Higher Education and Teaching Commons^™

Education Policy And Social Justice: Exploring Possibilities Within Education Policy Context Of Pakistan, Sajid Ali

Institute for Educational Development, Karachi

One of the major purposes of education policy is to ensure social justice in a society. The social justice needs to be thought of not only in conventional sense of ‘distributional’ justice, but also in the sense of ‘relational’ justice. Looking from this perspective the policies in Pakistan have historically focused only on distributional justice, albeit with dismal progress on this front. However, they have completely ignored the attainment of ‘relational’ justice as a policy objective. As a result power differentials not only exist but worsened through educational policies such as undermining of public schooling while encouraging privatization of education …

Higher Education And Foreign Direct Investment: A Study Of Mexican States, Yuyinska Krystal Sanchez-Osio

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Factors that attract Foreign Direct Investment in Mexico at the state level are analyzed. Special focus is placed on how human capital promotes growth by attracting more FDI flows in a state. A model that explains the amount of FDI received in Mexico in 2012 is developed at a subnational level. The main independent variable is human capital, and it is measured using percentage of university graduates. The model controls for other possible determinant factors such as population, infrastructure, wages, fiscal incentives, geographic location, ease of doing business, and past experience in attracting FDI. It is tested using ordinary least …

Impact Of An Online Student Bridge Program For First-Year Nontraditional Students, Lisa Rene Adkins

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Low retention rates for first-year students plague many higher education institutions, and are even lower among online institutions of higher education. At Athena Colleges (a pseudonym), the attrition rate can be as high as 50% in students' first academic year. To address this concern, Athena Colleges has implemented an online bridge program that addresses students' academic needs and persistence. The purpose of the study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the bridge program in reducing the first-time student attrition rate and academic performance in their first term. Most of Athena Colleges students are nontraditional students and due to this, the …

Describing Creativity In Design Across Disciplines, Llew Mann, Yasemin Tekmen Araci

Design Thinking Research Symposium

Creativity is an essential aspect of design thinking. Being able to describe creativity and creative processes is important for developing future designers. While much research has been undertaken describing creativity in design, there is very little investigating how creativity and creative thinking varies across disciplines. A coding scheme involving six separate codes was developed initially from the literature, refined and then used to describe how creativity and creative thinking was apparent in the DTRS 10 datasets of Junior Industrial Design, Graduate Industrial Design, Mechanical Engineering, Choreography and Entrepreneurship. Based on this analysis, conclusions on how creativity and creative thinking varied …

Competencies For A Leadership Role In Educational Development, Kristi Jordan Verbeke

Wayne State University Dissertations

Because the field of educational development (also known as faculty development, academic development, and staff development) is relatively new, very little is known about the competencies required for those who work in the field. Additionally, there are no formal pathways or means of formal preparation for educational developers. This study utilized a mixed-methods research design to explore the competencies required for a leadership role in the field of educational development.

The first part of the study sought to identify these competencies by using the Delphi technique to survey experts in the field. The second part explored whether these competencies were …

Qualitative Study Of Taiwanese Students Studying Abroad: Social Interactions, Navigating Us Culture, And Experiences Learning English Language, Ching-Yi Wu

Wayne State University Dissertations

The English language increasingly influences Taiwanese life because Taiwan entered the global village and English language changed into a more important skill in order to communicate with foreigners. Many Taiwanese parents desire their children become proficient English speakers so that they send them to "buxiban" (cram schools) in Taiwan or study abroad in the Unites States. Therefore, this qualitative phenomenological research was to investigate individual experience of Taiwanese students studying abroad in Michigan in the United States. Sakurai et al. (2010) study is divided into three models of studying abroad learners' social network: "co-national, multinational and local" (p. 177). According …

Nontraditional Hispanic College Students' Perceptions Of Their Sense Of Belonging At A 2-Year College In Southwest Texas, Ronald Eugene Zawacki-Maldonado

