Improvement Research Carried Out Through Networked Communities: Accelerating Learning about Practices that Support More Productive Student Mindsets

The research on academic mindsets shows significant promise for addressing important problems facing educators. However, the history of educational reform is replete with good ideas for improvement that fail to realize the promises that accompany their introduction. As a field, we are quick to implement new ideas but slow to learn how to execute well on them. If we continue to implement reform as we always have, we will continue to get what we have always gotten. Accelerating the field's capacity to learn in and through practice to improve is one key to transforming the good ideas discussed at the White House meeting into tools, interventions, and professional development initiatives that achieve effectiveness reliably at scale. Toward this end, this paper discusses the function of networked communities engaged in improvement research and illustrates the application of these ideas in promoting greater student success in community colleges. Specifically, this white paper:* Introduces improvement research and networked communities as ideas that we believe can enhance educators' capacities to advance positive change. * Explains why improvement research requires a different kind of measures -- what we call practical measurement -- that are distinct from those commonly used by schools for accountability or by researchers for theory development.* Illustrates through a case study how systematic improvement work to promote student mindsets can be carried out. The case is based on the Carnegie Foundation's effort to address the poor success rates for students in developmental math at community colleges.Specifically, this case details:- How a practical theory and set of practical measures were created to assess the causes of "productive persistence" -- the set of "non-cognitive factors" thought to powerfully affect community college student success. In doing this work, a broad set of potential factors was distilled into a digestible framework that was useful topractitioners working with researchers, and a large set of potential measures was reduced to a practical (3-minute) set of assessments.- How these measures were used by researchers and practitioners for practical purposes -- specifically, to assess changes, predict which students were at-risk for course failure, and set priorities for improvement work.-How we organized researchersto work with practitioners to accelerate field-based experimentation on everyday practices that promote academic mindsets(what we call alpha labs), and how we organized practitioners to work with researchers to test, revise, refine, and iteratively improve their everyday practices (using plando-study-act cycles).While significant progress has already occurred, robust, practical, reliable efforts to improve students' mindsets remains at an early formative stage. We hope the ideas presented here are an instructive starting point for new efforts that might attempt to address other problems facing educators, most notably issues of inequality and underperformance in K-12 settings

Quality Enhancement Themes: the First Year Experience. Curriculum Design for the First Year

This report outlines the work and outcomes of a practice-focused development project 'Curriculum design for the first year'. The project was one of nine funded by the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) under the First-Year Experience Enhancement Theme of the Scottish quality enhancement agenda. The stages of this curriculum design project included: completing a literature review; running staff workshops to gather and disseminate information; holding student focus groups to gather students, views and experiences of the curriculum; collecting case studies of interest to the sector; and reporting findings to the sector. Key findings from the literature are presented in this report. They include the need to adopt student-centred active learning strategies (Harvey, Drew and Smith, 2006; Oliver-Hoyo and Allen, 2005; Barefoot, 2002) and the importance of providing early formative feedback to students (Davidson and Young, 2005; Barefoot, 2002). Many suggestions for improving learning and teaching strategies have been adopted at module level, but could be implemented strategically across the breadth of a programme curriculum. Kift and Nelson (2005) supported this view and argued that it is equally important to support these principles with systemic university-wide change, including administrative and support programmes that are also integrated with the curriculum and student needs

Optimising information literacy delivery to large classes: the contact or the online approach?

DCU Business School runs undergraduate programmes of varying sizes, from 40 to 200 students. Some modules cross disciplines and attract even higher numbers. One such module is HR118: Skills for success which in the last year has exceeded 200. Even this number is restrained by the optional nature of the module. Were it to be an obligatory module, the total would exceed 300. The Library has been providing embedded information literacy sessions to HR118 since its inception, providing face-to-face training on essential resources and research techniques, together with assessment. Generally the experience has been successful. There have been some problems, mainly organisational and logistical, but the Library and module co-ordinator have resolved these as they arise. However, the recent class size increase, and the possibility that the module may sometime become obligatory, forced the Library to devise an alternative strategy for 2008-09 – a hybrid approach which has enabled the Library to combine new technological options with traditional face-to-face engagement. There are many elements to the new programme, all designed to inform students on content, test the process and obtain feedback. This paper will assess the progress of Library input into the module. It will consider the key nature of relationships with academics, how organisation of the Library content element has been managed over time, and evaluate student response based on diverse evidence derived from online assessment, class feedback and survey. It will examine how developments to date feed into communication with faculty and into future improvements in information literacy development. Finally, the paper will address how Library input has advanced the delivery of information literacy to business undergraduates as a whole, and consider whether libraries should actually invest more in online delivery of information literacy or keep the focus on face-to-face delivery to groups

Gamificacion in education and active methodologies at Higher education

In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in applying Gamification in Education, which can be defined as the application of game design elements to learning activities. Its purpose is to motivate students by creating an engaging learning experience that can keep students focused on the learning task and its application in the classroom, is still in its emergent stages. Gamification is a great challenge for education, particularly in Higher Education Institutions (HEI) in such a traditional context, as is the case with courses like Management and Administration Business, Finance and Accounting, Marketing and Market Research, Chemistry, Accounting and Administration and Business Communication. This paper presents a study, applied in the 2016/2017 and 2017/2018 academic years, in which the teaching method focuses on a blended learning approach, through the implementation of a flipped classroom model and also through the introduction of online gamification activities such Kahoot! application. Kahoot is a game-based learning platform, used as educational technology that can easily be used for initial, formative and summative assessment of students’ knowledge using individual or collaborative team work mode, adding vitality, student engagement, and also meta-cognitive supports to higher education classrooms with limited instructor or student training required. The participants, in the study, were about 3 000 students of 17 different subjects from the aforementioned courses, of the Malaga University and Polytechnic of Porto. The results of this study suggest that this model improves student learning and are of relevance to researchers, educators and game-based learning designers.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tec

Community Preparatory School: Alumni Relations Plan

When trying to get people to understand your message, you can use the Uses and Gratifications theory which talks about how people tend to pay attention when they are entertained, informed, their opinions get reinforced and they have a sense of belonging. Our message will get people to pay attention because the Alumni already have a sense of belonging to CPS, and it informs and reinforces their opinions about caring for their Alma mater. We will get Alumni to believe this message by holding events and other activities in which they can be a part of

2017-18 VCU Faculty Handbook

The VCU Faculty Handbook contains information about the university, its campus and the surrounding community. The Handbook is not a complete guide to academics, research and other services, but is intended as a reference guide to orient new and continuing faculty to the university and provides additional sources for information. For detailed school or department information, please reach out to the specific departmental office. The VCU Office of Faculty Affairs is committed to updating the Handbook on a yearly basis

Social Vices Associated with the use of Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) in a Private Christian Mission University, Southern Nigeria

This study is designed to address social problems associated with Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) and implications they portend on studentship in a Private Christian Mission University, Southern Nigeria. It tries to find out how the engagement of ICT devices results in social vices on campus. Drawing from recorded data between 2006 and 2012 academic year, the study reported six ICT tools associated with eight social- ills. Relying on raw data of 900 students disciplined within this period, the study reported that 187 students were expelled while 46 were advised to withdraw due to their involvement in ICT-related vices. Moreover, the study shows that 78 students served 1 year suspension while 589 students were suspended for one month. Findings of the study also revealed loss of all student rights infinitely for expelled students, nearly all rights for those advised-to-withdraw and all for a specified period for the suspended students. Practical implications of these disciplinary actions are discussed and potential future directions on this subject are proposed