Creative Solutions for Today's Students

This chapter will explore the connection between diversifying health profession student demographics, diversifying challenges these students face, and the new obstacles presented by shifting curriculum delivery to remote and hybrid learning during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. The chapter will explore challenges that may seem especially difficult to address in a remote learning model: the desire to develop community among fellow learners when in a hybrid or fully remote program and when learners are from varied backgrounds; cultivating in students coping mechanisms to manage anxiety from the economic uncertainty of today's world, balancing commitments between educational pursuits and other responsibilities (e.g., child or parent care, etc.); and facilitating learning for students with physical and/or mental disabilities or chronic medical conditions.

Diversity, Growth, and Understanding: School Responses to Immigration in Rural New Brunswick

The province of New Brunswick is growing its population through immigration and retention strategies of newcomers to grow and stabilize its economy. Many communities, traditionally unaccustomed to such growth, are now experiencing a rapid shift in their ethnocultural populations. This report is based on a case study research conducted in three rural New Brunswick schools in three closely connected communities. Each school is confronting their own issues with the shift in their student demographics, but all share common strengths and challenges. The researchers identified four main intersecting themes, each connected to a sub-theme. They found that: 1). Newcomer students are striving hard to learn and live in an English culture; 2). Newcomer students are working to belong in their school through finding Canadian-born friends and allies; 3). Educators and newcomer students are mindful that deficit thinking hinders language and verbal communication; and 4). Stereotypical perceptions about new immigrants taking jobs away from New Brunswickers are pervasive and consistent in the schools and communities that were studied. As more newcomers arrive in the province, the researchers advocate that educators and school leaders need more knowledge and support for working with newcomer students and families. Further, deeper conversations about stereotyping and racism will need to occur to effectively eradicate the negative perceptions about immigrants and immigration in the province.

Obstacles as Building Blocks

Although individuals generally do not wish to be expected to do good work with bad tools, there are some activities for which there are advantages to having to face certain types of obstacles. One of these is mental processing, an important facet of cognitive psychology. This study extends the work of cognitive psychologists by introducing font disfluency, or the use of difficult-to-read font or typeface, to the exam-taking phase of economics principles courses. Difference-in-means tests indicate that students completing exams that were formatted in the difficult-to-read font scored as many as 9.6 points higher than their counterparts who completed exams formatted in the traditional font. On the other hand, regression analysis controlling for student demographics and human capital failed to produce a statistically significant result. The authors believe, however, that this result is likely due to the omission of student effort in the regression specification. As such, further research on the impact of font disfluency on exam performance is clearly warranted.

How Do Parents Evaluate and Select Schools? Evidence From a Survey Experiment

As parents are increasingly given flexibility to enroll their children in a school of their choice, understanding parents’ preferences for school qualities is essential. Using a randomized survey experiment, this study adds to the existing literature by assessing parents’ preferences in a controlled environment, where they can be isolated from information asymmetries and constraints. Results suggest that achievement matters to parents but status matters more when evaluating quality and growth matters more when choosing between schools. Additionally, student demographics affect both parents’ perception of school quality and their likelihood of selecting into a school. This article has important implications for the theory and practice of accountability as it offers new insights on parents’ latent preferences for school qualities.

Educational Data Mining, Student Academic Performance Prediction, Prediction Methods, Algorithms and Tools: An Overview of Reviews

This overview study set out to compare and synthesise the findings of review studies conducted on predicting student academic performance (SAP) in higher education using educational data mining (EDM) methods, EDM algorithms and EDM tools from 2013 to June 2020. It conducted multiple searches for suitable and relevant peer-reviewed articles on two online search engines, on nine online databases, and on two online academic social networks. It, then, selected 26 eligible articles from 2,050 articles. Some of the findings of this overview study are worth mentioning. First, only 2 studies explicitly stated their precise sample sizes with maths and science as the two most mentioned subject areas. Second, 16 review studies had purposes related to either EDM techniques, EDM methods, EDM models, or EDM algorithms employed to predict SAP and student success in the higher education sector. Third, there are six commonly used typologies of input variables reported by 26 review studies, of which student demographics was the most commonly utilised variable for predicting SAP. Fourth and last, seven common EDM algorithms employed for predicting SAP were identified, of which Decision Tree emerged both as the most used algorithm and as the algorithm with the highest prediction accuracy rate for predicting SAP.

Front End to Back End: Teacher Preparation, Workforce Entry, and Attrition

We use a database of over 15,000 teacher candidates from 15 teacher education programs in Washington state to investigate the connections between specific teacher preparation experiences and the likelihood that these candidates enter and stay in the state’s public teaching workforce. As has been found in prior research, candidates with endorsements in hard-to-staff subjects like math and special education are more likely to enter the public teaching workforce than other candidates. We also find large differences in hiring rates over time, as candidates who graduated in the years prior to and during the Great Recession are far less likely to be hired than candidates in recent years. Finally, teacher candidates hired into the same school type (elementary, middle, or high school) or into schools and classrooms with similar student demographics as their student teaching placement are more likely to stay in the teaching workforce than candidates who experience less alignment.

“We Have All the Data in One Place”: Examining Principals’ Use of a Data Warehouse During an Academic School Year

In this article, I describe how principals accessed teacher and student data on a centralized data warehouse (DWH) during an academic school year. I found that principals did not use the DWH very often during the year. When logged on, principals most often looked at reports on student achievement, teachers’ performance, or student demographics. Principals’ use also seemed to be influenced by the school calendar and the release of student and teacher data, along with personal and organizational characteristics.

Preparing Nurse Educators: The Current Landscape

There is an urgent need to address the nursing faculty shortage and evaluate current enrollment in nurse educator programs across the country. In this article, we describe a nationwide review of graduate nursing programs focusing on the nursing education shortage; program, faculty, and student demographics; methodological approaches; concentrations, content and practice areas; and future directions for graduate program development.