Printmaking of the Past, Present, and Future: The Legacy of Sam Z. Coronado

Latin American Studie

Juárez-Lincoln University: Community, Space, and Education

Latin American Studie

Dr. George I. Sanchez: History of Mexican Americans and their Struggle for Educational Equality

Latin American Studie

DIY assessment feedback: Building engagement, trust and transparency in the feedback process

This study evaluates a novel assessment and feedback process in which students were tasked with actively engaging in the feedback process in a ‘DIY’ – do-it-yourself – assessment feedback workshop. The research team set out to explore how an active participation in the construction of the assessment criteria and utilisation of that co-constructed criteria would affect the students’ engagement with assessing their own work. Through providing the space in which students were encouraged to use criteria to mark their own work, the research team aimed to build the students’ trust and confidence in the transparency of the assessment process. The main findings of this study have shown the value of this DIY assessment feedback workshop, as it has proven to encourage a deeper level of reflection in the student participants and catalysed a greater connection between the learning process of assessment feedback with both their past and future assessments

Engaging in Conversations about Climate Change with Cattle Producers

The purpose of this study was to determine whether Cooperative Extension Service agents and United States Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) personnel used a dialogic model of communication in their interactions with cattle producers in the Southwest and Mountain West regarding the topic of climate change. Findings indicated that dialogic communication is being used, with a focus on discussing best management practices, avoiding the term “climate change,” and focusing on local data and weather events. The study suggests that Extension agents and NRCS personnel recognize the need to adapt their communication strategy and tactics to suit the cognitive needs and beliefs of the cattle producers with whom they converse. Additionally, findings suggest that climate change should be described in terms that are observable to cattle producers, such as weather events (drought or flooding), possibly minimizing the need to name such events as climate change

Cattle Producers and Climate Change Conversations: Assessing Workshop Effectiveness in Preparing Communicators to Discuss a Contentious Scientific Topic

Climate change and the resulting impacts on agriculture in the U.S., specifically cattle production, are of great concern to educators in Extension and other organizations. Extension has used a deficit model of communication to extend research information to audiences with the goal of changing behavior by simply providing information. Dialogic models that utilize two-way communication have proven to be more effective when communicating about contentious scientific issues. This study examined the effectiveness of a one-day workshop, focused on cattle production and climate change, on increasing attendees’ level of comfort when talking about climate change with their clientele. Attendees indicated the workshop increased their level of comfort in facilitating the application of research, hosting programs, and delivering presentations that cover the topic of climate change. Sessions that focused on climate data, trending data over time, and manipulations of data were most beneficial. Making workshop content personally relevant to the attendees’ professions increased their comfort with material and their ability to share knowledge with cattle producers. Delivery of the material was also a very important factor in preference for the sessions. Future workshops should incorporate dialogue training and role-play, so educators will feel more prepared to discuss climate change with their clientele

I've lost it here dè a bh' agam: Language shift, maintenance, and code-switching in a bilingual family

This thesis examines the language shift, maintenance, and code-switching of three generations of a bilingual family on the Isles of Skye and Harris, Scotland. Based on ten hours of recorded conversations among family members in the home environment, this thesis focuses particularly on the speakers’ alternation between Gaelic and English and uses a microinteractional approach in looking at how code-switching is used in the meaning-making process of this family’s interactions. It concludes that although speakers vary in terms of both ability and use of the minority language, code-switching is nonetheless a powerful communicative tool within this family. Additionally, speakers within the three generations have different ways of code-switching for effect as well as various ways of ‘doing being bilingual’ (cf. Auer, 1984). In looking at the family’s overall use of both languages, the study finds that the first generation proportionally uses more Gaelic than the second and third generations, confirming that language shift is occurring within the family. Analysis of the first generation speakers’ intragenerational language use demonstrates that speakers use code-switching in concert with reifying certain stances and in modulating between different stances in the conversation. It also examines how code-switching is used in congruence with rendering constructed dialogue, and argues that these instances of language alternation are related to the narrator’s indexical and discourse organisational goals. The discussion of the first generation concludes by arguing that these speakers use code-switching primarily as a strategy to mitigate communicative trouble, a theme which is carried forward in focusing on the use of one first generation speaker’s code-switching in two lengthy narratives. This section argues that the use of code-switching is integral to the speaker’s success in the storytelling process, and demonstrates how the speaker uses code-switching in oscillating between the storyworld and the real-world interaction, as well uses code-switching in navigating different temporal frames within the narrative. Although the second generation evidence language shift by their overall low use of Gaelic, they are nonetheless trying to maintain the use of Gaelic with the third generation. An examination of the second generation’s language use focuses primarily on their use of the minority language in creating a child-centred context. It also further looks at how the parents of the third generation speakers use Gaelic when taking up authoritative stances towards their children. Discussion of the third generation’s language use centres on how the children in turn pereceive and use Gaelic as a ‘strategy for gain’ and focuses in particular on their occasional use of Gaelic in constructing argumentative stances vis-à-vis their parents’ displays of authority. The section concludes by examining an interaction where the youngest speaker in the study uses an increased amount of Gaelic on the telephone, arguing that the use of Gaelic in this context is one of the ways this third generation speaker enacts a first generation identity. This study demonstrates that although language shift is occurring, the family is nonetheless trying to maintain their minority language. Code-switching is a powerful communicative strategy within the family and all members, and even family members with only passive bilingual skills ‘do being part of a bilingual family.

Education Policy is Health Policy

Capstone presentation for the University of Richmond SSIR (Sophomore Scholars in Residence) Program.https://scholarship.richmond.edu/ssir-presentations-2017/1000/thumbnail.jp