Education Commons^™

Affordable Learning Kentucky: Strategies For Affordability And Success, Kelly Smith, Cristen Ross, Lori Werth, Ilona Burdette

EKU Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Kentucky Virtual Library’s Affordable Learning Steering Committee, an initiative of the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education (CPE), is a working group of librarians from universities around Kentucky exploring ways to advance Kentucky in the Open Educational Resource (OER) / Affordable Textbook movement.

The panel presentation included an overview of their work to date and a discussion with the audience about Kentucky’s needs and strategies related to affordable courseware for students on topics including working with campus bookstores, adding course resources to library collections, using e-reserves dynamically, promoting faculty use and creation of open content, and campus textbook initiatives.

Panelists included …

Alien Babies And Angelina Jolie: Evaluating Sources Using Tabloids With A Taste Of News Literacy, Ashley Cole, Heather K. Beirne

EKU Faculty and Staff Scholarship

This lesson plan/activity is meant to demonstrate the concepts of authorship and authority to first-year writing students. Students will use their prior knowledge and everyday experiences with subpar information and/or misinformation to draw parallels between evaluating academic, news, and popular sources.

A Storied Tale: Melding Digital Storytelling, Service-Learning, And Digital And Information Literacy Skills For Pre-Service Teachers, Heather K. Beirne

EKU Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Today’s teachers, a diverse body of individuals with a variety of technological backgrounds and skill sets, often find themselves working from a “digital immigrant” perspective. Even pre-service teachers, who may be classified as digital natives, report “strong positive beliefs in technology, yet moderate confidence and reserved attitude in using technology” (Lei, 2009); Lei reports that, though they are often viewed as “innovative users of available technology and eager adopters of new technology,” pre-service teachers are also not utilizing digital technology to its fullest advantage, self-report that they do not feel comfortable with or proficient at the use of higher level …

It's About Communities: The Commitment To Promoting A Culturally Competent Environmental Health Workforce, Clint Pinion Jr., Leslie D. Mitchell, Jason W. Marion

EKU Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Environmental health and public health are profoundly local. The Association of Environmental Health Academic Programs (AEHAP) firmly agrees and for this reason, it is important to have local environmental health experts who know the pulse of their communities. AEHAP believes in supporting the advanced scientific education of environmental health in these communities through people from these communities. Accordingly, AEHAP has sought to promote and support accredited environmental health programs among a diverse cross-section of the U.S. higher education landscape. AEHAP’s students are diverse in many ways, including socioeconomically, racially, ethnically, and culturally. The value of this approach enhances the overall …

The Librarians’ Guide To The Information Literacy Galaxy: Leading Campus Conversations, Sarah Richardson, Heather K. Beirne, Ashley J. Cole, Trenia Napier

EKU Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Sarah Richardson (Business Library Team Leader), Heather Beirne (Reference and Instruction Librarian), Ashley Cole (Reference and Instruction Librarian) and Trenia Napier (Associate Director, Programs & Outreach - Noel Studio for Academic Creativity) @ Eastern Kentucky University Situating librarians as information literacy experts and leaders in pedagogical best practices, presenters led a professional learning community (PLC) to create purposeful campus-wide conversations centered around the ACRL Framework and its place in teaching and learning. PLC faculty participants from across campus partnered with liaison librarians to create new and innovative approaches to developing discipline-specific information …

A Collaborative, Trilateral Approach To Bridging The Information Literacy Gap In Student Writing, Trenia Napier, Jill M. Parrott, Erin Presley, Leslie A. Valley

EKU Faculty and Staff Scholarship

As localized assessments confirm national findings that undergraduates struggle to integrate resources into research-based compositions effectively, data at one comprehensive public university indicate library sessions improve students’ ability to locate and evaluate information, but students continue to struggle with the “use” component of information literacy. This article presents a trilateral case study among librarians, faculty, and writing center administrators, emphasizing the intersection of programmatic partnerships, assessment, and pedagogical best practices. Our research shows a trilateral approach to information literacy increases efficacy and a sense of shared responsibility in support of student research where traditional bilateral approaches fall short.

Not Without A Fight-Final Draft 14 June 2018, Richard E. Day

EKU Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Public schooling for the children of the Cumberland Plateau in Southeastern Kentucky had historically lagged far behind the rest of the Commonwealth. Despite being surrounded by rich resources, poverty among the citizens reigned throughout the Appalachian region as proper facilities and qualified teachers were had to come by. Differences between poor country schools and their gleaming counterparts in the city were long noted but little was done to provide equity for rural students. It took a nine-year political fight and a Kentucky Supreme Court decision to reverse these conditions. This chapter chronicles the political battle which pitted a small group …

Serving Lgbtqia Students On College Campuses, Clint Pinion Jr.

