A number of tools for assessing incivility and the role it plays in education and health care settings have been translated into multiple languages and are being used internationally. Currently Boise State’s School of Nursing has the highest number of license agreements at the university. That number continues to grow as the word spreads about the value the tools provide.

Nursing faculty members Cindy Clark, Pam Strohfus, Pam Springer and Marcia Belcheir, along with Eric Landrum from the Department of Psychology, have created a number of works, including the Incivility in Nursing Education Survey that measures student and faculty perceptions of incivility in nursing education, the Incivility in Higher Education survey that measures the degree to which administrators, faculty, staff, and students perceive academic incivility to be an issue on college and university campuses, the Organizational Civility Scale that measures the extent to which incivility is perceived to be a problem in a variety of health care and business settings, the Culture and Climate Assessment Survey that measures overall culture and climate of academic organizations, and the Immunization Knowledge Assessment Tool, along with derivatives of some of the work that is now all online.

Boise State has received translations on several of these projects, including Hebrew, Greek, Farsi, Filipino, Mandarin Chinese, Indonesian, Malay, Arabic, French, Ganda and Spanish. Agreements to use the work are now in place at educational institutions in Emek Izrael, Israel; Gorgan, Iran; Angeles City, Philippines; Hangzhou, People’s Republic of China; Harapan, Indonesia; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Amman, Jordan; Quebec, QC, Canada; Kampala, Uganda; Bogota, Ecuador; and TEI of Athens.

“I am impressed with the caliber of the research being conducted by the investigators that has experienced national and international interest,” said Tim Dunnagan, dean of the College of Health Sciences. “The broad audience and notoriety speaks to the quality and relevance of the research team’s work.”

To learn more, visit http://hs.boisestate.edu/nursing.

Cindy Anson, director of faculty development, presented a preconference workshop titled “Facilitation Techniques that Move People and Projects Forward.”

Andy Goodman, associate director of the Center for Teaching and Learning, and Eric Orton, coordinator of instructional design and digital fluency, co-presented “Midterm Assessments for Online/Distance Education Courses.”

Susan Shadle, director of the Center for Teaching and Learning, presented a poster titled “Faculty Learning Communities: Seeking Evidence of Impact,” based on work that has been coauthored with Louis Nadelson, Department of Curriculum, Instruction and Foundational Studies.

Results from the campus Mobile Learning Initiative were presented by Eric Landrum, Department of Psychology, with coauthors Susan Shadle, Center for Teaching and Learning, Douglas Lincoln, Department of Marketing and Finance, and Ross Perkins, Department of Educational Technology. The title of their poster was “Assessing Mobile Learning Strategies:  Meeting Faculty Where They Are.”

A collaborative group of Boise State faculty from psychology and education, as well as math, geosciences and engineering, will help identify which teaching practices best help students understand concepts in the crucial fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).

The group has just received a $300,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to study the use of evidence-based instructional practices in STEM courses. Their results will contribute to the national dialogue on the effective education of STEM professionals and strategies to achieve a more scientifically literate citizenry.

“This is another great example of an interdisciplinary team of Boise State faculty working together to develop research methodologies for understanding how students learn,” said Martin Schimpf, provost and vice president for academic affairs.

The CALIPER Project leverages Boise State’s recently reformed general education curriculum, Foundational Studies, which was rolled out this fall. Faculty will assess the learning outcomes achieved by students in these courses and associate these observed instructional practices with the learning outcomes achieved.

Students’ written assignments and exams will be assessed to evaluate the degree to which they achieve intended learning outcomes, such as “apply quantitative reasoning to draw appropriate conclusions” and “conduct processes of inquiry and analysis in response to evidence.” This process will result in a sustainable assessment system to collect and analyze data to understand the relationship between instructional practices and achieved student learning outcomes.

