Education Commons^™

Embracing Diversity In Higher Education: Teaching A Driven And Determined Approach, Melvin Jackson, Adriel Adon Hilton, Kevin Mcclain

Journal of Research Initiatives

Diversity and inclusivity are two must-teach components that the academy needs to incorporate into its curriculum to enrich student experiences. Due to globalization, technological advances, and norms, societies are becoming more homogenous. Institutions of higher learning should prioritize teaching diversity and inclusion with a driven and determined approach to prepare students better personally and professionally.

Impact Of Covid-19 Pandemic On Marketing Of Education, Shreekant Joag

Journal of Global Awareness

The COVID-19 pandemic forced many schools to partially or totally switch to remote communication methods for delivering education in the years 2020-2021. It is believed that forced compliance with unfamiliar and even unpreferred modes of behavior can have a profound and lasting impact on people’s attitudes and opinions toward the behavior itself because of first-hand exposure and experience. It is, therefore, possible that this experience with remote teaching and learning could have materially changed both instructors’ as well as students’ attitudes toward remote delivery of education. Such changed attitudes may predict their future choices and behavior.

This paper will present …

Lessons Learned: Using Faculty Learning Communities To Foster Pedagogical Skills And Cultivate Community, Caitlin Brez, Linda Behrendt

Perspectives In Learning

Academic expertise has traditionally served as the measure of faculty’s effectiveness in the classroom. Twenty-first century changes in the landscape of higher education have brought the need for sound pedagogy as a foundational tool in the college classroom. Faculty learning communities (FLCs) are an effective method to facilitate the development of pedagogy, which, in turn, has shown to have a direct effect on student success and graduation rates. This article examines the experiences of two faculty members at a Midwestern university who developed a 10-week inter-disciplinary FLC that was offered over 5 semesters, as well as participant feedback.

Www (When Websites Work): Students’ Perceptions Of Their Engagement When Using A Website Creation Tool, Jamie J. Els

Perspectives In Learning

When students find value in technology and can apply that technology in their learning and beyond, they become more actively engaged in the classroom. After having first-year seminar students use Web 2.0 technology, specifically a website creation tool as part of an assignment, they participated in a survey to provide feedback over their engagement in creating a Google Sites® website. Quantitative and qualitative data was collected and analyzed to determine students’ perceptions of their engagement when using website creation tools to complete a modified discussion assignment. Results indicated students were significantly more engaged than the normal population when they used …

Information Literacy In English-Language Higher Education Teaching Journals: A Review, Jennifer Masunaga, Lanyi Peng, Tiffanie Ford-Baxter, Kendall Faulkner

Communications in Information Literacy

Wider visibility of information literacy (IL) outside of the library and information science (LIS) field is important to the success of IL instruction, learning, and research. The development and major updates of several information literacy documents in the past decade evidence the changing landscape of IL research, but how these changes have impacted other disciplines remains to be seen. To aid in this discussion, this article examines a wide range of higher education teaching journals to expand on Badke's (2011) work, “Why Information Literacy is Invisible.” Specifically, this study examines articles published in 30 general higher education and 32 …

Dwindling Trust In Experts: A Starting Point For Information Literacy, Mark N. Lenker Iii

Communications in Information Literacy

Librarians and teachers encourage students to include expert perspectives in their research, but recent public discourse includes high-profile examples of experts being inconsistent or wrong, and recent studies suggest that public trust in experts is declining. Waning trust makes it difficult to teach information literacy: I can push students to find high-quality research sources, but what if these sources turn out to be yet another example of experts getting it wrong? After a period of living with this worry, I found a way to move forward by centering class discussion on the public’s dwindling trust in experts. Part of this …

Faculty Formation In The Jesuit And Mercy Traditions, Mary-Catherine Harrison ,Phd, Arthur Ko ,Phd, Jill A. Turner ,Bsn, Mlis, Mals

