Curriculum and Instruction Commons^™

Southern Adventist University Undergraduate Catalog 2018-2019, Southern Adventist University

Catalog, Undergraduate

Southern Adventist University's undergraduate catalog for the academic year 2018-2019.

Southern Adventist University Undergraduate Handbook & Planner 2018-2019, Southern Adventist University

Student Handbooks, Undergraduate

No abstract provided.

Introductory Information Systems Course Redesign: Better Preparing Business Students, Gina Harden, Robert M. Crocker, Kelly Noe

Faculty Publications

Aim/Purpose The dynamic nature of the information systems (IS) field presents educators with the perpetual challenge of keeping course offerings current and relevant. This paper describes the process at a College of Business (COB) to redesign the introductory IS course to better prepare students for advanced business classes and equip them with interdisciplinary knowledge and skills demanded in today’s workplace.

Background The course was previously in the Computer Science (CSC) Department, itself within the COB. However, an administrative restructuring resulted in the CSC department’s removal from the COB and left the core course in limbo.

Methodology This paper presents a …

Teaching Service-Learners To Be Designers Of Social Change, Matthew James Vechinski

Focused Inquiry Publications

This presentation focuses on teaching undergraduates to regard themselves as designers in the context of interdisciplinary project-based learning. Central to design thinking is storytelling, using narrative to reflect on scenarios and to build empathy with stakeholders. It also involves recognizing community partners as collaborators, not just as passive recipients of benefits, in order to produce truly innovative, sustainable projects that fulfill real needs and bring about change.

Collaborative Action Research To Implement Social-Emotional Learning In A Rural Elementary School: Helping Students Become "Little Kids With Big Words", Donna M. San Antonio Dr.

Faculty Scholarship

Research has shown that social and emotional learning (SEL) can benefit students in affective, interpersonal, communicative, and academic realms. However, teachers integrating SEL face a variety of logistical, pedagogical, and skill development challenges, including how to effectively facilitate classroom conversations on social justice and personal loss. This article draws from classroom observations, teacher conversations, interactive journals, and field notes to describe a seven-month-long university-school partnership to carry out an action research project in a high-poverty rural elementary school in the US. Teachers grappled with how to address race, immigration, and gender discrimination in a predominantly White community. Classroom vignettes, and …

Mlearning Device Usage And Self Efficacy By Higher Education Faculty For Professional Activities: A Case Study, Elbert Davis

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

This study examined the level of use and the level of self-efficacy use of mLearning devices for faculty at one university. The study also examined the relationship between use and self-efficacy levels, and the challenges faced by faculty members concerning the use of mLearning devices for professional activities. A mixed-methods model was used to complete the study. A 17-item self-report survey was developed by the researcher to determine the frequency of use, and the self-efficacy level of faculty concerning professional activities. An interview protocol was used to collect additional information from selected respondents. Findings indicated statistically significant differences in mean …

Curriculum Change In Undergraduate Strategic Communications Programs: How Strategic Communications Programs Are Adapting To 21st Century Media, Allyson B. Goodman

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

The year 2014 has been described by scholars as transformative in how consumers interact with technology and media. Pointing to such digital milestones as the explosion of social media and mobile technology and the decline of traditional television ratings, these scholars have described the evolution as a move from a broadcast era to a postbroadcast era of media. This mass media evolution has opened a digital talent gap between the skills needed by the industry and the abilities of current and potential employees.

Focusing on undergraduate strategic communications programs, this research discusses the current status of new and social media …

Perceptions Of The Importance And Integration Of High-Impact Practices In Traditional Versus Online Learning, Melissa Martin Farrish

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

The purpose of this mixed methods study was to examine the differences, if any, in the perceived importance and the level of integration of high-impact practices in traditional versus online courses/programs by faculty and administrators of institutions in the Appalachian College Association. The study further identifies the perceptions of faculty and administrators regarding the importance of high-impact practices based upon selected demographics and the level of integration of high-impact practices based upon selected demographics. Finally, this study investigates the benefits and challenges experienced by educators in their attempt to incorporate high-impact practices in courses/programs and identifies other successful strategies in …

Effective Ipad Instruction: A Qualitative Study Comparing Classroom Practices To The Technology Integration Matrix, Bridget Phillips

