Digital Commons Network^™

Teachers' Perceptions Of The Reading Components Of The English Language Arts Florida Standards Assessment In Grades 3 To 8, Lorna Kesner

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

This study investigated teachers' perspectives of the digital interface used in the English Language Arts (ELA) Florida Standards Assessment (FSA) Practice Test. The ELA FSA is a high-stakes, standardized, computer-based test used to assess student, teacher, and school performance Prior research has focused on the validity of the test items as opposed to how the interface may affect the response process. Survey and focus group data were collected from teachers and instructional coaches in grades 3 to 8 in one Central Florida school district. Participants expressed that the ELA FSA interface is not user-friendly, along with the students not being …

Dancing Across Difference: Arts And Community-Based Interventions As Intercultural Education, Theresa Catalano, Amanda R. Morales

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

There is an ever-present need to foster and maintain intercultural competence in today’s teaching force. Although much research details how to do this, few studies document how to utilize arts and community-based (ACB) approaches to align with the goals of intercultural education. This qualitative study examines reflections from 61 teacher learners who participated in an ACB intervention with community partners while enrolled in an undergraduate or graduate course focused on serving students with immigrant/refugee backgrounds. The aim of this study was to find out what the characteristics of good intercultural education are, as well as how ACB approaches can provide …

“At School, It’S A Completely Different World”: African Immigrant Youth Agency And Negotiation Of Their Adaptation Processes In Us Urban Schools, Lydiah Kananu Kiramba, Hanihani Moundiba Traore, Guy Trainin

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

African immigrant youth adaptation processes in US schools remain underresearched. Using qualitative case study, this article examines West African immigrant middle- and high-school youth adaptation experiences in US urban schools. Findings show that racialized experiences, English proficiency levels, and multilingualism affected social relationships (both supportive and conflicted) with families, communities, peers, and school contexts. These experiences crucially influenced African immigrant youths’ adaptation processes. Participants drew from community resources and developed resilience skills to negotiate acculturative stressors when seeking friendship, belonging, and an integrated sense of identity in their new home. Recommendations for further supporting positive adaptive strategies are discussed.

Changing Faces And Persistent Patterns For Education In The New Latinx Diaspora, Edmund T. Hamann, Linda Harklau

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

The study of education in the New Latino/a/x¹ Diaspora (NLD) was initiated in the 1990s with an understanding that education research from regions where the Latino/a/x presence is long-standing might not always fit well for places where Latino/a/x populations were newer and where histories of discrimination, political organizing, and resistance were much more limited. This chapter is the fourth in a series of "bigger picture" examinations of the status of education in the NLD over the past two decades (following Hamann, Wortham, and Murillo [2002] and Hamann and Harklau [2010, 2015]). Like previous iterations, this chapter points to gaps …

Developing Intercultural Competence In Multilingual Science Classrooms: A Narrative Study, Uma Ganesan, Amanda Morales

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

Increased globalization of the world economy, growth in human migration, and rapid developments in science and technology have required people to develop intercultural communication skills. Teachers play a crucial role in developing intercultural competence among students in our globalized, multilingual classrooms. The need for fostering discourse and building intercultural competence among students is a common blind spot in teacher praxis. This can inhibit efforts to cultivate safe and supportive learning environments for all students and can ultimately threaten multilingual student success. As part of a larger study, this narrative inquiry explores the phenomenon of intercultural competence development through the lived …

Using Algorithmic Imaginaries And Uncanny Pedagogy To Facilitate Interdisciplinary Research And Digital Scholarship, Philip L. Frana

Honors in Practice Online Archive

An interdisciplinary honors course titled “Minds, Machines, and Meaning” incorporates the notion of the algorithmic imaginary, which explains how people make use of algorithms to create new information infrastructures and communities and how these algorithms shape us in turn. Describing a culminating writing assignment in speculative research, the author explains how this course facilitates interdisciplinary research while fostering student and faculty growth, and he reflects on the possibility of its future variation, the uncanny valley of algorithmic anti-humanism.

