Previous studies have reported high attrition rates in large-enrollment science courses where teacher-centered instruction was prevalent. The scientific literature provides strong evidence that student-centered teaching, which involves extensive active learning, leads to deepened learning as the result of effective student engagement. Consequently, professional development initiatives have continually focused on assisting academics with the implementation of active learning. Generally, higher education institutions engage faculty in professional development through in-service workshops that facilitate learning new teaching techniques in a specific context. These workshops usually do not include self-scrutiny concerning teaching or do they provide continuous support for the implementation of strategies learned in the workshop. The purpose of this study was to explore the influence of a professional development program that consisted of a workshop focused on the implementation of active learning in large science courses and extended to include post-workshop activities, on participants’ enactment of teaching practices introduced in the workshop. More specifically, through a qualitative methodology and employing transformative learning theory, this work evaluated the influence of science instructors’ engagement in dialogue and critical self-reflection on their teaching approaches and practices. Engagement in critical reflection was facilitated through watching of teaching videotapes followed by participants’ engagement in dialogue about teaching with the researcher. Findings suggest that providing continuous post-workshop support by fostering engagement in critical self-reflection and dialogue, can lead to transformative learning about teaching. More specifically, participation in the program led to the transformation of teaching practices, while teaching approaches remained unchanged. While some obstacles to the transformation of teaching approaches were identified, major outcomes indicate that meaningful professional development can go far beyond learning how to use new teaching strategies through faculty engagement in critical reflection and dialogue on teaching.

The purpose of this study was to study the effects of goal setting on students in a developmental algebra course. This study examined the effects on test scores for students that were prescribed a test score goal, students that created their own test score goal, and then compared to a control group. Three classes of developmental algebra were chosen with a total of 25 participants with reported results. Results showed that students with a goal on a test did not score significantly better than students without a goal, but did score significantly better on a test after the goal than tests before the goal.

The purpose of the study was to identify problems associated with unaccredited private schools and home instruction programs and possible solutions to problems as perceived by State Education Officials in the Great Lakes States. The States were Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.Eleven State Education Officials having responsibility for unaccredited private schools and home instruction programs were interviewed by telephone to collect the data. An interview form was designed to elicit non-directed responses to major problems confronting the states, methods of handling problems, possible solutions to problems, and practices in the next five years.Major problems existed with state regulations regarding equivalent instruction, teacher qualifications, courses of study, and definition of a school. Lack of criteria for interpreting the terms and assuring compliance with requirements were reported. Local school superintendents were confronted with similar problems regarding state regulations. State Education Officials identified problems with lack of certified or qualified teachers in fundamentalist schools and home instruction programs, difficulty obtaining data from pastors and parents, and extent of state authority to regulate private schools. Also, student loss of services, materials, and diplomas was a concern.Solutions to the problems as perceived by State Education Officials included changes in statutes from compulsory school attendance to compulsory education with minimum standards and achievement testing, clarification of terms in state statutes, and separate state regulations for private education. Other recommendations were a separate accrediting agency, a national co-op agency, and communication and cooperation between public and private educators.State Education Officials projected no substantial changes in regulations or practices in the next five years. However, expanding interest and increasing enrollments in private schools were expected.

This study examined the electronic discourse in an online course to investigate if culture exhibited itself in the communication of students. The researcher also sought to find out if a third culture was built in this course and if so, what design features facilitated the emergence of this third culture. A graduate-level online course at a Southwestern university was examined in a case study. Computer-mediated discourse analysis was used as the method. The students were administered an online demographic survey to collect information about their background. The online communication of the students, the instructor, and the assistants were analyzed. A semantic analysis matrix was developed based on the pilot study that was used to investigate the content of the messages posted in the discussion conferences. The results showed that culture did not exhibit itself in the discourse. A third culture, however, was formed by the students. The discourse characteristics of this third culture are producing timely and intelligent comments and equal levels of participation; use of materials from both cultures; constant interaction among participants; creating a side conversation between two different cultures; a common discourse accent; words, expressions, acronyms created in the course; curiosity, sensitivity, openness towards otherness, critical engagement with others; and ability to understand and tolerate different perspectives and cultural phenomena. The design features of the particular online course were discussed. The design features that may have helped create a third culture among students are face-to-face meetings and introductions conference in the course; instructor’s teaching strategies such as creating expectations for participation and her scaffolding and mentoring throughout the course; and features of the course communication platform such as the ability to embellish the thoughts through the use of fonts, colors, and quoting.

