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Author: shea_carlberg

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Master Teacher in the GWTeach Program, SuJin Choi identified how limited internet and hands-on learning accessibility during COVID-19 hindered D.C. Public School students, slowly creating a learning gap.

A Look Into: (CES course) The GW Teach Program 

Professor: SuJin Choi 

The GWTeach program is an academic minor that prepares students in STEM majors for teaching licensure in Washington, D.C. In courses like GTCH 1002: Inquiry-Based Lesson Design, students design, teach, and assess learning in a STEM lesson. Students engage directly in local classrooms, like McKinley Middle School and DC Preparatory Academy, mentored by a Master Teacher. 

...continue reading "Professor SuJin Choi reflects on six years in the GWTeach program"

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It's been a year since the Kennedy Center reached out to GW to help create an innovative art piece for RiverRun, a festival celebrating the world’s rivers, and Tara Scully looks to "reshape" more waters.

A Kennedy Center costume and set designer Celia Ledón combined forces with GW's Innovation Center, Tara Scully — the Director of the Sustainability Minor Program and an Assistant Professor of Biology at GW — and her students to better understand what kind of trash is left behind around D.C.

...continue reading "Reinventing plastics: Professor Scully teams up with the Kennedy Center to reduce waste"

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"Principles of Ethical Leadership" by Prof. Wendy Wagner uses the “case-in-point” approach to leadership development. Rather than studying leadership through hypothetical case studies, a team-based community engagement project IS the case. Students examine their own group dynamics and their own roles as the project unfolds throughout the semester. Students build their own leadership skills by examining information and research, and then learning to apply that to their own thinking and behavior in the community project. 

The class emphasizes the responsibility leaders have to collaborate effectively in diverse groups, create a common vision based on shared values, and facilitate group dynamics both inclusive and empowering. Students are challenged to analyze their own biases, assumptions and understand the context of social issues. ...continue reading "HSSJ 2200: Principles of Ethical Leadership"

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Professor emeritus Leslie Jacobson returned from her annual trip to Morocco with a refreshed sense of ideas in the works: writing plays with community liaison about local hardships like homelessness.

With the help of a professor at Al Akhawayn University – located among the Middle Atlas Mountains in the city of Ifrane – teaching Gender and Media, she used student-conducted interviews in the course to write and adapt the critical human rights themes into performances for any students, anonymously, to act out in a 45-minute stage production.

This year, the students focused on the sensitive-but-prevalent topic of sexual assault and violence, mainly against women, to speak about the country's unnerving truth of women being frequent victims of violence and assault from simply walking freely with friends, by themselves or wearing Western clothing.

...continue reading "Leslie Jacobson Continues to bring Student Experiences Center Stage on Morocco travels"

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Award: First Place for Nashman Community Engagement in the Arts and Design

Project: Individual Survival

Photographer Sabrina Godin won First Place for the annual Arts and Design prize in spring 2022, an award given to students who engage in advocacy and social justice community relationships. She founded GW's first chapter of the National Press Photographer Association (NPPA) in the spring of 2020. Within the New Media Photojournalism (MA) department, Godin captured the diverse experiences of members from the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network, the nation's largest non-profit organization battling sexual violence and bringing survivors to light.

...continue reading "Sabrina Godin takes First Place for Arts and Design Prize"

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Award: 2nd Place, Nashman Center Prize for Community Engaged Research, 2022
Project: ArtReach GW at THEARC: An Observational Evaluation
Human Services and Social Justice students Abigail Care and Alexa Betances collaborated with ArtReach GW, an organization committed to community engagement within D.C., originally founded as Corcoran ArtReach at the Corcoran School of the Arts & Design in Washington, D.C. Primarily serving youth and families with mental health issues living east of the Anacostia River, ArtReach GW supplies a myriad of explorative arts programs throughout D.C. Wards 7 and 8 and art therapy services in an area that lacks mental health clinicians. Their services reached 247 participants in 2019 and 11 exhibitions, 59.6% residing in Ward 7 and 8.
The researchers designed an observational evaluation tool for art therapy practices to replicate that of an ArtReach GW class and provided instructions for future course implementation.
Read more about their research here.
Bearing in mind the cogency of self-expression and creativity, the students suggested methods of improvement within interactive peer activities based on effective group art therapy and more coherent curricular parameters.
"Using a research-based evaluation process and the research question given to us by ArtReach GW, we examined four areas of interest for the organization to assess the effectiveness of their online classes: self expression and creativity, open sharing of opinions, art skills, and visual literacy."

