Education Commons^™

The Validation Of An Instrument For Evaluating The Effectiveness Of Professional Development Program On Teaching Online, Jui-Long Hung, Dazhi Yang

Educational Technology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Attending professional development (PD) on teaching online is becoming popular for teachers in today’s K-12 online education. Due to the unique characteristics of the online instructional environments, surveys become the most feasible approach to evaluate the effectiveness of PD programs. However, there is no validated, open-access instrument available to satisfy the needs. Purpose of this study is to conduct construct validity, content validity, concurrent validity, and reliability tests on an open-access instrument for K–12 PD for online teaching. With the exception of a few items that have minor issues on content and construct validity, results show that the survey is, …

Living With Students: Lessons Learned While Pursuing Tenure, Administration, And Raising A Family, Michael Humphrey, Janet Callahan, Geoff Harrison

Early and Special Education Faculty Publications and Presentations

This case study is centered on two faculty-in-residence: one pursuing tenure and raising a young child while living in the residence halls and one an established professor and associate dean raising two teens while living in the residence halls. This case study offers two unique perspectives of faculty-in-residence at various stages in their career, living in residence with their students, working closely with students outside a typical classroom, all while managing professional and familial obligations.

The Decision, Implementation And Assessment Of A Credit-Bearing Activity Class By Faculty In Residence: A Case Study, Janet Callahan, Geoff Harrison, Michael Humphrey, Cala Sielaff, Melissa Wintrow

Materials Science and Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

This case study reports on a programmatic decision to require a credit-bearing course that was made by Faculty in Residence (FIR), including its implementation and results over a two-year period from 2010-2012. The focus is on FIR and on the impact of their decision upon the students enrolled in their Living Learning Communities (LLCs). The credit-bearing course was a Kinesiology Activities class taken by all seven LLCs at Boise State University. Anonymous feedback from students was obtained via end of semester surveys; results were used to improve the course. Survey feedback was analyzed to assess the value students perceived to …

A Review Of Models And Frameworks For Designing Mobile Learning Experiences And Environments, Yu-Chang Hsu, Yu-Hui Ching

Educational Technology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Mobile learning has become increasingly popular in the past decade due to the unprecedented technological affordances achieved through the advancement of mobile computing, which makes ubiquitous and situated learning possible. At the same time, there have been research and implementation projects whose efforts centered on developing mobile learning experiences for various learners’ profiles, accompanied by the development of models and frameworks for designing mobile learning experiences. This paper focuses on categorizing and synthesizing models and frameworks targeted specifically on mobile learning. A total of 17 papers were reviewed, and the models or frameworks were divided into five categories and discussed: …

How Debriefing Strategies Can Improve Student Motivation And Self-Efficacy In Game-Based Learning, Cigdem Uz Bilgin, Youngkyun Baek, Hyungsung Park

Educational Technology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Debriefing is an important step in game-based learning environments. In the present study, the effect of different debriefing strategies in terms of two factors, grouping (self vs. team) and timing (in-game vs. post-game), was investigated on the motivation and self-efficacy levels of students. In a 2x2 ANOVA design, 62 sixth grade students were randomly assigned into two debriefing groups: self-debriefing and team debriefing. About half of members in each group performed either one of the two debriefing: in-game debriefing or post-game debriefing. Students in the self-debriefing as well as in the team-briefing group played the game three days a week …

Exploring Effects Of Intrinsic Motivation And Prior Knowledge On Student Achievements In Game-Based Learning, Youngkyun Baek, Yan Xu, Sanghoon Han, Jungwon Cho

Educational Technology Faculty Publications and Presentations

This study investigates the effects of students’ intrinsic motivation and prior knowledge on student achievement in learning Chinese in a game-based learning environment. A total of 140 fourth-grade students from an elementary school in South Korea participated in this study. An instructional game called “Hanjamaru,” which is designed to teach Chinese characters, was implemented for four weeks. During the experiment, students’ prior knowledge, intrinsic motivation in gaming, and achievements learning Chinese were quantitatively measured. Findings from this study demonstrate that both students’ prior knowledge and intrinsic motivation affect their achievements in learning Chinese. Also, there students’ prior knowledge and intrinsic …

