Resources

While community colleges have traditionally focused on providing students with opportunities to gain credentials for employment, the increasingly important question is: Are they preparing students for the looming dynamic, disruptive, and entrepreneurial environments ahead? This book addresses the urgent need for community colleges to prioritize entrepreneurship education both to remain relevant in a changing economy and to give graduate students the flexible and interdisciplinary mindsets needed for the future of society. It argues that entrepreneurial education should be offered broadly to a wide range of students, and across all disciplines; defines the key constructs for achieving this objective; and describes how to create entrepreneurial learning environments. The expert contributors, with the support of the National Association for Community College Entrepreneurship (NACCE), start from the premise that community colleges are uniquely positioned to lead entrepreneurial initiatives through both internally-generated curriculum design and through collaboration with the local entrepreneurial community to build bridges between the classroom to the community which in turn can offer models of implementation and constitute a network or support system for students. Community colleges can become incubators of innovation, a magnet for talent, and provide the impetus for development strategies that their communities have not begun to realize. As the chapters make clear, developing an entrepreneurial program itself requires an entrepreneurial mindset that transcends any lack of resources, requiring a spirit of imagination and resourcefulness. This book takes the reader on a journey through the steps needed to build a meaningful, relevant, and sustainable entrepreneurship program, covering program development, curriculum design, appropriate pedagogical approaches, and community engagement. (From the Publisher)

I’ve been interested in the connection between culture and education for most of my adult life. My wife and I spent 8 years in pastoral work in Central Europe, and since 2005 my work with online education has brought me into intercultural spaces that include the intersection of multiple kinds of experiences, such as international, intercultural, and interracial. We in theological higher education must be aware of the ways multiple perspectives both enrich the learning experience as well as complicate the online learning culture. In the last decade I started inquiring about how different cultures experience online education and learning systems. My article, “Global Contexts for Learning” (2014), was an earlier attempt to describe how cultural backgrounds bring different contextual expectations, a matter course designers and online teachers ought to consider for the sake of leveling the opportunities for intercultural learning spaces. More recently my dissertation journey explored race and faith-based higher education and brought me into meaningful conversations with African American adult learners in non-traditional programs in predominantly white institutions (see Westbrook 2017, published by Routledge). These conversations exposed my own white blindness and helped me see with more focus the ways experiences of racialization affect one’s perspective, including in online education courses. I write this blog from a white perspective, and to be totally honest, this post probably is best suited for white readers. In other words, people who live with race consciousness day after day might not find this essay particularly unusual or insightful. However, those, like myself, who have lived most of life from the white position in predominantly white settings need to be informed of the extra layer of challenges racialization adds to online learning. “The Wall” of Anonymity Two broad themes surface when we consider online learning spaces and race. First, the nature of one’s working through a screen and often written-based exercises presents an “impression of anonymity” (Al-Harthi, 2005, p. 7). One of my interviewees described the online learning environment as “the wall” (Westbrook, 2017, p. 118) that protects students from racially motivated prejudices. Ibarra (2000, p. 7) cited an interviewee in which the person said, “No one can hear my accent on the keyboard.” When a person is interacting in an online course from her or his own context, the student is approaching the learning activities from a comfortable and personally selected environment. Stereotype threat may be minimalized from one computer screen to another. For many, macro-aggressions are recent experiences and the effects of segregation laws from the Jim Crow South have lingered. Some students may welcome an added layer of protection from racial discrimination. “The Wall” of Separation The second major theme is that in spite of the “wall” effect of online learning, each person brings to the classroom previous experiences of racialization, including micro-aggressions in previous schooling, the work place, and in society at large. In addition, each student also has one’s own learning style, preferred communication style, and cultural filter through which one interprets the course. What might be “normal” for some could be intimidating for others, and if the course is based in writing, then social cues and non-verbal regulators are missing, which leaves room for the imagination to infer both positive and negative presumptions about others in the course. For example, one of my interviewees said the following about her online course activities, “But I could also tell when there was a Caucasian writing . . . . Because sometimes they can get too lengthy” (Westbrook, 2017, p. 118). According to this student, she felt like her classmates’ writing styles were obviously white and different from how she would have communicated. Another example was how one interviewee presumed white privilege of her classmates because of their personal introductions in the course (Westbrook, 2017, p. 119). Now, imagine this race awareness by the students who have a background of being followed in department stores, who have had car doors locked while they were passing by, and purses held tighter when they enter elevators, all white responses to the color of the students’ skin. Such examples were given my interviewees. Then, enter back into the online discussion. What impact do these previous experiences of not being trusted have on students who feel underrepresented in a predominantly white online course? In addition, not all of my interviewees’ experiences in the predominantly white institutions were online. Some described their experiences on the physical campuses. They were quite aware of the majority white demographics in student population, faculty, and staff; and one person reported feeling insecure when she started her program due to matters of race. The point here is that this student was thinking about racial differences as well as the macro- and micro-aggressions from before. It was unlikely her white classmates thought about race at all when they were answering personal introductions or doing their course work. Some of their white classmates might even deny such a difference would exist, adding further pain to the problems. Move Toward eQuality in Online Education Online education learning spaces are not neutral spaces. Each student brings personal memories, expectations, hurts, fears, and stereotypes to the online classroom. Although the computer screen may appear to filter “in the moment” forms of discrimination and provide a safe space for “colorblind” interaction, the online experience is still a form of human interaction. Whatever social challenges people have when face to face also extend into the online domain. Rather than presuming a colorblind or neutral space, online education brings together through digital technology communities that are diverse. As theological educators, whether online or onground, we have a moral imperative to design and offer our students learning spaces that resemble the teachings of Jesus and have a spirit of peace and reconciliation. The image of the mosaic of believers before the throne of God in Revelation 7:9, 10 provides a wonderful depiction of the kingdom of God. Our theological institutions that are designed to prepare people to serve in the kingdom of God ought to hold high this image in Revelation as the standard for the reality and beauty of diversity within God’s people. As we envision the near and distant future of our distance learning, I offer the following thoughts to ponder: Design courses in such a way that maximizes access for working adults and parents. Consider accessibility matters in every possible way that digital technology may open new doors; watch out for the incidental new barriers. Predominantly white schools must continue to make diversification of faculty, staff, and students a priority. Design online courses in such a way that recognizes diversity and encourages multiple perspectives to be shared freely and safely. Adult learning programs must provide academic support and ongoing encouragement for online students, recognizing that systemic barriers have created unequal starting points for many adult learners who are returning to school. Faculty and staff must be trained for race consciousness and cultural diversity. Tim Westbrook Harding University Works Cited Al-Harthi, A. S. (2005). Distance higher education experiences of Arab Gulf students in the United States: A cultural perspective. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 6(3). Ibarra, R. A. (2000). Studying Latinos in a “virtual” university: Reframing diversity and academic culture change (Occasional Paper No. 68). Westbrook, Timothy Paul (2014). Global Contexts for Learning: Exploring the Relationship Between Low-Context Online Learning and High-Context Learners, Christian Higher Education, 13(4), 281-294. Westbrook, Timothy Paul (2017). Spirituality, community and race consciousness in adult higher education. New York: Routledge.

