Virtual exchange program building: an assessment-based approach

Virtual Exchange (VE) provides a strategic approach for higher education institutions to internationalize. This study investigated how a USA Community College (US-CC) system and their partners started and grew their internationalization program through VE with teacher training, assessment, and support from a nonprofit bridge organization. Data were collected on program growth over three years, 2017-20, totaling 13 modules, 29 faculty, and 14 campuses. Cumulatively, students completed 341 pre-module and 202 post-module surveys which assessed the community colleges’ student learning goals: intercultural competence and awareness of the wider world, confidence in finding success in the global workforce, and ability to deploy 21st century skills (e.g. technology and teamwork). Quantitative and qualitative results provided concrete and nuanced evidence of program effectiveness and suggested positive impact. Our findings have two main implications: (1) positive student impact can help grow and sustain VE and other international programming; and (2) teacher training informed by and adapted with student assessment can help institutionalize VE programs.

Development of Interdisciplinary STEM Impact Measures of Student Attitudes and Reasoning

The integration of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) programs is a national trend. The goal of implementing STEM in schools is to prepare students for the demands of the 21st century, while addressing future workforce needs. The Real STEM project focused on the development of interdisciplinary STEM experiences for students. The project was characterized by sustained professional development which was job-embedded, competency-based, and focused on the development of five STEM reasoning abilities within real-world contexts. The project promoted inclusion of tasks that drew on multiple STEM disciplines, embraced the use of authentic teaching strategies, and supported development of collaboration through interdisciplinary STEM professional learning communities and engaging STEM experts from the community. The four tenets of the project are presented and research on developing and characterizing measures of student impact are provided. Key outcomes include the construction and evaluation of measures supporting interdisciplinary STEM to assess both the impact of intervention on student attitudes toward STEM and students’ STEM reasoning abilities. Findings include reliability and validity evidence supporting attitude measurement and reasoning measurement as well as exploratory results that highlight a disconnection between STEM attitudes and STEM reasoning with the interdisciplinary STEM intervention examined.

Preservice music teachers’ self-efficacy and concerns before and during student teaching

The purpose of this study was to investigate the experiences and contextual factors that influenced preservice music teachers’ self-efficacy and concerns from pre-student teaching to student teaching. Data were collected for this case study through an open-response questionnaire about participants’ ( N = 4) efficacious teaching experiences, 10 weekly e-journal reflections written during pre-student teaching ( n = 5 weeks) and student teaching placements ( n = 5 weeks at 1 placement), interviews ( n = 4), and my own researcher journal ( n = 31 entries). Preservice teachers’ self-efficacy and concerns were most impacted by teaching experiences in familiar settings. Results indicated that participants made more comments about student-impact and self-survival concerns during student teaching than pre-student teaching. Further investigation revealed that participants consistently expressed concerns for classroom management during pre-student teaching and student teaching placements. Finding ways to expedite the developmental process could reduce the amount of time that preservice teachers focus on early contextual factors and instead identify ways to improve students’ music and academic performance.

Speech Pathologists’ Perceptions of the Impact of Student Supervision

Qualitative studies have described clinician perspectives on student placements. These studies highlight likely contributors to placement shortages, but little is documented in speech pathology (SP). This article describes SP clinician perceptions of student impact/s on their clinical and other work tasks, stress levels and time management, and explores factors that may contribute to these perceptions of their experience. Interpretive description was selected to analyse public health sector SP clinician online survey responses. Open-ended questions explored clinician perceptions of student impact on specified components of their work as well as any other aspects clinicians identified. Thirty-four SP clinicians with varying caseloads and experience levels responded. Clinicians perceived that students can positively or negatively impact their clinical and non-clinical activities. Many also identified negative impacts on their stress levels. Some commented on differing impacts for patients and other colleagues. Collective themes of Clinician, Supervision Practices, Workplace, and Student are presented in a model of potential influences on the experience of student impact. SP clinicians perceived that experience of student impact is varied and complex. Influences are likely to be multi-factorial and further research is needed in a range of contexts to guide clinicians, managers and universities in supporting SP student clinical placements.