Guiding Principles for Quality Professional Practice Dissertations

Author(s):  
Kara Dawson ◽  
Swapna Kumar

In this chapter the authors share the guiding principles for professional practice dissertations developed and studied within their online EdD in Educational Technology at the University of Florida. While these guiding principles were developed approximately four years before the call for chapters for this book was released, they align nicely with at least three pertinent themes that frame this book (i.e. the importance of addressing critical problems of practice, applying research rigor involving real theory and inquiry and demonstrating impact of research). The authors make explicit connections between their guiding principles and these themes and provide examples of how the themes have played out in dissertations completed in their program. The authors then provide implications for others seeking to structure (or restructure) the way dissertations are conceptualized in their professional practice problems.

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Mavis Agbandje-McKenna

The saying “It takes a village to raise a child” has never been truer than in my case. This autobiographical article documents my growing up and working on three different continents and my influencers along the way. Born in a village in Nigeria, West Africa, I spent the first 12 years of life with my grandmother living in a mud house and attending a village primary school. I walked barefoot to school every day, learned to read, and wrote on a chalk slate. At the age of 13, I moved to my second “village,” London, England. In secondary school my love of science began to blossom. I attained a double major in chemistry and human biology from the University of Hertfordshire and a PhD in biophysics from the University of London, with a research project aimed at designing anticancer agents. I was mentored by Terence Jenkins and Stephen Neidle. For my postdoctoral training, I crossed the ocean again, to the United States, my third “village.” In Michael Rossmann's group at Purdue University, my love for viruses was ignited. My independent career in structural virology began at Warwick University, England, working on pathogenic single-stranded DNA packaging viruses. In 2020, I am a full professor at the University of Florida. Most of my research is focused on the adeno-associated viruses, gene delivery vectors. My list of mentors has grown and includes Nick Muzyczka. Here, the mentee has become the mentor, and along the way, we attained a number of firsts in the field of structural virology and contributed to the field at the national and international stages.


Author(s):  
Cynthia J. MacGregor ◽  
Jennifer Fellabaum

The purpose of this chapter is to describe the innovative Dissertation-in-Practice model being implemented in the University of Missouri Statewide Cooperative Doctoral Program in Educational Leadership (EdD Program). This doctoral program develops scholarly practitioners who are able to address critical problems of practice through the use of theory, inquiry, and practice-oriented knowledge. While these skills are utilized to create purposeful, professional products throughout the program, the redesigned Dissertation-in-Practice at MU is intended to further showcase the impact of the students' work as scholarly practitioners through dissemination-ready components. The chapter includes the history of the program and a description of the process through which program faculty redesigned the dissertation from a traditional five-chapter model to its current six section form. This restructuring, which includes dissemination to scholars and practitioners, is detailed. The chapter concludes with emerging supports for the scholarly practitioner graduates.


2017 ◽  
pp. 541-557
Author(s):  
Cynthia J. MacGregor ◽  
Jennifer Fellabaum

The purpose of this chapter is to describe the innovative Dissertation-in-Practice model being implemented in the University of Missouri Statewide Cooperative Doctoral Program in Educational Leadership (EdD Program). This doctoral program develops scholarly practitioners who are able to address critical problems of practice through the use of theory, inquiry, and practice-oriented knowledge. While these skills are utilized to create purposeful, professional products throughout the program, the redesigned Dissertation-in-Practice at MU is intended to further showcase the impact of the students' work as scholarly practitioners through dissemination-ready components. The chapter includes the history of the program and a description of the process through which program faculty redesigned the dissertation from a traditional five-chapter model to its current six section form. This restructuring, which includes dissemination to scholars and practitioners, is detailed. The chapter concludes with emerging supports for the scholarly practitioner graduates.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Timothy Brophy ◽  
Cobi Krieger ◽  
Maria Cristina Leite ◽  
Marcia McCaffrey ◽  
Dennie Palmer Wolf ◽  
...  