EKU Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Questioning, and Transgender (LGBTQ) individuals comprise one to ten percent of student populations on campuses across the United States (Chopez and Chism, 1993). Research indicates that LGBTQ students, staff, and faculty face unique challenges during their tenure on college campuses, such as microaggressions from other students and faculty. More often than not, LGBTQ students withdraw from college due to micro and macroassaults (Pitcher et al., 2016).

College faculty and staff are often unaware of a student’s sexual orientation unless the student chooses to disclose. Quiet often, LGBTQ students closet themselves and outwardly display socially accepted heterosexual behaviors …

Re-Designing A Practice Test Into A Game, Hung-Tao Chen, Michael Lee

EKU Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Practice testing is an effective learning strategy, but it can lead to increased test anxiety and often has low voluntary participation rate. This paper describes a case study on the effects of a re-designed practice test using game-like elements. The results indicate that the gamified practice test had a high student participation rate and showed improved test performance.

Mind Mapping: A Technique For Metacognition, Charlie Sweet, Hal Blythe, Rusty Carpenter

EKU Faculty and Staff Scholarship

The Provost at Eastern Kentucky University invited Saundra McGuire to speak on metacognition as part of our University’s Provost’s Professional Development Speaker Series. Our unit was tasked with designing related programming both before and after McGuire’s visit. Our aim was to provide a series of effective workshops that prepared the ground for our university’s Quality Enhancement Plan 2.0 on metacognition as a cross-disciplinary tool for cultivating reading skills. The following mind mapping exercise from one of four workshops was taught to over 50 faculty from across campus and the academic ranks. Feedback rated its popularity high and suggested its appropriateness …

Barrier To Learning: Why We Can No Longer Afford High Textbook Prices, Victoria Koger, Linda Sizemore

EKU Faculty and Staff Scholarship

The prohibitive costs of textbooks are affecting student success. We will start the session with an activity, then gauge audience experience on the issue before reviewing current research. The presenters will provide strategies on what libraries can and cannot do and facilitate discussion of proposed solutions and concerns about OER sources.

Improving Student Effort On A Learning Outcome Assessment: Benchmarks, Options, And Results, Michael T. Roberson, Thomas Erekson

EKU Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Mission-driven accreditation standards were established by AACSB in 2003 and updated in 2013, and these standards required accredited business and accounting programs to establish and assess student learning outcomes. This approach was a major change for AACSB accreditation, so beginning in 2003 universities were given a few years to design and implement their Assurance of Learning (AoL) programs. The result has been an array of measures to assess student learning outcomes. All too often, however, the AoL programs were stand-alone efforts to comply with the standards for assessment and were not linked to meaningful continuous improvement processes.

Assessing basic business …

Site Joint Sig Symposia: A Collaboration Between The K-12 Online Learning Sig And Distance Learning Sig: How Higher Education And K-12 Online Learning Research Can Impact Each Other, Rick Ferdig, Leanna Archambault, Kerry Rice, Margaret Niess, Trisha Litz, Amy Garrett-Dikkers, Aimee Whiteside, Michael Barbour, David Marcovitz, Antoinette Davis

EKU Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Facilitated by Rick Ferdig of Kent State University and editor of JTATE, this Symposia brings together the work of the K-12 Online Learning SIG and the Distance Learning SIG communities and focuses on presentations from scholars in the field whose work has implications for both higher education and K-12 online learning. This Symposia will have nine panelists who will each present their work and then talk specifically about how their work can inform both K-12 and HE. Included in the list of Higher Education-focused panelists are Trisha Litz of Regis University, Maggie Niess of Oregon State University, Antoinette Davis of …

Turning Teachers Into Action Researchers In Their Classrooms, Dusty Embury Columbia, Laura S. Clarke

EKU Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Action research is often called the teacher’s research and often feels like a common sense approach to solving problems, but not all pre-service teachers begin careers knowing how to use this methodology to improve their own practice. This article offers a rationale for teaching pre-service teachers the skills and action research methodology as a tool for professional improvement based on the experiences of the authors engaging in a reflective process for teaching. While not generalizable, it is hoped that lessons learned may be applied by other faculty in teacher education programs.

Turning Teachers Into Action Researchers In Their Classrooms, Dusty Columbia Embury, Laura S. Clarke

EKU Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Action research is often called the teacher’s research and often feels like a common sense approach to solving problems, but not all pre-service teachers begin careers knowing how to use this methodology to improve their own practice. This article offers a rationale for teaching pre-service teachers the skills and action research methodology as a tool for professional improvement based on the experiences of the authors engaging in a reflective process for teaching. While not generalizable, it is hoped that lessons learned may be applied by other faculty in teacher education programs.

