Educational Methods Commons^™

Determining Faculty Capacity For Transdisciplinary Instruction, Dominic Swayne

Dissertations, 2020-current

The purpose of this study was to develop a reliable and valid survey instrument that would prove useful in identifying faculty with the capacity and inclination to succeed in team-taught, hands-on, transdisciplinary course programming. Using an exploratory, mixed-methods design, the qualitative component consisted of semi-structured interviews of nine experienced X-Labs faculty. The qualitative analysis process identified attributes that were vital to transdisciplinary teaching and demonstrated patterns that were consistent with complex leadership development. During the mixing process, these data were translated into a quantitative instrument. A panel of experts reviewed the prototype instrument and reduced the number of items included …

Copyright Information, Todd Pagano, Sami Kahn

Journal of Science Education for Students with Disabilities

No abstract provided.

Call For Manuscript, Todd Pagano, Sami Kahn

Journal of Science Education for Students with Disabilities

No abstract provided.

Students’ Meaning-Making Journeys Towards Self-Authorship Through Self-Designed Gap Year Experiences, Erin Garcia

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This phenomenological, qualitative study addressed student perceptions of their meaning-making process towards self-authorship in a self-designed gap year experience and was conducted in a public higher educational institution in the Southeast. Data was gathered through interviews from a purposeful sample of gap year program participants and program administrators. Emerging themes and categories were identified by coding and analyzing the interview data, such as continual reflection reinforces the value of individual meaning-making, self-expectations versus self-worth, the influence of societal expectations are minimized, and self-designed learning helps to solidify changes in self-authorship. The data showed a strong connection between multiple meaning-making contexts …

Stem Education In College: An Analysis Of Stakeholders’ Recent Challenges And Potential Solutions, Santanu De, Georgina Arguello

FDLA Journal

A vast majority of academic disciplines and curricula in the college center around Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM), which are critical to developing the skills necessary for a global workforce. Rapid changes in pedagogical setups, educational modes, and advances in instructional technology entail diverse challenges for key stakeholders (i.e. students, faculty, and the organizations). This paper highlights the most relevant challenges and potential solutions in STEM higher education at the college level, reported in the last decade. The holistic analysis combining the three stakeholders’ perspectives would help elucidate significant contemporary aspects impacting the fields. The goal is to further …

Learning Places: Place-Based Learning In An Interdisciplinary Approach To Undergraduate Research, Jason Montgomery

Publications and Research

High-impact educational practices outlined by the Association of American Colleges and Universities give faculty a toolkit of specific practices that current research identifies as having particular effectiveness in student engagement and learning in the 21st century. Included in this list of effective practices is undergraduate research. While this high-impact educational practice is most often associated with the sciences, it has wider applicability to undergraduate learning where the methods of research can integrate synergistic strategies that further enhance student engagement and learning: place-based learning and interdisciplinary teaching. In this chapter, these two compelling approaches to higher education are presented as …

Doctoral Student Online Learning: Addressing Challenges Of The Virtual Experience, Dejuanna M. Parker, Kent Willis, Barbara D. Holmes

Education Doctorate Faculty Works

Doctoral student attrition is a major problem in higher education. This qualitative study sought to understand student beliefs and perceived confidence levels in a primarily online professional doctoral degree in education. Before accessing course material and formal instruction, respondents assigned scores to a Likert-style survey and answered open-ended questions about their understanding of basic educational research methodology. The rise of distance education follows the rapid growth of technological advancement. Yet, much is still unknown about pedagogical practices that contribute to improved learning outcomes for students in the virtual environment. Themes that emerged from this study suggest that (1) student expectations …

Implementation Of A 25-Minute Mini-Lecture On Learning And Studying In Large-Enrollment First-Year General Chemistry Courses, Shawn M. Miller

Journal on Empowering Teaching Excellence

Poor results on the first exam in a course can be a shock to freshmen college students who found great success in high school. The experience can be demoralizing and put students in the mindset that academic success is out of reach. To convince such students that not only is academic success possible but readily achievable, I presented a 25-minute mini-lecture on learning and studying in two large-enrollment general chemistry courses (total N = 289) based on author Dr. Saundra McGuire’s work. The mini-lecture discussed human learning and practical study tools. The purposes of the mini-lecture were to: 1) examine …

Editor's Note, Mario D'Agostino

Experiential Learning & Teaching in Higher Education

Excerpt

Table Of Contents

Experiential Learning & Teaching in Higher Education

No abstract provided.

Service Learning In The Time Of Covid-19, Kathy R. Doody Ph.D., Pamela Schuetze, Katrina Fulcher

Experiential Learning & Teaching in Higher Education

Excerpt

This essay describes a collaborative service-learning project in which psychology and speech-language pathology undergraduate students, along with special education graduate students, completed developmental screenings as part of their training in providing effective services to children. Universal developmental screening is an important tool in the early identification of developmental delays in young children and is increasingly incorporated into early childhood education. However, limited resources make it difficult for educators to routinely screen all young children in their care. Our students were able to meet this need for two local childcare centers by conducting developmental screenings in transdisciplinary groups.

