Education Commons^™

Patriotism And Democratic Education, Richard Dagger

Political Science Faculty Publications

Whether patriotism has a valuable part to play in the educational system of a democratic society is now a highly contentious matter. This chapter argues that it does, principally because such a society is a kind of cooperative practice that requires its members to enact, enforce, and – in most cases – obey the laws that govern their self-governing polity. Democracies rely on rules, and especially the rule of law, to provide the reasonably clear expectations necessary to coordinate public activities and to overcome collective-action problems. By encouraging citizens to set aside personal advantage and play a cooperative part in …

Localizing Content: The Roles Of Technical & Professional Communicators And Machine Learning In Personalized Chatbot Responses, Daniel L. Hocutt, Nupoor Ranade, Gustav Verhulsdonck

School of Professional and Continuing Studies Faculty Publications

This study demonstrates that microcontent, a snippet of personalized content that responds to users’ needs, is a form of localization reliant on a content ecology. In contributing to users’ localized experiences, technical communicators should recognize their work as part of an assemblage in which users, content, and metrics augment each other to produce personalized content that can be consumed by and delivered through artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted technology.

Valuing Community Engagement Throughout The Faculty Recruitment Process, Lynn Pelco, Derek Miller, Todd R. Lookingbill

Other Publications

Department chairs and search committees play critical roles in recruiting community-engaged scholars to higher education institutions. This report summarizes some of the benefits of hiring community-engaged scholars across disciplines. The report also provides concrete strategies departments can use to both plan and execute a faculty search process that results in the hiring of a community-engaged scholar who brings the skills and experiences needed to succeed in the position and thrive in both the university and community.

Teaching With Data In The Social Sciences At The University Of Richmond, Samantha Guss, Ryan Brazell

University Libraries Faculty and Staff Publications

From Spring 2020 through Fall 2021, a team from UR participated in a multi-site study called “Teaching with Data in the Social Sciences” led by Ithaka S+R, a research and strategy organization that focuses on scholarly communication and libraries in higher education. Samantha Guss (Boatwright Library) and Ryan Brazell (Faculty Hub) interviewed 14 UR faculty, all of whom teach in social sciences disciplines or use social data, to learn more about faculty needs as they help their students build data literacy skills. The primary objective for participating in this study was to better understand UR faculty needs so that the …

How Other Countries Reopened Schools During The Pandemic – And What The Us Can Learn From Them, Robert W. Spires

School of Professional and Continuing Studies Faculty Publications

As American school officials debate when it will be safe for schoolchildren to return to classrooms, looking abroad may offer insights. Nearly every country in the world shuttered their schools early in the COVID-19 pandemic. Many have since sent students back to class, with varying degrees of success.

I am a scholar of comparative international education. For this article, I examined what happened in four countries where K-12 schools either stayed open throughout the pandemic or have resumed in-person instruction, using press reports, national COVID-19 data and academic studies.

Do Education System Characteristics Moderate The Socioeconomic, Gender And Immigrant Gaps In Math And Science Achievement?, Katerina Bodovsk, Ismael Munoz, Soo-Yong Byun, Volha Chykina

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

Using data from the 2011 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study for 45 countries, we examined the size of socioeconomic, gender, and immigrant status related gaps, and their relationships with education system characteristics, such as differentiation, standardization, and proportion of governmental spending on education. We find that higher socioeconomic status is positively and significantly associated with higher math and science achievement; immigrant students lag behind their native peers in both math and science, with first generation students faring worse than second generation; and girls show lower math performance than boys. A higher degree of differentiation makes socioeconomic gaps larger …

What’S In Your Gifted Education Online Teacher Professional Development? Incorporating Theory- And Practice-Based Elements Of Instructional Learning Design, Matthew J. Edinger

School of Professional and Continuing Studies Faculty Publications

This paper examined six theory- and practice-based elements of instructional learning design in online teacher professional development (oTPD), how these elements were implemented into Edinger’s (2017) PACKaGE model of gifted education oTPD, and how teachers evaluated each element. Elements were based on Berge’s (1995) instructor roles model theory and gifted education research. Each element was evaluated by teachers (N=184) who completed oTPD designed from the PACKaGE model. Self-report survey findings suggest that teachers considered most elements, such as asynchronous discussion board and article review assignments, to be useful to a great extent to their gifted education learning and pedagogy. However, …

Generalized Self-Efficacy Of Youth In The New Territories: A Community Survey Conducted By A Hong Kong Ngo, Robert W. Spires, Eric Howington, Jay Rojewski

