Education Commons^™

“Mi Conciencia Habla Inglés, Aunque Yo No Quiera”: Unearthing Sociopolitical Wisdom Through Translingual Poetry, Rachel Snyder Bhansari, Grace Gonzales, Patricia Venegas-Weber

Curriculum and Instruction Faculty Publications and Presentations

In this study, we examine translingual identity poems written by three focal Latinx Teacher Candidates (TCs) in response to assignments in their Teacher Education Program (TEP). To interpret the focal TCs work, we bring together theories of raciolinguicized subjectivities, translingual literacies, and sociopolitical wisdom. Through thematic analysis, we argue that the use of translingual identity poems provided opportunities for TCs to draw on their emotions as semiotic resources and assert the connections of their identities to broader histories of marginalization and resistance. We also argue that when we, as teacher educators, engaged in the work of reflexively reading the poems …

Learning With Place As A Catalyst For Action, Catherine Hamm, Jeanne Marie Iorio, Jayson Cooper, Kylie Smith, Peter Crowcroft, Angela Molloy Murphy, William A. Parnell, Nicola Yelland

Curriculum and Instruction Faculty Publications and Presentations

In response to dominant discourses of quality and an over-reliance on humancentric practice, the Learning with Place framework emerges as an innovative way to rethink practices, structures, and policies within education and beyond. ‘Learning with Place’ views the local Place as agentic, recognizing Place as inclusive of local First Nations knowledges and stories, histories and the more-than-human (for example, landforms, waterways, animals, insects, flora, and fauna). Through ‘Learning with Place’, deep relationships with the local Place are generated and these relationships become the catalyst for actions and decision-making regarding caring for/with local Place. This article offers an example of ‘Learning …

“Why You Always So Political?”: A Counterstory About Educational-Environmental Racism At A Predominantly White University, Martín Alberto Gonzalez

Chicano/Latino Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

Using critical race counterstorytelling, I tell a story about the experiences of Mexican/Mexican American/Xicanx (MMAX) undergraduate students at private, historically and predominantly white university in the Northeast. Drawing on in-depth interviews, participant observations, pláticas, document analyses, and literature on race and space and racism in higher education, I argue that the racially hostile campus environment experienced by MMAX students at their respective university manifests itself as a form of educational-environmental racism. Through narrated dialogue, Aurora (a composite character) and I delve into a critical conversation about how educational-environmental racism is experienced by MMAX students through a racialized landscape in the …

100% Say Writing Is Important To Their Work, But What Harm Does This Uncontroversial Finding Obscure? Early Results From A Survey Of Scientists And Technical Professionals About Writing And Communication, Sarah Read

English Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper explores preliminary results from an on-going IRB-approved online survey of workers in scientific, academic, technical and industrial contexts on their attitudes about and approaches to writing in their work. The survey collects samples of language use by scientists and technical professionals when talking about writing and communication in their work and careers in order to document how conventional, or regularized and non-controversial, their language choices are (i.e., “Successful writing is clear and concise”). Coding of survey responses for the construct of the Communication Metaphor reveals a multivalent complex of tacit beliefs, assumptions and learned practices that inform and …

Oer In University Language Courses, Jenny Ceciliano

World Languages and Literatures Faculty Publications and Presentations

Open Educational Resources (OER) offer incredible advantages in language teaching and learning. Implementing an OER curriculum can result in benefits that go far beyond controlling costs for students, which is itself a significant step toward improving equity. Drawing on your own experience and expertise as language educators, as well as the contributions of collaborators around the world, it is possible to build a curriculum customized for your unique student group. With thoughtful design, your program can help students achieve desired learning outcomes not just in language acquisition, but also in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). In this talk, I will …

"Like A Family": Fostering A Sense Of Belonging In A Minority Majority University Classroom, David Peterson Del Mar, Raya Alkharroubi, Arina Borodkina, Kenyn Davila Samayoa, Daira Maldonado Ortega, Jennifer Marquez Marquez, Laihha Organna, Estefani Reyes Moreno, Han Tran, Brianna Tuy, Tony Vo

History Faculty Publications and Presentations

This Teaching Note, co-authored by nine university students and their Peer Mentor and professor, at the end of a year-long course, argues that the growing socio-cultural gap between students and faculty requires pedagogies that foster a sense of student belonging by faculty becoming "more receptive than authoritative." All of these students are from immigrant families, and most felt very anxious upon arriving at Portland State University and feared that they did not belong. Co-creating a space of mutual vulnerability enabled students to feel both cared for and confident.

