Teaching in the 21st Century...

“We have a responsibility to ensure that every individual has the opportunity to receive a high-quality education, from prekindergarten to elementary and secondary, to special education, to technical and higher education and beyond.”
- Jim Jeffords

Students are becoming more unplugged to the traditional lecture and classroom climate, so instructional strategies are becoming more fluid and learner-centered, connecting innovated methods to link students with learning and establishing ownership over their learning. Instructional strategies are evolving from internal to external, not delaying or permitting educational and technical trends to dictate change.

Being an instructor isn’t solely about being a wonderful educator or presenting great, effective teaching and learning strategies that directs students to their mastery level. It encompasses the ability to be a change agent and visionary in advancing and progressing the future of higher education as lustrous as the past and in doing so, remaining abreast of hot topics, technical and educational trends in teaching as well as in students' cognitive development, being an advocate, being available, supportive, and innovated for students in reevaluating and reinventing instructional strategies that aligns or supports the new-age of learners.

Teaching and learning is rapidly evolving, so embrace the power of transformation (i.e. open access, MOOC’s, disruptive technology, social media, competency based learning, and etc.). The emergence of technical trends, educational environments, and teaching strategies is leveraging these developments to make the most of students’ learning experience and decisions.

The future in maintaining the balance of non-traditional and traditional learning is adapting to innovated or contemporary pedagogical approaches while retaining the foundation of traditional methods.

Reshape Student’s Idea of the Process of Learning | Instructor-Student Role Reversal

"Teaching is not a lost art, but the regard for it is a lost tradition." - Jacques Brown

Tradition is meant to evolve, not necessarily remove. Contrary to traditional educational practices, wherein the power is instructor-centered requires a transformational effect on former traditional educational practices of learning itself, the instructors’ role, and on the learner’s disposition towards learning. Taking a step-back from traditional lecture to a non-traditional, informal view of learning; problem-based learning beings with establishing a foundation that is authentic and meaningful within the learning community, so that students realize they have the greater responsibility for their own learning. Utilizing problem-based learning approaches requires a transition from the traditional model of learning, so "relearning" and "revaluing" the learning process is vital before reshaping a student's perception of their learning process.

I believe this form of learning provides students with creative, flexible, and imaginary licenses as it pertains to their discipline or subject to engage in activities or work that encourages a greater depth of reasoning, critical thinking, and creativity, which is optimal to learning. The process is semi-sructured, but still provides learners with an abundance of opportunities to be engaged, interact, self-monitor, increase self-efficacy, and autonomy in their learning. This learning environment creates depth learning in which entails creativity and non-traditional instructional strategies to impact and influence approaches to cognitive responses, social development, communication skills and potential opportunities that learners can not only transfer applied knowledge to real situations, but produce and construct their own knowledge in novel environments, so learning goes beyond the book and the learning community. Learners are empowered, so the power differential becomes almost concealed, thus making the student the expert in which creates confidence to take risks, make mistakes, and ask or seek help for clarification.

Learning is through discovery, social interaction, observation, and assistance or guidance, so influencing in-depth learning and engagement in prompting discussion(s) that students will process the information learned, studied or experienced by applying it, evaluating it, or comparing their understanding of it with their peers, which reinforces the peer-to-peer interaction and increases students’ involvement and participation in the course. Problem-based learning is an integral component to learning so that students are more involved and engage in the process of inquiry, investigation, and interpretation in which students are able to embark on these specific inquires and solve or create a resolution to problems or fill in the gaps and apply in actual settings or situations. So, I think re-conceptualizing traditions is a great alternative in finding a balance between tradition and non-traditional learning, so students are able to authentically demonstrate their knowledge utilizing appropriate methods suitable to the circumstances, and develop the confidence and competence to participate in meaningful learning communities or non-academic communities.

Critical Pedagogy: A Community Conversation

"Learning is a process where knowledge is presented to us, then shaped through understanding, discussion and reflection." - Paulo Freire

Learning involves the social construct of knowledge, so guiding students to reason democratically, continually question, and make meaning from a critical analysis of everything they learn, establishes autonomy, self-regulation, purpose, and increases the awareness of students, so that they become branches of learning, rather than objects, of the world. So, this is similar to the old adage, “Be in the world, not of the world”, which relates to dispelling conformity to social norms or patterns of the world, but be transformed by the renewing and empowering of knowledge.

