Educational Assessment, Evaluation, and Research Commons^™

21cleo: First Year Recap, 21cleo Research Team

21CLEO Research Project Blog Posts

In this post, we recap our experiences, accomplishments, and challenges. We hope that by reviewing the past year, we can provide a sense of where we've been and set the stage for things to come.

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

Special Education Faculty Publications and Presentations

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

Introduction To Cec’S Process For Re-Validating Knowledge And Skills Competency Sets, Amy T. Parker

Special Education Faculty Publications and Presentations

Overview of the CEC’s process for re-validating knowledge and skills competency sets.

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

Special Education Faculty Publications and Presentations

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

President’S Message, Division Of Visual Impairments And Deafblindness’, Amy T. Parker

Special Education Faculty Publications and Presentations

President's message to the Division on Vision Impairment and Deafblindness

Conceptual Paper For Re-Validating The Teacher Of Deafblind And Intervener Competencies, Susan Bruce, Cathy Nelson, Amy T. Parker, Debbie Sanders, Adam Graves, Carol Rimka

Special Education Faculty Publications and Presentations

An overview of the standards for the role of Teacher of the Deafblind (TBD) and the paraprofessional Intervener.

Examining Doctoral Student Development Of A Researcher Identity: Using The Draw A Researcher Test, Micki M. Caskey, Dannelle D. Stevens, Marie Yeo

Education Faculty Publications and Presentations

With a core identity as working professionals, education doctoral students struggle with seeing themselves as researchers. Because research is essential in a doctoral program, the sooner doctoral students include researcher as an identity, the smoother and more successful their journey will be. To support doctoral student researcher identity development, we focused on scaffolding and embedding academic writing experiences in the first year seminar in a U.S. doctoral program. The purpose of this study was to describe and explain doctoral students’ development of a researcher identity as measured by the Draw-a-Researcher Test (DART). In the fall and spring, we collected drawings …

What Is A Learning Ecosystem?, 21cleo Research Team

21CLEO Research Project Blog Posts

During the past year, we've come to realize that the term learning ecosystem is widely used, but not usually defined or widely understood. Rather than taking the term for granted, we crafted this blog post to

• explore the origins of the term,

• discuss what it has come to mean, and its limitations

• explain how and why we are using the term in our study despite its limitations.

A Profile Of Sophomore Inquiry Students Fall 2019, Portland State University. University Studies Program

University Studies Assessment Research

No abstract provided.

Barriers To Learning, Part 2, 21cleo Research Team

21CLEO Research Project Blog Posts

In this post we write about the dispositional barriers adult learners face, as well as how important perseverance and a positive mindset are when learning and changing one's career trajectory.

Insights From Alumni: A Grounded Theory Study Of A Graduate Program In Sustainability Leadership, Heather Burns, Megan Schneider

Educational Leadership and Policy Faculty Publications and Presentations

This grounded theory action research study examines the impact of a graduate sustainability leadership program through the lens of its alumni. The study reveals elements of the leadership program that had the most impact on the lives and careers of its alumni, as well as suggestions for how the program could better prepare students in the future. This study finds that impactful sustainability leadership programs might incorporate opportunities for: paradigm and perspective shifts; a culture of support and care; holistic personal growth and development; experiential community-based learning opportunities; and leadership tools and skills that students can practice and use. This …

Barriers To Learning, Part L, 21cleo Research Team

21CLEO Research Project Blog Posts

This blog post is the first in a two-part series that focuses on barriers to learner participation and persistence in employersupported educational opportunities. In this framing of past research and reports, the 21 CLEO Research team draws on Margaret Patterson's categories of learning and persistence barriers as an analytic lens to situate literature reviewed in our landscape scan.

Defining Employer Supported Learning Opportunities, 21cleo Research Team

21CLEO Research Project Blog Posts

The 21st Century Learning Ecosystem Opportunities (21Cleo) research team has been hard at work! In our last two blog posts, we reported on a field review of learning opportunities from a process perspective (how we chose the literature we reviewed) and from a product perspective (what we are learning from this literature).

Learning Opportunities Available To Frontline Workers, 21cleo Research Team

21CLEO Research Project Blog Posts

In our efforts to better understand the characteristics of learning opportunities available to frontline service workers, we've undertaken a comprehensive review of the work that has been published and distributed in the field. In our last post, we shared that we've collected and reviewed over 50 reports and publications from a variety of sources. This post focuses on our initial findings and insights from this review.

