Education Commons^™

You’Re Happy And You Know It: Social-Cognitive And Environmental Factors’ Impact On Iraqi Student Satisfaction, Rachel Laribee Gresk

Department of Educational Administration: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Understanding and identifying factors that contribute to student satisfaction is becoming more important in Iraq as competition for student enrollment among universities increases. It also can be extremely useful for educational institutions since it will help them pinpoint their strengths, assess areas for improvement, and ensure they maintain and attract students to their campus. Thus, to understand how to achieve positive student satisfaction, this study sought to identify the social-cognitive factors and institutional environmental influences that relate to student satisfaction in a private institution in Iraq, using social cognitive career theory (SCCT) as a framework.

The study found that the …

What's The Problem Now?, Randall Bass

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Revisiting an essay from 1999, this article explores the current conditions in higher education, and society more broadly, that help shape the roles for the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) and educational development. By seeing the current “crises” of higher education not only as “problems” to be investigated but as a “wicked problem,” we might be able to elevate and complicate the role that inquiry into teaching and learning might play in institutional change and the expansion of higher education. The article argues for the necessity, even urgency, of seeing educational development as a lever for change, fully engaged …

Peer Review Of Teaching Portfolio For Hort 306: Greenhouse Operations & Management, Stacy Adams

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

A Greenhouse Operations and Management course designed specifically to serve the needs of horticulture students at an institution of higher learning has transitioned teaching philospophy to additionally serve any student with a potential use of a greenhouse in instruction, community outreach, research, extension, early childhood development, and thearapy. Through the Peer Review of Teaching Project, the course is explored, analyzed and redeveloped with intentional purpose.

Exploring Dimensional Constructs Of Digital Literacy Skills For Higher Education, Israel R. Odede, Glenrose Jiyane

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

Digital literacy is essentially an indispensable skill as technology is rapidly evolving and so is advancement in information resources, especially digital resources. As the use of digital resources continue to rise within higher institutions of learning, students are expected to develop the required digital literacy skills. Digital literacy skill is a basic requirement for students to function effectively in the information society, which is experiencing a paradigm shift from print resources to digital resources. Hence, digital literacy skill becomes very important since the use of digital resources depend on the competences in using digital resources. In the fast-growing knowledge society, …

Taking On The Challenges Of Diversity And Visibility: Thoughts From A Small Honors Program, Kathryn M. Macdonald

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

The Monroe College Honors Program, located in New York, enjoys an extremely diverse student body, which can be attributed to its location within and proximity to New York City. Data about the Monroe College Honors Program are presented. More importantly, this essay presents the strategies that the honors program uses to meet the needs of a diverse student body. Our students face many challenges, including difficult family situations and economic hardship, and so the honors program has created a rigorous but flexible curriculum and co-curriculum to meet their needs. The approaches used to serve this population focus on getting to …

Do Expectations And Reflection In A Master’S Level Education Course Contribute To Sense Of Belonging And Learning? A Peer Review Of Teaching Inquiry Project, Stephanie Bondi

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

This poster describes a classroom inquiry project completed as part of the advanced peer review of teaching program at UNL in 2019. In this project, the course instructor wondered if some small interventions could lead to more sense of belonging and greater learning in the course. Literature suggests a lack of sense of belonging can negative affect a student’s engagement and learning. The intervention plan included (a) setting the expectation that students work to create an inclusive and affirming environment and (b) asking students three times during the term to reflect on the extent to which people have been doing …

Measuring Transparency: A Learning-Focused Assignment Rubric, Michael S. Palmer, Emily O. Gravett, Jennifer Lafleur

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

By combining recommendations for effective assignment design with principles of transparency and the value-expectancy theory of achievement motivation, we developed a rubric capable of for assessing the quality and guiding the design of assignment descriptions. This rubric defines criteria characteristic of well-designed assignments; breaks the criteria down into concrete, measurable components; and suggests what evidence for each component might look like. While the full rubric is valid for major, signature assignments, it can accommodate a diverse range. It can also provide summative, quantitative information to educational developers for research and formative, qualitative feedback to instructors for gauging the quality of …

Reflexivity In International Contexts: Implications For U.S. Doctoral Students International Research Preparation, Christina W. Yao, Louise Michelle Vital

Department of Educational Administration: Faculty Publications

Aim/Purpose Learning to conduct research, including considerations for concepts such as reflexivity, is a key component of doctoral student preparation in higher educa-tion. Yet limited attention is given to doctoral student training for conducting international research, particularly in understanding researcher reflexivity within international contexts.

