Teacher Education and Professional Development | Open Access Articles

Geology Field Trips As Performance Evaluations, Callan Bentley

Inquiry: The Journal of the Virginia Community Colleges

The author details his experience in using geology field trips to provide hands-on learning for his students and opportunities to assess student learning of key course concepts.

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"How Did I Spend Two Hours Grading This Paper?!" Responding To Student Writing Without Losing Your Life, Eric Lemay

Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education: Archives

The specific critical moves and writing conventions of your discipline probably differ from mine, but your discipline certainly has them and when teaching them to students becomes your aim, your responses to their writing will take less time and be more effective. No longer will you have to transform novice papers into expert ideas. Instead, you can focus on the novices themselves. You can use their writing to teach them the next thing they need to know as novice historians, philosophers, or anthropologists. Given that they’re novices and you’re an expert, that thing is almost always obvious to you, although …

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Empowering Faculty Through Assessment, Katherine Simpson Phd

Inquiry: The Journal of the Virginia Community Colleges

This article explains how faculty and administrators at Lord Fairfax Community College have made assessment a vital practice across campus.

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The Influence Of Learning Communities On The Interaction Levels Of English Students, Elizabeth Wilmer Phd

Inquiry: The Journal of the Virginia Community Colleges

This study investigates whether learning communities significantly increase the level of interaction of community-college students enrolled in developmental English.

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Are New Faculty Prepared To Teach Diverse Learners?, Audrey Lail Phd

Inquiry: The Journal of the Virginia Community Colleges

The author examines the preparation of community-college faculty, especially those recently hired, to teach the varied students our institutions enroll.

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Front Matter

Inquiry: The Journal of the Virginia Community Colleges

Cover art: “Running Fields” by Kreela Moore, a student at Piedmont Virginia Community College.

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Leadership In The Bachelor Of Education: A Dialogue Between Student And Professor, Lauren Sacchetti, Jennifer Barnett

Academic Leadership: The Online Journal (2003-2012)

There are true leaders in education who have overcome the traditional ways of hierarchical thinking and have developed transformational and collaborative orientations. They accomplished this in spite of the fact that our school system does not support these foci. As part of the educational system, the Bachelor of Education program contributes little to the development of this type of leadership in its students.

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Benefits Of Co-Teaching For Esl Classrooms, Jameelah Abdallah

Academic Leadership: The Online Journal (2003-2012)

Co-teaching has recently become more popular in schools throughout the nation. It has been recognized to have several positive implications for teachers, including increased collegiality, cooperation and information exchange. Co-teaching lowers the student-teacher ratio and exposes the students to differentiated teaching methods. This supports evidence that indicates that students who learn in smaller groups both retain and achieve more in the classroom (Davis, 1993). While co-teaching is widely accepted in special education classrooms, it can also be very beneficial when teaching English to speakers of other languages. At the same time, it exposes English language learners to authentic language; it …

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Race, Ethnicity, And Specialized Business Accreditation, Bonnie Garrity, Veronika Lengyel

Academic Leadership: The Online Journal (2003-2012)

Black and Hispanic students are underrepresented at selective colleges and universities in the United States (Dickerson and Jacobs 2006; Niu et al. 2006). The colleges themselves also play a role by deciding which students are admitted. Since Black and Hispanic students have lower average SAT scores than White and Asian students (Davies and Guppy 1997) and Black students have lower average GMAT scores than White and Asian students (Cross and Slater 1998), heavy emphasis on these test scores in admissions decisions may limit the opportunities for Black and Hispanic students. However, the long-term implications of enrollment patterns and economic returns …

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Analysis Of Factors Influencing West Virginia Secondary Biology And Science Teacher Attrition Rates, Seth Perry

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

The high rate of attrition for beginning teachers has been blamed on many factors. Nationally these include low pay, urban versus rural school settings, age, with younger teachers leaving sooner, and other variables making a complex problem with no clear component responsible for the loss of teachers. This study examined the self reported variables that contribute to high school teachers in West Virginia leaving their profession. An electronic survey instrument was distributed to current secondary teachers across the state. Teachers were asked to respond to questions related to professional satisfaction, perceived value from students and parents, administrative support, content versus …

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Examining The Impact Of A Comprehensive Approach To Student Orientation, Thomas Hollins

Inquiry: The Journal of the Virginia Community Colleges

The author presents research on the benefits of providing students with more than one form of orientation to college.