School of Professional and Continuing Studies Faculty Publications

Youth are both key participants in debate and a central theme in the discourse on social issues in Hong Kong. Youth are often problematized in the contemporary media and political discussion as lacking in the work ethic, confidence and social skills necessary to be successful. Hong Kong youth are framed as pathologically shy, anti-social, lazy and entitled and these characteristics are used to present an image of Hong Kong youth as having individual characteristics that lead to their challenges in the job market and their characteristics as political rogues. This study approaches the characterization of Hong Kong youth with an …

Learning Effects Of The Flipped Classroom In A Principles Of Microeconomics Course Running Header: Flipped Principles Of Micro, Erik Craft, Maia K. Linask

Economics Faculty Publications

The authors of this article estimate the learning effects of the flipped classroom format using data from 16 sections of principles of microeconomics over a 4-year period. The experimental design is unique in that two treatment and two control sections were taught during the fall semester in four consecutive years. Further, the instructor switched the time of day when the treatment and control sections were taught each year. Controlling for gender, ACT score, a normed high school GPA, Pell Grant award, time of day, and initial knowledge of economics, the authors find no evidence of increased learning using end-of-semester measures …

Setting An Agenda For The Future, Sam Allgood, Kimmarie Mcgoldrick

Economics Faculty Publications

Anniversaries are a time for reflection and planning for the future. The fiftieth year of the Journal of Economic Education motivated us to invite those who have been intimately involved with the Journal to provide reflections, which appear within this symposium. In addition to providing a wealth of information about the past, they set the stage for initiatives that support the path forward.

Switching Majors – Into And Out Of Economics, Tisha L. N. Emerson, Kimmarie Mcgoldrick

Economics Faculty Publications

Using student transcripts from six institutions over a 23-year timespan, the authors investigate the movement of students into and out of the economics major. Considerable movement between majors occurs with 83 percent of economics graduates switching in after their first principles course. These eventual majors come from a variety of sources, but primarily from business, engineering, science & math. In an absolute sense, weaker students (as measured by cumulative GPA) switch into economics. However, students appear to move to disciplines of relative academic strength (as indicated by relative grades). While females from other majors are less likely to switch into …

What Should We Teach In Intermediate Macroeconomics?, Dean D. Croushore

Economics Faculty Publications

The major focus of a course in Intermediate Macroeconomics is building and understanding macroeconomic models and how they work. The course is the most analytical course in the curriculum and should lead students to embark on deep thinking about models and equilibrium. Students learn the essentials of a model and develop the concept of how to simplify a model to understand key concepts. Once the core of a model is developed, additional model features can be added to increase realism. Perhaps the most important macroeconomic concept in the course is that of general equilibrium—students learn to go beyond examining initial …

50 Years Of Economic Instruction In The Journal Of Economic Education, Gail M. Hoyt, Kimmarie Mcgoldrick

Economics Faculty Publications

With 2019 marking the fiftieth year of publication of the Journal of Economic Education (JEE), it seems fitting to examine the evolution of economic instruction as portrayed in the Journal. Born of the American Economic Association (AEA), and first edited by members of the AEA’s Committee on Economic Education (Saunders 2012), it is not surprising that the Journal’s focus as chronicler, proponent, and outlet for economic education activity reflects the educational component of the American Economic Association’s mission. The creation of the Journal signaled a self-awareness in the discipline that we needed to be more deliberate in …

Teaching Courses In Macroeconomics And Monetary Policy With Bloomberg Analytics, Dean D. Croushore, Hossein S. Kazemi

Economics Faculty Publications

In this article, the authors illustrate the use of Bloomberg for analyzing topics in macroeconomics and monetary policy in economics and finance courses. The hands-on experience that students gain from such a course has many benefits, including deeper learning and clearer understanding of data. The authors describe goals and learning objectives, then compare Bloomberg with Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED). In addition, they provide examples of how to use Bloomberg in the classroom, describe how to have students perform sector analysis, show how Bloomberg tools are useful for analyzing monetary policy, discuss how to use Bloomberg to analyze the financial …

Creating More Integrated Schools In A Segregated System: A Window Of Opportunity, Genevieve Siegel-Hawley, Kim Bridges, Thomas J. Shields, Brian Koziol

School of Professional and Continuing Studies Faculty Publications

The city of Richmond is changing. Over the past decade, an influx of young, white professionals and families has fueled population growth. And increases in the residential population of white families have very slowly translated into increases in the enrollment of white students in Richmond Public Schools (RPS). These shifts come on the heels of decades of intentional division of and disinvestment in majority black urban communities, offering renewed opportunities for neighborhood and school integration, along with a stronger tax base and increases in school funding. But changing demographics also bring challenges. Both the opportunities and challenges have been on …

Glocalizing The Composition Classroom With Google Apps For Education, Daniel L. Hocutt, Maury Elizabeth Brown