Selecting reading and viewing material for any course can be challenging. Institutional policies may limit instructor’s options to titles adopted by a department or to a program’s contracted curricular materials. Some schools require use of a rental system and/or impose cost parameters. For the online instructor, additional complications arise. The obstacles might be logistical. When students live at a distance from a campus, they may not have the foresight to order books or course-paks in a timely manner or may lack access to library reserves. If a class requires video content, a student might not subscribe to a particular streaming service. But more common concerns relate to format and learning purpose. I want to consider these items and explore the relationship between what we opt to assign and our pedagogical practice. In courses taught fully online, the instructor must decide whether to make all of the class materials available electronically. I find that my students increasingly prefer reading on their devices and appreciate the opportunity to click directly through to an assignment. That reality is getting easier to make happen. Appropriate translations of religious texts are readily available. The ability to download articles and chapters in a pdf from library holdings also offers options. When requiring movies or documentaries, an institutional subscription to a streaming service like Swank permits a single-click viewing experience. Additionally, some publishers, like Point of View ) specialize in 1500-word pieces on specific topics that can be purchased inexpensively in Kindle-ready form. And scholars in the field are producing free content such as The Religious Studies Project’s podcasts  (https://www.religiousstudiesproject.com/podcast/), Andrew Henry’s Religion for Breakfast videos (https://www.youtube.com/user/ReligionForBreakfast/featured), Bible Odyssey (the Society of Biblical Literature’s site for short articles, videos, and other materials focused on critical examination of various subjects related to the Bible and its study; https://www.bibleodyssey.org/) that are usable in a classroom setting But research has demonstrated that students resist clicking on too many different assignment links and frequently lose energy before working through them all. They know that a significant number of short readings or videos can be just as time consuming, and feel just as burdensome, as one longer assignment. Thus, strategizing about what resources to employ and how to get students reading or viewing must always be grounded in what information we want mastered in a class. For example, many of us–online or not–no longer emphasize testing on dates, names, places, and similar specifics once typical of lecture and textbook-based learning, even if the study of a subject may demand familiarity with such details. When one can access factual information with a few, swift keystrokes, asking students to devote significant out-of-class time to reading or viewing, taking notes, assessing what is valuable, memorizing, and then reproducing it all on a quiz feels antiquated. We instead seek to reduce the onerous qualities of learning foundational material and target, in brief, acquiring knowledge of key topics or concepts. In the online environment, how to achieve this requires going beyond simply providing links to assignments. For example, we can construct reading and viewing with embedded “check-ins” that ensure student contact with basic terminology and concepts. Indeed, this practice can be formulated to provide immediate feedback and personalized suggestions of linked resources for a term or an idea a student does not grasp. This practice thereby expands learning (while reading or viewing) by teaching both content and how to identify and seek further clarifications regarding important material. Good design can also move beyond students answering simple feedback questions and toward demonstrating understanding, interpretation, and application. This approach is particularly important with longer readings or viewings (such as novels or movies), as well as with assignments that may be difficult going (reading theory, for instance). Again, technology permits querying students as they work, thus promoting not only completion of reading and viewing assignments in full, but also comprehension via critical immersion in the material that can then be integrated into class discussions, paper writing, or research activities. Without doubt, building these resources requires additional time for the instructor (and can involve the need for some technical expertise depending on the learning management system utilized). Links for more in-depth study also require regular updating. The investment at the front-end, however, can formulate assignments that are a better fit for the online environment given students often work asynchronously in diverse locations and may benefit from guidance not available through regular contact with other students or the instructor in the classroom or on campus. Moving away from familiar learning practices might feel strange to instructors who come to the online world from face-to-face classrooms and may not be digital natives. But there are two important points to ponder. First, we are more and more teaching students who have grown up attached to devices that have shaped their learning habits. We want to capitalize on the potential of what is already in their hands. In fact, figuring out how to maximize the strengths of the available technologies in service of our goals is what every generation of instructors does, even if not quite at the same rapid pace required of us today. Second, we need to be more intentional about cultivating our own pedagogical awareness. Graduate schools focus on producing scholars rather than classroom teachers. As new instructors, we thus often replicate teaching that worked for us until we figure out our own styles along the way. But in navigating today’s changing landscape of higher education, we should seek deliberate matching between where we want to see our students end up and how we develop assignments (reading, viewing, and assessment activities) that get us there. That work starts with the pedagogical choices we make about the content for a course, how students access it, and what we do to help them navigate it.