The purpose of this dissertation was to investigate the perceptions of preservice teachers toward native and nonnative English speaking (NES and NNES) graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) in English as a second language (ESL) methodology and/or ESL assessment courses at a Southwestern U.S. university. This study also investigated the perceptions of NES and NNES GTAs toward preservice teachers. This study explored the issue of whether preservice teachers are prepared to accept and validate diversity among their instructors which in turn should make them sensitive to diverse learners they will encounter in their future teaching. In the first part of the study, a total of 262 preservice teachers were surveyed. The survey data were collected in spring 2007 and fall 2008. Of the 262 preservice teachers, 20 participated in focus group discussions to provide further insight on their views of NES and NNES GTAs. In the second part of the study, four GTAs participated in a longitudinal study by writing online blog entries after any encounters (positive or negative) they had with their students inside and outside the classroom. The blogs reflected the GTAs? immediate reactions after their classes. In addition, semi-structured interviews were conducted with the GTAs. Findings of the first study revealed that preservice teacher perceived NES and NNES GTAs differently. Preservice teachers put a lot of emphasis on the intelligibility of the NNES GTAs. The preservice teachers were ?tolerant? if their NNES spoke English ?clearly?. However, there were some preservice teachers who were dissatisfied with their NNES GTAs due to their possessing a non-mainstream language. Findings of the second study revealed that NNES GTAs faced major challenges in their effort to be recognized as legitimate and competent instructors. Although the GTAs had vastly different personal backgrounds, perceptions, and identities as instructors, common themes or issues emerged from the data: (1) teaching is complex (linguistic, cultural, and racial issues are involved); (2) beliefs about teaching can change; (3) challenges are faced as an ?outsider? instructor; and (4) teaching provides experiences of joy. The study has implications for teacher education programs and training programs offered for international graduate students by universities.

Many studies report information overload (IO) as one of the main problems students encounter in computer-mediated communication (CMC). To date, researchers have paid little attention to the problem of IO—more specifically, to its impact on students’ quality interaction—in educational CMC. In an attempt to fill that gap, the purposes of this study were as follows: (a) to understand the difficulties students encounter that contribute to their perceptions of IO in CMC, (b) to observe the impact of those difficulties on students’ learning in online discussions, and (c) to identify students’ strategies for avoiding or managing those difficulties in order to engage in quality learning. Interviews with students and computer conferencing transcripts were analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively. Interviews with 10 graduate students near the beginning of the semester revealed that although students were exposed to the same amount of information in the same learning environments, different individuals experienced different degrees of IO. Varied learner characteristics caused some students to be more susceptible to IO than others. The difficulties students encountered that contributed to their perceptions of IO included connection problems, navigation difficulties, discomfort with online communication, numerous ongoing discussion messages and endless resources, difficulty in organizing learning, and problems understanding the assigned readings. Those difficulties tended not to affect students’ deep processing as observed in their discussion messages, but might influence students’ online interaction with others. Students engaging in quality learning in online discussions were interviewed near the end of the semester to investigate their learning strategies. The results indicated that students used a variety of strategies to deal with those difficulties. Those strategies were related to online class preparation, identifying relevant information, processing online information and printed materials, keeping learning on track, organizing learning, and avoiding internal and external distractions. The results of this study have implications for course design.

The Association of American Colleges and Universities considers internships as one of several “High Impact Educational Practices.” While these experiential learning exercises are not new, there are resurgent calls for universities to help students find and engage in more internship experiences before completion of their undergraduate degrees. At the same time, however, the US Department of Labor has strict guidelines as to what constitutes “internships” and what constitutes “unfair labor practices.” While there is a history of the private and public sectors creating internships for students in professional-degree programs and business schools, a need exists for more internships for humanities students—particularly English and writing students. This dissertation examines considerations for faculty members working with English majors to develop internship initiatives with structures that have pedagogical foci and follow the US Department of Labor internship guidelines. Using a case study approach, this project examines the growth of Georgia State University’s English Department internship program over the past twenty years. Through exploration into the opportunities, locations, and structures relevant to an urban university, the study reveals how faculty members designed a student-focused program that serves students, the university, and the community. Relying largely upon the review of departmental archives; a study of the history of GSU in the Atlanta community; interviews with faculty members and internship providers; and an exploration into the terms “intern” and “internship,” the dissertation ultimately sets forth considerations for those working with student internship programs and a model for college and university internship program evaluation.

