Designing Text Message Learning to More Equitably Reach Students Wherever They Go

This chapter describes how TESOL educators can partner with global aid organizations, local communities, and learners themselves to leverage low-tech yet innovative learning solutions like text-message lessons with the goal of more equitably reaching learners, particularly those affected by disruption to their education such as those who are migrants/refugees. Taking such action as advocates committed to closing opportunity gaps arising from social issues affecting language learning not only involves the TESOL educator in the six principles for exemplary teaching of English learners but also UN Sustainable Development Goals as a framework, trauma-informed teaching and learning, and the concept of text messages used as micro-learning. Through a UNICEF case study of practice in action, the author provides a stepwise how-to for redesigning curriculum into micro-learning appropriate for text-message delivery and offers considerations and recommendations for its dissemination, evaluation, and potential application to many other contexts and learner populations at scale.

Student Perceptions of Great Teaching

What behaviors do students consider as representative of exemplary teaching? Do those representations vary by context? This study evaluates 176 student nominations for a teaching award that asked nominators to articulate specific acts by individual instructors that exemplify “great teaching.” Through an iterative process, our content analysis identified 10 themes, which generally represent socioemotional connection, behaviors relevant to student learning, and instructor characteristics. We also identified two themes—the instructor as a model and as someone whose efforts exceed expectations—that do not appear frequently in existing literature. The quantitative analysis revealed that frequency of themes differed for instructors from traditional liberal arts and sciences disciplines and those from professional programs in the health sciences.

Building a synergy between mentors’ field practices and teacher-trainees’ performance in student teaching

The gradual change from the position of a teacher-trainee to the role of a teacher depends on effective teamwork between educational institutions and the wider education community. Hence, this<strong> </strong>study ascertained the relationship between the field practices of college deans, supervising instructors, school principals, and teachers and the teaching performance of teacher-trainees. A descriptive-correlational study was employed in this study. A rating scale was used to collect data from the mentors and teacher-trainees who served as respondents. Descriptive statistics such as frequency counts, percentages, and weighted means were employed to describe the levels of mentors’ field practices and teaching performance of teacher-trainees. To establish a significant relationship between the variables, the Spearman rank-order of correlation coefficient was used. Results of the study show that when the deans, supervising instructors, school principals and cooperating teachers manifest an exceptional level of field practices in student teaching, it follows that all the dimensions of field practices are highly practiced. Further, when the teacher-trainees exhibit an exemplary teaching performance, all other dimensions of student teaching are also found to be remarkable. Finally, an outstanding field practice in the student teaching shows minor or slight influence in the outstanding teaching performance of teacher-trainees.

Development and implementation of virtual field teaching resources: two karst geomorphology modules and three virtual capstone pathways

During the summer of 2020, many geology field camps were canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, including the karst geomorphology field course I was scheduled to co-teach through Western Kentucky University. When the National Association of Geoscience Teachers (NAGT), in collaboration with the International Association for Geoscience Diversity (IAGD), began the project of supporting working groups to create online field experience teaching materials, this presented an opportunity. This paper describes the development of two activities derived from that field camp curriculum that are now freely available as peer-reviewed exemplary teaching activities on the Science Education Resource Center (SERC) Online Field Experiences repository under “Karst hydrogeology: a virtual field introduction using © Google Earth and Geographic Information Systems (GIS)” and “Karst hydrogeology: a virtual field experience using © Google Earth, GIS, and TAK [Topographic Analysis Kit].” Each product includes a student handout, an instructor workflow reference, a grading rubric, and NAGT-established learning objectives. The introductory activity is the more basic of the two, is expected to take about an 8 h workday to teach, and walks students through all the steps, as well as providing global examples of karst landscapes that can be virtually explored. The other activity, “Karst hydrogeology and geomorphology”, assumes student familiarity with © Google Earth, GIS, and karst drainage systems and is expected to take about twice as long as the introductory activity to teach. To make these learning opportunities financially accessible, all software required for the activities is open source, and alternative workflows for the introductory module are provided so that the entire exercise can be completed using a mobile device. Addressing this need for virtual capstone options during the pandemic, and providing a virtual alternative for years to come, these karst activities, along with a subset of other SERC activities, were assembled into three learning tracks, each one providing learning hours equivalent to a traditional field camp, that have been added to the course offerings at the University of Cincinnati Department of Geology. In addition to providing online capstone activities in the time of a pandemic, these learning materials provide alternative experiences to traditional field camps that are inclusive for all geoscience students.

