Education Commons^™

Class Presentation, Lorraine O'Connell

Assessment & Feedback Cases

Students prepare and deliver a presentation to their peers based on either a single journal article or a specific topic/issue within music education they have researched. Within some courses, this is done as a group project while in others it is an individual assignment.

Practical Work With Report 2, Brian Mac Namee

Assessment & Feedback Cases

Develop a solution to a robotics challenge and write a short report about it.

Individual Assignments, Susan Mckeever

Assessment & Feedback Cases

A generic programming assignment that gives leeway for student to customise the assignment with their own designs and features.

Practical Lab Work, Susan Mckeever

Assessment & Feedback Cases

A pre-defined lab exercise done in the weekly lab session.

Self And Peer Assessment, Kerry Meakin

Assessment & Feedback Cases

The second year VM & Display students are given a brief to research, design and style a ‘Catwalk Show’. This brief is one of three they are given for a 15 credit module in ‘Fashion & Styling’ in the second semester. Individually students research a theme and remodel an outfit based on their research, the outfit is modelled (taking in consideration of make-up and hair) in a Catwalk Show. The venue is a studio, which as a group, the students must design, make and gather props and dress to emulate the theme. Students must photograph their outfits and compile a …

Practical Project, Phil Nicholl

Assessment & Feedback Cases

Students work in groups in the microbiology lab carrying out structured tasks on a weekly basis. Completion of the tasks ultimately allows them to complete a project over several weeks. The tasks are based on the previously used lab manual. Each group is given a slightly different project to complete (eg different pathogens) however the tasks are similar, with minor modifications to suit the project. Students are given templates for SOPs and reports, and they learn to generate their own SOPs during the project. They decide as a group what tasks are required, and elect a supervisor to delegate tasks. …

Class Presentation, Claire O'Connell

Assessment & Feedback Cases

Students prepare and deliver a presentation to their peers based on either a single journal article or a specific topic/issue within music education they have researched. Within some courses, this is done as a group project while in others it is an individual assignment.

Advanced Restaurant Techniques, Mike O'Connor

Assessment & Feedback Cases

This is a food and beverage module. Marks are awarded each week and then at the end of the module students undertake a practical assessment. They also develop a portfolio of what they have done throughout the module and compare that with books/published research of the different techniques/presentations that they have learnt in the form of a reflective diary.

Online Quizzes, David Dorran

Assessment & Feedback Cases

Quiz within a virtual learning environment. Generally the quizzes are based on numerical responses, however some multiple choice questions. The quizzes are geared towards the level of the student and the information being reinforced.

Literature Review, Brendan O'Rourke

Assessment & Feedback Cases

Write a literature review on a topic of your choice – must relate to Economic Strategy. Guidelines: 4,000 words, 10 pre-approved articles under different headings are given as a starting point. Accounts for 40% of a 5 ECTS module.

Fortnightly Quiz, Patricia O'Byrne

Assessment & Feedback Cases

Quiz based on worksheets and theory done in the short-term before the quiz.

Problem Based Learning, David Williams

Assessment & Feedback Cases

Students are given a hypothetical case study of a family which is based on practice experience. Random social care themes such as poverty, addiction and attachment problems are considered. Students work in groups of 4/5. They must do a group report of the case study. They must develop a risk assessment and an intervention plan. They must also prepare an individual report to inform the tutor what they have learnt individually. Traditionally we give them the knowledge to solve problems; this approach gives them the problem to help develop the knowledge.

Problem Based Learning 2, Brenda Dermody

Assessment & Feedback Cases

A mix of formative crits and weekly work in progress tutorials which also involves peer learning in tutorial groups of 5 or 6. A person from industry is brought in to view an interim crit. They view the student's work from one particular issue such as strategy. Students are given their full marking and guideline forms that have been used to assess. This form is very thorough and if they are falling in the cusp of two marks certain lines may be highlighted.