From October 11-15, 2021, the World Alliance for Arts Education’s Executive Forum authorized the 10th World Summit on Arts Education to be hosted by the University of Florida and the State Education Agency Directors of Arts Education (SEADAE). During the 2021 Virtual World Summit, titled Arts Impact: Context Matters, over 200 delegates from twenty-six nations on all six continents gathered to network, share research, and examine the multiple and varied ways in which arts assessments are designed and implemented around the world. Throughout the Summit, multiple discussions by various groups of delegates resulted in rich sets of qualitative data that were analyzed and interpreted daily by the conference leaders and rapporteur. These analyses were used to modify and update the concepts and ideas found within the resulting "Guiding Principles for the Assessment of Arts Learning."


Author(s):  
Cynthia J. MacGregor ◽  
Jennifer Fellabaum

The purpose of this chapter is to describe the innovative Dissertation-in-Practice model being implemented in the University of Missouri Statewide Cooperative Doctoral Program in Educational Leadership (EdD Program). This doctoral program develops scholarly practitioners who are able to address critical problems of practice through the use of theory, inquiry, and practice-oriented knowledge. While these skills are utilized to create purposeful, professional products throughout the program, the redesigned Dissertation-in-Practice at MU is intended to further showcase the impact of the students' work as scholarly practitioners through dissemination-ready components. The chapter includes the history of the program and a description of the process through which program faculty redesigned the dissertation from a traditional five-chapter model to its current six section form. This restructuring, which includes dissemination to scholars and practitioners, is detailed. The chapter concludes with emerging supports for the scholarly practitioner graduates.


1982 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 53-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arlene Shimeld

The nature of Quality Assurance is outlined, as well as the range of activities encompassed in a Quality Assurance program. The need to provide occupational therapy personnel with an organizational framework within which to develop the skills to implement a Quality Assurance program is given as the rationale for utilizing a model that focuses on five key areas of professional practice. The model is described, and the way it has facilitated the Quality Assurance program in the Occupational Therapy Services Department of the University Hospital, London, Ontario is discussed. Reference material, useful when implementing a program, is included.


EDIS ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 2019 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Barry L. Tillman

FloRunTM ‘331’ peanut variety was developed by the University of Florida, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, North Florida Research and Education Center near Marianna, Florida.  It was released in 2016 because it combines high yield potential with excellent disease tolerance. FloRunTM ‘331’ has a typical runner growth habit with a semi-prominent central stem and medium green foliage.  It has medium runner seed size with high oleic oil chemistry.


EDIS ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 2016 (7) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sonja C. Crawford ◽  
Christa L. Kirby ◽  
Tycee Prevatt ◽  
Brent A. Sellers ◽  
Maria L. Silveira ◽  
...  

The University of Florida / IFAS South Florida Beef Forage Program (SFBFP) is composed of county Extension faculty and state specialists.  The members, in conjunction with the UF/IFAS Program Evaluation and Organizational Development unit, created a survey in 1982, which is used to evaluate ranch management practices.  The survey is updated and distributed every 5 years to ranchers in 14 South Florida counties: Charlotte, Collier, DeSoto, Glades, Hardee, Hendry, Highlands, Hillsborough, Lee, Manatee, Martin, Okeechobee, Polk, and Sarasota.  The responses are anonymous.  


2020 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bridget Grogan

This article reports on and discusses the experience of a contrapuntal approach to teaching poetry, explored during 2016 and 2017 in a series of introductory poetry lectures in the English 1 course at the University of Johannesburg. Drawing together two poems—Warsan Shire’s “Home” and W.H. Auden’s “Refugee Blues”—in a week of teaching in each year provided an opportunity for a comparison that encouraged students’ observations on poetic voice, racial identity, transhistorical and transcultural human experience, trauma and empathy. It also provided an opportunity to reflect on teaching practice within the context of decoloniality and to acknowledge the need for ongoing change and review in relation to it. In describing the contrapuntal teaching and study of these poems, and the different methods employed in the respective years of teaching them, I tentatively suggest that canonical Western and contemporary postcolonial poems may reflect on each other in unique and transformative ways. I further posit that poets and poems that engage students may open the way into initially “less relevant” yet ultimately rewarding poems, while remaining important objects of study in themselves.


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