Project-Based Science Instruction For General-Education Undergraduates And Seventh Graders: Practices, Proficiency, And Pitfalls, Walter S. Borowski, Malcolm P. Frisbie

EKU Faculty and Staff Scholarship

For three semesters we conducted a general-education course designed for both undergraduates and seventh-graders in which students investigated contaminant sources and water quality of a local stream. The middle school students attend a local, county school that draws its students from disadvantaged areas of the town of Richmond, Kentucky. Undergraduates were general-education honors students with little predilection toward science. The instructors guided undergraduates through the project, and our honors students then mentored the middle-schoolers in their scientific endeavors.

Both sets of students serially investigated the chemical and biological properties of a typical upland stream (Tates Creek, Madison County, Kentucky) impacted …

Student Perceptions Of Scholarly Writing, Shirley P. O'Brien, Dory Marken, Kelsey B. Petrey

EKU Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Learning the process of scholarly writing, including the significance of peer review, is an essential element in the preparation of students for professional practice. This descriptive research study, using Scholarship of Teaching and Learning methodology, explores one approach to teaching scholarly writing in an occupational science/occupational therapy curriculum. The writing assignment was designed to offer multiple points for feedback and revision and instructional features to reinforce learning. A survey of students [n = 169] participating in this scholarly writing project was conducted yearly to gather their perceptions of learning. The results revealed four key elements: instructional strategies are needed …

Faculty-Librarian Collaboration: Applying Metacognitive Pedagogy To The Research Process, Heather K. Beirne, Nicole Montgomery

EKU Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Metacognition is a current buzzword in higher education. But what does it mean for the research process? Presenters and attendees will brainstorm together to come up with good, better and best concrete strategies for collaboration between subject faculty and librarians to integrate metacognition into research instruction.

Inattention, Distraction, And Dysfunction - Modern Challenges For Business Education And Practice, Michael T. Roberson, Beth Polin

EKU Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Students of every generation have faced factors that limited the amount of time available for study based on responsibilities such as family and jobs. There were also potential distractions that challenged students’ willpower to focus on academic activities instead of other completely discretionary uses of their time. The choice was between activities that provided immediate gratification versus academic activities that would yield a far greater payoff over the long run.

The last decade has seen a significant array of new temptations in the form of smart phones and other personal technologies that are powerful, portable, and pervasive. While these technologies …

Using Constructivism As An Alternative To Teacher-Centered Instruction, Jacquelyn W. Jensen, Helyne I. Frederick

EKU Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Constructivism is the idea that learners “actively try to organize and make sense” of information (Ormrod, 2012, p. 154). To do so, students “must individually discover and transform complex information” (Slavin, 2012, p. 218). Students compare new information with what they already know, and revise their understanding. Active learning is a focus of the constructivist classroom, so the instruction is most often student-centered. Students construct their knowledge instead of soaking up or only record information (Eggen & Kauchak, 2013). This means that teachers help students to make sense of new information rather than merely lecturing or controlling all of the …

Fostering Campus Diversity And Advancing The Internationalization Of Education On College And University Campuses, Sherwood Thompson, Timothy Forde

EKU Faculty and Staff Scholarship

This paper discusses the challenges that institutions of higher education face in educating and preparing students to work and live in an increasingly diverse global population. This concept-oriented discussion does not intend to provide detailed theoretical or experimental development and analysis. Instead, this paper presents an innovative paradigm that attempts to embrace many nuances associated with the terms diversity and globalization in the literature. The paper posits the internationalization of education as a strategy that can help universities demonstrate their commitment to educating students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. Other strategies include targeted recruiting of highly competent international faculty …

Promote Interculturalism, Leadership Communication, And Professionalism In Your Students: Success With A Corporate Communication Certificate, Lana W. Carnes, M. M. Robles, F. Awang

EKU Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Business educators share a common interest in encouraging their students to improve intercultural, leadership communication, and professionalism skills to enable and promote increased fulfillment, character development, and advancement toward graduation, in addition to improving student employability after graduation. While career success depends on the standards and knowledge of character and behavioral traits, much more than on technical knowledge, these attributes define the qualities desired across various professions (Barnhart, 2013) in these three areas. For example, Holmes (2015) found that the values and communication rules of discourse systems may be different from that which is expected in the international workplace.