Implementing Ipad Apps For Elementary Language Arts Students, Hanan Ibrahim Alkhamis

EWU Masters Thesis Collection

"This study was to examine the effectiveness of the implementation of iPads with elementary schools students for learning and teaching of language Arts. This study contains a survey which was emailed to teachers of grades K-6 in Washington State. The survey included teachers' perceptions about the impact of iPads on student learning. Specifically, teachers responded to questions and statements around the content areas of reading and writing. Also, examined were perceptions about the classroom environment when iPads were used"--Document.

The End Of Indeterminacy In Affirmative Action, Carla Pratt

Faculty Articles

After the Supreme Court's decision in Fisher v. UT Austin, the stage has been set for judges to demand more specificity in the articulation of the protected diversity interest. Gone are the days when institutions of higher education could rely on the abstract concept of diversity to support efforts to enroll a diverse student body. Now higher education institutions will need to give serious thought to how they define the sought after diversity interest and how racial diversity improves educational outcomes and enhances the education that is delivered.

Crowdsourced Coursebooks, Stephen E. Henderson, Joseph Thai

Faculty Articles

Given increasing criticism and dropping admissions, American legal education is likely to change, hopefully reversing the unsustainable trend of increasing expense without increasing value. Much debate focuses on restructuring the curriculum to make it more “practical” and skills-infused; here we instead propose a rethinking of the basic unit of law teaching, the casebook. Casebook authors and publishers are cautiously venturing into electronic editions, but they fail to harness the power of social learning to make textbooks dramatically smarter as well as cheaper. Working with a technology startup, we are developing an online platform that reinvents both authorship and learning. The …

The Influence Of Audibility On Speech Recognition With Nonlinear Frequency Compression For Children And Adults With Hearing Loss, Ryan W. Mccreery, Joshua Alexander, Marc A. Brennan, Brenda Hoover, Judy Kopun, Patricia G. Stelmachowicz

Department of Special Education and Communication Disorders: Faculty Publications

Objective—The primary goal of nonlinear frequency compression (NFC) and other frequency lowering strategies is to increase the audibility of high-frequency sounds that are not otherwise audible with conventional hearing-aid processing due to the degree of hearing loss, limited hearing aid bandwidth or a combination of both factors. The aim of the current study was to compare estimates of speech audibility processed by NFC to improvements in speech recognition for a group of children and adults with high-frequency hearing loss.

Design—Monosyllabic word recognition was measured in noise for twenty-four adults and twelve children with mild to severe sensorineural hearing loss. Stimuli …

Phonological And Lexical Influences On Phonological Awareness In Children With Specific Language Impairment And Dyslexia, Kelly Farquharson, Tracy M. Centanni, Chelsea E. Franzluebbers, Tiffany Hogan

Department of Special Education and Communication Disorders: Faculty Publications

Children with dyslexia and/or specific language impairment have marked deficits in phonological processing, putting them at an increased risk for reading deficits. The current study sought to examine the influence of word-level phonological and lexical characteristics on phonological awareness. Children with dyslexia and/or specific language impairment were tested using a phoneme deletion task in which stimuli differed orthogonally by sound similarity and neighborhood density. Phonological and lexical factors influenced performance differently across groups. Children with dyslexia appeared to have a more immature and aberrant pattern of phonological and lexical influence (e.g., favoring sparse and similar features). Children with SLI performed …

Tier 3 Intervention: Discipline Recovery, Reece L. Peterson, Ann O'Connor, Jenna Strawhun

Department of Special Education and Communication Disorders: Faculty Publications

Conclusion

Clearly, further research on discipline recovery and education programs for students that have been expelled is warranted. Several states and programs appear to be making strides in providing students opportunities to accumulate credits and/or prepare for the workforce while expelled from public school, and clearly this is better than no such programs. However, there is little formal evidence to support or guide specific implementation or programming details for these types programs.

