(2019). Introducing Students to Fundamental Chemistry Concepts and Basic Research through a Chemistry of Fashion Course for Nonscience Majors. Journal of Chemical Education, v96 n9 p1906-1913 Sep. The combined lab and lecture course is designed around the themes of colorants (dyestuffs and pigments) and fibers (natural and human-made) for nonscience majors. Students dye natural and synthetic fibers with natural dyes such as turmeric, raspberries, tea, and cochineal insects as well as synthetic dyes. The students observe the colorfast properties of a dye and the changes made to a fiber during the dyeing process. Some chemical concepts introduced over the semester are light energy and color, solution chemistry, chemical bonding and bond polarity, acids and bases, and oxidizing and reducing agents. An important component of this class is introducing students to primary literature. The students, throughout the semester, read and discuss research articles on topics relevant to the coursework. The course culminates with students applying all they learned through a self-designed inquiry project. Students, in groups, write a research proposal using science research literature. At the… [Direct]
(2018). Exploring the Behavioural Patterns of Knowledge Dimensions and Cognitive Processes in Peer-Moderated Asynchronous Online Discussions. International Journal of E-Learning & Distance Education, v33 n1. Peer moderation has been used as a beneficial strategy in asynchronous online discussions to assist student learning performance. However, most studies in peer-moderated asynchronous online discussions (PMAOD) have focused only on learning effectiveness and perceptions of students rather than on students' knowledge dimensions and cognitive processing patterns. This study combined quantitative content analysis (QCA) and lag sequential analysis (LSA) to explore student knowledge dimensions and cognitive processing patterns in PMAOD. The participants were 84 students in an undergraduate blended course from University Putra Malaysia (UPM), Malaysia. The Revised Bloom Taxonomy (RBT) was used as the codification scheme to code the discussion transcripts of participants assigned the role of peer moderators in a reciprocal manner over seven weeks. Behavioural distributions and patterns of high- and low-quality discussion groups were compared. Results showed that students were primarily… [PDF]
(2017). The Professional Stance of Ethics and Religious Culture Teachers in Qu√©bec. British Journal of Religious Education, v39 n1 p55-74. In September 2008, a new Ethics and Religious Culture programme was implemented in Qu√©bec's elementary and secondary schools. One of the main pedagogical challenges of this new course has been the requirement that teachers adopt a professional stance of impartiality. Teachers must refrain from sharing their points of view, so as not to influence students as they develop their own positions. This paper deals with the requirements related to this new professional stance, namely that teachers maintain a critical distance from their own convictions and values, respect the student's freedom of conscience and religion to avoid any indoctrination, and play the role of a cultural mediator. This new requirement has not gone over without question. For instance, some educators believe that, in the name of authenticity, it is preferable for teachers to freely express their own beliefs, thus ensuring a transparent relationship with students. For others, as teachers are in position of authority in… [Direct]
(2017). The Dialectic between Ideal and Real Forms of "Sharing": A Cultural-Historical Study of Story Acting through Imaginary Play at Home. Early Child Development and Care, v187 n1 p99-114. In a time when story-acting practices have gained increasing focus, little is known about the relations between family story acting and a child's interactions with the ideal models represented in stories. Drawing upon a cultural-historical perspective of play and development, this study is aimed at discovering how a child is able to interact with the conceptual models usually formed in stories such as "sharing" during family dramatic play. The case study reported in this paper related to a three-year-old child and the parents from Mainland China. A total 25.15 hours of video observations and interviews was collected over 16 family visits during 2 research periods. Findings suggested that a shared imaginary situation created during the co-construction of a play-world between a child and his/her parents had its importance in fostering the child's active explorations of the ideal descriptions of certain conceptual rules. A new interpretation of the play-world can be made… [Direct]
(2017). Material Learning in Action: Building an Arts-Based Research Community. Art Education, v70 n2 p39-48. On completing a digital methods course, one student told his teacher (the author) he did not know what to make of the class, and it had been a strange experience. This article reports on the curriculum that precipitated this and similar responses from preservice teachers and art students, conversations sparked by the incongruity of crossing thresholds that not only seem out of reach, but are unforeseeable. Most of these students have never written a line of computer code before taking the class, but they learn to hold and give over to "digital" as an expressive material. Although many students begin the semester by saying they hate technology, by the end of the term, they are comfortably sharing generative art, interactive poetry, and robots with a sense of humor, among other things. This points to the arts-based research community they build during the course, and the way it helps them push and pull on digital materialities. The author is confident the course works because… [Direct]