This dissertation examines two broad topics -- emission line properties of active galactic nuclei (AGN) and the effect of hands-on, integrated science courses on student understanding of astronomy. To investigate trends in overall properties of emission lines in AGN, we apply principal component analysis (PCA) to the fluxes in the H [beta] - (O III) region of a sample of 9046 spectroscopically-identified broad-line AGN from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 5 with a redshift range of 0.1 < z < 0.56. After performing independent spectral PCA on subsets defined effectively by their (O III) equivalent width (EW), we find only the weakest (O III) objects retain the optical Fe II - (O III) anticorrelation and the correlation of EW[subscript O III] with H [beta] linewidth that have previously been found in high-luminosity AGN. The objects with strongest EW[subscript O III] do not differ from the entire data set significantly in other spectral and derived properties, such as luminosity, redshift, emission line shapes, Eddington ratio, continuum slope, and radio properties. However, our findings are consistent with previous suggestions that (O III) emission is primarily a function of covering factor of the narrow-line region. To investigate the other side of the Fe II - (O III) anticorrelation, we examine the effect of changes in the gas-phase abundance of Fe on observed variation in Fe II. Using AGN spectra from the SDSS in the redshift range of 0.2 < z < 0.35, we measure the Fe/Ne abundance of the narrow-line region (NLR) using the (Fe VII)/(Ne V) line intensity ratio. We find no significant difference in the abundance of Fe relative to Ne in the NLR as a function of Fe II/H [beta]. However, the (N II)/(S II) ratio increases by a factor of 2 with increasing Fe II strength. This indicates a trend in N/S abundance ratio, and by implication in the overall metallicity of the NLR gas, with increasing Fe II strength. We propose that the wide range of Fe II strength in AGN largely results from the selective depletion of Fe into grains in the low ionization portion of the broad-line region. We utilize photoionization models to show that the strength of the optical Fe II lines varies almost linearly with gas-phase Fe abundance, while the ultraviolet Fe II strength varies more weakly, as seen observationally. After examining the emission line properties of large samples of fairly typical AGN, we investigated the newly expanded regime of low-mass AGN (M[subscript BH] [less than or approximately equal to] 10⁶ M[subscript sun]) with respect to their emission line properties at a smaller scale. We utilize the high spectral resolution and small aperture of our Keck data of 27 low-mass AGN, taken with the Echellette Spectrograph and Imager, to isolate the NLRs of these low-mass black holes. Some of these low-luminosity objects plausibly represent examples of the low-metallicity AGN described by Groves et al. (2006), based on their (N II)/H[alpha] ratios and their consistency with the Kewley & Ellison (2008) mass-metallicity relation. We also find that these low-mass AGN have steeper UV continuum slopes than more-massive AGN based on their He II/H[beta] ratio. Overall, NLR emission lines in these low-mass AGN exhibit trends similar to those seen in AGN with higher-mass BHs, such as increasing blueshifts and broadening with increasing ionization potential. Additionally, we see evidence of an intermediate line region whose intensity correlates with L/L[subscript Edd] in these objects, as seen in higher-mass AGN. We highlight the interesting trend that, at least in these low-mass BHs, the (O III) EW is highest in symmetric NLR lines with no blue wing. This trend of increasing (O III) EW with line symmetry could be explained by a high covering factor of lower ionization gas in the NLR. We also investigate effective methods for teaching astronomy and connections between astronomical topics in student learning and understanding. After developing the curriculum for a hands-on, learner-centered astronomy course (Hands-on-Science, hereafter HoS) aimed at pre-service elementary teachers, we measure student performance in HoS compared to traditional, large lecture courses (hereafter Astro101). We utilize distractor-driven multiple choice assessments in order to quantitatively assess student understanding and evaluate the persistence or correction of common misconceptions in astronomy. We find that for the topics included in the HoS curriculum, HoS students have a higher average post-test score, and higher normalized gains, than the Astro101 students. We cannot pinpoint the exact cause of this student achievement because of the multitude of nontraditional practices incorporated into the HoS implementation. Increased time-on-task, a classroom environment structured around student discussion, or focus on conceptual understanding could each be key factors in the high achievement of HoS students. We conclude that the HoS students are better prepared in astronomy for their future careers as elementary school teachers by HoS courses than they would have been in traditional, introductory astronomy courses. When we compare directly between topics covered in both HoS and Astro101, we find that HoS students have normalized gains that are a factor of 2-4 higher than those of Astro101 students. Therefore, we conclude that curricula similar to the HoS approach would benefit Astro101 students as well, particularly for topics which are most impacted by the HoS method, such as Moon phases and seasons. Lastly, a PCA of the changes in HoS student scores reveals that there is very little systematic student variation apart from the trends apparent in the mean changes in the sample. Thus, we do not find groupings of questions that some subsets of students systematically learn more readily than others. Another way to interpret this result is that the HoS curriculum and methodology indiscriminately help all kinds of pre-service elementary teachers, despite presumptive differences in their own learning styles and strengths. / text

