Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Commons^™

Move Over, Descartes! Neuroscience Says You’Re Wrong., Kathleen Taylor, Catherine Marienau

Kathleen Taylor

Recent discoveries in neuroscience—“we feel, therefore we learn”—contradict Descartes’ rejection of the body’s role in thinking. This presentation examines implications for adult learning.

End Of The World Handout, Lisa Di Valentino, Sarah C. Hutton

Lisa Di Valentino

No abstract provided.

Report Results Of Webex Versus Nonsurvey 30 April 2016.Pdf, Ron J. Hammond

Ron J. Hammond

Modeling As Teaching: Preparing Preservice Teachers To Implement Universal Design For Learning, Eric Jordan Moore

Jordan Moore

Increasing diversity and growing achievement gaps among diverse groups in U.S. public schools has resulted in increased pressure on teacher education programs to prepare teachers effectively to meet the needs of contemporary students. Research is needed to establish best practices of teacher education that carry forward into future practice. Universal Design for Learning (UDL) has been proposed as a framework to help address the need for more flexible learning environments, but limited research has been conducted to determine best practices for supporting preservice teachers in learning this complex framework. In this dissertation study, I examine the notion that education research …

Faculty And Student Perceptions Of Teaching Presence In Distance Education Courses: A Mixed Methods Examination, Judith Slapak-Barski

Judith Slapak-Barski, Ed.D.

This applied dissertation was designed to provide deeper insight to current knowledge about establishing teaching presence (TP) in online courses. Distance education environments are considered more convenient than traditional learning environments, as they provide more opportunities for learning that occurs in various settings. In distance education environments, effective learning should focus on the interaction between e-learning technologies and educational practice in higher education. Online courses are typically devoid of the visual cues and interaction of the traditional classroom. Online learners may experience an isolation effect as a result of learning in the perceived absence of their peers and instructor. Feelings …

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

Joel Pruce

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 …

Marking The Path From Law Student To Lawyer: Using Field Placement Courses To Facilitate The Deliberate Exploration Of Professional Identity And Purpose, Timothy W. Floyd, Kendall L. Kerew

Kendall L. Kerew

No abstract provided.

The Practice Of Being A Student: Cops And Graduate Student Success, Aimee Dechambeau

Aimée L. deChambeau

Leveraging Resources Across Units And Universities To Address Academic Literacies And Research Skills In Ontario Graduate Students, Melanie Mills, Elan Paulson

Melanie Mills

Initial Results From The First National Survey Of Student Outcomes From Small Satellite Program Participation, Jeremy Straub

Jeremy Straub

This paper presents initial results of the first national / international survey of student participants in CubeSat and other small spacecraft programs. It aims to make portions of the results of the survey available for immediate use by the CubeSat / small spacecraft community prior to the completion of a thorough analysis of the results and consideration of correlating and prospective causation factors for various outcomes.

Making The Work Interesting: Classroom Management Through Ownership In Elementary Literature Circles, Ryan Flessner

Ryan Flessner

Ryan Flessner's contribution to "Breaking the Mold of Classroom Management: What Educators Should Know and Do to Enable Student Success".

Tying It All Together: Implications For Classrooms, Schools, And Districts, Ryan Flessner, Kenneth Zeichner, Kalani Eggington

Ryan Flessner

Ryan Flessner, Kenneth Zeichner, and Kalani Eggington's contribution to "Creating Equitable Classrooms through Action Research"

Addressing The Research/Practice Divide In Teacher Education, Ryan Flessner

Ryan Flessner

Educational scholars often describe a research/practice divide. Similarly, students in teacher education programs often struggle to navigate the differences between university coursework and expectations they face in field-based placements. This self-study analyzes one researcher's attempt to address the research/practice divide from the position of a teacher educator. Teaching in a university-based mathematics methods course during the academic year and an elementary classroom during the summer recess provided opportunities to make connections between research and practice. This article examines the effects this study had on the researcher's instruction at the university level. Specifically, the article suggests ways for teacher educators to …

