Education Commons^™

I Told You That To Tell You This: Metagaming And Metacognition In The Hybrid Classroom, Marc A. Ouellette

English Faculty Publications

This paper theorizes the use of play and gamified methods to foster metacognition, or strategies for learning and learning about learning, in online graduate instruction. In the process, it calls into question the determinism of “serious” games as being the only means of facilitating metacognition. Ultimately, by adopting metagame approaches—that is, approaches based on0 goals and achievements that are external to the game and/or are developed by the players themselves—metacognition can and does occur because students participate in the development of the rewards. Moreover, any metagame feature ultimately becomes a commentary so that an approach based on metagaming offers its …

Graves, R. & Hyland, T. (Eds.). (2017) Writing Assignments Across University Disciplines. Bloomington, In: Trafford., Daniel P. Richards

English Faculty Publications

[First paragraph] For the last three years, I have been part of a team of multi-disciplinary faculty that holds a weeklong workshop each semester for approximately twenty teachers. These teachers, migrating to our cozy space in the library from all corners of campus, have applied—they get paid a modest sum, which is not nothing—to attend our workshop in the hopes of improving their ability to integrate writing assignments into their courses. The workshops are part of a larger initiative, Improving Disciplinary Writing, which was borne out of a needs assessment from our regional assessment body. It is designed to bring …

Global Perspective-Taking: Extending Interdisciplinary Pedagogies Into International Classrooms, Tami S. Carmichael

English Faculty Publications

As William Newell observed, in order to obtain an excellent undergraduate education, it is necessary for students to move between disciplinary and interdisciplinary educational experiences; additionally, he claims it is essential that "students also…shuttle back and forth between the classroom and the outside world" (Newell, 2010, p. 12). This movement, both intellectual and physical, promotes the development of the perspective-taking that can help students better understand, and potentially begin to address, complex global issues (Newell, 2001). If moving between disciplines and beyond the classroom into the physical world (and back) could have an impact on students' perspective-taking development, what might …

Blogging Beyond Blackboard For Deeper Learning, Marie A. Hulme, Pilar Munday

English Faculty Publications

Presentation by Marie Hulme and Pilar Munday at the Fairfield University Center for Academic Excellence Annual Conference on Innovative Pedagogy & Course Redesign May 29-30, 2014.

Extending An Alternative: Writing Centers And Curricular Change, Joe Essid

English Faculty Publications

When our Writing Center staked its reputation and perhaps its survival on a proposal to change our first-year curriculum, we entered territory that would have been unthinkable to those in our field a few decades ago. Writing center directors and peer tutors may not like it, but the climate now is very different from the salad days of the 1980s, when scholars such as Tilly and John Warnock argued “it is probably a mistake for centers to seek integration into the established institution” (22). In both the United States and EU nations, we face curricular change driven by emerging technologies, …

The Icelandic Sagas As A Subject For Undergraduate Study, John P. Sexton

English Faculty Publications

While medieval studies has dramatically expanded its scope and the texts taught as part of its subject over the past few decades, the study of Icelandic saga literature is still a fringe discipline, particularly in North American academe. Rarer still is undergraduate exposure to the sagas, despite their appeal as texts and the rich possibilities they offer to students trained in Anglo-Saxon literature (or at least Beowulf) and familiar with Norse myth and legend through Tolkien or Marvel comics. The insular nature of the culture from which the literature springs is a contributing factor, of course—there is the undeniable …

Building A Collaborative Online Literary Experience, Joe Essid, Fran Wilde

English Faculty Publications

Key Takeaways

-Educators and students collaborated in constructing an immersive literary experience at the University of Richmond and then reenacted the narrative as a team.

-Considerable planning goes into such simulations to make them effective collaboration spaces.

-In creating a simulation of Edgar Allan Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher, a team of distributed groups negotiated different approaches to believably embody Poe's characters and period.

-Despite limitations in the software and the planning process during and after a beta test, students experienced Poe's story in a new and rewarding way.

Effective virtual simulations can embed participants in imaginary …

In Praise Of The Saints: Introducing Medieval Hagiography Into The British Literature Survey, John P. Sexton

English Faculty Publications

Despite increased interest in hagiographic writing among scholars of early literature in the last few decades, serious study of saints’ lives in the undergraduate classroom remains rare. To some degree, this is a result of poor representation in the leading anthologies,^[1]but another contributing factor has been the perception of a distinction between hagiographic and other medieval writing it terms of genre or of literary value. Such distinctions, however, are modern inventions, and do not accurately reflect the medieval reader or writer’s view. Nor is the inclusion of the literature alongside the expected “great works” difficult or jarring; a …

Using The Novel To Teach Multiculturalism, Michelle Loris

English Faculty Publications

Description of a fourteen week course taught by Michelle Loris, professor of English at Sacred Heart University. The course, titled Recent Ethnic American Fictions, introduced students to several concepts from contemporary literary theory. The theories included New Criticism, Deconstruction, Cultural Studies, New Historicism, and Feminist Theory. The assumption was that these concepts would give students the tools to become critical readers, which would then provide them with a deeper understanding of these multicultural novels and their particular cultural contexts. For a semester, reading and thinking about these multicultural novels engaged and challenged the students' assumptions about themselves and the America …

Integrating The Humanities And Sciences: The Human Journey: Sacred Heart University's Common Core, Michelle Loris Ph.D., Nicole Cauvin, Kathryn Lafontana

English Faculty Publications

One way to respond to the crisis in the humanities is to integrate learning for our students. In fact one of higher education's greatest challenges today is for faculty to develop ways to integrate knowledge and learning across the disiciplines. This essay describes a common core curriculum, THE HUMAN JOURNEY, which engages students in an integrated, common, and coherent understanding of the humanities,arts, and sciences, and the Catholic intellectual tradition framed by four enduring questions of human meaning and value. THE HUMAN JOURNEY is a five course sequence including literature, history, the social and natural sciences, and religious studies and …

The Revolutions In Knowledge And Literary Theory: Their Impact On English Classrooms, Nancy Topping Bazin

English Faculty Publications

Since teachers, scholars, and scientists began in recent decades to study people who were previously marginalized or totally ignored, revolutions have occurred in knowledge and in literary theories and criticism. An increasing number of literature teachers acknowledge that they cannot ignore these significant changes. Indeed, they recognize that because of multicultural and global awareness, new questions are constantly being asked, new kinds of research are being done, and new approaches are being t:iken to subject matter.

Teaching Literature In The 1990'S: Meeting The Challenge, Nancy Topping Bazin

English Faculty Publications

English teachers are currently beset by a variety of political forces vying for their attention. Education has become big news again for the first time since October 4, 1957, when the Soviet Union inaugurated the Space Age by launching Sputnik, the first man-made satellite. In 1957, astonished at the Russians' success, Americans panicked and decided that their math science, and foreign language training was inadequate. Recent survey~ showing the superiority of Japanese and European students over American students have provoked serious concern about the quality of education going on in American public schools and in our colleges and universities. The …

A Collaborative Learning Model: The Rhetorical Situation As A Basis For Teaching Business Communication, Michelle Loris

English Faculty Publications

Describes a unit of instruction that involves the rhetorical situation of an in-class corporation to give students experience in abstract and report writing.