Finding My Place, Daphne Watson

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

As part of the National Collegiate Honors Council’s (2022) collection of essays about the value of honors to its graduates (1967–2019), the author reflects on the personal and professional impacts of the honors experience.

Each of us enters higher education with our own life experiences and beliefs. As a Black woman over forty, I was not your typical college sophomore. Returning to college full-time filled me with uncertainty, so unlike when I first began undergrad more than twenty years prior. A lifetime of highs and lows, failures and successes cultivated a certain fearlessness, yet I was unsure of where I …

Modifying Practices To Serve Underrepresented Preprofessional Students With Help From Gifted Education, Bailey J. Nafziger

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Gifted education and honors education often parallel one another. By using a theoretical construct from gifted education as guidance, honors colleges could adjust their programs to spark interest and expedite talent development of minorities in STEM and health preprofessional tracks. Small improvements include adjusting advising models, using phenomena-based teaching practices to frame science content in a more feminine context, and making room for indigenous epistemologies in coursework. Adjustments to honors programs may bridge the gap between honors and preprofessional tracks while helping to increase diversity in STEM professional fields.

The Messages Are Everywhere: An Intersectional City As Text™ Approach To Enhance Honors Preprofessional Student Learning, Carla Janell Pattin

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

This essay recounts efforts to teach liberal arts to engineering, nursing, pharmacy, and pre-medicine majors. Showing how various forms of public media reinforce harmful ideologies about social identities in the United States serves as a convergence between preprofessional disciplines and the liberal arts. At the same time, City as Text™ offers exploratory learning beyond the traditional classroom. This educational approach fosters students’ transformation in thinking about power and privilege, enabling a dialogue about the miseducation of various economic, racial, ethnic, gender, and (dis)abled communities.

Honors Education Is Discipline-Neutral, Mike Sloane

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Neither the historical antecedents of honors education in the Oxford tutorial model nor Aydelotte’s implementation of honors at Swarthmore College in 1922 involves a privileging of the humanities within honors education. The signature characteristics of honors education and pedagogies are discipline-neutral. Though the historical and institutional implementation of honors education in the U.S. has resulted in a privileging of the humanities, there are no intrinsic constraints on expanding honors to science-focused and preprofessional curricula. Such an expansion would enhance the future viability of honors programs within institutions as well as the future of professional organizations and publications.

Jnchc Vol. 23, No. 1 (2022): Backmatter, National Collegiate Honors Council

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

No abstract provided.

The Secret Of Honors Education: Driven By Discourse, Depth Of Disciplines, And Dedication To Diversity, Merry Benner Chiu

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

As part of the National Collegiate Honors Council’s (2022) collection of essays about the value of honors to its graduates (1967–2019), the author reflects on the personal and professional impacts of the honors experience.

The Dean of my undergraduate Honors College disguised a very clever secret right in plain sight of his students. What we thought to be a well-rounded, four-year education was, in reality, so much more: a carefully cultivated undergraduate program that propelled us into an engaged adulthood driven by meaningful discourse, appreciation for a breadth and depth of disciplines, and an unyielding dedication to diversity. My honors …

The Spark Of Reimagination, Corey D. Clawson

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

As part of the National Collegiate Honors Council’s (2022) collection of essays about the value of honors to its graduates (1967–2019), the author reflects on the personal and professional impacts of the honors experience.

Each experience was a thrilling opportunity to reimagine the world. The honors program at Utah State University presented my peers and me with challenge after challenge to envision the world through new eyes. Journalism historian Mike Sweeney offered perspectives for understanding global conflict and everyday communication in his Propaganda, Persuasion, and Censorship honors seminar, offered in 2003 as the U.S. was attempting to justify the decision …

Interdisciplinary Survival, Paul Ewing

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

As part of the National Collegiate Honors Council’s (2022) collection of essays about the value of honors to its graduates (1967–2019), the author reflects on the personal and professional impacts of the honors experience.

