Mentoring African American Males


Book Description

Mentoring African American Males provides important black male research and student performance data to guide the efforts of those who accept the enormous task of standing in the gap to increase black male achievement. Dr. Ross provides guidance for individuals and institutions embracing the important role of developing mentoring programs or serving as a mentor to youth. However, what makes Dr. Ross’ work such a critically important book for any individual or institution considering such a role is its insight into the social-cultural framework within which mentoring must occur at every level from elementary school through college. Equally insightful is the structure that such programs must take in response to the socio-cultural constructs of the families, communities, and institutions where they will occur. There are far more quantitative studies than qualitative on the topic of mentoring. This text addresses that discrepancy and provides the results of several qualitative studies on African American males. There is hardly any that offer a mixed method perspective that combine quantitative and qualitative methodological approaches. This text reports on the research results that are qualitative in nature in addition to some that are from a quantitative and mixed method approach.




Instructing and Mentoring the African American College Student


Book Description

"Instructing and Mentoring The African American College Student: Strategies for Success in Higher Education" focuses on the types of academic environments and classroom strategies that are conducive to the achievement levels of African American college students, particularly, in the areas of effective classroom pedagogy, models of successful campus retention and mentoring techniques that have proven to be advantageous for black students across the country. Reflecting on experiences predominately from professors, administrators and staff of two prestigious historically black colleges, this book offers specific strategies on maximizing student success in the context of African American student culture. The first section of the book deals with the historical, contemporary and cultural contexts for the education of African American students. The second section, Voices from the Field focuses on proven classroom and administrative strategies that promote academic achievement among black students from professionals at Spelman College and Morehouse College. Both institutions are members of Phi Beta Kappa and have graduated such significant twentieth century historical figures as Martin Luther King, Jr., Julian Bond, Alice Walker and Marian Wright Edelman. Louis B. Gallien, Jr. is Professor of Urban Education at Regent University. Previously, he taught at Spelman College and held adjunct positions at Morehouse College and Emory University. His areas of speciality are in African American pedagogy, culture and urban education. His monograph on African American males attitudes towards education entitled: "LostVoices: Reflections on Education From An Imperlied Generation, " an examinaton of five distinct high school cultures, was considered to be a ground-breaking study in 1990 and widely-reported in the "Boston Globe, Jackson Clarion-Ledger, Lexington Herald, Essence, Ebony" and journals across the country. Since that time, he has written articles, essays and monographs on hip-hop culture and the framing of values among African American College students, the pedagogical ramifications of W.E.B.DuBois collected works on black college students, and curricular impact of CORE Knowledge on the academic achievement levels of African American middle grade students. Dr. Marshalita Sims Peterson, Ph.D., is chair and assistant professor in the Education Department at Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia. Her research includes curriculum development and implementation as it relates to culturally responsive pedagogy, oral communication skills in higher education, and instructional strategies for all children. Her action research facilitated the opening of a charter school in the Atlanta metropolitan area. As an advocate for ensuring that students reach their full potential, Dr. Peterson has presented nationally and internationally on quality education, student achievement, and innovative instruction for all students. She seeks to provide a culture of learning that will enhance educational opportunities through effective academic programming. "




Research Anthology on Culturally Responsive Teaching and Learning


Book Description

As education continues to take great strides to become more inclusive and understanding of diverse students and cultures, teaching practices and methods for learning are an essential part of the puzzle and must be addressed to create culturally responsive educational experiences. Teachers must make meaningful connections between a student’s culture, language, life experiences, and background to what the student is learning in the classroom. By integrating culture into the classroom, student achievement can be fostered, and students can excel. Underserved populations may face discrimination when it comes to culture, language, or race, and their needs can often be neglected. By implementing culturally responsive teaching, students can feel valued, motivated, understood, and included in their education. The Research Anthology on Culturally Responsive Teaching and Learning displays the best practices and lessons learned for culturally responsive teaching and learning across different types of institutions, classroom subjects, and with different types of students from diverse cultural backgrounds. The chapters focus on culturally responsive practices and how these methods for teaching can impact student success, empowerment, and cultural competence. This book is essential in understanding cultural diversity and inequity in education as well as the ways to address it. This book is ideal for faculty, teachers, counselors, administrators, principals, curriculum developers, instructional designers, professionals, researchers, and students seeking to improve their understanding of culturally responsive teaching and learning.




33 Simple Strategies for Faculty


Book Description

Winner of the 2020 Scholarly Contributions to Teaching and Learning Award from the American Sociological Association Many students struggle with the transition from high school to university life. This is especially true of first-generation college students, who are often unfamiliar with the norms and expectations of academia. College professors usually want to help, but many feel overwhelmed by the prospect of making extra time in their already hectic schedules to meet with these struggling students. 33 Simple Strategies for Faculty is a guidebook filled with practical solutions to this problem. It gives college faculty concrete exercises and tools they can use both inside and outside of the classroom to effectively bolster the academic success and wellbeing of their students. To devise these strategies, educational sociologist Lisa M. Nunn talked with a variety of first-year college students, learning what they find baffling and frustrating about their classes, as well as what they love about their professors’ teaching. Combining student perspectives with the latest research on bridging the academic achievement gap, she shows how professors can make a difference by spending as little as fifteen minutes a week helping their students acculturate to college life. Whether you are a new faculty member or a tenured professor, you are sure to find 33 Simple Strategies for Faculty to be an invaluable resource.