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Award: 1st Place, Nashman Center Prize for Community Engaged Research, 2022

Project: Key Recommendations for Higher Education Institutions to Provide Non-Financial Support to Refugee-Background Students 

At the annual GW Research Showcase in spring 2022, research team Olivia Issa, Emmanuelle Dyer Melhado, and Sara Alassaf presented their research, which grounded a larger project, the Welcoming Campus Initiative. This grassroots program advocates for a more inclusive GW community for refugee-background students including a scholarship, mentorship program, and revised admissions practices.

The program was initially developed by No Lost Generation GWU (NLG) members in collaboration with refugee-background students on campus and the Student Voices for Refugees Network. Olivia Issa studied Political Science and Arabic Language at GW and helped lead refugee-advocacy groups before graduating.

This program has expanded through conversations with numerous other universities and organizations across the country, outlining proposals at schools like Georgetown University and George Mason University to start their own Welcoming Campus Initiative. The Welcoming Campus Initiative Committee is planning to continue further programming, including fundraising events and awareness projects geared to make GW an inclusive space for all.

Read more about the initiative here. Read more about the research project here.

“We worked with students internationally, including refugee-background students themselves, to interview practitioners and student recipients of college-access programs for refugees in the US, Mexico, and Canada through Student Voices for Refugees,” Issa said.

The purpose of this study was to both acknowledge the barriers sitting at the forefront for refugee-background students and bring forth recommendations to the higher education institutions to better connect these students to resources. Two categories of non-financial student assistance emerge from their research: revising admissions practices, like accepting Duolingo English tests in addition to TOEFL scores, and developing pre-arrival and on-campus mentorship programs. After realizing GW was a vital component in assuring her goals come to fruition, Issa began the Welcome Campus Initiative project to help make "life-changing education" happen.

Outlined below are some key components from Issa's research:

Community Partnership Recommendations for GW and other higher education schools
Project by the University Alliance for Refugees and At-Risk Migrants: Student Voices for Refugees Switching out standardized test requirements for low-cost English proficiency exams that schools are beginning to accept
Volunteers created toolkits for refugee-background students through scholarships and mentorship programs  Implementing an alumni mentorship networking program modeled after World University Services Canada 
Olivia Issa spearheaded practitioner-student interviews with those involved in college-access programs  Adding pre-entrance language programs and volunteer-led English tutoring like Proyecto Habesha and GirlForward

 

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Award: Second Place for Nashman Center Community Engaged Research

Project: Making Work Work: Improving Employment Outcomes for Autistic Adults 

Adam Berman, an autistic man, noticed that available research on autistic adults does not adequately collect the voices of other autistic adults when discussing satisfactory employment outcomes. Berman explored beyond the typical terms of wages and hours worked, which are important factors of employment quality but they do not grasp what satisfactory employment is to autistic adults.

With authentic, purposeful research, he made sure to include the opinions of other autistic adults through a mix of interviews and surveys. He asked questions regarding how the world of work has treated them and how their autism impacted employment outcomes. The results of these interviews suggest that systemic change to the world of employment must be made in order to better include autistic adults.

Read more about the project here.

The findings propose a new framework for how self-determination can positively impact autistic adults' employment prospects. Berman found that autistic people are often unemployed, work fewer hours and earn less money than neurotypical peers with other disabilities. Autistic people also struggle to determine their career paths and are directed by others into undesired careers.

Questions the study answered:
What self-determination capacity variables predict gainful, high-quality employment for autistic students?
How do the individual capacities (volitional action, agentic action, and action-control beliefs) of self-determination affect employment outcomes for autistic people?
What self-determination skills do autistic people value the most in finding and maintaining high-quality employment?
What makes autistic people satisfied with their employment?
What do autistic adults say about employment and self-determination that would explain the regression analysis? 

With the help of his research, seven themes of autism and employment were found common amongst autistic adults as well as many areas of silence between the survey and interview results.

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UW 1020 – Writing For Social Change in Washington D.C.

Professor: Phyllis Ryder

Students Reporting: 33

Time Reported: 224

Course Description:

“How do community leaders discover and name the systems that reproduce inequalities? How do they choose the right course of action? How do they mobilize people to respond? How can you contribute to this work?”

Professor Ryder’s UW 1020 course sought to address these questions and challenge students during the Spring 2022 semester. Students reflected on their own values and identity through a combination of writing and service learning, while strengthening their writing skills in the process.

In this service-learning course, students partnered with D.C. community leaders who addressed social inequities in areas such as housing, education, criminal justice, and the environment. In class, students analyzed local sites to learn how to research and write for community action both for academic and public audiences.

Students at GW are required to take a UW 1020, of which there are a variety of niche topics taught within the program. In this class, students examined the very idea of “writing well.” In this course that meant learning that the rules for “good writing” are themselves tools that can include and exclude people from power. By the end of the semester, students were able to build their own toolbox for developing complex, meaningful writing projects for diverse audiences.