Value-Added Results For Public Virtual Schools In California, Richard Ford, Kerry Rice

Educational Technology Faculty Publications and Presentations

The objective of this paper is to present value-added calculation methods that were applied to determine whether online schools performed at the same or different levels relative to standardized testing. This study includes information on how we approached our value added model development and the results for 32 online public high schools in California. Student level California Standards Test results in English Language Arts and Mathematics for over 5,000 online students were analyzed. Mean value added metrics for each school were calculated for 8 courses held during the 2010-2011 academic year. We found that schools of distinction existed in 7 …

Validating An Observation Protocol To Measure Special Education Teacher Effectiveness, Evelyn S. Johnson, Carrie L. Semmelroth

Early and Special Education Faculty Publications and Presentations

This study used Kane’s (2013) Interpretation/Use Argument (IUA) to measure validity on the Recognizing Effective Special Education Teachers (RESET) observation tool. The RESET observation tool is designed to evaluate special education teacher effectiveness using evidence-based instructional practices as the basis for evaluation. In alignment with other studies (Bell et al., 2012), we applied and interpreted Kane’s (2006) four inferences for trait observation: scoring, generalization, extrapolation, and decision rules. Results from this study show that acceptable levels of validity are promising for the RESET observation tool. Because the RESET observation tool is premised on the idea that by increasing the use …

Grit, Biography, And Dedicated Teachers Who Struggled Academically As Students, Sara Winstead Fry

Curriculum, Instruction, and Foundational Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

Dedicated teachers who had and overcame academic challenges in their youth offer valuable insights into how to support students who struggle. This article presents a qualitative study of 46 teachers from across the United Stated [sic] who faced academic challenges as elementary, middle, and/or secondary students. Their memories of academic struggles lead them to use teaching practices that are grounded in the professional disposition that all children can learn. The findings suggest a positive interrelationship between a biography (Knowles, 1992) that includes academic struggles, the theoretical constructs of grit (Duckworth, Peterson, Matthews, & Kelly, 2007) and self-efficacy (Bandura, 1977), and …

In Search Of Quality: Using Quality Matters To Analyze The Quality Of Massive, Open, Online Courses (Moocs), Patrick R. Lowenthal, Charles B. Hodges

Educational Technology Faculty Publications and Presentations

The concept of the massive, open, online course (MOOC) is not new, but high-profile initiatives have moved MOOCs into the forefront of higher education news over the past few years. Members of institutions of higher education have mixed feelings about MOOCs, ranging from those who want to offer college credit for the successful completion of MOOCs to those who fear MOOCs are the end of the university as we know it. We set forth to investigate the quality of MOOCs by using the Quality Matters quality control framework. In this article, we present the results of our inquiry, with a …

Problems Without Ceilings: How Mentors And Novices Frame And Work On Problems-Of-Practice, Jessica Thompson, Sara Hagenah, Karin Lohwasser, Kat Laxton

Curriculum, Instruction, and Foundational Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

Support for new forms of teaching expertise with rigorous and equitable outcomes for student learning is a particular challenge when communities of actors working together do not share a similar language or vision of teaching practice. For this project we coordinated activities in and outside of secondary science classrooms for Cooperating Teachers (CTs) and their Pre-Service Teachers (PSTs) to inquire into a set of research-based teaching practices and tools. Using frame analysis we contrast three problems of practice addressed by 23 dyads: problems of developing novice teachers, problems of improving teaching, and problems of improving student learning. The last frame, …

Cultivating A Justice Orientation Toward Citizenship In Preservice Elementary Teachers, Sara W. Fry, Jason O'Brien

Curriculum, Instruction, and Foundational Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

Teacher educators have an obligation to prepare preservice teachers with the skills and dispositions necessary to promote a socially just world. Yet the results of this study uncovered that the majority of elementary preservice teachers in a national sample (N = 846) have a simplistic perception of good citizenship consistent with what Westheimer and Kahne called a “personally responsible” model of citizenship. Follow-up interviews with 21 participants revealed a problematic trend among 14 participants: inadequate content knowledge and minimal support or even resistance to socially just action. As this trend is antithetical to a democratic government and the very …