In 1966, the University of Toledo Honors Program encouraged students to create their college curriculum. As a result, I created an interdisciplinary major in Russian studies. When confronted with different disciplinary approaches, goals, and values, students must think outside the boxes. Interdisciplinary studies generate critical thinking, flexibility, and creativity. Russian language, history, and political science raised questions about the relationships between culture, political theory, and historical …

From Jersey Shore To Ap Lit Teacher, Ashley Gerstle

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

As part of the National Collegiate Honors Council’s (2022) collection of essays about the value of honors to its graduates (1967–2019), the author reflects on the personal and professional impacts of the honors experience.

My undergraduate experience was mundane, average, and boring. I excelled academically, a little too easily. I could skip the readings and ace my classes half asleep. It was a normal experience for me to write entire papers an hour before the due date and receive As. In one instance a professor publicly recognized me as having written the best paper in the entire class. I beamed …

Constitution Day: An Opportunity For Honors Colleges To Promote Civic Engagement, Richard J. Hardy, Paul A. Schlag, Keith Boeckelman

Honors in Practice Online Archive

The United States Constitution is the bedrock upon which government and society rest, yet its precepts remain generally unfamiliar to contemporary college students. Considering the extent of its impact and the misinformation regarding its purpose, content, efficacy, and limits, the authors provide suggestions for civic learning based on this seminal document. While all American educational institutions receiving federal funding must celebrate the U.S. Constitution each year on or near September 17th, research suggests that comprehensive and integrative instruction is scarce. Citing a lack of formal Constitution Day programming among honors colleges, the authors present a multi-modal framework for honors students …

Leadership In Physical Therapist Education: Instructional Strategies And Assessment Methods Used Among U.S. Capte Accredited Programs, Gretchen R. Prather

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

The physical therapy profession has recently placed greater significance on leadership education and research at all levels of professional development. Excellence and innovation in physical therapy practice must address leadership development beginning in professional education. This call for reform has been adopted broadly, including from an accreditation standpoint. The challenge now becomes to determine the most effective ways for preparing student physical therapists to lead in today’s fluid healthcare environment. This study examined leadership content among U.S. CAPTE accredited physical therapist education programs and, specifically, the instructional strategies and assessment methods frequently used to develop emerging leaders. An online survey …

Creating A Middle School Makerspace In An International Baccalaureate School, Brad White

Liberal Studies (MA) Final Essays

The availability of a makerspace lab is a new initiative at The Academy for Discovery at Lakewood (ADL), a Norfolk City Public School. The academy follows the International Baccalaureate Middle Years Program curriculum. This project gives background on the makerspace movement and details the steps that were taken to design and equip the lab environment, as well as provide teachers with professional development on how the lab can be used to support rigorous course curriculum. This project also includes considerations for further action, including the creation of a student survey regarding opinions on what value the makerspace lab contributes to …

The Conflict Campaign: Exploring Local Experiences Of The Campaign To Ban “Critical Race Theory” In Public K–12 Education In The U.S., 2020–2021, Mica Pollock, John Rogers, Alexander Kwako, Andrew Matschiner, Reed Kendall, Cicely Bingener, Erika Reece, Benjamin C. Kennedy, Jaleel R. Howard

Education Faculty Articles and Research

"For this study, we reviewed documentation from and about the campaign’s loudest proponents, particularly national and local leaders. We analyzed anti 'CRT' websites, toolkits, Facebook groups, and media appearances to understand their shared language, tactics, and logic. We analyzed survey and interview data from educators affected through early fall 2021, drawing on survey responses from 275 members of a set of national teacher organizations that support teachers who tend toward teaching on race and diversity, as well as an interview study of 21 'equity officers' (EOs) in district diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) roles across the country. We also drew …

Agroecology Curriculum Proposal, Emily Kuhn

Pitzer Senior Theses

The purpose of this research is to establish the viability of an Agroecology major at Pitzer College. I begin by problematizing Industrial Agriculture and making a case for Pitzer College to become a higher education leader in the global paradigm shift towards socially and ecologically just food systems. The proposed curriculum compiles pre-existing classes, objectives expanded from the EA field group, and an internship component embedded at five local land-based learning partner sites. I conducted a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis of the Environmental Analysis field group as a potential host for the agroecology track, including study abroad …