Background Incorporating reflexive practices in one’s scholarship is of particular importance because international research often includes U.S.-based researchers working with cultural groups and contexts that are very different from them. Thus, we examined the following: how do novice U.S. trained researchers understand the role of their reflexivity in qualitative international research?

Methodology We utilized qualitative inquiry …

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.

Color Me Calm: Adult Coloring And The University Library, Heidi Blackburn, Claire E. Chamley

Nebraska Library Association: Conferences

An activity often reserved for children, coloring books for adults rose from hipster trend to global phenomenon beginning in 2013. Adults flocked to the activity for a variety of reasons, including stress relief, socialization, a way to unplug from technology or even as a way to gain social status by appearing trendy. Participants reported enjoying the tactile, interactive nature of the books as a respite from constant screen time. Coloring books became big business for craft suppliers and bookstores by 2015. Coloring books shot to the top of the Best Sellers list on Amazon and were prominently displayed in book …

Designing An Evaluation Of Instructional Consultation In A Higher Education Context, Karen Elizabeth Brinkley Etzkorn, David Schumann, Beth White, Tiffany Smith

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Individual instructor consultation is a common service provided by centers focused on educational development in higher education. The importance of this service has been reflected in its history, increasing demand, and strong anecdotal evidence to its effectiveness. However, the extant literature reveals that comprehensive assessment of consultation effectiveness has proved challenging. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to (a) provide an overview of consultation and summarize the relevant work evaluating this service, and (b) propose a comprehensive process for evaluating consultation services that was piloted at one large research intense university. The goal is to provide a systematic method …

Pathways To Student Success: A Multiple Case Study On Four-Year Colleges’ Organizational Change In Performance Funding States, Lindsay K. Wayt

Department of Educational Administration: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Federal and state policies have recently moved the higher education accountability focus from access to completion. As completion and other student success accountability measures are put in place, institutions are going through organizational change to accommodate these new policies and to adjust their focus onto student success measures such as retention and graduation rates. This multiple case study’s purpose was to describe the institutional efforts and changes at small- to medium-sized, four-year public institutions in states where at least 20% or more of state funds are or are planned to soon be allocated based on performance metrics. The findings of …

Integrating Geoscience Into Undergraduate Education About Environment, Society, And Sustainability Using Place-Based Learning: Three Examples, David Gosselin, Steven Burian, Tim Lutz, Julie Maxson

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Faculty Publications

From water to energy, and from climate change to natural hazards, the geosciences (marine, Earth, and atmospheric science) have an important role to play in addressing a wide range of societal issues, with particular relevance to how humans can live sustainably on Earth. Although arguably important to developing solutions for many societal issues, more often than not, students have limited exposure to the geosciences in high school or college. To address this geoscience literacy problem, the Interdisciplinary Teaching of Geoscience for a Sustainable Future (InTeGrate) Talent Expansion Center has engaged members of the geoscience community and their colleagues in allied …

A Phenomenological Study Of The Lived Experiences Of Undocumented Latino Students To Enroll In And Persist At A Four-Year Public Hispanic-Serving Institution In Texas, Angela C. Stuart-Carruthers

Department of Educational Administration: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Undocumented students in the United States are trapped in a myriad of completing federal, state, and local laws that impact their lives daily. While approximately 60,000 undocumented students graduate from high school each year, the college going rate for this population is substantially lower than their documented peers. Since President Obama signed the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals executive order, undocumented students have gained national attention. Despite this new focus on undocumented students few studies have been conducted to gain a deeper understanding of the live experiences of these students.

