Education Commons^™

The Remote Learning Experience At Portland State University In Spring 2020, Liana Bernard, Phoebe Brown, Peter Chaille, Brenden Clenaghen, Joshua Eastin, Andrea Garrity, Sherril B. Gelmon, Carolina Gomez-Montoya, Laura E. Jacobson, Susan Lindsay, Maya Mcgill, Nate Midgley, Stephen Percy, Judith A. Ramaley, Risto Rushford, Gayle Y. Thieman, Luis Balderas Villagrana

Office of the President Publications and Presentations

It is an endeavor to understand what we have and will learn about the impact of remote instruction on faculty, students and relevant academic support teams. Simply put: We want to learn from an experiment foisted upon us by a health crisis. We have engaged in an incredibly innovative response. And now, we ask what have we learned? How might we improve? And, most importantly, are there implications from this experiment for the future of instruction at PSU and throughout higher education?

The project was organized around two stages in the Spring 2020 term.

• Stage One: Out of the Gate: …

The Use Of Wayfinding Apps By Deafblind Travelers In An Urban Environment: Insights From Focus Groups, Amy T. Parker, Martin Swobodzinski, Tara Brown-Ogilvie, Jenna Beresheim-Kools

Special Education Faculty Publications and Presentations

This brief report explores qualitative themes from focus groups with nine individuals who are Deafblind regarding their use of wayfinding apps to support orientation and mobility in an urban environment. Culturally responsive approaches to the design of the focus groups integrated the partnership with Deafblind communication facilitators and ProTactile approaches to solicit naturalistic inquiry on the experiences and preferences of Deafblind travelers. Thematic emergences suggest that participants benefit from various wayfinding apps for orientation and mobility in a densely populated city but they desire greater functionality, consistency of access, equity, and recognition of the unique travel demands faced by Deafblind …

Teacher Education In A Dangerous Time: (Re)Imagining Education For Diversity, Democracy And Sustainability, John J. Lupinacci

Northwest Journal of Teacher Education

This article amplifies the importance of social movements like Black Lives Matter and diverse critical educator responses to social suffering, COVID-19, and related critiques of current dominant assumptions of teacher education and Western schooling. The author offers an ecocritical conceptual framework to support education to recognize the importance of how teachers, and teacher educators, can take action as leaders (re)imagining education in support of valuing diversity, democracy, and sustainability. This article calls for an ecocritical pedagogical (re)imagining of how teacher education might be (re)constituted through local activist teaching in collaboration with social movements and in support of social justice and …

Creating A Foundation Of Well-Being For Teachers And Students Starts With Sel Curriculum In Teacher Education Programs, Deirdre Katz, Julia Mahfouz, Sue Romas

Northwest Journal of Teacher Education

During the COVID-19 crisis, it has become clear how unprepared our educational systems are to provide social and emotional support through distance learning. Despite the demands for teachers to support the social and emotional development of their students, our universities are behind the curve in providing coursework to develop their knowledge and skills in these areas. This paper calls us to imagine teacher education with Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) as a cornerstone in teacher preparation programs. We outline the importance of SEL curriculum in preservice education and suggest a multifaceted approach to teacher preparation.

Teaching Remotely In The Time Of Covid-19: Answering Frequently Asked Questions: A Diversity, Equity, And Inclusion Coordinator Perspective, Óscar Fernández

University Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

FAQ about teaching online in the time of COVID-19. My FAQ is based on three experiences:

1. my role as Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Coordinator (2017-2020) in University Studies;
2. I teach a fully online SINQ course, Healthy People/Healthy Places; and
3. for the past year (AY 2019-2020), I have been interviewing University Studies faculty about online teaching and learning. Why? I am hoping to propose an online Immigration, Migration, and Belonging FRINQ in the near future.

