Educational Methods Commons^™

Ability Grouping And Student Achievement In Four Rural Elementary Schools In The Southern United States, Rhonda Denise Kelley

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

School personnel are concerned that reading gaps of grade 3 and grade 4 students have persisted in 4 rural elementary schools in the southern United States despite the use of ability grouping to improve student reading proficiency scores. Between the 2014-2016 school years, less than 50% of students in grades 3 and grade 4 scored at the proficient level in reading at the 4 target rural schools. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to examine the teachers' and administrators' perceptions regarding the influence of grouping on the reading performance of students in grades 3 and 4. Using Vygotsky's …

Exploring Nontraditional Learner Engagement And Motivation Through Music Integration, Jessa Rae Hershner

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The increase in population of nontraditional adult learners paired with a demand for multisensory learning created a need for further research in best pedagogy in higher education. Thus, the purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore the central question on how the integration of music, lyrics, or music videos into higher education classrooms affected the motivation and engagement levels of nontraditional adult learners. The conceptual framework was based upon self-determination theory, andragogy, multiple intelligences, and visual literacy. A multiple case design was used to collect data from 8 nontraditional higher education students. Data were collected via telephone interviews …

Educational Development Needs Of Higher Education Faculty Working With Ells, Kevin Joseph Martin

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

This study was undertaken to examine the educational development (ED) needs of higher education (HE) faculty who have English language learners (ELLs) in their mainstream courses but do not have specialized training in teaching such students. A quantitative approach was used to explore the impact of any existing ED and areas that might need improvement. This study, guided by andragogy, examined the pedagogical needs of these HE faculty. A cross-sectional analysis of online survey data using a multiple analysis of variance (MANOVA) and multiple analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) examined the ED needs and available resources of faculty with respect to …

Conscious Conclusions: The Effect Of Positive-Attitude Cues On Teacher Candidate Dispositions About Mathematics, Shelletta Baker

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to use elements for developing teacher identity, personal philosophy, beliefs about teaching and learning, and reflection to frame an examination of the effect of Positive-Attitude Cues (PACs) on teacher candidates’(n = 135) mathematics anxiety and expressive writing. Participants were randomly assigned to a treatment (PACs) or control group (No-PAC) and their dispositions about mathematics were examined using the Revised Mathematics Anxiety Rating Scale (MARS-R); which had a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.96 and an expressive writing task before and after the intervention. A significant main effect of test time showed that participants …

A Simple Low-Cost Institutional Learning-Outcomes Assessment Process, Andrea A. Curcio

Faculty Publications By Year

Law school institutional learning outcomes require measuring nuanced skills that develop over time. Rather than look at achievement just in our own courses, institutional outcome-measures assessment requires collective faculty engagement and critical thinking about our students’ overall acquisition of the skills, knowledge, and qualities that ensure they graduate with the competencies necessary to begin life as professionals. Even for those who believe outcomes assessment is a positive move in legal education, in an era of limited budgets and already over-burdened faculty, the new mandated outcomes assessment process raises cost and workload concerns. This essay addresses those concerns. It describes a …

Historical Perspectives On Large Schools In America, Robert L. Hampel

Occasional Paper Series

Hampel evaluates the large school versus small school debate from a historical perspective. Until the 1970's, the small school was seen as the problem, not the answer. This essay will look at five beliefs, each firmly held for a long time by most educators.

Best Practices Used By Assistant Superintendents Of Curriculum And Instruction: Improving Teacher Instruction In A High Accountability Environment, Julie Madden

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative multi-case study investigated not only the role of assistant superintendents of curriculum and instruction, but the strategies and best practices used by four assistant superintendents of curriculum and instruction and a deputy superintendent of teaching and learning from East Texas in order to improve classroom instruction and support teachers in the high-stakes testing environment. The study sheds light on the role of central office leaders, their views related to the high-stakes testing environment and the impact they have on instruction for teachers and students. The responses given in this qualitative case study were carefully analyzed in order to …

A Brief History Of Stem And Steam From An Inadvertent Insider, Lisa G. Catterall

The Transdisciplinary STEAM+ Journal

This article traces a history of STEM and STEAM from the perspective of someone involved in arts integration research for the last 35 years, and proposes a vision for the next steps. It also provides an assessment of the risks inherent in current trends of STEAM roll-out in schools, from the lack of resources for professional development to the burgeoning market in STEAM kits and activity books that do not lead to the original learning goals of STEAM.

