Mentoring african american educational media and technology students

Summary Mentoring appears to help African-American students taking educational media and technology classes to have more confidence in their abilities to integrate technology. It has also provided them with an opportunity to express their concern about their lack of technology skills and anxiety about teaching. Furthermore, they were able to speak to someone who cares about them and who has also had similar concerns and anxieties. The fact that we were all African American facilitated communication and trust between each of my students and me. However, since there is typically a scarcity of African-American faculties to mentor them it is problematic to have same-race mentoring relationships for most African-American students at predominately White academic institutions. Research suggests however, that African-American students feel that having an African-American mentor is less important to them than having a mentor in their career field. With appropriate attitudes and the belief that cultural diversity is an asset and not a deficit, faculty of other races can effectively mentor African-American students. With this in mind coupled with the fact that research indicates that mentoring supports retention particularly for African-American students, all faculties should consider mentoring African-American and other minority students. Mentoring enables faculty to MEET their minority students where they are and move them forward. Remember to Model use of technology in the classroom, Engage students in dialogue in and out of class, Embrace their anxiety and point our their successes, and Team students with partners. Her research interest focuses on factors that support or inhibit preservice and professional teachers from integrating technology.     

Undergraduate Student Participation in an Evaluation of a Police Program: A High-Impact Practice

High-impact educational practices are increasingly being recognized as powerful teaching strategies that can positively impact both student and faculty experiences in the classroom. Student persistence in college is correlated to campus integration, and one way this can be successfully facilitated is through student–faculty research partnerships. This paper documents the process of one faculty research team integrating four undergraduate students into an ongoing research project, for which students received course credit. There were many benefits of this collaboration to both student and faculty participants, but there were also many opportunities to better streamline the project and to potentially create an institutional template for replication of this process so that other faculty members can learn from this experience and more easily successfully integrate students into their own research.     

广西高职高专院校体育选项课的现状调研

为了解高职高专院校实施公共体育选项课后的实际变化情况,从学生的积极性、同学关系、教学师资、场地器械、学生成绩评价等方面进行调查研究与分析讨论,以期达到总结经验,查找存在问题并提出相应对策,为推进高职高专院校体育课程改革,充分发挥选项课的综合效能,提高教学质量提供参考数据之目的。     

Notes and News

The pedagogical advisors play a central role in students’ experience of the training process. Nevertheless, the students’ perception of the role of the pedagogical advisor is absent. Consequently, our study focused on this missing link. Our study included 118 participants enrolled in an academic teacher training education program in one college in Israel. Open questionnaires, focus groups, and interviews were used to ascertain—for the first time in Israel—students’ views of the role of the pedagogical advisors. A uniform voice identified in participants’ responses clearly expressed a desire to be viewed as partners and have a more active role in the program in terms of their own learning process. At the same time, they also expected their pedagogical advisors to lend not only professional but also personal support and to help them cope with all aspects of the program.     

Predicting faculty interest in student advising in the community college

The primary purpose of this study was to identify any significant relationships between a measure of faculty interest in counseling activities (PAICT) and nine selected student advising experiences. The research setting was a community college of 12,047 students. A stratified, random sample of full-time faculty was selected to complete the PAICT measure, and a cluster random sample of their students were used to obtain self-reported experiences of the advising activities. Only 11% of the variance was accounted for between the faculty PAICT scores and the self-reported advising experiences of their students. There was 17% of the variance accounted for between faculty PAICT scores and eight personal characteristics of their students. The findings indicate that the faculty interest in advising does not affect the way students are advised.     

Luce Pathways Project: A Pilot Project for Heritage Language Speakers of Mandarin Chinese,Spanish, and Japanese

This article describes the development process of a project for heritage language speakers of Mandarin Chinese, Spanish, and Japanese at a high-enrollment community college in the northeast United States. This pilot project, funded by the Henry Luce Foundation, aimed to empower minority group students through active reinforcement of students’ heritage language and culture, crossdisciplinary faculty collaboration, and a cohort-based advisement model. The pilot project consisted of mentorship by faculty members who shared the same heritage language and culture, incorporation of heritage language and international business courses into students’ curricula, and weekly seminars that focused on developing students’ heritage culture and professional skills. A cohort of nine students demonstrated that such a model is effective for minority students by achieving a remarkably high completion rate (66.67%) compared with an average rate for public 2-year institutions in the United States (21.20%).     

The Impact of Human Capital and Selected Job Rewards on Community College Faculty Job Satisfaction

Community colleges accommodate nearly half of all United States college students. Increased reliance upon community colleges is driven by the current economic downturn, rising costs of higher education, and changing expectations for today's workforce requiring advanced skill sets. Community colleges offer more affordable options for broader spectrums of students including traditional and nontraditional college students and dual-enrolled high school students.

