A Contrastive Corpus Analysis between Modern Art Criticism and Photography Criticism for Curriculum Development in Art ESP

The field of ESP encompasses a number of areas. In the developing area of English for Art Purposes or Art ESP, there is almost no material in publication for Art schools and other programs to use. This dissertation addresses the need for material in this field by using contrastive corpus analysis to identify suitable material for this subject and then discusses how contrastive analysis software can also be used to help create content in the form of lesson plans and curriculum material. This study focuses on the unique language features of modern art criticism and photography criticism by looking at the driving differences that characterize each genre by asking the following research questions: 1.Can the language of photography criticism in terms of indicative linguistic features be considered as a distinct genre from modern art criticism? 2.If so, which features drive these differences, and how can the identification of these features be used to create content material for use with nonnative English speakers? This study used a contrastive analysis method by utilizing a computational tool called the Gramulator to isolate and identify the characteristic features that differentiate a Photography Criticism corpus of 48 samples and a Modern Art Criticism corpus of 94 samples. The main findings were viewed in terms of one, two and three word collocations. The software tool also viewed the amount of narrative and science language used in each corpus. The results for this section of the study showed a predicted result of a high rate of scientific language with 30 out of 48 samples showing science language. The Modern Art results were more surprising with a very near split of 44 out of 94 showing science language and 50 out of 94 showing narrative. The software tool was then used to show and discuss how these results could be utilized to create different content for the area of Art ESP. The results were then concluded to support the claim that these are two separate genres of writing

Assessing Growth of Student Reasoning Skills in Honors

Assessment and evaluation practices within honors programs have attracted considerable attention within the honors academic community, e.g., the spring/summer 2006 volume of the Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council. Calls for carefully created and constructed assessment activities within honors programs have met with mixed responses by directors who identify the difficulty in assessing decentralized, complex learning environments, noting that standard measures such as tests, surveys, or essays are not always applicable or appropriate in addressing honors assessment needs, especially in areas of social justice, service learning, and community engagement (Corley & Zubizarreta; Lanier). Acknowledging the hesitancy of honors directors about the need for assessment as well as their concern about the development of authentic assessment practices, Lanier nevertheless encourages honors directors to embrace quality assessment activities as a way to demonstrate the value and importance of honors and its enhanced student learning. Lanier offers the following comments: We now need to do the right thing in honors education and develop reliable assessment practices that will generate reliable data and demonstrate convincingly that honors does have the impact on students that we all assert as a matter of faith. “Trust me, honors is important and our students do very well” just doesn’t work anymore no matter how much we may want to fuss or drag our heels. (88–89

The Impact of the South Carolina Initial Mentor Training on Mentor Teacher Efficacy

This dissertation was designed to examine the impact of the South Carolina Initial Mentor Training on the self-efficacy of mentor teachers. The study discussed the current training program for mentors in South Carolina and the expected outcomes the training is supposed to produce. The South Carolina Initial Mentor Training was studied in a cohort of nine school districts in the midlands and upstate of South Carolina in partnership with Winthrop University. The expected outcomes of the program were creating professional growth environments for new teachers grounded in the norms of continuous inquiry, ongoing assessment, and problem-solving; recognizing and practicing the attitudes, behaviors, and skills of effective mentors; identifying beginning teacher needs and modifying support in response to those needs; and using various tools that support an integrated system of formative assessment and support. This study used a mixed-methods design which included surveys and interviews with mentor teachers to identify themes that were linked to their efficacy in being able to work with beginning teachers after participating in the South Carolina Initial Mentor Training program. The researcher analyzed the surveys for emerging themes and developed follow-up interview questions for random interviews of trained mentors. The four themes that emerged were the need for mentor training, the most helpful tools to build efficacy, the least helpful tools to build efficacy, and suggestions for mentor program improvement. Based on the results of this study, mentor teachers who have completed the South Carolina Initial Mentor Training Program have a much stronger feeling of efficacy in their ability to support beginning teachers

All Health Care Is Local: Exploring the Roles of Cities and States in Health Care Delivery and Reform Government Panel Summary

On Friday February 9th, 2018, the Belmont Health Law Journal hosted a symposium entitled All Health Care is Local: Exploring the Roles of Cities and States in Health Care Delivery and Reform. A panel of government lawyers representing various state and federal agencies and organizations took part in the symposium. The following is a summary of the discussion that took place

Evidences of Transformative Learning in Service-Learning Reflections

Abstract             A major shift in university course work involves activities outside the traditional classroom in which students are required to apply knowledge from the coursework in real-life service-learning environments. Such complex learning contexts generate a level of disequilibrium or anxiety that may or may not result in transformative learning.             This phenomenological study examined student reflective writings from an Honors service-learning course at a medium-sized mid-western university for evidences of transformative learning, the precipitating disequilibria, and the significant pedagogical structures underlying growth.             All students learned and all students encountered disquieting experiences; however, only half the participants exhibited varying levels of transformative learning.  Results indicate that transformative learning requires time, space, and appropriate scaffolding to develop or augment personal internal systems of adjusting what one thinks and how one thinks about new information and experiences.             The results further suggest that a framework of iterative service experiences, grounded in course content, readings, faculty-student-community dialogue, and continuous, thoughtfully designed, reflective practice can maximize transformative learning potentials. Future research should continue to explore how service-learning is experienced by individual participants and what contextual factors are essential for increasing the likelihood that transformative learning will occur

Public deliberation as a teaching andragogy: Implications for adult student learning from a doctoral higher education policy course

Public deliberation provides an inclusive and robust mechanism for making shared decisions in community and political settings; however, its application to teaching and learning remains underutilized (McMillan & Harriger, 2007). This manuscript reports on a case study of the use of public deliberation as a teaching andragogy in a graduate level course in higher education policy, which showed that public deliberation creates greater ownership of the course, fosters critical thinking and student agency, and implicates taking action

Does service learning affect the development of intercultural sensitivity? A study comparing students' progress in two different methodologies

Numerous studies have highlighted Intercultural Sensitivity (IS) as a key competence in an increasingly multicultural society. This study examined the extent to which a cohort of first year undergraduate students enrolled on the same Didactics course, and in two different training modalities Service Learning (SL) and non-Service Learning (non-SL) developed IS. It was based on a quasi-experimental design of repeated pre-test and post-test measures, comparing the two groups. The sample consisted of 233 Spanish students at higher education institutions, and data was collected using the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI). The SL group displayed significantly higher levels of IS in all factors except in the denial/defence and minimization stages. Results indicated the effectiveness of SL regarding specific subscales within the IDI instrument. The findings add new depth to our understanding regarding which teaching methodologies contribute to the development of IS and to the training of active citizens in Spanish university students. The discussion focuses on the need for intercultural service experiences to promote IS. The results have broad implications for policymakers and educators who are interested in enhancing transformative educational experiences and effective teaching methodologies for developing students' IS in higher education.Universidad Pablo de Olavide de Sevilla. Departamento de Educación y Psicología Socia