Search

Psychological distance (PD) can be a barrier to how students perceive climate change impacts and severity. Localizing climate change using place-based approaches is one way instructors can structure their curricula to help combat students' PD, especially from a spatial and social viewpoint. We created a novel classroom intervention that incorporated elements of place-based education and the Teaching for Transformative Experiences in Science model that was designed to lower undergraduate biology students' spatial and social distance of climate change. Our research questions sought to determine whether students' PD changed following our intervention and whether variables beyond our intervention might have contributed to changes we identified. To measure the efficacy of our intervention, we administered a survey that contained several instruments to measure students' recognition and psychological distance of climate change pre- and post-intervention. We found that students' psychological distance to climate change decreased after participating in our classroom intervention. Additionally, course level was the only outside variable we identified as a predictor of students' post-activity scores. Participation in our activity lowered our students' spatial and social psychological distance, which could have impacts beyond the classroom as these students become the next generation of scientists and voters.

We compare the institutional standards and expectations for English language arts (ELA) educators from the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), the leading professional organization in this field, and the state of Georgia. By conducting a critical policy analysis of documents from NCTE and the Georgia Department of Education (GADoE) we sought to understand the tension between standards set for training English education students in institutions of higher education and the standards those teachers would be required to use in Georgia K-12 schools. We analyze these documents through Cooper et al.'s (2004) policy analysis framework, which questions the normative, structural, constituent, and technical dimensions of policy development. We found that the ideological beliefs and values embedded in the policies and documents from NCTE and GADoE have developed divergent sets of expectations for ELA teachers in Georgia, particularly around how teachers respond to oppression in our society; how we understand the overall purpose of ELA instruction; and the scope of responsibilities for educators. We end by presenting implications for educators working among these two sets of policies, in recognizing where these expectations may overlap as well as diverge.

Over the past few years at Columbus State University, the learning support math faculty and director have focused on the importance of training academic coaches to effectively engage students in corequisite support math with key practices implemented in an emporium-based model for our corequisite support math labs. This model consists of experienced math faculty as instructional facilitators and coordinators and student peers as academic coaches to provide support in the areas of coaching, tutoring, and mentoring. The purpose of this implementation is to empower our students to acquire knowledge, to strengthen interpersonal and academic skills, and to create a sense of belonging at the institution in order to attain career goals. To effectively engage students in these efforts, the learning support math faculty and director have focused on the implementation of solid training for our academic coaches based on best practices in the areas of growth mindsets, problem-solving, emotional intelligence, and motivational interviewing.

School leaders must make decisions and implement strategies to improve a school climate and student achievement, and it benefits them to understand which areas of school climate have the greatest impact on student achievement. The State of Georgia measures school climate and student achievement with its school accountability measure, the College and Career Ready Performance Index (CCRPI). This study employed a quantitative research design using archival data that was publicly available from CCRPI data for a two year span to examine the relationship between school climate and student achievement statewide in the middle grade sector. Findings revealed that all four components of school climate (i.e., Survey Score, Discipline Score, Safe & Substance-Free Learning Environment Score, and Attendance Score) were significantly related to student achievement. Additionally, the Survey Score and Discipline Score were the most significant predictors of student achievement. These findings provide school leaders with essential information to strategically make decisions involving processes and procedures that impact these areas. Future research is needed to determine whether the relationship between school climate and student achievement is similar for elementary, middle, or high schools. In addition, separating the data into rural, suburban, and urban schools and running similar analyses may also help administrators improve school climate and student achievement.

In this study, 96 world language teachers in the state of Georgia completed a survey regarding their delivery of instruction in the target language. While ACTFL (2010, 2021) recommends using the target language 90% or more of the time to deliver instruction, only 20% of the world language instructors who were surveyed reported doing so. According to ACTFL (2010, 2021), delivering instruction in the target language is necessary to create an acquisition-rich environment where learners are exposed to significant amounts of comprehensible input--a key factor for second language acquisition to occur (Krashen, 1982). This study examined three factors that may play a part in world language instructors' practices regarding target language use; namely, teacher proficiency level, level of experience, and teacher foreign language anxiety. The results indicated that teachers' self-reported levels of proficiency were not correlated with delivery of instruction in the target language; however, language anxiety and level of experience appeared to play a part in world language teachers' target language use in the classroom. The findings of this study have implications for pre- and in-service world language teachers and administrators as well as for teacher education programs in Georgia and beyond.

