Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Politics Of Official English: Exploring The Intentions And The Outcomes Behind English-Only Policies In The United States, David Gonzalez Nieto

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

Although the Constitution did not declare English the official language of the United States, its complete linguistic dominance in such a linguistically diverse nation is unparalleled. Despite its supremacy, the last three decades have witnessed a renewed nationalistic movement that claims the role of English is threatened and that its establishment as the official language of the United States is crucial to protect the language and the unity of the nation.

So far, attempts to institutionalize English at the federal level have failed, but 28 states have adopted English as their official language and/or legislation that limits the use of …

Making The Invisible Challenges And Opportunities Visible, Maureen A. Scully, Lisa Deangelis, Katie Bates

Emerging Leaders Program Team Projects

The 41 fellows in the 2015 Emerging Leaders Program worked with community partners to generate the theme, “Making the Invisible Challenges and Opportunities Visible: Collaborative leadership for economic and social well-being."

The projects provide fellows an opportunity to practice elements of collaborative leadership in peer-led teams working with multiple stakeholders. The projects focus on civic engagement, building a leadership base for Greater Boston that is ready to tackle the big challenges that ensure the broader economic and social well-being of the region. The project sponsor with whom each team works is a nonprofit or governmental organization with big goals. Each …

Training Together: State Policy And Collective Participation In Early Educator Professional Development, Anne Douglass, Alice Carter, Frank Smith, Sherri Killins

New England Journal of Public Policy

This study used one state’s early care and education work-force registry and professional development attendance data to examine early educator patterns of professional development participation and the extent of collective participation. The article presents the concept of collective participation in professional development, discusses its potential benefits, and highlights the utility of statewide digital tracking of early educators’ patterns of professional development for informing policy. Results show that collective participation is uncommon in early education and care but can be increased through professional development policy decisions. The article concludes with implications for research and policy.

Analysis Of English Language Learner Performance On The Biology Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System: The Impact Of English Proficiency, First Language Characteristics, And Late-Entry Ell Status, Mary A. Mitchell

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

This study analyzed English language learner (ELL) performance on the June 2012 Biology MCAS, namely on item attributes of domain, cognitive skill, and linguistic complexity. It examined the impact of English proficiency, Latinate first language, first language orthography, and late-entry ELL status. The results indicated that English proficiency was a strong predictor of performance and that ELLs at higher levels of English proficiency overwhelmingly passed. The results further indicated that English proficiency introduced a construct-irrelevant variance on the Biology MCAS and raised validity issues for using this assessment at lower levels of English proficiency. This study also found that ELLs …

“Save Our History!” Collaborating To Preserve The Past At Umass Boston, Meghan Bailey, Patricia Bruttomesso, Andrew Elder, Carolyn M. Goldstein, Jessica R. Holden, Joanne Riley

Joseph P. Healey Library Publications

Sparked by the 50th anniversary of the founding of the University of Massachusetts Boston in June 1964, University Archives and Special Collections (UASC) staff in the Joseph P. Healey Library collaborated with departments across campus to carry out a wide range of initiatives, all focused on locating, accessioning, preserving, and sharing the physical evidence of the university’s history. This poster outlines the various collecting activities, outreach methods, digitization projects, and dogged detective work that resulted in the addition of more than 2,500 linear feet of unique historic materials to the University Archives, as well as a number of well-received public …

Cosmic (Center Of Science And Mathematics In Context), Roxane Johnson De Lear

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

The Center of Science and Mathematics in Context (COSMIC) is a joint venture of the College of Education and Human Development and the College of Science and Mathematics at UMass Boston. This presentation highlighted their STEM initiatives for English Language Learners (ELLs), engineering learning in urban elementary schools, and professional development for teachers of Advanced Placement courses.

Research And Education In Parallel: Scientific Outreach Through On-Site Experiments At The Museum Of Science Boston Living Laboratory, Vivian Ciaramitaro, Hiu-Mei Chow

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

Our world is multisensory, as is our perception of it: we see lips move while we listen to what is being said, we smell food as we taste it, we touch a surface as we feel its texture as we look at. Cross-modal sensory processing, the way information from our different senses interacts and influences our conscious perceptual experience is ubiquitous in everyday life, yet, it is not well understood, compared to unimodal sensory processing, processing information from a single sensory system. One of our research goals is to standardize a set of computer-generated stimuli and procedures to study sound-shape …

Success Boston: College Completion Initiative, Liliana Mickle

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

Success Boston provides intensive coaching support and wraparound services to Boston Public Schools students and graduates to ensure they are Getting Ready, Getting In, and Getting Through college so they are equipped to lead productive lives after graduation.

