Education Commons^™

The Undergraduate That Could: Crafting A Collaborative Student Training Program, Jennifer L.A. Whelan, Jared Andrew Rex

Staff publications

Since the mid-19th century, student worker programs have been an integral component of academic libraries, and the evolution of the profession has put more students, even undergraduates, into positions with greater responsibility, raising questions about the level of expertise of which undergraduate students are capable. The authors address these questions through the lens of the collaborative redevelopment of two distinct library student worker programs at a small liberal arts college. Included is a discussion of successes and challenges, as well as a consideration of the benefits of a “cross-library” support system in developing such a program.

Bridging The Gap: Engaging Business Sophomores To Ensure Information Literacy Competency, Heather A. Crozier, Harry J. Wilson

Heterick Faculty Scholarship

This project showcases a two-week series of assignments that are designed to illustrate the value of information literacy skills to undergraduate sophomore business students. We demonstrate how the project integrates with our business curricula and show how leveraging the expertise of librarians ultimately improves the quality of education for our students.

Student-Centered Collaborative Classrooms And Critical Thinking Skills, Becky Leonard

Master's Theses & Capstone Projects

The purpose of this action research was to determine if implementing a student-centered, collaborative classroom would have a positive effect on student critical thinking and problem-solving skills. Data was collected at six points during the study. Three set were collected prior to the intervention and three sets were collected after. After analyzing the data, the research suggests that students working in peer collaborative groups can have a positive impact of their problem-solving strategies and improve their critical thinking skills.

Future And Value: The Library As Strategic Partner, Antje Mays

Library Presentations

Broader economic trends spawn budget pressures for education and libraries, prompting a plethora of studies on the value and relevance of libraries. Numerous reports on economic decline in libraries and studies with mixed pronouncements on the value of libraries have led to a negative self-image within the library profession. Yet libraries' leadership in connecting learners to knowledge is at the heart of producing many of the key skills sorely needed in robust societies and economies. Librarianship has many untapped opportunities for positioning itself as a prominent strategic partner. This paper outlines current research on the economic and societal context for …

Library Newsletter (Fall 2018), Holy Cross Libraries

Holy Cross Libraries Newsletters

Announcements and other items of interest related to the services offered by the libraries at the College of the Holy Cross.

Makerspace Club, Carolyn Brady

Honors Expanded Learning Clubs

This is a unique club that allows children to explore the world around them and make projects using materials provided by educators, and to get children thinking about how things work in the world, and how they do. They gain knowledge about success and failure of these things by recreating them.

School Climate In The School Choice Era: A Comparative Analysis Of District-Run Public Schools And Charter Schools, Christopher Damian Duszka

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Comparative analyses of district-run public schools and charter schools are limited to performance outcomes. There is a dearth of research on how the school-types vary on factors consequential to performance such as school climate. Public-private distinctions, such as in organizational autonomy, value orientations, funding structures, and management practices, could result in school climate dissimilarities between district-run public schools and charter schools.

The aim of this dissertation is to assess the influence organizational factors have on school climate and determine if school-type affects school climate. Student and staff school climate survey data from the Miami-Dade school district were utilized for this …

Factors Influencing Special Education Teachers' Mathematics Teaching Efficacy, Owen Martin

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This research examined the relationship between secondary special education teachers’ mathematics teaching efficacy and the number of years of teaching experience, years of co-teaching experience, and number of math content coursework taken at the undergraduate level. Students with special needs continue to score significantly lower than their general education peers on Virginia’s standards of learning mathematics tests. A quantitative, non-experimental correlational research design was used in this study. The targeted sample consisted of approximately 120 collaborating special education teachers in two school districts in southeastern Virginia. The Mathematics Teaching Efficacy Belief Instrument (MTEBI) was measure mathematics teaching efficacy and teacher …

The Effects Of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning On Sense Of Connectedness, Sense Of Learning, And Overall Sense Of Community Among High School Students Enrolled In A Marketing Course, Rebecca R. Streetman

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this quantitative static group study was to determine the effects of computer-supported collaborative learning on sense of community, sense of connectedness, and sense of learning for students in a high school Marketing Principles course. Sense of community pertains to feelings of belonging and is important to the learning process because it can foster shared positive experiences in the classroom setting. Both collaborative learning and computer-based instruction have been researched extensively and their benefits noted; however, this study is important because it focuses on combining the two into what is known as computer-supported collaborative learning. The independent variable …

School Library Research From Around The World: Where It's Been And Where It's Headed, Karen W. Gavigan

Faculty Publications

This article examines studies conducted by school library researchers around the world. The selected studies were conference papers, and articles published in School Libraries Worldwide. Findings from these studies are relevant to researchers and practicing school librarians, who may want to incorporate the findings into their library programs.