When the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) emerged, it often concentrated on individual faculty practice in one classroom; it is now, however, increasingly common to find work in SoTL focused more broadly. SoTL studies may engage with a cluster of courses, a program, a particular population of students, a pedagogical approach, or a field—all of which are represented in the essays collected here by authors from a diverse array of institutions and nations. This volume features examples of SoTL research conducted in, and applied to, a variety of contexts and disciplines, offering a theoretical framework for an expanded vision of SoTL—one that moves beyond the individual classroom. (From the Publisher)

Teacher accountability has been a major strategy for “fixing” education for the last 2 decades. In this book, Cochran-Smith and her research team argue that it is time for teacher educators to reclaim accountability by adopting a new approach that features intelligent professional responsibility, challenges the structures and processes that reproduce inequity, and sustains multi-layered collaboration with diverse communities. The authors analyze and critique major accountability initiatives, including Department of Education regulations, CAEP accreditation procedures, NCTQ teacher preparation reviews, and edTPA, and expose the lack of evidence behind these policies, as well as the negative impact they are having on teacher education. However, the book does not conclude that accountability is the wrong direction for the next generation of teacher education. Instead, the authors offer a clear and achievable vision of accountability for teacher education based on a commitment to equity and democracy. (From the Publisher)

Exploring Pedagogic Frailty and Resilience presents the practical application of the frailty model to demonstrate how it may be used to support the professional development of university teachers. Case studies from colleagues representing a diverse variety of disciplines illustrate how the development of a reflective narrative can be initiated and framed through the use of concept map-mediated interviews. The emerging accounts share a common structure to facilitate comparison across academic disciplines. Chapters are written by academic leaders – colleagues who are recognised as excellent teachers within their disciplines and whose voices will be acknowledged as offering authentic commentary on the current state of university teaching. These commentaries offer a unique resource for other academics who may be tempted to reflect on their teaching in a scholarly manner, or to university managers and academic developers who want to explore the detail that lies beneath broad surveys of teaching quality and investigate the factors that can either support the development of teaching or impede its progress. This collection of narratives drawn from a single institution will resonate with the experiences of teachers in higher education more broadly through areas of common interest and regions of generalisability that can be explored to inform professional development of university teachers in other institutional and national contexts. (From the Publisher)