There are a number of racially diverse students that are part of learning communities in which cultural capital is frequently accompanied, and commonly differ from typical norms and world-views, so it’s vital to place the need of the student as primary. Critical reflection aids in placing racially diverse students needs and considerations primary through an analysis of self or critical critique of beliefs and behaviors, so it’s imperative to acknowledge the impact of your worldview and the influence it will reflect on the construction of students’ conception of self and the forming of their beliefs formed into knowledge by discussion.

What resonated most was Paulo indicated that learning isn’t necessarily dichotomous in which it’s amiss to accept one side, because knowledge isn’t restricted to solely reason, content, emotions, or fallacies, but should seek connections between understandings, interactions, and emotions. I really appreciate Paulo’s notion that teaching isn’t about transfer, but the construction of knowledge and possibilities. As educators we are tasked with identifying students’ prior knowledge and creating environments for students to construct new knowledge or add to existing knowledge, so it’s necessary for us to understand our students’ diverse world-views in effort to make their learning more meaningful as well as identify ways they are able to learn, construct, and produce their knowledge.

Learning is a self-governing process to some degree, so we should eliminate some of the reliance on the teacher to prevent authority dependence. The end goal is to empower and establish student’s ownership on their learning, so in effort to do so, a collaborative relationship should be constructed to make learning more meaningful as it applies to their cultural background, experiences, discipline, and world-views. So, this is similar to the old adage used in the advertising world, “In order to know the consumer, we have to be the consumer”, which relates to the teachers becoming learners, and the learners becoming teachers.

Encouraging & Collaborating Learning Differences

“If we begin by choosing to value that both ourselves and our students have a human dignity, then we have a common ground to establish a learning relationship.”

- Dale Knepper, Instructor, Fresno Pacific University

There is a unique voice in each student that represents their own experiences, logic and reasoning, stories, cultural backgrounds, ideas, thoughts, misconceptions, perspectives, abilities, and knowledge, which requires an environment to value, respect, and support their diverse voices while responding to their assorted need(s) and developing their unique skill-sets and moxie that will ultimately lead students to areas of constructing personal meaning to them.

Initiating investigation and exploration begins with The Knowledge Partner (Teacher), establishing a climate that equally values the voice of each student and develop processes for students to establish connections that promote a healthier, holistic learning climate/environment and student achievement. There are shared roles and responsibilities between The Knowledge Partner and the student in building an inclusive environment. The Knowledge Partner is responsible for accommodating the need(s) of each student, promote deep thinking, challenge assumptions or beliefs, assist in reflecting on ideas or thought for further elaboration, provide constructive feedback, and most of all encourage creativity, questioning, and reasoning. 

While The Knowledge Partner is committed to student diversity and appreciating the various learning differences, the ultimate goal is to provide meaningful, authentic activities, assignments, and materials that will aid students in connecting and engaging with the material as well as one another effectively. The Knowledge Partner works collaboratively with each student as well as each student working with one another in constructing/ creating knowledge and providing the necessary resources in to deepening understanding in content area. 

The focus of The Knowledge Partner in an inclusive environment is being aware of your own hidden biases, cultural assumptions, and stereotypes that possibly could influence interactions or interfere with students' learning and providing students with the opportunity to develop their skill-sets, mastery, and depth of content in the specific area of focus. Overall, inclusive pedagogy isn’t solely about race, gender, or cultural backgrounds, but a compilation of everything as a whole to transition from “one-size fits all” approach, to a more “tailored approach” to the unique need(s) and voice of each student.

Making Learning Relevant to Learners

Are schools continuously undervaluing the sense of imagination and creativity while learning? Are students conditioned to think in limited ways?
 

Creativity and imagination is part of human development and the process of learning that is mysterious, surprising, and ambiguous. The process is active in the construction of knowledge through experiences and interactions. With technology rapidly progressing and a new generation developing, traditional teaching has to evolve with the time period and trends as well as learners reimagining learning. I believe creativity and imagination should be encouraged to enable learners to construct their own solution, meaning making or explanation.

