Education Commons^™

Agricultural Communications Practitioners’ Perspectives On Skills And Competencies Graduates Need To Be Career Ready: A Mixed Methods Study With Implications For Undergraduate Programs, Elizabeth Wyss, Adam Cletzer

Journal of Applied Communications

Agricultural communications (ACOM) programs contend with continuous disruptive change caused by changing audiences, media technologies, and communications objectives. To keep curricula current, ACOM programs often turn to ACOM practitioners for guidance on how to prepare graduates. This explanatory sequential mixed methods study investigated ACOM practitioners in Missouri's perspectives on which skills and competencies were important for career readiness, as well as why they were important and under what circumstances. “Writing” and “reporting” skill categories were deemed most important. The qualitative follow-up strand revealed several clarifying themes. First, foundational skills, such as writing and reporting, are important because they are often …

On Grand-Mentors And Great-Grand-Mentors: Reflecting On Graduate Program Support For A Multigenerational Mentorship Model, Mackenzie Dm Whipps, Julia Honoroff, Hope Salvador, Hirokazu Yoshikawa, Edward Seidman

Health Behavior Research

Doctoral programs often reflect a formal mentoring project wherein an advisor closely guides a junior scholar through degree completion. But the primary mentor-mentee relationship is only one of many relationships that blossoms during this time. ‘Mosaic’ mentorship models are becoming more common, leading to better outcomes for junior scholars. In this commentary, we reflect on one type of mosaic mentorship model wherein multiple ‘generations’ mentor more junior scholars (and mentor those who are doing the mentoring, too). The authors are five links in this continuing mentorship chain. Together we reflect on what made this style of mentorship a unique and …

History And Development Of University Doctoral Academical Dress In Aotearoa (New Zealand), Scott Pilkington

Transactions of the Burgon Society

In 2018 it was announced that Auckland University of Technology (AUT) would join the other seven universities in Aotearoa (New Zealand) in offering a higher doctorate qualification. As part of this process it became apparent that new academical dress would need to be designed and created. Working in the university’s Graduate Research School gave me an opportunity to provide input, and as a result, I designed a new set of academic dress for these qualifications in conjunction with the university’s official robemaker, Paul Fielder (FBS).

This provided a prompt to examine what academical dress exists for existing AUT doctorates – …

Educating And Advocating: A Professional Responsibility For School Leaders And School Counselors, Jessica Lane, Donna Augustine-Shaw, Melanie Scott

The Advocate

While educators are tasked with many competing professional responsibilities, it is necessary that the focus of advocacy for student well-being stay at the forefront. In particular, for school counselors and school leaders, advocating has never been more important. This article will highlight the role of advocacy found within the professional standards for school counselors and school leaders, and shine light on the need to advocate for social-emotional learning.

Mentee Perceptions Of Public School Superintendent Mentorship In A Rural, Midwest State, Erin Lehmann, Dave Olson, Dan Leikvold, David De Jong, Kristine Reed

Online Journal of Rural Research & Policy

Superintendent formal mentorship programs have traditionally relied on geographic proximity and mentor availability to pair new superintendents with mentors. This study examines which mentor characteristics contribute to mentee satisfaction with the formal mentorship program. This study used a quantitative research design in which participants completed a survey used to compare mentor characteristics to mentee satisfaction with the program. 73 (49.6%) superintendents participated in the study, of which 19 had participated in a formal mentorship program. The overall research results suggest that two mentor characteristics, Leadership/Disposition Qualities and Mentor Availability had a significant positive relationship to mentee satisfaction with the formal …

Virtual Tools Show Promise For Moving The Needle On Culturally And Linguistically Diverse Family Engagement, Tamra Mitchell, Socorro Herrera

The Advocate

The school building closures of spring 2020 fundamentally disrupted education in Kansas, but out of this disruption emerged the need and opportunity for schools and educators to be creative and innovative. At a time when every parent in our state was either employed as an essential worker and working longer hours, trying to work from home, or trying to navigate the loss of their job, they were also trying to support their children with continuous learning. This required Kansas schools to think differently and try new strategies for truly engaging families. One promising innovation that many schools piloted was to …

Implementing Personal Devices In Math, Jamie W. Mcdaniel

Networks: An Online Journal for Teacher Research

This study examined the effect of implementing personal devices into a fifth grade mathematics classroom. Thirty-eight fifth graders participated in this eight-week project with a focus on six students to track their growth. During the study, students engaged in technology based stations that pertained to our geometry unit and coordinate unit. Students took pre and post test on paper to track progress. In addition, students completed online assessments within their practice websites and apps to track comprehension and growth of the content. Furthermore, students were interviewed to ensure they were staying engaged in the online activities and to track student …

Losing As And Fs: What Works For Schools Implementing Standards-Based Grading?, Matt Townsley, Tom Buckmiller

Educational Considerations

Learning goals such as the Common Core State Standards are helping educational leaders to better understand the critical role assessment and grading plays in the teaching and learning process. In response to the growing body of empirical research on the topic of accurate grading practices, a number of schools are moving away from letter grades and adopting standards-based grading which separately report learning goals from work habits. The purpose of this essay is to document what works when K-12 schools implement standards-based grading through a deep dive into related literature and to suggest areas for future consideration. With this improvement …