Jesuit Higher Education: A Journal

Mentorship plays a major role in engaging faculty and supporting their development and growth within an academic institution. In order to support new faculty members’ success and belonging, the host institution piloted the Faculty Formation Program during the 2022-2023 academic year. The foundation of this mentorship program is based on Jesuit and Mercy values that align with the mission of the university. The program has engaged new and seasoned faculty in shared conversations about their roles as faculty members and their place in Jesuit and Mercy higher education. This paper articulates the foundation and characteristics of high-impact mentorship and describes …

Exploring College Student Experiences In A Kinesiology Course Using A Gamified Grading System, Rachel E. Williams, Jedediah E. Blanton, Christopher D. Kilgore, Matthew Jones

Educational Practices in Kinesiology

Past findings indicate mixed results on the effectiveness of gamification in college courses. The use of a gamified version of specifications-based grading (e.g., gamified grading) is not yet well understood. The purpose of this two-part study was to understand students’ perceptions of intrinsic motivation and engagement in a kinesiology course using gamified grading, facilitated by a gamified grading platform called GradeCraft©. We used qualitative inquiry to capture a robust description of the student experience across a semester, identifying themes describing the course management (e.g., comparison with traditional course, individual approach), and the psychological experience (e.g., autonomy, stress). The following semester, …

Student And Faculty Perceptions Of The Impact Of Masks On Student Learning And Communication In The Classroom, Beau Shine, Kelly L. Brown, Christopher Felts, Trinnity Mitchell

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, facemask requirements while indoors were implemented in colleges and universities, both in the United States and beyond. Empirical evidence has shown that such mandates improved the health and safety of students, faculty, staff, and administrators. However, the impacts of such precautions on student learning and communication have to date gone largely unexplored. The current study surveyed students and faculty at one regional midwestern institution to assess their perceptions on the impact of masks on student learning and communication in the classroom. Findings are included, followed by a discussion of their implications.

Students' Perceptions Of Professional Short-Messaging Education In Undergraduate Courses, Seth S. Frei, Allison M. Alford, Ashly B. Smith

Journal of Communication Pedagogy

The popularity of short-messaging formats, like text and chat, is on the rise in the workplace with many employees preferring this style over long-form options like email. While many businesses expect employees to communicate using short messages, students may be ill-equipped to effectively use these methods due to a lack of formal training. This study sets out to understand students’ experience, confidence, and education related to professional short messaging. Results indicate a correlation between confidence and experience levels in writing text and chat messages. Further, the participants who indicated they had training on writing short messages, indicated they learned it …

Does Reputation Lead To Student Loyalty? The Case Of A Private Higher Education Institution, A State University, And A Local College, Jean Paolo G. Lacap, Jaime V. Cortez

The South East Asian Journal of Management

Research Aims: The current research aims to analyse (1) the direct interrelationships of higher education institutions' (HEIs) reputation, student satisfaction, and student loyalty; (2) the mediating effect of student satisfaction on the relationship between HEI reputation and student loyalty; and (3) the moderating role of HEI type (private HEI [PHEI], state university/college [SUC], local university/college [LUC]) on the links between HEI reputation and student satisfaction, HEI reputation and student loyalty, and student satisfaction and loyalty.

Design/Methodology/Approach: All hypothesised relationships were analysed using partial least squares – structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM).

Research Findings: The results revealed that (1) HEI reputation …

Gamification And Player Profiles Among Faculty In Mexico, Álvaro Antón-Sancho, Diego Vergara, Lorena Rodríguez-Calzada

Higher Learning Research Communications

Objectives: Analysis of the player profiles of professors is a fruitful line of research because player profiles may influence the design of gamified situations. We studied a sample of 243 university professors in Mexico to analyze the player profiles with which they identify and those they consider most effective didactically in gamified situations.