The Science of Effective Mentorship in STEMM


Book Description

Mentorship is a catalyst capable of unleashing one's potential for discovery, curiosity, and participation in STEMM and subsequently improving the training environment in which that STEMM potential is fostered. Mentoring relationships provide developmental spaces in which students' STEMM skills are honed and pathways into STEMM fields can be discovered. Because mentorship can be so influential in shaping the future STEMM workforce, its occurrence should not be left to chance or idiosyncratic implementation. There is a gap between what we know about effective mentoring and how it is practiced in higher education. The Science of Effective Mentorship in STEMM studies mentoring programs and practices at the undergraduate and graduate levels. It explores the importance of mentorship, the science of mentoring relationships, mentorship of underrepresented students in STEMM, mentorship structures and behaviors, and institutional cultures that support mentorship. This report and its complementary interactive guide present insights on effective programs and practices that can be adopted and adapted by institutions, departments, and individual faculty members.




R.A.C.E. Mentoring and P-12 Educators


Book Description

Seldom is the practicing P-12 educator, the P-12 practitioner, considered a scholar. R.A.C.E. Mentoring and P-12 Educators: Practitioners Contributing to Scholarship explores the unrecognized and infrequently considered teacher scholar, principal scholar, counselor scholar, librarian scholar - the practitioner scholar who if provided the platform and access can produce a unique and complex narrative and knowledge base to fields of study. This volume extends the current Research, Advocacy, Collaboration, and Empowerment (R.A.C.E.) knowledge in educational leadership, theory and practice, curriculum and instruction, teaching and teacher development, social justice, and diversity, equity and inclusion. R.A.C.E. Mentoring and P-12 Educators: Practitioners Contributing to Scholarship presents ways to conceptualize quality in educational research by engaging practitioners, researchers and policy makers in cross-disciplinary partnerships to provide an intentional platform for scholars and researchers in the P-12 school systems and pre-service programs, particularly those with/or seeking an active and emerging research and publishing agenda. This volume is divided into four interrelated sections. Section I focuses on mentoring practitioners as scholars during pre-service and in practice. Chapters in this section promote the use of methods coursework, narrative analysis and culturally relevant pedagogy to enhance practitioner agency and roles as scholars. Section II includes Culturally Responsive School Leadership (CRSL) as a way to recognize and address the historical examples and barriers to practitioner social justice activism. These chapters center the school setting and graduate coursework, using practitioner scholarship as a way to cultivate critical consciousness and the use of counter-narratives to combat racism, settler colonialism, and classism among school staff. Section III engages practitioner scholarship as a revolutionary approach through case study, auto-ethnography, review of literature, mental models, and phenomenological study. This section fosters the value of practitioner voice as agency to disrupt oppressive ideologies and beliefs that sustain inequitable and unequal school environments. Section IV provides curriculum, instruction, and parent involvement as examples of practitioner advocacy via personal and collective identity development, Black/Crit, Inquiry-Based Learning (IBL) and engagement strategies. These final chapters provide details of policy and practice transformation methods that empower practitioner sustainability of student and parent access to equitable and inclusive school experiences.




On Being a Mentor


Book Description

On Being a Mentor is the definitive guide to the art and science of engaging students and faculty in effective mentoring relationships in all academic disciplines. Written with pithy clarity and rooted in the latest research on developmental relationships in higher educational settings, this essential primer reviews the strategies, guidelines, and best practices for those who want to excel as mentors. Evidence-based advice on the rules of engagement for mentoring, mentor functions, qualities of good mentors, and methods for forming and managing these relationships are provided. Summaries of mentorship relationship phases and guidance for adhering to ethical principles are reviewed along with guidance about mentoring specific populations and those who differ from the mentor in terms of sex and race. Advice about managing problem mentorships, selecting and training mentors, and measuring mentorship outcomes and recommendations for department chairs and deans on how to foster a culture of excellent mentoring in an academic community is provided. Chalk full of illustrative case-vignettes, this book is the ideal training tool for mentoring workshops. Highlights of the new edition include: Introduces a new model for conceptualizing mentoring relationships in the context of the various relationships professors typically develop with students and faculty (ch. 2). Provides guidance for creating a successful mentoring culture and structure within a department or institution (ch. 16). Now includes questions for reflection and discussion and recommended readings at the end of each chapter for those who wish to delve deeper into the content. Best Practices sections highlight the key takeaway messages. The latest research on mentoring in higher education throughout. Part I introduces mentoring in academia and distinguishes mentoring from other types of relationships. The nuts and bolts of good mentoring from the qualities of those who succeed as mentors to the common behaviors of outstanding mentors are the focus of Part II. Guidance in establishing mentorships with students and faculty, the common phases of mentorship, and the ethical principles governing the mentoring enterprise is also provided. Part III addresses the unique issues and answers to successfully mentoring undergraduates, graduate students, and junior faculty members and considers skills required of faculty who mentor across gender and race. Part IV addresses management of dysfunctional mentorships and the documentation of mentorship outcomes. The book concludes with a chapter designed to encourage academic leaders to make high quality mentorship a salient part of the culture in their institutions. Ideal for faculty or career development seminars and teaching and learning centers in colleges and universities, this practical primer is appreciated by professors, department chairs, deans, and graduate students in colleges, universities, and professional schools in all academic fields including the social and behavioral sciences, education, natural sciences, humanities, and business, legal, and medical schools.