Trailblazing Transformation: Pioneering Transformative Peacebuilding In Academic Labor Conflicts, Sam Frazier Hediger

Dissertations and Theses

Unionized contingent faculty in the United States face an increasingly difficult economic landscape in their labor-management conflicts with university administrations. These unions, comprised of graduate student employees and adjunct instructors, won significant victories for their members but have failed to shift the broader patterns of casualization, unsustainable compensation, and job precarity, stemming from the systemic debasement of higher education institutions and the American labor movement, both of which pose significant challenges to conventional conflict resolution strategies. To find a path forward, this thesis explores the nature and possibility of transforming of the academic labor conflict, using a transformative peacebuilding approach …

Short- And Long-Term Impacts Of A Deliberative Pedagogy In Introductory Biology And Chemistry Courses, Liz Rain-Griffith

Dissertations and Theses

There have been multiple national calls for curricular reform in college-level science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), including a need to instill democratic skills in students. Democratic skill building can be embedded in STEM classrooms through intentional "deliberative pedagogies" which include skills in: communication, collaboration, and application. We developed and implemented a deliberative pedagogy, Deliberative Democracy (DD), across introductory majors and non-majors biology courses and a majors chemistry course. In two separate studies, I took a longitudinal, qualitative research approach to understand introductory biology and chemistry students' experiences and perceptions of DD. For the first study, I tracked a cohort …

Determinants Of Student Information Technology Adoption, Hans P. Vanderschaaf

Dissertations and Theses

Innovating service delivery in higher education is central to supporting institutional and societal goals of increasing the numbers of college graduates and for transforming higher education institutions to center on the needs of today's students. Within this context, technology plays a critical role. This research seeks to contribute to institutional, academic and educational technology sector efforts to dramatically enhance service quality, in support of improving undergraduate student outcomes (student success), by identifying the determinants of student information technology adoption and removing barriers to accessing higher education.

Using a mixed-methods and empirical approach based on the Unified Theory of Acceptance and …

Collaboration And Evaluation In Urban Sustainability And Resilience Transformations: The Keys To A Just Transition?, Liliana Elizabeth Caughman

Dissertations and Theses

Climate has changed and will continue changing; city populations are swelling as urbanization continues to accelerate; extreme environmental events like heat waves and floods are becoming more severe and more common; and the climate justice movement is rapidly gaining momentum. It in this context that municipal governments find themselves urgently seeking solutions to transition cities from extractive, vulnerable, and unjust to sustainable, resilient, and equitable. The task is complex and will require systemic transformations across interconnected social, environmental, and economic infrastructures. Emerging theories regarding how to govern such massive changes suggest Transition Management strategies and the values of a just …

An Inquiry Into Developing College Student Socially-Responsible Leadership: Ethics Of Justice And Care In The Midst Of Conflict And Controversy, Jill Frances Childress

Dissertations and Theses

Colleges not only educate students in academic discipline knowledge, but also help them develop skills to meaningfully lead and participate in our complex democracy as socially responsible citizens. All campuses have formal and informal opportunities to engage students in roles that challenge and develop students' socially responsible leadership skills including commitment, common purpose, and collaboration. However, individual and organizational elements such as differences in perspectives and hostile climates can quell leadership and educational participation, inhibit critical student development skills, and result in disempowerment, especially for those students from underserved communities. Given this, a critical question is how can colleges foster …

Faculty Use Of Collaborative Online International Learning (Coil) For Internationalization At Home, Sally Strand Mudiamu

Dissertations and Theses

Universities are not preparing all of their students for 21st century global work and citizenship. Internationalization of the Curriculum is critical to this preparation and equity in higher education. Over the past decades, universities have relied on outbound and inbound student mobility to internationalize their institutions, the curriculum, the faculty, and student learning. However, 90% of U.S. students neither study nor intern abroad. Of the 10% who do go abroad, very few are underrepresented, Pell-eligible, or post-traditional students. Universities need to shift their focus from student mobility to Internationalization at Home so that all students may have an internationalized education …

Perceptions Of Students Of Color About Their Experience In An Alternative High School: A Phenomenological Inquiry, Massene Mboup

Dissertations and Theses

Public schools in Oregon have been struggling to include students of color and teachers of color for so long. Students of color represent more than one third of the school population, yet remain underserved, underrepresented, and over disciplined. Most of their teachers and support staff are White; the teachers of color represent less than 8% of the teaching staff. The students of color attend comprehensive high schools that generally ignore them--or push them out. Some students of color end up in alternative schools.