Learning isn't about receiving and absorbing information directly from other source(s), but about creativity, embellishment, exploration and connection in constructing knowledge. Presenting a new topic in a situated context that is authentic allows learners to be actively involved in constructing or making sense of the specific topic as it is applicable to the skills or knowledge that would be used in the specific area being introduced. So, imagination and creativity isn't about teaching those concepts, but allowing learners to think, create, and consider new possibilities. 

Imaginative learning allows the ability for learners to construct their dreams and goals as well as develop empathy, critical awareness, self-confidence, self-regulation, and self-esteem. Goal(s) influence the learner's level of motivation to engage in goal-directed performance, which combined with targeted feedback are crucial to learning and building positive expectancies. Learning by creating/designing permits the ability for reflection, retrieval practices, reinforcement, and retention as well as retrieving knowledge and skills from experiences that are depicted from memory, which is considered an effective tool for learning and retention. Essentially, depth learning entails imagination and creativity in various learning strategies to impact and influence approaches to cognitive responses, social development, communication skills and potential opportunities that learners can transfer applied knowledge in novel environments.

Assessment... Is learning taking place?

There are a number of puzzle pieces to learning, which isn’t solely the assessment instrument, but also academic standards, specific state standards, Common Core ideas, essential questions, and instructional strategies. The common problem in K-12 is that the curriculum does not align with the Standards of Learning (SOLs). Different types of assessment instruments provide information for various decisions, but not every assessment procedure is applicable or serve some types of decisions effectively. Preparation for learning begins with lucid learning objectives, learning goals, and expectations in which is the foundation to assessment and instruction. Assessment and instruction are synchronized with three key concepts, behavior (classroom demeanor), motivation (student effort in application), and learning (student achievement/understanding/performance).

The question posed, is how do we engage on each key concept, while aligning with the SOLs without impeding on creativity, critical thinking, and problem solving? After viewing the Dan Pink video, I realized that engagement begins with self-direction, exploration, reasoning, questioning, and discovery. As Dan Pink shared a narrow focus restricts possibilities, but possibly increasing rigor on assessments will permit teachers the pathway to provide students with different possibilities as well as allowing students to construct their meaning and interpretations in the specific subject area to demonstrate their mastery and autonomy. Currently in some subjects, assessments are narrow to some extent, and mostly offer students multiple choice options, instead of options for students to demonstrate their mastery in the subject area. 

Classroom climate, instruction, coordination, and collaboration alignment provides a basis for valid assessment in understanding the relationship with learner and content. Its a system that works holistically relevant to both individual students (learning decisions) and about groups of students (teaching/instructional decisions). The cliche is "Assessment should not be for the sake of assessing", but to add to the heavily used cliche, looking at the results/reporting to improve upon as well as a reinforcement tool for measuring students understanding. Students’ benefit as well from assessment in making informed decision(s) about their learning in which is contingent upon the teacher integrating feedback into the instructional process that provides students with stages of progress as well as providing students with the skill set in self-assessing their learning. 

Ultimately, being aware of various assessments and how it relates or align with learner performance on those particular assessments is vital as well as taking in consideration state standards and ensuring that learning objectives and student assessments align with selected standards. My personal opinion is that go assessments benefits the learner and the assessor in various ways.

The Yoga of Learning... Mindful Learning

Yoga is a technique that one has to master and practice common or basic poses before transiting into more advanced poses. It's best practice as a yogi to honor where you are in your practice, but know that you can work on perfecting challenging poses. Many yogis who face challenges save their issues for when they are within a group setting, which is their learning community or practicing
one-on-one with a teacher. There are a number of things to remember in practicing yoga like, being open, visualizing, being present, moving mindfully and slowly, breathing,  focusing, and letting go to name a few. When thinking of mindful learning, I think of the yoga of learning. In order to remember common techniques in yoga, you need to have repeated exposure to those techniques and practice, which is much like learning.

Cramming for a yoga class provides no long-term benefit and neither does cramming for a test/exam, the information is only stored for a limited time and fails to produce long-term learning and retention. Yoga isn't an easy technique to master and in order to be an effective learner, one should exercise self-regulation in dismissing external distractions and identifying new methods to increase the level of attention.