Agency Through Teacher Education: Reflection, Community, And Learning, Ryan Flessner, Grant Miller, Kami Patrizio, Julie Horwitz

Ryan Flessner

Agency through Teacher Education: Reflection, Community, and Learning addresses the ways that agency functions for those involved in twenty-first-century teacher education. This book, commissioned by the Association of Teacher Educators, relies on the voices of teacher education candidates, in-service teachers, school leaders, and university-based educators to illustrate what agency looks like, sounds like, and feels like for people trying to act as agents of change. These examples take the form of narratives, theoretical explorations, formal research studies, and reflective essays. Agency through Teacher Education does not seek to establish one definition for agency, but rather to conceptualize it from three …

Politics And Action Research: An Examination Of One School’S Mandated Action Research Program, Ryan Flessner, Shanna Stuckey

Ryan Flessner

Action research has been shown to empower educators, create lasting changes in schools, and have an impact on student learning outcomes. Given these positive results, many school leaders are beginning to mandate the use of action research within their schools. While some in the field have warned against mandating action research, there is little research examining the effects of doing so. This study examines the mandated school-wide action research program at Fieldstone Elementary. While some results align with the action research literature (importance of collaboration, necessity of time to conduct action research, etc.), this article also examines the political tensions …

Creating Equitable Classrooms Through Action Research, Cathy Caro-Bruce, Ryan Flessner, M. Klehr, K. Zeichner

Ryan Flessner

Despite the best intentions of reform efforts, educational inequity continues to exist in public schools. Creating Equitable Classrooms Through Action Research confronts this challenge head-on and shows educators how they can use action research confronts this challenge head-on and shows educators how they can use action research to both raise student achievement and strengthen instruction leadership. Ideal for both a first-time action research endeavor or one already in progress, this practical guidebook helps practitioners formulate specific research questions, collect and analyze data, and communicate their findings. Invaluable for school district leaders, teachers, professional development schools, and preservice teachers, this resource …

Understanding Community Voices As A Force In Teacher Education, Ryan Flessner, Paula A. Magee

Ryan Flessner

Ryan Flessner and Paula Magee's contribution to "Flessner, R., Miller, G. R., Patrizio, K. M., & Horwitz, J. R. (Eds.). (2012). Agency through teacher education: Reflection, community, and learning. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Education."

Working Toward A Third Space In The Teaching Of Elementary Mathematics, Ryan Flessner

Ryan Flessner

Building on work in the area of third space theory, this study documents one teacher’s efforts to create third spaces in an elementary mathematics classroom. In an attempt to link the worlds of theory and practice, I examine how the work of other theorists and researchers – inside and outside the field of education – can create new lenses for classroom practitioners. In addition, the article provides evidence that third spaces may be more difficult to realize than others have described. Rather than forcing a third space to emerge, what this study finds more important is creating an environment that …

Collaborating To Improve Inquiry-Based Teaching In Elementary Science And Mathematics Methods Courses, Paula A. Magee, Ryan Flessner

Ryan Flessner

This study examines the effect of promoting inquiry-based teaching (IBT) through collaboration between a science methods course and mathematics methods course in an elementary teacher education program. During the collaboration, preservice elementary teacher (PST) candidates experienced 3 different types of inquiry as a way to foster increased understanding of inquiry based teaching (IBT). The experiences included a PST driven science inquiry and a mathematics inquiry where PSTs were learners and a science inquiry where PSTs were teachers. During and following the semester of the collaboration, data were collected to assess the impact of the inquiry experiences on the PSTs’ understanding …

Revisiting Reflection: Utilizing Third Spaces In Teacher Education, Ryan Flessner

Ryan Flessner

Much has been written about the importance of reflective practice. What is missing is reflective work on the part of teacher educators to address the mismatch between university-based methods courses and the realities of classroom life. With examples from a third grade mathematics classroom as well as a university-based mathematics methods course, this article explores ways educators can employ third space theory as a way to engage in purposeful reflection into their teaching practices.

