Higher Education and Teaching Commons^™

“Communication Is Important. I Learned That On The Fresh Prince Show.” Soft Skills Portrayed In Five Prime-Time Television Comedies: A Quantitative Content Analysis, Jacquelyn Bader

Graduate Theses & Dissertations

This research study merged the seemingly divergent challenges of a soft skills shortage among workforce-ready young adults and the need to develop curricula that are interesting enough to hold students’ attention. This study, based on social learning and human capital theories, explored the portrayal of soft skills in five prime-time television (TV) comedies from the 2019-2020 broadcast season, with the idea that, if the portrayals were sufficiently frequent, readily identifiable, and led to what the TV characters wanted to achieve by exercising those skills, then perhaps the viewing of TV comedies could constitute part of the elusive yet engaging and …

Jcctl Mailer – January 19, 2021, Josef Brandauer

JCCTL Mailers

Updates on training and support and useful pedagogical resources compiled and sent by the JCCTL on January 19, 2021.

Contents:

Upcoming Events:

• What you say and how you say it: The Syllabus as a guiding document
• Derailment prevention: Course design strategies for fostering respectful dialogue
• Understanding our students’ lives outside the classroom
• An effective first day of class

Readings & Resources

• 8 Strategies to Prevent Teaching Burnout, Flower Darby
• What do we do and say on the all-important first day of class

Grants and other Funding Opportunities

• Open Educational Resources (OER) Grants
• Faculty-Created Working Group

Jcctl Mailer – January 14, 2021, Josef Brandauer

JCCTL Mailers

Updates on training and support and useful pedagogical resources compiled and sent by the JCCTL on January 14, 2021.

Contents:

Upcoming Events:

• What you say and how you say it: The Syllabus as a guiding document
• Derailment prevention: Course design strategies for fostering respectful dialogue

Grant and other Funding Opportunities

• Open Educational Resources (OER) Grants
• Faculty-Created Working Group

Other Recommended Resources

• How to Teach a Good First Day of Class, James M. Lang
• First Day of Class, Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching
• Leading Lines podcast
• National Center for Faculty Development & Diversity, Spring Webinar Schedule

Preface To The Special Issue: Student Affairs At The State Comprehensive University, Phillip A. Olt

Teacher-Scholar: The Journal of the State Comprehensive University

In this special issue of Teacher-Scholar: The Journal of the State Comprehensive University, authors are encouraged to submit original manuscripts based on new data collection and/or analysis that investigate student affairs within the context of the state comprehensive university. For the purposes of this special issue, “student affairs” is defined broadly and does not exclude specific divisions of practice (ex. academic advising); rather, it may include anything that extends beyond the standard curriculum of academia in order to develop the whole student. This may even include coursework wherein it is oriented toward the student affairs mission (ex. freshman orientation taught …

Using Covid-19 Vaccine Efficacy Data To Teach One-Sample Hypothesis Testing, Frank Wang

Numeracy

In late November 2020, there was a flurry of media coverage of two companies’ claims of 95% efficacy rates of newly developed COVID-19 vaccines, but information about the confidence interval was not reported. This paper presents a way of teaching the concept of hypothesis testing and the construction of confidence intervals using numbers announced by the drug makers Pfizer and Moderna publicized by the media. Instead of a two-sample test or more complicated statistical models, we use the elementary one-proportion z-test to analyze the data. The method is designed to be accessible for students who have only taken a …

Special Edition: Principal Investigator Recognition, Lori Gwyn, Cj Smith, Jennifer Cook-Johns

The Source

This is a special edition from the Office of Sponsored Programs honoring the accomplishments of the SWOSU Principal Investigators.

Changes That Should Remain In Higher Education Post Covid-19: A Mixed-Methods Analysis Of The Experiences At Three Universities, Águeda Benito, Kubra Dogan Yenisey, Kavita Khanna, Manuel Felipe Masis, Rosa Maria Monge, Mehmet Ali Tugtan, Luis Diego Vega Araya, Rekha Vig

Higher Learning Research Communications

Objectives: The goal of the present study is to describe how the transition to remote emergency delivery was addressed in three universities during the COVID-19 pandemic, to determine the satisfaction levels of their students and faculty with this new teaching-learning experience, and to gather their opinions about the future of higher education.