Decoding The 1920s: Teaching Advanced Russian In A Literature Class, Nila Friedberg

World Languages and Literatures Faculty Publications and Presentations

Decoding the 1920s: A Reader for Advanced Learners of Russian was published by the Portland State University Open Access initiative in 2021. The 1920s is a major part of the Russian literary canon but is notoriously difficult for American students to read in the original, due both to its stylistic complexity and its hidden historical, political and cultural references. And yet, the period is crucial for understanding Russia – not only in the Soviet period, but also today. The 1920s and 1930s were the period when “The New Soviet Person” emerged, with its Soviet mentality. Recent attempts to glamorize the …

Fostering Resiliency And Care Integrating Self-Compassion Into A Graduate Course, Heather L. Burns

Educational Leadership and Policy Faculty Publications and Presentations

Self-compassion, which involves mindful awareness of feelings and offering ourselves compassion, has been shown to support balancing emotions, overcoming challenges, and achieving goals. This action research study integrated self-compassion theory and practice in a graduate course in which students wrote their final comprehensive papers in sustainability education. This study found that self-compassion practice resulted in more self-awareness, more acceptance of difficult emotions, and more ability to handle stress. Additionally, students experienced more clarity and calm in the writing process and began to integrate self-compassion into their lives and work. This study points to the promise of self-compassion as a beneficial …

Plastics, Birds, And Humans: Awakening And Quickening Ecological Minds In Young Children And Their Teachers, William A. Parnell, Julianne Cullen, Michelle A. Domingues

Education Faculty Publications and Presentations

Working with educators, artists, young children, and materials to make meaning with place affected by human environmental impacts, this study zooms in on a documentary of dying birds who’ve swallowed plastics. The birds’ habitat is an eye-opening 2,000 miles from the nearest continent and is infested with trash and plastic. The birds ingest many shiny plastic bits and slowly die. This research paper focuses in on experiences of sharing this documentary with teacher educators at an international conference, then educators in our own context, and then with early childhood artists working in reuse materials. The research captures a series of …

"We Support You... To An Extent": Identities, Intersections, And Family Support Among First-Generation Students In A School Of Social Work, Miranda Mosier

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

Family support is a critical part of college student retention. Given the strength of parental educational attainment in predicting access and persistence among college students (Choy, 2001), some have questioned the capacity for families to support first-generation college students. Family support may be especially critical for first-generation college students, who value interdependence more highly than continuing generation students (Stephens et al., 2012). This paper centers the perspectives of first-generation students in a school of social work and their experiences of family support. Focus group conversations were analyzed using the Listening Guide/Voice-centered relational data analysis (Brown & Gilligan, 1992). My interpretations …

Fulfilling A Wish List: Creating An Oer Beginning Spanish Textbook And Curriculum, Jenny Ceciliano, Lisa Notman

World Languages and Literatures Faculty Publications and Presentations

This report discusses the experience of creating and implementing a new open educational resource (OER) first-year Spanish textbook and curriculum at Portland State University in Portland, Oregon. The project began with a long wish list of features. We hoped for a program that would be structured enough to support graduate teaching assistants with little teaching experience, but flexible enough for experienced instructors to make adjustments based on their own expertise, current events, or their unique group of students. We wanted the program to be inclusive and centered on diverse, authentic voices. We wanted to focus on topics that would be …

Teacher Preparation In The Shadow Of Loss: The Blurring Of Transacting, Transforming, And Transgressing, Anita L. Bright

Curriculum and Instruction Faculty Publications and Presentations

In this narrative, autoethnographic piece, the author contends with the constructs of transactional, transformational, and transgressive forms of educational engagement and teaching, all coming to the fore in a time of tremendous sorrow, loss, stress, and transition. Looking to critical scholars and their works for guidance, the author describes the path into and through a course with teacher candidates, taken on mid-term after the unexpected death of a close colleague.