Community college faculty facilitate student learning and program completion. A shortage of community college faculty will likely emerge as numerous faculty retire. Community college administrators need strategies for retaining and recruiting faculty amid increasing retirements. One effective strategy is to offer a work environment that cultivates positive work-related attitudes (e.g., job satisfaction). This study examines the ability of select human capital investments, intrinsic rewards, extrinsic rewards, and sociodemographics to predict overall job satisfaction for full-time community college faculty. A cross-sectional predictive design was used with secondary analysis of the 2004 National Study of Postsecondary Faculty (NSOPF:04) dataset.

Logistic Regression was utilized to determine predictive ability of the independent variables on overall job satisfaction. Results indicated that faculty were more likely to be satisfied with their work if they were satisfied with their salary, benefits and workload; were satisfied with the teaching support they received from their institutions; and if they perceived that females and minorities were treated fairly by the organization. Conversely, minority faculty were less likely to be satisfied, as were faculty who indicated they would again choose a career in academe if given the choice.     

Multiplying perspectives and improving practice: what can happen when undergraduate students collaborate with college faculty to explore teaching and learning

Traditional structures in higher education support a separation between faculty members’ and students’ perspectives on classroom practice. This is in part because student-faculty interactions are typically defined by a focus on content coverage and by a clear delineation between faculty and student roles in engaging that content. This paper focuses on key findings from an ongoing action research study that aims to address these basic questions: (1) What happens when faculty and students engage in structured dialogue with one another about teaching and learning outside of the regular spaces within which they interact? and (2) How can such dialogic engagement become a part of both students’ and teachers’ practice? The study takes place within the context of a program that supports undergraduate students and college faculty members in semester-long partnerships through which they explore teaching and learning. The goal of these explorations is to examine, affirm, and, where appropriate, revise pedagogical practice. Constant comparison/grounded theory was used to analyze discussions among and feedback from participants. It was found that partnership facilitates both faculty and students multiplying their perspectives in ways that have the potential to improve teaching and learning. Participants consistently describe gaining new insights produced at and by the intersections of their experiences and angles of vision. Furthermore, they discuss how these insights deepen their own self-awareness and their understanding of others’ experiences and perspectives. Finally, they indicate that, as a result of gaining these insights and deepening their awareness, they are inclined to embrace more engaged and collaborative approaches to teaching and learning.     

宗教信仰对少数民族大学生心理健康和主观幸福感的影响

宗教信仰对少数民族大学生各方面都有重要影响,研究从心理学角度探讨了宗教信仰对少数民族大学生心理健康和主观幸福感的影响。通过SCL-90和主观幸福感量表调查得知,少数民族大学生的心理健康水平总体良好,但在躯体化、强迫、焦虑、恐惧因子方面心理健康水平较低;少数民族大学生主观幸福感总体水平较高,他们在总体生活满意度和积极情感水平较高、消极情感较低;宗教信仰对少数民族大学心理健康和主观幸福感起积极的调节作用。     

The Research Mentoring Program: Serving the Needs of Graduate and Undergraduate Researchers

Many institutions of higher education confront seemingly unrelated needs of graduate students, who need not only to complete their dissertations but also to learn how to become proficient mentors for undergraduates as they move on to faculty roles. The graduate students are increasingly searching out high-impact learning experiences such as involvement with undergraduate research. The program we describe in this article offers a solution to these issues by pairing undergraduates with graduate students to work on their dissertation research. Undergraduates undertake hands-on research while learning about graduate school, and the graduate students learn about the mentoring process while receiving assistance that allows them to keep their dissertations moving toward completion.     

Redefining Authentic Research Experiences in Introductory Biology Laboratories and Barriers to Their Implementation

Incorporating authentic research experiences in introductory biology laboratory classes would greatly expand the number of students exposed to the excitement of discovery and the rigor of the scientific process. However, the essential components of an authentic research experience and the barriers to their implementation in laboratory classes are poorly defined. To guide future reform efforts in this area, we conducted a national survey of biology faculty members to determine 1) their definitions of authentic research experiences in laboratory classes, 2) the extent of authentic research experiences currently experienced in their laboratory classes, and 3) the barriers that prevent incorporation of authentic research experiences into these classes. Strikingly, the definitions of authentic research experiences differ among faculty members and tend to emphasize either the scientific process or the discovery of previously unknown data. The low level of authentic research experiences in introductory biology labs suggests that more development and support is needed to increase undergraduate exposure to research experiences. Faculty members did not cite several barriers commonly assumed to impair pedagogical reform; however, their responses suggest that expanded support for development of research experiences in laboratory classes could address the most common barrier.     

