Curriculum and Instruction Commons^™

Forging A More Equitable Path For Honors Education: Advancing Racial, Ethnic, And Socioeconomic Diversity, Andrew J. Cognard-Black, Art L. Spisak

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Despite a long tradition of social science research on educational access and barriers to inclusion for underrepresented minorities and the poor, until recently such issues have gotten relatively little attention in quantitative investigations of honors education. Public interest in educational access has grown in recent years, however, energizing discussions about the need to confront the exclusionary features of honors. The authors use data from the 2018 Student Experience in the Research University (SERU) Survey to examine the degree and variability of underrepresentation in honors at a sample of major universities in the United States. They then identify a set of …

Journal Of The National Collegiate Honors Council, Vol. 22, No. 1 (Spring/Summer 2021): Forum Essays On “The Boundaries Of Honors”

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Contents

Call for Papers . v

Editorial Policy, Deadlines, and Submission Guidelines . vi

Dedication to Annmarie Guzy . vii

Ada Long, Editor’s Introduction ix

Forum essays on “the boundaries of honors”

Christopher Keller, “Mad and Educated, Primitive and Loyal”: Comments on the Occupations of Honors . 3

Betsy Greenleaf Yarrison, Crossing the Ohio: Welcoming Students of Color into the Honors White Space 13

Owen Cantrell, “Here’s the church, here’s the steeple”: Existing Politics of Honors Education 21

Leah White, Traveling in Circles: Gatekeeping in Honors . 27

Matthew Carey Jordan,Inquiry as Occupation 31

Andrew Martino, Territorial …

Understanding The Impact Of The Covid-19 Pandemic On Honors College Students: A Qualitative Content Analysis, Bibha M. Das, Carmen Walker, Elizabeth Hodge, Tim Christensen, Teal Darkenwald, Wayne Godwin, Gerald Weckesser

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

While the coronavirus crisis altered all facets of life across the globe, its impact on American higher education posed immediate challenges to students and faculty alike. Disruptions in normal, in-person instruction affected all students’ abilities to connect and create, but first-year students and their professors were particularly restricted in areas relating to classroom engagement, interpersonal exchange, and academic support. This pilot study presents first-year experiences of honors students during this time. Using reflective writing exercises, authors examine and assess a range of student responses (n = 98) to this extraordinary circumstance. Qualitative content analyses and coding reveal eight major themes: …

Honors As Gadfly, Linda Frost

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Although honors populations occupy only a fraction of institutional enrollments, they have undeniably changed the nature of higher education. This essay considers the impact of honors on university culture, processes, and infrastructure. Touted as a “critical element” of the comprehensive college experience for both students and faculty, honors exceeds and outpaces other units within the academy in curricular innovation, cross-functional collaboration, and high-impact practice, and by its example, it continues to provoke others into action by its persistent variation and maturation.

“Here’S The Church, Here’S The Steeple”: Existing Politics Of Honors Education, Owen Cantrell

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

In considering the extent to which honors education should engage with political and social justice movements, the author argues that its programs must first reckon with their own histories and complicity within systems of domination and oppression before determining the best approach. This essay examines how the continued legacy of racialized tracking at the secondary level, as well as the exclusionary nature of collegiate honors programs, has often exacerbated inequalities for marginalized student populations. The author concludes with a call for honors practitioners to confront the history of honors education; to de-center honors in service learning and community engagement; and …

Bridging The Interval: Teaching Global Awareness Through Music And Politics, Galit Gertsenzon

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Inquiry in Global Studies: Music and Politics is a regular course offering in which first-year honors students examine the social and cultural import of music in a global context. This qualitative study examines the practical and pedagogical implications of teaching music and politics during the coronavirus crisis. In a thematic, five-part series analyzing non-Western music both in service to the government and as protest against it, the author describes how students perceived the commonalities and diversities in global culture, history, politics, and society through music while at the same time demonstrating growth in music-making processes and confronting a remote learning …

On Taking Emerson’S Good Advice: “If We But Know What To Do With It”, Jerry Herron

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

In his 1837 essay “The American Scholar,” Ralph Waldo Emerson offers a challenge that is appropriate for honors practitioners today—namely, to figure out just how good a time this is to be doing the work we do. Honors students, faculty, and staff occupy every part of the institutions we call home, so we should take advantage of our position and of all we know about the measurable value added by our best practices to address the immediate challenges confronting us.