Method: The study uses a mixed-methods approach, including faculty and student surveys and focus groups

Results: The study shows high satisfaction with the emergency remote delivery and clearly reflects the relevance of enhancing the digital components of future learning experiences in higher education and a unanimous preference for …

Focus Attracts Attachment, Kathryn Carlson, David Potter

Faculty Research at Morehead State University

There is growing evidence that pitch accents as well as prosodic boundaries can affect syntactic attachment. But is this an effect of their perceptual salience (the Salience Hypothesis), or is it because accents mark the position of focus (the Focus Attraction Hypothesis)? A pair of auditory comprehension experiments shows that focus position, as indicated by preceding wh-questions instead of by pitch accents, affects attachment by drawing the ambiguous phrase to the focus. This supports the Focus Attraction Hypothesis (or a pragmatic version of salience) for both these results and previous results of accents on attachment. These experiments show that information …

Corequisite Mathematics: A Program Analysis At The College Level, Shannon Miller-Mace

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Many incoming college freshmen who do not meet minimum standardized exam cut-score requirements are often determined to be not ready for college-level coursework and registered for pre-requisite, multi-semester, remedial course sequences. The goal of pre-requisite courses is to prepare students for college-level courses prior to enrollment in college-level classes. However, based on multiple studies, traditional, pre-requisite developmental education has become a barrier to student success. In contrast, the co-requisite instructional model enrolls students into their college-level, credit-bearing course in their first semester on a college campus, improving the likelihood of success in those courses and beyond. The purpose of this …

Then What? Quantifying Sbae Teacher Career-Decisions Post-Migration, Becky Haddad, D. Brett Milliken, Josh Stewart, Johnathan Velez

Department of Agricultural Leadership, Education, and Communication: Faculty Publications

Complex career decisions, such as teacher mobility, are often reduced to stigmatizing labels that do little to account for the state of teaching as a profession or credit those engaging in migratory decisions as making healthy career choices. Through our study, we focused on understanding workforce mobility, teaching as an unstaged profession, and the current quantifications existing around SBAE teacher migration. We drew on over 100 years of data from California as we quantitatively explored and synthesized the career decisions of migrating SBAE teachers. This snapshot offers a means of understanding the Teacher Career Cycle (Fessler & Christensen, 1992) in …

Annual Report Of Externally Funded Grants And Contracts July 1, 2020 - June 30, 2021, Office Of Research And Sponsored Programs. Morehead State University.

Office of Research and Sponsored Programs Reports and Publications

Annual Report of Externally Funded Grants and Contracts July 1, 2020 - June 30, 2021.

Seik: Sustainable Event Industry Knowledge, Creating Oers For Event Management Students, Samantha Morris

Case Studies

Presentation describing the Sustainable Events Industry Knowledge project funded by TU Dublin Impact, National Forum of Teaching and Learning and the Higher Education Authority. Presented at the EdTech 2021 Conference hosted by The Irish Learning Technology Association.

A Phenomenological Examination Of The Experience For Deaf Faculty Members In A Post-Secondary Institution In America, Amy Anne Schilling

Online Theses and Dissertations

The experience of Deaf tenure track or tenured faculty in post-secondary education is largely unknown. This qualitative phenomenological examination afforded six Deaf tenure track or tenured faculty to share their experiences. The purpose of this study is to share the day-to-day lived experience of Deaf tenure track or tenured faculty in post-secondary institutions. The goal of the study was to reveal areas of growths and strengths to allow institutions to better recruit, support, and retain Deaf tenure track faculty. Deaf faculty shared their experiences and have overcome barriers leading to success in their field. Interviews were conducted with each participant …

An Educator Out Of Water: A Phenomenological Study Into Identity-As-Educator For Student Affairs Professionals, David Mccoy

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The work of student affairs professionals has been happening since the inception of western higher education. The profession has shifted a great deal since that time, with an emphasis now on student affairs professionals as ‘educators’ alongside their faculty counterparts. Regardless of change, research has consistently demonstrated the impact student affairs can have on the experiences of students and colleges as a whole. Given the emergence of identity-as-educator, for these professionals to best continue their work, it is imperative to understand how they understand and make sense of this professional identity. This research was a phenomenological study to understand how …

Edd Graduate Perspectives: Uplifting Our Own Voices, Staci B. Martin, Kara Gournaris, Zafreen Jaffery, Lisa Janie Hatfield, Su-Jin Sue Jung, Li Xiang, Ingrid Anderson, Micki M. Caskey

Education Faculty Publications and Presentations

The purpose of this essay is to share the voices of EdD graduates who are often underrepresented or missing in the literature. To begin, we invited EdD graduates to co-author this article about the connection among their EdD program experiences and interactions and their activism. We included our definition of activism and posed three open-ended questions. Six program graduates and one professor agreed to organize the graduates’ responses by the question topics and salient themes. We asked about our experiences in the EdD program and how these influence—positively and negatively—what we are doing now (post-program). We found (a) relationships with …