Mentoring At-Risk Students through the Hidden Curriculum of Higher Education


Book Description

Mentoring At-Risk Students through the Hidden Curriculum of Higher Education reveals how the institutional culture and social networks of universities influence the academic success of underrepresented students. This book is based on a qualitative study that integrates a sociological and higher education theoretical framework to examine the impact of mentoring programs on students’ acquisition of institutional cultural capital and social capital during their college experience. This book offers an innovative mentoring model that illuminates how students can navigate the hidden curriculum of higher education. In addition, the book provides practical strategies on how to avoid academic mine fields in order to thrive in college. This book is written for administrators, faculty, student affairs professionals and students to promote retention, academic success, and create a more transparent, inclusive, and equitable higher education system. See here for an article by the author on mentoring programs in colleges and universities published in Inside Higher Ed: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/08/04/book-argues-mentoring-programs-should-try-unveil-colleges-hidden-curriculum To learn about a recent presentation by the author, see here: http://diverseeducation.com/article/66772/?utm_campaign=Diverse%20Newsletter%203&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Eloqua&elq=82772667e2334157934731fc05a8fe9c&elqCampaignId=358




Mentoring as Critically Engaged Praxis


Book Description

This edited volume seeks to interrogate the structures that affect the perceptions, experiences, performance and practices of Black women administrators. The chapters examine the nature and dynamics of the conflict within that space and the ways in which they transcend or confront the intersecting structures of power in academe. A related expectation is for interrogations of the ways in which their institutional contexts and, marginalized status inform their navigational strategies and leadership practices. More specifically, this work explores mentorship as critical praxis; that being, the ways in which Black women’s thinking and practices around mentoring affect their institutional contexts or environment, and, that of other marginalized groups within academe. A discussion of Black women in higher education administration as critically engaged mentors will ultimately diversify thought, approaches, and solutions to larger social and structural challenges embedded within academic climates. Praise for Mentoring as Critically Engaged Praxis: Mentoring as Critically Engaged Praxis: Storying the Lives and Contributions of Black Women Administrators, the authors present insights on the challenges Black women face and how mentoring networks and strategies help them transcend professional and institutional barriers. Each chapter intentionally creates a space to elevate their voices, depicts the reciprocity on how they are transforming and being transformed by their institutional context, and offers hope for improving the status of women leaders. The power of this book is that it is an acknowledgement of Black women being the architect of their lives and is filled with meaningful content that is nuanced and offers a glimpse into how black women leaders continue to lift as they climb. - Gaëtane Jean-Marie, Rowan University Mentoring as Critical Engaged Praxis perfectly captures a process that Black women have been facilitating, practicing and innovating prior to and since their entry into the higher education. Deirdre Cobb-Roberts and Talia R. Esnard have assembled a strong cast of scholars who eloquently speak to the role that Black women administrators play in their daily practice of “Lift as we climb.” Despite the limited number of Black women in senior leadership roles across academe, most, if not all of them must consistently tackle institutional and societal injustices that shape their experiences and influence their capacity to mentor. - Lori Patton Davis, The Ohio State University




Engaging African American Males in Community Colleges


Book Description

This volume dedicated to the engagement of African American males in community colleges furthers the research agenda focused on improving the educational outcomes of African American males. The theme engagement also supports the anti-deficit approach to research on African American males developed by renowned research scholars. The true success of African American males in community colleges rests on how well these institutions engage young men into their institutions. This will require community colleges to examine policies, pedagogical strategies, and institutional practices that alienate African American males and fosters a culture of underachievement. The authors who have contributed to this volume all speak from the same script which proves than when African American males are properly engaged in an education that is culturally relevant, they will succeed. Therefore, this book will benefit ALL who support the education of African American males. It is our intent that this book will contribute to the growing body of knowledge that exists in this area as well as foster more inquiry into the achievement of African American males. The book offers three approaches to understanding the engagement of African American males in community college, which includes empirical research, policy perspectives and programmatic initiatives.