Higher Education and Teaching Commons^™

Nurse Success: A Faculty Intervention To Help Students Realize Their Goals, Karen Bloomfield M.S., R.N., P.M.H.C.N.S.-B.C, Wendy Diment M.S.N., R.N., Kristina O’Meara M.S.N., A.P.R.N., F.N.P.

Inquiry: The Journal of the Virginia Community Colleges

Nursing faculty at Piedmont Virginia Community College have developed an innovative and formal mentoring program designed to improve success for their students. Nurse Success was introduced in 2011 and provided support for students experiencing academic concerns. The program highlights findings that demonstrate the complex challenges often faced by students that extend beyond the academic and into personal and financial issues that impact student performance.

A Comparative Analysis Of Safeassign And Turnitin, Jared Hunt Ma, Patrick Tompkins Phd

Inquiry: The Journal of the Virginia Community Colleges

The plagiarism detection programs SafeAssign and Turnitin are commonly used at the collegiate level to detect improper use of outside sources. In order to determine whether either program is superior, this study evaluated the programs using four standards: (1) the ability to detect legitimate plagiarism, (2) the ability to avoid false positives, (3) the ease of use in design, and (4) cost. After submitting 284 texts to both programs—including a random sampling of anonymous student texts from different disciplines; a sample of autobiographies, which were unlikely to be plagiarized; and a sample of texts assembled from online sources which were …

Reengineering Introductory Psychology For The Virtual Classroom: Qualitative Report On Initial Course Design And Preliminary Student Feedback, Scott M. Debb Phd, Jenny Dozier Ma, Linda Haugh Phd

Inquiry: The Journal of the Virginia Community Colleges

For students of any academic background or vocational preference, introductory psychology is also one of the most popular social science courses. For many students in the community college setting, the introductory psychology course may be the only formal exposure to non- pseudoscience theory a student will receive. The Virginia Community College System (VCCS) has transfer agreements with many of the four-year institutions in Virginia, and there is a reengineering effort underway that, among many other things, will help ensure consistency with regards to students’ exposure to essential course and learning objectives. One component of reengineering is to create default template-style …

Teaching Scientific Writing In The Two-Year College, Arthur Schuhart Da

Inquiry: The Journal of the Virginia Community Colleges

This article introduces a new course in the Virginia Community College System English Curriculum, “English 114: Scientific Writing.” The article briefly reviews the concept of “science rhetoric,” then discusses the intended audience and purpose of the course, and explains the basic goals of the course in relation to the two-year science student-writer. Next the article reviews the Course Content Summary, explaining and giving examples for each of the objectives listed, and notes one significant challenge to the success of the class in the VCCS. The article includes student responses, a sample syllabus, two sample writing assignments, and a complete Bibliography …

Consumer -Based Higher Education: The Uncaring Of Learning, Molly Kerby, Kristi Branham, Gayle Mallinger

Gender & Women's Studies Faculty Publications

The business model approach in higher education gained traction in the 1980s when federal and state funding for universities and colleges began to decrease. Critics of this model contend that current funding structures undermine the mission of the higher education and negatively impact retention (Rabovsky 2012). As Astin (1997) suggested, the structure of the American college and university system is more complex than the concept of customer satisfaction and efficiency. Past research indicates that we have created an institutionalized uncaring of learning. The business model is broken, lacks resilience, and is not sustainable.

Back Cover

Inquiry: The Journal of the Virginia Community Colleges

Kristen Kaltenberg is a Computer Arts student at Thomas Nelson Community College. Her Adventures in Wonderland is a composite piece created in Adobe Photoshop for a Computer Graphics I class. Kristen’s winning entry was selected from a competition of student submissions from throughout the Virginia Community College System.

David Rueckert is a full time Associate Professor at Thomas Nelson Community College where he has taught since 2006. Mr. Rueckert received his MFA in Art and Visual Technology from George Mason University and his Fine Arts degree from University of Mary Washington.

An Empirical Investigation Of The Development Of Enterprise Resource Planning (Erp) Systems Education For Third-Level Business Students, Maurice O'Brien

Masters

This study is an empirical investigation of the development of Enterprise Resource Planning systems (ERP) education for Business students. It uses Cork Institute of Technology (CIT) as its case study to determine the benefits of practical ERP education, the challenges faced by third-level institutions and how ERP education should be provided to Business students. The researcher used observation, review of documentation, and semi-structured interviews of fifteen academics as the research techniques.

