Browsing by Author "Biscotte, Stephen Michael"

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    Exploring Aesthetic Experiences in the Undergraduate General Education Science Classroom
    Biscotte, Stephen Michael (Virginia Tech, 2016-11-08)
    Citizens must have a minimal level of STEM-literacy to work alongside scientists to tackle both current and future global challenges. How can general education, the one piece of the undergraduate experience every student completes, contribute to this development? And science learning is dependent on having transformative aesthetic experiences in the science classroom. These memorable experiences involve powerful connection between students and the world around them. If these types of experiences are necessary for science learning and growth, are students in introductory science courses having them? If so, what relationship might they have with students' desires to pursue further science study? This dissertation explores these questions through two manuscripts. The first, a theoretical piece published in the Journal of General Education in 2015, argues that non-STEM students must have transformative aesthetic experiences in their undergraduate general education science course to develop the level of understanding needed to engage with challenging scientific issues in the future. This claim is substantiated by bringing together the work of Dewey and Deweyan scholars on the nature and impact of aesthetic experiences in science and science education with the general education reform efforts and desired outcomes for an informed and engaged citizenry. The second manuscript, an empirical piece, explores the lived experience of non-STEM students in an introductory geosciences course. A phenomenological research methodology is deployed to capture the 'essence' of the lived experience of a STEM-philic student in general education science. In addition, Uhrmacher's CRISPA framework is used to analyze the participants' most memorable course moments for the presence or absence of aesthetic experiences. In explication of the data, it shows that students are in fact having aesthetic experiences (or connecting to prior aesthetic experiences) and these experiences are related to their desires to pursue further STEM study.
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    Going Beyond the Outcome Assessment Minimum: Toward a Framework to Assess Students' Integrative Learning in a University General Education Program
    Li, Mengyun (Virginia Tech, 2023-01-17)
    Prior research has demonstrated the efficacy of general education coursework among American college students (Ball, 2012; Rosenzweig, 2009). Traditional models of general education programs are predicated on the understanding that exposure to a broad set of educational experiences creates well-rounded graduates (Roche, 2010). However, emerging research shows the importance of integrative learning experiences including general education programs (Lowenstein, 2015). These programs are just now at the initial stages of development and implementation at colleges and universities making it possible to study direct effects on student learning. What remains, however, is limited ways to measure such learning in emerging programs. One large, research university in a mid-Atlantic state provides opportunity to construct a measure of integrated learning. This study addressed the salient literature on general education in higher education today and then used quantitative methods and qualitative methods to investigate an empirically based measure of integrative learning. Findings revealed the continuous process of integrative learning from disciplinary knowledge to application to real world and established an initial framework for assessing students learning outcomes of integration. Finally, the research provided implications for researchers and practitioners to utilize the instrument and extend it to a wider range of students and academic programs.