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Technology has become a natural part of our students’ lives. The use of iPads in classrooms has increased, and educators are becoming more experienced using them during instruction. Research needs to focus on providing educators with examples of effective instructional practices with iPads. To provide samples of effective instruction, this qualitative study used evidence from classroom observations and aligned the lessons to the Technology Integration Matrix (TIM). Lessons were observed and aligned to the Adoption, Adaptation, and Infusion levels of the TIM with Active, Collaborative, Constructive, and Authentic learning attributes. In addition this study investigated the perceptions teachers and principals …

Impact Of Educator Preparation Routes And Teacher Characteristics On Student Academic Achievement, Robert Hagerman

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

This study investigated the effect of traditional and alternative teacher preparation, years of service, and type of licensure held and teacher quality on English language arts and mathematics summative assessment scaled scores and performance levels among West Virginia students in grades 5 and 11. Specifically, this research analyzed the existing assessment data in West Virginia’s 55 counties, regarding teacher preparation routes, teacher experience, teacher licensure, and the teacher’s Highly Qualified (HQ) designation to determine the effect on student achievement. The study was designed with the aforementioned variables and applied a standardized summative content assessment outcome to the two grade levels …

Exploring The Impact Of Feedback On Learning Transfer In The Liminal Space For Information Literacy, Natalie Edwards Bishop

Education Dissertations and Projects

Mastering new knowledge is a transformative process, but what happens between initial confrontation with new knowledge and the moment it is mastered? This qualitative case study investigated perceptions on how feedback loops influenced student growth and learning transfer in the liminal space. Myer and Land (2005) described the liminal space as a stuck place where learners are wrestling with their conceptual understanding of knowledge that is troublesome.

Students were adult undergraduates in an online information literacy course. Librarians teaching the course were early adopters of ACRL’s The Framework for Information Literacy in Higher Education (the Framework) and participated in on-site …

A Study Of Staff Development And Teacher Efficacy In Implementing Standards-Based Grading At The Elementary Schools In A Rural School District In North Carolina, Brayton Alan Leonhardt

Education Dissertations and Projects

Standards-based grading is still in its infancy within North Carolina. At this time, only 12 of the 115 school districts have incorporated the standards-based form of grading into their system. As school districts across North Carolina look to implement different forms of grading to assess student learning, it will be important to look at the effectiveness of the professional development that accompanies the shift. The research questions that guided this work center around the support needed by teachers during the transition period and the impact of the professional development on their understanding of how to successfully implement standards-based grading. The …

A Study Of The Implementation Of A Middle School Math Program And Student Achievement, Carla Simmons White

Education Dissertations and Projects

Students who are entering the workplace are required to have middle or high school level skills. Graduates must develop skills in problem -solving and real-world mathematics. The purpose of this study was to determine (a) the extent to which teachers are using Carnegie Learning® for instructional planning, direct instruction, and assessment of students; (b) the extent to which there a statistically significant difference in spring MAP scores of students from spring 2016 to spring 2017 with teachers indicating they frequently use Carnegie Learning®; and (c) the impact of Carnegie Learning® on student achievement in Grades 6, 7, and 8. The …

Understanding Video Adoption: An Insider Action Researcher’S Case Study Using The Concerns-Based Adoption Model To Facilitate A Community Of Inquiry In Online Courses, Emily G. Robertson

Education Dissertations and Projects

This research explored how an insider change agent constructs a holistic understanding of a user’s adoption of video to facilitate the change adoption process and establish a community of inquiry in online courses. The case study was guided by tenets of change theory and constructivism emphasizing the personal and collaborative experience of the change adoption process. The Concerns-Based Adoption Model (CBAM) constructs of Stages of Concern (SoC), Levels of Use (LoU) and Innovation Configuration (IC), along with the Community of Inquiry (CoI) model elements of presence aligned with the theoretical frameworks and guided data collection and analysis.

Using five iterative …

Rethinking Visual Communication Curriculum: The Success Of Emporium Style, Adam Wagler, Katie Krcmarik, Alan Eno

Innovation in Pedagogy and Technology Symposium

The College of Journalism and Mass Communications faced challenges with budget and faculty resources causing a bottleneck, in the beginning, visual communications courses for the College. In the fall of 2016, a solution was implemented in the form of an emporium style teaching model, where students can seek help on projects and collaborate with peers on projects. The program is the first-of-its-kind giving students experience with the technologies and techniques needed to be powerful and effective storytellers. Students leverage the technology they use in their daily lives to solve real-world problems, with the help of faculty available in a learning …