Pre-Collegiate And Educational Support Programs: Celebrating 50 Years Of Educational Access, Opportunity, And Success, Terri Slater Morgan, Andrea Dawes, David Lemmel, Edgar Deleon

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

The Department of Pre-collegiate and Educational Support Programs provides low-income and first-generation students, students at high risk for academic failure, and students with disabilities with the skills, knowledge, and motivation to successfully enroll in and complete programs of post-secondary education. This mission is achieved through seven programs that address a range of learning needs and serve pre-collegiate students (middle and high school, veterans) and UMass Boston undergraduates.

A Breakthrough Series Collaborative To Support Trauma-Informed Practice In Early Care & Education Programs, Anne Douglass, Leigh Perreault, Lucas Dangler, Rachel Chickerella

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

The Breakthrough Series Collaborative to supports trauma-informed practice in early care & education programs and aims to close the gap between theory and practice by creating collaborative learning opportunities that use emerging science to address barriers and promote quality improvements in focus area.

Inclusive Concurrent Enrollment Partnership, Aimee D'Avignon, Amy Cook, Colleen Regal, Felicia Wilczenski

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

The Inclusive Concurrent Enrollment Partnership has enrolled students with disabilities from local public high schools for the past 6 semesters, since the Fall of 2012. These students audit courses that match their personal interests or career goals in order to experience a fully inclusive higher educational setting.

The Anala Collaborative: Umass Boston’S Asian American, Native American, Latin@ And African Diaspora Institutes, Barbara Lewis, Carolyn Wong, Cedric Woods, Elena Stone

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

The ANALA Collaborative is the newly-formed umbrella for the four UMass Boston racial and ethnic institutes. This year, with help from a team from the College of Management’s Emerging Leaders Program, we have come together to form ANALA in recognition of the area’s increasing racial and ethnic diversity and the need for majority-minority communities to work together toward common goals. While each of the four institutes will retain its separate identity and programs, we will also place greater emphasis on collaborative efforts in the service of our common mission and vision.

Promoting College And Career Readiness For All Middle School Students, Lori Cooney

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

Future Quest is designed around national and state college and career readiness standards to assist all middle school students to prepare for high school and postsecondary education and employment after high school. Future Quest provides online activities that promote student self-discovery, self-advocacy, self-exploration, organization, and technology literacy skills. Project personnel from the Institute for Community Inclusion are working closely with middle school teachers, students, administrators and families in Massachusetts to embed these college and career readiness skills into the middle school curriculum.

Building Effective School-Family-Community Partnerships Through Community Dialogues; And Super Friends, Super Readers! Engaging Community To Support Young Children's Social Emotional Development, Angel Fettig, Kaitlin Gould, Lauren Brodsky

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

Super Friends, Super Readers! guides children through interactive shared reading sessions by using dialogic reading techniques that aim to support the development of social emotional skills. In a separate project, UMass Boston and the YWMC offered a series of community dialogues among a diverse group of parents and educators to instill a greater sense of trust and overcome unintentional racial divides that have impeded effective parent engagement and student achievement.

Sparc – A Community-Based Participatory Research Project With Youth With Autism Spectrum Disorders, Richard Fleming

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

SPARC (Supporting Physical Activity and Recreation in the Community) aims to meet a community-identified need for more physical activity programming for youth with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). SPARC’s collaborative approach addresses the unique social, cognitive, behavioral, and physical needs of this growing population of children by infusing diverse perspectives into its model. This project incorporated a CBPR conceptual and methodological model, a strong community partnership, and an evidenced-based instructional approach, to develop and evaluate a community-based walking program for adolescents with ASD.

Calderwood Writing Initiative At Umass Boston, Denise Patmon, Carolyn Wong, Cedric Woods, Elena Stone

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

Founded in 2003, the Calderwood Writing Initiative is dedicated to improving the teaching and practice of expository writing. In the past, the Initiative has sponsored a wide variety of experimental programs & approaches.

Family Gym: A Novel Initiative To Prevent Obesity Among Families With Young Children, Ronald Iannotti, Patrick Filanowski, Emily Mccular

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

Family Gym is a program that occurs every Saturday at one of three community centers. In this program, parents bring their child(ren) in for up to 90 minutes to play in areas equipped with engaging, age-appropriate activities. Each area is staffed by student activity leaders trained to make the experience safe and fun. Parents are encouraged to play with their child(ren). The research aspect of Family Gym is observing the families and how they interact as well as their activity level. As a research team, we want to learn how parents participating in physical activity with their child(ren) affects both …

Keynote Address – Open Inspirations: Passionate Educators Succeeding With Open, Mary Lou Forward

OpenEd Forum

No abstract provided.