Small Towns & Big City Lights:
An Examination of Rural and Urban Teaching
Melissa Comer
Do rural and urban teaching differ? Are the issues and concerns rural teachers face the same as ones faced by urban teachers? These questions, among others, are explored in a graduate class
email project between teacher education students at the University of the Cumberlands, a small, liberal arts university in rural Appalachia and their counterparts at Fordham University, a large, urban one in New York.
The teachers involved in the project make interesting discoveries and gain a deeper insight into their own practices and education in general. Throughout the semester-long email project, the
teachers explore the future of education and their place in it. In particular, they examine issues they face with their own students and teaching in general. They worry that outcome-based education is leaving the students who populate their classrooms out of the equation and that students will not learn to be self-sufficient, intelligent citizens who fit into society.
During discussions concerning innovative teaching strategies, testing mandates, adherence to standards, technology in educational practices, and discipline the teachers discover that while they may teach in completely different physical and cultural locations, they do share similar teaching methodologies and concerns. Ultimately, the two groups learn that the “challenges facing American educators are common ones that cut across cultural and geographical lines.” Click Here for Entire Article
Effects of a Job Shadowing Assignment on Writing
Bethany Shifflett
Mary F. Fortune
Kristina Denton
The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of a job shadowing assignment on students' writing skills. Findings support previous work noting the value of repetitive writing with feedback, writing based on experience, and writing on topics meaningful to students. Among students who did not shadow a business practitioner, group scores remained stable from pre test to post test while the shadow group's overall median score increased. Click Here for Entire Article
Teaching Multiculturalism in an Appalachian Classroom
Katherine Thomas
Robin Haggerty
Adding a multicultural dimension to the developmental writing classroom provides an opportunity for students to understand themselves and their experiences within the various social groups to which they belong and to listen to and accept others who come with diverse experiences and perspectives. To be effective, models of multiculturalism should be developed on a local level and should respond to the challenges of the communities in which the students are situated. We have found that multicultural approaches in our Appalachian classrooms open discussion and develop critical thinking and writing skills. Click Here for Entire Article
It’s Only Rock ‘N’ Roll But I Like It: How Songs Can Help Teach Statistics
Dave Gesler
Two ingredients to successful teaching are to motivate students to learn material being presented and to present material in an understandable manner. Within one particular class it seems it is harder to motivate students, yet is most crucial to present material in a very clear, concise and understandable fashion. This class is the communication research methods and statistics course. One way of motivating and helping students to understand material is to relate the material to be learned to something the students are familiar with and care about. Music is one of those “somethings” that students are familiar with and care about. Using popular rock and roll songs to enhance learning in the research methods and statistics class is a fun and motivating teaching method to help get students excited about class and to help students better understand difficult and often intimidating material. The lyrics to the songs are changed to reflect material from class and are then sung to the tunes of the original songs. The results are encouraging as, from a qualitative perspective, students mention how much they enjoy the statistical songs and how much the songs help them remember material from class. From a quantitative perspective, results of this teaching activity show a slight increase in test scores from “pre-song” semesters to “post-song” semesters. Click Here for Entire Article
A Proposed Model for Designing A Sound Academic Program:
A Case Study from a Program in Finance
Larry D. Guin
This paper describes one university's experience in designing a sound academic program for one of its disciplines (finance). Although the entire program is presented, one element of the model is emphasized in the paper: the application of a user-friendly database (1) to define a discipline's body of knowledge to be covered in the program, (2) to identify the learning outcome statements for the discipline, and (3) to match instructional methods with the learning outcome statements. This model has additional side-benefits as well, including more effective program assessment and elimination of unnecessary duplication in the program. The easy-to-modify Microsoft Access database is offered (free of charge) to other universities and colleges as a "best practices" model, in the hope that it will benefit their programs as well. Click Here for Entire Article
PROFESSIONAL GROWTH OF TEACHER CANDIDATES AS MEASURED BY THE CONCERNS-BASED ADOPTION MODEL
Kim L. Creasy
Professional Developments Schools are innovations in which universities are joined with public schools for the following purposes: to improve the education of teacher candidates, to provide professional development for current educators, to improve student learning, and to improve educational practices through research and collaboration. Commonly, in a professional development school, teacher candidates are immersed in one school setting. This 2-year study used qualitative research when analyzing the reflective journals of ten teacher candidates in one rural, elementary, public school setting. All teacher candidates included in this study were from one teacher preparatory institution that is part of a state-wide system. Cooperating teachers matched with teacher candidates were tenured faculty with prior experience in serving as mentors to teacher candidates. Cooperating teachers had taught on average 10.36 years in the grade that they were providing instruction and 19.8 years in their teaching careers. Over sixty percent (63.8%) of the cooperating teachers held a minimum of a master’s degree. Students in the elementary school (grades K-5) had a low-income rate of 23.4% as indicated by the quantity of free and reduced lunches. Using Loucks and Hall’s (1979) Concerns-Based Adoption Model (CBAM), this study analyzed teacher candidates’ reflective journals. The self-reported reflective journal themes of the teacher candidates matched the CBAM, indicating that these teacher candidates were developing as teaching professionals. Click Here for Entire Article
Developmental Reading: A Constructivist Approach Using Reading Modules
Susan Edington