(2011). Capitalizing on Academic Success: Students' Interactions with Friends as Predictors of School Adjustment. Journal of Early Adolescence, v31 n1 p174-203 Feb. Although friends often share successes with one another, very little attention has been paid to these interactions. The current study examines the nature of middle school students' interactions with friends following academic successes and the consequences of these interactions for students' school adjustment. Participants were 293 fifth- through eighth-grade students. Grade-level differences emerged in students' reports of their motives for sharing, friends' responses to sharing, and students' motives for not sharing. Sharing successes predicted tradeoffs for children's school adjustment such that sharing predicted more positive school attitudes, but more negative perceptions of peer relationships over time. Children's reports of their motives for sharing and friends' responses to sharing also predicted changes in school adjustment over time. Implications of these findings for helping middle school students capitalize on academic successes via their interactions with friends are… [Direct]
(2021). Chapter 9: Writing as Capital–The Emancipatory Act of Writing for Profit, Advocacy, and Charity. Teachers College Record, v123 n13 Apr. Context: Writing is an agentive act. Despite drastic improvements over the past few decades in writing instruction and the push for sharing with authentic audiences, the majority of writing students do is still for the teacher. These practices are at odds with those who advocate for classrooms that are culturally relevant, culturally responsive, and culturally sustaining. When students write for the sole purpose of "doing school," they are denied opportunities to use their writing voices to write about, for, and within their communities. Writing is used to empower–to pose problems and solve them. The distribution of that writing is equally important. Publication matters. It is in the distribution and response to writing that one can experience the power of written words to impact one's world. Purpose: In this chapter, we outline authentic purposes for writing centered on culturally relevant, responsive, agentive, and sustaining pedagogies. We describe the writer's… [Direct]
(2024). Blossoming Together: Imagining Humanizing Relationships between Racially/Ethnically Minoritized Students and Postsecondary Institutions through Digital Storytelling. ProQuest LLC, Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Michigan. In this participatory action research study, I designed a digital storytelling program to facilitate conversations with racially minoritized students about their experiences with diversity, equity, and inclusion on campus–an elite, predominantly white, state flagship. I implemented this program with three groups of students (18 students total) over the course of nine meetings and a debriefing interview with each participant. At the crux of this study is a concept which I term "psychosocial blossoming." Psychosocial blossoming is a radical process toward wholeness, humanization, and liberation that emphasizes individual agency and empowerment while honoring relationships with others and environments. I used portraiture–which combines techniques from ethnography, phenomenology, and narrative inquiry while uniquely highlighting the aesthetic possibility for research. Through portraiture, I examined the context of this project, how it unfolded, and the experiences of both the… [Direct]
(2024). More than Just Letters: Expanding Community through Literacy in an Elementary Christian School Classroom. ProQuest LLC, Ph.D. Dissertation, Michigan State University. This ethnographically-oriented, multi-year study examined an epistolary writing relationship between third grade students and the teacher's uncle, known to them as Uncle Billy, who, at the time of the study, was corresponding from prison. Taking place within a Reformed Christian school, this study encapsulates the pedagogy of Ms. Thompson, the focal teacher; how she invited students into a relationship with Uncle Billy, threaded multiple literacies together, and taught with racial justice in mind–all through a letter writing intervention. Situated within a framework based on certain elements of community (reciprocity, proximity, hospitality, justice-mindedness, and collective emotion and vulnerability), I threaded three individual yet intersecting research strands: Christianity, race-related theories, and sociocultural literacy. In doing so, I ask, "how can letter writing widen perspectives of diverse community?" Analyzing letters, classroom observations, interviews, and… [Direct]
(2016). Strangers in a Strange Land: Social Conflict among Urban Refugees in Kampala, Uganda. Journal of Ethnographic & Qualitative Research, v11 n2 p117-135 Win. When refugees arrive in urban areas of Uganda, they face daunting challenges. Notably, refugees report instances of discrimination and mistreatment by the Ugandan welcoming culture. However, scholars or NGO's studying urban refugees have excluded the Ugandan population from data collection and research methods. By comparing ethnographic data collected from 9 Congolese refugees and 19 Ugandans over a one-month period, this article answers the following question — what are possible causes of the social discord between refugees and the Ugandan welcoming culture? Focusing on urban areas of Kampala, Uganda, this article considered the areas of medical care, police interactions, or more general associations of food sharing and economic situations as Ugandans and urban refugees experience them. Answering this question, this article argues that reports of discrimination and mistreatment against refugees in urban Uganda should not be viewed as a primary phenomenon, but rather as ancillary… [Direct]