Learning isn't meant to be simplistic or easy to some degree, a little struggle is acceptable for the learner, because when the mind has to work, learning embeds better. More effort to retrieve the learning/knowledge when struggle or challenge takes place strengthens learning by that retrieval. When I think of mindful learning, I think of capturing retrieval in which ties the knot for memory and with enough retrieval access, creates pathways/shortcuts into easily accessing that knowledge. Teachers utilize this retrieval practice through assessment, which good assessment involves instant feedback from the retrieval practice effect. So, good assessment should be the core of good informed decision-making and instruction development.  Assessment aid teachers’ classroom decisions as well as provide vital information for those particular decisions.

Learning and memory consist of practice, recall, exposure, elaboration, and sleep, which is necessary to strengthen both memory and cues over an extended time period. The brain connects concepts with prior knowledge, deciphers similarities, and differences when new information is added to existing, which links learning and recall making adaptability. Much like yoga, as we master basic poses, we move to more advanced poses, with learning as we master a specific content area we transition into the next phase, and much like teaching in order to progress students to their mastery, we have to make connections with prior knowledge to construct the foundation to new knowledge.

Learners have a sense of solidarity in their prior knowledge, lack the skills or substance, and teachers have misconceptions that hinder new knowledge being useful. Essentially, knowledge can be organized, either facilitates or impedes learning, but how one organizes the knowledge influences the learning, application and execution, so link them comprehensible. Yoga an learning involves mindful learning in retrieving knowledge and skills from experiences, which are depicted from memory. More effort is applied in the practice of delayed retrieval, which reinforces retention on being able to access those yoga poses or specific content. 

Chill Break, Enjoy :)

The Future of Higher Education

Students are becoming more unplugged to traditional lecture and the university environment, so institutions are identifying more innovated ways to connect students with learning and the university community. Institutions are evolving from internal to external, not delaying or permitting educational and technical trends to dictate change. Institutions are beginning to embrace the power of transformation (i.e. open access, MOOC’s, disruptive technology, social media, flipped classrooms, competency based learning, and etc.). The role of faculty is also changing and being redefined, due to the impact and growth of technology and distant learning platforms. Faculty is needed both online and on campus, so the ability to adapt is vital, and will be an essential component in decision-making as institutions transform.


The emergence of technical trends, educational environments, and teaching strategies, higher education is leveraging these developments to make the most of students’ learning experiences and choices. The future of higher education is leading more to curricula reform offering more multi-disciplinary programs in STEM majors or cross-disciplinary programs, finding balance between non-traditional learning (i.e. MOOC's or distant learning) with traditional learning, investing in technology and apps, recreating space for increased class sizes, and finding unique ways to increase retention and enrollment rates. The future in maintaining the balance of non-traditional and traditional learning is adopting to innovated or contemporary pedagogical approaches while retaining the foundation of traditional methods.

Institutions who adopt and embrace transformation have the opportunity to support learning beyond the classroom and provide a healthy collegiate life experience for students. With the future of higher education evolving rapidly, there is potential to expand or improve learning outcomes and redefining the institution's accountability and responsibility to students and the community. There is no absolute way of knowing the future of higher education or make certain an institutions success in the future, but the objective is to empower students, establish an inclusive environment, and strengthen transfer.

Massive Open Online Course (MOOCs).. Is there a Place in Higher Education for MOOCs?

With wifi so easily accessible on any campus and with cell phones, computers, digital hand-held devices, iPads, iPods, digital notebooks, and etc. at our finger tips it has become second nature to consistently check social media sites, emails, test messages, course management systems, and etc. in which we have become immersed in the digital realm of operational functions throughout the day. 

Technology has a pivotal role in our day-to-day roles, responsibilities, and personal time, so institutions have presented a renewed focus on delivering reasonable access to education, with education being more virtual, which permits the ability for students to personalize their learning in a digital environment. Massive open online courses (MOOCs) evolved traditional systems of online learning in which permitted anyone with a craving to learn, the opportunity to learn or attend a course for free at a distance. Since the introduction of MOOCs, there has been a number of drawbacks from higher education faculty, which involves the scale, the quality, and the dynamic configuration of the place of learning and the value and necessity of social interaction. 