This retrospective study was conducted to examine the impact of third-year pharmacy students’ provision of medication therapy management (MTM) on medication and health-related outcomes of patients in community pharmacies. The study objectives were as follows: 1) describe patients’ socio-demographic and clinical characteristics; 2) describe the number and types of medication and health-related problems (MHRPs) identified by students, as well as students’ MTM interventions and recommendations; 3) describe medical provider/patient MTM recommendation acceptance rates; and 4) determine which factors (i.e., baseline MHRPs, medical conditions, prescription medications, over-the-counter (OTC) medications and herbal supplements, number of medical prescribers, MTM interventions, and MTM recommendations) were related to the number of MHRPs resolved. The study used data (MTM cases) from a required MTM course, taught at The University of Texas at Austin College of Pharmacy. The study included MTM cases provided by third-year pharmacy students enrolled in the Fall 2011 semester. MTM cases that were complete, unduplicated, and had patients aged ≥ 18 years were included the study. Descriptive statistics were used to address the first three study objectives. Multivariate linear regression was used to determine which factors were related to the number of MHRPs resolved. Out of the total number of MTM cases, 274 met the study inclusion criteria and served as the study’s final sample. The patients’ average age was 63.8 (±14.5), and the majority were female (60.4%) and Caucasian (53.2%). Almost one-third of the patients (30.7%) drank alcohol. The mean number of medical conditions and prescription medications was 6.0 (±2.7) and 9.0 (±4.0), respectively. Pharmacy students identified 1,370 MHRPs [935 medication-related problems (MRPs) and 435 health-related problems (HRPs)] and recommended 1,004 medication and health-related recommendations (MHRRs) [542 medication-related recommendations and 462 health- related recommendations]. Medical providers and/or patients accepted recommendations regarding drug discontinuation (34.8%) and OTC and herbal supplements (28.9%) at higher rates than other recommendations. Regarding the regression, the overall model was statistically significant, F=76.88, df=7, 240, p<0.001, and baseline MHRPs (β=0.127, t=2.09, p=0.04) and MTM recommendations (β =0.715, t=11.37, p<0.0001) were significantly related to MHRPs resolved. In conclusion, pharmacy students had a positive impact on patients’ medication and health-related outcomes through identifying MHRPs and providing MTM recommendations. The significant positive relationship between the number of MTM recommendations and MHRPs resolved should encourage pharmacists and pharmacy students to be more eager to provide MTM recommendations, given the evidence that they will lead to improving patients’ medication and health-related outcomes. / text

Distance learning is one of the most important forces driving educational reform today. Headlines touting the benefits of educational technology are commonplace in journal articles and newspaper and television reports. In the past five years, we have seen an explosion in the number of computer-mediated courses offered at two- and four-year institutions. An area of particular growth has been that of asynchronous online instruction. This growth has spurred the development of a new construct, the study of computer supported collaborative learning (CSCL). Research on collaborative learning within the setting of online instruction is limited and anecdotal at best. Emergent research on CSCL shows learners in this learning environment are not isolated. It is a vibrant network of people--an interactive learning community--that is not limited by time, place, or the constraints of a classroom. Examination of the practical application of this theory is critical, especially when withdrawal rates for distance learning courses can range from 30-80%. Therefore, there is a need to understand the experiences and perceptions of distant learning students and the instructional strategies used by faculty within the online classroom where the social and cultural context of the learning community is created. The purpose of this qualitative study was to observe the pedagogical practices used by online instructors and examine the perceptions and characteristics of those students taking community college online courses. Then, compare this finding to what research says is needed for online instruction to support and foster computer supported collaborative learning. This study focused on four community college instructors who teach web-based courses in English, developmental mathematics, history and management. The study also examined the demographics of the students taking these online courses in order to provide a descriptive background of the participants and to assess their perceptions and experiences. The research questions addressed in this study were: 1) What pedagogical strategies do instructors teaching online courses use?; 2) How do online instructors promote collaborative learning communities?; and 3) What are the learning experiences of the students who take online courses? / text