Developing Multiplication Fact Fluency, Jonathan Brendefur, S. Strother, K. Thiede, S. Appleton

Curriculum, Instruction, and Foundational Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

Using specific components of three broad learning theories—cognitive, social-interactional, and behavioral—students in 3^rd, 4^th and 5^th grade classrooms were given multiplication fact fluency instruction over a period of five weeks for 10-15 minutes each day. Two different approaches were utilized with two distinct groups of students for the purpose of comparing different approaches to fluency development. Results indicate that students using a strategy-based approach for fluency development by means of instructional tasks emphasizing social-interactional and cognitive theories (particularly Bruner’s theory of Modes of Representation) increased multiplication fact fluency, with a greater degree of consistency, than students …

Mobile Augmented-Reality Artifact Creation As A Component Of Mobile Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning, Fengfeng Ke, Yu-Chang Hsu

Educational Technology Faculty Publications and Presentations

This exploratory study examined the effectiveness of smartphone-based, AR artifact creation and other mobile collaborative learning activities in reinforcing the technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) of pre-service teachers. Adopting a mixed-method research design, the study indicated that mobile AR artifact creation with peer discussion tended to better promote the componential competencies of technological pedagogical knowledge (TPK) and the integrative development of technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK), whereas mobile media artifact viewing with peer discussion seemed to better support the content knowledge (CK) development.

Can Teachers Accurately Predict Student Performance?, Keith W. Thiede, Jonathan L. Brendefur, Richard D. Osguthorpe, Michele B. Carney, Amanda Bremner, Sam Strother, Steven Oswalt, Jennifer L. Snow

Curriculum, Instruction, and Foundational Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

In two studies, we examined the effect of professional development to improve mathematics instruction on the accuracy of teachers' monitoring of student learning. Study 1 was conducted with 36 teachers participating in three years of professional development. Judgment accuracy was influenced by the fidelity with which what was learned in the professional development. Study 2 was conducted with 64 teachers from 8 schools, which were randomly assigned to receive professional development or serve as a control. Judgment accuracy was greater for teachers receiving professional development than for teachers who did not and teachers were better to predict students' computational skills.

Evolution Of A First-Year Engineering Course, Noah Salzman, Janet Callahan, Gary Leroy Hunt, Carol Sevier, Amy J. Moll

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

The first-year engineering course at Boise State University has evolved significantly over the past decade as a result of continuous improvement with a particular focus on student retention. The course was originally created in 1999-2001 as an “Introduction to Engineering” course in order to recruit students to one of the fields of engineering, by introducing those fields of engineering as topics across the semester. Over the first ten years, the course continued that introductory-to-field focus while also introducing a significant design element solving openended engineering problems. As a result of a five-year grant aimed toward improving first-year retention, the first-year …

Student Perceptions Of Online Learning: An Analysis Of Online Course Evaluations, Patrick Lowenthal, Christine Bauer, Ken-Zen Chen

Educational Technology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Student evaluations of teaching provide a wealth of information about students’ experiences in higher education. Colleges and universities, though, as a whole, need to spend more time mining these evaluations to better understand student perceptions of their college coursework. These evaluations are especially helpful to better understand students’ experiences in online courses, which, despite continued growth, are still relatively new for most faculty and students. The analysis of seven years of student evaluations at a metropolitan research university is presented in the following article. The purpose of the analysis was to better discern students’ experiences online as well as to …

Youth Peers Put The “Invent” Into Nutribee’S Online Intervention, Ingrid C. Kohlstadt, Elizabeth T. Anderson Steeves, Kerry Rice, Joel Gittelsohn, Liane M. Summerfield, Preety Gadhoke

Educational Technology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Background: Early adolescents perceive peers as credible and relatable. Peers therefore have a unique conduit to engage early adolescents in positive health behaviors through nutrition learning such as that recommended by the U.S. Institute of Medicine (IOM).

Purpose: We developed an online, peer leader component to an existing in-person preventive nutrition intervention called NutriBee. We reasoned that youth ages 13–18 could create intervention materials that could remain engaging, credible and relatable to younger peers ages 10–12 online. Peer leaders could potentially derive health benefits from their service-learning experience.

