Education Commons^™

Beyond "Bad" Cops: Historicizing And Resisting Surveillance Culture In Universities, Amy J. Wan, Lindsey Albracht

Publications and Research

In this article, we define and examine surveillance culture within US college classrooms, a logical extension of pervasive carceral and capitalist logics that underlie the US educational system, in which individual success is tied to behavior monitoring, rule following, and sorting, particularly within marginalized student populations. Reflecting anxieties about the expansion of educational access, we argue for how crisis and change have historically contributed to the
urgency and opportunity to expand surveillance culture and consider why this has continued to happen as a result of the COVID-19 crisis. We offer suggestions and alternatives to surveillance culture that have helped us …

Large Scale Open Educational Resources (Oer) Initiative In Mathematics, Alioune Khoule, Abderrazak Belkharraz Idrissi, Sandra Sze

Publications and Research

A team of LaGuardia Community College math faculty designed and launched the OER (Open Educational Resources) project in Spring 2017 to allow to take mathematics courses at zero or low textbook cost. Our first pilot phase started with 10 sections in Fall 2017 using three different OER platforms: Myopenmath, Webwork and Khanacademy. One out of the three platforms, Myopenmath used in phase 1 was selected to pilot 34 sections in Spring 2018. In Fall 2018, the OER team moved to a full-scale implementation on all remedial and gateway courses of 164 sections including Fundamentals of Algebra, Intro to Algebra, Elementary …

A Trauma-Informed Inquiry Of Covid-19’S Initial Impact On Students In Adult Education Programs In The United States, David A. Housel

Publications and Research

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on adult education programs throughout the world, abruptly transforming in-person instruction to distance teaching/learning. Can the lessons learned from adult students, especially related to the “digital divide,” be leveraged to enhance adult education and create more inclusive policies and practices moving forward? To grapple with this question, this exploratory qualitative study sought the insights of adult learners in the northeastern United States through an online survey of primarily open-ended questions. Through multiple rounds of coding using a trauma-informed lens, the following themes emerged: (a) anxiety and loss; (b) distractions, adjustments, and balance; …

Open Educational Resources In History: A State-Of-The-Field Essay, Katherine Tsan

Publications and Research

History practitioners are making steady progress adopting, adapting and creating open educational resources. However, most historians do not have a holistic view of the materials that exist in the open sphere due to poor discoverability and professional standards that still hamper their uptake. This state-of-the-field article discusses the challenges and opportunities of engaging with history OERs as divided into three categories: 1) textbooks and teaching modules, 2) informational websites and interactive experiences, and 3) digital tools for collaborative research. The flexibility and adaptability of these resources, afforded by their open licenses, are key points in their prospects for longevity and …

Linguistically Responsive Instruction In Corequisite Courses At Community Colleges, Heather B. Finn, Sharon Avni

Publications and Research

English Learners (ELs) attend community colleges at a greater rate than four-year schools, making community colleges primary sites of ESL education in American higher education. These institutions’ recent embrace of the corequisite structure – a pairing of a non-credit developmental course with a credit-bearing disciplinary content course in order to accelerate students’ progress in their coursework – has direct implications for ELs. As corequisites are enacted in a wide range of content areas, professors will need to attend to students’ language development in a wide range of disciplinary courses. This qualitative study applies Linguistically Responsive Instruction as a framework to …

Teaching Machine Learning For The Physical Sciences: A Summary Of Lessons Learned And Challenges, Viviana Acquaviva

Publications and Research

This paper summarizes some challenges encountered and best practices established in several years of teaching Machine Learning for the Physical Sciences at the undergraduate and graduate level. I discuss motivations for teaching ML to physicists, desirable properties of pedagogical materials, such as accessibility, relevance, and likeness to real-world research problems, and give examples of components of teaching units.

Development Of An Online General Biology Open Educational Resource (Oer) Laboratory Manual, Dmitry Y. Brogun, Azure N. Faucette, Kristin Polizzotto, Farshad Tamari

Publications and Research

Currently, many academic institutions are using one or more variations of online modalities due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and science educators face a unique challenge with distance-learning laboratories. Many resources to engage students in virtual, interactive laboratory activities exist, but we found that high costs and/or overlooked content left gaps for several topics typically taught in a general, introductory biology course for undergraduate biology majors (e.g., organismal biology). Additionally, resources for an online lab must be identified and curated from multiple sources, requiring intense demands on the instructors’ time. To meet this need and to overcome the financial burden of …

Engaging With Text: The Effectiveness Of Content Literacy And Active Learning Strategies In Online Introductory Accounting Courses, Rachel Raskin

Publications and Research

Language and literacy are innate to learning. The accounting language is technical and specific, and students must become literate in the discipline to be able to critically read and understand accounting text and apply their knowledge. Introductory accounting courses are typically difficult for students, who struggle to simply pass the course. Students memorize the concepts but cannot internalize the information. Lack of active reading and literacy skills hinders higher order thinking needed to solve problems. The study discussed in this paper involves two fully online introductory accounting courses where one of the courses is taught leveraging literacy strategies (experimental course) …