The Importance Of Planning Intellectually Challenging Tasks, Ali Althuwaybi

Educational Considerations

Since the emergence of the 21st century, advances in information, communication, and technology are changing teaching and learning in numerous ways. Today, teachers are essential for this momentum shift. The identification and design of appropriate and effective instructional tasks and applying them in the classroom will affect teaching and learning. However, this goes beyond offering curriculum and teaching materials to educators. Teachers should be able to stimulate passive curriculum materials and transform them into intriguing instructional tasks if they can specify resources, processes, and outcomes. Current literature underscores the need to support teachers in engaging in operational planning activities that …

Collaborative Autonomy: Exploring The Professional Freedom Of Three Science Teachers, Michael Ralph, Darian Robbins, Stephen Young, Laurence Woodruff

Educational Considerations

Education reform efforts must support and protect professional autonomy for classroom teachers. When policymakers attempt to make systemic change in ways that reduce the professional autonomy of educators, student learning suffers. Teachers need the freedom to identify their professional goals, seek resources and collaboration opportunities in pursuit of those goals, and act on feedback regarding their progress in meeting those goals. We present three stories from teachers who share a department engaged in collaborative autonomy. These accounts provide guidance for how professional autonomy can be defended by those pursuing systemic change.

Kansans Can: Redesigning Schools, Brad Neuenswander

Educational Considerations

Kansas, like many states that are coming off of an era of accountability under the federal No Child Left Behind requirements, is looking at more meaningful ways to value and measure student success. We have asked ourselves questions such as: are we focusing on the right measures; is our accountability system aligned to our educational priorities and values; or is it the educational system itself that needs to change in order to produce a more meaningful set of outcomes? These are questions that need answers before any educational reform initiatives can be addressed. The Kansas State Department of Education leadership, …

Redesign: A Case Study Of Change In A Kansas School District, Fred Van Ranken, Lori Goodson

Educational Considerations

USD 240 Twin Valley School District, consisting of Bennington Grade School and Bennington Junior High/High School in Bennington and Tescott Grade School and Tescott Junior High/High School, was one of seven districts initially selected in August 2017 as part of the first cohort of Kansas State Department of Education's Kansas Can School Redesign Project. This article shares the journey, told by the superintendent and a researcher, of USD 240 as part of the ongoing program which now involves multiple cohorts of districts developing their own pathways toward improvement.

A Case Study Of Teacher Turnover And Retention In An Urban Elementary School, Barry Kamrath, Kim Bradford

Educational Considerations

This mixed methods study examined the phenomenon of teacher turnover in one high poverty urban elementary school to determine common characteristics of teachers who remained long-term (> 5 years), as well as factors that contributed to teachers’ decisions to leave before reaching their sixth year. The study included structured interviews with long-term teachers and surveys of short-term teachers. Qualitative data were analyzed through constant-comparative analysis to determine emergent themes; whereas, quantitative data provided triangulation of interview data as well as the formalizing of comparisons. Long-term teachers had built deep connections to the school, its students, and the community, despite the …

Our Moonshot: Dighton Public Schools, Kelly Arnberger

Educational Considerations

“Through redesign you have the opportunity do whatever you choose to do to make your school reflect the needs and desires of your community. I believe our public-school teachers can do the great things we keep hearing private and charter schools do if we would just let them.” Randy Watson said something to that effect at Dighton in January, 2017. We would now have permission to make our school reflect the true mission, vision, and values of our community without constraint. Sounds great! At least many of us in attendance listening to Dr. Watson that day thought so. We chose …

College Access For Undocumented Students And Law, Jessica C. Enyioha

Educational Considerations

There are over 32 million undocumented immigrants in the United States and of this population, over 1.5 million are children (Palmer & Davidson, 2011). These children grow up in the US, achieve primary and secondary education, and when they are ready to pursue postsecondary education, it becomes harder for them to achieve. In this paper, undocumented students’ access to postsecondary education in the US is examined: laws that affect their access to postsecondary education, previous cases on access to education for undocumented students, and the difficulties undocumented students often encounter when pursuing postsecondary education are discussed and analyzed. Best practices …

Conforming To The Established Standards: American Degree Colours (1936–1961), Kenny Suit

Transactions of the Burgon Society

No abstract provided.

Living With The Liminal: Unwieldy Unknowns Of Facilitating An Urban Education Cohort Of Student Teachers, G. Sue Kasun

Pedagogy & (Im)Possibilities across Education Research (PIPER)

The field of education research often overlooks the importance of supervision of the student teaching experience. In this article, I show how as a doctoral student with a focus on education for social justice, I struggled in that role of student teacher supervisor. Despite the students being enrolled in an “urban education” cohort, I felt my positioning was very liminal and perhaps counter-productive to the goal of social justice. I provide reflections and concrete examples of how racism manifested in classrooms and how the student teachers with whom I worked did and did not disrupt it, and how I often …

Impacts Of Neoliberal Managerial Practices On Faculty Engagement In Student Learning Assessment, Christopher Urban

Prairie Journal of Educational Research

Faculty perceptions of student learning assessment were examined in the context of neoliberal trends in higher education in this exploratory survey study. For this preliminary study, a small department consisting of sixteen faculty members was surveyed. Responding faculty rated themselves as highly engaged in assessment, and rated course uses of assessment as more important than institutional uses of assessment. Faculty perceived administrators as placing more importance on institutional uses over course uses, though the gap between administrators and faculty was less in course uses than in institutional uses. Faculty ratings of neoliberal manifestations at their institution varied considerably, with a …