Sharon McGuire, vice provost for undergraduate studies, will serve as principal investigator for the grant and Susan Shadle, director of the Center for Teaching and Learning, as co-principal investigator. The team also includes Sasha Wang, math; Eric Landrum, psychology; Karen Viskupic, geosciences; Ross Perkins, educational technology; Pat Pyke, STEM Station; Vicki Stieha, Foundational Studies; Janet Callahan, engineering; and Doug Bullock, Office of the Provost.

“The awarding of this grant acknowledges Boise State University’s contributions to STEM education and leadership in empowering students to achieve academic excellence and develop 21st century skills,” McGuire said.

This project is supported by the National Science Foundation under Award No. DUE-1256585.

Listeners can access the website featuring more than 30 expert commentaries at BeyondtheBlue.BoiseState.edu or go directly to Landrum’s presentation. Visitors can download all podcasts and subscribe to receive automatic downloads of new content whenever they open iTunes.

In this podcast, Landrum focuses on the key role that assessment plays in advancing both the quality of an undergraduate education and the preparation of future graduates. The goal of a broad-based liberal arts education is not job training, but a great deal of financial investment and human capital could be wasted if newly minted graduates do not have both the knowledge and skills to be employable.

Landrum is a professor of psychology at Boise State whose research interests center on the educational conditions that best facilitate student success. Landrum received his Ph.D. in cognitive psychology from Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. He has made more than 280 professional presentations at conferences, published 17 books/book chapters, and has authored more than 70 professional articles in scholarly, peer-reviewed journals.

Landrum is the lead author of “The Psychology Major: Career Options and Strategies for Success” (4th ed., 2009), and authored “Undergraduate Writing in Psychology Bachelor’s Degree: Expert Advice for Launching Your Career (2009). He co-authored “The EasyGuide to APA Style” (2011), “You’ve Received Your Doctorate in Psychology — Now What?” (2012) and is the lead editor for “Teaching Ethically — Challenges and Opportunities” (2012).

The Beyond the Blue website has been developed to showcase the expertise and innovative spirit that exists in many fields at Boise State. Known for its unique blue turf and nationally ranked football program, Boise State is demonstrating creativity beyond the blue in faculty podcasts intended to introduce a variety of topics to casual listeners.

New faculty podcasts are being added on a regular basis, including:

• Nicole Molumby, Music, Machines and Meditation
• Jim Stockton and Riley Caldwell-O’Keefe, What is Genius
• Stewart Gardner, The Human Situation
• Rick Moore, Rise of the West
• Stephanie Cox and Jennifer Black, History and Value of Higher Education
• Vicki Stieha and Rebecca Robideaux, Work/Life Equation
• Clay Morgan, The Power of Story
• Peter Mullner, Invention and Discovery
• Tony Roark, New Essentials in Higher Ed
• Juliette Tinker, Truth about Vaccines
• Greg Hill, Immigration
• Sarah Toevs, Aging in America
• Amy Moll, Living in a Materials World
• Jeff Wilhelm, Let Them Read Trash
• Hans-Peter Marshall, Researching Snow
• Nancy Napier, Creativity and Innovation
• Scott Yenor, Marriage and Modern Thought
• Heidi Reeder, Attraction in Male-Female Friendship
• Michelle Sabick, Joint Replacement
• Jonathan Brendefur, Mathematical Minds
• Troy Rohn, Alzheimer’s Disease
• Gary Moncrief, Congressional Redistricting
• Evelyn Johnson, Learning Disabilities
• Will Hughes, DNA Nanotechnology
• John Gardner, Energy Efficiency
• Cheryl Jorcyk, Breast Cancer
• Mitch Wieland, Creative Writing
• Cindy Clark, Civility in Nursing
• John Freemuth, Public Lands
• Greg Hampikian, DNA Forensics
• Shelton Woods, Rise of China
• Jill Gill, Martin Luther King Jr. Day
• Brian Greber, America’s Economic Policy

The website contains bonus video and editorial content about the university, including its growth, research initiatives and student life. A related collection of faculty interviews also is accessible from the Reader’s Corner radio show hosted by Boise State President Bob Kustra on Boise State Public Radio.