Rewilding Language Education: Emergent Assemblages And Entangled Actions, Steven L. Thorne, John Hellermann, Teppo Jakonen

Applied Linguistics Faculty Publications and Presentations

Integrating concepts and techniques from ethnomethodology and sociomaterialism, this article investigates the observable material processes involving human action and place-based contexts of language use enabled by locative media. The focal pedagogical intervention utilized mobile augmented reality (AR) activities, the development of which was inspired by research on learning ‘in the wild.’ Applying the principle of reverse engineering, we introduce a pedagogical approach termed ‘rewilding’ for its emphasis on designing supportive conditions for goal-directed interaction outside of classrooms. Three instances of AR materials use are presented from an out-of-class activity associated with university-level language courses involving a quest-type AR game called …

Problematizing Perceptions Of Stem Potential: Differences By Cognitive Disability Status In High School And Postsecondary Educational Outcomes, Dara Shifrer, Daniel Mackin Freeman

Sociology Faculty Publications and Presentations

The STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) potential of youth with cognitive disabilities is often dismissed through problematic perceptions of STEM ability as natural and of youth with cognitive disabilities as unable. National data on more than 15,000 adolescents from the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 first suggest that, among youth with disabilities, youth with medicated attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have the highest levels of STEM achievement, and youth with learning or intellectual disabilities typically have the lowest. Undergraduates with medicated ADHD or autism appear to be more likely to major in STEM than youth without cognitive disabilities, and youth …

Use Of Chinese Herbal Medicines Is Related To A Reduction In Depression Risk Among Patients With Insomnia: A Matched Cohort Study, Yun-Wen Chiao, Hanoch Livneh, How-Ran Guo, Wei-Jen Chen, Ming-Chi Lu, Miao-Chiu Lin, Chia-Chou Yeh, Tzung-Yi Tsai

Counselor Education Faculty Publications and Presentations

Objective: Subjects with insomnia have a higher risk of depression, thus possibly making them live with serious health conditions. To date, information regarding the effect of Chinese herbal medicines (CHMs), a commonly used complementary and alternative medicine, on depression risk among people with insomnia is still unknown. This study aimed to investigate the effect of CHMs on the risk of depression among individuals with insomnia.

Methods: This cohort study used a national health insurance database to identify 68,573 subjects newly diagnosed with insomnia, aged 20–70 years, who received treatment between 1998 and 2010. Using propensity score matching, we …

Entertainment-Education Behind The Scenes: Case Studies For Theory And Practice, Lauren B. Frank, Paul Falzone

Communication Faculty Publications and Presentations

This Open Access book tracks the latest trends in the theory, research, and practice of entertainment-education, the field of communication that incorporates social change messaging into entertaining media. Sometimes called edutainment, social impact television, narrative persuasion, or cultural strategy, this approach to social and behavior change communication offers new opportunities including transmedia and digital formats. However, making media can be a chaotic process. The realities of working in the field and the rigid structures of scholarly evaluation often act as barriers to honest accounts of entertainment-education practice. In this collection of essays, experienced practitioners offer unique insight into how entertainment-education …

“Building That World”: Movements Of Vision In The Carceral Classroom, Rhiannon M. Cates, Benjamin J. Hall, James Broughton, Andrew Reeves, Faith Hocutt Ringwelski, Kathryn Zaro, Jenna Richards, Lani Roberts

Library Faculty Publications and Presentations

An article in which two teaching assistants and six students of a university course taught inside a correctional facility, "Writing as Activism," collaboratively examine their experience as co-teachers and co-learners in a humanities-based prison classroom. Fostered and framed by their instructor’s critical and transformative pedagogical approaches in this course, the authors locate integrated learning and collaborative writing within carceral classrooms as sites for intentional and resistant futures to be enacted and embodied as a practice of post-carceral world-building. The students enter their individual narratives into this location of their experience of envisioning and enacting resistant futures together in this space …