MOOCs pose a possible threat to learning, because some learners who select to partake in MOOCs, may not possess the necessary prior knowledge required, and information may become distorted, which hinders the learning. The quality of MOOCs and the value of higher education cause for some institutions to reconfigure the MOOCs platform to align with their particular course and curricular decisions, which permits the ability to provide value and quality learning without reducing knowledge using the current MOOCs platform. So, various versions of online institutions have been establish, which is fully automated and accredited but open only to enrolled, tuition-paying students or hybrid courses in which is fully automated online as well as in-class. Institutions can learn a great deal from MOOC's strengths and drawbacks to enhance traditional for-credit online courses and even traditional in-class learning environments. I believe MOOCs have a place in higher education, but to some degree requires some need to maintain the quality of learning through a controlled environment.    

Open Access in Higher Education... The Conversation Continues...

The open access advancement have a number of academic professionals reacting indifferent to the development of the platform, especially since research papers are freely available online rather than published in journals that require a healthy subscription fee for readers. This undertaking entails a variety of woes from new academic professionals, due to the "author's fee", which has direct impact on new academic faculty. The cost incurred is substantial to publish a paper as open access, which isn't recouped from grants in many cases, by the institutions where they work, or the funders of their research. 

This poses a question, "Will most academic research outputs be of interest to the general public readership?" It's something to ask yourself as a new academic professional, because if the demand is there, than "author's cost" might not be an issue. With the advancement of open access, provokes much thought on the impact of traditional journals and the possibility of threat to them or yet, extinction. Another potential challenge with open access is cultural barriers. The positive side of open access is the convenience of open dialogue/contribution in the sharing of global knowledge conversations. Open access would also aid assistance in collaboration, knowledge exchange, and increase attention on certain research areas. 

The cost aspect for authors is ambiguous and raises the question, if authors pay a fee to have their research published, how does this impact, affect tenure or promotions in higher education? I think open access is a great way to continue the conversations surrounding specific topics, promoting the emergence of academic publishing startups, and building partnerships for researcher-led projects. Open access is an innovated platform for publishing and disseminating to the masses with reduction or little to no subscription fees for readers, but the issue is being able to bridge the cultural gap between academics, quality, prominence and explicit assessment and distribution, which is fundamental to the structuring of the platform. 

In keeping this in mind in which poses a final question, "How to take the elements in bridging the gap between cultural differences and academics widespread, so that it is recognized by senior academics, administrators, upper administration at institutions, community partnerships, and funders buy-in and minimizing push-back?", which in my opinion the biggest bull to tame.

Social Media in Higher Education

Should social media have a place in higher education?

Social media in higher education promotes a positive platform in encouraging interaction and broadening the appeal of technology and improving conversion back and fourth among students, but also presents adverse effects as well. The adverse effects of utilizing social media in higher education is measuring meaningful relationships and developing rapport that we would foster in reality, and sometimes more casual relationship/rapport are formed through a virtual world, which is difficult to create sustainable virtual learning communities.


The anonymity for students has a positive stance in permitting students the ability to interact anonymously verses a traditional platform (face-to-face) engagement in which sometime students would be less likely to share, but anonymity also presents challenges for faculty. The anonymity afforded in a virtual environment can present an obscured side that might otherwise be concealed in reality. Students may be rude, mean or victimizing to their peers, so monitoring or managing would be required by the faculty member to maintain a positive learning environment.

Overall, social media in higher education has its advantages and disadvantages, so before implementing into the classroom environment, its best to be aware of the growth and relevance of social media as it aligns with the specific content area as well as the manifold options to engage utilizing the platform and possible adverse effects that might require solution(s) in maintaining a healthy, learning environment. Social media is the best of both worlds if implemented effectively.

"Social media is changing the way we communicate and the way we are perceived, both positively and negatively. Every time you post a photo, or update your status, you are contributing to your own digital footprint and personal brand." - Amy Jo Martin

Scholarly Integrity - Office of Research Integrity (ORI) Case | Findings of Research Misconduct

This case involved Dr. Eric J. Smart, which research was conducted and the findings were falsely reported and is considered an act of misconduct in falsifying and/or fabricating data.

Summary of Report:
The report was based on an investigation on Eric J. Smart, Ph.D., a former Professor of Pediatrics and Physiology, Department of Pediatrics and Physiology at University of Kentucky (UK). Eric committed research misconduct by falsifying and/or fabricating images in a NIH grant application, duplicating and altering images, and one RT-PCR image, and falsely submitting an earlier version of the grant application.He was also found guilty for duplicating and altering thirty-three figures included in ten published papers, one submitted manuscript, and two NIH grant applications.