Method: Descriptive quantitative research was used to analyze the distributions of the responses to a questionnaire given to a group of 243 professors from different Mexican universities. These responses have been statistically analyzed by computing the proportions of player profile choices and applying Pearson’s chi-square test of …

“100%, I’M Not Trained For This:” Understanding How Professors Navigate Higher Education As Student Mental Health Declines, Clio F. Chazan-Gabbard

PANDION: The Osprey Journal of Research and Ideas

Generational and cultural changes have led mental health to become an increasingly common concern among the general population, especially Generation Z. As a result, professors have become very aware of declining college student mental health, and some have become advisors for struggling students; in the process, they are learning to navigate boundaries in and out of the classroom (Lipson, 2021; Price et al., 2020). Using six qualitative interviews, this study seeks to ask: how do professors understand, navigate teaching, and one-on-one interactions as student mental health issues increase? This paper argues that as student mental health suffers and campus counseling …

Leveraging The W.H.O.L.E. Experience Framework To Elevate Inclusive Learning, Morris Thomas, Susan Winchell Thomas

Journal of Educational Research and Practice

The case study methodology was used to analyze instructional strategies to discuss and refine diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) practices in two psychology courses at a community college in California’s Bay Area. A mentor and mentee professional development experience, referred to as the DEI studio, used four sessions over 5 weeks to explore reflective practice using the W.H.O.L.E. Experience framework as a guide to review current DEI practices and implement additional strategies intended to improve the engagement, experience, and success of all students. Student feedback and data were collected via a six-question student evaluation of the courses. Results showed that …

Trekking To The Tenure Finish Line: Teacher Educators And The Power Of Peer Mentoring At An Hbcu, Wyletta S. Gamble-Lomax, Anthony S. Felder

The Journal of Advancing Education Practice

The educator's primary goal is to ensure student success by offering dynamic student experiences that will allow the students to synthesize their new learning with hopes of practical application. In higher education, a professor can easily fall into working in isolation due to the uniqueness of course offerings and areas of professional interest. However, when professors consciously build professional peer-mentoring relationships with colleagues that have similar interests and core values, both professors can grow. For example, when an experienced tenure track professor with K12 experience partners with a novice tenure track professor with over a decade of experience in education …

“It’S Part Of Your Life Now Because Someone Has Exposed You To It”: The Experiences Of Adult Learners Of Color In The Clemente Course In The Humanities, Charity Anderson

Journal of Research Initiatives

At 30 sites across the United States and Puerto Rico, the Bard College Clemente Course in the Humanities provides economically and socially marginalized adults with a free college course in the humanities. The experience of non-traditional adult students, particularly adults of color, is often missing from academic literature, exacerbating past injustices and increasingly marginalizing the historically underserved people and communities of color by higher education. This paper, which draws from a two-year critical ethnography of Clemente courses, examines the perspective of the adult learners of color who participated in the course. Interview and participant-observational data indicate that adults enrolled in …

Small Historically Black Colleges And Universities Bridging Social Capital: The Use Of Language, Tone And Content To Share Information On Instagram, Pamela Peters

Journal of Research Initiatives

The COVID-19 pandemic has strained higher education institutions, especially small Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). As campuses closed and reopened, Black communities' digital divide grew, adding to the need to stay connected. This study uses social capital to examine how institutions use language, tone, content, and information to bridge social capital. An analysis of 35 small liberal arts HBCUs’ Instagram posts was undertaken to compare post frequency, types of information, engagement, tone, language, and content in 2019 before the COVID-19 pandemic and during the pandemic, 2020 and 2021. This study indicates that post-oversaturation in 2020 and 2021 and information …

Casting A Critical Lens On Thailand’S Higher Education System: A Case Study Of Women’S Experiences As Agricultural Extension Faculty, Morgan A. Richardson Gilley, Richie Roberts, Kristin Stair, J. Joey Blackburn

Journal of International Agricultural and Extension Education

The agricultural industry and higher education have traditionally been male-dominated spaces in the developing world. However, in recent decades, significant progress in female representation has been achieved in both sectors. Previous research has suggested that women in the Southeast Asian agricultural industry have been more empowered than women in other regions. However, women in Thailand’s agricultural postsecondary programs have been understudied. In response, this study examined the experiences and perceptions of women agricultural extension faculty in Thailand’s higher education system. Through qualitative analysis of in-depth interviews with women, three distinct themes emerged: (1) gendered disparities, (2) barriers to success in …