The Remote Learning Experience At Portland State University In Spring 2020, Liana Bernard, Phoebe Brown, Peter Chaille, Brenden Clenaghen, Joshua Eastin, Andrea Garrity, Sherril B. Gelmon, Carolina Gomez-Montoya, Laura E. Jacobson, Susan Lindsay, Maya Mcgill, Nate Midgley, Stephen Percy, Judith A. Ramaley, Risto Rushford, Gayle Y. Thieman, Luis Balderas Villagrana

Office of the President Publications and Presentations

It is an endeavor to understand what we have and will learn about the impact of remote instruction on faculty, students and relevant academic support teams. Simply put: We want to learn from an experiment foisted upon us by a health crisis. We have engaged in an incredibly innovative response. And now, we ask what have we learned? How might we improve? And, most importantly, are there implications from this experiment for the future of instruction at PSU and throughout higher education?

The project was organized around two stages in the Spring 2020 term.

• Stage One: Out of the Gate: …

Disrupting The Deficit Gaze: Equity Work With University Supervisors, Maika J. Yeigh

Education Faculty Publications and Presentations

Teacher candidates commonly experience tensions within their clinical field placement classroom. Recently, candidates have brought forward tensions around the use of a deficit gaze (Dudley-Marling, 2007) on students and their families by their mentor teachers. Where candidates of the past would ignore negative framing, current candidates want to disrupt the status quo. This conceptual article describes one EPPs attempt to support teacher candidates “disruption” of instances where a mentor teacher used a deficit-lens toward students and/or their families. Clinical supervisors were offered professional development to support teacher candidates and guide them to disrupt in ways that maintained the professional relationship …

Teaching Remotely In The Time Of Covid-19: Answering Frequently Asked Questions: A Diversity, Equity, And Inclusion Coordinator Perspective, Óscar Fernández

University Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

FAQ about teaching online in the time of COVID-19. My FAQ is based on three experiences:

1. my role as Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Coordinator (2017-2020) in University Studies;
2. I teach a fully online SINQ course, Healthy People/Healthy Places; and
3. for the past year (AY 2019-2020), I have been interviewing University Studies faculty about online teaching and learning. Why? I am hoping to propose an online Immigration, Migration, and Belonging FRINQ in the near future.

Authoring Dis/Ability Identities Mapping The Role Of Ableism In Teacher Candidate Identity Construction, Molly B. Siuty, Margaret R. Beneke

Curriculum and Instruction Faculty Publications and Presentations

Ableism, or the belief that abled ways of being and knowing are superior, perpetuates deficit views of ability differences, and constructs dis/ability as a problem in need of remediation so that individuals achieve “normalcy.” Ableism’s entrenched pervasiveness in education systems can be a significant barrier in teacher education when preparing critical educators who can work towards radical forms of dis/ability justice. In this paper, we argue that dis/abled teacher candidates can afford particular insight into the ways in which ableism operates in educational institutions and that dis/ability should be considered an asset to inclusive and socially just teacher preparation. Using …

Teaching Spanish In The United States In The Digital Age: Strategies And Approaches On Teaching Spanish In Online And Hybrid Classes, Liane She, Eli Sears

World Languages and Literatures Faculty Publications and Presentations

Virtual technologies are omnipresent in everyday life and are becoming essential to either online, or hybrid classes. In higher education institutions in the United States, virtual platforms are increasingly used for teaching Spanish as a foreign language to students from varying backgrounds. As such, this article proposes an approach to teaching grammar in virtual spaces, that takes into account the communicative goals established in a given syllabus. The methods and strategies we propose offer an attractive language course that allows students to remotely learn and practice a language. As Spanish professors who teach beginning to intermediate level students, we will …

Investigating A Multiple Mentor Model In Research Training For Undergraduates Traditionally Underrepresented In Biomedical Sciences, Thomas E. Keller, Jennifer Lindwall