As well as being beneficial for students, employers and ERP vendors, this study finds that the provision of practical ERP education has reciprocal benefits for the third-level institution. By …

Networks Of Users And Powers: Blackboard Software Roadmap As Cultural Practice, Diana Gellci

Wayne State University Dissertations

With the rapid growth of eLearning applications - the software providing for learning through the Internet - it has become commonplace to describe those technologies as both simple tools and user-friendly. These two vague yet suggestive terms make the operating of the technology appear as social value and any related issues as a user's problem. Interested neo-liberal groups take a step further when considering eLearning technologies as the solution for the problems faced in the field. STS studies recognize that technology fetishism is strategically employed to justify the latest developments of capitalism as technological and logical.

This doctoral study examines …

Using Large-Angle Beamstrahlung To Detect And Diagnose Colliding Beams For Luminosity Optimization, Hussein Farhat

Wayne State University Dissertations

The large-angle-beamstrahlung is a very effective technique that can be used to monitor two crossing beams. Monitoring the beam helps in analyzing and studying the beams profiles, allowing beams adjustments, and eventually leading to a perfect beams collision. The perfect beam collision results in a higher luminosity; as a result, a high particles production rate and new physics can be discovered.

Loving The Academy: Helping Educators Understand Characteristics Of Black College Students’ Romantic Relationships, Miriam Chitiga

Faculty Working Papers from the School of Education

The paper presents the results of a survey on the characteristics of black college students’ romantic relationships, including types of relationships, the reasons for beginning and ending relationships and the elements of successful relationships. The anonymous electronic survey was voluntarily completed and included questions that allowed for both qualitative and quantitative assessment. The findings of the study reveal that students, who may be involved in stable and committed relationships, begin relationships for emotional needs and romance but acknowledge that compatible personality traits are the key to successful relationships. They cite cheating, partner abuse, and control as major causes of break-ups. …

Keeping Students In By Sending Them Out: Retention And Service-Learning, Iris M. Yob

Center for Faculty Excellence Publications

This review of recent literature examines the research on the impact of service-learning on student retention. The theoretical framework of the review draws on both Tinto’s model of student attrition and Knowles’s theory of adult learning, which together suggest that academic and social integration, active participation and engagement in learning, and application and relevancy of the subject-matter under study are key factors in student success. The role of these factors has been confirmed in a growing body of research around learning experiences in general and, as this review shows, particularly in service-learning experiences. Suggestions are made for how future research …

The Civil War Letters Of Andrew Lucas Hunt (Part 2), Dieter C. Ullrich

Faculty Research at Morehead State University

The second series of Lieutenant Andrew Lucas Hunt letters begin with his arrival at Paducah, Kentucky with the 134th Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment on August 1, 1864. For the first several days he served as the officer of the guard at the headquarters of General Eleazer A. Paine's before reporting to Colonel Waters W. McChesney at Mayfield on August 17th. He remained in Mayfield with his regiment until September 17th. While stationed at Mayfield he witnessed the occupation of the city, the construction of fortifications about the Graves County Courthouse and the capture and execution of three renowned guerrillas from …

Enhancing Educators’ Skills For Promoting Critical Thinking In Their Classroom Discourses: A Randomized Control Trial, Raisa Gul, Shehla Khan, Azra Ahmad, Shanaz Hussein Cassum, Tanveer Saeed, Yasmin Parpio, Joanne Profetto- Mcgrath, Donald Schopflocher

School of Nursing & Midwifery

The literature reveals that educators find it challenging to foster critical thinking (CT) in their students if they have not learned how to use CT in their educational system or training. This paper reports findings from a national research project that was undertaken to enhance the educators’ ability to promote CT in their teaching practices. Using a randomized control trial design with a pre- and post-test, 91 educators from 14 of the 17 schools of nursing in Pakistan consented to enroll in the study and 72 completed the study. The intervention included 40 hours of learning experience during two workshops …

Stereotype Threat–Based Diversity Programming: Helping Students While Empowering And Respecting Faculty, Isis Artze Vega, Leslie Richardson, Adrienne Traxler

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

As college student populations grow increasingly diverse, centers for teaching and learning are often charged with promoting inclusive teaching practices. Yet faculty cite many affective barriers to diversity training, and we often preach to the choir. These challenges led us to seek alternate routes for diversity programming, and stereotype threat has become the centerpiece of our endeavors. This chapter describes stereotype threat and related interventions, outlines our efforts, and offers evidence of its surprising impact. It also identifies the features of stereotype threat that appealed to faculty, led them to make pedagogical changes, and inspired them to spread the word.