Cybersecurity Threats & Challenges, Jr Nobles

Innovation in Pedagogy and Technology Symposium

Cyberattacks have brought a paradigm shift in how we secure & protect information. Today, NATO ranks attacks from phishing & malware among their greatest concerns. These attacks are attractive to hackers, who find them to be cheap, hard to track, and even harder to attribute. As budgets rise and fall, awareness of cyber threats and challenges has never been more critical. Theft of intellectual property, loss of research, and attacks on the reputation of the University are among the challenges managed by our team. Join the UNL Information Security team for a talk about today’s cyber threats and how they …

Enhancing The Quality Of Online Teaching Via Collaborative Course Development, B. Jean Mandernach, Steve Mcgahan

Innovation in Pedagogy and Technology Symposium

Collaborative course development offers a host of opportunities for academic departments to ensure consistency, maximize resource allocation, and increase scalability of online course offerings. By utilizing a collective design model, a team of content experts (i.e., department faculty), curriculum specialists, instructional designers, and instructional technologists can collaborate to develop dynamic online courses that can be taught by multiple instructors over successive terms. The key to a successful collaborative course design lies in an increased up-front investment of time and resources to ensure a well-designed course that aligns learning objectives, instructional content, activities, and assessments in a manner that is uniquely …

Scaling Up Student Assessment: Issues And Solutions, Paul Van Vliet

Innovation in Pedagogy and Technology Symposium

Online courses permit the enrollment of large numbers of students, which forces instructors to address the problem of providing valid and reliable assessments of student performance on a large scale. This paper examines two broad approaches for scaling up student assessment and feedback in higher education: automated assessment techniques and distributed assessment methods.

Why Do Girls Outperform Boys In School: A Qualitative Study Of Boy-Friendly Teaching, Teacher Efficacy And Practices, Renee Blair Clifford

Education Dissertations and Projects

This research study explored reasons why girls consistently outperform boys in the classroom, examining professional development teachers may have received, strategies teachers are implementing, and teacher’s self-efficacy in teaching boys. This was a qualitative study centered on the idea that boys do not perform as well in school as girls because teachers are not aware of learning differences or not designing instruction to address the unique learning needs of boys. This study took place at one South East elementary school.

Learning From Failure: An Action Research Case Study On Developing Growth Mindset Through Academic Risk-Taking In An Athletic Training Program, Sarah B. Rabe

Education Dissertations and Projects

The employment of academic risk-taking and growth mindset instructional practices in educational fields, though supported in literature, is limited and not commonly documented in the classroom. The purpose of this action research case study was to determine the impact of facilitation of growth mindset through modification of instructional practices in athletic training clinical courses at an Institution of Higher Learning. Constructive failure and growth mindset theories supported the mixed-methods research approach and the modification of instructional practices made during the study. Data were collected through growth mindset and academic risk-taking instruments and through semi-structured survey questions. The data analysis was …

Who Is Selected To Participate In Gifted And Talented Programs In A Small Southeastern School District?, Kancy Cleveland

Education Dissertations and Projects

This study describes a descriptive quantitative study and a binomial logistic regression model that looked at a total population versus academically gifted and talented population in Grades 3-6 in a small southeastern school district. Both populations were examined through the independent variables classified as age, gender, and socioeconomic status. Socioeconomic status was determined by if a student’s lunch was full pay, reduced pay, or free. The dependent variable was whether each student was identified as academically gifted and talented or not academically gifted and talented. Do the two different populations (total versus gifted) evenly or equally represent age, gender, and …

Filling The Reading Void: Studying Reading Stamina In A Rural High School Through Action Research: A Companion Research Study, Meredith Eubanks Lynch

Education Dissertations and Projects

Experts agree best practice in elementary education allows students time for silent reading during school due to the benefits to students in vocabulary development and reading stamina. As students age, this practice typically declines in favor of activities meant to teach vocabulary, prepare for standardized tests, and study novels together as a class to explore and analyze literature, resulting in less reading and subsequently decreasing reading stamina.

Teachers at a high poverty South Carolina high school, recognizing reading stamina as an issue, implemented a protocol described by Penny Kittle (2013) in Book Love: Developing Depth, Stamina, and Passion in Adolescent …

Does Teacher Immediacy Matter? The Relationship Among Teacher Immediacy, Student Motivation, Engagement, And Cognitive Learning, Jessica Rene Stilwell

Education Dissertations and Projects

According to the Academic Development Institute (Walberg, 2010), elementary and middle school students linger behind students from other economically advanced countries on achievement tests and fall further behind during the school years. With a need to improve classroom instruction and enhance cognitive learning for students, this study focuses on immediate communication behaviors of the classroom teacher, both verbal and nonverbal, and student academic motivation as factors in improving learning proficiency in both math and reading. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between teacher immediacy behaviors and teacher/student rapport on student motivation, engagement, and academic growth.

