Education Commons^™

Navigating From The Local To The Cosmopolitan: Expanding The Scholarship Of Teaching And Learning Commons, Paul Savory, Amy M. Goodburn

Department of Industrial and Management Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

This collaborative poster highlights how "Expanding‐the‐SOTL‐Commons" is composed of nine collaborating institutions from the US and Canada. Situated within the Carnegie Academy for Scholarship of Teaching and Learning’s Intuitional Leadership Program, our initiative seeks innovative ways to sustain and advance the teaching commons both on our own campuses and across the broader ISSOTL community. Our diverse group of institutions of higher education acknowledges the multiple dimensions of work that communities and individuals contribute to the scholarship of teaching and learning and recognizes that common interest reside in how individuals and institutions enter into this area of scholarship, and how they …

A Pilot Study Of The Feasibility And Efficacy Of The Strategies To Enhance Positive Parenting (Stepp) Program For Single Mothers Of Children With Adhd, Anil Chacko, Brian T. Wymbs, Lizette M. Flammer-Rivera, William E. Pelham, Kathryn S. Walker, Fran W. Arnold, Hema Visweswaraiah, Michelle Swanger-Gagne, Erin L. Girio, Lauma L. Pirvics, Laura Herbst

Nebraska Center for Research on Children, Youth, Families, and Schools: Faculty Publications

Objective: The Strategies to Enhance Positive Parenting (STEPP) program was developed to address putative factors related to poor engagement in and outcomes following traditional behavioral parent training (BPT) for single mothers of children diagnosed with ADHD.
Method: Twelve single mothers of children with ADHD were enrolled in an initial investigation of the feasibility and preliminary efficacy of the 9-week STEPP program.
Results: Results indicated that the STEPP program was effective in reducing problematic child behavior and improving parental stress and psychopathology at posttreatment. The STEPP program resulted in high rates of treatment attendance and completion and consumer satisfaction with the …

Standards Vs. 'Standard' Knowledge, Edmund T. Hamann

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

This chapter (one of 40 in the book "Everyday Antiracism", edited by Mica Pollock) matches the format of other entries in the book by providing direct, research-grounded advice for ways of reducing racism in American schools and reducing its damage for students. This chapter focuses on the de facto recognized skills of two English learners (ELLs) who were kept in an intermediate class because of their teacher's need to have their assistance as interpreters, but highlights how this linguistic competence actually de jure counted against these learners making their progress appear slower than it was.

Escuelas Nacionales, Alumnos Transnacionales: La Migración México/Estados Unidos Como Fenómeno Escolar, Víctor A. Zúñiga, Edmund T. Hamann

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

El artículo presenta datos recientes sobre una dimensión de la migración internacional que ha sido poco estudiada: la migración escolar. Con información de dos muestras representativas de alumnos de primaria y secundaria de los estados de Nuevo León y Zacatecas, los autores advierten la importancia del fenómeno y describen las trayectorias escolares de los alumnos transnacionales. De manera particular, en este trabajo, se analizan los dilemas que se le presentan la institución escolar, tanto de México como de Estados Unidos. La concepción mono-nacional de la institución enfrenta una población escolar transnacional en el sentido de que ha sido educada en …

Initial Impacts Of No Child Left Behind On Elementary Science Education, George Griffith,, Lawrence C. Scharmann

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

This research examines the impact of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act on elementary science education within a Midwestern state possessing strong national education measures. Elementary teachers (N = 164) responded to an online survey, which included both closed-ended and open-ended questions pertaining to science instruction and changes made in science instruction since the implementation of NCLB. More than half of these teachers indicated they have cut time from science instruction since NCLB became a law. The reason given for this decrease in science education was mainly the need to increase time for math and reading instruction.

Experiences In Nature: Pathways To Standards, Jennifer Leeper Miller, Jennifer Benson Gerdes

Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies: Faculty Publications

Experiences in nature provide an easily accessible pathway to addressing standards. If teachers provide time in the natural world children are using this environment to learn. The outdoor environment gives teachers a perfect location and the tools to teach and meet standards in the early childhood classroom.