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Using Rubrics To Teach Science Writing, Paul E. Bennett Jr.

Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education: Archives

An often-stated goal of education in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) fields is to teach students to communicate like professionals. In the STEM fields, the single most important thing we can do to teach our students better communication skills is to teach them how to write a lab report. The reason a lab report is so important is not just because it is the end product of a research project, but because each section of a lab report has a particular function that often correlates with different types of communication that a STEM professional needs to use. For …

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Rules And Insights: Connecting The Mathematical And Linguistic Abilities Of C.S. Lewis, Kim Regnier Jongerius

ACMS Journal 2008-2009

While most biographical works on C.S. Lewis give passing reference to Lewis' problems with elementary mathematics, few have made an attempt at diagnosing the difficulty or exploring its impact on his writing. A careful study of family correspondence, however, makes it clear that his learning difficulties were not with mathematics alone and suggests connections between attitudes toward and abilities in both mathematics and language. This paper will make these connections clear and will illustrate their ties to Lewis' effective mathematical references.

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Constructing Rural Geographies In Publication, Verdie Craig, Matthew Kurtz

Faculty Research at Morehead State University

The paper compares American and British scholarship in rural geography. It argues that, among other reasons for the difference in “rural geography” between the two countries, their distinct publication strategies offer insights for potential interventions. To sketch how the field has been differently construed on opposite sides of the Atlantic, the article first examines several sub-disciplinary literature reviews. It then adds a materialist account to a performative perspective of subdisciplinary formation by exploring how the publication industry helped shape distinct relationships between rural geography and theory. We suggest that rural geographers in the US might use new publication strategies to …

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A National Study Of Community College Retention Rates Segmented By Institutional Degree Of Urbanization, Lee Waller, Tara Tietjen-Smith

Academic Leadership: The Online Journal (2003-2012)

According to the Center for the Study of College Student Retention (2008), nearly 50% of students entering higher education will not earn a degree. Higher education institutions continually define and refine strategic initiatives to increase retention rates, often devoting countless hours and resources with minimal results. A recent report by the National Center for Education Statistics (Chen & Carroll, 2007) found that students enrolled part-time lagged significantly behind full-time peers in persistence in postsecondary degree completion. Stratton, O’Toole, and Wetzel (2007) stated that enrollment status alone does not account for lower retention rates among part-time students. These researchers found that …

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Adaptive Leadership: Leadership Theory Or Theoretical Derivative?, Bill Cojocar

Academic Leadership: The Online Journal (2003-2012)

Today’s public and private business leaders and leaders of our Armed Forces are faced with challenges that require leadership that is capable of tackling and solving complex problems and issues, with collective, collaborative, timely effective, and innovative solutions. This set of challenges requires leadership that spans the spectrum of leadership theories, traits, and stylistic approaches that is very adaptive, yet direct in nature. This type of leadership is defined as ‘adaptive leadership’ and is a style of leadership that is developing into a new theory of its own, evolving from situational, transformational, contingency, and complexity theories, as described by Nastanski, …

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An Examination Of The Relationship Of A Tenure System To Enrollment Growth, Affordability, Retention Rates, And Graduation Rates In Texas Public Two-Year Colleges, Lee Waller, Jason Davis

Academic Leadership: The Online Journal (2003-2012)

Austin (2006) and Chait (2002) indicate that most faculty prefer tenured to non-tenured positions. The presence of tenure track positions is often equated with institutional excellence and tenure designations are often associated with status. The promise of secure academic employment makes the tenured position the gold standard of the academy. This preference for tenure is not limited to university faculty. Jacoby (2005) found that most young, part-time community college faculty desire fulltime tenure track positions. Older faculty members were not as enthusiastic in regard to tenure. The academic culture at community colleges appears to be evolving an employment desirability hierarchy …

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Background Checks And Fingerprinting In Public School Systems (Part Ii), Mindy Salmans

Academic Leadership: The Online Journal (2003-2012)

This is the second of a three part series of articles discussing background checks and fingerprinting in the K-12 public schools. The first article discussed background checks with the inclusion of fingerprinting—the benefits and limitations as well as the policies of 50 states and the District of Columbia. This article discusses effects of educator misconduct, complaints and accusations, consequences for abusers, state disciplinary action, cause for sanctions, and access to actions.