Fostering Internationalization In Adult Education Graduate Programs In The United States: Opportunities For Growth, Susan Yelich Biniecki, Maja Stojanović

Educational Considerations

Internationalization is a key element of higher education missions to prepare learners for the global dimensions of their lives and work, which are increasingly integrated. In the United States, adult education graduate programs play a vital role in the wider educational landscape, particularly because of their interconnectedness with diverse disciplines and a working learner student population. Although student and scholar mobility remain important to fostering connections, adult education graduate programs can broaden the scope of internationalization aims. This paper proposes three main opportunities for internationalization growth within adult education graduate programs: incorporating intercultural literacy in formal curricula, emphasizing a continuing …

Students Of Color And Covid-19: Experiences, Coping Strategies, And Supports, Amie S. Kang, Barbora Hoskova, Chung Yu Liu, Arisa Viddayakorn, Molly Binder, Belle Liang, Betty S. Lai

Journal of Educational Research and Practice

The coronavirus disease of 2019, known as the COVID-19 pandemic, is a disaster event that posed significant physical, social, financial, and mental health risks to college students. Disproportionate experiences of stressors position students of color as a population particularly vulnerable to the negative impacts of COVID-19, thus, the current study assessed the impact of COVID-19 on undergraduate students of color in the United States. Students participated in semi-structured in-depth interviews about their experiences with stressors during the pandemic. Data were analyzed using conventional content analysis and revealed themes including (a) the pandemic’s impact on students; (b) basic needs as college …

Relations Between Community Engagement Levels And Citizenship Competence Among Tertiary-Level Students At A Public Institution Of Higher Education, Ernesto L. Bastida Jr.

ASEAN Journal of Community Engagement

This mixed-methods sequential explanatory study seeks to explain the relationship between community engagement and citizenship competence among tertiary-level students at Kolehiyo ng Lungsod ng Dasmariñas, a public institution of higher learning in Dasmariñas in Cavite, Philippines. Specifically, it seeks to (1) determine students’ level of engagement in various community development activities and their levels of citizenship competence; as well as (2) discuss and analyze the relationship between these two variables. Quantitative surveys were conducted on 331 students, followed by semi- structured interviews and focus group discussions with 30 purposely selected participants to gather follow-up data during the qualitative phases.

The …

An Investigation Of The Advantages And Disadvantages Of University Students As Avatars In Virtual Learning Spaces, Gary Burnett, Catherine Harvey

International Journal of Emerging and Disruptive Innovation in Education : VISIONARIUM

Authors have noted the increasing importance of avatars in Higher Education, as more teaching is conducted virtually, drawing upon gaming conventions. However, it is also recognised that little is known about how students make use of avatars (especially over an extended period) and the subsequent impact on learning experiences. For the last three years, a university module has been conducted within a persistent virtual world – where students (49 in 2020; 95 in 2021; 122 in 2022) predominantly interact with each other and teaching staff in avatar form. Observation data constitutes 60 hours of video recordings of virtual world seminars. …

Improving The High School And College Classroom Experience For Learners With Refugee Status: Theory, Practice, And Change., Kayte Thomas, Sara-Jean Lipmen

Journal of Applied Disciplines

Refugee populations are increasing globally, and children make up more than fifty percent of those displaced. Unique experiences that come with forced migration including fragmented education, trauma, family separation, grief, and adverse other effects can impact learning in the classroom for refugee students. Existing data indicates that schools lack sufficient protocols to meet the needs of students with refugee status who consistently face risks associated with ill-prepared learning environments, and therefore must rethink possibilities to address this. By adopting strategic decolonized approaches, educational leaders can create supportive environments which improve instructional methods and learning outcomes for these students as they …

Librarians At The Intersection Of Information Literacy And Open Educational Practices In Higher Education, Merinda Mclure

Communications in Information Literacy

Merinda McLure, Innovative Practices Section Co-Editor, introduces a special theme issue of the journal that explores intersections between information literacy and open educational practices.