Pushing The Field Of Practitioner Research: Utilizing ‘Reflective Third Spaces’ To Explore Educational Practice, Ryan Flessner

Ryan Flessner

For decades, literature in the field of education has been rife with descriptions of the divides between theory and practice, research and implementation, and universities and public schools. Beginning with an examination of these divides, this chapter explores the ways that teacher educators can capitalize on their positioning in order to better understand educational practice. Following a brief introduction, an examination of third space theory and its usefulness to teacher educators— especially those engaged in practitioner research— ensues. Building on the work of early theorists in fields such as literature and cultural geography, third space theory has typically been used …

Involvement Of Undergraduate Students In Research: A Comparison Of Course Research Components, Paid Research Activities, Student-Led Projects And Independent / Directed Study Courses, Jeremy Straub

Jeremy Straub

Involving undergraduate students in bona fide research can provide multiple types of benefits. Whether students elect to pursue research careers or not, research experiences can be beneficial. Students gain an excellent resume item and interview discussion topic. They also gain experience in team participation dynamics and project management and the opportunity to put techniques that they have learned in the classroom to use. In interdisciplinary projects, they learn to work with those from other disciplines, gain an understanding of the challenges of doing so and gain an understanding of the vernacular of these other disciplines.

This paper presents an overview …

Speed Dating In History: Fostering Critical Thinking, Patricia L. Rieman

Patricia L Rieman

When students role-play, their learning is personalized (Joyce & Calhoun, 2014). Add the challenge of finding compatible partners, and students are fully engaged as they infer the connections between themselves and their “dates”. Mix in the final element of limiting the opportunity to interact with potentially compatible partners, and students must quickly determine importance, synthesize, and then verbalize the details of their personas. Additionally, students must analyze their partner’s message to identify connections to their own, infer hidden identities, and describe their cognitive processes. In this session on using speed-dating to teach history, all of these actions come together to …

Cultural Norms Of Clinical Simulation In Undergraduate Nursing Education, Susan G. Mcniesh

Susan McNiesh

Simulated practice of clinical skills has occurred in skills laboratories for generations, and there is strong evidence to support high-fidelity clinical simulation as an effective tool for learning performance-based skills. What are less known are the processes within clinical simulation environments that facilitate the learning of socially bound and integrated components of nursing practice. Our purpose in this study was to ethnographically describe the situated learning within a simulation laboratory for baccalaureate nursing students within the western United States. We gathered and analyzed data from observations of simulation sessions as well as interviews with students and faculty to produce a …

Nursing Student Adaptation During A Semester Abroad, Karen R. Breitkreuz

Karen R. Breitkreuz

Perceptions Of Instructors And Students With Respect To Synchronous Video Learning, John Griffith, Marian C. Schultz

John Griffith

Introduction To Research - A Spectrum Approach, Bahman Shirazi

Bahman Shirazi

Rubric For Assessing Epistemological Development Of Students Who Are Learning Design, Shannon M. Chance

Shannon M. Chance

There is an extensive base of literature that attempts to describe how college students understand “knowledge” and their role in generating it. Educators draw from this literature to help students develop increasingly sophisticated ways of using knowledge. Although existing research aims for broad generalizability, it is clear that various disciplines have developed their own unique value systems. Scholars of “hard,” physical science are likely to hold very different ideas about the nature of “fact” and “inevitability” than those in the “softer,” social sciences [1]. Various disciplines conceptualize, use, and generate new knowledge in ways that differ dramatically, yet little research …

The Effect Of Study Skills Training On United States Air Force Allied Health Students, John C. Griffith

John Griffith

Students given study skills course intervention required significantly fewer academic interventions beyond normal classroom instruction and significantly higher end-of-course averages than student who were not trained in study skills. Additionally, students trained in study skills graduated at a higher rate than students who did not receive the training.

The Effect Of Study Skills Training On United States Air Force Allied Health Students, John C. Griffith

John Griffith