies That Foster Student Engagement In Online Courses, Sharon M. Hope

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Developing online instructional strategies for increasing student engagement and success is significant locally and nationally due to growth in the online field, advances in technology, and the need for colleges to maximize student success. This study stemmed from the desire of administrators at an upstate New York private college to discover additional ways to design and deliver effective online instruction. The purpose of this qualitative instrumental case study was to discover faculty perceptions of and experiences with instructional strategies that they used to foster student engagement in online learning. Kearsley and Shneiderman's engagement theory formed the study's conceptual framework. Ten …

Impact Of Online Orientation For First-Time Online Students On Retention, Academic Success, And Persistence, Lynda Marshall

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

A challenge faced by higher education is whether online orientation that is offered before the start of class can impact academic performance for online students. The purpose of this quantitative research study was to determine if there are significant differences in retention, academic success, and persistence between first time online students who have participated in an online orientation and those who did not participate and if there was a significant difference in retention, academic success, and persistence by gender of first-time online students. The sample for this study was extracted from archived data originating from 433 first-time online undergraduate students …

Motivations Influencing Home Support Engagements In Jamaican High Schools, Kasan Tameka Troupe

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Researchers have emphasized the importance of parental involvement in ensuring the educational success of children. Despite the recognized value, some stakeholders continue to struggle to leverage and sustain this partnership, which may encumber students' success. The purpose of this study was to gain an understanding of the factors influencing parental involvement in Jamaican high schools. This qualitative case study sought to unearth the motivational factors influencing parental involvement within a climate of educational accountability in Jamaican high schools. Grounded in Epstein's school-family-community partnership model, this study unearthed some of the differences and similarities of parental involvement within high schools that …

Addressing Laterality To Prevent Injury In Dance Education: Teaching Methods To Compensate For The Right Bias And Asymmetry, Olivia M. Alsamadi

UROP Posters

Despite the vast knowledge available about proper alignment and safe dance training, the growing demands for university dancers have plagued them with increasing rates of overuse injuries stemming from an imbalance in their practice often influenced by their professors. The purpose of this review is to study teaching methods in dance education and the right bias in university dance classes to learn how unbalanced teaching methods and dancers’ asymmetric physicalities cause injuries. This research will help professors understand how to effectively communicate with their students to promote safe, injury preventing practice. The research explores the various roles present in the …

Virtual Faculty Learning Community Implementation Framework, Angela Atwell, Cristina Cottom, Lisa Martino, Sara Ombres

Publications

This framework is meant to be a useful guide for those interested in creating a V-FLC. You may skip around to the various sections or read the framework from start to finish. The framework consists of twelve questions to ask as you begin developing a V-FLC, answers to these questions based on our experience, as well as a visual representation of the framework.

Supplemental Instruction And The Promotion Of Construction Of Knowledge, Ruth C. Chambers-Turner

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Supplemental instruction (SI), a peer assisted learning model, improves course performance, retention, and graduation rates of post-secondary education students. Researchers have questioned if the success of SI is due to students becoming more aware of assessment demands or if SI also promotes construction of new knowledge. The purposes of this case study were to describe techniques utilized by SI peer leaders, explore how sociocognitive learning techniques are implemented, and explore the perceptions of supplemental instruction program stakeholders regarding sociocognitive learning techniques. The research questions focused on what techniques peer leaders are trained to implement and what peer leaders' perceptions of …

Examining The Impact Of Art-Based Anchor Charts On Academic Achievement In Language Arts, Kimberly Ivette Fontanez

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The students at 2 middle schools in County SD, NHMS and WMS are not scoring on or above grade level on the information text portion of the English Language Arts (ELA) standardized SC Palmetto Assessment of State Standards (SCPASS) test given annually in South Carolina. The teachers developed and implemented art-based anchor charts to help close the achievement gap among the 6th, 7th, and 8th grade students. There has been no formal exploration of the teachers' experiences regarding the use of anchor charts. Using the elements of problem-based learning as the theoretical framework, the purpose of this project study was …

Teaching College: The Ultimate Guide To Lecturing, Presenting, And Engaging Students, Norman Eng

Publications and Research

Your students aren’t reading. They aren’t engaged in class. Getting them to talk is like pulling teeth. Whatever the situation, your reality is not meeting your expectations. Change is needed. But who’s got the time? Or maybe you’re just starting out, and you want to get it right the first time.

If so, Teaching College: The Ultimate Guide to Lecturing, Presenting, and Engaging Students is the blueprint. Written for early career instructors, this easy-to-implement guide teaches you to:

• Think like advertisers to understand your target audience—your students
• Adopt the active learning approach of the best K-12 teachers
• Write a syllabus …