The Recruitment And Retention Of Diverse Students In Honors: What The Last Twenty Years Of Scholarship Say, Jason T. Hilton, Jessica Jordan

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Common to most colleges and universities across the United States, honors programs are often criticized as havens for academically elite and privileged students. To help address concerns about the recruitment and retention of diverse honors students, this study presents a systematic review (2000–2019, inclusive) of published literature relating to diversity in honors education (n = 66). Identifying six emergent themes, authors examine the types of research presented in the literature; how diversity is defined by scholars; and programmatic best practices for increasing student diversity. A thorough description of one program’s flexible, innovative, and adaptive strategies for curricular improvement, recruitment practices, …

Inquiry As Occupation, Matthew Carey Jordan

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Honors educators must acknowledge and respect clear boundaries between the work they do in the classroom and the advocacy they support or engage in as private citizens. Public colleges exist to prepare citizens for life in a pluralistic, democratic republic, and few limits should be placed here on what questions may be asked or which views may be expressed. By encouraging a clear delineation of the distinct roles occupied in a discourse community, the author offers a strategy for addressing contentious social issues in a principled manner.

“Mad And Educated, Primitive And Loyal”: Comments On The Occupations Of Honors, Christopher Keller

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

This essay examines the scope of honors scholarship and its role in creating and contributing to meaningful dialogue among practitioners. The author explores how scholarly contributions of honors educators cross boundaries to occupy the social, cultural, political, and economic conversations that shape lives and transform communities. Pointing to socio-political crises of 2020, the author posits that the conjunctive nature of honors discourse satisfies an expedient need for exploration and questioning, and he further considers how honors scholarship might incite positive change in and beyond honors curricula and scholarly record.

Bordering On Normal: Dissolving Honors Boundaries, Lucy Morrison

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

First-year students faced unprecedented challenges while transitioning from high school to university in fall 2020. The coronavirus crisis, economic downturn, social unrest, and a rapid and massive shift to remote learning altered their world in fundamental ways. This essay describes the response of one honors program toward providing extra- and co-curricular opportunities for student engagement with contemporary issues affecting the local community. While keeping the events of the world in view, the author demonstrates a virtual building of campus community. Pedagogical tools, such as service learning, complement a technological infrastructure for supporting colloquial inquiry and confronting social inequity, and they …

Keeping The Faith: Nchc’S Readers And Writers, Jeffrey Portnoy

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Honors advocates and scholars should pursue transdisciplinary inquiry to overcome traditional notions of well-defined knowledge boundaries. This essay examines the publication record of the National Collegiate Honors Council beyond its immediate utilitarian value as a means for communication with its members. Citing usage and metrics, the author suggests that current and past literatures that examine the enterprise of honors, its occupation(s), and what occupies its practitioners are being accessed and integrated beyond honors at an exponential rate. As NCHC publications continue to push beyond the boundaries of honors, the author encourages readers to engage more fully in NCHC-sponsored discourse by …

Honors As A Third Space Occupation, Aaron Stoller

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

This essay argues that in order for honors to occupy and transform the academy it must begin by transforming itself. Drawing on Homi Bhabha’s notion of “third space,” the author argues that the traditional epistemic paradigms in higher education are inadequate for conceptualizing the praxis-driven work required in honors. Honors should be understood as a form of transdisciplinarity, with the aim of producing what is defined as Mode 2 knowledge. Only from within this nonbinary professional framework is honors capable of disrupting, reimagining, and transforming the university.

Traveling In Circles: Gatekeeping In Honors, Leah White

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

This essay challenges boundaries in honors that are both intentional and unavoidable. Reflecting on what appears to be an overemphasis on boundaries and gatekeeping within honors, the author urges practitioners to consider its exclusionary culture and the extent to which it circles around its stated goals of diversity, equity, and inclusion. The current preoccupation of honors with reaching beyond its boundaries to embrace the goals of social justice movements, for example, reveals the extent of its entrenchment with concerns of Whiteness. This essay suggests that until honors practitioners are willing to do the difficult reflective work of understanding why boundaries …

Crossing The Ohio: Welcoming Students Of Color Into The Honors White Space, Betsy Greenleaf Yarrison

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Honors has long been a space for pushing boundaries and promoting culturally responsive teaching, yet students from underserved and marginalized populations rarely see themselves reflected in the designated intelligentsia of most universities. This essay considers several aspects of boundaries in, and barriers to, the honors experience. Implicit in marketing honors as “value-added” is the boundary between the honors curriculum and the “regular” curriculum from which other boundaries extend. From outmoded enrollment management and admissions policies to curricular and instructional strategies that hold to a pedagogy of whiteness, the author urges honors educators to create paths to student academic success by …

Jnchc 22:1 - Cover, Contents, Call For Papers, Editorial Policy, Dedication To Annmarie Guzy, Editor's Introduction, Ada Long