Advice, Cautions, And Opportunities For The Teachers Of Binational Teachers: Learning From Teacher Training Experiences Of Georgia And Nebraska Teachers In Mexico, Edmund T. Hamann

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

With the rapid growth and geographic spread of Mexican-origin student populations in the United States, the practice of U.S. teachers going to Mexico for travel study/professional development has become increasingly common. This paper considers what U.S teachers’ Mexican travel study experiences entail by looking at narratives from Nebraska and Georgia educators who made summer trips to Mexico to learn about Mexican education.

Ice Breaking Exercice: Group Resume For Faculty, Paul Savory

Industrial and Management Systems Engineering: Instructional Materials

Resumes typically describe an individual’s accomplishments. This ice breaking exercise for faculty asks that faculty explore their incredible array of talents and experiences and create a single group resume to allow you to become acquainted with your fellow faculty participants.

Accessing High-Quality Instructional Strategies, Edmund T. Hamann, Jenelle Reeves, Bradley Baurain, Graciela Valenciano

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

Superintendent O'Connell's 2007 call for greater public attention to the racial achievement gap in education provides the backdrop for our report. This report is intended to provide research-grounded policy recommendations related to assuring all students access to high quality instruction. This includes describing what California teachers should be helped to do in California classrooms if these classrooms are to be rich and successful learning environments where students from the many backgrounds represented in the nation's largest system of schools are all to fare well academically.

Superintendent O'Connell has expressed particular concern with inequities in current practice and current outcomes, so …

Meeting The Needs Of Ells: Acknowledging The Schism Between Esl/Bilingual And Mainstream Teachers And Illustrating That Problem's Remedy, Edmund T. Hamann

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

Nationwide, education researchers, policy makers, and school reformers agree that the education of English language learners (ELLs) is an increasingly important issue as (1) more students in more districts fit in that category (Ruiz-de-Velasco, 2005; Suarez-Orozco & Suarez-Orozco, 1999; Wortham, Murillo & Hamann, 2002); as (2) they, in aggregate, continue to fare less well than most other student populations (August & Hakuta, 1997; Callahan & Gindara, 2004; NCES, 1997); and as (3) policy compliance with the No Child Left Behind Act holds their schools accountable for their cumulative average yearly progress (Abedi, 2005; Crawford, 2004). There is also an emerging …

Successful Schooling For Ells: Principles For Building Responsive Learning Environments, Maria Coady, Edmund T. Hamann, Margaret Harrington, Samboen Pho, Jane Yedlin

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

Guiding Questions

• What are the goals of schooling in general and for ELLS in particular?
• What roles do language and culture play in teaching, in learning, and in the assessment of learning?
• How do we measure the successfulness of schooling for ELLs?
• What factors besides the quality of classroom instruction impact the education of ELLs? How?
• In addition to research-based, age-appropriate literacy instruction, what more do ELLS need in order to develop good literacy skills?
• What is the importance of parental and community involvement in the education of ELLs?

While measurable academic gains in …

University Students’ Conceptualization And Interpretation Of Topographic Maps, Douglas Clark, Stephen Reynolds, Vivian Lemanowski, Thomas Stiles, Senay Yaşar-Purzer, Sian Proctor, Elizabeth B. Lewis, Charlotte Stromfors, James Corkins

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

This study investigates the strategies and assumptions that college students entering an introductory physical geology laboratory use to interpret topographic maps, and follows the progress of the students during the laboratory to analyze changes in those strategies and assumptions. To elicit students’ strategies and assumptions, we created and refined a topographic visualization test that was administered before and after instruction to 26 students during the first semester of the study and to 92 students during the second semester. To more deeply understand how students think about and conceptualize topographic maps, we focused on eight individual students who were interviewed about …