Click Here to Read Part 1 Somewhere along my life’s journey, I learned to play an Australian Aboriginal instrument called the didjeridoo. The didjeridoo is a percussion instrument, said by the Aborigines to be older than the African drum. They use the didjeridoo for meditation, rituals, and rites. A didjeridoo is a long, usually wooden instrument (looks like a rain stick) which is played by blowing into one end. Any didj plays only one note. By manipulating the breath into the didj, the player can shape, prolong, and play-with the one note to create different kinds of sounds. The sounds are often described as basic, primordial, ethereal, and other-worldly. As if the ability to play the didjeridoo is not quirky enough–I can also circular breath. Circular breathing is a technique used by players of wind instruments to produce a continuous tone without interruption. This is accomplished by breathing in through the nose while simultaneously pushing air out though the mouth using air stored in the cheeks. I can circular breath with my dijeridoo. I play my didj for my own meditation. I have, over the years, played two or three times in our seminary chapel services. I have never thought of playing in concert–until March 20, 2019. On March 20th, five-time Grammy award winning, renowned jazz bass player Victor Wooten came to our campus for a day of teaching and to give an evening concert. Wooten, author of the book The Music Lesson: A Spiritual Search for Growth Through Music, is a master teacher. He infused his lessons with wisdom from his mother and stories of how he started to play the bass at age 3, then, by age 5, he and his four older brothers were on tour as the opening band for Curtis Mayfield. Wooten coupled his life stories with his vast knowledge of music theory and his ability to play the bass in innovative ways. He is a creative genius. At some moment during the day, Victor asked me if I played an instrument. I told him that I play the didjeridoo. He said, “Good–you’ll play with me at the concert tonight.” The moment of emphatic invitation was that spontaneous, that casual, and that unexpected. Reflecting now upon that moment, I suspect I routinely do that to students. I hear that they have an ability, a capacity, a talent and I, without hesitation, incorporate that/them into the band that is our classroom. I am accustomed to being the band leader–I was surprised, on this day, to be a member of the band. I had confidence that I could do what Victor asked me to do because I knew I could play my instrument. What I did not anticipate was my own nervousness and stage fright. Near the end of the Wooten concert, I sat in the green room knowing my song was next. I could feel the shallowness of my own breath. I was self-conscious. As I sat, my feet began to cramp. I told myself, “Since I don’t play with my feet, all I have to do is hobble out on stage and sit down, then I can play.” I reached for some water to calm my cramps, but then reasoned that I would need to use the bathroom . . .  I was panicking!  Inside my head was a voice of confusion and terror. I knew enough to make myself take a few deep breaths and that calmed my fear, if only a bit. As Victor ended a song, I left the green room and went to the wings to wait. The panic rose again–this time my feet were not cramping, but instead I could not focus. I felt like I had lost control of my body. I heard Victor call my name and I stepped out on stage–smiling and terrified. I retrieved my didj which had been pre-set on the other side of the piano and took my seat in the band. Mark Miller was on piano, Elias Aponte-Ortega was on cajón and Wooten was on bass. The music started and I realized I could not hear–I was deaf! I began to play my didj but all I could hear was air and not a note from my didj. I grew more panicked. I closed my eyes. With eyes closed I could hear myself playing, but I was not playing well. Then I heard Victor say “yeah.” I looked up and Victor was looking at me, smiling and bouncing his head to the rhythm of the song. When I saw Victor, I relaxed–just a little bit. I reminded myself to keep looking at the band leader. Victor, with bass in hand, walked over closer to me and kept his eyes on me and kept smiling at me. As I played, I grew stronger and more focused. He turned and walked back to the middle of the stage. As we had planned, Victor and the other instruments brought their part of the song come to an end and I, on didj, extended my part so the last sound was the didj. I played solo for several moments then ended. The crowd erupted with praise, applause and wonder. I stood, raised my hands above my head, and basked in the surreal moment of it all–still terrified!  By all reports, no one knew I was terror stricken. I, from the vantage of the audience, had played brilliantly (thank God and thank Wooten!). One week later, I recounted my experience of stage fright and terror to my class who had studied Wooten’s book. My story surprised them. I asked if they had had such experiences. The majority of the students yelled “YES!” then some continued–“here, with you, every week!” One student said she had been in terror since having received her admissions letter (she’s graduating this spring). I told them I knew nervousness and butterflies, but this kind of terror was new to me. They looked at me silently as if to say, “Welcome to our world.”  Another student asked if there was a moment that I calmed down. I thought–and remembered the moment I heard Wooten’s voice. His voice brought me back to myself–just a little. Then, when he walked over to me, I was able to restore a bit of my own confidence. I told the students that when I got in touch with the fact that I had a band leader who knew what he was doing, I could believe in myself in that moment. New experiences make for better, more empathetic teaching. My experience of terror and stage fright, as well as my experience of having had the band leader lead me through the moment has made me more aware of the depth of students’ fears and the power of the band leader, in the midst of that fear, to create a beautiful and innovative song. Instilling confidence in students to move to higher accomplishments and supporting that confidence through the presence of an expectant and knowledgeable teacher is my renewed focus. And, if Wooten ever needs a didjeridoo player in another band–I’m available!