What Makes That Autistic Student Tick? Strategies For Classroom Behaviors, Amanda Puleo

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

Inclusion of autistic students in mainstream classrooms may make it difficult for teachers to identify and proactively address disruptive behaviors. That is, mainstream teachers may not know how to respond to these specific behaviors and their standard classroom management techniques may not work with autistic students. It will take commitment and hard work to identify strategies to regulate the disruptive behaviors of students with autism. To address this issue, the perspectives of directors and teachers who specialize in autism, as well as mainstream public or private school teachers were obtained through interviews. Three options for action emerged from an analysis …

The Impact Of Ethics And Faith On The Leadership Styles Of Black Women In Higher Education, Emetrude Lewis

Journal of Research Initiatives

Abstract

This phenomenological study explored the connection between ethics and faith as well as the impact that such connection has on the leadership styles of Black women in institution of public education. For the sake of confidentiality, pseudonyms were used for the participants and to protect their privacy. Multiple data collection and analytical methods were utilized to document the experiences and voices of the participants. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to understand the role and impact of ethics and faith on the leadership styles of Black women in higher education. The major goals of the research are: 1) …

To Game Or Not To Game? How Using Massively Multiplayer Online Games Helped Motivation And Performance In A College Writing Course: A Mixed Methods Study, Papia Bawa, William Watson, Sunnie L. Watson

Journal of Research Initiatives

The use of Massively Multiplayer Online Games or MMOGs is receiving attention in the educational world due to increased availability of such games, a growing consumer base, and the proven benefits of video games as engagement tools. MMOGs that have been known to possess a significantly high capacity to keep users involved over sustained periods, which gives them the potential to enhance learning experiences and performances. However, most available studies on MMOGs do not discuss relationships between MMOG use and performance outcomes in Higher Education. Additionally, majority of such studies focus on examining a single MMOG, providing limited scopes of …

Roundtable – Teaching Human Rights: Challenges And Best Practices, Shayna Plaut, Kristi Kenyon, Joel Pruce, William Simmons

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

Over the past 20 years, courses addressing human rights have grown dramatically at both the undergraduate and graduate levels worldwide. Many of these courses are housed in specific disciplines, focus on specific issues, and require practical experience in the form of internships/practicums. Amid this growth there is a need to reflect on teaching human rights including the challenges, fears, and best practices.

Recognizing that education takes place inside and outside a classroom, this roundtable brings together scholars teaching human rights in a variety of settings to examine the current state of university human rights education. This includes a discussion of …

Effects Of Outdoor Orientation Program Participation On Honors Program Completion, Joanna Gonsalves

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Improving rates of honors program completion is a goal of virtually all honors directors and deans, and research can help identify and evaluate promising strategies. A number of recent empirical studies have investigated predictors of program completion, including students’ admission credentials and honors program features. Though specific indicators of honors program success vary across institutional contexts and even by student cohorts within programs, some patterns have emerged. For instance, high school grade point average (GPA) tends to be a better predictor of honors program success than SAT scores (McKay; Savage et al.; Smith & Vitus Zagurski). Other completion studies focusing …

Honors Student Thriving: A Model Of Academic, Psychological, And Social Wellbeing, Amanda Cuevas, Laurie A. Schreiner, Young Kim, Jennifer Bloom

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Although academic success in honors programs is easily quantified, student thriving has not been previously measured. Honors students are often recruited to raise the academic profiles of their institutions (Carlson; Hebel) and so tend to excel academically in ways that can be measured by grades and graduation rates. Little is empirically known, however, about their holistic success and wellbeing while in college (Boazman; Moon; Slavin, Coladarci, & Pratt; Walker). Because they are no more immune than other students to psychological and social impediments, they may be succeeding but not thriving in their college experience. Thriving—defined as academic, psychological, and interpersonal …

Journal Of The National Collegiate Honors Council, Open , Vol. 18, No. 2. Fall/Winter 2017

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Editor’s Introduction — Ada Long

Open Forum Essays

Teaching an Honors Seminar on #BlackLivesMatter in East Texas — Ervin Malakaj, Jeffrey L. Littlejohn, Kimberly Bell, Patrick J. Lewis, and Julia D. May

Helping with the “How”: A Role for Honors in Civic Education — Craig Kaplowitz

A Part Of… or Apart From: A Reflection from South Africa — Ken Mulliken

Mental Health Needs in the Honors Community: Beyond Good Intentions — Maureen Kelleher

Research Essays

Aided by Adderall: Illicit Use of ADHD Medications by College Students — Amber D. Rolland and Patricia J. Smith

Honors …

Moving From Forecast To Prediction: How Honors Programs Can Use Easily Accessible Predictive Analytics To Improve Enrollment Management, Joseph A. Cazier, Leslie Sargent Jones, Jennifer Mcgee, Mark Jacobs, Daniel Paprocki, Rachel A. Sledge