The …

Exploring A Rural School District’S Freshman Academy Program Through Parent And Staff Member Perspectives, Dustin Morehead

Education Dissertations and Projects

This study used a qualitative approach to explore a rural school district’s freshman academy program through parent and staff member perspectives using Stufflebeam’s (2003) CIPP model of program evaluation. Interviews and questionnaire data provided information to answer the following research questions.

1. Context: What is the context within which the freshman academy program was developed and implemented?

2. Input: What alternative resources are available to enhance the structure of the freshman academy program?

3. Process: How are the objectives of the freshman academy program aligned with improving student attendance, academic performance, and promotion?

4. Product: What are the perceptions of …

Filling The Reading Void: Studying Reading Stamina In A Suburban High School Through Action Research: A Companion Research Study, Lindsey Ruth Weycker

Education Dissertations and Projects

A common practice in elementary schools is to allow students silent reading time during school. Experts agree this is best practice due to the benefits to students, especially in vocabulary development and reading stamina. As students age, however, this practice tends to decline in favor of activities that are meant to teach vocabulary in isolation and test preparation skills. In addition to these activities, English language arts classes typically read and study novels together as a class for the purpose of studying literary devices and literary analysis. Because of these practices, secondary students tend to read less, which in turn …

Program Changes For Gifted Students And The Impact On Collaborative Efficacy, Trevor J. Putnam

Education Dissertations and Projects

Research suggests that academically gifted students are often underserved when it comes to the school setting. Academically gifted students require specialized instruction to challenge them. Several successful strategies exist for creating an educational environment that appropriately challenges and helps these students achieve academic growth; however, these strategies are rarely employed due to a lack of accountability, supports, or these students’ ability to make passing scores on state assessments.

The school chosen for this study came out of analysis of state growth numbers for academically gifted students. Analysis revealed that while gifted students of this school were meeting proficiency standards on …

Program Evaluation Of The Leader In Me In A Rural Elementary School With Emphasis On Hispanic Students, John Shepard

Education Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this study was to analyze the effects of The Leader in Me (TLIM) program and philosophy on a highly diverse, rural elementary school in North Carolina. TLIM is a program for school-wide transformation that seeks to teach all students 21st century leadership and life skills. TLIM is based on The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Covey (1989) and is an integrated approach to teaching leadership development. The study took place at School X, which has over 440 students. School X is diverse: 46% of the students are Hispanic; 41% are White; and 13% are Asian, …

Filling The Reading Void: Studying Reading Stamina In A Rural High School Through Action Research: A Companion Research Study, Meredith Eubanks Lynch

Education Dissertations and Projects

Experts agree best practice in elementary education allows students time for silent reading during school due to the benefits to students in vocabulary development and reading stamina. As students age, this practice typically declines in favor of activities meant to teach vocabulary, prepare for standardized tests, and study novels together as a class to explore and analyze literature, resulting in less reading and subsequently decreasing reading stamina. -- Teachers at a high poverty South Carolina high school, recognizing reading stamina as an issue, implemented a protocol described by Penny Kittle (2013) in Book Love: Developing Depth, Stamina, and Passion in …

The Use Of Response To Intervention With English Learners, Anna Burnley

ECTESOL Review

RTIs assist teachers in adjusting instruction to support ELs in acquiring English and content-area knowledge and learning behaviors. The use of RTIs with ELs can supplement support for ELs as an integrated concept of the sheltered instruction (SI) commonly provided for this student population.

Connecting North And South: Engaging Latin American English Learners, Kenyan Intercultural Communications And American Undergraduate Students Through Reciprocal Service Learning, Laureen Fregeau, Ukaiko A. Bitrus-Ojiambo, Suhana Chikatla, William Cornejo

ECTESOL Review

Reciprocal Service Learning through videoconferencing is an efficient tool for connecting native English speakers of various world Englishes and ELs in other nations for the benefit of all. The authors of this study recognize the reciprocal nature of teaching and learning and the social justice of equalizing power structures through the inclusion of participants and researchers from both North and South as members of a project and research team. Through participant observation and document review the authors examine the experiences of educators and learners in the phenomenon of reciprocal service learning through videoconferencing focused on cultural competence and English language …