Let Us Rank Journalism Programs, Joseph Weber

College of Journalism and Mass Communications: Faculty Publications

Unlike law, business, and medical schools, as well as universities in general, journalism schools and journalism programs have rarely been ranked. Publishers such as U.S. News & World Report, Forbes, Bloomberg Businessweek, and Washington Monthly do not pay them much mind. What is the best journalism school in the country? The top ten undergraduate and graduate schools? It is impossible to know. That should change, and the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) should lead the way. It should develop a ranking system that would be helpful to anyone interested, especially because federal policy makers soon will …

Testing Of The Vocalog Vocal Monitor, Jeff Searl, Angela M. Dietsch

Department of Special Education and Communication Disorders: Faculty Publications

Objective. To elucidate capabilities and limitations of the VocaLog, a device marketed to log-calibrated dB sound pressure level (SPL). Study Design. The study design varied depending on the experiment. All were prospective. Some were case series, and others were cohort studies without controls.

Method. Experiments were conducted to determine (1) whether the VocaLog logged phonatory activity and silence when it should, (2) if nonphonatory activities were detected, (3) correlation of VocaLog dB values to an external sound level meter (SLM), and (4) accuracy of phonation time (PT) and speaking time (ST) estimates from the VocaLog.

Results. Silence …

3d Dynamic Visualization Of Swallowing From Multi-Slice Computed Tomography, Andrew K. Ho, Mark A. Nicosia, Angela Dietsch, William Pearson, Jana Rieger, Nancy Pearl Solomon, Maureen Stone, Yoko Inamoto, Eiichi Saitoh, Sheldon Green, Sidney Fels

Department of Special Education and Communication Disorders: Faculty Publications

Human swallowing and its disorders (dysphagia) are still poorly understood, and yet many speech-language pathologists (SLPs) need to be trained to recognize correct, incorrect, and potentially dangerous swallows. The anatomy of the head and neck region is notoriously complex and difficult to visualize and study. Currently, training programs that teach SLPs to recognize swallowing disorders use artistically derived animations of swallowing, rendered at fixed viewpoints, to help students visualize the anatomy of the head and neck region.

This work improves on these animations by using state-of-the-art medical images to create a dynamic, interactive, 3D simulation of human swallowing. Images of …

Modulation Of Eeg Spectral Edge Frequency During Patterned Pneumatic Oral Stimulation In Preterm Infants, Dongli Song, Priya Jegatheesan, Sunshine Weiss, Balaji Govindaswami, Jingyan Wang, Jaehoon Lee, Austin Oder, Steven M. Barlow

Department of Special Education and Communication Disorders: Faculty Publications

Background—Stimulation of the nervous system plays a central role in brain development and neurodevelopmental outcome. Thalamocortical and corticocortical development is diminished in premature infants and correlated to electroencephalography (EEG) progression. The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of orocutaneous stimulation on the modulation of spectral edge frequency, f_c=90% (SEF-90) derived from EEG recordings in preterm infants.

Methods—Twenty two preterm infants were randomized to experimental and control conditions. Pulsed orocutaneous stimulation was presented during gavage feedings begun at around 32 weeks postmenstrual age (PMA). The SEF-90 was derived from 2-channel EEG recordings.

Results—Compared to the control …

The Impact Of Interface Design During An Initial High-Technology Aac Experience: A Collective Case Study Of People With Aphasia, Aimee R. Dietz, Kristy S.E. Weissling, Julie Griffith, Miechelle L. Mckelvey, Devan Macke

Department of Special Education and Communication Disorders: Faculty Publications

The purpose of this collective case study was to describe the communication behaviors of five people with chronic aphasia when they retold personal narratives to an unfamiliar communication partner using four variants of a visual scene display (VSD) interface. The results revealed that spoken language comprised roughly 70% of expressive modality units; variable patterns of use for other modalities emerged. Although inconsistent across participants, several people with aphasia experienced no trouble sources during the retells using VSDs with personally relevant photographs and text boxes. Overall, participants perceived the personally relevant photographs and the text as helpful during the retells. These …

Supporting Narrative Retells For People With Aphasia Using Augmentative And Alternative Communication: Photographs Or Line Drawings? Text Or No Text?, Julie Griffith, Aimee R. Dietz, Kristy S.E. Weissling

Department of Special Education and Communication Disorders: Faculty Publications

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine how the interface design of an augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) device influences the communication behaviors of people with aphasia during a narrative retell task.