Living “Glocally” With Literacy Success In The Midwest, Loukia K. Sarroub

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

This article examines the concept of glocality as a way to better understand why immigrants, poor people, print-illiterate families, and boys are short-changed by schools that often operate under a deficit model or deprivation model in which students’ economic, language, and gender status is the main determinant for school success. The author offers for discussion a set of themes that address (a) the challenges of recent immigration and resettlement in the Midwestern region of the United States, (b) the concept of glocality in connection to youth literacies and transnationalism, (c) the Midwest as a glocal context, and (d) the implications …

Food Insecurity And Maternal Depression In Rural, Low-Income Families: A Longitudinal Investigation, Catherine Huddleston-Casas, Richard Charnigo, Leigh Ann Simmons

Nebraska Center for Research on Children, Youth, Families, and Schools: Faculty Publications

Objective: The purpose of the present study was to examine the relationship between household food insecurity and maternal depression in a rural sample to determine whether food insecurity predicted mothers’ depression over time or vice versa.

Design: The study employed a prospective design using three waves of data from ‘Rural Families Speak’, a multi-state study of low-income rural families in the USA. Food insecurity was measured using the Core Food Security Module and depression was measured using the Center for Epidemiologic Studies–Depression Scale. A structural equation model was fit to the data using the AMOS software package.

Setting: Sixteen states …

Do Your Homework! Investigating The Role Of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy In Comprehensive School Reform Models Serving Diverse Student Populations, Tonia Renee Durden

Nebraska Center for Research on Children, Youth, Families, and Schools: Faculty Publications

Like the African proverb, “It takes a village to raise a child,” many educational researchers charge that it takes a comprehensive school reform to raise student achievement. With the passing of the No Child Left Behind legislation in 2002, national officials authorized the Comprehensive School Reform program to support low performing schools as they struggled to improve student achievement. As a result of this national effort, an increase in implementation of comprehensive school reforms is occurring in schools serving predominantly diverse student populations in urban areas. Therefore, this article explores the framework of comprehensive school reforms and challenges stakeholders to …

Teacher-Involved Conversations With Young Children During Small Group Activity, Tonia Renee Durden, Julie Rainer Dangel

Nebraska Center for Research on Children, Youth, Families, and Schools: Faculty Publications

This qualitative study examines the conversations of two preschool teachers with two- and three-year-old children during small-group activity settings in two high-quality child development centers. Using interviews, observations and videotaping of small-group activities, the conversations are characterized in terms of the kind and function of language, the usage of cognitive demands and the reciprocal nature of these conversations. The findings indicate that teachers use declarative statements primarily to manage instruction and encourage language development. While teachers control most conversations, teacher–child reciprocity is evident and more genuine in authentic, teacher-guided activities. In both classrooms, the language during small-group activities is characterized …

Timing Of Initial Sexual Intercourse As A Mediating Factor Between White And Black Adolescent’S Sexual Attitudes And Sense Of Self, Paul R. Springer, Scott A. Ketring, Jeffrey R. Hibbert, Connie J. Salts

Nebraska Center for Research on Children, Youth, Families, and Schools: Faculty Publications

Based on the Normative Hypothesis, theorists have believed that differences in sexuality among black and white males would affect each group differently due to the disparate cultural norms. The current study evaluates the relationship between adolescent sexual attitudes and timing of first sexual intercourse as factors affecting problem behaviors, suicidal thoughts, and sense of security among black and white adolescents. The sample size comprised of 847 black and white adolescent males from rural Alabama. Results discovered that earlier sexual expression was dealt with differently for white and black adolescents, depending on timing of first intercourse. Most interestingly, it appears that …

Context Influences Preschool Children's Decisions To Include A Peer With A Physical Disability In Play, Karen E. Diamond, Soo-Young Hong, Huifang Tu

Nebraska Center for Research on Children, Youth, Families, and Schools: Faculty Publications

Understanding children’s decisions to include a child with a disability in activities is an important component of the social environment of children with disabilities. We examined preschool children’s understanding of the motor and social competence of hypothetical children with a physical disability, children’s decisions to include or exclude a peer with a physical disability in play activities, and children’s justifications of their inclusion/exclusion decisions. Children understood that a peer with a physical disability would have more difficulty with activities requiring motor skills than social skills and were more likely to include a peer with a physical disability when the activities …

Refocusing The Revolution: A New Research Agenda For Geoscience Education., Elizabeth B. Lewis

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Posters and Presentations

Geoscience Education: Stuck in Low Gear or Poised for a Breakthrough?

