IHE | Publications | Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement

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Motivating University Faculty Participation in the Training and Professional Development of P-12 Teachers

(hide abstract) This article reviews and discusses certain ideas and initiatives found in the scholarship on faculty motivation, roles, and service and outreach involvement. It is intended as a resource for formulating practical applications for use in encouraging broad faculty participation in the Partnership for Reform in Science and Mathematics (PRISM), a project that calls for multi-level collaboration among P-12 teachers and higher education faculty to develop innovative approaches to science and mathematics education. Because of the importance of improving teacher education in these fields, motivating higher education faculty involvement is key for the project’s success. This process is informed by competing interests, formidable barriers, and complicated approaches. The literature also suggests that a common commitment to the institutional mission, a workable understanding of different kinds of motivation, and a purpose-driven cooperation at all levels of administration and faculty can produce successful outcomes.

Build a Human Project: Improving Attitude and Increasing Anatomy Content Knowledge and Skills for Middle-Level Students

(hide abstract) For four years middle-level students and science teachers have participated in a two-week summer workshop outreach project collaboratively designed and implemented by School of Medicine and Department of Education faculty. The project’s goals included improving the attitude of student participants toward the study of science; increasing participants’ knowledge of the structure, function, and care of the human organism through inquiry-based hands-on exploration; and developing participants’ process skills through hands-on activities. Formative and summative assessment of the program’s effectiveness in reaching its goals included quantitative and qualitative strategies. Student attitudes remained high, and even improved significantly during two of the years. Content knowledge was assessed through a K-W-L chart, a multiple choice pre- and posttest, and student feedback forms. Authentic assessment techniques were used to evaluate development of process skills. The triangulated results develop a rich picture of success in meeting project goals.

Service-Learning and Intentionality: Creating and Assessing Cognitive Affective Learning Connections

(hide abstract) This article outlines the design of a new service-learning component central to a graduate course on teaching elementary and middle school writing. The service-learning involves course participants acting as mentors to middle school students as they write personal histories of local African American, Cape Verdean, and Puerto Rican senior citizens. The course instructor’s plan for assessment focuses on cognitive affective learning. Using Krathwohl’s Affective Domain, the instructor has created reflective assignments that address the original cognitive goals of the course with new affective goals. Course participants complete a constructive action portfolio, which is a collection of focused and reflective pieces about their experiences and roles as mentors.

Integrating Community-Based Participatory Research into the Curriculum

(hide abstract) Faculty and students often express an interest in undertaking applied research that has a direct and positive impact on the community. This article focuses on the utilization and integration of a particular form of applied research, community-based participatory research (CBPR), as part of the curriculum. CBPR is a collaborative research process in which the researcher and members of community organizations work together in defining and conducting research topics in order to produce research that results in social change. An important benefit of CBPR is that it enables academic programs to strengthen linkages with organizations in the community by involving members of academia and the community in research efforts that are valuable to both community organizations and researchers. This article defines CBPR, presents methods for integrating CBPR into the curriculum, and discusses issues involving the evaluation of CBPR as a form of faculty scholarship.

Deconstructing the Methods and Synergies in Problem-Based Learning, Community-Based Project-Organized Education: Perspectives at the University of Venda, South Africa

(hide abstract) This case study discusses the deconstructions and synergies of problem-based learning (PBL) and community-based project-organized education. The growing literature on these methods lacks in coverage of their synergies and their applicability to meaningful projects with communities as partners. Community-based learning is inherently problem based and provides a natural environment to introduce problem-based learning, but problem-based learning is not inherently community-based. A project-organized curriculum is not necessarily community based or problem oriented. Its application in community problem-based models therefore requires clear articulation. Scholars wishing to use both approaches are faced with the challenge of revisiting the connections from time to time, given the evolving and changing contextual nature of community issues, problems, and needs. This article discusses theoretical underpinnings, context, applications, and experiences in using these methods at the Department of Nursing Sciences at the University of Venda in South Africa.

Barriers to the Inclusion of Indigenous Knowledge Concepts in Teaching, Research, and Outreach

(hide abstract) This study was performed to develop and test a theoretical model of the barriers and supports experienced by employees at a major land-grant university that affect their likelihood of incorporating place-based or indigenous knowledge (IK) into their teaching, research, and/or outreach activities. To test this model, we conducted a statewide survey of Penn State faculty at twenty-four campuses and Penn State extension educators from the sixty-seven counties in the commonwealth. The findings from this study suggest that educators’ use of IK-related knowledge could be defined as “segmental,” as opposed to reflecting a commitment to the intrinsic value of such knowledge. The educators’ use of such knowledge was related to academic rank, geographic location of the individual’s worksite, peer support received, and the technical or nontechnical nature of the individual’s academic discipline.