My problem of practice was the oppression of students of color in urban schools. Specifically, my research …

Residence Life As Learning Organizations: An Inquiry Into Organizational Elements That Support Integration Of The Residential Curriculum, Heather Kropf

Dissertations and Theses

Student learning and success is tied to the learning goals and mission of each institution, including environments outside of the classroom. Students are more diverse than ever in terms of their lived experience and their culture, identity, and how they engage in learning. Research has indicated that students spend the majority of their time outside the classroom, where they are learning through informal and formal environments. This has significance and opportunities for student affairs practitioners who desire to create student learning environments. In fact, residence life curricular approaches have demonstrated positive learning experiences for students.

However, implementing a learning-based curricular …

Proposal: Dreamers Success Resource Center (Dsrc), Liliana Angelica Luna Olalade, Jhoana Monroy-Espinoza, Cesar Santiago Perez, Vania Lucio-Mancilla, Maria Sorcia Sandoval, Óscar Fernández

University Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

Proposal to create a DREAMers Success Resource Center at Portland State University.

Cultural Wealth And The Racialized Experiences Of Persisting Latinx Business Students In A Predominantly White Institution: A Study On Sense Of Belonging, Rebecca Sue Sanchez

Dissertations and Theses

The changing landscape of higher education calls for a shift in approach to ensure that all students are given not just the opportunity but also the environment in which to succeed. In order to facilitate the growing demand for a diverse workforce, universities must work to retain students and support them sufficiently as they move toward graduation. Student persistence rates from year one to year two show markedly different rates based on race and ethnicity with the lowest persistence rates associated with Latinx and Black students. National projections of college attendance by race and ethnicity predict that Latinx students will …

Re-Engaging Individual Capacities In Service Of Civic Capacity: A Model Of Holistic Civic Engagement Education For The University, Jane Gerald Carr

Dissertations and Theses

A healthy democracy requires active civic engagement. Effective civic involvement can be encouraged by education that helps students learn to respect diverging viewpoints and build skills such as critical thinking about policy frameworks. In higher education, we have seen progress in teaching for civic engagement despite pressures to focus narrowly on career preparation. However, it is important to build on this work in two ways. First, the noncognitive and holistic dimensions of civic engagement have not been thoroughly considered in designing civic education. Second, the field could reach its goals more effectively by adopting teaching strategies that directly help students …

The Negotiated Syllabus: How To Create Community In Online International Studies Classes, Shawn Smallman

International & Global Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

As online education expands how do professors create the sense of community and engagement that students crave? This paper will argue that the concept of a Negotiated Syllabus -in which students take responsibility for choosing content in the class- provides a framework to promote student engagement in online coursework. This paper describes how to have the students serve as co-creators for the final course content. Other carefully designed assignments and tasks -such as peer review of student work and a carefully designed discussion board- can involve students deeply in their classes. Based on a careful review of the literature on …

Examining Integration And Sense Of Belonging Among Undergraduate Students Participating In Stem Support Programs, Mackenzie J. Gray

University Honors Theses

National calls have been made to strengthen our nation’s Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) workforce by improving student preparation and increasing retention rates. A sense of belonging in STEM fields is thought to be key for persistence in STEM, but many students face academic, social, and financial barriers that can impede this sense of belonging. These barriers can be more pronounced for students underrepresented in STEM. In response, many federal and non-governmental agencies have invested in the future STEM workforce by funding STEM support programs. Such programs aim to support student persistence by providing academic, social, and financial resources …

Untangling The Factors That Affect Student Retention: A Quantitative Study Of The Relationships Among First-Year Seminar Program Characteristics And Instructor Type (Full-Time And Part-Time), Christina Marie Shafer

Dissertations and Theses

Each fall first-year college students have met and overcome many challenges and transitions. However, one-third of first-year students who enter college in the U.S. do not return for their second-year. Making the first-year a critical juncture for students, administrators, and institutions. First-Year Seminars were created to help assist students with their transition to college and have been identified as an effective initiative to aid in first-year retention.

