One day this past March, a middle school student placed a new Air Jordan on his desk at school in Montgomery County, Maryland. The boy, who is Latino, became fixated on the shoe, rubbing the leather and fingering the laces. His teacher, who is white, asked him to put it away, but the boy refused. He became “combative,” according to the teacher, and a tug-of-war ensued. Security was called to remove the shoe.
In schools, a tussle over a shoe or a phone can quickly escalate—sometimes to a suspension or worse—leaving educators, parents, and students wondering what went wrong. As research is finding, these pervasive misunderstandings can be rooted in assumptions and biases about race and culture, and have the potential to alter
the course of students’ lives.
I don’t want to feel out of place (pauses, searching for the “right” words). I don’t want to have my difference hinder me. But, help me if anything. So, I want to express myself so they can understand me—so, that I can communicate.
But, in Jamaica, when I was a little kid, you always heard crazy little things when you’re a kid (laughs). And, you’re like: “Oh, they act like this, and they do this. They’re so silly: They spell color without the u.” And they didn’t necessarily seem to make it a bad thing to be that way, but it was understood that we were different.
And, I liked being different. I liked being Jamaican.
This publication, “Norms for Global Perspective Inventory,” is divided into four parts.
Part One: Demographic information for undergraduate students included in our national norms, based on a sample of 19,528 four year college and university undergraduate students who completed the GPI from November 2012 – June 2014, are presented in pages 2 – 3.
Part Two: Frequency distributions and means of items of the six global perspective taking scales
are listed on pages 4 – 6. The mean or average score of the scales is presented in the top right
hand corner of the table – highlighted in yellow. The frequency distribution and mean of each item
of the three experience scales – Curriculum, Co-curriculum, and Community – are presented on pages
7 and 8.
Part Three: Means of global perspective taking scales and items for freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors are presented on pages 9 - 14. The mean or average score of the scale of all undergraduates is presented in the top row of the table – highlighted in yellow.
Part Four: Means of global perspective taking scales and each item in the scale by four different
types of institutions (Private or Public; BA/MA or Doctorate) are presented on pages 15 - 20.
MONTREAL -- It’s not whether to talk to students about sensitive current events like the white supremacist violence in Charlottesville, Va., but how. That was the upshot of a panel called “Teaching in Our Contemporary Moment” here Monday at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association.
“You have to talk about those things in your class,” said Tanya Golash-Boza, a professor of sociology at the University of California, Merced, who specializes in race and immigration. “Whatever you think of sociologists, they’re more socially aware than the biologists and the computer scientists … You have to remember that sociology is a place where students come to talk about what happened yesterday, what happened last week.”
Over the past century, the role of creativity in teaching and learning has been interpreted in many ways, leading to often
conflicting discipline-specific definitions, measurements and pedagogical applications.
In my world language and social studies classes, I have a long-standing policy that some might find harsh: I don’t allow students to retake quizzes and tests. I believe in preparing students to be ready the first time. I believe in teaching them skills and rigor.
National Trends in Grade Inflation, American Colleges and Universities
Last semester I reinvented English composition as a community-service learning course. My students did the usual work of any composition course — developing basic writing skills, crafting narrative essays and arguments, conducting research — but it was in the service of creating print and web content for a local homeless shelter.
In their end-of-semester evaluations, students praised the experiment, and I will probably repeat it. But I don’t want to make too much of that particular reinvention, because I have reinvented first-year composition at least a half-dozen times in my 20 years of teaching it, and will no doubt do so again. The same goes for most people I know who teach composition.
Love him or hate him, there’s lots to say about Donald Trump. But how should instructors handle class discussions about the new president, if they allow them at all? An assistant professor of public and strategic communication at American University established with his students a set of ground rules for talking about Trump, which he says may be useful to colleagues elsewhere as they engage with policy and other issues.
Last week in this space, I asked a group of thoughtful observers a set of questions about what colleges' sudden, widespread shift to remote learning might mean for the future of online education. The column seemed to strike a chord with a lot of readers -- many
positively. But others suggested that the questions I posed, and the people I posed them to, weren't the ones front and center for "the situation we're in," as George Station, a lecturer and faculty associate at California State University Monterey Bay, put it on Twitter.
Just as a child who has learned to grasp stretches out its hand for the moon as it would for a ball, so humanity, in all its efforts at innervation, sets its sights as much on currently utopian goals as on goals within reach. Because . . . technology aims at liberating human beings from drudgery, the individual suddenly sees his scope for play, his field of action, immeasurably expanded. He does not yet know his way around this space. But already he reg-isters his demands on it. (Benjamin, 1936/2008, p. 242)
Abstract
This study aimed to better understand campus mental health culture and student mental health coping strategies, and to identify the mental health needs of students as well as gaps in mental health services within postsecondary education. A videovoice method was used to identify and document health-related issues and advocate for change. Forty-one interviews were conducted with campus stakeholders at five universities. Five themes involving mental health emerged from the campus interviews: the stigma of mental illness; campus culture related to mental health; mental health services available and barriers to mental health services on campus; accommodations for students’ mental health needs; and student mental health coping strategies. A documentary was developed to advocate for better mental health. We conclude that although Canadian campuses are raising awareness about mental health issues, there is not enough mental health infrastructure support on campuses; in particular, accessibility to campus mental health resources needs improvement.