美国研究型大学学术管理体制与运行机制探析

美国研究型大学雄厚的研究实力和丰硕的研究成果,使其成为技术文明时代的骄子。其成功得益于按照管理和教育规律建立起以董事会管理模式、二元权力结构、学院制组织架构为特征的学术管理体制和由教授终身制、教师聘任制、经费分配制度、教师评价制度构成的运行机制。这为我国进行一流大学的建设提供了有益的启示和借鉴。     

Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID) in a Community College Setting: A Case Study

This study examined the initial implementation process of Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID) in a northern California community college. Focus groups of students, faculty, and administrators were conducted in the spring of 2008, as well as observations of several planning meetings in the spring and summer of 2008. The community college students enrolled in the AVID class reported that the support they received through AVID has helped them focus, become more organized, and become more motivated to continue their studies. This was so even though not all of AVID's 11 essentials were implemented on campus. In addition, challenges such as faculty buy-in and resistance to changing institutionalized practices were encountered by staff members responsible for implementing AVID. In this initial implementation, faculty and administration sought to change the culture of the college to better serve the underrepresented students in their quest to transfer to four-year institutions. This study provides a framework for other community colleges and higher education institutions to leverage the academic potential of underprepared and historically underrepresented students.     

Anatomy of a Community College Faculty Diversity Program

Diversifying the faculty in community colleges, especially with faculty of color, continues to be problematic as we move through the first decade of the 21st Century. National statistics show that overwhelmingly the faculty continues to be Caucasian, even at a time when more and more students are coming from diverse ethnic backgrounds. This seemingly intractable problem is particularly acute in California, where the majority of community college students are students of color, but not the faculty. A faculty diversity program that has been in existence for 17 years has made important progress in changing the situation in southern California. This comprehensive program recruits, trains, and places interns in 10 community colleges in cooperation with a regional university. The results of the program demonstrate that substantial numbers of faculty of color are being prepared by the program and that they are getting hired in community colleges as adjunct and full-time faculty. Community colleges can be and should be proactive in identifying, developing, and hiring faculty of color. They shouldn't wait for other societal institutions to do the job for them. By working cooperatively with other local colleges, community based organizations that involve communities of color, and nearby universities, they have the opportunity to make significant inroads into diversifying their faculty. This program can and should be replicated in other parts of the country as a way to nurture the next generation of community college faculty leaders.     

The multiple roles of chosen familia: exploring the interconnections of queer Latino men’s community cultural wealth

This study contributes to the literature on college students with multiple marginalized identities by investigating the experiences of queer Latino men as they created familial relationships during their time in college. Data from The National Study on Latino Male Achievement in Higher Education was used to elucidate how queer Latino men’s chosen family members fostered the community cultural wealth that helps them succeed at selective institutions. In addition to providing emotional and social support, chosen familia bolstered queer Latino college men’s navigational, aspirational, and resistant capital. By centering the stories of these participants using a narrative inquiry approach, this study offers important implications for staff and faculty at selective institutions as they seek to increase queer Latino men’s success in college.     

“It’s My Place”: Student Perspectives on Urban School Effectiveness

This study investigated how graduates of an urban alternative school understood, interpreted, and compared their experiences in previous schools that they considered ineffective with their experiences at an effective alternative school. This study found that students find those schools effective that create or allow spaces where they can be empowered, leading to a sense of place. Students’ ownership or affinity to school spaces that lead them to refer to school as “my place” derived from school practices that were instrumental in promoting a sense of identification, commitment, integration, and alliances among students and faculty at the school. Based on the findings of the study, this article argues that for urban schools to be effective for students at risk, they not only need to focus on caring relationships and diverse learning experiences, they also need to create the space to foster a sense of “my place” for students.     

Faculty do Matter: The Role of College Faculty in Student Learning and Engagement

This study uses two national data sets to explore the relationship between faculty practices and student engagement. Our findings suggest that students report higher levels of engagement and learning at institutions where faculty members use active and collaborative learning techniques, engage students in experiences, emphasize higher-order cognitive activities in the classroom, interact with students, challenge students academically, and value enriching educational experiences.     

Examining faculty questions to facilitate instructional improvement in higher education

Many of the innovations that show promise for improving outcomes for underprepared community college students require instructors to make changes to their teaching practice. Little research explores the experiences of faculty teaching in reformed courses as related to their professional learning needs. Drawing on a multi-year qualitative study, this paper uses data from 100 faculty interviews to explore the questions they ask when teaching a new course. A key outcome of the analysis is a typology of questions that mirrors the stage of implementation. Through analysis of 20 observations of implementation activities, this paper also documents the learning opportunities made available to instructors and examines the extent to which these activities addressed their questions.