21cleo Research Team Introduces Early Work At Coabe, 21cleo Research Team

21CLEO Research Project Blog Posts

21CLEO Research Blog Post No.05

21cleo Field Literature Review Process, 21cleo Research Team

21CLEO Research Project Blog Posts

The 21st Century Learning Ecosystems Opportunities (21 CLEO) project has embarked on a review of research that describes educational opportunities offered to frontline workers. Throughout the course of this review process, the project has been creating a list and description of the different types of opportunities offered. This field review will help us get a clearer picture of types of learning available and the range as well as their educational reach.

21cleo Research: Paving The Way Forward, Gloria Jacobs, Jill Castek

21CLEO Research Project Blog Posts

The exciting research into the 21st Century Learning Ecosystems Opportunities (21CLEO) project has begun. We have developed our initial set of data collection tools and protocols to examine front-line service workers' perspectives and experiences with employer provided education.

Introducing The 21cleo Project, 21cleo Research Team

21CLEO Research Project Blog Posts

21CLEO Research Blog Post No.01

Building A Culture Of Inquiry: 1st Century Learningecosystem Opportunities Project, 21cleo Research Team

21CLEO Research Project Blog Posts

21CLEO Research Blog Post No.02

Community-Engaged Teaching: Lessons From A Participatory History Project, Amie Thurber, Sarah V. Suiter

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

How can we create opportunities for students to gain experience in community-engaged scholarship that truly benefits the community given the constraints of the academic calendar, students’ varied capacity to develop reciprocal and responsive community relationships, and the tendency for community-engaged research to instrumentalize community partners in service to academic deliverables? This paper explores one attempt to meet this challenge: an experimental graduate course in community development that linked course content to a participatory history project. Designed as a Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) study, instructors studied the instructional process as well as outcomes for students and community partners. We …

Building The Case For Culturally Specific P-3 Strategies In Oregon: Listening To Voices From The Field, Callie H. Lambarth, Amanda Cross-Hemmer, Lorelei Mitchell, Beth L. Green, Kate Normand

Early Childhood

Oregon’s early learning and K-12 systems require transformative changes to address racial disparities in school readiness and success. Prenatal-through-Grade-3 (P-3) initiatives are an innovative way to align, strengthen and expand supports for this goal.

Culturally specific organizations (CSOs) are uniquely poised and expertly prepared to meet the needs of communities of color while helping Oregon achieve its goals for reducing disparities in kinder­garten readiness and other educational outcomes.

The proposed Early Childhood Equity Fund, which is included in the governor’s recommended 2019 budget, would move Oregon closer to eliminating the opportunity gap in kindergarten readiness and school success by investing …

University Studies Annual Assessment 2018-2019, Portland State University. University Studies Program, Rowanna L. Carpenter, J. R. Estes, Seanna M. Kerrigan, Annie Knepler, Dana Lundell, Michael Lupro, Zapoura Newton-Calvert, Vicki Reitenauer

University Studies Annual Assessment Reports

Annual in-depth examination and assessment of Portland State University's general education model, the University Studies Program. The tools and methods used to assess student learning are faculty driven and developed.

A Profile Of Freshman Inquiry Students Fall 2019, Portland State University. University Studies Program, Rowanna L. Carpenter

University Studies Assessment Research

In order to better understand the students who enroll in Freshman Inquiry (FRINQ) courses and identify areas where they may need support, University Studies (UNST) began collecting and compiling data on these students. This report presents a profile of FRINQ students from Fall 2019. It presents an overview of all students enrolled in FRINQ during Fall 2019 and then summarizes information from the Prior Learning Survey. It is organized around three areas that contribute to student success: academic preparation and concern; financial and physical wellbeing; and connectedness to campus.