Analyzing Mental Health Curriculums: Recommendations For The Implementation Of A Mental Health Curriculum For Middle Grade Students, Lauren A. Bendheim

Honors Theses

Adolescent mental health has been an increasingly important topic of conversation in education policy as the American Academy of Pediatrics declared a national state of emergency for child and adolescent mental health in 2021. In this two phase study I work to understand the landscape of what mental health education looks like in the United States through interviews with policymakers, curriculum developers, and classroom instructors as well as literature research. I investigated what mental health education looks like in practice and how it is experienced by middle school students through classroom observation, student surveys, and curriculum analysis. In my research …

The White Ally Experience: A Look Into The Impacts Of Being A White Ally, Kristen Maclin

Masters Theses

If an ally knew what they would experience, would they be more willing to stand up? Racism, institutional racism, racial bias, discrimination, and microaggressions have existed in our country since its inception. One way to work to overcome these is by growing allyship and having allies who are willing to speak up and stand beside marginalized groups. This research study addressed what allyship means, the byproducts of racist structures that allies have encountered, ally burnout, and ways to overcome burnout. These were researched through surveys from BIPOCs, named allies, and my school colleague populations. My research found that many White …

All Scientists Should Write Poetry: Creative Writing As Essential Academic Practice, Mariya Deykute

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Creative writing in undergraduate academics has often been regarded as an elective practice that has benefits primarily for students who plan to pursue creative or literary majors. However, poetic inquiry specifically offers crucial benefits to STEM students, owing both to the transformative nature of poetic process and to the way poetic inquiry can stimulate innovative, ethical, multilingual and interdisciplinary growth. The author frames the issue through individual experience of teaching poetry to STEM undergraduates in the context of a rich multilingual environment, in which many students are fluent or proficient in several languages. The author argues that due to the …

Front Matter - Jaepl Volume 27, Wendy Ryden

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Front Matter

Spring Break In Chernobyl: Urbex, Apocalypse, And Materiality In Writing Classrooms, K Shannon Howard

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

The practice of urban exploration, or urbex—an activity in which we confront and document landscapes of ruin and make meaning from them—acts as a focal point through which students may investigate and write about the world surrounding them by gaining new perspectives of physical spaces and objects that often go ignored in daily living. More importantly, urbex inspires writing that responds to existing problems in our world (resource scarcity, lack of sustainability, and environmental trauma) while also helping students to conceptualize a better one.

Toward A Decolonial Creative Writing Workshop: Mbari As A Case Study In Examining Intercultural Models For Arts Education, James W. Ryan, Steve Westbrook

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

The creative writing workshop has been the subject of sustained critique for its tendency to reproduce dominant cultural norms, especially in spaces where admissions to the workshop do not reflect local ethnic and cultural diversity. In an effort to aid the search for alternate models/foundations for creative writing instructions, the authors turn to the history of mbari, a cultural practice among the Owerri Igbo of Nigeria, which was briefly adapted into the pedagogical foundation for a visual arts workshop conducted between the time of Nigeria’s independence and the onset of its civil war. In its original form, mbari was a …

Jaepl Vol 27 Table Of Contents, Wendy Ryden

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

TOC

A Meditation: Why Teach?, Joonna Smitherman Trapp

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

What makes teaching a vocation that continues to draw smart and talented people even though the pay can be less-than-great, the workload damaging, and the rewards from societal and political opinion currently nonexistent? Frederick Buechner, a presbyterian minister, talks about the notion of vocation in his well-known book, Wishful Thinking. Our English word “vocation” comes from vocare, a Latin word meaning “to call,” and Buechner further defines the word as signifying “the work” we are “called to do” (118). I’m always amazed at my university that teachers haven’t heard about this idea. To them, vocation smacks of career-mindedness and doesn’t …

Introduction: Finding Meaning On The Road To Hell, Wendy Ryden

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

SPECIAL SECTION: CREATIVE WRITING IN HIGHER EDUCATION: WHERE ARE WE GOING? WHERE HAVE WE BEEN? Introduction: Finding Meaning on the Road to Hell

Grading, Naomi C. Gades

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Poem