Methods: From 2013–2014 youth could apply online to relate a personal interest …

Faculty Perceptions Of The Adoption And Use Of Clickers In The Legal Studies In Business Classroom, Denise M. Farag, Susan Park, Gundars Kaupins

Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

The use of clickers in the classroom can improve student engagement and motivation. However, few studies have been conducted on faculty opinions of the use of clickers. This paper measures clicker use amongst legal studies in business faculty and investigates perceptions and factors associated with adoption of clickers in the discipline. Survey results indicate that most legal studies in business faculty have either never or rarely use clickers, and very few faculty members in the discipline use clickers regularly. Instructors perceive clickers to improve teaching, but may be reluctant to adopt them because of time constraints.

Intercultural Ambassadors: Foreign Students’ Conflict And Expectations Revisited, Luz Elena Cortes

College of Social Sciences and Public Affairs Presentations

The recent increase of foreign students in higher education conflicts with resource budgeting and priorities. Universities are compelled to implement diverse strategies to keep them solvent. Interestingly, one of the responses to increase revenues is to recruit out-of-state students especially international students for higher tuition returns additionally, universities posit internationalization as a necessary component to becoming a “metropolitan research university of distinction” (Task Force 2006, 1). The goal is to elevate its standing in the global market of higher education. However, these efforts compromise the education of foreign students and how thesestudents are taught. By recruiting foreign students, universities transfer …

Increasing Rural Special Education Teacher Candidates' Ability To Implement Evidence-Based Practices: A Program Description Of The Boise State University Taters Program, Evelyn S. Johnson

Early and Special Education Faculty Publications and Presentations

The Technology Accentuated Teacher Education for Rural Specialists (TATERS) program aimed to: (a) prepare highly qualified special education teachers across a state comprised of more than 70% rural districts, (b) develop a system of support through a mentor network and institutions of higher education collaboration to address the needs of teacher candidates in rural areas, (c) ground special education teachers in the use of evidence-based practices to improve the instructional services that students with disabilities in Idaho receive, and (d) develop a mechanism to evaluate and provide feedback on teacher candidates' implementation of evidence-based practices. This article describes the application …

“We Do More Than Discuss Good Ideas”: A Close Look At The Development Of Professional Capital In An Elementary Education Liaison Group, Jennifer L. Snow, Susan D. Martin, Sherry Dismuke

Curriculum, Instruction, and Foundational Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

In an era when many news media, policy makers, and professionals in the field may consider teacher education "under attack," teacher education programs are being held accountable for increased rigor (Council of Chief of State School Officers, 2012). Teacher educators are in a unique position to examine more closely specific practices and teacher education as a profession to enhance program quality and candidate outcomes. Toward that end, we focused on work within a community of practice (Wenger, 1998) for this inquiry. Faculty who work in elementary school settings at least one day per week, serving as liaisons to partner schools …

Expect The Unexpected When Teaching Probability, Karen Koellner, Mary Pittman, Jonathan L. Brendefur

Curriculum, Instruction, and Foundational Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

Probability has recently made its way into many textbook series and standards documents (NCTM, 2000; NGA, 2010). When students engage in probability problem solving many unexpected situations can arise due to the counterintuitive nature of probability concepts. These situations can be difficult for students and challenging for teachers to analyse during teaching. Recently, as facilitators of a Mathematics Science Partnership grant workshop on probability, we had the opportunity to engage middle school teachers in professional development workshops as well as in their classrooms. In this article, we discuss a rich probability task used with these teachers along with two scenarios …

Online Graduate Students’ Preferences Of Discussion Modality: Does Gender Matter?, Yu-Hui Ching, Yu-Chang Hsu

Educational Technology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Audio/video discussion has been used increasingly in online courses due to its affordances in enhancing online communication. However, whether learners of different characteristics can benefit from this discussion modality has not been investigated extensively. This study examined whether gender plays a role in learners’ preferences and perceptions of audio/video discussion as compared to text discussion. The survey data of thirty-six participants’ perceptions were collected and studied after they participated in an audio/video discussion activity. The findings show that females preferred audio/video discussion more than males did, and more females reported that audio/video discussion strengthened their connection with peers. The top …