School of Professional and Continuing Studies Faculty Publications

Composing practices in a digitally networked world are inherently intercultural, and situate local needs and constraints within global opportunities and concerns. Global technologies like Google Apps for Education (GAFE) allow students to compose collaboratively across place and time; to do so, students and teachers must navigate a complex local network of institutional policy, learning outcomes, situational needs, and composing practices while also being aware of the global implications of using the interface to compose, review, edit, and share with others. The chapter describes using GAFE in locally situated composition classes. Using such technologies requires a focus on glocalization and an …

The Role Of Teaching And Teacher Training In The Hiring And Promotion Of Ph.D. Economists, Sam Allgood, Gail Hoyt, Kimmarie Mcgoldrick

Economics Faculty Publications

Surveys suggest that a majority of graduate students seek academic positions after completing their degree. We survey groups involved in the job market to determine the roles of teaching and research in hiring and the subsequent success of new faculty. We find that while characteristics that signal research potential are highly valued by both graduate directors and department chairs, there are significant discrepancies in the extent that teaching is valued in the hiring process across institution types. Furthermore, although new faculty devote half of their time to teaching, only half of them agree that graduate school prepared them to teach.

Measuring Faculty Teaching Effectiveness Using Conditional Fixed Effects, Maia K. Linask, James Monks

Economics Faculty Publications

Using a dataset of 48 faculty members and 88 courses over 26 semesters, the authors estimate Student Evaluation of Teaching (SET) ratings that are conditional on a multitude of course, faculty, and student attributes. They find that ratings are lower for required courses and those where students report a lower prior level of interest. Controlling for these variables substantially alters the SET ratings for many instructors. The average absolute value of the difference between the faculty ratings controlling just for time effects and fully conditional ratings is nearly one-half of a standard deviation in the students’ rating of how much …

Teacher Training For Phd Students And New Faculty In Economics, Sam Allgood, Gail Hoyt, Kimmarie Mcgoldrick

Economics Faculty Publications

Past studies suggest that a majority of economics graduate students engage in teaching-related activities during graduate school and many go on to academic positions afterwards. However, not all graduate students are formally prepared to teach while in graduate school nor are they fully prepared to teach in their first academic position. The authors characterize current teaching experience and training of graduate students from the point of view of directors of graduate studies and of newly minted academic economists. The authors also query department chairs and new faculty about teacher training, support available for new faculty, and the degree to which …

The Gender Gap In Economics Degrees: An Investigation Of The Role Model And Quantitative Requirement Hypotheses, Tisha L. N. Emerson, Kimmarie Mcgoldrick, John J. Siegfried

Economics Faculty Publications

Using a panel of 159 institutions over 10 years, we investigate the role model effect of women faculty and quantitative requirements on the female proportion of undergraduate economics majors. We find no evidence that female faculty attract female students. Calculus, however, does matter. A one semester calculus requirement is associated with more female majors at institutions offering business degrees and liberal arts colleges. A second semester calculus requirement deters women from majoring in economics at Ph.D.–granting universities, but is associated with more female majors at liberal arts colleges. Econometrics requirements are unrelated to the gender gap in economics majors.

The High Costs Of Large Enrollment Classes: Can Cooperative Learning Help?, Tisha L. N. Emerson, Linda K. English, Kimmarie Mcgoldrick

Economics Faculty Publications

We examine the potential for cooperative learning activities to offset costs of large enrollment courses. We use a quasi-experimental research design to examine achievement and course perceptions in small and large enrollment sections of microeconomic principles. While large enrollment sections attain lower levels of achievement (measured by course score) than those with smaller enrollments, this effect is partially mitigated by use of cooperative learning. Furthermore, while students in large enrollment sections report lower levels of satisfaction and learning than students in smaller sized classes, the use of cooperative learning eliminates the negative effects of increased class size on student perceptions.

Making Visible The Invisible: Social Justice And Inclusion Through The Collaboration Of Museums And Spanish Community-Based Learning Projects, Karina Elizabeth Vázquez, Martha Wright

Latin American, Latino and Iberian Studies Faculty Publications

Concerns about inclusion and social responsibility as conduit for social justice on university campuses offer a platform for interdisciplinary initiatives. Here we focus on one such initiative, which seeks to build community between University of Richmond students and local Latino and Hispanic populations using the University of Richmond Museum collection. Collaborations between museums and Spanish classes, including a community-based learning component (Spanish Community-Based Learning and Museums - SCBLM), provide outreach to the local community and might prompt dialogues about extant social injustices (however overt or subliminal). In these experiential learning projects, the museum serves as a communal resource to embody …

Black, Queer, And Beaten: On The Trauma Of Graduate School, Eric Anthony Grollman