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Most enrollment management systems today use historical data to build rough forecasts of what percentage of students will likely accept an offer of enrollment based on historical acceptance rates. While this aggregate forecast method has its uses, we propose that building an enrollment model based on predicting an individual’s likelihood of matriculation can be much more beneficial to an honors director than a historical aggregate forecast. Many complex predictive analytics techniques and specialized software can build such models, but here we show that a basic approach can also be easily accessible to honors directors where a small amount of data …

Two Neglected Features Of Honors Advising, Jeffrey P. Hause

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Recent studies on advising show considerable agreement about the sorts of practices that constitute good advising, whether by a professional staff advisor, an official faculty advisor, or an unofficial faculty mentor. These practices include creating a welcoming atmosphere, building a trusting relationship, and helping the student find resources to envision a flourishing future and make concrete plans to achieve it (Gregory and Edwards; Bloom et al.; Cooperrider et al.). Two important features of advising, though, do not receive the focus they deserve. The first is the advisor’s practice of attention, an activity that forms the basis of a trusting relationship …

Mental Health Needs In The Honors Community: Beyond Good Intentions, Maureen Kelleher

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

In addressing mental health needs in honors communities, I first need to explain that I am not a mental health practitioner; I am a sociologist. The types of issues that interest me are structural: what can we do to set up supportive environments that help all our students. We need to respond appropriately to individuals, but we also need also to look at the larger system (Bertram et al.; JED Foundation, “A Guide”; Atkins & Frazier). For honors educators, the challenges that students face in their daily lives are an ongoing concern. We are all aware of the rising rates …

Institutional Variability In Honors Admissions Standards, Program Support Structures, And Student Characteristics, Persistence, And Program Completion, Andrew J. Cognard-Black, Patricia J. Smith, April L. Dove

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

In the autumn of 2014, the National Collegiate Honors Council (NCHC) launched the Admissions, Retention, and Completion Survey (ARC) in an attempt to collect for the first time honors program benchmarking data on important admissions, persistence, and completion metrics, data that are already widely used throughout higher education generally. The ARC survey is part of NCHC’s ongoing effort to collect such data, which began in 2012 with the first iteration of what has come to be known as the NCHC Census, an omnibus survey asking a wide range of questions about honors administrative practices, curricular offerings, basic staffing, and the …

Teaching An Honors Seminar On #Blacklivesmatter In East Texas, Ervin Malakaj, Jeffrey L. Littlejohn, Kimberly Bell, Patrick J. Lewis, Julia D. May

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

In spring 2017, Ervin Malakaj (Assistant Professor of German) and Jeffrey L. Littlejohn (Professor of History) led a Difficult Dialogues seminar on #BlackLivesMatter for the Sam Houston State University (SHSU) Honors College. The seminar considered the complex historical, economic, and cultural forces that produced the movement along with the various responses to it. By mid-semester, however, the course had become a target for fake news blogs and websites. Critics of the #BlackLivesMatter movement attempted to portray the course as a propagandistic endeavor intended to force a left-wing ideology upon unwilling students who had reluctantly enrolled in the course in order …

Transformative Learning: Lessons From First-Semester Honors Narratives, Kyler Knapp, Phame Camarena, Holly Moore

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Although the National Collegiate Honors Council has clearly articulated the common characteristics of “fully developed” honors programs and colleges, these elements describe the structures and processes that frame honors education but do not directly describe the intended honors outcomes for student learners (Spurrier). Implicitly, however, the intended outcomes of distinct curricula, smaller course sizes, honors living communities, international programming, capstone or thesis requirements, and any number of other innovative forms of pedagogy are qualitatively different from faster degree completion, better jobs, or higher recognition at graduation. When intentionally directed, honors education promotes the full transformation of the student (Mihelich, Storrs, …

Stimulating The Diffusion Of Innovations In Honors Education: Three Factors, Inge Otto, Chris De Kruif

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

So far, few articles about innovations in Dutch or American honors programs appear to link their findings to an existing body of research about innovations in higher education in general. Although scholars are starting to make this connection more and more (see Kallenberg; NRO, “Excellentie” and “EXChange”; NWO, “Excellentie” and “EXChange”; Jong), both parties could profit from greater contact. Scholars who study innovations in honors programs could benefit from a comparison of their findings to those in more mature fields, i.e., research about innovation in higher education. At the same time, a full model of innovation in higher education should …