We must act quickly & broaden approaches to four problems

• Falling geoscience undergraduate enrollments
• Lagging diversity in the geosciences
• Insufficient secondary Earth & space science teacher supply
• Low (7%) high school ESS course offerings and enrollment

Leverage existing educational research literature & theory

• Curriculum stability and change
• Culture, gender, and science education
• Socio-cultural models of science and theories of learning

Develop a new research agenda to spark the Revolution

From Nuevo León To The Usa And Back Again: Transnational Students In Mexico, Edmund T. Hamann, Víctor A. Zúñiga, Juan Sánchez Garcia

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

The movement of Mexicans to the United States is both longstanding and long studied and from that study we know that for many newcomers the attachment to the receiving community is fraught and tentative. The experience of immigrant children in U.S. schools is also relatively well studied and reveals challenges of intercultural communication as well as concurrent and contradictory features of welcome and unwelcome. What is less well known, in the study of migration generally and of transnational students in particular, is how students moving in a less common direction — from the U.S. to Mexico — experience that movement. …

Alumnos Transnacionales: Las Escuelas Mexicanas Frente A La Globalización, Víctor Zúñiga, Edmund T. Hamann, Juan Sánchez García

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

Counter to the expectations that Mexico-U.S. migration is one-way, adult, and from Mexico to the United States, this Spanish-language book includes nine chapters describing various facets of the lives and educational circumstances of students encountered in Mexican schools who have previously attended U.S. schools. Data were derived from written questionnaires from a sample of more than 24,000 students in the Mexican states of Zacatecas and Nuevo León, of whom 632 had U.S. school experience and/or a U.S. birthplace and thereby American citizenship, and from more than 125 interviews with transnational students and their teachers. This study variously considers transnational students' …

Content Is Not Enough: A History Of Secondary Earth Science Teacher Preparation With Recommendations For Today, Elizabeth B. Lewis

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

Secondary geoscience education has its roots in geography and physiographic education from the turn of the 20th century. High school Earth science reached a peak during the late 1960s and 1970s, after plate tectonic theory revolutionized geology. The production of Earth science teachers, unlike biology teachers, has never reached full capacity, which has likely contributed to the lesser presence and status of Earth and space science in U.S. high schools today. Historically, the geoscience community has focused on enriching teachers' geoscience content knowledge, but modern Earth and space science teachers need more than just content knowledge.

Based on current science …

Measuring Short-Term Teacher Learning Of Scientific Classroom Discourse Communities, Elizabeth B. Lewis, Dale R. Baker, Senay Yaşar-Purzer, Michael Lang

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Posters and Presentations

The Communication in Science Inquiry Project (CISIP) provides schoolbased teams of secondary science and English and/or ELL teachers with year-round professional development with the goal of establishing scientific classroom discourse communities (SCDC). Teams participated in one of two three-week CISIP summer institutes. Four CISIP model elements of a SCDC can be framed within a pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) taxonomy at two levels: domain-specific PCK, including academic language development, written discourse, and oral discourse; and general pedagogy, specifically scientific inquiry. The fifth professional development element focuses on overarching learning principles that are applicable to any discipline. By situating the CISIP professional …

Turning Today’S Students Into Tomorrow’S Stars, Aleidine Kramer Moeller, Janine Theiler, Silvia Betta

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

Selected Papers from the 2008 Central States Conference

Adeiline J. Moeller, Editor

Janine Theiler, Assistant Editor

Silvia Betta, Assistant Editor

1 The Important Work of Engaging Our 21st Century Learners — Toni Theisen

2 A Model for Teaching Cross-Cultural Perspectives — Susan M. Knight

3 The Stealth Approach to Critical Thinking in Beginning Spanish Classes — Deanna H. Mihaly

4 Teaching About the French Heritage of the Midwest — Randa Duvick

5 Integrating Russian Cuisine with Russian Language and Culture Classes — Marat Sanatullov

6 Preparing a Fotonovela in the Foreign Language Classroom — Carol Eiber

7 Engaging Students through …

Multicultural Education: Raj’S Story Using A Curricular Conceptual Lens Of The Particular, Vicki Ross, Elaine Chan