The investigation was initiated by Dr. Smart's former institution,University of Kentucky (UK) and an additional review was conducted by ORI, which found him guilty in misconducting research supported by National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), National Institutes of Health (NIH), grants, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), NIH, and National Center for Research Resources (NCRR), NIH.

Ramifications: 
Dr. Smart entered a Voluntary Exclusion Agreement and voluntarily agreed for a period of seven years, to retract a number of publications, exclude himself from any contracting or subcontracting with any agency of the United States Government and from eligibility or involvement in non-procurement programs of the United States Government, and to relinquish any advisory capacity to PHS including, but not limited to, service on any PHS advisory committee, board, and/or peer review committee, or as a consultant.

Reflection:
Apparently, Dr. Smart was submitting figures and images in the NIH grant applications that was identified as falsified documents. He tried to manipulate the research material in which wasn't an accurate representation of the research on record. The manner Dr. Smart conducted his research was against ethical standards in which discredits him as a researcher as well as his research.In this case I would call him, Dr. Not so Smart and the best policy is to follow those set ethical standards and adhere. When undertaking research, it's our social, professional, and scientific obligation to make sure the information we're releasing to the populace is accurate when making it available to the public in order to contribute to social change, advance existing or establish new body of knowledge, and hopefully add to the greater good.

For more information: Dr. Eric Smart

It's All About The Code of Ethics in Research...

What's ethical and unethical in research? 

Protect your Integrity, Professional Obligation, Scientific Accountability, Scholarly Responsibility, Ethical Responsibility, and Social Responsibility by adhering to ethical behavior with basic principles of human rights at the forefront. 

Medical research as always held a prominent position in the realm of the ethics of research involving human participants, with respect to the development of terminologies, framework, procedures, and institution of federal policies. Educational research in particular has followed this outline with the development of planning, evaluating, and conducting research involving human participants. Research in general comes with a number of imperative elements to consider before conducting as well as presenting a host of ethical requirements and possible challenges to acknowledge beforehand. It's vital to remain authentic to your professional obligation, scientific accountability, and scholarly responsibility when engaging in research.  

In locating an ethics statement within the current discipline, which is Educational Research & Evaluation, American Educational Research Association (AERA) has emplaced a code of ethical standards for an educational researcher's work-related conduct, social and professional responsibility, principals, and values to maintain when conducting research with human participants.  

AERA Professional Ethics

AERA Code of Research Ethics
"The Code of Ethics of the American Educational Research Association was approved by the AERA Council in February 2011.The Code sets forth the ethical principles and standards that govern the professional work of education researchers. The Code of Ethics replaces the Ethical Standards, which were adopted in 1992 and have been only minimally modified since that time. The current Code is intended to provide guidance that informs and is helpful to education researchers in their research, teaching, service, and related professional work. The Code is intended to provide both the principles and the rules to cover professional situations encountered by education researchers. It has as its primary goal the welfare and protection of the individuals and groups with whom education researchers work."

The AERA code of ethics statement is providing educational researchers with ethical standards and principles to value in which are set forth as an enforceable decree for conducting as educational researchist and professional roles. Countless ethical dilemmas and situations occur regularly in educational research as well as ethical requirements to conduct research with human participants (i.g. must meet professional, institutional and federal standards for conducting research with human participants, authorship issues, participant privacy and welfare of participant compromised, just to name a few) and AERA provides a set of ethical standards for an educational researcher to adhere, while committing to a lifelong effort to act ethically and encourage ethical behavior with others as well as ourselves.

Reflection
When I reflect on research in a board sense, code of ethics like AERA, IRB, APA, and NIH training to name a few are emplaced to permit researchers the ability to remain salient in ethical issues, as well as avoid and resolve ethical impasses, while remaining authentic to your ethical obligations and social and professional responsibilities. 

As a researcher, keep in mind, what ethical resources are available should you be presented with an ethical situation? 

"A man without ethics is a wild beast loosed upon this world." - Albert Camus  

Let's Chat... What's Important about a University's Mission Statement?