Colleges and universities are seeing growth of Latinx students actively engaged in Greek life. In this study, six Latino participants share their testimonios as members of different Chapters of a Latinx Greek Letter Organization (LGLO) nestled within Predominantly White Institutions located in the state of Georgia, USA. Informed by LatCrit theory, this qualitative study uses member's testimonios to shed light on their varied and sometimes politically charged and racist lived experiences. The researchers draw on these experiences to show how the LGLO supported these members' character and leadership development and their desire and commitment to critical service and socially just causes.

Service-learning is a critical component of public health education, especially students of Doctor of Public Health (DrPH), designed for public health professionals. As an evidence-based approach to impactful teaching improving students' learning outcomes, service-learning enables future public health practitioners to engage in the learning and reflective practices developing skills needed to be leaders of social change within their communities. E-service learning has been gaining popularity among faculty and students. This study describes a grant writing course for DrPH students of various concentrations delivered online. We draw attention to the growing need to incorporate service-learning into the public health curriculum to promote social change, address local health disparities, improve students' learning experiences and outcomes, and stay relevant with the educational landscape.

This project report describes the process of a team of undergraduate researchers (Chemistry and Nursing majors), who analyzed 20th-century medical kits housed at The Columbus Museum (Columbus, GA, USA). Curators and museum personnel were unfamiliar with the contents and needed assistance in identifying the various chemical contents. Items were identified by the Taylor Lab, which was followed by fully elucidating the chemical information in a chemical report and student-curated exhibit. The intent of this project was to help the museum be aware of how to properly curate and store the medical collections for an extended period. Laboratory analyses were executed to determine the composition of the aged items in the collections. The historical context of these kits and their contents provided knowledge of medicine to the community of Columbus, Georgia, in addition to explaining the use of medically related items in the 20th century.

The purpose of the current study was to determine if there were variations in the self-perceptions of honors and nonhonors collegiate students in areas of academic and nonacademic self-concept. This research was important as it provides emphasis on an understudied population and gathers a deeper understanding of intricacies related to self-concept by incorporating comprehensive investigative measures. A sample of 236 students from a single institution (72.6% female, 65.7% White, 20.8% honors, ages 18-51) took an online survey consisting of questions related to self-concept. By utilizing a series of two-tailed, independent samples t-tests we examined the differences between student self-perceptions of self-concept. Results indicated that honors students had statistically significantly higher academic self-concepts than nonhonors students. Both groups of students scored similarly across social self-concepts; however, nonhonors students had higher perceptions of their physical self-concepts. These findings will provide new insights into how honors enrollment impacts the formation of self-image.

The prevalence and pervasive nature of emerging chemicals of concern have created widespread environmental injustice apprehensions in vulnerable communities. To alleviate and address these concerns, identifying, engaging, and training a diverse environmental health research workforce will be critical and necessary steps to combat and prevent the consequences of environmental injustice. While there is an obvious need to enhance diversity in environmental health research, this process is hampered by facets of systemic racism that reduce access to educational resources needed to build interest and knowledge in students and teachers. We present here a historical perspective to offer a guide for building programs and relationships with underserved schools to help overcome limiting factors that have plagued certain public school systems. With the proper training and mentorship, the untapped workforce present within these schools will be empowered to understand and address current and emerging environmental health and safety threats. Through this transformative 8-week high school research program, we will develop well-prepared, ethical researchers committed to scientific inquiry, intensive fieldwork, and collaborative problem solving to address environmental health challenges. Following the four-step risk assessment process, students, teachers, and faculty mentors will work collaboratively to identify toxicants, potential hazards and risks, and environmental disparities in urban neighborhoods, which provides the necessary training to formulate critical thinking skills for use in academic or nonacademic careers.