What role do institutions play in addressing the issue of retention? Some say that those who teach the Seminars matter. The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship among Seminar characteristics …

Medical Faculty Engagement In Curricular Revisions: An Inquiry Into Individual And Organizational Factors That Support Participation, Tomoko Tanikawa

Dissertations and Theses

In efforts to facilitate the education of highly qualified and best-prepared medical professionals, many medical schools are either planning for or engaging in curriculum revisions including a complete overhaul of the curricular structure, academic and medical content, and pedagogical delivery modalities. To be effective, such changes require faculty buy-in, participation, engagement, and innovation. Unfortunately, despite medical schools' efforts to support faculty involvement in curricular revision, a range of reactions exist, including resistance. Thus, understanding the interactions between individual faculty attitudes and behaviors toward organizational initiatives and structural support is critical in advancing the educational mission of medical schools. Based on …

Exploring How Community College Transfer Students Experience Connection In A Commuter University, Christa Michelle Zinke

Dissertations and Theses

Over the last 40 years, the expansion of the U.S. community college system resulted in a growing number of students choosing to begin their undergraduate education at a two-year institution and then transfer to a four-year institution. However, many students struggle to establish connection after transferring, especially if they transfer into a commuter university. For many college students, feelings of engagement and connection influence their persistence decisions. Using Tinto's (1975; 1993) and Astin's (1984) theories of student persistence as a framework, the purpose of this in-depth interview study is to explore how commuter community college students who transfer to Portland …

Interview With Marvin Kaiser, Marvin Kaiser, Oona Fisher Campbell

Conflict Resolution Oral Histories

Marvin Kaiser was interviewed by Oona Fisher Campbell on May 15, 2020, in Portland, Oregon. Also participating in the interview are Patricia Schechter and Cleophas Chambliss.

In this interview, Kaiser, who has a background in social work, discusses the structural obstacles in our society that create conflict and emphasizes the role that the university and higher education in general can play as a community public service.

Interview With Rob Gould, Robert Gould, Alexandra Ibarra

Conflict Resolution Oral Histories

Rob Gould was interviewed by Alexandra Ibarra on May 18, 2020, in Portland, Oregon. Also participating in this interview are Patricia Schechter and Liza Schade.

In this interview, Gould recalls the origins of Conflict Resolution and peace studies at Portland State, relating the development of the program to changing cultural and political currents beginning in the 1960s, and rising interest in solutions and alternatives to conflict at all levels of interaction. He discusses the challenges the program faced as a fledgling department and as it grew, involving funding, collaboration with the University of Oregon and community organizations for peace, and …

Interview With Judith Ramaley, Judith A. Ramaley, Liza Julene Schade

Conflict Resolution Oral Histories

Judith Ramaley was interviewed by Liza Schade on May 22, 2020, in Portland, Oregon. Also participating in the interview are Patricia Schechter and Cleophas Chambliss.

In this interview, Dr. Ramaley discusses the issues at the forefront of her presidency in the 1990s, lessons learned from strategizing severe budget cuts that followed the passage of Measure 5 in 1990, ideas behind the new University Studies curriculum, and diversifying student and faculty demographics and creating safer and more inclusive university spaces.

Interview With Mary Zinkin, Mary Zinkin, Stephanie Vallance

Conflict Resolution Oral Histories

Mary Zinkin was interviewed by Stephanie Vallance on May 6, 2020. Also participating in the interview were Liza Schade and Lady J.

In this interview, Zinkin describes her own self-designed interdisciplinary graduate degrees in Conflict Resolution at Portland State and her influence in the creation of those degree programs at PSU. She discusses her academic work in the field of conflict mediation, and her view of the need for a professional, skills-based degree that blended theory and practice. She describes the logistics of getting the program off the ground, noting the development of curriculum, number of students, and the conversation …

Interview With Barbara Tint, Barbara Tint, Patricia A. Schechter

Conflict Resolution Oral Histories

Barbara Tint was interviewed by Patricia Schechter on May 29, 2020, in Portland, Oregon. Also participating in the interview are Alex Berg, Cleophas Chambliss, Oona Fisher Campbell, Jake Hutchins, Alex Ibarra, Lady J, Liza Schade, and Stephanie Vallance.

In this interview, Tint describes her path to academia through working as a counselor and with conflict resolution in a number of international settings. The discussion takes a theoretical turn when students inquired about the philosophical underpinnings of Tint's work.

Interview With Karin Waller, Karin A. Waller, Patricia A. Schechter

Conflict Resolution Oral Histories

Karin Waller was interviewed by history professor Patricia Schechter on May 27, 2020, in Portland, Oregon. Also participating in the interview are graduate students Cleophas Chambliss and Liza Schade.

In this interview, Waller describes the personal, social, and intellectual intersections that brought her to graduate study, her mentors in the graduate program, and her thesis project.