Résumé
Cette étude vise à mieux comprendre la culture de la santé mentale au sein de différents campus ainsi que les stratégies d’adaptation adoptées par les étudiants, puis à relever les besoins des étudiants et les lacunes quant à l’offre de services en santé mentale des institutions postsecondaires. Nous avons eu recours à la méthode « videovoice » dans le but d’identifier et de documenter les problèmes de santé mentale, puis de plaider en faveur d’un changement. Quarante-etune entrevues ont été réalisées auprès d’intervenants sur les campus de cinq
différentes universités. De ces entrevues, cinq thèmes liés à la santé mentale ont émergé, soit la stigmatisation liée à la santé mentale, la culture des campus, la disponibilité des services en santé mentale et les obstacles de l’offre de tels services, les accommodements offerts par les campus, et les stratégies d’adaptation des étudiants. Nous avons élaboré un documentaire qui plaide en faveur de la santé mentale. Nous concluons que, bien que les campus canadiens sensibilisent leurs étudiants à ce sujet, il y a absence de soutien en termes d’infrastructure pour la
santé mentale sur les campus. En effet, l’accès des ressources en santé mentale doit particulièrement être amélioré sur les campus.
STATEMENT OF COMMITMENT
1. All members of the University of Toronto (“the University”) community should have the ability to study, work, and live in a campus environment free from Sexual Violence, including Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment.
2. Sexual Violence is a serious issue that undermines the health, well-being, and security of individuals, communities, and society. Addressing the causes and consequences of Sexual Violence requires the deliberate and collective efforts of governments, institutions, and citizens.
3. The University is committed to making available programs and resources to educate its community on the prevention of and response to Sexual Violence.
4. The University is committed to responding to and addressing incidents and complaints of Sexual Violence involving its students, staff and faculty, and to ensuring that those members of the community who are affected by Sexual Violence receive support.
5. The University recognizes that Sexual Violence can occur between individuals regardless of sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity or expression, or relationship status.
6. The University recognizes the intersection of Sexual Violence with discrimination and harassment, including but not limited to the grounds set out in the Ontario Human Rights Code. The University recognizes that individuals from historically marginalized communities may be disproportionately affected by Sexual Harassment and Sexual Violence.
7. Sexual Violence can be committed against any person and is an issue that requires an inclusive response. The University recognizes that Sexual Violence is overwhelmingly committed against women, and in particular women who experience the intersection of multiple identities such as, but not limited to, indigenous women, women with disabilities, and racialized women. Additionally, the University recognizes that those whose gender identity or gender expression does not conform to historical gender norms are also at increased risk of Sexual Violence.
8. The University recognizes that individuals who have experienced Sexual Violence experience a range of effects that can profoundly affect their lives.
If there’s a downside to another academic year coming to a successful close, it’s reading course evaluations. This post explores how we respond to those one or two low evaluations and the occasional negative comments found in answers to the open-ended questions. Do we have a tendency to over-react? I know I did.
Using a cross-case analysis of online, on-campus and online university teacher preparation courses, this study critically examines the constraints and affordances of online teacher education in preparing teachers for culturally and linguistically diverse (CLO) urban schools. The results of the study indicate that while there was no significant difference between online and on-campus courses in terms of teacher acquisition of knowledge related to CLO instruction and assessment, questions remain about whether online teacher preparation can promote critical self-reflection, culturally responsive teaching practices, and collaboration within schools, when teacher learning is not supported and situated in schools and communities in an ongoing and structured way.
Keywords
teacher education, urban education, linguistically responsive pedagogy, culturally relevant pedagogy, language education, identity, teacher beliefs
As we approach the midpoint of the academic year, surges of campus activism will continue to unfold. Some of the issues that will pique students' interest will be obvious, while others will surprise us. No matter the issue or side of the political or philosophical spectrum, it is the commonly understood role of administrators to work with students to support activism in a way that students get their message heard and also optimizes safety and civility.
To form a truly educated opinion on a scientific subject, you need to become familiar with current research in that field. And to be able to distinguish between good and bad interpretations of research, you have to be willing and able to read the primary research
literature for yourself. Reading and understanding research papers is a skill that every single doctor and scientist has had to learn during graduate school. You can learn it too, but like any skill it takes patience and practice.
Conventional scholarship within the sociology of education and organizations posits that schools achieve legitimacy by virtue of conforming to normative standards, abiding by government regulations and mimicking the forms of successful peers. Through this study, an examination of a sample of 751 Canadian for-profit colleges (FPCs) is performed, revealing the presence of
an alternative logic. Rather than conformity, organizations within this sector engage in niche-seeking behaviour, using promotional materials to carve out unconventional identities. They do so by directly drawing on symbolic resources
and affiliations from the industrial sectors which they service. These findings are interpreted through the prism of contemporary theorizing within organizational sociology.
The wave of upcoming retirements is a myth and PhD numbers have little to do with the academic job
market anyway.
In my last post I took a look at some of the history and context of Canadian universities’ hiring of contract faculty. While I was digging around for information, I couldn’t help noticing the relevance of some of the material to another ongoing debate in higher education: that of the “overproduction” of PhDs. Since “too many PhDs” is a recurring theme in media commentary about
graduate education (e.g. Nature, The Economist), I thought I’d explore the issue in more depth and connect it to some of the research I found. Are we really “producing” too many PhDs, and if so, is this a recent problem?
It is all too common to see PhD students work themselves to the point of physical and mental illness in order to complete their studies. It is less common to see PhD students who feel that they are under such pressure that the only option is suicide. But it does happen. There is a culture of acceptance around mental health issues in academia – and this needs to change.