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Challenges And Opportunities To Enhance The Clinical Reasoning Skills Of Medical Students: Lessons Learned From The Advanced Clinical Transactions Pilot Program, Latha Chandran, Frederick Schiavone, Maryam Navaie, John Chen

Academic Leadership: The Online Journal (2003-2012)

Medical school faculty must foster high-quality patient care while simultaneously assessing the clinical skills and reasoning of students in order to promote their independent functioning in the clinical setting. A growing concern noted across medical faculty is that students may complete their undergraduate medical studies without sufficient understanding of how simple clinical tasks are done with real patients. These concerns have been validated by results from numerous studies that have reported many medical students express a lack of confidence and competence to critically evaluate patient needs based on data, a factor that has been linked to problems in performance and …

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Data-Driven Decision Making: The Development And Validation Of An Instrument To Measure Principals’ Practices, Marcus Childress

Academic Leadership: The Online Journal (2003-2012)

From the perspective of preparing school administrators, principals need to learn to use and believe in factual data when they make their administrative decisions. In alignment with the NCLB, the revised Standards for Advanced Programs in Educational Leadership have more emphases placed on school administrators’ ability and knowledge in using data (Educational Leadership Constituent Council (ELCC), 2002; National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE), 2002). The ELCC/NCATE (2002) standards serve as school leadership preparation program standards and can be used as a cornerstone for the professional development of existing school administrators (Murphy & Shipman, 1998; Murphy, Yff, & …

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Determining School District Organization In North Carolina, David Dunaway, Leigh Ausband, Do-Hong Kim

Academic Leadership: The Online Journal (2003-2012)

The current study sought to answer the next question, “How are the organizational structures of North Carolina school districts determined?” We wanted to understand what factors influenced the organization of school district.

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Effects Of Case-Based Learning On Preservice Secondary Teachers’ Multicultural Attitudes: A Mixed Methods Study, Kathryn Lee, Emily Summers, Rubén Garza

Academic Leadership: The Online Journal (2003-2012)

As our society changes, so must our teacher education practices. In the past decade, the Southwestern U.S. has been transforming into a majority minority region (U.S. Census Bureau 2005), which must in turn reframe the underpinnings of teacher education in this area of our country. As teacher educators, we have known that many preservice teachers lagged in their preparedness to teach students who are culturally, ethnically, and linguistically different from themselves. Teacher education increasingly is being criticized as having inabilities to instruct teacher candidates in ways that produce greater K-12 student learning; diversity awareness will be a cornerstone if we …

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Emergence Of Strategic Human Resource Management Historical Perspective, Nadeem Malik

Academic Leadership: The Online Journal (2003-2012)

Organization today, by necessity have become more focused on exploiting sources of competitive advantage in the face of rapid environmental, technological and global economic changes. According to Pfeffer (1994:14), as other sources of competitive success have become less important, what remains a crucial, differentiating factor is the organization, its employees and how they work. Additionally, he states that the current recognition among strategic management researchers is that sustained competitive advantage arises more from a firms internal resource endowments and resource deployments particularly its human capital that are imperfectly imitable than from a firm’s product market position. These “people” issues used …

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Employment Patterns And Job Satisfaction Of Foreign-Born Science And Engineering Doctorate Recipients In The United States, Ketevan Mamiseishvili, Jill Hermsen

Academic Leadership: The Online Journal (2003-2012)

Science and engineering fields are important to a nation’s economy, especially in the areas of innovation and technology development (Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy, 2007). The demand for scientists and engineers is increasing globally, making it more difficult for organizations to attract and retain qualified professionals in these fields as schools and industries compete on a global level for top talent (Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy, 2005). It is not surprising, then, that academia and industry are increasing their focus on the science and engineering workforce. Indeed, a recent National Academies report stated that “identifying the …

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Empowering Faculty To Facilitate Distance Education, Jane Arenas, Henry Gray, Paulette Hamner

