Preparing Entry‐Level Counselors for Collaboration

Over a period of 5 years, faculty members from the North Carolina State University's Counselor Education Program have integrated a curriculum enhancement to promote collaboration behaviors among program graduates across the master's degree options for training school, college, and community counselors. The School–College–Community Collaboration (SC3) idea was integrated into a 48‐credit master's degree curriculum accredited by the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs. The authors present the rationale for the training program, historical background, program enhancement content, evaluation findings and faculty responses, and future plans for the SC3 enhancement program.     

Integrating Computational Science Tools into a Thermodynamics Course

Computational tools and methods have permeated multiple science and engineering disciplines, because they enable scientists and engineers to process large amounts of data, represent abstract phenomena, and to model and simulate complex concepts. In order to prepare future engineers with the ability to use computational tools in the context of their disciplines, some universities have started to integrate these tools within core courses. This paper evaluates the effect of introducing three computational modules within a thermodynamics course on student disciplinary learning and self-beliefs about computation. The results suggest that using worked examples paired to computer simulations to implement these modules have a positive effect on (1) student disciplinary learning, (2) student perceived ability to do scientific computing, and (3) student perceived ability to do computer programming. These effects were identified regardless of the students’ prior experiences with computer programming.     

‘Understanding things from within’. A Husserlian phenomenological approach to doing educational research and inquiring about learning

This article describes a phenomenological approach to doing educational inquiry and understanding learning. Working within the qualitative tradition, the research is conceived as ‘narrow and deep’, intimate research that focuses definitively on internality and on first-hand experiences of learning. The theoretical background for doing phenomenological research is explained, especially in regard to the ideas of Edmund Husserl. Then, the author’s own systematic process for doing phenomenological research in education and exploring learning is offered with examples from his doctoral research project in which he investigated doctoral students and their experience of negotiating their learning. Samples from the author’s writing in regard to one research participant are used to illustrate the research process explicated in the article.