Editorial Board

Experiential Learning & Teaching in Higher Education

No abstract provided.

Bridging The Gap With Voice And Movement, Joy A. Guarino

Experiential Learning & Teaching in Higher Education

Excerpt

Dance at SUNY Buffalo State College delivers a liberal arts education and embraces a civic and community engagement philosophy in all aspects of the program. In addition to rigorous studio training that enhances the physical experience of the art form, the diverse curriculum is designed to deepen students’ understanding of the cultural, historical, and aesthetic value of dance, while addressing local and global societal needs through numerous service-learning, artistic, and outreach projects. The COVID-19 pandemic is tremendously affecting artists, yet it is the arts that brings joy to people’s lives during unsettling times. Now more than ever we need …

What To Do When The Lab Closes? Managing An Interdisciplinary, Undergraduate Research Capstone Course During A Global Pandemic, Robert L. Hirsch, Aardra Kachroo

Experiential Learning & Teaching in Higher Education

Excerpt

The Agricultural and Medical Biotechnology (ABT) program at the University of Kentucky’s College of Agriculture, Food and Environment is a genetics-based, research-intensive, interdisciplinary program that consistently produces undergraduate scholars prepared for careers in research, medicine, and other health-related industries. The program enrolls approximately 250 students and is administered around a liberal philosophy of interdisciplinarity, with undergraduates encouraged to build their own individualized curricula centered on foundational courses in biology, chemistry, and genetics. This student-centric approach, combined with an array of faculty research foci, results in a diverse student body engaging in scholarship that ranges from human neurobiology to plant …

Cover

Experiential Learning & Teaching in Higher Education

No abstract provided.

In Search Of Virtual Connectedness: A Comparative Essay In The Development Of New Pedagogies For Remote Learning Environments, Ryan Hargrove, Phd, Travis Klondike

Experiential Learning & Teaching in Higher Education

Excerpt

The ongoing disruption caused by COVID-19 has provided an opportunity to pause and reflect on how educators are shifting pedagogies, inventing approaches, and developing skills shifting, inventing, and developing various skills and approaches to foster an experiential learning curricula despite moving to physically-distanced forms of teaching. Design education, in particular, is faced with the challenge of rethinking a model that at its core is highly reliant on frequent face-to-face interactions. The studio classroom experience for centuries has utilized what are commonly referred to as “desk critiques.” These interactions are the central focus of most studio classes and serve as …

Full Issue

Experiential Learning & Teaching in Higher Education

No abstract provided.

Creating Engaged Community Scholarship Through Alternate Experiential Learning In Dietetics Education, Elizabeth Lucas Combs, Aaron Kyle Schwartz

Experiential Learning & Teaching in Higher Education

Excerpt

Supervised Practice Programs (SPPs) are designed to provide innovative experiential learning opportunities for dietetic interns. The University of Kentucky Dietetics and Human Nutrition (UK DHN) program promotes critical thinking and integrates the hard skills learned in the classroom with soft skills required in a professional setting. The experience provides an opportunity for hands-on learning and application, creativity, and reflection linking theory to practice. The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the 2019 SPP, challenging the fundamental nature of experiential learning. Problem-solving and flexibility were required to develop innovative approaches to helping interns meet core competency expectations through alternative supervised learning experiences. The …

Normalizing Struggle, Catherine Martin Christopher

Arkansas Law Review

A person who is effective in law school, on the bar exam, and in practice utilizes the same set of skills in each of those scenarios: close, critical reading; synthesis of multiple sources of law into a coherent rule or schema; appreciation of both the big picture and the fine details of a set of rules of law; analysis of a factual scenario for facts that meet or fail a legal test; assessment of the validity and strength of counterarguments; and, of course, clear, concise, thorough, organized communication. Because all these skills are useful from the first day of law …

Teaching Humanities Research In Under-Resourced Carceral Environments, Kevin J. Windhauser

Journal of Prison Education and Reentry (2014-2023)

Humanities courses make up a large portion of higher education courses offered in United States carceral facilities. However, many of these facilities lack the academic resources necessary to support the research assignments traditionally assigned in a humanities course, from research papers common in introductory courses to the undergraduate theses completed by many humanities majors. This paper outlines a case study in adapting a humanities research assignment to function in a prison lacking digital and physical research resources, with particular attention to the assignment’s potential to promote student confidence, independent learning, and autonomy. The author surveys the instructor’s role in promoting …

Designing Analog Learning Games: Genre Affordances, Limitations And Multi-Game Approaches, Owen Gottlieb, Ian Schreiber

Articles

This chapter explores what the authors discovered about analog games and game design during the many iterative processes that have led to the Lost & Found series, and how they found certain constraints and affordances (that which an artifact assists, promotes or allows) provided by the boardgame genre. Some findings were counter-intuitive. What choices would allow for the modeling of complex systems, such as legal and economic systems? What choices would allow for gameplay within the time of a class-period? What mechanics could promote discussions of tradeoff decisions? If players are expending too much cognition on arithmetic strategizing, could that …

Examining The Effects Of Reflection On Professional Identity Development In Community College Preservice Teachers, Delia Hernandez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Grounded in the constructivist theories of Dewey (1963) with learning situated as reflective practice, the study explored the impact of guided written reflection on levels of reflection, commitment to teaching and professional identity for community college preservice teachers enrolled in their first fieldwork course in a teacher education program.