Academic Leadership: The Online Journal (2003-2012)

Traditional education has undergone major changes over the past decade. Higher education has evolved from brick and mortar to virtual campuses. Technological advancements in communication have changed the way information is presented. The manner in which students learn has also evolved. Educational leaders must also evolve to meet the needs of both students and faculty because, faculty members struggle with changing curricula, non-traditional learning environments and new technology. They need their leaders to assist them with the transitions (Tjosvold 2006). This paper attempts to provide a research-based framework through which educational leaders might empower faculty to better meet the mission, …

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Leading Assessment: From Faculty Reluctance To Faculty Engagement, Don Haviland

Academic Leadership: The Online Journal (2003-2012)

Assessing college student learning consumes substantial energy, driven or encouraged by accrediting bodies, the Federal and state governments, and other stakeholders. One might think, for these reasons as well as the longevity assessment has displayed as a movement, that it would be celebrating its many successes in transforming higher education.

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Surviving The First Years: A Principals Guide For Implementing A Quality Special Education Program, Lisa Bertrand, Ruth Roberts, Margaret Dalton

Academic Leadership: The Online Journal (2003-2012)

In today’s schools, building level administrators are faced with a variety of challenges as they strive to provide leadership that promotes successful learning experiences for all students. Promoting the success of all students is also the foundation of current federal legislation with the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) mandates as well as the Individual with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Answering the call of these directives and the goal for all students to experience success, building level principals must have fundamental knowledge of special education programs and services. However, research indicates that principal preparation course work may not target special education …

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The Case For Growing Our Own, Teri Walseth

Academic Leadership: The Online Journal (2003-2012)

At any given time, there are literally hundreds of institutions recruiting academic deans to fill vacant positions. On November 23, 2008, higheredjobs.com listed 331 dean searches nationwide. Given that staggering number and the fact that the average tenure of deans is five years, this is a trend that is likely to continue (ASHE-ERIC 2001). Why is this, and more importantly, what can be done about it?

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The Perceptions Of Female School Leaders Of The Obstacles And Enablers That Affected Their Career Paths To Educational Administration, Linda Noel-Batiste

Academic Leadership: The Online Journal (2003-2012)

n 1909 Ella Flagg Young, the first female superintendent of Chicago Public Schools, predicted that more women than men would be at the helm of most twentieth century school systems. Young’s prediction emanated from a belief, held by other influential leaders of her time, that teaching was a woman’s natural vocation, for it advanced a woman’s maternal instincts of caretaking and nurturing. Unfortunately, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, her prediction has not been fulfilled. Almost a hundred years after Young’s prediction, less than five percent of public school superintendents are women and less than twenty-seven percent of public …

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Web-Based Course Content: An Emerging Consideration For Authenticity From A Learner Perspective, Laurie Bedford

Academic Leadership: The Online Journal (2003-2012)

More organizations and instructors are incorporating authentic learning strategies into the instructional paradigm of the classroom. One advantage of this ideology is that the diversity of individual learners can be capitalized upon through a dialogue consisting of multiple perspectives. In these contemporary classrooms, the curriculum becomes a more fluid, personal entity based on experience, prior knowledge and individual expertise (Bedford, Wiebe, and Tschida, 2008). At the same time, a plethora of information which draws upon multiple perspectives is also more readily available and accessible though electronic venues—primarily via the Internet. The abundance of available information provides opportunities for learners to …

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Full-Text Articles in Teacher Education and Professional Development

Geology Field Trips As Performance Evaluations, Callan Bentley

Inquiry: The Journal of the Virginia Community Colleges

"How Did I Spend Two Hours Grading This Paper?!" Responding To Student Writing Without Losing Your Life, Eric Lemay

Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education: Archives

Empowering Faculty Through Assessment, Katherine Simpson Phd

Inquiry: The Journal of the Virginia Community Colleges

The Influence Of Learning Communities On The Interaction Levels Of English Students, Elizabeth Wilmer Phd

Inquiry: The Journal of the Virginia Community Colleges

Are New Faculty Prepared To Teach Diverse Learners?, Audrey Lail Phd

Inquiry: The Journal of the Virginia Community Colleges

Front Matter

Inquiry: The Journal of the Virginia Community Colleges

Leadership In The Bachelor Of Education: A Dialogue Between Student And Professor, Lauren Sacchetti, Jennifer Barnett

