Being a learner and scholar, to me, means actively seeking factual evidence to form opinions, beliefs, values, and morals. Educating ourselves is both a privilege and a necessity as we experience the world through a scholarly lens. Access to educational resources such as textbooks, peer-reviewed literature, professors, students, and more – changes a person’s outlook on life and how others experience it. Learning allows us to step outside of our own personal lives and analyze everything available to us within the educational field. As scholars, we are able to approach the professional world with intention of gaining an all-encompassing scope of who and what needs assistance.
IES 405: Inquiry, Evidence, & Decision Making – Literature Review and Revised Literature Review and Responses to Comments
Knowledge: With the rates of zero-tolerance policies and students’ contact with the juvenile justice system increasing, I wanted to focus my capstone project around the impacts of school resource officers (SROs). I compiled a list of peer-reviewed literature and reviewed how SROs have both contributed and prevented the school-to-prison pipeline. I summarize the research and found that SROs increase the rates of suspensions, expulsions, arrests, and contact with the juvenile justice system.
Skills: Through reading countless articles, I was able to code the key concepts and identify which topics to focus my attention on. This included major information on the duties of school resource officers, the rise of zero-tolerance policies, and the disproportionate discipline of marginalized populations. I also concluded my findings and analyzed the literature from a researcher’s perspective.
Disposition 1: The extensive insight I gained into the effect of SROs has driven me to learn more about the impacts of law enforcement as a whole on our education system. As a future educator who wants to work with marginalized populations at risk of contact with the juvenile justice system, I am becoming a strong advocate against crime-control models in schools and I am committed to abolishing these practices through any means.
Disposition 2: Going into reviewing the existing literature on the impacts of SROs, I was unbiased and open to any outcome. I was not personally familiar with the work of SROs since I did not have any in my educational experience, so I wanted to delve into both their positive and negative effects with the intention of forming an opinion post-analysis. Through the information I gathered, I was able to direct my focus onto key concepts and form a perspective based on evidence. I will carry this experience into my everyday life when forming conclusions on social issues and phenomena.
IES 206: School and Society – Educational Creed
Knowledge: Writing my pedagogic creed, I had to describe what education, school, subject matter, the nature of the method, and the school in regard to social progress – means to me. I shared my thoughts on our corrupt education system and how it focuses on scores, standards, and traditional curriculums when it should be focusing on firsthand experiences, individualized curriculum, and development of knowledge that strays from the norm.
Skills: By contemplating my perspective of what education holistically presents itself, I was able to hone in on the reason I decided to go into the field in the first place. It forced me to sit down and reflect on what it is and what I want it to look like in the future. I was given the space to expand on my personal opinion of the unethical ways that schools do not have students’ best interests in mind while brainstorming ways we can combat these issues.
Disposition 1: This assignment pushed me to further strive for the reformation of our education system. It drove me to envision an institution that does not abide by the requirements of sufficient grades and proven learning but encourages students to learn who they are and who they want to be. However we get there, I am committed to transforming the subject matters of educations and the nature of teaching methods.
Disposition 2: I self-reflected on how I have the platform to create the educational approach I so envision, and it was truly a turning point for me writing this assignment. I was in my earlier days of taking integrated educational studies classes and this specifically motivated me to continue with the path. My paper was written from a standpoint of experiencing the system myself and I found that evidence enough of the gap between what it should and should not be.
The Relationship Between the Number of Women’s Sexual Partners, Endorsement of Double Standards, and Self-Esteem, PSY 204: Research Methods in the Behavioral Sciences
Knowledge: For my psychology minor, I wrote a research paper over the course of my Research Methods class that involved a literature review, methodology, discussion, limitations, suggestions for future research, and statistical analyses of my findings. I reviewed the literature on the sexual scripting theory, the relation of casual sex and self-esteem, casual sex and double standards, double standards and self-esteem, and sexual orientation and double standards after identifying them as key concepts.
Skills: From my findings, I was able to properly assess my research by choosing the appropriate surveys to gain participants’ insight. This gave me a better understanding of how to carry out research effectively while being able to connect research procedures back to the original literature and hypotheses.
Disposition 1: This research paper took extreme precision and planning throughout the semester to efficiently measure my hypotheses and participants’ responses. It gave me a better understanding of time management, the importance of representative samples, the process behind the research, and what it takes to produce original content.
Disposition 2: Through examining peer-reviewed literature and statistically analyzing the participants’ responses to surveys, my findings did not align with my hypotheses and it was eye-opening to my endless assumptions about people and their outlooks on life. It also taught me how to take all types of facts into consideration in order to create my own conclusions and projections for the future.
Unemployment and Male Suicide, REL 351: Health, Healing, and Wholeness
Knowledge: As an elective, I took this course to further my understanding of religion in relation to health. I wrote a research paper on unemployment in relation to gender stereotypes, neuroscience, marriage, socioeconomic status, independence, the escape theory, and the lethal means of suicide.
Skills: Overall, I examined peer-reviewed literature describing ways in which men are upheld to fulfill traditional gender roles, and when those societal pressures are not met – it can lead to premature death by suicide. I analyzed the factors that lead to this phenomenon and how instilling gender norms at an early age can have detrimental effects on boys’ self-esteem and self-discipline.
Disposition 1: This research paper was out of my comfort zone, as I have never analyzed the impacts of gender stereotypes on men’s mental health or well-being. It exposed me to the ways society teaches men to be dominant, powerful, successful, competitive, and masculine. These all have detrimental effects in their interpersonal relationships and others, which is something future educators need to take in account in their classrooms when working with boys.
Disposition 2: Through my research, I learned more about how toxic masculinity can not only affect the patriarchy and society but how it can affect the rates of male suicide. This is not anything I ever would have thought to delve into, and this assignment encouraged me to immerse myself in new topics that I may not have proximity to but can be detrimental to know as a future educator.