Hope, Rage And Inequality: A Critical Humanist Inclusive Education, Kevin Magill, Arturo Rodriguez

Literacy, Language, and Culture Faculty Publications and Presentations

In this paper we examine challenges faced by students of color in an intervention program [Opportunity] in a socially stratified community on California’s Central Coast. The purpose of this paper is to name and discuss the problems students face: lack of support from the teaching community, the school staff and the administration of the parent district. We further identify challenges experienced by students and their teachers while highlighting strengths and weaknesses of educational programs and their reciprocal effects on participants. Finally, we seek to share a narrative overview of a teacher’s experience in creating the conditions for an inclusive education.

A Glimpse Into Secondary Students’ Understanding Of Functions, Jonathan L. Brendefur, Gwyneth Hughes, Robert Ely

Curriculum, Instruction, and Foundational Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

In this article we examine how secondary school students think about functional relationships. More specifically, we examined seven students’ intuitive knowledge in regards to representing two real-world situations with functions. We found students do not tend to represent functional relationships with coordinate graphs even though they are able to do so. Instead, these students tend to represent the physical characteristics of the situation. In addition, we discovered that middleschool students had sophisticated ideas of dependency and covariance. All the students were able to use their models of the situation to generalize and make predictions. These findings suggest that secondary students …

Applying The Cacao Change Model To Promote Systemic Transformation In Stem, Anthony Marker, Patricia Pyke, Sarah Ritter, Karen Viskupic, Amy Moll, R. Eric Landrum, Tony Roark, Susan Shadle

Organizational Performance and Workplace Learning Faculty Publications and Presentations

Since its inception in the Middle Ages, the university classroom can be characterized by students gathered around a sage who imparts his or her knowledge. However, the effective classroom of today looks vastly different: First-year engineering students not only learn basic engineering principles, but are also guided to consider their own inner values and motivations as they design and build adaptive devices for people with disabilities; students in a large chemistry lecture work animatedly together in small groups on inquiry-based activities while an instructor and teaching assistants circulate and guide their learning; students learning differential equations practice explicit metacognitive skills …

Data Mining In Online Professional Development Program Evaluation: An Exploratory Case Study, Kerry Rice, Jui-Long Hung

Educational Technology Faculty Publications and Presentations

This case study explored the potential applications of data mining in the educational program evaluation of online professional development workshops for pre K-12 teachers. Multiple data mining analyses were implemented in combination with traditional evaluation instruments and student outcomes to determine learner engagement and more clearly understand the relationship between logged activities and learner experiences. Data analysis focused on the following aspects: 1) Shared learning characteristics, 2) frequent learning paths, 3) engagement prediction, 4) expectation prediction, 5) workshop satisfaction prediction, and 6) instructor quality prediction. Results indicated that interaction and engagement were important factors in learning outcomes for this workshop. …

Are They Simply Interested? An Exploration Of Engineering Students' Most Favorite Classes, Dazhi Yang, Louis S. Nadelson, Kimberly Hardy

Educational Technology Faculty Publications and Presentations

This work in progress explores how instructional strategies and technology use were related to engineering students' affinity toward a class. Instructional strategies, such as contextual problem-based learning and teamwork, can increase student interest in a topic. Additionally using different technological tools affects student interest and learning. However, instructors can be challenged to encourage and maintain student interest, which makes this study worthwhile to pursue. To our knowledge, there is a dearth of engineering education research exploring the relationship between instructional technology, instructional strategies, and engineering students' course favoritism. This study aims to fill this gap by identifying effective instructional strategies …

Boise State's Journey To A K-12 Online Teaching Endorsement Program, Dazhi Yang, Kerry Rice

Educational Technology Faculty Publications and Presentations

The key to successful K-12 online learning may rely more on the quality of instruction than the medium used to deliver that instruction (Rice, 2012). The quality of online instruction and teachers' professional development concerning teaching online remains a critical issue, as well as a challenge, in the field of K-12 online teaching (Fisk, 2011). Higher education institutions are beginning to address this issue by providing teachers with K-12 online teaching certificate or endorsement programs. Boise State University (BSU) is one such institution.