(2016). A View from England and Wales. Sex Education: Sexuality, Society and Learning, v16 n4 p446-450. This commentary outlines developments regarding Sex and Relationships Education (SRE, akin to Comprehensive Sex Education) in England and Wales over the past 15 years or so. BZgA has been a WHO/Europe collaborating centre for sexual and reproductive health since 2003. In this capacity, BZgA contributes to the development and dissemination of WHO strategies by sharing its knowledge and its many years of experience in sexuality education and family planning. BZgA's terms of reference as a collaborating centre includes the development of materials and methods for working with specific target groups, the development of standards for evaluation and quality assurance, research and the organization of seminars and conferences. Many of the recommendations and processes that are included in this new briefing (BZgA, United Nations Population Fund, and World Health Organization European Office 2015) were helpful in making such progress as has been made, but it is also possible to highlight… [Direct]
(2014). Revisiting the Art of Undergraduate Teaching in Higher Education: One Person's Journey towards Enlightenment. Journal of Effective Teaching, v14 n2 p69-82. The purpose of this article is to offer reflections regarding teaching undergraduate students spanning a forty-five year career in higher education. The author discusses his teaching philosophy coupled with his perspective focusing on the "best" pedagogical practices that he has used to enhance student learning. The selected methods are grounded in over ninety semesters of classroom teaching experience much of which is empirically supported by scholarly literature. Hopefully the author's sharing of his life-long journey and commitment to undergraduate education will help sustain dialogue about the importance of pedagogical excellence…. [PDF]
(2021). Addressing the K-12 Open Educational Resources Awareness Niche: A Virtual Conference Response. Alberta Journal of Educational Research, v67 n1 p68-82 Spr. Since the 2002 UNESCO forum, raising awareness of the benefits and challenges to Open Educational Resources (OER) in higher education have been integral to the broader Open Education (OE) movement. In the K-12 sector, however, an understanding of OER has been less advanced, although there are pockets of K-12 OER innovators throughout Canada and the United States. The 2015 U.S. Department of Education #GoOpen initiative, had over 20 American states move toward the use of K-12 OER, and within Canada, various provinces have begun investigating OER for both financial and pedagogical reasons. Because the use of K-12 OER inheres curricular decisions from the classroom teacher to all levels of governance, the move toward OER additionally involves a variety of sophisticated and complex digital and system-wide supports. This shift from the legacy educational system to the emerging practices where educators employ participatory technologies to curate, share out, and use studentgenerated… [Direct]
(2021). The Real Price of College: Estimating and Supporting Students' Financial Needs. Hope Center for College, Community, and Justice The real price of college keeps rising, and it often surprises students and their families.1 People know tuition is expensive. They also usually account for books and supplies, even if they might cost more than expected. Still, they don't always expect or fully understand how the price of housing, food, and transportation factor in. It's not their fault–colleges and universities often grossly understate these costs too. Yet incomplete understanding has consequences. Not understanding the real price of college contributes to lower graduation rates and basic needs insecurity. The following report explores how colleges can better estimate and support students' non-tuition expenses. Over a year, we worked with financial aid and student affairs administrators and staff at six colleges and universities in Texas. We offered the administrators and staff training and resources related to college costs. We also tested whether a light-touch intervention at Temple University increased students'… [PDF]
(2021). Teacher Professional Public Thinking: Inspirations for, Impacts on, and Interpretations of Teachers Shaping and Sharing Ideas about Their Practice, Profession, and Public Schools in Online Spaces. ProQuest LLC, Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Florida. The public discourse about teaching has been shaped by actors often far removed from the classroom. In the face of education reform organizations, neoliberal and conservative politicians, and news media that amplify salacious and simplistic stories, teachers' voices have often been drowned out. However, the rise of blogging, social media, and other online platforms provide opportunities for teachers to communicate about their profession with broad audiences. While teachers' online activities–especially in the form of online learning and professional development–have received research interest, that scholarship is often interested in the particular online platforms teachers utilize. In contrast, teachers' shaping and sharing ideas about teaching, the teaching profession, and schooling can be understood as forms of teacher professional public thinking. This research project looks at the motivations, the factors that help maintain, and the meaning of teacher professional public… [Direct]