The Cost Of Being Black In Social Work Practicum, Nia Johnson, Paul Archibald, Anthony Estreet, Amanda Morgan

Publications and Research

The social work profession is not exempt from fueling institutional racism, which affects the provision of social work practicum education for Black social work students. This article highlights how the historical and current social cost of being Black in the United States presents itself within social work education’s signature pedagogy. Social workers who hold bachelor’s degrees in social work (BSW) are more likely to be Black than those holding master’s degrees in social work (MSW; Salsberg et al., 2017). It takes Black students longer to earn an MSW degree though they are more likely to hold a BSW while also …

Correlates Of Exam Performance In An Introductory Statistics Course: Basic Math Skills Along With Self- Reported Psychological/Behavioral And Demographic Variables, Laura A. Rabin, Anjali Krishnan, Rose Bergdoll, Joshua Fogel

Publications and Research

This study investigated whether basic mathematics skills are associated with undergraduate psychology statistics course performance while simultaneously considering self-reported psychological/behavioral and demographic variables. Participants (n = 460) completed a Math Assessment for College Students (MACS), which included questions ranging from calculating percentages to graphical interpretation. The researchers used a discriminant correspondence analysis to reveal differences in course performance evaluated as the average of three exam grades. For the variation in the average exam scores accounted for by our model, the MACS scores provided the largest contribution. Other variables associated with better exam grades included white ethnicity, non-transfer status, lower year …

Getting To Work: Information Literacy Instruction, Career Courses, And Digitally Proficient Students, Alexandra Hamlett

Publications and Research

This article discusses how following graduation, students often enter the job market unprepared to find, evaluate, and use information in the digital environment effectively. Essentially, there is a disparity between the skills students attain in college coursework, including information literacy (IL) skills, and those required in the workplace, which impacts graduates’ success as new members of the labour market. The article highlights how collaboration between a librarian and an instructor of a career centered course influenced instructional design for IL instruction in their courses. Librarians and instructors will benefit from practical examples from Guttman Community College’s innovative IL Program and …

Turning Collective Digital Stories Of The First-Year Transition To College Into A Web Of Belonging, Mery Diaz, Sandra Cheng, Karen Goodlad, Jennifer Sears, Phil Kreniske, Ashwin Satyanarayana

Publications and Research

In this article, we present lessons learned from "Our Stories," a digital writing project designed to assist students in the transition from high school to college. From the collective digital narratives of first-year and first-generation students at an urban public college, who are primarily Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC), low-income, and immigrant, and who participated in a First-year Learning Communities course, we examine the challenges of becoming a college student at a public college. Further, we explore how digital writing supports community-building and influences students' transition experience, in particular, making sense of shared challenges. For these BIPOC students, …

Recruitment Of International Students Through A Synthesis Of English As A Second Language Instruction, Social Justice, And Service Learning, Daisuke Akiba

Publications and Research

Universities across the U.S. have increasingly emphasized internationalization, leading to rising numbers of international students attending U.S. institutions of higher education. However, these students tend to gravitate toward larger research-intensive universities with many other institutions seeing no increase in international student enrollments. Little is known concerning how to attract international students to regional institutions lacking name recognition. To address the above and promote internationalization through increasing the presence of students from abroad, an academic department at a regional public U.S. college used needs analysis to develop a pilot program for Japanese university students (N = 13). The program involved a …

Beyond Crisis Moments: Mediating Instructor-Student Conflict Through Anti-Racist Practice, Amy J. Wan, Christopher John Williams

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Using Phet Simulations To Improve Scientific Skills And Attitudes Of Community College Students, Rex Taibu, Lloyd Mataka, Vazgen Shekoyan

Publications and Research

In this study, conceptual and algebra-based physics students were engaged in scientific inquiry using Physics Education Technology (PhET) interactive simulations via semester-long group projects. The instructor and students used the Scientific Abilities Assessment Rubrics (SAAR) to evaluate project presentations and papers (formative assessment). The overall research project was evaluated using Lab Skills Self-Assessment (LSSA) survey (pre and post) and the post reflection survey. The Science Process Skills Inventory (SPSI) was used to analyze some of the students‟ responses to the reflection survey. Quantitative analysis of the LSSA survey showed a large effect size for both conceptual and algebra-based physics students …

Flipping The Classroom To Optimize Clinical Decision-Making In The Didactic Setting, Karen Marie Arca-Contreras

Publications and Research

Background: Deliberate inclusion of clinical decision-making nursing skills in the didactic setting will assist students in potentially making better patient care decisions. This can be optimized through use of the flipped learning andragogy. Flipped learning promotes an interactive classroom environment. It fosters teamwork and collaboration. Direct content instruction is the responsibility of students.

Objective: This cohort pilot study investigated how the flipped and nonflipped approach to teaching impacted clinical decision-making and student participation.

Methods: The Clinical Decision-Making in Nursing Scale (CDMNS) was administered to the students in the flipped classroom and the nonflipped classroom on week 1 and …