Leadership Transfer In Rural Communities: A Mixed Methods Investigation, Lindsay J. Hastings, Hannah Sunderman, Matthew Hastings, L.J. Mcelravy, Melissa Lusk

Department of Agricultural Leadership, Education, and Communication: Faculty Publications

The United States is poised to experience one of the largest transfers of leadership in its history, markedly impacting rural community sustainability efforts. The purpose of this exploratory sequential mixed methods study was to identify themes related to rural leadership transfer using grounded theory and to test the facilitation of effective leadership transfer using structural equation modeling. Adult and youth leaders (N = 19) from three nominated rural communities comprised the qualitative phase and secondary data from a 2015 rural survey (N = 1991) comprised the quantitative phase. Mixed methods results indicated the environment conducive for effective leadership transfer (via …

Maintaining The Fence: Establishing And Reclaiming Your Boundaries, Becky Haddad , Ed.

Department of Agricultural Leadership, Education, and Communication: Faculty Publications

Editor Comments: Boundaries? We Don’t Need No Stinking Boundaries... Or Do We?... by Gaea Hock

Theme Editor Comments: Lessons from the Giving Tree .....by Becky Haddad

Theme Articles: A Letter to the Profession.... by Haley Traini

Balance in the Busyness.... by Roobie Richards

The Boundaries that Weren’t..... by Bibiana Gifft An Early Introduction.... by Amber Rice and Quint Molina Prioritizing Boundaries... by Hannah Wedger

The How’s and Why’s of Building a Fence.. by JoAnn Pfeiffer Avoiding the Burn... by Jay Solomoson and Trent Wells

Book Review: Boundaries by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend .... by Kayla Loewenhagen

Ready …

National Open Research Training Programme, Niall Mcsweeney, Therese Ahern, Seán Harnett

Publications

Policy brief on a national open research training programme for Ireland.

Accreditation Of Open Research Skills And Training Development, Therese Ahern, Audrey Drohan, Sandra Fisher

Publications

Policy brief on the accreditation of open research training and skills development in Ireland.

An Efficient And Coherent Pipeline For Graduate Student And Postdoctoral Scholar Educational Development, Daniel Mann, Matthew Mahavongtrakul, Ashley Hooper

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

As higher education shifts toward a culture of evidence-based teaching practices, future faculty are seeking opportunities to develop their pedagogical knowledge and skills. Many centers for teaching and learning (CTLs) have not proportionally grown in resources to meet the demand for graduate student and postdoctoral scholar programming (e.g., teaching certificates and pedagogy seminars). This article presents a model of a wide-ranging, coherent pipeline of educational development for graduate students and postdoctoral scholars managed by a CTL with modest staffing.

Motivation To “Keep Pushin’”: Insights Into Faculty Development Facilitating Inclusive Pedagogy, Kelly Erby, Melanie Burdick, Sandra Winn Tutwiler, Dan Petersen

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

This study focuses on the lived experiences of nine university faculty who were attempting to implement inclusive teaching practices following university-sponsored faculty development. While the participants were each successful in their respective implementations, they all expressed anxiety at the beginning of the semester as well as at the end when they reflected upon the changes they made. This occurred despite deeply held motivations to change their teaching and make a difference for their students. The participants encountered barriers that centered on feelings related to self-confidence, student perception, and peer approval. Findings include descriptions of these anxieties and the supports that …

Focus On Outcomes: Fostering Systemic Departmental Improvements, Daniel L. Reinholz, Mary E. Pilgrim, Amelia Stone-Johnson, Karen Falkenburg, Christopher Geanious, Courtney Ngai, Joel Christopher Corbo, Sarah B. Wise

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

This article describes how a focus on outcomes can be a tool for guiding systemic change. By focusing on positive outcomes to be achieved, a group can guide its collective efforts toward an ideal future rather than becoming fixated on individual problems to solve. While there is support for an outcome-guided approach in the literature on individual and organizational change, this approach has not been used extensively to support department-level changes in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education.