Academic Leadership: The Online Journal (2003-2012)

Benefits Of Co-Teaching For Esl Classrooms, Jameelah Abdallah

Academic Leadership: The Online Journal (2003-2012)

Race, Ethnicity, And Specialized Business Accreditation, Bonnie Garrity, Veronika Lengyel

Academic Leadership: The Online Journal (2003-2012)

Analysis Of Factors Influencing West Virginia Secondary Biology And Science Teacher Attrition Rates, Seth Perry

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Examining The Impact Of A Comprehensive Approach To Student Orientation, Thomas Hollins

Inquiry: The Journal of the Virginia Community Colleges

Using Rubrics To Teach Science Writing, Paul E. Bennett Jr.

Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education: Archives

Rules And Insights: Connecting The Mathematical And Linguistic Abilities Of C.S. Lewis, Kim Regnier Jongerius

ACMS Journal 2008-2009

Constructing Rural Geographies In Publication, Verdie Craig, Matthew Kurtz

Faculty Research at Morehead State University

A National Study Of Community College Retention Rates Segmented By Institutional Degree Of Urbanization, Lee Waller, Tara Tietjen-Smith

Academic Leadership: The Online Journal (2003-2012)

Adaptive Leadership: Leadership Theory Or Theoretical Derivative?, Bill Cojocar

Academic Leadership: The Online Journal (2003-2012)

An Examination Of The Relationship Of A Tenure System To Enrollment Growth, Affordability, Retention Rates, And Graduation Rates In Texas Public Two-Year Colleges, Lee Waller, Jason Davis

Academic Leadership: The Online Journal (2003-2012)

Background Checks And Fingerprinting In Public School Systems (Part Ii), Mindy Salmans

Academic Leadership: The Online Journal (2003-2012)

Challenges And Opportunities To Enhance The Clinical Reasoning Skills Of Medical Students: Lessons Learned From The Advanced Clinical Transactions Pilot Program, Latha Chandran, Frederick Schiavone, Maryam Navaie, John Chen

Academic Leadership: The Online Journal (2003-2012)

Data-Driven Decision Making: The Development And Validation Of An Instrument To Measure Principals’ Practices, Marcus Childress

Academic Leadership: The Online Journal (2003-2012)

Determining School District Organization In North Carolina, David Dunaway, Leigh Ausband, Do-Hong Kim

Academic Leadership: The Online Journal (2003-2012)

Effects Of Case-Based Learning On Preservice Secondary Teachers’ Multicultural Attitudes: A Mixed Methods Study, Kathryn Lee, Emily Summers, Rubén Garza

Academic Leadership: The Online Journal (2003-2012)

Emergence Of Strategic Human Resource Management Historical Perspective, Nadeem Malik

Academic Leadership: The Online Journal (2003-2012)

Employment Patterns And Job Satisfaction Of Foreign-Born Science And Engineering Doctorate Recipients In The United States, Ketevan Mamiseishvili, Jill Hermsen

Academic Leadership: The Online Journal (2003-2012)

Empowering Faculty To Facilitate Distance Education, Jane Arenas, Henry Gray, Paulette Hamner

Academic Leadership: The Online Journal (2003-2012)

Leading Assessment: From Faculty Reluctance To Faculty Engagement, Don Haviland

Academic Leadership: The Online Journal (2003-2012)

Surviving The First Years: A Principals Guide For Implementing A Quality Special Education Program, Lisa Bertrand, Ruth Roberts, Margaret Dalton

Academic Leadership: The Online Journal (2003-2012)

The Case For Growing Our Own, Teri Walseth

Academic Leadership: The Online Journal (2003-2012)

The Perceptions Of Female School Leaders Of The Obstacles And Enablers That Affected Their Career Paths To Educational Administration, Linda Noel-Batiste

Academic Leadership: The Online Journal (2003-2012)

Web-Based Course Content: An Emerging Consideration For Authenticity From A Learner Perspective, Laurie Bedford

Academic Leadership: The Online Journal (2003-2012)