Developing and using reading modules in the developmental reading classroom provides an alternative to the traditional reading text and behaviorist methodology. A reading module is a series of lessons based on a concept consisting of several learning objectives designed from a constructivist’s methodology. This constructivist methodology contains all the components for a balanced literacy program: reading, writing, responding, and interacting. While engaged in a reading module, students research, organize information, write, reflect, discuss with their peers, present material to their classmates, create authentic assessments, and use rubrics to self-assess the quality of their work. In order to appeal to varying learning styles, need, or interest, project choices are offered. Although the use of constructivist materials and methodology is more time-consuming for the teacher at the beginning of its use, students are active participants in their learning and form learning communities while participating as students. As a result, teachers are rewarded with meaningful classroom dialogue and discussion. This article provides best practices research concerning constructivist methodology, as well as step-by-step directions for creating a reading module. Click Here for Entire Article
Effective teaching and learning strategies for critical thinking to foster cognitive development and transformational learning
Larry J. Grabau
The development of critical thinking skills among undergraduates has gained extraordinary attention over the past decade, with individual faculty, entire undergraduate programs, and even university-wide general education programs taking up the critical thinking banner. Unfortunately, critical thinking instruction does not always result in critical thinking skills. There is also some question about whether such skills, once developed, would naturally lead toward two other highly desired outcomes: cognitive development and transformational learning. The objectives of this literature review were: 1) to identify effective teaching and learning strategies for the promotion of critical thinking skills, cognitive development, and transformational learning, and 2) to evaluate whether enhanced critical thinking skills would result in cognitive development and deep, transformational learning. Our literature review found that critical thinking can be developed among undergraduates, especially if critical thinking instruction and student practice is embedded across the curriculum. Effective strategies include analytical writing/re-writing, directed class discussions, practice of retrieval and implementation cues, practice in transfer to other contexts, and challenges to students’ thinking, perhaps even across cultures. Teaching and learning strategies common to critical thinking, cognitive development, and transformational learning include “climate-controlled” class discussions and challenging ideas presented by classmates and others, especially across cultures. These two ideas have been previously described as support and challenge. Critical thinking skills may be related to transformational learning; likewise cognitive development appears to be related to transformational learning. On the other hand, it appears that any connection between critical thinking and cognitive development is not well established. However, it is the author’s opinion that linkages among critical thinking, cognitive development, and transformational learning could be subjected to careful, hypothesis-based evaluation, using well-tested measures of each of these three desired outcomes, and including a longitudinal element in such research. Click Here for Entire Article
Looking Back to Move Forward:
Approaches to Teaching Civil Liberties in 21st Century Classrooms using 20th Century Case Studies
Antonio Thompson
The history of civil liberties has been fraught with constant violations and infringements. These violations often result from an ignorance of what constitutes civil liberties. It is the duty of teachers in the twenty-first century to prepare students for a globally aware community and for a clear understanding of civil liberties. In four sections this paper will prepare educators by defining civil liberties, illustrating some of the more famous civil liberty violations in the past century, illuminating contemporary civil liberty issues. Click Here for Entire Article
KYVU Online Excellence Award Winners
The Kentucky Virtual University (KYVU) is Kentucky’s official virtual campus. Its mission is to be the state’s student-centered, technology-based utility for the support of lifelong learning. Through KYVU students can access the Kentucky Virtual Library and a wide variety of online courses which provide educational opportunities for students who might otherwise be unable to access post secondary education. Many online learning opportunities are available from KYVU, including adult basic education, high school, and college courses. The online college courses enable many Kentucky residents to complete degree programs when they are unable to be on a college campus due to work and/or family obligations or physical limitations. Click Here for Entire Article
Kentucky Association of Developmental Educators
2006 Awards
Each year at its annual conference, which this year took place at Hazard Community and Technical College, November 10-11, the Kentucky Association for Developmental Education (KADE) announces its awards to distinguished educators and students working in developmental education in Kentucky. Click Here for Entire Article
“Where you are dropped is who you are”
--- Shirley
Donna Slone
In the summer of 2006, I taught a four-week course in English Composition at Changsha University in Changsha, the capital of the Hunan Province in The People’s Republic of China. Changsha is a city the size of Chicago. In the months before I went to China, I received little guidance in what I could expect of the Chinese students. I wondered how good their verbal and written English skills were, on what level they could read English, and what they would expect of an American teacher. I did not want to insult their intelligence by making the course too easy. Neither did I want to overwhelm them with overly difficult assignments in a second language. Click Here for Entire Article
PROFILE OF THE EXTENDED CAMPUS: TALES OF A RED-HAIRED STEPCHILD
Kitty Y. Hazler
David B. Peterson
Have you heard stories of the red-haired stepchild? You know the one we
mean---the one who doesn’t look or act like anyone else in the family---the one who always seems to be on the outside. This is the child who doesn’t quite fit the mold fashioned by other family members. At times, this child reminds us of a puppy attempting to please however he/she can. Other times, this child is the one who has given up on pleasing or fitting in and has found his/her own niche outside of the inner family circle. Our story speaks of a red-haired stepchild of another kind: the extended campuses of our university system.
We teach at a beautiful extended campus facility nestled in a rural piece of the Appalachians of eastern Kentucky. We have a new facility that opened three years ago at a cost of approximately 6 1/2 million dollars. Does that sound like a dream? In many ways it is. However, in our collective years of teaching on extended campuses and in our conversations with other extended campus instructors, we have noticed some bumps in the teaching road, along with some joyous straight-aways. It is both of these paths that we would like to address. Click Here for Entire Article
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