We examined relationships between measures of adaptive behavior, cognitive ability, and autism symptom severity in 1458 preschool-aged children with autism from the Study to Explore Early Development. While publications commonly describe autistic children as "low-" or "high-functioning" based on cognitive ability, relying solely on cognitive scores may obscure meaningful variation in functioning. We found significant heterogeneity in adaptive behavior scores of children with cognitive scores both above and below the threshold of two or more standard deviations below the population mean specified in the diagnostic criteria for intellectual disability (ID). Although cognitive and adaptive behavior scores were strongly associated in our sample, considerable variation in overall adaptive behavior and more than half in socialization and motor skills was unaccounted for by cognitive ability, autism symptom severity, and other covariates. Among children who could be designated "low-functioning" based on cognitive scores, 39.7% had composite adaptive behavior scores indicating no significant delays, while among those who might be designated "high-functioning," 9.0% had significant delays in overall adaptive behavior and 22.2% in socialization. These results suggest adaptive behavior scores capture variations in the autism phenotype not accounted for by other measures we considered.

Most states claim academic rigor and career readiness as goals for all their students. But as school systems continue tracking students into higher or lower levels of academic coursework and into career and technical courses that lack rigorous, real-world assignments, they reflect an apparent underlying belief that their students' abilities are fixed--and fixed early in life. There are districts and schools that instead operate from an assumption that most students can learn at high levels when engaged in meaningful, challenging assignments in both academic and career pathway courses. What does that look like? I encourage members of state boards of education to visit high schools in their state and beyond, where they can see effective strategies.

This article describes the evolution of a required Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS) research methods course moving to a focus on evidence-based library and information practice (EBLIP). It describes how a research methods course was revised, beginning with results from a "typical" course review and morphing into work that is now informing a broader program review. Implications of this work include a reconsideration of how best to provide a quality education while allowing for grace for faculty and students.

Although School based agricultural education (SBAE) teachers have a variety of responsibilities within a comprehensive program, supervised agricultural experience (SAE) programs are considered an intracurricular component. Unfortunately, the ability for teachers to plan for and facilitate SAEs has been reported as lacking. The purpose of this study was to identify the current perceptions, barriers, and implementation of current middle school SAEs in the Southeast United States, which was carried out by a modified Delphi approach to reach consensus on the perceptions, barriers, and implementation of middle school SAEs from a panel of experts. After three rounds, 18 items achieved consensus related to perceptions of Middle School SAE integration, 19 items outlining barriers for Middle School SAE implementation, and 22 items indicating best practices for Middle School SAE integration. When we consider the uniqueness of middle school SBAE programs, the overall list of perceptions, barriers, and best practices is of great value for future implementation as additional programs are added. Recommendations for practice begin with purposeful professional development opportunities specific for middle school SBAE teachers.

As agricultural education propels itself into the 21st century, a focus on Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education has been prioritized. While STEM integration has been held in high regard, many employers claim that students lack the necessary STEM-based skills to be successful in an entry-level position. In addition, STEM achievement of agricultural education students has not been consistent. This study aimed to ascertain the perceptions of Alabama and Georgia CTE administrators employed in school districts with agricultural education programs on the importance of integrating individual STEM skills into Agriculture, Food, and Natural Resource (AFNR) pathways. In this descriptive correlational study, 129 CTE administrators were emailed a survey through Qualtrics to rate 62 STEM-based AFNR standards using a five-point Likert-type scale. Results of the study suggested that most CTE administrators valued all assessed STEM-based AFNR standards as Very Important or Extremely Important. A mixed model was used to determine any statistical differences in importance ratings between Alabama and Georgia and among pathway scores. AFNR pathways with the highest importance ratings included the Animal Science Pathway, Plant Systems Pathway, and the Food Products and Processing Pathway. AFNR pathways with the lowest ratings included the Power, Structural, and Technical systems pathway and the Biotechnology pathway. No statistical differences were found between states, suggesting consistency between CTE administrators in these two states. These results suggested that CTE administrators value STEM and that agricultural educators should ensure STEM is integrated into their course curriculum. [Note: The page range (23-39) shown on the PDF is incorrect. The correct page range is 40-57.]