Participants in the treatment group received instruction on levels of reflection using Nickel’s (2013) Levels of Deep and Surface Learning. Pre/posttest results were collected using three measures: Reflection Questionnaire (Kember & Leung, 2000), Professional Identity Status Questionnaire - PISQ-5d (Mancini, 2015), and Commitment to Teaching Scale (Van Huizen, 2000). Researcher-designed …

Challenge, Fantasy, And Curiosity: Activating Students' Intrinsic Motivation Within Information Literacy Sessions, Brandon West, Alan Witt

Milne Library

Student engagement is a consistent challenge for librarians in information literacy instruction, especially in the context of single session learning. Two librarians at a small, public liberal arts college took inspiration from Malone’s (1981) theory of intrinsically motivating instruction to create a lesson plan that caught the imagination of the students and produced enthusiastic participation. This paper explains the theoretical framework used, examines the reasons for its success in this iteration, and discusses potential applications to other information literacy lessons.

First In College: A Qualitative Exploration Of Experiences Of First-Generation Students, Rebecca Evans, Don Stansberry, Kim E. Bullington, Dana Burnett

Inquiry: The Journal of the Virginia Community Colleges

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to investigate first-generation students’ perceptions of how their lived experiences have impacted their academic and non-academic success. We utilized focus groups consisting of first-generation students who attended a rural community college and a large, public, metropolitan, research university, and compared their lived experiences. Our findings confirmed some past research that found that a lack of social capital, academic preparation, financial resources, and family support challenge this population of students in their transition to college. However, some of our results contradict past findings which have concluded that part-time enrollment increases the risk of first-generation …

Teaching The Syllabus At The Community College, Yuemin He

Inquiry: The Journal of the Virginia Community Colleges

Reacting directly to the fact that even the best syllabus is worthless to the student who does not read it, this essay draws inspiration from research of the past decade, especially from the learning-focused syllabus concept that was introduced by three researchers at the University of Virginia, and uses a questionnaire to gauge our community college students’ needs. It suggests specific methods to build the bridge between course content instruction and syllabus teaching. Ultimately, it contributes to the discussion of several important syllabus-related questions: How can instructors use the syllabus as a pedagogical tool to build a strong student rapport? …

Guiding Students' Clinical Writing And Critical Thinking: Utilizing Scholarly Teaching To Develop And Implement A Clinical Writing Rubric, Bonnie Halvorson-Bourgeois, Mary Riotte, Susan Lambrecht Smith, Lesley Maxwell

Teaching and Learning in Communication Sciences & Disorders

The purpose of this paper is to describe the scholarly teaching approach used to develop, implement and refine a clinical writing rubric used to provide formative feedback to graduate students in an in-house Speech-Language Pathology graduate clinic. In addition to outlining the approach, details of the rubric and supporting documentation are provided.

Astrodance: Engaging Deaf And Hard-Of-Hearing Students In Astrophysics Via Multimedia Performances, Jason Nordhaus, Manuela Campanelli, Joe Bochner, Thomas Warfield, Hans-Peter Bischof, Jake Noel-Storr

Journal of Science Education for Students with Disabilities

The dynamics of gravitating astrophysical systems such as black holes and neutron stars are fascinatingly complex, offer some of nature's most spectacular phenomena, and capture the public's imagination in ways that few subjects can. Here, we describe AstroDance, a multi-media project to engage deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) students in astronomy and gravitational physics. AstroDance incorporates multiple means of representation of scientific concepts and was performed primarily for secondary and post-secondary audiences at ~20 venues in the northeastern US prior to the historic first detection of gravitational waves. As part of the AstroDance project, we surveyed ~1000 audience members roughly split …

Visualization Without Vision – How Blind And Visually Impaired Students And Researchers Engage With Molecular Structures, Croix J. Laconsay, Henry B. Wedler, Dean J. Tantillo

Journal of Science Education for Students with Disabilities

This article examines the tools and techniques currently available that enable blind and visually impaired (BVI) individuals to visualize three-dimensional objects used in learning chemistry concepts. How BVI individuals engage with and visualize molecular structure is discussed and recent tactile (or haptic) and auditory methods for visualization of various chemistry concepts are summarized. Remaining challenges for chemistry education researchers are described with the aim of highlighting the potential value of educational research in further enabling BVI students to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields.

Barriers For College Students In New York City To Engage In Volunteering, Jo Padgett Herz

Journal of Vincentian Social Action

No abstract provided.

Knot Without You: Crafting In Social Groups And Subsequent Mental Health Benefits, Megan Wolyniec

Journal of Vincentian Social Action

No abstract provided.