Measuring The Promise: A Learning Focused Syllabus Rubric, Michael Palmer, Dorothe Bach, Adriana Streifer

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

To enrich the resources for measuring the impact of educational development work, we have created a rubric to assess the degree to which a syllabus achieves a learning orientation. The rubric provides qualitative descriptions of components that distinguish learning focused syllabi and uses a quantitative scoring system that places syllabi on a spectrum from content focused to learning focused. It is flexible enough to accommodate a diverse range of levels, disciplines, institutions, and learning environments, yet nuanced enough to provide summative information to developers using the tool for assessment purposes and formative feedback to instructors interested in gauging the focus …

Reflections On The State Of The Scholarship Of Educational Development, Deandra Little

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Introduction to volume 33, number 1 of To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development from 2014 by managing editor Deandra Little of Elon University.

Peer Collaboration: Improving Teaching Through Comprehensive Peer Review, Shelley L. Smith

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

This article includes a brief rationale and review of the literature on peer review of teaching (PRT). Based on that literature review, it offers a proposal for an optimal formative review process that results in a teaching portfolio that would reflect a faculty member’s efforts and successes in a critically reflective PRT process, and contributes to ongoing teaching improvement. It then looks at potential areas of faculty resistance and concern and offers a discussion of potential strategies to overcome those concerns.

Emotion In The Classroom: An Update, Janine Bowen

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Fourteen years ago, POD member Edward Vela drew attention to the role of emotion in learning. In particular he emphasized the need for faculty to express positive emotions in the classroom. Since then researchers continue to measure the effectiveness of positive emotion in student learning but the field of emotion in the classroom has expanded since Vela's essay. The purpose of this article is to not only update Vela's citations on emotion and learning but to provide a broader perspective on the topic and assist faculty developers. Ashkanasy's five level model frames the discussion.

Mapping Classroom Interactions: A Spatial Approach To Analyzing Patterns Of Student Participation, Sophia Abbot, Alison Cook Sather, Carola Hein

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

This article explores how mapping patterns of student participation in classroom discussion can both illuminate and complicate the dynamic relationships among identity, physical position in the classroom, student engagement, and course content. It draws on the perspectives of an undergraduate in the role of pedagogical consultant, a faculty member who worked in partnership with that student, and the coordinator of the program through which this collaborative exploration unfolded. The authors provide multiple angles of vision on the impetus behind, approach to, results of, and interdisciplinary possibilities of mapping classrooms and offer recommendations and cautions regarding the use of mapping.

Annual Impact Report 2014: A Report By The Impact Data Collection And Analysis Team, Executive Summary, Impact Management Team, Impact Assessment Team

IMPACT Reports

This is an annual report of Instruction Matters: Purdue Academic Course Transformation (IMPACT). IMPACT was created in 2010, and is a large collaborative initiative on the Purdue West Lafayette campus involving multiple key partners across campus including the Office of the Provost, Center for Instructional Excellence (CIE), Information Technologies at Purdue (ITaP), Purdue Libraries, the Discovery Learning Research Center (DLRC), and Purdue Extended Campus (PEC). IMPACT works with instructors to redesign large enrollment, foundational courses with the aim of engaging students more fully in their learning and creating a more student-centered environment, with the expectation that this will improve student …

Tracing The Evolution Of Educational Development Through The Pod Network's Institute For New Faculty Developers, Michele Dipietro

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Educational development is a unique professional field in that it is not defined by content taught in a single degree that qualifies individuals to be in it. The resulting heterogeneity in newcomers’ knowledge and skills is addressed in different ways by different national networks. Since 1997, the POD Network has held a biennial Institute for New Faculty Developers, geared toward socializing new professionals into the field. An analysis of the evolution of the Institute, therefore, focused on understanding how educational development has represented itself to newcomers, can chronicle the trajectory of the field and generate conversations about its future.

An Analysis Of Current And Former Residential Student Academic Success At A Hispanic Serving Institution On The United States - Mexico Border, Rueben Moreno

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this research was to examine academic success and engagement among current and former residential students living at the University of Texas at El Paso's student housing facilities. UTEP is a distinctive institution of higher education because it serves a large number of first generation and minority students. The majority of the population at UTEP consists of Hispanic students, and it is located on the U.S.-Mexico border.