When I think of a University's mission statement, I think of their identity, their purpose, their principles, their contributions to the community and student learning, their core values, their goals, and their foundation in which these elements provide me with a perception of the university, the culture, and the learning atmosphere. In reviewing a University's mission statement, the primary concern isn't with the operational functions or future growth of the institution, but the focus is more on the authenticity of the statement in conveying the importance of the institution, and the reasons why and what they do is significant. We will review and discuss two mission statements from two diverse universities and determine the similarities and differences, identify key concepts that stood out and decide in what manner the mission statement was effective or ineffective in articulating the message.     

University One:

Name - Old Dominion University
Location - City of Norfolk
Country - United States
Logo:



Mission Statement - Old Dominion University, located in the City of Norfolk in the metropolitan Hampton Roads region of coastal Virginia, is a dynamic public research institution that serves its students and enriches the Commonwealth of Virginia, the nation, and the world through rigorous academic programs, strategic partnerships, and active civic engagement.

Thoughts: Old Dominion University's (ODU) mission statement is concise and immediately indicates who they are (a dynamic public research institution) and whom they serve/what they do (serves students and enriches the Commonwealth of Virginia, the nation and the world). The statement imparts how they serve their students in which are through (rigorous academic programs, strategic partnerships, and active civic engagement). 

The statement intended to convey serval components about the institution, including that it is a research focused institution, is teaching and student-learning centered, and it combines four major functions of the institution, which are learning, teaching, research, and outreach, which creates a holistic environment for collaborative and innovative approach to education and research that stimulates academic and economic growth for the students, internal stakeholders, and the community. Essentially, the statement captured the essence of the institution's core principles in a concise format and implied the purpose of their existence as an institution and establishes a foundation to build upon and maintain.     

University Two:

Name - The George Washington University 
Location - Metropolitan Washington, D.C.
Country - United States
Logo:



 Mission Statement -  The George Washington University, an independent academic institution chartered by the Congress of the United States in 1821, dedicates itself to furthering human well-being. The University values a dynamic, student-focused community stimulated by cultural and intellectual diversity and built upon a foundation of integrity, creativity, and openness to the exploration of new ideas. The George Washington University, centered in the national and international crossroads of Washington, D.C., commits itself to excellence in the creation, dissemination, and application of knowledge. To promote the process of lifelong learning from both global and integrative perspectives, the University provides a stimulating intellectual environment for its diverse students and faculty.

By fostering excellence in teaching, the University offers outstanding learning experiences for full-time and part-time students in undergraduate, graduate, and professional programs in Washington, D.C., the nation, and abroad. As a center for intellectual inquiry and research, the University emphasizes the linkage between basic and applied scholarship, insisting that the practical be grounded in knowledge and theory. The University acts as a catalyst for creativity in the arts, the sciences, and the professions by encouraging interaction among its students, faculty, staff, alumni, and the communities it serves. The George Washington University draws upon the rich array of resources from the National Capital Area to enhance its educational endeavors. In return, the University, through its students, faculty, and staff, and alumni, contributes talent and knowledge to improve the quality of life in metropolitan Washington, D.C.

 Thoughts: The Georgia Washington University's (GWU) mission statement is descriptive and informative in explicating the institution's principles, values, beliefs, and purpose. The statement is prideful in immersing themselves in the community, offering the breadth of education, the aspect that students receive transferability of knowledge, integrated learning, and students receive an enriching learning experience through creativity and innovation. The statement implies a learning environment that is centered on teaching and learning with it's stakeholders in the forefront and providing standards that they accept as honorable, appropriate, and respected.  

In conclusion, these two different mission statements are similar in effectively capturing the essence of their core principles, values, educational goals, and learning standards, but differ in their philosophies navigating and influences directing the academic experience. ODU placed much significance on learning, teaching, research, and outreach, and GWU focused more on the academic aspect and the learning experience in which GWU was more student-learning centered. 

Overall, the mission statement is a vital piece of information in which is the appearance or representation of the institution prior to meeting personally as well as an influential element to prospective students, internal/external stakeholders, and to the community in which they serve. Both mission statements were lucidly communicated and effectively presented the overall environment and culture for their respected institutions, which I hope to join their lustrous teaching and learning community once I complete my doctorate.