In "America's Hidden Economic Engines," editors Robert B. Schwartz and Rachel Lipson spotlight community and technical colleges as institutions uniquely equipped to foster more equitable economic growth across America's regions. As Schwartz and Lipson show, these colleges are the best-placed institutions to reverse the decades-long rise…

This article is my personal and decidedly unapologetic Black meditation on and against the threshold concepts the Department of Teaching, Curriculum, and Educational Inquiry, where I formerly taught has embraced as a means of addressing issues of social justice. Threshold concepts are a set of guide posts to enact change. Drawing on Black critical…

Objective: We describe and analyze case investigation and contact tracing (CICT) efforts across Ohio's public universities in response to COVID-19 to distill challenges and lessons learned and suggest future opportunities for universities to mobilize in the face of emergent public health crises. Participants: Faculty, staff, and graduate students…

This study uses the concept of gamification to engage first-year students in the act of summary writing. The researcher argues that writing instructors should consider ways to gamify concepts in their curriculum to bring novelty and active involvement to course materials. The researcher uses Robson et al.'s (2015) mechanics, dynamics, and emotions…

The objective of this study was to test the effect of far-field industrial (i.e., man-made) versus biological analogies on creativity of business professionals from two organizations engaged in the idea generation phase of new product development. Psychological effects, as reflected in language use, were measured via computerized text analysis of…

State policy plays a critical role in determining whether and how well local education improvement strategies can be implemented. As states rework their education policies under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), state and local leaders need a way to assess their current policy environment and identify the changes needed to encourage local…

Textbooks are major organizers of Arabic language instruction in most Arab countries (Faour, 2012). Textbooks approved by ministries of education have traditionally guided teaching of content knowledge, skills, and values to be taught at each grade level (Faour, 2012; Sabella, 2014; Taha-Thomure, 2008). This research is a foundation study into the…

The purpose of the study was to examine the differences among significant changes in the practice of individual teachers. Seventeen US teachers were interviewed about the most successful change in their teaching career. The differences in teacher change were based primarily on the source and impact of the change. The sources of change were divided…

Urban universities are uniquely positioned to make powerful and lasting contributions to the grand challenge of food security. To better understand the various dimensions related to the university's role in food systems, this case study explores intentional linkages, significant developments, natural tensions, and emerging impacts at the Ohio…

Living-learning communities combine curricular, co-curricular, and residential components of college life. They are a relatively new variation on the residential education that has been part of the undergraduate experience at America's independent colleges and universities for centuries. Research suggests that living-learning communities have a…

This report describes how Ohio's two-year colleges are approaching guided pathways reforms, based on on-site interviews with faculty, administrators, staff, and students at six selected community colleges and telephone interviews with representatives from all 23 Ohio community colleges. In these interviews participants were asked to describe their…

The National Math + Science Initiative (NMSI) is a nonprofit organization committed to improving educational outcomes that traces its roots back to the early 1990s. NMSI's College Readiness Program (CRP) is a long-standing program with the goal of promoting STEM education in high schools to improve students' preparation for college. The three-year…

While multiple valid measures exist for assessing outcomes of environmental education (EE) programs, the field lacks a comprehensive and logistically feasible common instrument that can apply across diverse programs. We describe a participatory effort for identifying and developing crosscutting outcomes for Environmental Education in the…

The number of freshmen interested in entrepreneurship has grown dramatically in the last few years. In response, many universities have created entrepreneurship programs, including ones focused on engineering entrepreneurship. In this paper, we report on NEWPATH, an innovative NSF-supported program at Ohio State, designed to nurture students to…

During the most recent decade, interdisciplinary instruction at the undergraduate level has increased rapidly. Independent colleges and universities are both innovators in developing new approaches to interdisciplinary education and strong supporters of traditional liberal arts disciplines. Some observers argue that interdisciplinary approaches…