A …

Learning Benefits Of A Translation Corpus For Novice Asl-English Interpreters, Daniel R. Roush

EKU Faculty and Staff Scholarship

A preliminary review of the literature reveals that Corpus-Based Translation Studies (CTS) is an established area of research/methodology (Kruger, et al, 2011). Corpus-Based Interpreting Studies (CIS) is still emerging (Setton, 2011). Studies within CTS point to positive benefits of using translation corpora in translator education (Beeby, 2009, among others). In CIS, there are few studies that examine the use of corpora in spoken language interpreter education (Tohyama, et al., 2006). The use of corpora in signed language interpreter education appears to be unexplored.

Library Resource Usage And Student Success At Eastern Kentucky University, Kelly Smith, Jens Arneson, Matthew Irvin, Kwan Yi

EKU Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Library impact studies at many universities have indicated a correlation between library resource usage and student success; for example, the University of Wollongong, the University of Minnesota, Murray State University, the University of Huddersfield, and York University have all found that increased library usage correlates with student success, and that students who do not use the library at all have significantly lower outcomes. To add to this growing body of evidence, Eastern Kentucky University Libraries analyzed undergraduate usage of online library resources and found a similar effect: on average, EKU students who logged in to access the Libraries’ online resources …

Embracing Change: Adapting And Evolving Your Distance Learning Library Services To Embrace The New Acrl Distance Learning Library Services Standards, Heather K. Beirne, Sarah Richardson, Brad Marcum, Karen Gilbert

EKU Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Distance learning continues to grow by leaps and bounds and almost all academic libraries are struggling to evolve and adapt to offer quality equivalent services and resources to their distance students. This interactive presentation will offer participants an in-depth analysis of the new ACRL Distance Learning Library Services Standards, offer forecasts regarding the future of distance learning, and will draw distinctions between the previous 2008 Standards for Distance Learning Library Services and the new standards. Practical advice on how to update distance learning library services to meet the new standards will be offered, and participants are encouraged to bring their …

Project-Based Science For General Education College Students And Seventh Graders: Pitfalls And Pointers, Walter S. Borowski, Malcolm P. Frisbie, Tara Shepperson, Linda Frost

EKU Faculty and Staff Scholarship

We teach a general-education science course for honors students, who in turn mentor disadvantaged seventh graders through a water quality investigation of a local stream. Activities for both groups involve all aspects of a scientific project: scientific background, local context, project design, data collection and analysis, and communication of scientific results. On successive weeks, we first lead our college students through each step in the process then the honors students mentor middle school students through those same steps. College and middle school teachers act as facilitators, and each honors student is responsible for about 6 to 8 middle schoolers. The …

Compassion Leads To The Creation Of The Backpack Program In Kentucky, Katrina Sexton, Sherwood Thompson

Educational Leadership and Policy Studies Faculty and Staff Research

Children all over the United States currently endure food insecurity, which presents significant issues for their academic performance and general quality of life. This paper examines how the generosity of compassionate individuals and agencies helps to improve the wellbeing and self-motivation of students who go without food. To this end, we review the literature on compassion, particularly how it is theoretically described by positive organizational scholarship (POS). We also review some of the major programs and agencies that have arisen in recent decades to counter the problem of food insecurity and its related concerns—programs such as the Backpack Food program, …

Whose Standards Are These? A Chronological Glossary Of Standards In P-12 Education, Richard E. Day

EKU Faculty and Staff Scholarship

The elementary and secondary education system was created in the early 1900s to serve a different time when people had different needs. Although the idea of human capital is as old as education itself, the concept of college readiness was hardly a concern when access to college was limited to a relatively few privileged individuals who had the wherewithal to attend. Illiteracy was seen as the state’s educational problem. There was no concern that high school graduation rates were too low at a time when very few jobs required knowledge workers.

Whose Standards Are These? A Chronological Glossary Of Standards In P-12 Education, Richard E. Day

EKU Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Whose Standards Are These? A Brief Historical Timeline of the Development of the Common Core State Standards with References to Next General Science Standards, and the C3 Framework for Social Studies.

Creating Culturally Considerate Schools: Educating Without Bias, Samuel Hinton

Curriculum and Instruction Faculty and Staff Scholarship

This book review first discusses the book’s major content divisions and follows with a general analysis of concepts. The book is structured into phases of equity development namely, selfexamination, reflection, integration, actualization, and educational equity (p. 12). The phases are further subdivided into eight manageable steps of personal and professional growth that would empower teachers to operate in culturally considerate classrooms, galvanized by school climates and cultures that support individual and collective student achievement. The eight stages of personal and professional growth are: acknowledgement of bias, assessment of current equity skills, acceptance of limitations, cognitive restructuring, expanding knowledge base, skill …