Online learning is one form of distance education mediated through information and communications technology. We used a descriptive research design to develop and validate a multidimensional instrument to assess readiness and motivations for online learning. We provided a theoretical framework to better understand the concept of readiness for online learning and motivations to learn online. We assessed the need for a professional online Master's degree in Agricultural Education from Clemson University and participants' experience with online learning. Participants in this study included 531 Cooperative Extension agents, Natural Resource Conservation Agency, Farm Service Agency employees, and School-based agricultural educators from South Carolina, North Carolina, and Georgia. Of those, 96 participants completed the open-ended question. The study findings revealed that the survey instrument is a valid and reliable tool. Most participants reported a tendency for self-directed learning as they indicated having higher learning expectations performances. Individuals who perceive themselves as capable of performing a specific task or behavior have high levels of self-efficacy. Participants expressed that distance from campus--no need to relocate, and flexibility were their primary motivators to enroll in online learning. Many prefer using asynchronous technologies since they provide a more convenient environment where they can work at their own pace and better balance their work and school responsibilities. Results may also suggest that participants who are motivated to pursue an online degree place a high value on being self-directed learners since they can plan, monitor, and evaluate their own learning process.

Compared to all other options, homeschooling provides parents with the most control over their children's educational experiences. The COVID-19 pandemic led to a surge in the U.S. homeschool population. Black families had the largest increase in home educators from 3.3% to 16.1% between April 2020 and October 2020. The emerging literature on Black home education has focused almost entirely on urban areas. This paper presents findings from a pilot study designed to begin to address the omission of rural setting representation in Black home education research literature. This qualitative study employed conceptual frameworks that value Black women's ways of knowing (e.g., Black Feminist Theory, Endarkened Feminist Epistemologies, and Critical Race Theory) to emphasize the role of participating mothers who represented a single-parent household or a household where the mother maintained primary responsibility for the home education of children.

Scholarship underscores the experiences of Appalachian students who must confront a social reality that consistently expects less from them because of their circumstances and the narratives surrounding their social context (Collins, 2020; Piene et al., 2020). Traditionally, the Appalachian people have been viewed by educators from a deficit approach although some theorists are transitioning to see the value in Appalachian people and, using this alternative lens, are approaching the Appalachian identity with more place-based pedagogies such as funds of knowledge (Collins, 2020; Piene et al., 2020). These culturally responsive approaches see value in the region's people and scaffolds a positive learning environment on the cultural heritages and identities of the region and allows students to expand their views of possible selves. In turn, this contribution explores the pedagogical approaches embodied in possible selves as a theory that builds on rural and small community assets and successes as related to the social resources and capital that rural students represent. Specifically, we look at the connections that possible selves as a theory makes to rural students' socioeconomic, sociocultural, and sociohistorical contexts and how this theory can accentuate concepts like social capital with respect to postsecondary student success.

This study explored the perceived gains of postsecondary peer educators, specifically related to their views of learning, feelings of connection to campus, and feelings of fulfillment as a result of their roles. The peer educator in the campus learning center is a critical but undervalued resource for student success. This is reflected in the literature, which has a gap in the research related to the experience of the peer educators themselves. To address this problem, a survey was sent through public listservs to college learning assistance professionals, who then distributed it to their respective peer tutors and SI leaders (N = 1217). Using three open-ended questions from the Peer Educator Experiences Survey, I analyzed responses to generate several themes for each question. I identified five distinct themes from responses to the first question, which asked participants about their views of learning. Of the five themes, "learned how/ways people learn" had the highest frequency of responses (n = 239). I discovered four themes from responses to the second question that asked about the most rewarding aspect of their jobs. For this question, the theme of "helping/witnessing growth" was the most evident response (n = 326). The final question asked about participants' connections to campus; again, four themes identified four distinct themes. The theme of "campus people/resources" proved to be the most populous (n = 203). Institutions and learning center administrators should consider these results when recruiting, training, assessing, and requesting funds for these programs.