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The purpose of this study was to understand how a sense of belonging contributes to graduation persistence among nontraditional Hispanic college students. The collectivist culture among these adult learners often results in family and work obligations that curtail their pursuit of higher education. The voices of these students are mostly absent in the current literature and warrant the current research study. Sense of belonging and retention theory formed the conceptual framework for this phenomenological study. A purposeful sample of 16 nontraditional Hispanic students enrolled in a 2-year community college in Southwest Texas participated in interviews. Data analysis focused on themes …

Stakeholders' Roles In Prioritizing Technical Vocational Education And Training In Postconflict Liberia, Edward S. Forh

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Postconflict governments and counterparts have collaborated to provide skills training to communities as a critical postconflict development strategy. In these undertakings, the role of community members remains largely undefined. The purpose of this qualitative descriptive case study was to understand the perceptions held by rural community members regarding the role they played in influencing government's policy priority for technical and vocational education and training (TVET) as a local human development strategy in postconflict Liberia. The conceptual framework was based on human capital theory and concepts of motivation and achievement. Fourteen participants were purposefully selected for the study. Data were collected …

The Outcomes Of New Teachers Being Reflective, John Whittington Seddon

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

New university teachers are typically advancing scholars who have recently commenced academic teaching duties. Referred to as neophytes in this study, these teachers are usually early career academics, postgraduate students or sessional lecturers who begin teaching with little more training than attendance at short professional development courses or seminars. Their teaching and learning theories are generally naive and their practice is often limited. In view of the already substantiated connections that have been found between teachers’ conceptions of teaching (COTs) and their practical approaches to teaching, the COTs held by neophytes are of consequence, as they are usually indicative of …

Hist 340: American Legal History: A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Benchmark Portfolio, Katrina Jagodinsky

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

Because I am teaching HIST 340: U.S. Legal History for the first time and plan to make it a signature course of mine, I am using the course portfolio and peer review teaching workshop to carefully chart effective teaching strategies for this course. My goals are threefold: 1) to more deeply consider the constituency and position of this course as an important component of the Pre-Law Program and imagine ways to strengthen the History Department’s presence in that area; 2) to ensure the efficacy of teaching strategies and assessments in giving students the opportunities they need to meet course objectives; …

Meng 4200: Heat Transfer—A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Benchmark Portfolio, Yuebin Yu

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

The main goal of attending this course review project is to improve my teaching performance of technical courses so that both the students and I can enjoy the mutual-learning process. Teaching to me is really rewarding. I believe teaching is an art, which can be continuously improved through learning from the peers, collecting and analyzing students' feedback and practice, regardless whether it is technical or practical. With good teaching, any course can be taught in a joyful manner. The specific objectives of the course portfolio include the follows: 1. Document the main materials for future refining through the documentation process …

Ento 403/803: Management Of Horticultural Crop Pests—A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Benchmark Portfolio, Thomas J. Weissling

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

ENTO 403/803, management of horticultural crop pests, is an important class for many students. It is required by undergraduate horticulture majors at UNL, but because it is offered online, it is also of interest to entomology and horticulture graduate students across the U.S. and globally. I chose this class for the peer review process because I find it challenging due to online course delivery, and the breadth of knowledge of students that are enrolled. I feel I need to take this course to a higher level where I can engage students of all backgrounds, and ensure that each of them …

Thea 474: Digital Animation—A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Benchmark Portfolio, Steve Kolbe

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

This portfolio provides an overview of student learning in my Digital Animation course - THEA 474. This report serves as documentation of my attempts to define and refine the course goals, activities, assignments, and assessment. Through this portfolio, I hope to more effectively see ways to make this course more impactful for the students, but also to lay the groundwork for additional courses within the major in order to open up a more realized and robust animation focus at the Johnny Carson School of Theatre & Film. A facet of student learning that I plan to document and improve upon …

Agen/Bsen 344: Biological And Environmental Transport Processes—A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Benchmark Portfolio, Shadi F. Othman