Method: A case-series design was used. Four narratives were created on an AAC device with combinations of personally relevant (PR) photographs, line drawings (LDs), and text for each participant. The narrative retells were analyzed to describe the expressive modality units (EMUs) used, trouble sources experienced, and whether trouble sources were repaired. The researchers also explored the participants’ perceived helpfulness of the interface features.

Results: The participants …

Just Ask: Using Faculty Input To Inform Communication Strategies, Krista Hoffmann Longtin, Megan M. Palmer, Julie L. Welch, Emily C. Walvoord, Mary E. Dankoski

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Faculty members today are bombarded with information, yet limited in time and attention. Managing communication with faculty is an increasingly important function of faculty development offices. This study explored how communication frameworks can be paired with web design principles and attention economics to increase the effectiveness of communication with faculty members. We developed and tested communication approaches designed to enhance faculty members’ identification and involvement with our programs. The advantages, disadvantages, and effectiveness of each model are presented. Ultimately, the study reframed our understanding of communication strategies, not as static tools, but rather as opportunities to engage faculty.

Tracking Pod's Engagement With Diversity: A Content Analysis Of To Improve The Academy And Pod Network Conference Programs From 1977 To 2011, Stacy E. Grooters

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

This study examines the degree to which sessions from the annual Professional and Organizational Development (POD) Network Conference and articles from To Improve the Academy engage questions of diversity. The titles and abstracts of 3,946 conference sessions and 560 journal articles were coded for presence and type of diversity. A significant variation in inclusion of diversity over time was found for the conference sessions (p < 0.001) but not the journal articles. Overall, the findings suggest that the organization has been inconsistent in its scholarly engagement with diversity and should work to encourage more regular engagement with diversity by its members.

Preparing New Faculty For Leadership: Understanding And Addressing Needs, Anne Kelsch, Joan Hawthorne

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

A perceived decline in effective faculty participation in campus leadership and governance is well documented, both in the literature and via anecdote. Characteristics common within the culture of higher education make nurturing campus “citizenship” among junior faculty challenging. This essay describes findings from an interview based study of junior faculty in which understanding of professional responsibilities beyond teaching and research was explored. The study documented the deep sense of unpreparedness with which new faculty approach key issues in higher education, including those associated with governance and leadership. Two possible strategies for redressing that unpreparedness, both showing preliminary but positive results, …

Developing Scholarly Teachers Through An Sotl Faculty Fellowship, Beth A. Fisher, Michelle D. Repice, Carolyn L. Dufault, Denise A. Leonard, Regina F. Frey

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

The increasing interest in incorporating evidenced based teaching in higher education has created a pronounced need for faculty to learn the theory and practice of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL). This article describes a program designed to prepare faculty to (a) draw on existing SoTL studies when designing and implementing evidenced based teaching methods, (b) design SoTL studies to test the effectiveness of those methods, and (c) integrate their new knowledge of SoTL into the practice of “scholarly teaching.” This program has proven to be a successful model for incorporating evidenced based teaching into undergraduate science, technology, engineering, …

Sequential Online Course Redesign: When “It Just Takes Time” Works No Longer, Genevieve G. Shaker, Sarah K. Nathan, Elizabeth J. Dale

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Despite the increase in formats of online education, evidence suggests that the academic achievement gap could widen without iterative adaptation. This comparative case study analyzes the implementation of an online undergraduate course delivered consecutively in hybrid and fully online formats. Student feedback and instructor reflection address adaptive processes for online learning and adjustments to enhance the second course following a sequential redesign. Results include students’ challenges with technology and workload, benefits of cross course collaboration, instructor efforts to mediate challenges without sacrificing rigor, and advice for educational developers as they support online teaching through rapid adaptation by design.