Digital Commons Network^™

“What Is Critical Whiteness Doing In Our Nice Field Like Critical Race Theory?” Applying Crt And Cws To Understand The White Imaginations Of White Teacher Candidates, Cheryl E. Matias, Kara Viesca, Dorothy F. Garrison-Wade, Madhavi Tandon, Rene Galindo

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

Critical Race Theory (CRT) revolutionized how we investigate race in education. Centralizing counter stories from people of color becomes essential for decentralizing white normative discourse—a process we refer to as realities within the Black imagination .Yet, few studies examine how whites respond to centering the Black imagination, especially since their white imagination goes unrecognized. We propose utilizing Critical Whiteness Studies (CWS) to support CRT to aid in deconstructing the dimensions of white imaginations. Our findings describe how the white imagination operates inside the minds of white teacher candidates, namely through their (a) emotional disinvestment, (b) lack of critical understanding of …

Differences In Negativity Bias Underlie Variations In Political Ideology, John R. Hibbing, Kevin B. Smith, John R. Alford

Department of Political Science: Faculty Publications

Disputes between those holding differing political views are ubiquitous and deep-seated, and they often follow common, recognizable lines. The supporters of tradition and stability, sometimes referred to as conservatives, do battle with the supporters of innovation and reform, sometimes referred to as liberals. Understanding the correlates of those distinct political orientations is probably a prerequisite for managing political disputes, which are a source of social conflict that can lead to frustration and even bloodshed. A rapidly growing body of empirical evidence documents a multitude of ways in which liberals and conservatives differ from each other in purviews of life with …

Songs You Know By Heart: Alcohol, Promiscuous Sex, Drugs, And Escape In Jimmy Buffett’S Music, Eve M. Brank, Kathleen A. Fox, Victoria Kaspar

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

Some researchers argue singer-songwriter Jimmy Buffett’s lyrics focus on alcohol, promiscuous sex, and drugs, while others say Buffett’s music has changed since he sold out to corporate sponsorship. Results from a systematic coding of all 386 of his songs released since 1969 indicate Buffett’s music is more about escape and irony than deviant behaviors. Furthermore, lyric themes remain largely unaltered even through an increase in his popularity and corporate sponsorship.

The Language Of Academic Librarianship: The Discourse Of Promotion And Tenure, Mary K. Bolin

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries: Faculty Publications

This article examines the discourse of appointment, promotion, and tenure (APT) documents for academic librarians. Discourse analysis can illuminate the social role of language, social systems, and social practices. This qualitative research analyzes the APT documents for librarians from a group of US universities (n= 50) whose librarians are tenured faculty (n = 35). Linguistic features were examined to identify genre (text type) and register (language variety) characteristics. The documents showed strong relationships with other texts; vocabulary from the language of human resources (HR); grammatical characteristics such as nominalization; passive constructions; few pronouns; the “quasi-synonymy” of series of adjectives, nouns, …

Transforming Web Tables To A Relational Database, David W. Embley, George Nagy, Sharad C. Seth

School of Computing: Conference and Workshop Papers

HTML tables represent a significant fraction of web data. The often complex headers of such tables are determined accurately using their indexing property. Isolated headers are factored to extract category hierarchies. Web tables are then transformed into a canonical form and imported into a relational database. The proposed processing allows for the formulation of arbitrary SQL queries over the collection of induced relational tables.

Discursive Struggles Animating Individuals’ Talk About Their Parents’ Coming Out As Lesbian Or Gay, Diana Breshears, Dawn O. Braithwaite

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

The goal in the present study was to understand the discourses that animate children’s talk about having a parent come out and how these discourses interplay to create meaning. Data were gathered through 20 in-depth interviews with adults who remembered a parent coming out to them as lesbian or gay. One discursive struggle animated the participants’ talk about their parents’ coming out: the discourse of lesbian and gay identity as wrong vs. the discourse of lesbian and gay identity as acceptable. Analysis of participants’ talk about their familial identities revealed a range of avenues for resisting the negative discourses regarding …