Finding Our Voice: Highly Flexible Ed For The Hyflex World, Kristine Larsen, Cristina Robinson, Jason A. Melnyk, Jennifer Nicoletti, Amy Gagnon, Kelly Mclaughlin, Mina Hussaini

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

The COVID-19 pandemic brought about unprecedented changes in our approach to delivering educational development (ED) programming. In this article we discuss how our dual ED centers pivoted during the sudden switch to online learning, highlighting how we overcame challenges such as a small staff, tight timelines, and faculty anxieties. Particularly, we explore how we adapted to the university’s investment in technologically advanced Hybrid-Flexible (HyFlex) classroom spaces and utilized a multi-pronged team approach to provide effective and timely ED to faculty. By identifying key faculty leaders, identifying multiple sources of data, and using multiple modalities, we supported the faculty in their …

Leveraging Collaboration And Peer Support To Initiate And Sustain A Faculty Development Program, Anneris Coria-Navia, Scott Moncrieff

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

In today’s impoverished higher education fiscal climate, especially considering the enormous financial implications to higher education of accommodating the changes required by the coronavirus pandemic, “nonessential” though highly important programs, such as centers for teaching and learning (CTLs), are very likely to be underfunded. In this study, we illustrate how underfunded programs can leverage peer collaboration and support to initiate productive, formal systems of assistance for faculty by describing a number of such programs developed by and/or coordinated by our CTL. Moreover, we propose that sustainable programs, especially at small liberal arts institutions, must include a strong component of peer …

Constellations Of Support: A Community Development Model, Tracy Smith, Melba Spooner

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

This article describes the rationale, development process, and initial artifacts and outcomes of a faculty support (a.k.a. mentoring) model developed for a specific academic context: a College of Education at a Southeastern comprehensive public university. The purposes of this article are to (1) describe the research and theoretical models that guided the development of the program; (2) provide a research-based rationale for a context-based community development model of faculty support; (3) propose a set of principles for a context-based developmental community model of faculty support; (4) describe the process for developing a community development mentoring model for faculty at all …

Predicting The Mechanism And Products Of Co2 Capture By Amines In The Presence Of H2o, Zachary R. Lee

Faculty Research at Morehead State University

An extensive correlated molecular orbital theory study of the reactions of CO2 with a range of substituted amines and H2O in the gas phase and aqueous solution was performed at the G3(MP2) level with a self-consistent reaction field approach. The G3(MP2) calculations were benchmarked at the CCSD(T)/CBS level for NH3 reactions. A catalytic NH3 reduces the energy barrier more than a catalytic H2O for the formation of H2NCOOH and H2CO3. In aqueous solution, the barriers to form both H2NCOOH and H2CO3 are reduced, with HCO3 − formation possible with one amine present and H2NCOO− formation possible only with two amines. …

Our Clinical Practice: An Innovative Approach, Delar K. Singh

Faculty Research at Morehead State University

This presentation covers the importance of clinical experiences in teacher preparation. It also includes a brief description of our innovative approach to clinical practice at a public comprehensive, state university in Southeast. Findings of our research endeavors indicate that majority of our teacher candidates agree or strongly agree that clinical experiences have helped them realize the realities of school and classroom. Further, clinical experiences have significantly contributed to their development as teachers. The presentation concludes with implications for action.

Innovation For Transforming Democracy: Emotionally Intelligent Citizenry, Delar K. Singh

Faculty Research at Morehead State University

In today’s milieu of school shootings, unprecedented rates of attempted suicide, drug addictions, escalating drop-out rates, teen age pregnancy, and behavior disorders, we propose that future teachers be trained in the delivery and maintenance of social-emotional learning. This presentation urges teacher educators to prepare future teachers for this task of inculcating emotional intelligence in every child.

How Focus Particles And Accents Affect Attachment, Kathryn A. Carlson, David Potter

Faculty Research at Morehead State University

This project shows that focus and information structure, as indicated by the focus particle “only” and pitch accents, influence syntactic attachment, in contrast to the well-known effects of prosodic boundaries on attachment. One written questionnaire, one completion study, and several auditory questionnaires show that the position of “only” strongly affects attachment preferences in ambiguous sentences, while contrastive pitch accents have smaller effects. The two types of focus marking do not interact but independently impact attachment. These results support a modified version of the Focus Attraction Hypothesis, with ambiguous material drawn to attach to the most important information in a sentence. …

A Space Of One’S Own: Houselot Size Among The Ancient Maya, Timothy Hare

Faculty Research at Morehead State University

This paper uses new data from lidar mapping to explore variation in the size of ancient Maya houselots. The amount of space available to households has important implications for subsistence, craft activities, social relations, and more. Comparisons of houselot data from three large cities (Coba, Mayapan, and Chunchucmil) and one rural area (southwestern Quintana Roo) show significant differences in houselot size across the four case studies. Site size has no effect when comparing across case studies although patterns of variation do emerge within the case studies. Of the major factors explored–wealth, household size, distance from site core, availability of open …