Sociology and Anthropology Faculty Publications

Two years after I graduated with a PhD in sociology from Indiana University, I started seeing a therapist again. At my in-take visit, my therapist invited me to return within a week. “Right now, you’re full,” he said, commenting on the numerous issues that I brought up in explaining why I was seeing a therapist. He did not mean “full of shit,” as in offering lies or irrelevant information; rather, he meant that I was “filled to the brim” of issues weighing on my heart, mind, and spirit. This was not news to me, but hearing him say “full” emphasized …

Seeing Is Believing: Peer Video Coaching As Professional Development Done With Me And For Me, Kate M. Cassada, Laura Kassner

School of Professional and Continuing Studies Faculty Publications

As part of their graduate education, in-service teachers identified an area of instructional focus, video recorded their classroom instruction at two intervals in a semester-long course, formed peer groups, and shared their videos for the purpose of obtaining feedback for professional growth. After the conclusion of the course, participants were contacted and presented with a summary of four benefits of the peer video review process, as identified in a recent professional article. Through online survey, participants were asked to share their perceptions of the peer video review experiences in the course and address any evidence related to the benefits raised …

Improving Teacher Job Satisfaction: The Roles Of Social Capital, Teacher Efficacy, And Support, Suzanne K. Edinger, Matthew J. Edinger

School of Professional and Continuing Studies Faculty Publications

In this study, we examine how social capital, teacher efficacy, and organizational support increase teacher job satisfaction. Research suggests that teachers worldwide are exceedingly dissatisfied with their jobs and have significantly higher levels of turnover than their counterparts in other professions. We investigate this phenomenon using a sample of 122 elementary school teachers. We found that teachers’ centrality position, or each teacher’s relationship with every other teacher, in their school’s trust network and the density of a teacher’s academic advice ego-network predicted the development of teacher job satisfaction. Additionally, we found that teacher efficacy mediated the relationship between teacher’s trust …

Confronting School And Housing Segregation In The Richmond Region: Can We Learn And Live Together?, Genevieve Siegel-Hawley, Brian Koziol, John V. Moeser, Taylor Holden, Thomas J. Shields

School of Professional and Continuing Studies Faculty Publications

White children now account for less than half of all births. At the same time, we are seeing stagnation in the earnings of the middle class and a widening gap between the poor and the rich. These changes matter, and they are impacting K-12 schools in our region. This report examines the changing nature of segregation in the metro-Richmond area, which is now far more multiracial than it was in the past. It seeks to:

• Pay central attention to segregation in housing and K-12 education
• Understand the mechanisms of educational inequality by examining data on the segregation of …

An Analysis Of Science Instruction And Environmental Education In Virginia And Oklahoma, Megan Wing

Environmental Studies Senior Seminar Projects

Through this project, I hoped to understand how scientists, politicians, and educational experts view climate change education for elementary students, organize current learning standards that relate to climate change education in Virginia and Oklahoma, highlight specific ways to incorporate climate change education in the classroom, and provide resources for teachers to use in the future.

Poster prepared for the Environmental Studies Senior Seminar.

An Analysis Of Science Instruction And Environmental Education In Virginia And Oklahoma, Megan Wing

Environmental Studies Senior Seminar Projects

In order to understand how science instruction, and specifically instruction targeting environmental and climate change science, in K-5 classrooms can help form students into responsible and conscientious global citizens, I looked specifically at science education in K-5 curriculum. I explored how the Virginia Standards of Learning (SOLs) currently include environmental education and climate change education and how the SOLs provide the potential for future climate change education. For comparison, and to understand how states other than Virginia value environmental science education in the elementary grades, I considered the current Oklahoma Academic Standards (OASs) for K-5 students. In this paper, I …

"Dear Colleague", Matthew Oware

Sociology and Anthropology Faculty Publications

Research demonstrates that faculty of color in historically white institutions experience higher levels of discrimination, cultural taxation, and emotional labor than their white colleagues. Despite efforts to recruit minority faculty, all of these factors undermine their scholarship, pedagogy, social experiences, promotion and retention.

Pervasive Pedagogy: Collaborative Cloud-Based Composing Using Google Drive, Maury Elizabeth Brown, Daniel L. Hocutt

School of Professional and Continuing Studies Faculty Publications

Cloud-based services designed for educational use, like Google Apps for Education (GAFE), afford deeply collaborative activities across multiple applications. Through primary research, the authors discovered that cloud-based technologies such as GAFE and Google Drive afford new opportunities for collaborative cross-platform composing and student engagement. These affordances require new pedagogies to transform these potentialities into practice, as well as a reexamination of contemporary theory of computers and composition. The authors’ journey implementing Google Drive as a composing and communication environment required continually remediating content, relationships, practices, and their own identities as they interacted with students in the cloud. This chapter addresses …