Framed by Tinto’s (1993) Theory of Student Departure and Latino …

Telling Our Service-Learning Story: Instructor Perspectives On Service-Learning In The Leadership Classroom, Marianne Lorensen

Department of Agricultural Leadership, Education and Communication: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Scholarship

This phenomenological study examined the experiences of ten college instructors who use service-learning in the undergraduate leadership classroom. Since leadership is often a service-learning outcome for students (Bringle & Hatcher, 1996; Eyler & Giles, 1999; Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005), service-learning is regarded by many instructors as an appropriate pedagogical approach in leadership classes (Rama, Ravenscroft, Wolcott, & Zlotkowski, 2000; Zlotkowski, 1996). Thus, the focus on instructors of undergraduate leadership courses. The current study employed a phenomenological approach in order to deeply explore instructor experiences. The goal of this exploration was that instructor experiences and the meaning they make from those …

Naspa’S New Professionals Institute: Exploring The Personal And Professional Impact Of A Two-Day, Intensive Professional Development Experience, Ashley Stone

Department of Educational Administration: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Professional development experiences, like professional development literature, are vast. While existing professional development literature discussed the needs for and barriers toward professional development as well as the benefits and types of professional development experiences, no research existed about NASPA Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education’s (NASPA) New Professionals Institute (NPI), an intensive, two-day leading professional development experience for student affairs professionals who have been in the field for less than five years. Therefore, I conducted a phenomenological qualitative study, which explored the meanings NASPA’s Region IV-West NPI participants made of their two-day professional development experience as well as the personal …

Faculty Perceptions To Imposed Pedagogical Change: A Case Study, Mary L. Sinclair, Sarah R. Faltin Osborn

The Nebraska Educator: A Student-Led Journal

In higher education, professors are seen as the subject matter experts, yet many pedagogical decisions are made by administrators. This leaves teaching professionals without a voice in the reform process and in some instances without the resources necessary for implementation of change, yet still responsible for enactment of change. This case study describes the issues for faculty who are adopting imposed changes to pedagogical course design at a post-secondary institution. It examines how faculty express concerns, as well as how they interpret administration responses to those concerns. The findings reveal four key themes in faculty resistance to imposed pedagogical change: …

Peer Collaboration: Improving Teaching Through Comprehensive Peer Review, Shelley L. Smith

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

This article includes a brief rationale and review of the literature on peer review of teaching (PRT). Based on that literature review, it offers a proposal for an optimal formative review process that results in a teaching portfolio that would reflect a faculty member’s efforts and successes in a critically reflective PRT process, and contributes to ongoing teaching improvement. It then looks at potential areas of faculty resistance and concern and offers a discussion of potential strategies to overcome those concerns.

Increasing Access To Post-Secondary Education: A Mixed Methods Study Of The Charleston Clemente Program, Mariane A. Doyle

Department of Educational Administration: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

There is an economic gap that favors adults who have higher levels of educational attainment (United States Department of Labor, 2010). With more than 9.3 million Americans over the age of 25 facing unemployment as of June 2012 and over 79% or 7.4 million of those unemployed Americans having attained less than a Bachelor’s degree (U.S. Department of Labor, 2012), the current need for college access measures and programs that address the adult population is an imperative one.

The Charleston Clemente Program provides a tuition-free course in the Humanities to economically-disadvantaged adult students for a total of two-semesters. Along with …

Integration Of Sustainability In Higher Education: Three Case Studies Of Curricular Implementation, David Gosselin, Rod Parnell, Nicholas J. Smith-Sebasto, Shirley Vincent

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

The integration of sustainability into higher education academic programs is occurring at an accelerated pace in response to international and national imperatives to rethink the way it serves the needs of society. Three case studies from the University of Nebraska- Lincoln, Northern Arizona University, and Kean University (NJ) outlines the academic structure, program, resources, the motivation and mechanisms for curricular change, key sustainability-learning outcomes and program goals, curricular changes, and assessment strategies these institutions used to integrate sustainability into their undergraduate curriculum. These three case studies exhibit several commonalities. They emphasize systems thinking and explicitly link human behavior and ecological …