Matching Items (3)
Filtering by
- All Subjects: Education
- All Subjects: English language--Rhetoric--Study and teaching--Arizona--Tempe--Longitudinal studies.
Description
What is the value of postsecondary education in prison? For the past two years, my involvement with the Prison English Program in the Department of English at Arizona State University has pushed me to explore answers to this question. I began by teaching creative writing for one semester through the Pen Project, an online internship in which undergraduate students provide critical responses to writing produced by inmates at the Penitentiary of New Mexico. The next two semesters, I co-‐taught Shakespeare on a minimum-‐security yard at the Arizona State Prison Complex in Florence. This semester, eager to expand my teaching repertoire and the breadth of ASU programming in Arizona prisons, I teach an introductory Chinese language course at the Cook Unit in Eyman.
ContributorsCai, Tina (Author) / Lockard, Joe (Thesis director) / Spring, Madeline (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2014-05
Description
We, a team of students and faculty in the life sciences at Arizona State University (ASU), currently teach an Introduction to Biology course in a Level 5, or maximum-security unit with the support of the Arizona Department of Corrections and the Prison Education Program at ASU. This course aims to enhance current programs at the unit by offering inmates an opportunity to practice literacy and math skills, while also providing exposure to a new academic field (science, and specifically biology). Numerous studies, including a 2005 study from the Arizona Department of Corrections (ADC), have found that vocational programs, including prison education programs, reduce recidivism rates (ADC 2005, Esperian 2010, Jancic 1988, Steurer et al. 2001, Ubic 2002) and may provide additional benefits such as engagement with a world outside the justice system (Duguid 1992), the opportunity for inmates to revise personal patterns of rejecting education that they may regret, and the ability of inmate parents to deliberately set a good example for their children (Hall and Killacky 2008). Teaching in a maximum security prison unit poses special challenges, which include a prohibition on most outside materials (except paper), severe restrictions on student-teacher and student-student interactions, and the inability to perform any lab exercises except limited computer simulations. Lack of literature discussing theoretical and practical aspects of teaching science in such environment has prompted us to conduct an ongoing study to generate notes and recommendations from this class through the use of surveys, academic evaluation of students' work and ongoing feedback from both teachers and students to inform teaching practices in future science classes in high-security prison units.
ContributorsLarson, Anika Jade (Author) / Mor, Tsafrir (Thesis director) / Brownell, Sara (Committee member) / Lockard, Joe (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
Abstract: This study investigates grades from 1980 to 2010 in English 102 at Arizona State University Tempe Campus to see if grade inflation has taken place. It concludes it has and then goes on to study the causes. The data was collected from existing data held in the archives of the Registrar's Office, collated into proper order and saved in proper numerical format for analysis. After analysis, the data was reviewed to establish whether or not as consumer demands rise, measured by student responses to evaluation questions, grade point averages rise as well, and whether demands for adequate performance in classrooms have declined. This study statistically analyzes students' final grades in ENG102 for thirty years and concludes that grade compression at the top of the grading scale exists. This study discusses the implications of that compression at length.
ContributorsSimmons, Cynthia Anne (Author) / Gelderen, Elly van (Thesis advisor) / Gillon, Carrie (Committee member) / Lockard, Joe (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015