The Impact of Climate Change Education in an Outdoor Classroom on Middle School Students\u27 Attitudes and Understandings Towards Climate Change

This capstone paper and project seek to answer the question: how does learning about climate change in an outdoor classroom impact middle schoolers’ attitudes and understandings toward climate change? The most effective methods to teaching climate change include a place-based, multidisciplinary approach with high levels of inquiry and engagement. When students learn outdoors, they also engage in place-based learning that is highly inquiry based. Combining climate change education with outdoor education is an effective way to approach climate change education. Through use of the Learning Cycle and Understanding by Design, a unit on ecosystem dynamics, biodiversity, and ecosystem services was developed. This fifteen day unit is to be completed entirely in an outdoor classroom while still in the formal middle school setting. The unit meets the middle school Next Generation Science Standards for life science and includes a summative assessment. While none of the life science standards directly address climate change, students learn about climate change through threats to ecosystems and biodiversity. This project provides a framework for further development of outdoor units addressing climate change under NGSS

The Right to Learn: Community Participation in Improving Learning

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the Education for All (EFA) goals have been the catalyst for progress in ensuring access to education. Since governments first endorsed these goals in 2000, around 45 million children who previously did not have access to education have enrolled in primary school and gender parity in primary education has improved significantly. With 2015 deadlines fast approaching, the world must now assess the considerable work that remains to be done and negotiate an ambitious yet achievable successor framework.It is now widely recognized that we are facing a global crisis in learning. 250 million children -- or a staggering 40 percent of the world's primary school age children -- are unable to read, write, or demonstrate basic numeracy by fourth grade.2 It is the poorest, most marginalized children, including those living in areas affected by conflict, who are most at risk of being out of school or being in school but learning very little. As we draw closer to the MDGs deadline, there is growing consensus amongst UN-led thematic, country and global consultations that the focus must move from enrolment to learning. Today, the conversation is not just about whether a child gets a seat in the classroom, it's about what they learn when they get there -- as well as before they arrive and after they leave. For that reason, an equitable learning agenda must be central to the post-2015 development framework. This should extend beyond a narrow focus on inputs, such as the need for books and teacher training, to include processes for stimulating learning, measuring learning outcomes, and bolstering accountability to local stakeholders

Building a community of practice: shifting an M.Ed. program to a PDS school-based cohort model

Purpose The purpose of this study was to examine how participants experienced and perceived an M.Ed. program that had a school-based design. In particular, the authors sought to understand: (1) how participants experienced being in a school-based cohort and (2) whether and how participants experienced the three designated tenets of the M.Ed. program: teacher inquiry, social justice and student engagement and motivation. Design/methodology/approach This qualitative study used semi-structured focus group interviews (n = 7) to examine teachers’ perceptions, using a constant comparative method (Corbin & Strauss, 2008) of open coding to analyze the data and determine emergent themes. Findings The findings indicate the design of this school-based M.Ed. program provided both social and academic benefits including strengthening teachers’ working relationships and their understanding of students outside their own classroom and a transfer from individual learning to organizational benefit. Teachers positively perceived the three tenets that guided the first year of the program, especially the ability to study social justice and student motivation in depth. Practical implications This study has implications for teacher education and retention as well as how boundary spanning roles in PDS schools can impact graduate students’ experiences in schools. Given the current teacher shortage concerns, it is important to understand how M.Ed. programs can be designed with teacher needs at the forefront so learning is relevant and rewarding, both to the individual and the school. Originality/value While there are many studies that examine the use of cohorts in education, particularly in doctoral programs, few, if any, studies examine a school-based cohort M.Ed. program for practicing teachers. This study also puts a unique spotlight on how boundary-spanning roles can benefit not only teacher candidates but also practicing teachers in their M.Ed. program

Prior Learning Assessment at a Small, Private Midwestern Institution

A small college in the Midwestern United States has a prior learning assessment (PLA) program that has never been evaluated from the perspective of the faculty and staff. The problem is that campus leaders have a limited understanding of faculty and staff knowledge and their role in the PLA program. The study was approached from an appreciative perspective while exploring faculty and staff knowledge and perceptions related to PLA to address 3 research questions. The first 2 research questions were developed to better understand how faculty and staff describe their understanding of the PLA program and what they envision for the program. The final research question was a reflection of the descriptive data collected from the responses to the first 2 research questions. This formative program evaluation included an open-ended survey of 36 faculty and staff as self-selected to participate in the study from the entire faculty and staff population. Additionally, formal documents, including catalog, forms, and internet references associated with PLA were evaluated. Analysis was performed through manual methods including axial coding for the surveys, descriptive and axial coding for the formal documents, followed by thematic analysis. Faculty and staff reported that they had a limited understanding of the institution\u27s PLA program and said they would like to have a stronger program than what they have now. Key results from the analysis indicate that the institution can improve the PLA program by clarifying the purpose, enhancing the policy supporting the program, improving processes, and further promoting the program. Positive social change can occur through the college developing improved PLA practices, thus helping to support students\u27 education endeavors

Bridgewater Magazine, Volume 21, Number 2, Fall 2011

Contents include articles about the newly-named Louis M. Ricciardi College of Business, the aviation science program, and the recent accomplishments of faculty members Nancy Moses, Donald Running, Darcy Boellstorff, and Diana Fox. Also Bridgewater and Alumni News.https://vc.bridgew.edu/br_mag/1019/thumbnail.jp

Volume 68 - Issue 7 - April, 1957

https://scholar.rose-hulman.edu/technic/1084/thumbnail.jp

Bowdoin College Catalogue and Academic Handbook (2023-2024)

https://digitalcommons.bowdoin.edu/course-catalogues/1321/thumbnail.jp

Bowdoin College Catalogue and Academic Handbook (2022-2023)

https://digitalcommons.bowdoin.edu/course-catalogues/1320/thumbnail.jp

Virginia Commonwealth University Courses

Listing of courses for the 2021-2022 year

Virginia Commonwealth University Courses

Listing of courses for the 2022-2023 year