Research indicates that food insecurity among college students has been on a steady incline. The COVID-19 pandemic has intensified economic vulnerabilities, which has led to increased food insecurity among college students due to the closure of campus resources and high unemployment rates in jobs that college students typically hold. Universities have long recognized the need for on-campus pantries and the institutions' role in preparing students to apply the knowledge learned in their courses in real-world settings. This article uses a case study to illustrate how one university worked with service-learning students in its Human Services department to provide food support to the campus community by becoming essential workers during a crisis. This created a sustainable solution to improve the quality of life for an entire university community and provided Human Services students the opportunity for applied experience and professional growth and development.

Using publicly available data, the researchers examined variables that may predict English learner graduation rates (ELGR) at the school and school-system levels to determine whether the school average per pupil expenditure (PPE), the school mobility rate (MOB), the percentage of teachers out of field (TOF), and the percentage of inexperienced teachers and/or school leaders (INEX) are significant school- and system-level predictors of ELGR. Researchers estimated five multilevel linear models examining within- and between-group relationships. Analyses of 2019-2020 academic year data for 117 high schools from 42 school systems in the state of Georgia showed that student mobility rates (MOB) and teacher quality (TOF) were significant predictors of ELGR. Paradoxically, increased school spending (PPE) did not predict higher ELGR. These findings help address the lack of research on ELGR and help practitioners identify the school indicators that may be related to this important student outcome.

Research suggests participating in youth hands-on cooking programs, like those offered by Extension and 4-H, can improve nutrition behaviors and reduce the risk for obesity. We surveyed Georgia Extension professionals (n = 127) to explore factors (e.g., employee characteristics, resources, county demographics) related to offering youth hands-on cooking programs and curricula used. Over 2/3 of participants offer programs and reported creating their own curriculum. More years of experience, having received Extension Specialist training, and increased confidence were positively related to offering these programs. Results suggest training could increase confidence and program implementation and standard curricula may be needed/

Instructional time spent on elementary social studies is often marginalized due to the emphasis placed on other content areas. Therefore, social studies teachers must employ meaningful instructional strategies that will engage students while promoting content acquisition. This quasi-experimental study responds to this challenge by guiding a sample of 44 fifth grade students to use the historical thinking skills of sourcing, contextualizing, and corroborating that encourage engagement with a variety of primary sources through the lens of Jerome Bruner's learning theories. The control group used traditional instructional methods including close-note taking, vocabulary review, and independent reading from social studies texts. Both the control and treatment groups were assessed prior to and after the study on content knowledge, attitude toward social studies, and critical thinking skills using the Cornell Critical Thinking Test. Students in the treatment group showed significant differences in their content knowledge over the control group.

We report findings from an interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) study of transgender and gender non-conforming (TGNC) college students' perceptions of their on-campus experiences. Participants reported their lived experiences of campus culture at PWIs Deep South. The data was viewed through a minority stress theory framework. Four major themes emerged: (1) supports for students; (2) barriers for students; (3) undergoing personal change; and (4) influencing systemic change.

The Georgia Department of Education has clearly defined standards for learning about Africa in the seventh grade. However, there exists great variation in how textbooks present this material and address these standards. Using a qualitative content analysis approach, we assess the presentation of Africa in three widely used Georgia social studies textbooks. We document and analyze coverage of Africa across Georgia's seventh grade world studies learning domains. Our research demonstrates: 1) that, despite widespread calls for decolonization of education and strengthening of multicultural education, Euro-American perspectives on Africa are still prevalent; 2) textbooks vary widely on how they choose to address the social studies standards for Africa; and 3) negative stereotypes of Africa and its peoples continue to be reaffirmed, to the detriment of Georgia students. Lastly, our research also contributes to larger conversations on the utility of content analysis as a methodology for understanding educational practices.