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

In this study, we employ a curricular conceptual lens of the particular to explore the experience of multicultural education from the perspective of an immigrant student, Raj. Using a school-based narrative inquiry approach, we learn about Raj’s experiences at the intersections of immigration and settlement, adaptation and assimilation, English-language acquisition, unemployment, poverty, family violence, and family relocation. We employ Dewey’s [(1938). Experience and education. New York: Simon & Schuster] theory of experience, Connelly and Clandinin’s [(1988). Teachers as curriculum planners: Narratives of experience. New York: Teachers College Press, Columbia] understanding of curriculum as experience, and Schwab’s [(1969). The …

Getting Ready: Promoting School Readiness Through A Relationship-Based Partnership Model, Susan M. Sheridan, Christine Marvin, Lisa Knoche, Carolyn P. Edwards

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

School readiness is determined by the life experiences of young children between birth and enrollment in formal education programs. Early intervention and education programs designed to promote school readiness often focus on skills a child fails to demonstrate that are believed to be of importance to social and academic success. The Getting Ready model of early childhood intervention (Sheridan, Edwards, & Knoche, 2003) recognizes the transactional nature of young children’s development and the important role parents play in pre-school readiness and school-age success. In the Getting Ready model, collaborative partnerships between parents and professionals are encouraged to promote parent’s competence …

A Multi-Year Program Developing An Explicit Reflective Pedagogy For Teaching Pre-Service Teachers The Nature Of Science By Ostention, Mike U. Smith, Lawrence C. Scharmann

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

This investigation delineates a multi-year action research agenda designed to develop an instructional model for teaching the nature of science (NOS) to preservice science teachers. Our past research strongly supports the use of explicit reflective instructional methods, which includes Thomas Kuhn’s notion of learning by ostention and treating science as a continuum (i.e., comparing fields of study to one another for relative placement as less to more scientific). Instruction based on conceptual change precepts, however, also exhibits promise. Thus, the investigators sought to ascertain the degree to which conceptual change took place among students (n=15) participating in the NOS instructional …

Preparing Nebraska Teachers To See Demographic Change As An Opportunity, Jenelle Reeves, Edmund T. Hamann

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

This paper reflects on an effort to support Nebraska teachers, both practicing and preservice, to become more ready for the state‘s changing demographics, notably for the growth in Latino and Spanish-speaking populations. To that end, it describes an effort funded by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln‘s Initiative on Teaching and Learning Excellence called, ―Schooling in Nebraska‘s Demographically Transitioning Communities.‖ That initiative makes mentors of practicing teachers who have enrolled in summer courses in second language acquisition. In the fall of 2006, ten such teachers mentored 44 undergraduates enrolled in TEAC 331 ―Cultural Foundation of American Education‖ or TEAC 413A ―Second Language …

Discourse In Inquiry Science Classrooms (Diisc): Reference Manual, Dale R. Baker, Rachelle Beard, Nievita Bueno-Watts, Elizabeth B. Lewis, Gokhan Özdemir, Giota Perkins, Sissy Wong, Senay Yaşar-Purzer

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

One of the greatest challenges facing scholars and funding agencies interested in reform is determining the impact of classroom practice on student achievement. The degree to which this effect can be determined is contingent upon instruments that measure teachers’ ability to enact specific instructional strategies. Frequently, a general instrument will not do because it was not designed to measure the unique focus of a professional development program or a set of variables of interest to researchers.

Consequently, specific instruments should be developed to allow researchers to measure fidelity of classroom implementation. Fidelity of implementation is always the first step in …

About The Authors, Volume 26 (2008)

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

About the editors and authors of volume 26 (2008) of To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development.