Certified B Corporations and Benefit Corporations

Over the past decade, Certified B Corporations and Benefit Corporations, commonly known as B Corps, have emerged as a global phenomenon. Both organizational forms are for-profit businesses. Whereas Certified B Corporations have been accredited for their environmental, social, and governance (ESG) practices, Benefit Corporations are a new legal form, currently available in thirty-eight states and jurisdictions in the United States (US) as well as in British Columbia (Canada), Colombia, Ecuador, and Italy. Both types were promulgated by B Lab, a US-based nonprofit organization. Founded in 2006 in the suburbs of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, B Lab has sought to institutionalize business as a force for good. At present, certification is available to any business worldwide, and approximately 3,700 companies in seventy-four countries are currently certified. Prominent Certified B Corporations include Ben & Jerry’s, Danone North America, and Patagonia. Examples of Benefit Corporations include Data.World, Kickstarter, and Plum Organics. Overall, the B Corp movement’s radical aspiration to redefine business has garnered substantial attention from policymakers, media, businesses, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and academe. This article provides an overview of burgeoning scholarly work—ranging from general references and cutting-edge theoretical work to accumulating empirical findings and key pedagogical resources. A core focus is on enumerating the variety of theoretical perspectives that have been taken and the central research themes in extant work, including interdisciplinary publications. We close by discussing exemplary teaching materials and introducing other resources, such as the B Academics research community and available data sets for research.

From Field to Phone: A Karst Camp Chronicle

During the summer of 2020, many geology field camps were cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, including the Karst Geomorphology field course I was scheduled to co-teach through Western Kentucky University. When the National Association of Geoscience Teachers (NAGT) in collaboration with the International Association for Geoscience Diversity (IAGD) began the project of supporting working groups to create online field experience teaching material, I saw an opportunity. From my field camp syllabus, I created two activities that are now freely available as peer-reviewed Exemplary Teaching Activities on the Science Education Resource Center (SERC) Online Field Experiences repository: Karst Hydrogeology: A virtual field introduction using © Google Earth and GIS and Karst Hydrogeology and Geomorphology: A virtual field experience using © Google Earth, GIS, and TAK [Topographic Analysis Kit]. Each product includes a student handout, an instructor workflow reference, a grading, and NAGT-established learning objectives. The introductory activity is the more basic of the two, is expected to take about one 8-hour day to teach, and walks students through all the steps, as well as providing global examples of karst landscapes to virtually explore. The other activity, Karst Hydrogeology and Geomorphology, assumes student familiarity with © Google Earth, GIS, and karst drainage systems, and is expected to take about twice as long as the introductory activity to teach. To make these learning opportunities financially accessible, all software required for the activities is open-source and alternative workflows for the introductory module are provided so that the entire exercise can be completed using a smartphone. In addition to providing online capstone activities in the time of a pandemic, these activities provide alternative learning experiences to traditional field camps that are inclusive for all geoscience students. In my home department of the University of Cincinnati, I had been contacted by students needing to find capstone experiences when their field camps were cancelled. Responding to this need and providing a virtual alternative for years to come, I reviewed all SERC activities that had been generated during the NAGT/IAGD joint effort. I selected a subset of those to assemble into three learning tracks, each one providing learning hours equivalent to a traditional field camp, that have been added to the course offerings at the University of Cincinnati Department of Geology.

The Rhetorical Education of Isocrates and the Exemplary in Teaching: Overcoming the “Learnification of Education”

This article argues that the rhetorical education of Isocrates can serve as a vital alternative to today’s dominating trend of outcome-based education, or what Biesta calls “the learnification of education.” According to Biesta, “the learnification of education” represents an individualising discourse separating the content, purpose and personal aspects of education. This article analyses “the learnification of education” primarily as a crisis of authority, with the political thinking of Hannah Arendt as a point of departure, suggesting that educational theory need to rediscover the roots of the didactical tradition in rhetorics. Thus the rhetorical education of Isocrates, based on examples and exemplary teaching, may rediscover an ancient conception of authority still relevant for our post-traditional and multicultural society.

Approaches to promote self-directed learning in Software Engineering

Software engineering is a profession, that requires expertise, but also underlies fast changes of contents and requirements. To cope with these challenges students in this subject need self-directed learning competencies. This paper explores Just-in-Time Teaching as one exemplary teaching method known to support self-directed learning processes. The focus in this analysis lies on a didactical evaluation of the sensitive use of this method concerning the special target group of software engineering students, the teaching content and material. The aim is to avoid a mere transfer of didactical approaches to students without additional value for the learners. Additional didactial consideration are directed towards (already existing) learning strategies of the students, which are essential for enabling students to efficiently benefit from self-directed learning arrangements. Resulting issues need to be evaluated through a serious data collection and analysis, that will be carried out in the subject of software engineering.