Helping With The “How”: A Role For Honors In Civic Education, Craig Kaplowitz

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

The current political moment in the United States puts an exclamation point on years of growing concern for our civic culture. We have a president who neither understands nor cares for the processes and norms of the American system of government, a Congress that seems almost indifferent to the real issues of governing for the public good, a news cycle driven by flippant tweets, and a toxic social media environment. There is little current recognition that, in our system, how we debate the alternatives and arrive at policies is as important for our long-term civic enterprise as the resulting policies …

A Part Of . . . Or Apart From: A Reflection From South Africa, Ken Mulliken

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

“All of humankind originated in Africa,” our tour guide, Richard Randall, announced as he greeted us in Johannesburg, “so I want to welcome you home.” This reminder of our shared ancestry, as distant as it may be, set the theme for this year’s Democracy Project field experience in South Africa. In the summer of 2017, fourteen students from Southern Oregon University (SOU) traveled to South Africa as part of SOU’s Democracy Project. Involving students, faculty members, and community partners, the Democracy Project (DP) is a comprehensive international examination of democracy organized by the SOU Honors College. To solve shared challenges …

Journal Of The National Collegiate Honors Council, Vol. 18, No. 2 (Fall/Winter 2017): Editorial Matter

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Cover

Masthead

Contents

Call for papers

Editorial policy / Submission guidelines

Dedication: Richard I. Scott

Editor's Introduction - Ada Long

About the Authors

About the NCHC Monograph Series

NCHC Monographs & Journals

NCHC Publications Order Form

Back cover: In this Issue

How The Implementation Of Honors Sections Affects The Academic Performance Of Non-Honors Students, Art L. Spisak, Sam Van Horne, Keri C. Hornbuckle

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Research in honors education generally credits honors students with elevating the academic experience for all students at an institution (see Andrews; Clauss; Brimeyer et al.). Honors students are seen as having a positive peer effect: setting a standard for other students to follow as well as stimulating and challenging faculty, thereby raising the level of the classroom for all ( Joseph W. Cohen, cited by Andrews 38). Thus, many assume that moving honors students into separate sections adversely affects the academic performance of non-honors students, an assumption we faced at our institution. In the context of a study done in …

Aided By Adderall: Illicit Use Of Adhd Medications By College Students, Amber D. Rolland, Patricia J. Smith

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

“I don’t know that many kids that have done coke, none that have tried crack, and only a few that have dropped acid. I can’t even count all of the ones who’ve taken Adderall” (Stice). This statement made in an interview by a freshman art history major at the University of Maryland, College Park, in 2007 effectively highlights a still growing problem among undergraduate students in the United States: the nonmedical use of stimulant medications prescribed to treat Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) as “study aids.” Even as early as 2004, up to twenty percent of college students had used …

Introduction: History And Conceptual Basis Of Assessment In Higher Education, Peter Ewell, Tammie Cumming

Publications and Research

Assessment and accountability are now inescapable features of the landscape of higher education, and ensuring that these assessments are psychometrically sound has become a high priority for accrediting agencies and therefore also for higher education institutions. Bringing together the higher education assessment literature with the psychometric literature, this book focuses on how to practice sound assessment.

This volume provides comprehensive and detailed descriptions of tools for and approaches to assessing student learning outcomes in higher education. The book is guided by the core purpose of assessment, which is to enable faculty, administrators, and student affairs professionals with the information they …

The Chameleon Characteristics: A Phenomenological Study Of Instructional Designer, Faculty, And Administrator Perceptions Of Collaborative Instructional Design Environments, Papia Bawa, Sunnie Watson

The Qualitative Report

While several professionals, organizations and departments may be a part of the instructional designing process usually faculty, instructional designers, and administrators are key stakeholders and collaborators. Although there are some studies related to the process of instructional designing, there is little by way of research that has investigated the stakeholders’ perceptions of the key characteristics of effective collaboration within instructional designing projects. Thus, there is a gap in our understanding of the phenomenon of instructional designing project collaboration. This hermeneutic phenomenological study seeks to add to the literature by sharing the perceptions of seven stakeholders in different roles, who have …

Nine Potential Solutions To Abate Grade Inflation At Regionally Accredited Online U.S. Universities: An Intrinsic Case Study, David Blum

The Qualitative Report

Grade inflation must be abated. The effect of grade inflation weakens academic standards to the point where accurately assessing levels of competency and student knowledge is difficult to determine. Using intrinsic case study design, I contacted 411 online instructors in the United States exploring potential solutions to abate grade inflation. Of 411 faculty members contacted via personal e-mail, 27 instructors at three regionally accredited online universities in the United States agreed to be interviewed by the use of an interview protocol and recorded via Skype. The research question guiding the study was “What are potential solutions to abate grade inflation?” …