Minoritized Graduate Students’ Recommendations To Communication Sciences And Disorders Programs To Improve Inclusion Of Minoritized Students, Teresa M. Roberts

Teaching and Learning in Communication Sciences & Disorders

Minoritized students in Communication Sciences and Disorders (CSD) programs have unique insights into inclusion and diversity initiatives based on their lived experiences. In this study, the researcher examined and analyzed recommendations that minorized CSD graduate students provided to programs to increase inclusion. The researcher identified themes within the recommendations using discourse analysis to analyze how students positioned themselves and faculty in relationship to diversity and inclusion. A total of 104 minoritized CSD graduate students across 28 states completed a survey that included demographic information and a writing prompt for recommendations to programs. The study found that students valued broad and …

University Administrators’ Visions For The Recovery Of International Student Exchange In A Post–Covid-19 World, Yusuke Sakurai, Yukiko Ishikura, Ryoko Nakano, Yuki Nabeshima, Yu Sengoku, Akito Okada, Sachihiko Kondo

Higher Learning Research Communications

Objectives: Little is known about how international functions of higher education, such as exchange programmes, can be resumed during recovery from a disruptive global crisis, such as COVID-19. We collected the opinions of administrators of international exchange programmes regarding their plans to resume their exchange programmes in the recovery phase and identified variations in the responses concerning institution type (public vs. private) and the presence or absence of a medical school.

Method: We used multiple-choice survey questions in our study, resulting in 180 valid responses. We examined overall patterns using descriptive statistics and institutional uniqueness using Fisher’s exact test.

Results: …

Racializing Service (Learning): A Critical Content Analysis Of Service Learning Syllabi, Tania Mitchell, Carmine Perrotti

Race and Pedagogy Journal: Teaching and Learning for Justice

This study examines service learning pedagogy and its use of racialized terms to frame service. Through a critical content analysis using 270 syllabi from 193 four-year U.S. institutions with the Community Engagement Classification from the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, this study explores how the language used in service learning syllabi perpetuates and sustains racialized hierarchies in community engagement experiences.

Selling Graduation: Higher Education And The Loaning Of Liberation, Annie Pocklington, Elizabeth J. Flanagan, Christopher Bodenheimer Knaus

Essays in Education

While the costs to attend college continue to rise exponentially, a bachelor’s degree is held up as required for economic stability within the U.S. and across the globe. With drastic disparities in earning potentials after graduation reduced by racism, sexism, classism, heterosexism, ableism, and related structural disparities, the value of a degree continues to be questioned, especially for historically marginalized communities. As the loan industrial complex continues to profit off of students, President Biden has offered $10,000 in student loan relief for some borrowers, though this action has been blocked by federal courts and is currently on hold. Whether Biden’s …

Comparing The Experience Of Pre-Service Teachers In The First And Final Semesters In Online Learning Using A Focus Group Study, Suyatno Suyatno, Sibawaihi Sibawaihi, Wantini Wantini, Dzihan Khilmi Ayu Firdausi, Lilis Patimah

The Qualitative Report

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, online learning has become the innovation and an alternative virtual education adopted by universities, due to campus closures. The sudden adoption of the innovation without prior preparation and training causes the ineffective implementation of online learning in most institutions. Based on this description, insufficient information is available regarding the experiences of the student population, which are the most affected by online learning in higher education. Therefore, this study aims to explore the experiences of pre-service teachers regarding their numerous abilities to provide a good online learning program. Using a qualitative focus group study design, data …

On Becoming Online Educators: Developing Hybrid Learning-Centered Pedagogy, Rachel Toncelli Edd, Leila Rosa Phd

Journal on Empowering Teaching Excellence

Access the online Pressbooks version of this article here.

Recent global events pushed in-person learning to online formats. As K-12 teachers struggled with shifting from in-person to online teaching while adapting and adjusting instruction, and higher education prepared to do the same, two faculty members in a TESOL teacher preparation program joined forces to question assumptions about online teaching, reflect on praxis, and revisit pedagogy and practices through a critical autoethnographic study. Building from adult constructivist learning theory and collegial inquiry, the researchers utilized the pandemic as a stage for innovation and an opportunity to study their own ability, as …