The Relationship Between A University-Based Mentorship Program And First-Year Teachers’ Performance, Alicia C. Stapp, Laura F. Prior, Catherine Harmon

Northwest Journal of Teacher Education

Teacher attrition affects both the stability and quality of schools. Nearly 24% of teachers leave after one year, 33% leave after three years, and 40-50% leave within their first five years (Geiger & Pivovarova, 2018). Effective mentorship programs can effectively assist teachers in overcoming the challenges that lead to resignation. This study implemented a teacher mentorship program where the mentor was a teacher educator who had worked with the mentees in their undergraduate program. Utilizing a qualitative approach, the study examined first-year teachers’ performance through monthly field observations, interviews, and self-reflections. Themes emerged that are critical to a first-year teacher’s …

Administrators' Insights Into The Preparation And Performance Of New Teachers, Sarah J. Kaka, Jennifer A. Tygret

Northwest Journal of Teacher Education

There are few studies that focus on the perceptions and experiences of school administrators toward new teachers; however, understanding of both are required for accreditation. Furthermore, the school administrators’ perceptions of the training, as well as teachers’ performance and impact on student learning during their first years of teaching is vital to determine how new teachers are performing in the classroom. This case study explored these perceptions and three main themes emerged: Indicators of New Teacher Effectiveness, Evidence of Impact on Student Learning, and Identified Areas for Growth. Insight for understanding ways to improve teacher preparation are included.

Building A Culture Of Collegiality Through Transformative Faculty Support, Rowanna L. Carpenter, Celine Fitzmaurice, Maurice Hamington, Annie Knepler, Vicki Reitenauer

University Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

Portland State University’s (PSU) motto Let Knowledge Serve the City identifies a key piece of the University’s DNA as a community-engaged institution. As educators in PSU’s signature general education program, University Studies, we work intentionally as colleagues to catalyze transformative teaching and learning to build--with our students--a just world.

In AY 2016-17, through an iterative process involving faculty, administrators, staff, and students, University Studies adopted vision and mission statements to reflect and ground our efforts:

Vision: Challenging us to think holistically, care deeply, and engage courageously in imagining and co-creating a just world.

Mission: University Studies’ inclusive pedagogy

• provokes students …

Using Problems Of Practice To Leverage Clinical Learning, Maika Yeigh

Curriculum and Instruction Faculty Publications and Presentations

Teacher preparation is a complex endeavor. Preparation programs are designed to transform regular humans into adept teachers through carefully constructed coursework and clinical experiences. University programs and the K-12 school systems both play important roles in the process; however, tensions have persisted between university coursework and clinical field work—a divide between "theoretical" and "clinical". The 2010 NCATE Blue Ribbon Panel Report issued a call to action, and asked teacher preparation programs to reconceptualize approaches to pre-service teacher learning by placing clinical experiences at the heart of the work in an effort to bridge traditional theoretical and clinical divides. This article …

Building Successful P-3 Initiatives: Foundations And Catalysts For Systems Change, Lindsey Brianna Patterson, Beth L. Green, Callie H. Lambarth, Mackenzie Burton, Diane Reid

Early Childhood

Across the United States, there is a growing recognition that early education and K-12 systems require transformative changes to address racial, ethnic, linguistic and economic disparities in school readiness and success.

Prenatal-through-Grade-3 (P-3) initiatives address these disparities by coordinating, strengthening and aligning fragmented support systems for families and children from birth through third grade.

These increasingly popular initiatives:

• Are based on accumulating evidence that standalone early childhood and school-based programs are not sufficient to sustain long-term success for children facing early childhood inequities
• Take a collective impact approach that brings families, early childhood providers, K-12 staff and other partners together …

Catching The Wave: Are Biology Graduate Students On Board With Evidence-Based Teaching?, Emma C. Goodwin, Jane N. Cao, Miles Fletcher, Justin L. Flaiban, Erin E. Shortlidge

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Graduate students hold a critical role in responding to national calls for increased adoption of evidence-based teaching (EBT) in undergraduate classrooms, as they not only serve as teaching assistants, but also represent the pool from which future faculty will emerge. Through interviews with 32 biology graduate students from 25 institutions nationwide, we sought to understand the progress these graduate students are making in adopting EBT through qualitative exploration of their perceptions of and experiences with both EBT and instructional professional development. Initial inductive content analysis of interview transcripts guided the holistic placement of participants within stages of Rogers’s diffusions of …

The Trade-Off Between Graduate Student Research And Teaching: A Myth?, Erin E. Shortlidge, Sarah L. Eddy

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Many current faculty believe that teaching effort and research success are inversely correlated. This trade-off has rarely been empirically tested; yet, it still impedes efforts to increase the use of evidence-based teaching (EBT), and implement effective teaching training programs for graduate students, our future faculty. We tested this tradeoff for graduate students using a national sample of life science PhD students. We characterize how increased training in EBT impacts PhD students' confidence in their preparation for a research career, in communicating their research, and their publication number. PhD students who invested time into EBT did not suffer in confidence in …