Course Design in an Integrated First-Year Honors Sequence: Service Learning, Scaffolded Research, & Faculty Collaboration

Presentation given at Pre-ISSOTL Council on Undergraduate Research Symposium. In this presentation, participants will learn about a collaboration of two professors working with a cohort of 15 students in a year-long integrated sequence first-year Honors course. Both semesters of the course center around the theme of animals in the lives of children, families, and communities. In the first semester, the course focuses more narrowly on animal-assisted therapies. In the second semester, the course focuses more broadly on global and diversity issues. As part of this course, students must complete both 25 hours of service learning and a research project. Students complete the project in multiple scaffolded steps, first at an individual level (fall semester) by identifying a topic related to the course, finding five relevant research articles, and presenting one article to the class. At the end of the fall semester, students create poster presentations which incorporate all five articles. In the spring semester, students are placed into small groups around common topic themes and integrate their research findings and work toward a final product presenting multiple research studies in a meta-analysis style tabular format to the class. The primary objective of the session is to demonstrate a method to involve students in research through the curriculum, leading to analysis and integration of research findings. Participants will be involved by seeing examples of each step and by discussing the authors\u27 experiences in using this approach. Participants will learn about the benefits of: a) collaboration with another faculty member, b) working with the same cohort of students over two semesters, and c) the student outcomes when first-year are involved in scaffolded steps in understanding research

Blogging about Service-Learning Experiences

Presentation given at the SoTL Commons: A Conference for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. This project examines a year-long Honors First Year Experience course in Animal-Assisted Therapy, a course introducing students to the effects of therapy animals on various populations with various conditions in multiple settings. From Fall 2012 to Spring 2013, students were required to participate in service-learning activities with either the local chapter of Therapy Dogs International or the local therapeutic horseback riding program and to blog about their experiences. For their blogs, students had to describe their experiences, their reactions to the experiences, how the experiences related to the course, and any questions or concerns that arose. Qualitative analyses of students’ blogs were conducted, using a Grounded Theory approach. Results revealed that students could identify the key role therapy animals can play in enhancing rehabilitation and development. Additionally, service-learning augmented the students’ knowledge of, awareness of, and interest in animal-assisted therapy and showed how animals themselves appear to act as crucial learning instruments in certain settings. Session objectives include introducing attendees to service-learning and exploring the lurking implication that animals can enhance learning environments. Attendees will learn how service-learning has the potential to add to all disciplines and will be challenged to think of ways to implement animals into student learning

Children's recall and recognition of sex role stereotyped and discrepant information

This research investigated the influence of differing levels of sex role stereotyped and discrepant information on immediate and delayed (one week) memory. Specifically, kindergarten and second-grade children's recall and recognition of stereotyped, moderately discrepant, and highly discrepant pictures were compared. In Study 1, a sorting procedure was utilized to determine the level of stereotyping of 34 toys. From this study 12 toys were selected as stimuli for Study 2. In Study 2, children's immediate and delayed recall and recognition was assessed. Results suggested significantly better recall of highly discrepant pictures than stereotyped or moderately discrepant pictures. In addition, immediate recall was better than delayed recall and second-grade recall was better than kindergarten recall. Similar trends emerged with the recognition task. Results were discussed with respect to the schematic processing model.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/45579/1/11199_2004_Article_BF00289952.pd

Parent-teacher Conferences: Why, When, and How

Presentation given at the 11th Annual Southern Conference on Children

Developing an Assessment Plan for Your Program? How to Use the Ages and Stages Questionnaire

Presentation given at the Georgia Association of Young Children annual conference

Animal Assisted Therapy: Engaging Freshmen In Research And Service-Learning

Presentation given at the Gulf South Summit on Service-Learning and Civic Engagement in Higher Education. This session describes how freshmen students are paired with community and individual partners to engage them in service learning. In addition, this course requires reviewing research on the topic of animal assisted therapy (AAT). Each student works with one of the following: individuals who own therapy dogs and who visit assisted living and/or other facilities, a therapeutic horseback riding program for children with disabilities, a Reading to Rover program at the regional library (children practice their reading skills by reading to dogs) and the local Humane Society (pet adoptions, fundraisers and community events such as the county fair). Students are required to research the topic of animal assisted therapy (AAT), and to find five scholarly peer reviewed articles related to a common theme, culminating with a poster session/reception at the end of the semester. The presentation discusses the coordination with the community agencies and individuals who mentor the students,the service learning component, and the focus on research

The Benefits of Medical Play With Preschoolers: Reducing Fears and Increasing Knowledge and Coping Skills

Presentation given at the 26th Annual Southern Conference on Children. Medical play can be introduced by preschool teachers to familiarize children with medical equipment and procedures so that they are more informed and not as fearful of going to the doctor. Participants will learn how to implement a number of developmentally appropriate medical play activities to use in the classroom, such as setting up a teddy bear clinic and art activities

Birth to Five Programs in Georgia: a Panel Discussion

Presentation given at the Georgia Association of Young Children annual conference

The Benefits of Animal-assisted Therapy With Preschool and School-aged Children

Presentation given at the Georgia Association on Young Children 46th annual conference