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Contents

Call for Papers . v

Editorial Policy, Deadlines, and Submission Guidelines . vi

Dedication to Annmarie Guzy . vii

Ada Long, Editor’s Introduction ix

Holding Tight To Our Convictions And Lightly To Our Ways: Inviting Shared Expertise As A Strategy For Expanding Inclusion, Reach, And Impact, Kylie Korsnack, Leslie Ortquist-Ahrens

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

When the global pandemic forced campuses across the United States to send students home in March 2020, instructors were thrown into triage mode, forced to rapidly transition their on-the-ground classroom curriculum to a format that could be completed remotely by students spread out across the country. At the same time, centers for teaching and learning (CTLs) also entered triage mode, puzzling over how to quickly but effectively provide appropriate training and meaningful support to prepare faculty for this rapid transition (Aebersold et al., 2020). The situation’s urgency, coupled with the significant constraints many CTL directors already experienced, necessitated creative, flexible, …

Fractal Reflection: Cultivating Community And Meaning In Times Of Crises, Deandra Little, Joshua Caulkins, Eric C. Kaldor, Lindsay Wheeler

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

The Pandemic Educational Development Research Collaborative (PEDRC) formed in April 2020 to record research-participants’ experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic and systemic racism crises and includes 18 educational developers across various 4-year institutions, types of centers, and positions in the field. The novel research methodology used by PEDRC, called “fractal reflection,” includes an iterative process of reflection, analysis, and meaning-making at the individual, paired, and group levels. However, this methodology served as more than just a means to collect data; it also provided a set of effective reflective practices to support educational developers managing the emotional labor of their work in …

Growing Pains (And Opportunities): Launching A Center For Teaching And Learning During A Global Pandemic, Johanna Inman

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

This article provides a summary of the steps that were taken to launch a new center for teaching and learning (CTL) during the COVID-19 pandemic. Analysis of these steps explain how the inaugural director leveraged the pivot to emergency remote teaching to capitalize on faculty interest for educational development and increase collaboration between non-academic units that support teaching. Discussion also includes how strategic planning guided this process and ultimately garnered new staffing for this small center-of-one.

In Search Of Silver Linings: Strategies For Preparing Future Faculty During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Tazin Daniels, Elizabeth Bailey, Anoff Nicholas Cobblah

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

In this article, we describe our experience as a racially and disciplinarily diverse, relatively junior program team who embraced the opportunity to transform a 20-year-old professional development seminar for graduate students into a remote offering in response to COVID-19. Our efforts to support our participants and champion an institutional move toward equitable and effective virtual programming are situated alongside the psychological tolls of remote work, a global health crisis, and ongoing racial violence across the United States. We recount our experience using, as a helpful metaphor, Lewin’s change model, which describes the process of “unfreezing,” “changing,” and “refreezing” long-standing assumptions …

How A Flexible Teaching “Camp” Answered Our Pandemic Teaching Emergency, Patricia Dineen

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, faculty scrambled to move courses online and to master technology tools seemingly overnight. Keeping a focus on course design and teaching techniques became a central challenge for a center for teaching and learning (CTL) in the midst of the emergency move to online and blended learning. This article chronicles one CTL’s design and implementation of a virtual Forward Looking Explorations in Teaching Camp (FLEX Camp) that aimed to address pedagogy and technology simultaneously by immersing faculty in learning experiences. It details the planning process, learning goals, key activities, assessment methods, and lessons learned …

What Happens When You Close The Door On Remote Proctoring? Moving Toward Authentic Assessments With A People-Centered Approach, Sarah Silverman, Autumn Caines, Christopher Casey, Belen Garcia De Hurtado, Jessica Riviere, Alfonso Sintjago, Carla Vecchiola

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

The COVID-19 pandemic made traditionally proctored in-person exams impossible. This article provides a summary of the arguments against institutional adoption of remote proctoring services with a focus on equity, an account of the decision to avoid remote proctoring on the University of Michigan–Dearborn campus, and conclusions and suggestions for other teaching and learning professionals who would like to take a similar approach. Remote proctoring services require access to technology that not all students are guaranteed to have, can constitute an invasion of privacy for students, and can discriminate against students of color and disabled students. Administrators and teaching and learning …

Rebuilding A Teaching Conference In A Pandemic: User-Centered Guiding Principles And Lessons Learned, Laura A. Lukes, E. Shelley Reid

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

The COVID-19 pandemic challenged educational developers, like instructors across the world, to pivot their traditionally face-to-face faculty development programs to online formats. At the Stearns Center for Teaching and Learning at George Mason University (classified as research-intensive and the largest public institution in Virginia, United States), we faced the challenge of reimagining our annual pedagogy conference that scaled from 497 registered in 2019 when it was face-to-face to over 800 in 2020 as it was moved online. Under pressures of limited resources and increased uncertainty, leaders can find it difficult to imagine pathways toward innovation rather than just daily responses …

