Doctoral Support Center & Doctoral Programming Blog

Invitation to review faculty applications for Hybrid High School

Most of you are aware of the creation of USC’s Hybrid High School, opening this Fall (see www.uschybridhigh.org ). Plans are progressing remarkably well, and the interest in HHS on behalf of the national education profession has greatly exceeded our expectations.

Many of you have expressed an interest in participating personally in this transformational education program, and we would like to make available at this time one such opportunity for 15 of you. On Saturday, April 28, 2012, we will meet at USC to screen the applications of over two hundred and fifty prospective applicants, with the ultimate goal of hiring 6 to serve as inaugural HHS faculty members. We, along with several additional USC Rossier faculty members and fifteen of you, will devote much of that day to identifying the applicants that we will want to
interview.

As a member of the HHS application screening committee that day you will participate in a short discussion of HHS’s unique mission, programs, and desired qualities of prospective HHS teachers. Teams of three reviewers will be created to tackle reading and evaluating applications. The evaluation will be accomplished using a web-based rubric system, so YOU WILL NEED TO BRING YOUR LAPTOP. We will work from 9:00 a.m. through about 4:00 p.m., fuelled by coffee, etc., in the morning, lunch at noon, and professional collegiality throughout the day.

If you would be interested in joining us, please send a short email response to Lourdes Ortega, lbortega@usc.edu, and attach a copy of your resume. We will acknowledge receipt of your email and within a week let you know if you are among the 15 selected to participate. We believe that, for some of you, this will be a valuable professional experience; and that for at least 15 of you, that you feel the same.

Sincerely,

David Dwyer, HHSFounder

Stephanie McClay, HHS Principal

Gib Hentschke, HHS Co-Founder

Do you use Facebook? Twitter?

Obviously you use some social media -- you're reading this blog!

Reading over at the 21st Century Scholar today, I found myself wondering how many of us are incorporating technology, especially social media technology (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, SecondLife, blogs ect) into our classroom work and research study and how we're doing it.  Clearly while the internet changed the way we gathered and received information in the previous century, social media has, in the past few years changed the way we connect with each other.

As I'm planning new classes for my job search resume, I'm looking at having students developing blogs, wikis and maybe work for GoogleLit.  It seems important to find ways of using all these new tools as they become available, but there's also, for me anyway, always some fear of the unknown.

Here at the DSC, we're always experimenting with new ways to help students with their doctoral research.  But we're wondering what you're using and how you're using it.  Leave us a comment and let us know, or send us a link to a blog you'd like us to look at.  

And thanks!

 

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image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/matthamm/2945559128/

Attend "Best Teaching Practices to Engage Your Students Using Web 2.0 Tools"

The Rossier School of Education and USC’s Center for Scholarly Technology invite you to attend our first “Best Teaching Practices to Engage Your Students Using Web 2.0 Tools” Pecha Kucha luncheon between Noon and 2:00 PM this Friday, February 4^th in WPH 403.

 If you have not heard of Pecha Kucha, it is a presentation methodology where each presenter uses only 20 PowerPoint slides with each slide being displayed for only 20 seconds.  This means that each presentation at this luncheon will last only 6 minutes and 40 seconds, affording you the opportunity to learn about several new technology-enhanced teaching tools and techniques in a brief period of time.

 Space is limited.  To RSVP for the face-to-face luncheon, or if you cannot make it to campus on the 4^th but would like to RSVP for the online webcast of the Pecha Kucha presentations, please visit http://cst.usc.edu/events/rsvp.html. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Brandon Martinez at either brandodm@usc.edu or (213) 740-3827.

Presentation: Online Survey With Qualitrics

Learn how to use the online survey collection source by Qualtrics. This tool provides a platform for designing, distributing and evaluating survey results to keep the research process in-house and immediately actionable. Qualtrics is a robust and easy-to-use online survey tool.  It integrates with both SPSS and Microsoft Excel software.

This instrument is free and sponsored by the university and it is extremely helpful with quantitative survey research.  We are very happy to be able to host a presentation on the Qualtrics tool.  Students whose research will utilize surveys should attend this presentation.

Time and place: Wednesday, April 7, 2010, 3:00 pm - 4:00 pm, MRF 204

Please remember to RSVP: rsoedsc@usc.edu

The DSC Qualitrics presentation will also be available online.

Refworks Presentation 3PM Today

The USC Committee for Gender Equity invites you to a free Workshop on "Using Refworks Software" being held today, February 4, 2010 in Leavey Library, Learning Room B.

At this workshop you will learn how to:

• Create an account and navigate RefWorks
  
  • Get your references into RefWorks
  • Both direct export, using BibTex to import, and manually inputting.
  • Organize references into folders
  • Use Write-N-Cite to do in-text citations.
  • De-duplicate reference list and creating shared work folders
  • Share References
  • Format Bibliographies and Manuscripts in Seconds
  • Change Formats (say, APA to MLA style) Quickly and Easily

Presentation sponsored by GPSS.

Can't attend today?  The DSC will be sponsoring our own Refworks presentation Wednesday, February 24, 2010, 3:00 pm - 4:00 pm, MRF 204.  See our events page for more information.

More details coming soon.

Learn How to Use SPSS

SPSS is a computer program widely used for statistical analysis.  If you've ever wanted to learn how to use it, here's your chance. By popular request, ITS is offering a workshop in "really really basic SPSS."

From the ITS website:

When: Monday, Feb. 8, 2010 from 12:00 - 1:50pm

• Location: UPC, Salvatori Computer Science Center, Room 126

• Organizer: AnnMaria De Mars, (213) 740-2840 (Sponsered by: USC ITS)

  RSVP: http://www.usc.edu/its/adventures/rsvp.html

If you want to know how to open Excel files in SPSS, enter data in SPSS, compute basic statistics or make a simple graph, this is the workshop for you.

No previous knowledge of statistics or SPSS is assumed. Class members will create a new SPSS data set, enter data, and create simple reports, graphs and descriptive statistics. They will also open data from SPSS and Excel files and practice using common SPSS features such as creating total scores, creating labels and formats, and checking data quality.

This is a very hands-on workshop with lots of activities and exercises. You won't be lost and you will learn SPSS.

SPSS for Public Policy

In this hands-on workshop, participants will use data from public sources to import Excel files, create and merge SPSS files, compute new variables and perform descriptive and inferential statistical analysis. This workshop was designed for public policy graduate students but is open to all USC students, faculty and staff.

When: Monday, January 25, 2010 : 12:00pm to 1:50pm


Location: University Park Campus, Salvatori Computer Science Center, 126

Sponsored By:
USC Information Technology Services

Organizer: ITS Customer Support Center, (213) 740-2840

RSVP: http://www.usc.edu/its/adventures/rsvp.html

Using data from multiple datasets and formats (i.e., Excel and SPSS) participants will merge files to create an analytic dataset. They will use the menus to compute new variables, then include these variables in data analyses. The format is designed to use public datasets to answer specific questions of interest to public policy graduate students. SPSS features and functions will be taught in a hands-on format with a focus on solving real-life problems.

Descriptive statistics will be computed for use in the sample section of research reports. Bivariate correlations will be computed to compare relationships among dependent and independent variables. Multiple regression and regression diagnostics will be performed to test hypotheses.

Curious About Twitter?

The DSC has a Twitter account and we'd like you to follow us. But we realize you may have some questions.

What is Twitter? Twitter is a free social networking service that allows users to send and read messages known as tweets. It costs nothing to join and is easy to use.

At the DSC, our Twitter feed can notify you as soon as we update our blog. That way you won't need to wait for emailed updates.

For more information, contact Annemarie at the DSC.