Most graduate students are unaware of the procedures and expectations during the last year of their graduate program and, especially, not from the faculty perspective. The timeline I describe in this article begins with what needs to be done almost a year before finishing and ends with what happens after you, the graduate student, pass the final…

Despite the fact that we are learning more and more about the particular challenges and possibilities of teaching adult learners, we may still be overlooking--or forgetting--some of the most fundamental aspects of what makes an effective educator of adults. This paper addresses this oversight by reminding adult educators of the imperative of being…

This article explores the interaction between the work and lives of five religious qualitative researchers whose research studies investigate both culture and religion. The ways their personal backgrounds, experiences, and values affect their choice of research topics and their relationships with research participants and with data, are revealed…

The primary focus of research that the authors have undertaken at New Mexico State University for the past several years can be summed up with the question--are Presidential Libraries educational institutions or are they simply political monuments and messages? The authors have conducted extensive investigations involving visitations to ten…

Identifying persistent media frames through a cognitive media analysis is an important step in the empirical measurement of public thinking about social issues. Based on a recent media analysis of racial disparities as they pertain to youth in major U.S. newspapers, this article explains three frames that were persistently evoked in media coverage…

Two policy trends have characterized US science education in the last two decades: a strong movement to examine issues of science in society, and widespread adoption of state standards mandating curriculum courses related to science, technology and society, scientific literacy, and socio-scientific issues. However, these changes have not found an…

This article explores the conditions under which international social work field placements may be effectively administered. The positive and negative potential of international placements is examined. A review of empirical and theoretical literature in the related fields of service learning and international volunteering reveals that role taking,…

This article looks at best practices in basic writing instruction in terms of non-traditional audiences and writerly authority. Much conventional wisdom discourages participation in service-learning projects for basic writers because of the assumption that their writing is not yet ready to "go public." Countering this line of thinking, the author…

"Melioration" is borrowing and using an idea from another field not closely associated with your field of expertise. Using the borrowed concept to address a challenge in your field potentially provides new avenues of action and insight. I borrow the concept of boundary objects from science fields and use it to examine assignments in the college…

This reflective essay describes the author's experiences as an observer in a behaviorist infant classroom. The author developed four categories of practice to describe what happened in the behaviorist infant room: (1) curricular focus on training typically developing infants to meet typical developmental milestones, (2) the use of highly…

Last year the author had the pleasure of working with a team of dedicated teachers in an alternative high school setting on the implementation of a grant she had written for their program. The grant was the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education (CTE) Act grant, federally distributed to the states. As the grant writer and teacher…

In this chapter, the authors consider various teaching roles that student affairs professionals may fulfill in learning communities, as well as the potential professional development that results from involvement.

Theory of mind (ToM) is key to the development of one's social skills. Without ToM, children (or adults) cannot understand or infer the thoughts, feelings, or intentions of others. A lack of ToM skills is considered by some to be a core deficit in autism. ToM affects all interpersonal interactions as well as academics, daily living, following…

Autism is characterized by deficits in pretend play, perspective taking, initiating and responding to others, and other profound social impairments. As the incidence of children being identified with autism increases, so does the need for effective interventions that target social skills development. Over the last decade, social skills…

This interdisciplinary project examined how students think and feel about their learning in race-related diversity courses. Students in four classes (literature, psychology, geography) reflected on cognitive and affective dimensions of their own and their classmates' learning. The Color Blind Racial Attitudes Scales (CoBRAS) confirmed qualitative…