Book Review Of Dane Kennedy, The Last Blank Spaces: Exploring Africa And Australia, Adrian S. Wisnicki

Department of Biochemistry: Faculty Publications

Mid-nineteenth-century British exploration, particularly the stories of the “heroic” individuals who carried out this exploration, remains a topic of worldwide interest, as most recently evidenced by the many events in Britain and Africa celebrating the 2013 bicentenary of David Livingstone’s birth. Dane Kennedy’s intriguing study takes issue with such readings of the historical record by foregrounding an epistemological tension that lies at the heart of nineteenthcentury British exploration discourse and practice. The book examines the collision—as it played out in the exploration of African and Australia—between metropolitan scientific protocols and non-Western quotidian realities. Nineteenth-century explorers, argues Kennedy, left home with …

Heritage Speakers Of Spanish In The Us Midwest: Reported Interlocutors As A Measure Of Family Language Relevance, Isabel Velázquez, Marisol Garrido, Mónica Millán

Spanish Language and Literature Papers

This article presents the results of an analysis of reported interlocutors in Spanish in a group of heritage speakers (HS), in three communities of the US Midwest. Participants were college-aged bilinguals developing their own personal and professional networks outside the direct influence of their parents. Responses are compared with those from two control groups: college-aged native speakers (NS) and college-aged second-language learners (L2). Seventy-seven per cent of HS reported speaking primarily in Spanish with 4–5 interlocutors on the week of the study. HS and NS reported more interactions in Spanish with older relatives, and more interactions with peers outside their …

Maternal Perceptions Of Agency In Intergenerational Transmission Of Spanish: The Case Of Latinos In The U.S. Midwest, Isabel Velázquez

Spanish Language and Literature Papers

This article examines the ways in which a group of first-generation Latino immigrants to the U.S. Midwest conceptualized their role in their children’s bilingual development. Respondents were asked to identify the individuals or institutions on which their children’s language and academic development depended, as well as household practices perceived as conducive to Spanish maintenance, and perceived obstacles to their children’s use of Spanish in the domains of home, school, and community. Discussion centers on maternal perceptions of agency because of the centrality of the mother in intergenerational minority language transmission. It is argued here that immigrant mothers’ perceptions of agency …

The Impact Of Interface Design During An Initial High-Technology Aac Experience: A Collective Case Study Of People With Aphasia, Aimee R. Dietz, Kristy S.E. Weissling, Julie Griffith, Miechelle L. Mckelvey, Devan Macke

Department of Special Education and Communication Disorders: Faculty Publications

The purpose of this collective case study was to describe the communication behaviors of five people with chronic aphasia when they retold personal narratives to an unfamiliar communication partner using four variants of a visual scene display (VSD) interface. The results revealed that spoken language comprised roughly 70% of expressive modality units; variable patterns of use for other modalities emerged. Although inconsistent across participants, several people with aphasia experienced no trouble sources during the retells using VSDs with personally relevant photographs and text boxes. Overall, participants perceived the personally relevant photographs and the text as helpful during the retells. These …

Phonological And Lexical Influences On Phonological Awareness In Children With Specific Language Impairment And Dyslexia, Kelly Farquharson, Tracy M. Centanni, Chelsea E. Franzluebbers, Tiffany Hogan

Department of Special Education and Communication Disorders: Faculty Publications

Children with dyslexia and/or specific language impairment have marked deficits in phonological processing, putting them at an increased risk for reading deficits. The current study sought to examine the influence of word-level phonological and lexical characteristics on phonological awareness. Children with dyslexia and/or specific language impairment were tested using a phoneme deletion task in which stimuli differed orthogonally by sound similarity and neighborhood density. Phonological and lexical factors influenced performance differently across groups. Children with dyslexia appeared to have a more immature and aberrant pattern of phonological and lexical influence (e.g., favoring sparse and similar features). Children with SLI performed …

