Using Digital Badges to Design a Comprehensive Model for High-Impact Experiential Learning

This chapter details the design, implementation, and promise of the Project Portal, a co-curricular badge system, as an exciting example of how digital badges can transcend traditional notions of credentialing. The authors begin by detailing their design approach, which frames goals within hypotheses and research questions, allowing for optimizing implementation based on student outcomes and ongoing data collection. The authors then share a comprehensive model through five primary functional lenses: (1) generating diverse applied learning opportunities, (2) incentivizing, (3) facilitating and (4) assessing student engagement, and (5) leveraging related impacts. Although still in its infancy, the model suggests that these functionalities are individually important and collectively sufficient to activate the promise of high-impact experiential learning as a driver for student and community impact along with key institutional priorities.

School and Teacher Partnerships at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art

This chapter examines educational programming at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art. The educational value of single and multi-visit field trips is discussed. The author shares how the Brooks structures its STEAM field trip and provides instructions for an art making activity. The community impact of the Mid-South Scholastic Art awards is explained. Consideration is given to the importance of designing museum programming aligned to state curriculum standards. Examples of teacher workshops are provided. Best practices for successfully welcoming school groups to the museum environment are also shared.

Community vibrancy and its relationship with safety in Philadelphia

To what extent can the strength of a local urban community impact neighborhood safety? We construct measures of community vibrancy based on a unique dataset of block party permit approvals from the City of Philadelphia. Our first measure captures the overall volume of block party events in a neighborhood whereas our second measure captures differences in the type (regular versus spontaneous) of block party activities. We use both regression modeling and propensity score matching to control for the economic, demographic and land use characteristics of the surrounding neighborhood when examining the relationship between crime and our two measures of community vibrancy. We conduct our analysis on aggregate levels of crime and community vibrancy from 2006 to 2015 as well as the trends in community vibrancy and crime over this time period. We find that neighborhoods with a higher number of block parties have a significantly higher crime rate, while those holding a greater proportion of spontaneous block party events have a significantly lower crime rate. We also find that neighborhoods which have an increase in the proportion of spontaneous block parties over time are significantly more likely to have a decreasing trend in total crime incidence over that same time period.

Impact of Focused Deterrence on Lived Experiences With Gangs and Gun Violence: Extending Effects Beyond Officially Recorded Crime

The study evaluates a geographically based focused deterrence (FD) intervention, extending knowledge about FD impact beyond crime data to also examine residents’ lived experiences with gangs and gun violence via a two-wave household survey. We employ a quasi-experimental design and utilize time-series analyses, coefficient difference tests, and mixed-effects ordinal logistic regression. The results show a significant reduction in shots fired incidents in the target area relative to comparison areas. Shots fired calls for service trended downward citywide, but the magnitude was doubled in the target area. Survey data showed substantive declines in the target area on all six gang and gun violence outcomes, significantly exceeding changes experienced in comparison areas. We conclude that focusing geographically as well as on repeat offenders is an effective FD approach, and evaluating community surveys provides an improved understanding of the community impact.

New Perspectives on the Community Impact of Rural Education Deserts

Understanding how the lack of higher education opportunities due to geographic distance affects perceptions of communities and education is essential in creating sustainable education systems in rural areas. More specifically, this research examines how geographic distance and the absence of institutes, sometimes called an education desert, affect perceptions of community and the perceived value of education. We used data from the 2017 Rural Utah Community Study (RUCS) of residents living in twenty-five rural communities, with a sample size of 1286, and found that the proximity to different types of higher education, four- and two-year institutions, can significantly influence community well-being and the perceived value of education.

Defining Rigor in Justice-Oriented EdD Programs: Preparing Leaders to Disrupt and Transform Schools

Faculty in practitioner-oriented EdD programs must continually defend the presence of rigor in their programs. The existence of rigor determines the preparedness of our educational leaders to disrupt and transform educational organizations to bring about equitable and socially just outcomes; however, perceptions of rigor by the larger community impact the overall success of these programs and their students. In this conceptual article, we discuss the ways in which the literature defines rigor within and beyond practitioner-oriented EdD programs. We integrate that the literature with the critical need for social justice leadership, and leadership preparation toward that end, to offer a conceptual framework for designing, assessing, improving, communicating, and defending the rigor of EdD programs centered upon social justice. We posit: EdD programs can claim to be rigorous and centered upon social justice if their faculty: (1) collectively envision and construct rigorous student learning outcomes (rigor as a challenge) connected to the learning of critical theory and the demonstration of critical praxis to improve the lives of marginalized/underserved students; and (2) use backward-design to develop and align curriculum and pedagogy with those outcomes, including scholarly learning experiences (rigor in research) and the elicitation of students’ critical thinking (rigor as complexity).