650 RESPOND WITH QUESTIONS
PLEASE READ AND RESPOND TO BOTH POST WITH THE FOLLOWING IN MIND WITH YOUR RESPONSE.
Individually and as a group, reflect on your initial reasons or motivations for moving forward with your research. Inevitably, you wanted change. Change to a process, an approach, an outcome or in leadership. As a group, discuss the following points to ponder as they apply to your research and its potential impacts on your organization:
· Change is possible at any and every level but why hasn’t it already occurred?
· Data can prove the need for change, guide or direct the type of changes to be made and still not be enough to implement change. What’s lacking within the organization?
Beth’s
The Cognitive Impact of Off-Task Smartphone Use in the College Classroom
The topic of off-task (not related to the class/lesson) use among undergraduates in the physical classroom interests me as an area that I would like to change. Or rather, conduct research to see if results indicate that change is necessary, and if data supports that off-task smartphone use compromises students' cognitive processing of information, then change might include visiting policies and guidelines, as well as supplying education and training for instructors.
I am prompted by this topic because, as an instructor and also a classroom observer of the adjuncts in my program, I see students on their phones and laptops, blatantly performing activities unrelated to the lesson. It is a source of frustration for me, but not so much about the etiquette concerns (although that is a valid argument against off-task smartphone use), but rather the impact that the smartphone technology (again, off-task, such as social media, surfing the web, emailing friends, texting friends, etc.) has on students' brains in a learning setting.
I believe that change has occurred in some stages already, but it all depends on the instructor's personal smartphone use policy. As a program director, I meet weekly with department chairs in the Undergraduate College, and smartphone use is a topic that arises on occasion. There are differing opinions on what a sound smartphone use in the classroom policy is: some instructors are firm believers that the best way to deal with the concern is to embrace it, and treat students like "adults"; and some instructors are firm believers that such tolerance enables dependency, distracts from learning, and is an annoyance to students who are directly engaged in the session.
For example, one recent study found that college students better perform in cases when instructors encourage smartphone use (Nand, Hameed, Kanwal, Pitafi, & Rasheed, 2018). By contrast, another study demonstrates that college students more often than not use their smartphones during classroom lectures are using their devices for personal and off-topic reasons, which distracts the greater class as a whole from focused, effective learning (Flanigan & Kiewra, 2018).
I believe that there is not a singular smartphone use policy across the institution due, in part, to the divergence between teaching methodologies in this regard, and more importantly, to academic freedom. So one question is: does imposing a standardized smartphone use policy across the institution (for campus-based classes, of course) hinder academic freedom? And, if so, are there other, less severe standardized efforts the institution can make: such as guidelines in all undergraduate syllabi, for example. I really don't know. If the data supports that policy change or guideline inclusion is a good thing for student learning, I question whether it will lead to change within the institution. It will depend on how drastic (or not drastic) the results are. If the results are drastic (i.e., off-task smartphone use during class sessions negatively impacts cognitive attainment, processing, retention of information), then I think NLU's UGC might take change into consideration.
Recently, chairs from the first two years (the general education classes for the freshmen and sophomores) identified a need to have a standardized Late Work policy. A committee formed, and met on the subject; faculty input was invited and considered, and just last week, an official Late Work policy was adapted by the UGC. I think the consistency is a good thing.
Maria
My motivation to move forward with this study is founded on prior research that illuminates the type of engagement between military veterans seeking mental health services within community settings and non-military mental health practitioners. Despite mental health counselors’ skills to connect with their clients, veterans lack confidence in these practitioners’ capacities to understand them from a cultural perspective and are either not engaging in or quickly disengaging from the treatment process.
This problem has negatively affected veterans because they are inclined to drop out of treatment and therefore not address their mental health issues professionally. Not addressing mental health concerns professionally can exacerbate the veteran’s mental health condition and potentially lead to negative coping skills that can further jeopardize the Veterans overall health, relationships, and career. The military, with its highly prescribed cultural identity, may be a model culture for developing a military cultural competency curriculum within an institution of higher education. Therefore, there is an urgent need for counselor education and supervision programs to equip counselors with the skills to work more effectively with and to advocate for improved mental health services for the military population.