Teaching Introductory Life Science Courses In Colleges Of Agriculture: Faculty Experiences, Mark Balschweid, Neil A. Knobloch, Bryan J. Hains

Department of Agricultural Leadership, Education, and Communication: Faculty Publications

Insignificant numbers of college students declaring STEM majors creates concern for the future of the U.S. economy within the global marketplace. This study highlights the educational development and teaching strategies employed by STEM faculty in teaching first-year students in contextualized life science courses, such as animal, plant, and food sciences. Teaching strategies employed by faculty were reported as largely influenced by the “way they were taught.” Faculty members shared they used ‘lecture’ and ‘laboratory’ interchangeably as both educational environment and instructional practice. This study provides evidence for engaging university teaching faculty in a systematic process of professional development in teaching …

Equitable Written Assessments For English Language Learners: How Scaffolding Helps, Marcelle A. Siegel, Deepika Menon, Somnath Sinha, Nattida Promyod, Cathy Wissehr, Kristy L. Halvorson

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

This study investigated the effects of the use of scaffolds in written classroom assessments through the voices of both native English speakers and English language learners from two middle schools. Students responded to assessment tasks in writing, by speaking aloud using think aloud protocols, and by reflecting in a post-assessment interview. The classroom assessment tasks were designed to engage students in scientific sense making and multifaceted language use, as recommended by the Next Generation Science Standards. Data analyses showed that both groups benefited from the use of scaffolds. The findings revealed specific ways that modifications were supportive in helping students …

Supporting English And Spanish Literacy Through A Family Literacy Program, Stephanie Wessels

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

Family literacy studies have shown that the role of parental storybook reading has an impact on children’s success in school-based literacy instruction. However, many children who are English language learners come from homes or cultures where storybook readings are not common practice. The purpose of this qualitative research study explored the effects of an eight-week bilingual family literacy program for Latino, English learning families. Triangulation was assured through multiple sources of data: semistructured interviews conducted with participating parents; parent evaluation surveys; and researcher field notes. During the implementation of the bilingual family literacy program and the analysis of the data, …

Reflections On Effective Writing Instruction The Value Of Expectations, Engagement, Feedback, Data, And Sociocultural Instructional Practices, Kara Mitchell Viesca, Kim Hutchison

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

This reflection on effective writing practice is the result of a university–school partnership focused on collaboratively investigating the work of a successful 5th grade-writing teacher. The co-authors collectively present the work of Mrs. Hutchison, a veteran teacher who worked in a predominately low-income school with a high percentage of students labeled English language learners. Mrs. Hutchison’s class was a space where each student was both a learner and a teacher and most students developed a great interest and love of writing. This reflective piece presents data documenting Mrs. Hutchison’s success as well as a collaborative reflection on her work intended …

Building Intercultural Competence In The Language Classroom, Aleidine Kramer Moeller, Kristen Nugent

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

This article reviews and summarizes the literature on intercultural competence and intercultural communicative competence in order to better understand how these notions can impact the cultural component of a foreign language curriculum. Building on various models of intercultural communicative competence, examples of cultural tasks that promote intercultural communicative competence and represent best practices in language teaching and learning are presented and illustrated for classroom integration.

Understanding Human Learning Using A Multiagent Based Unified Learning Model Simulation, Vlad T. Chiriacescu

School of Computing: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Within cognitive science, computational modeling based on cognitive architectures has been an important approach to addressing questions of human cognition and learning. Modeling issues such as limited expressivity in representing knowledge and lack of appropriate selection of model structure represent a challenge for existing architectures. Furthermore, latest research shows that the concepts of long-term memory, motivation and working memory are critical cognitive aspects but a unifying cognitive paradigm integrating those concepts hasn’t been previously achieved.