Preparing The Next Generation Of Instructional Designers: A Cross-Institution Faculty Collaboration, Patricia J. Slagter Van Tryon, Jason K. Mcdonald, Atsusi Hirumi

Faculty Publications

The ability of novice instructional designers to become skilled problem-solvers, who select and apply appropriate instructional design (ID) models in their work environments, are key competencies generally sought after in introductory ID courses. Yet, the proliferation of ID models, coupled with varied philosophies and practices about how ID is taught may pose challenges for ID educators seeking to prepare the next generation of leaders in the field. With little empirical research or documented best practices, ID educators are left to their own judgment about to how to navigate the practical challenges that can arise in the pursuit of their teaching …

The Year One Book: Gemnasium (A Transdisciplinary Test Lab For Social Change), Brian Laduca, Adrienne Ausdenmoore, Anne R. Crecelius, Kevin P. Hallinan, Connie L. Bowman, Jackie M. Arnold, Philip Appiah-Kubi, Jana M. Bennett, Rebecca P. Blust, Michelle Hayford, Jerome Yorke, Mike Puckett, Castel Sweet

IACT Reports, Publications and Resources

Through an experimental process that is mutually beneficial to community partners, more opportunities for undergraduate research and experiential learning are cultivated. The GEMnasium accomplished this through active efforts of teaching, researching and partnering with the core ethos of the University in mind:

Learn: Teaching - Prepare servant-leaders through comprehensive academic and residential curricula and extraordinary experiential learning opportunities.

Lead: Researching - Perform research that leads to deeper understanding, addresses critical issues, and supports economic growth.

Serve: Partnering - Engage in mutually beneficial partnerships to strengthen our communities in Dayton and around the world.

In doing so, faculty and staff prototyped …

Intellectual And Physical Shared Workspace: Professional Learning Communities And The Collaborative Culture, Daniel Carpenter

CUP Faculty Research

Professional learning communities are one of the leading school reform movements. Schools have shifted to a collaborative culture where administrators and teachers physically and intellectually interact using a collaborative inquiry process for professional learning. The workspace interactions include shared leadership, decision-making, teaching and learning practice, and accountability measures. Attributes and characteristics of effective collaboration and professional learning communities greatly affect the outcomes of professional learning communities. An emergent framework is provided that includes attributes of effective collaboration and the characteristics of effective professional learning communities that merge into intellectual and physical shared workspace. Recommendations are provided on the role administrators …

Advocating For Change In School Library Perceptions, Elizabeth A. Burns

STEMPS Faculty Publications

The article focuses on a research which aims to examine the practices of school librarians to know their impact on stakeholder perceptions. It mentions that the research was guided by the question on the advocacy strategies that were effective in changing the perception of the school library program among stakeholders. A chart is presented depicting characteristics of participants.

Seven Voices, Seven Developers, Seven One Things That Guide Our Practice, Frances Kalu, Patti Dyjur, Carol Berenson, Kimberley A. Grant, Cheryl Jeffs, Natasha Kenny, Robin Mueller

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Educational development philosophy statements provide a framework to communicate the values and beliefs that guide the practices and approaches of individual educational developers across various career stages. This paper presents narratives to illustrate how seven educational developers conceptualize the one thing that guides our work through the process of reflecting on the beliefs that we articulate through our educational development philosophy statements. Although each narrative illustrates our diverse backgrounds and philosophies, common themes are revealed relating to reflective practice, scholarly approaches, and facilitating change, which lead to improvements in student learning. This exploration suggests further opportunity to conduct research on …

Workshopping A Workshop: Collaborative Design In Educational Development, Eleanor V. H. Vandegrift, Amy B. Mulnix, Jennifer R. Yates, S. Raj Chaudhury

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Working remotely and collaboratively, our interdisciplinary team created an educational development workshop, Thinking Skills for the 21st Century: Teaching for Transfer, in which participants not only experience, apply, and reflect on teaching across educational settings but also connect this work to principles that have been demonstrated by learning science to support the transfer of knowledge. We used backward design to develop the workshop and evidence-based pedagogies in its implementation. We facilitated the workshop at two different national meetings for distinct audiences and also as part of an on-campus faculty development program. Here, we report on the workshop development and revision, …

Ways Of Doing: Feminist Educational Development, Emily O. Gravett, Lindsay Bernhagen

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

In response to the recent special call in To Improve the Academy, we offer the following collaborative essay that describes how feminism is our characterizing perspective on educational development. The essay details various, interrelated facets of feminism that inform our work in the field: gender, intersectionality, power, privilege, standpoint theory, and collaboration. Not only do these facets characterize our own feminist approach to educational development—from consultations to organizational development to publications—but, we argue, they also align well with the values and approaches of the field as a whole.