Focused Discussions I
For work that is best discussed or debated, rather than reported on through a formal presentation, these sessions provide a forum for an extended “roundtable” conversation between an author and a small group of interested colleagues. Summaries of the author’s key ideas, or points of discussion, are used to stimulate and guide the discourse.
Changing Campus Culture to Improve Student Learning
Focused Discussion Stephanie Whitehead, Chera La Forge
This focused discussion will engage participants in ways to shift their campus culture to improve student learning. Campus culture can play a significant role in the way faculty approach teaching and learning and thus warrants thorough analysis as a way to improve student learning (Gillespie, 2010). Working from our own administrative experience as teaching and learning leaders, we focus on how leadership and cultural changes can further or hinder faculty professional development and student learning outcomes. Throughout the discussion we will focus on the following areas of interest: shifting faculty career focus to the teacher-scholar model, implementing new structural approaches to part-time faculty development, reorganization of teaching and learning center, administrative support and recognition, developing faculty buy-in of cultural changes.
Learning to Make a Difference in Higher Education Culture: Foundations, Strategies, and Transformations of University Learning Cultures with High Impact Practices
Focused Discussion Michael Cena
Kuh (2008) articulated ten research-based practices that transformed university-wide learning cultures from traditional instructional delivery models to highly empowering student-owned learning systems. Participants will learn about one large public-operated university's efforts to bring these practices into the lives of its students, faculty, and staff. The university's efforts to refine, build culture, incorporate change, adapt, and support these principles will be shared. Educational experiences such as setting student performance expectations, encouraging personal investments, building collegiality between groups, promoting meaningful interactions, fostering diverse community-based learning, and, incorporating other high-impact practices will be highlighted. The presenter will share a university-wide framework incorporating the most current efforts, across campus, to build consensus and sense of institutional mission.
Leadership and School Safety: School Leaders Responsibilities to Stakeholders
Focused Discussion Fern Aefsky
The issues of school safety are an area of thought, concern and practice for school leaders. There is agreement among educators, parents and the public that when school doors open, all stakeholders must be in a safe learning environment. School leaders must be proactive in planning and supporting all stakeholders in being safe, so that learning can occur. Collaborating with police authorities, having plans for various types of school events, and communicating those plans effectively to all stakeholders, can result in outcomes that are more positive should a traumatic event occur. School leaders must be prepared and be able to educate others through a balanced approach to school safety. Developing school-community partnerships to enhance school safety measures and provide preparedness training, review communication systems within the school district and with community members, implement violence prevention programs are tasks that leaders must facilitate. Developing an interdisciplinary approach that includes administration, faculty, parents, students, and community partners requires a new collaborative approach with educators, administrators, social workers, health and mental health professionals, criminal justice officials, religious leaders, and our business community. This presentation will enable participants to address their needs in Prek-12 school settings, and identify systemic approaches to all aspects of school safety. Successful approaches to addressing this issue will be discussed and shared with participants.
The Mindful Educator: Meditation and Mindfulness for Preservice Teachers
Focused Discussion Paige Lilley Schulte
This focused discussion will summarize the successes and challenges of integrating a meditation/mindfulness course into a preservice teacher education program. The presenter will share her experience in facilitating the Koru mindfulness program with teacher candidates and engage participants through a discussion based on a Who? What? When? Where? Why? and How? framework. Reflections will be shared regarding how to engage university students in a sustained mindfulness practice using Koru meditation and mindfulness skills and tools and how this practice can potentially impact students in K-12 schools.
Reggio Emilia Inspired: A Professional Journey
Focused Discussion Rachel Soney
This paper will outline how one teacher transformed her practice from a traditional teaching approach to a Reggio Emilia Inspired approach. Emphasis will be given to the importance of understanding best practices and the development of quality curriculum while infusing one's practice with student choice, voice, and collaboration. The environment as "third teacher" and the child as protagonist drives the documentation for this presentation. Examples of curriculum mapping, project work and visible learning/documentation will be included.
How User Identity can be Shaped and Influenced by Social Media through English as the Lingua Franca
Focused Discussion Roberto Torres
The impact of social media in modernity’s thought processes and identity formation is unquestionable and has acquired a life of its own. It impacts anyone who uses it and for any reason. The discussion focuses on a vulnerable population that strives to “fit in”, the young and anyone who engages in almost any format of social media where English is used as the means to communicate. In this presentation we assume that languages are invaluable human capital because they embody, construct, and transmit knowledge and worldviews; languages also contribute to the shaping of human identity and cognition. We will discuss how social media can impact user identity, user homogenization, and potential mental colonization through its lingua franca, English, at the expense of the users’ first language and identity. We will be critical of these issues and look into how parents, educators, and anyone concerned with heritage language maintenance and language learning should be better prepared and critical consumers of social media to counter its effects while concentrating on maintaining and valuing their primary and home-based language and identity.
Must STEM Instructors Motivate?
Focused Discussion Ralph Kemphaus
It is a commonly held belief that students will not master the tenets of STEM disciplines unless they put forth the effort to and develop the conceptual ideas presented in the classroom. In this discussion forum participants are invited to share successes and failures in their attempt to motivate, inspire, urge, coerce, cajole and/or demand their students extend the energy necessary to learn. The experience of the moderator has been in secondary and college level Mathematics, Physics and Computer Science but the discussion is open to all levels of STEM education.
The Role of Translanguaging and the Formation of Identity
Focused Discussion Kimberly Ilosvay
While scholars tout translanguaging as advantageous for work environments and cognitive development (Canagarajah, 2011; Hornberger & Link, 2012), educational practices often do not include translanguaging. According to Canagarajah (2013), students may not want to code-mesh because traditionally, languages have been treated as distinct systems. Individuals are traditionally thought to take on identities based on these systems as they provide membership in specific groups (Hall, 2013). Translanguaging is a process in which people draw from all of their semiotic resources to co-construct meaning thus learning from each other. What happens to identity formation when language mixing is a constant? This study explores the use of languages in learning and identity formation. Using a case study design, analysis of conversations and interviews between Ecuadorian teachers and U.S. students reveal a variety of functions that both afford learning and identity formation and constrain it. Analysis reveals how the use of multiple languages in these contexts may interact with identity formation. Discussion questions are derived from the study and meant to allow participants to share information.