Derived from a synthesis of neuroscience, cognitive science, psychology, and education, the Unified Learning Model (ULM) provides this integration by merging a statistical learning mechanism …

A Collective Case Study Of The Nature Of Form-Focused Instruction Among Secondary English As A Second Language Teachers, Sevda Budak

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Theses and Other Student Research

The nature of teaching expertise for form-focused instruction (FFI) in secondary schools has received little research attention. FFI research that has been carried out so far has devoted time in exploring the classification of one form of FFI, or the effectiveness of one form of FFI over another. Given that exploring teaching expertise for FFI in a natural classroom setting is necessary in order to bring out the interplay of factors influencing and prioritized by the teacher in choosing how to proceed instructionally. Furthermore, student experiences of teacher FFI have been largely ignored. Giving voice to student perspectives will help …

Community College Pathways: A Narrative Inquiry With One Student, Philip Ross

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Developmental education is a field that has a long history in higher education in the United States. Some have called it remedial education, but the field promotes a pedagogy that addresses what it claims is broader in the development of the whole person, his or cognitive, social/behavioral, and vocational growth. This study, set in a Midwestern community college, acknowledges the absence of recognition of the role of developmental education in higher education and responds to a lack of qualitative research in this area. A six-month study using narrative inquiry results in the documentary Crossroads Community College: Flying Solo and following …

La Preparación De Los Maestros Para Afrontar La Diversidad En La Escuela. Estudio Comparativo Entre Castilla-La Mancha Y El Estado De Nebraska / Training Teachers To Deal With Diversity In School. Comparative Study Of Castilla-La Mancha And The State Of Nebraska, Olga Elwes Aguilar, Aránzazu Bernardo Jiménez, Maria Victoria Guadamillas Gómez, Theresa Catalano, Thomas Mcgowan

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

El presente artículo, de naturaleza comparativa, pretende estudiar la preparación de los maestros para atender la diversidad lingüística y cultural en las aulas en dos contextos diferentes a simple vista, pero que presentan ciertos paralelismos (Nebraska-Lincoln, EEUU y Castilla-La Mancha, España). En primer lugar, analizaremos la literatura existente; posteriormente, propondremos una hipótesis de partida sobre dicha preparación lingüística y didáctica en el trabajo con niños inmigrantes sobre tres ejes fundamentales: la formación de los maestros a nivel universitario a través de encuestas, la práctica educativa a través de entrevistas y la revisión de los planes de estudio. Por último, y …

Media Discourse And Dual Language Programs: A Critical Linguistic Analysis, Theresa Catalano, Aleidine Kramer Moeller

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

Much research exists that discusses the benefits of dual language education (DLE) as well as the political, historical and social factors involved in the implementation (or lack of) of DLE in the United States. However, little attention has focused on how these programs are presented in media discourse. This study aims to fill this gap by examining media discourse and how DLE is currently relayed to the public. Twenty-nine online articles from US news sources were collected and analyzed as regards linguistic strategies used in media discourse of DLE. Findings reveal the prevailing metaphors used in multilingual/monolingual discourse to be …

Home Visits: A Way Of Connecting With Culturally And Linguistically Diverse Families, Stephanie Wessels

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

Home visits allow ELL educators to learn more about culturally and linguistically diverse families’ interactions and experiences and build on those activities in the educational setting. The visits can provide an amazing source of information regarding the socio-cultural processes, academic, and linguistic development of students. Home visits are a start to relationship building between teachers and parents where everyone benefits. ELL teachers benefit from learning more about their students’ interests and cultural experiences. Parents benefit from the teachers showing how much they care and value what the parents have to offer to the educational process. Students benefit the most from …

Perceptions Of Positive Youth Development Experiences Related To Rural Hispanic Youth Academic Success, Jill A. Goedeken

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Understanding the struggles rural Hispanic youth face academically, learning more about their perceptions of positive youth development experiences relating to their academic success connects the essence of the two experiences. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore rural Hispanic youths’ perceptions of positive youth development experiences as they relate to their academic success. The phenomenological design was chosen to explore the essence of the shared experiences of positive youth development experiences among rural Hispanic youth in the Columbus, Nebraska, community. To understand a possible perceived connection between positive youth development experiences to academic success, 28 Hispanic youth from …