Stop-Motion Animation To Model The Analemma, Leslie Atkins Elliott, Amanda Hunter, Carl Krutz, Shakayla Moran, Elliot Sherrow

Curriculum, Instruction, and Foundational Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

The Sun does not return to the same position in the sky every 24 hours. At local noon, for example, the Sun will appear higher in the sky as we move from winter to summer solstice. In addition, and perhaps more surprisingly, solar days (the roughly 24 hours between subsequent local noons) vary in length, causing the Sun to be east or west of its location 24 hours prior. Over a year, this variation traces out a figure 8, known as an analemma, as shown in Fig.1. It can also be seen in the sundial in Fig. 2, where the …

Student Perceptions Of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy And The Impact On Teacher-Student Relationships, Robert Louis Harris

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to explore how six eighth-grade Magnet Program students perceive their teacher-student relationship through the teacher’s use of culturally relevant pedagogy. This case study provided information that guides a classroom teacher in the implementation of culturally relevant pedagogy that helps develop and maintain teacher-student relationships. The resulting analysis and interpretation provided major themes that developed regarding the use of culturally relevant strategies in the classroom.

This study informs educators in the profession about the extent to which students perceptions impact their relationship with the teacher. Findings could be used by teachers and administrators to advocate …

Naming And Re(Claiming) Feminism In Orthodoxy: Voicing The Gender And Religious Identities Of Greek Orthodox Women, Anne Marie Adams

College of Education Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is a qualitative study of the effects of Greek Orthodoxy on the gender and religious identity meaning-making of five Greek-American women. The emergent themes from this study indicate that participants’ gender and religious identities were heavily influenced by the dueling tensions and contradictions between patriarchy and feminism, conservative traditionalism and modernity, and secular life and the religious community (i.e., family and church). Underpinning this study are Narrative Identity Theory and Feminist Standpoint Theory. Portraiture methodology was employed across three semi-structured interviews, as well as three written/video reflection journals to reveal how women, as articulated through their own perspectives, …

Community Engagement In Tpc Programs During Times Of Crisis: Embracing Chicana And Latina Feminist Practices, Nora Rivera, Laura Gonzales

English Faculty Articles and Research

Drawing on lessons gathered while teaching community engagement in technical communication courses during the COVID-19 pandemic, two Latina instructors, one in New Mexico and one in Florida, highlight the value that Chicana and Latina feminism can bring to technical communication pedagogies. The authors share course assignments and student examples that demonstrate their applications of Chicana/Latina feminist practices in technical communication. Through pláticas and testimonios, methodologies and methods grounded in Latina/Chicana feminism, the authors demonstrate how they navigate the challenges of the pandemic while also creating spaces for students to share, heal, and contribute to the activist work taking place in …

Edc 310 The Teaching Of Reading And Writing In The Primary Grades: Introductory Week, Ting Yuan

Open Educational Resources

This OER features the introductory week of EDC 310 in which teacher candidates will learn to use methods of cultural anthropology to learn to be an observant classroom teacher and ethnographer, collect weekly data through weekly classroom fieldwork featuring their child partners, as well as enact culturally-responsive literacy teaching lessons for their child partners on a weekly basis.

Standardized Tests: Effects On Science Education And Diversity In Science, Rachel A. Rucker

Honors Thesis

Standardized tests are ubiquitous in the American educational system. The excessive use of standardized tests has led to a decrease in taught content and has pushed teachers at the high school level to adopt less effective teaching styles that are also extremely common for introductory STEM courses at the undergraduate level. The heavy reliance on ACT and SAT scores for acceptance into college is misplaced, as the ACT/SAT are poor predictors of STEM college graduation. Also, underrepresented students (women, racial minorities, and lower socioeconomic groups) are disproportionately impacted by the heavy use of standardized tests. These students tend to score …

The Impact Of Collective Efficacy And Collective Inquiry On Closing The Achievement Gap, Anne Marie Yarborough

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this two-phased, mixed-method action research study was to investigate the impact of a professional learning community’s collective teacher efficacy and their practice of collective inquiry in closing the achievement gap of eighth-grade social studies English language learners. The research questions guiding this research: 1. How and to what extent will collective inquiry impact collective efficacy among teachers? 2. How and to what extent will a professional learning community's collective efficacy impact student achievement on the 8th-grade social studies state assessment for English language learners?

Social cognitive theory and adult learning theory provided the theoretical foundation for this …