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

Models of persistence and success in undergraduate research training emphasize the importance of engagement and integration across social, educational, research, and career settings. Students are likely to benefit from multiple sources of mentoring to meet their multidimensional needs for support across these domains. As part of a comprehensive training initiative for traditionally underrepresented students aspiring to careers in biomedical research, BUILD EXITO implemented a multiple mentoring model matching each undergraduate scholar with a research mentor, a faculty mentor, and a peer mentor. By design, each mentor has a different functional role. This study investigates whether the nature of support scholars …

The Negotiated Syllabus: How To Create Community In Online International Studies Classes, Shawn Smallman

International & Global Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

As online education expands how do professors create the sense of community and engagement that students crave? This paper will argue that the concept of a Negotiated Syllabus -in which students take responsibility for choosing content in the class- provides a framework to promote student engagement in online coursework. This paper describes how to have the students serve as co-creators for the final course content. Other carefully designed assignments and tasks -such as peer review of student work and a carefully designed discussion board- can involve students deeply in their classes. Based on a careful review of the literature on …

Cyberpdx: An Interdisciplinary Professional Development Program For Middle And High School Teachers, Ellie Harmon, Veronica Hotton, Robert Liebman, Michael Mooradian Lupro, Wu-Chang Feng, Lois Delcambre, David Joel Pouliot

University Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

CyberPDX is an annual professional development program hosted at Portland State University. Our long-term goal is to broaden participation in cybersecurity. Since 2016, over 70 middle and high school teachers from the Pacific Northwest have participated in the STREAM program, which offers interdisciplinary instruction in programming, cryptography, personal security, policy, literature, and arts. In this poster, we share our interdisciplinary curriculum, present data on short-term impacts, and describe our in-progress work to evaluate the program’s longer term impacts.

Securing The Next Generation, Wu-Chang Feng, Robert Liebman, Ellie Harmon, Veronica Hotton, Michael Mooradian Lupro, Lois Delcambre

University Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

Weak authentication practices that rely on passwords for security have led to widespread data breaches and successful phishing attacks. Recent advances in the cost and usability of hardware security tokens have made the prospect of effectively augmenting password-based authentication or removing it altogether a possibility. To actualize this, a paradigm change in how people learn to authenticate accounts on-line must occur. Towards this end, we describe a curriculum to teach high-school students the perils of passwords and a program to distribute hardware security tokens to them as they are first setting up their on-line presence in order to improve the …

Mobility Matters: Interdisciplinary Partnerships To Create More Accessible Cities, Amy T. Parker

Special Education Faculty Publications and Presentations

History of the Mobility Matters, Portland State University’s annual summit on transportation accessibility.

The Visually Impaired Learner (Vil) And Orientation And Mobility (O&M) Programs At Portland State University, Holly Lawson, Amy T. Parker

Special Education Faculty Publications and Presentations

History of Visually Impaired Learner (VIL) and Orientation and Mobility (O&M) programs at Portland State University.

Teaching Jihad: Developing Religious Literacy Through Graphic Novels, Melanie C. Brooks, Kelly Deits Cutler, Fida Sanjakdar, Daniel D. Liou

Curriculum and Instruction Faculty Publications and Presentations

This study examined the representations of jihad in graphic novels to ascertain how its depictions may inform the development of religious literacy in secondary classrooms. Hegemonic constructions of jihad in theWest are commonly reduced to false binaries that shape non-Muslims’ extant beliefs and perceptions of Islam and Muslims. This raises concerns about the ways in which societal expectations shape knowledge formation in schools. Accordingly, this critical content analysis explored the depiction of jihad in three graphic novel memoirs, an increasingly popular medium of instruction in secondary classrooms. Our analysis identified three forms of jihad conveyed through the graphic novels, specifically: …

Teaching An International Bestseller: Reflections On Encouraging Caring Global Citizenship, Evguenia Davidova

International & Global Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

This article discusses an integrative model of gradual scaffolding of curricular and pedagogical strategies, based on the theoretical framework of a “caring global citizenship.” It provides concrete practices for internationalization of general education that could be implemented in a wide variety of institutional settings. Such a model addresses ethnocentrism by expanding students' knowledge and perspectives on societies influenced by American politics, and fosters empathy as both value and skill.