The population for this study included current and former residents of UTEP's student housing during the fall 2012, spring 2013, and fall 2013 semesters. Three methods were used to collect data …

Annual Impact Report 2014: A Report By The Impact Data Collection And Analysis Team, Part 2, Impact Management Team, Impact Assessment Team

IMPACT Reports

This is an annual report of Instruction Matters: Purdue Academic Course Transformation (IMPACT). IMPACT was created in 2010, and is a large collaborative initiative on the Purdue West Lafayette campus involving multiple key partners across campus including the Office of the Provost, Center for Instructional Excellence (CIE), Information Technologies at Purdue (ITaP), Purdue Libraries, the Discovery Learning Research Center (DLRC), and Purdue Extended Campus (PEC). IMPACT works with instructors to redesign large enrollment, foundational courses with the aim of engaging students more fully in their learning and creating a more student-centered environment, with the expectation that this will improve student …

Entr/Mgnt 421: Initiating And Managing Entrepreneurial Growth—A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Benchmark Portfolio, Varkey K. Titus Jr.

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

My primary goal for this portfolio is to codify the processes and goals of this course in a manner that can be transferred to other instructors. Students consistently comment on how much they enjoy the participatory and interactive nature of the course; I would like to formally document methods to create an interactive classroom that aligns with the expectations we have of senior-level entrepreneurship students regarding critical thinking and communication skills.

Aecn 399: Commodity Market Analysis—A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Benchmark Portfolio, Fabio Mattos

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

I have been teaching for a few years, in different universities and different courses. I have taught large classes (over 100 students) and small classes (approximately 10 students), introductory courses and advanced courses, and in 4-year programs as well as 2-year programs. Although I believe that principles of good teaching can be applied to any course, I feel that teaching methods may need to be adjusted to different courses, different student population and distinct class size. So I welcomed the opportunity to participate in the “2013-2014 Peer Review of Teaching Program” because it gave me a chance to join a …

Mued 403: Student Teaching Seminar—A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Inquiry Portfolio, Dale Bazan

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

This course is taken during music education undergraduate students' student teaching semester, which occurs after completion of all coursework in the Bachelor of Music Education degree. While students work full-time in elementary and secondary schools, they participate in on-campus seminars and workshops. These meetings include presentations and discussion sessions led by the instructor, area school district administrators, and UNL Career Services counselors. Sessions explore online and print resources for professional advancement in the field of music teaching. There are several assumptions made about college students, and more specifically undergraduate music education students. It is assumed, in general, that adolescents and …

List Of Men That Worked On The Fortifications At Mayfield, Kentucky August 17 To September 13, 1864, Dieter C. Ullrich

Faculty Research at Morehead State University

No abstract provided.

The Continuing Evolution Of The Research Doctorate, Bianca L. Bernstein, Barbara Evans, Jeannette Fyffe, Nelofer Halai, Fred L. Hall, Mukobe Siggaard Jensen, Kazim Papeiva, Suzanne Ortega

Book Chapters / Conference Papers

No abstract provided.

“Initially, We Were Just Names On A Computer Screen”: Designing Engagement In Online Teacher Education, Sharon M. Pittaway, Timothy Moss

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

This paper describes a research project that investigated the process of redesigning a fully-online unit, in order to enhance undergraduate Education students’ engagement in their learning. This redesign was guided by the development of an Engagement Framework, which presents five elements of engagement that are distinct yet interrelated. The results of this redesigned unit indicate that this Engagement Framework has the potential to offer unit developers and instructors a strong pedagogical and theoretical foundation for enhancing engagement in online learning. This paper provides a description of the Engagement Framework, the processes undertaken in redesigning a fully-online unit, the findings, and …

Triad Relationships And Member Satisfaction With Paired Placement Of Student Teachers, Carol Wilkinson, Todd R. Pennington, Erin Whiting, Melissa Newberry, Erika Feinauer, Janet Losser, Liz Haslem, Amber Hall

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

Abstract: This study determined triad (a mentor teacher and two student teachers) members’ level of satisfaction (LOS) with paired-placement student teaching, focusing on mutuality and homophily to explore how triad relationships were linked to LOS. The constant comparative method was used to code interview transcripts and field notes. Results showed that of the six satisfied triads, five had mutuality, homophily, strong triad cohesion, and collaborative student teachers. Partially satisfied (four) and dissatisfied (two) triads experienced lack of mutuality and homophily, weak triad cohesion, and uncollaborative student teachers. Recommendations include providing formal training about triad relationships, considering mutuality and homophily when …