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

The course I am providing a portfolio for is BSEN/AGEN 344 which is a required course for all our undergraduate students. The Department provides an assessment for the course to align itself with the ABET's Accreditation Process. I taught the course in Spring 2012 adapting a new Team Based Learning Approach. I have three main objective from my portfolio: (1) refine my methods in documenting the linkage between my course goals and assessment measures, (2) document the efficacy of team based learning approach, (3) refine team based learning approach for the current course and adapt the approach to future courses, …

Ento 401: Insect Physiology—A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Benchmark Portfolio, Nicholas Miller

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

Insect Physiology (ENTO 401) is a required course for majors in Insect Science. This portfolio documents my efforts to improve the course as I teach it for the second time. My intention was to use the development of a portfolio as a vehicle to modify the course so that the methods I use are better aligned to my overall goals for the course. Consequently, I have produced a portfolio that is directed toward my efforts to develop a more varied approach that improves integrated understanding and scientific thinking and to better document that the development of integrated understanding and scientific …

Metr 341: Synoptic Meteorology—A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Inquiry Project, Matthew S. Van Den Broeke

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

Synoptic meteorology is foundational to atmospheric science, and it is critical that students strengthen their ability to think critically and independently in this course. Anecdotal evidence from teaching similar courses, and from education literature in the physical sciences, has pointed to the value of problem solving using data from real events. This inquiry project allowed further investigation of optimal instructional methods for this particular course, and led to the qualitative and partially quantified conclusion that hands-on in-class activities seem to support the most significant learning gains. In addition, this project led to the conclusion that a high degree of peer …

Geog 140: Human Geography—A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Inquiry Portfolio, Katherine Nashleanas

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

Large lecture classes, often of 100 students or more, present unique challenges to both teaching and learning. The common method of “delivery” by instructors is lecture, often augmented by a set of Power Point slides while the research literature shows that this more traditional way of teaching does not reach students in the way we hope and often assume. At the same time, most of the current students populating these classes are born of the Digital Age and have different expectations for learning, requiring new approaches in the classroom. Faculty are exhorted to incorporate more critical thinking in their classes …

Jour 302: Reporting Ii—A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Inquiry Portfolio, Joseph Weber

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

This document summarizes the results of an inquiry conducted as part of an advanced reporting course. The questions at hand were, “can students be taught to avoid bias in their journalistic work and to provide fair accounts of news developments?” and “how might they best be taught that?” This exploration revolved around a single lecture and discussion session, several reading assignments and the viewing of a video interview, and involved two writing assignments. The results suggest that both the teaching and evaluation of bias and fairness are difficult and complex. The findings suggest a single lesson may not be adequate …

Muop 356/856: Intermediate/Advanced Opera Techniques—A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Inquiry Portfolio, Jamie M. Reimer

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

Intermediate/Advanced Opera Techniques is a two credit elective course offered each spring at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. At its genesis, the course was primarily an opera scenes workshop, focused solely on the preparation and performance of an opera scene in a final concert. It is a cross-listed course meaning that students from the first year through advanced graduate study may enroll. Students may or may not have any experience on the music theater stage, nor have they had training in how to prepare a new role from casting to completed performance.

This course is an elective in the School of …

Thea 234: Scripts In Performance—A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Benchmark Portfolio, Ian Borden

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

This had traditionally been a theatre based course for the Johnny Carson School of Theatre and Film when I took over teaching it in the Fall semester of 2008. At that time, the course (a requirement for Theatre majors, Film and New Media majors, as well as Theatre and Musical Theatre minors) was populated almost entirely by upper level Theatre majors, particularly those in the performance stream. Over the next few years as the Film and new Media program grew, the needs of those students increased in relative importance as they comprised a larger and larger percentage of the class. …

Teac 452v/852v: Curriculum Principles And Practices—A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Benchmark Portfolio, Elizabeth B. Lewis

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

Objective: My goal for this teacher action research project was to better understand how to improve students' learning of how to teach science through active and inquiry-based learning experiences.