University-Industry Partnerships: A Study of How Top American Research Universities Establish and Maintain Successful Partnerships

(hide abstract) This qualitative research study utilized the grounded theory tradition to examine organizational structures and processes in a purposefully selected sample of American universities that have established and maintained partnerships with industry. Institutional leaders from the corporate relations offices from fifteen of the top research universities in America were interviewed. Through a paradigm model we identified two major themes: (1) research universities that established and maintained partnerships with industry had a central corporate relations organization whose primary responsibility was to locate, secure, and maintain such partnerships and (2) these universities tended to utilize formal and regular communication mechanisms between the central corporate relations organization and other institutional units that interacted with industry. A set of conditional propositions were developed regarding the organizational structures and processes supporting the establishment and maintenance of partnerships with industry.

A New Funding Model for Extension

(hide abstract) The traditional funding model of the Cooperative Extension System has been stretched to its limits by increasing demand for information and programs without concurrent increases in funding by the public sector. As the social, economic, and political environments have evolved and become more complex, extension is often asked to apply the expertise gained in public programming to private situations that may be very specific in their scope and resulting benefits. When the economic benefits of extension efforts accrue only to a small, easily defined population with the ability to pay, extension needs to recover part or all of the costs of providing these services. Iowa State University Extension has pioneered a funding model predicated on a set of principles and strategies designed to consistently recover costs incurred by responding to private good requests, while continuing to provide unrestricted access to high-quality public good programs and services.

9th annual Community-Campus Partnerships for Health Conference

Engaging a University in Self-Assessment and Strategic Planning to Build Partnership Capacity: The UCSF Experience

(hide abstract) In an effort to better fulfill its public service mission, the University of California, San Francisco, has undertaken an intensive assessment and strategic planning process to build institutional capacity for civic engagement and community partnership. The first stage was a qualitative assessment focused primarily on three local communities, followed by a grassroots collaborative planning process resulting in the creation of a department-based Community Partnership Resource Center. The second stage was a campuswide self-assessment by the UCSF Executive Vice Chancellor’s Task Force on Community Partnerships. This quantitative data collection about current UCSF partnerships and examination of national best practices resulted in recommendations for institutional action. The third stage was the creation of the University Community Partnership Program, which will ultimately serve the needs of the entire UCSF campus as well as all surrounding communities. This article describes the self-assessment and strategic planning process, challenges encountered, and lessons learned.

How to Avoid Stumbling While “Walking the Talk”: Supporting the Promise of Authentic Partnerships

(hide abstract) This article discusses challenges faced by research centers engaging in community partnerships, as well as potential solutions. While many challenges in community-campus partnerships involve the engagement of community and the characteristics of the partnership, some university structures and policies can impede the collaboration even given a strong partnership. The lessons shared highlight potential pitfalls that need to be addressed as well as possible solutions that can support the campus in developing authentic collaboration.

The Community Impact Statement: A Prenuptial Agreement for Community-Campus Partnerships

(hide abstract) The Phillips Neighborhood Healthy Housing Collaborative learned valuable lessons through its work on two community-based participatory research projects in which it established a principled model of shared power and identifiable, mutual community-university benefits. A community impact statement (CIS) has evolved from this work. Like an environmental impact statement for a real estate development or a prenuptial agreement between two marriage partners with a large amount of resources to learn to share, an agreement must be developed before the work of the community-university partnership can begin. However, as in an EIS and the prenuptial agreement, the strength and the success of the partnership is dependent not only on the partners involved, their relationship, and the reasons for their union, but on the process by which the relationship and its benefits or assets are clearly defined. The CIS provides that process for community-university partnerships.

Community-University Research Partnerships: Devising a Model for Ethical Engagement

(hide abstract) Profound changes taking place in communities and in universities are bringing researchers and community members new opportunities for joint research endeavors and new problems that must be resolved. In such partnerships, questions about shared decision making—about the ethics of collaboration—arise at every stage: Who decides which problems are worthy of study? Who decides how the research will be conducted? Who owns the data once they are collected? This article summarizes a research cycle model that integrates these disparate issues within a larger framework that ties them to steps in the research process. Rather than prescribing a predetermined set of answers, this model encourages researchers and community members to cooperatively construct solutions appropriate to specific contexts and situations. It can be used to build sustainable research partnerships that generate multiple investigations and a variety of applications benefiting both campus and community.

JOURNAL OF HIGHER EDUCATION OUTREACH AND ENGAGEMENT

Abstracts

Volume 11, Issue 2