“Device Landscape” is available under a Creative Commons Attribution license, (C) 2011 Jeremy Keith

All who teach students at Boise State are invited to participate in an important survey that asks for input about mobile learning devices and strategies. The short questionnaire (which should take between 10-15 minutes to complete) asks for information about access to mobile devices and opinions about mobile strategies for teaching and learning. Access to the web-based survey was sent via email to nearly 1,400 members of the campus instructional community.

Susan Shadle, director of the Center for Teaching and Learning, is part of the Mobile Learning Initiative (MLI) leadership team and one of the survey’s co-authors. She notes, “As we make decisions about future directions for mobile learning at Boise State, we feel that it is critical to get insight from those who teach for Boise State,” said Susan Shadle, director of the Center for Teaching and Learning, part of the Mobile Learning Initiative (MLI) leadership team and one of the survey’s co-authors.

“What kinds of devices do they own themselves? What is their comfort level with them? How do they view various uses of those devices in the service of student learning? These are examples of things we need to know because our decisions should be informed by faculty input. We want to encourage an environment of exploration and innovation, and we can best do this with as much input from the campus community as possible.”The survey defines a “mobile learning strategy” as one that leverages the unique attributes of mobile devices. The strategies can be adopted to deliver course content, facilitate information access and/or analysis, enhance learning opportunities, create a community of scholars, provide feedback to learners and so on. Mobile learning strategies can be used independently of time and place, and can be used both in and outside of place-based classrooms.

An MLI assessment sub-committee developed the survey. Working with Shadle were Doug Lincoln (marketing), Ross Perkins (educational technology) and Eric Landrum (psychology). The study has been approved by the Institutional Review Board (#EX 935-SB12-029). Results will primarily inform the campus community, though some data will be reported to the wider academic community. All reporting will be done so that confidentially and anonymity is maintained.

The Mobile-Learning Initiative at Boise State is a two-year project aimed at providing additional strategies to  support student learning, strengthening communications and collaboration, facilitating faculty innovation and preparing students to become lifelong learners. The leadership team is comprised of Max Davis-Johnson (OIT), Susan Shadle (CTL), Marilyn Moody (Library), and Dale Pike (Academic Technologies). More information about the MLI initiative can be found at mobilelearning.boisestate.edu.

Schedule of Events (Student Union Jordan Ballroom)

• 1:15 p.m., Welcome from Andrew Finstuen, director of the Honors College and Barbara Morgan, distinguished educator in residence

• 1:45 p.m., Showcase of Learning with presentations by professors Eric Landrum on “The Psychology of College Decision Making;” John Gardner on “Engineering a Sustainable Future;” and Henry Charlier on “Catalysis Is Cool”

• 3 p.m., Tours of campus featuring Albertsons Library, University Housing, Honors College and Driscoll Hall, and the Interactive Learning Center

• 5 p.m., Academic reception with the deans and college booths

• 5:45 p.m., Awards banquet with speakers including President Bob Kustra and a special student presentation of “Ignite Boise State”

At the awards banquet, each student will be presented with a certificate for a $1,000-per-year renewable scholarship for up to five years of undergraduate study when they attend Boise State the semester immediately following high school graduation. Honorees also must participate in the April 18 Capital Scholars event to be eligible. Selection was based on college entrance examination scores and class rankings.

The Boise State Capital Scholars program is in its seventh year, with a total of 333 scholarship recipients. Last year, 54 Idaho high school juniors participated. Recipients have come from all parts of the Treasure Valley and the state, including Pocatello, Twin Falls, Lewiston, Garden Valley, Jerome, Idaho Falls, Wilder, Nampa, Caldwell and Post Falls.

Eric Landrum meets with U.S. Sen. Mike Crapo in Washington, D.C.

Psychology professor Eric Landrum received grass roots lobbyist training during the Education Leadership Conference in Washington, D.C., Oct. 4-5, sponsored by the American Psychological Association. The group was lobbying for support of a $4 million appropriation to fully fund the Graduate Psychology Education Program at the Senate level.