 

For information about Community Engaged Scholarship at GW: https://go.gwu.edu/cesc

 

Community Partner Describe Project
Free Minds Book Club With the Free Minds Book Club, students helped give written feedback to incarcerated youth on poetry and writing projects with other volunteers. Students also attended writing circles where they gave advice and ideas on writing projects via zoom to authors of poems and stories.
Latino Student Fund As part of the LSF tutoring program, students helped reinforce math and English skills for PreK through 12th-grade students. Students met weekly as either a tutor or mentor with an individual student, building close relationships with the student throughout the semester.
Little Friends for Peace Students had the opportunity to partner with LFFP as after school tutors for younger children struggling in school. As trained volunteers, students built close bonds with their students and the LFFP program, developing stronger interpersonal communication skills. Some students also participated in LFFP’s peace circles, learning about peace and conflict resolution through direct service.
Miriam’s Kitchen Students partnered with Miriam’s Kitchen, a nonprofit organization that aims to end chronic homelessness in Washington D.C., to prepare meals for guests and distribute additional resources including toiletries and clothing.

Quotes from students:

“I participated in a peace circle for high school kids at Holy Family Catholic Church. The theme of this series of circles is building healthy relationships, and this session focused on connecting with others. I really enjoyed getting to meet a lot of the students! It was nice to connect with them and help them connect with each other. I often find that when helping with a peace circle, I get just as much benefit from it as the actual participants!” - A student serving with Little Friends for Peace

“This was my third time attending a Write Night event with Free Minds Book Club, and like both other times, I found this experience to be educational, enjoyable, and meaningful. Listening to the Poet Ambassadors stories is very interesting and gratifying because it shows how meaningful the work being done at these events and by this organization is. I found this time to be especially moving because the Poet Ambassadors shared two poems, "Looking Out My Cell Window" and "Under the Jail," both of which were written by a Free Minds member who recently passed away while incarcerated. The poems were very powerful and hearing them spoken out loud was an impactful experience for me.” - A student serving with Free Minds Book Club

“My student still faces difficulties with opening up and accepting my help, but slowly but surely, I'm sure she will become more and more comfortable to ask for help. I was available for my student during out tutoring sessions for whatever questions she had about homework and what she had been learning in school. This gives my student an extra resource for additional learning in academic subject areas she's having trouble with.” - A student serving with the Latino Student Fund

“During this experience, I helped with the peace classes at Chance Academy. I participated in three different groups with all ages of kids. It was a great experience to work with the kids even though it had to be over zoom. I really enjoyed learning about what a peace circle consists of and getting to be a part of one. It was great to make connections with the kids and make them feel heard!” - A student serving with Little Friends for Peace

 

Cause Distribution:

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Award: Community Engaged Research Honorable Mention

Project: For Imposters, By Imposters: Community-Engaged Research to Mitigate Imposter Phenomenon Prevalence in Peer Tutors 

CCAS student Jurnee Louder's University Writing centered research impressed judges while presenting her literature review at GW's annual research showcase in spring 2022. 

The research question initially originated in talks with past and current GW writing center consultants. Anecdotally, many individuals reported what they identified as imposter phenomenon (IP) or what the researcher identified as likely symptoms of IP. Therefore, this research and the intervention are done with the intent to mitigate these distressing experiences. All research participants will be able to provide feedback on their experiences with the intervention and detail what other systemic changes are needed within the writing center to better support individuals who experience IP.

While writing center (WC) scholarship has begun to explore writers’ confidence and belief in themselves as writers (Mackiewicz & Thompson),  little, if any, WC research has investigated imposter phenomenon (IP) — the intellectual phonineness individuals often feel when achieving success (Clance & Imes, 1978). Imposters — individuals who are experiencing IP — often feel their success was achieved by mistake or luck, and soon they will be outed as intellectual fakes (Clance & Imes, 1978). This experience may lead to heightened incidences of anxiety and low self-esteem (Cokely et al., 2013). Previous literature suggests that individuals experience IP in both academic and professional settings, which may hold strong implications for peer tutors who occupy both realms (Clance & Imes, 1978; Parkman, 2016).

Throughout Spring 2022, I am conducting an IRB-governed study on IP among WC tutors at the George Washington University Writing Center. My research will quantitatively identify how many participating tutors experience symptoms of IP by using validated IP scales. Furthermore, I will develop an intervention — a workshop that provides peer tutors with tools to address their IP experience. 

I hope to find that IP prevalence will be mitigated by a targeted intervention, leading to more confident peer tutors. At the research showcase, I would present my literature review, an overview of the intervention workshop, and initial findings, so that a) peer tutors can identify what might work for them, b) WC researchers can expand upon the IP literature and c), administrators can identify systemic changes to make in WCs to mitigate IP prevalence across peer tutor populations.

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