Review Of The Dead Sea Scrolls In Context: Integrating The Dead Sea Scrolls In The Study Of Ancient Texts, Languages, And Cultures, Edited By Armin Lange, Emanuel Tov, And Matthias Weigold, In Association With Bennie H. Reynolds Iii., Sidnie White Crawford

Sidnie White Crawford Publications

These two massive volumes comprise the proceedings of a conference of the same name held at the University of Vienna in February 2008. The purpose of the conference, and the proceedings volumes, in the words of the editors, is “to integrate the Dead Sea Scrolls fully into the various disciplines that benefit from the discovery of these very important texts” (vol. 1, p. x). As a result, the papers contained in these volumes are wideranging, written by specialists in the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS) as well as in other disciplines. The volumes will thus appeal to scholars in a variety …

Linguafolio Goal Setting Intervention And Academic Achievement: Increasing Student Capacity For Self-Regulated Learning, Oxana D. Clarke

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Theses and Other Student Research

In the last few decades there has been a shift from thinking less about teaching and more about learning. Such a paradigm shift from teacher-centered to student-centered instruction requires students to think about their own learning and to monitor their own learning development and language achievement. Researchers have identified goal setting and self-regulated learning as crucial factors that affect academic achievement. Goal setting improves student performance and enhances achievement by allocating attention, activating effort, increasing persistence and motivation which in turn leads to the development of self-regulation skills. With this belief, LinguaFolio was integrated into foreign language classrooms to support …

Teaching Culturally And Linguistically Diverse Students: A Phenomenological Study Of Volunteer Teachers' Learning Curve, Jessica Sierk

The Nebraska Educator: A Student-Led Journal

The purpose of this phenomenological study is to explore and describe the experiences of former Cristo Rey Jesuit High School teacher volunteers. The experiences of these teacher volunteers include how they learned to teach on the job, as well as how they developed the intercultural competence necessary to work with culturally and linguistically diverse students.

Central Question: What meaning do former Cristo Rey Jesuit High School teacher volunteers attribute to their learning to teach process?

Cehs Student Research Conference Program

The Nebraska Educator: A Student-Led Journal

Welcome – Dr. Jon Pedersen

Keynote Address: Dr. Kenneth Howe, University of Colorado, Boulder.

Poster Session

Paper Sessions

Panel Sessions

Graduate Student Awards and Presentations

Student Panel: Advice for Beginning Graduate Students

Cehs Student Research Conference Program--Abstracts

The Nebraska Educator: A Student-Led Journal

Papers and Panels

Posters

Remarkable Russian Women In Pictures, Prose And Poetry, Marcelline Hutton

Zea E-Books Collection

Many Russian women of the late 19th and early 20th centuries tried to find happy marriages, authentic religious life, liberal education, and fulfilling work as artists, doctors, teachers, and political activists. Some very remarkable ones found these things in varying degrees, while others sought unsuccessfully but no less desperately to transcend the generations-old restrictions imposed by church, state, village, class, and gender.

Like a Slavic “Downton Abbey,” this book tells the stories, not just of their outward lives, but of their hearts and minds, their voices and dreams, their amazing accomplishments against overwhelming odds, and their roles as feminists and …

Lakoff’S Theory Of Moral Reasoning In Presidential Campaign Advertisements, 1952–2012, Damien S. Pfister, Jessy J. Ohl, Marty Nader, Dana Griffin

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

This study examines the presence and distribution of George Lakoff’s Strict Father and Nurturant Parent paradigms of moral reasoning in presidential campaign advertisements between 1952 and 2012. Results show that Republicans outpace Democrats in the general use of moral reasoning and that Republicans are far more likely to use Strict Father language than Democrats. The study found no difference in the use of Strict Father= Nurturant Parent morality throughout history, during times of war and recession, or if the candidate was an incumbent. The Strict Father and Nurturant Parent models of moral reasoning were also evaluated based on their relationship …