Abstract: I framed the course under study around an essential question which was: How does a scientific classroom discourse community support student learning? Inquiry-based instruction is a cornerstone of science teaching, thus I investigated preservice science teachers' learning about how to teach science through inquiry-based instruction. By the end of the course all of the students had improved their understanding of inquiry-based instruction and were able to generate better science lessons …

Bioc 435: Advanced Topics In Biochemistry—A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Benchmark Portfolio, Edward N. Harris

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

BIOC 435 or Advanced Topics in Biochemistry is an ACE 10 (Achievement centered education)course for students in their senior year. This is a capstone course for Biochemistry majors and is the last of several biochemistry courses that they will take in their undergraduate enrollment. The course is also open to non-majors in a related science such as Biology and Biological Sciences, although these students typically do not do as well as the majors. Students who take this course should be well-prepared in the basic concepts of biochemistry with regards to nucleic acids and proteins as well as some familiarity with …

Agro/Hort 403/803: Scientific Writing And Communication—A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Benchmark Portfolio, Brian M. Waters

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

The course portfolio overviews AGRO/HORT 403/803: "Scientific Writing and Communication”. This course combines science disciplines with English and communications. The course has 3 subsections. In phase 1, students learn to read and critically evaluate scientific literature in Plant Biology. In phase 2, which is the bulk of the course, students write a research paper based on their own original research, and peer-review research papers of fellow students. In phase 3, students present their research in a poster format. The overarching major goal for this course is to use the formal scientific research paper format to provide a framework for student …

Larc 331: Site Systems Iii: Landscape Implementation—A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Inquiry Portfolio, Bret Betnar

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

LARC 331 Site Systems III: Landscape Implementation is a 3rd year undergraduate course that focuses on the implementation of landscape architectural designs. The course is the final in a 3-course Site Systems sequence. In LARC 331, students take the final design proposal from the previous semester’s Site Design studio, LARC 210 or 211, and develop a set of construction documents for that design.

The research question asked through this inquiry is as follows: Can the inclusion of a drawing and building exercise improve students’ understanding of The Ten Fundamentals of drafting? It is believed that by including an additional drawing …

Alec 397: Media Literacy And Popular Portrayals Of Agriculture—A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Benchmark Portfolio, Annie R. Specht

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

My goal is to disseminate this portfolio as a guide for other instructors who are interested in using media literacy as a guiding pedagogical principle for new courses as well as those who wish to incorporate popular media in existing curricula. My objectives for this Peer Review of Teaching benchmark portfolio are:

1. To produce a detailed overview of ALEC 397-001: Media Literacy and Popular Portrayals of Agriculture with extensive attention paid to text selection (identifying and choosing the proper materials to best enhance student learning outcomes).
2. To assist future instructors interested in media literacy with designing and implementing assessments. Assignment …

Individualized Consideration: Poverty Countermeasure, Lawrence Wilson

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Despite more than $1 trillion spent annually on poverty remediation, impoverishment in the United States persists unabated. With a U.S. poverty rate greater than 10% for more than 4 decades, economics are neither poverty's cause nor cure. As such, non-economic poverty remedies require exploration and expansion. Linking greater leadership and poverty theories, this non-experimental, cross sectional, quantitative, survey-based research effort correlated individualized consideration's (IC) practice with collegiate athlete graduation rates in order to identify and isolate possible leadership based social poverty remediation measures. Leveraging a two-stage random sample, this research effort correlated student athlete Multi-Factor Leadership Questionnaire (form 5X) responses …

Perceptions Of Higher Education Online Learning Faculty In Lebanon, Noha Adib Haidar

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The purpose of this case study was to explore faculty attitudes toward online learning in a Lebanese Higher Education Institution (HEI). The research problem addressed the disinterest among faculty at the Arts, Sciences, and Technology University of Lebanon (AUL) in enhancing learning using online technology. The research questions for this study explored the attitudes of the faculty toward applying online learning and the extent of the faculty readiness to adopt this technological change. A qualitative case study design was used that employed multiple sources of information including semi-structured interviews and existing literature. The target population was AUL faculty including full-time …

Oral Health Knowledge, Attitudes, And Practices Among Secondary School Students In Nigeria, Johnson John Omale

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

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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 …

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 …