Professional Associations

• American Anthropology Association: http://www.aaanet.org/index.cfm 
• Council of Anthropology and Education:  http://www.aaanet.org/sections/cae/
• American Education Research Association: http://www.aera.net
• Association of American Colleges and Universities: https://www.aacu.org

Recent Projects

Principal Investigator and Project Director: Compass II CO-SA (Cosumnes River Community College - Sacramento State University) Transfer Facilitation Demonstration Project 2011-14: Competed for and awarded $90,000 for a three year project funded by the William H. Grant Foundation, the only institution to receive two consecutive awards.  Project involved the development, field test and implementation of nested electronic portfolio system to be used as a pedagogical strategy, a placement alternative, and for graduation and career showcases. Sac State COSA

Principal Investigator and Project Director, “Give Students a Compass” Project, California State University, Sacramento, 2009-12) Competed for and awarded (one of three campuses in the CSU) $50,000 from Carnegie and Lumina Foundations for projects to reform General Education. Major outcomes of the grant include the development and ratification of university learning outcomes and the adoption of those outcomes by the faculty; a model for faculty development---Faculty Interest Groups focused on aspects of student learning; and adoption of a thematic approach to GE through the development and implementation of a pilot project, Academic Learning Collaboratives—interdisciplinary GE courses that are theme based and taught by three faculty using face-to-face, experiential and hybrid modalities.

Principal Investigator, Pedagogy Enhancement Grant, 2007.  Carried out a research project to design and field test new media-based pedagogy to engage studentsnpreparing for certification in secondary education in developing skills related to the designing and incorporating digital media into Social Studies curriculum. 

Recent Publications

Hecsh, Janet and Terry Underwood (2014), Sometimes Quickly; Sometimes Slowly; Maybe Never? Implementing a nested ePortfolio project in a tradition-bound system, California State University Institute for Teaching and Learning Connections Newsletter, in press.

O’Donnell, Ken and Janet Hecsh, et. al. (2011) Putting High-Impact Practices and Inclusive Excellence at the Center of GE Reform: Lessons from the California State University LEAP Initiative. Peer Review, 13(2) https://www.aacu.org/peerreview/2011/spring/odonnell

Ullman, Char and Janet Hecsh, (2011) These American lives: becoming a culturally responsive teacher and the ‘risks of empathy.’ Race, Ethnicity and Education, 14(5) 603-629.

Hecsh, Janet (2010) Resource-Friendly Reform in General Education. Diversity & Democracy 13(3) http://www.diversityweb.org/DiversityDemocracy/vol13no3/hecsh.cfm

Hecsh, Janet. (2009) Not starting from scratch: applying the lessons from a thwarted PDS effort.  In Wong and Glass (Eds.) Interrupting Tradition:  Prioritizing Urban Children, their Teachers and Schools through Professional Development Schools (197-212). New York: SUNY Press.

Hecsh, Janet. (2005). Changing the culture, one student teacher at a time: Multicultural book clubs in secondary social studies curriculum. Electronic Magazine of Multicultural Education, 7(1), http://www.eastern.edu/publications/emme/2005spring/hecsh.html

Recent Papers

Producing Academic Identities: First Time University Students, Electronic Portfolios, and the Implications for Emancipatory Learning in Post Secondary Educational Settings, Council of Anthropology and Education, American Anthropology Association Annual Meeting, 2014

Demonstrating Learning and Disrupting Business as Usual: ePortfolios in a Transfer Facilitation Project, Association of American Colleges and Universities Annual Meeting, Portland, 2014

Home Away From Home:  Perspectives of first year students using of electronic portfolios to portray academic identity. Council of Anthropology and Education, American Anthropology Association Annual Meeting, 20113

Refining our Compass: Using an ecological approach to leveraging existing “spaces” in fostering a culture of transfer at The Future of GE Annual meeting of the Compass Project in the California State University, 2013

The influence of ethnographies of schools and communities “The Circle is Unbroken: Ethnographic Studies of Schools and Their Communities in Pedagogy and Praxis Council on Anthropology and Education, Council of Anthropology and Education, American Anthropology Association Annual Meeting, 2010

Acting like a Teacher: archetypes and anomalies in the video assessments of prospective teachers, Council of Anthropology and Education, American Anthropology Association Annual Meeting, 2009

Honors and Awards

• Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society, 2014
• Outstanding Faculty Award, University Service Sacramento State, 2011 

International Visibility and Service

Culturally Responsive Teaching and Learning, Summer Institute, Cambodia Pedagogical Institute, Siem Reap, Cambodia, August 3-6, 2012; July 28-August 3, 2013

High Stakes Testing:  Implementation in California Secondary Schools, Keynote address at The College of Education, Chulalangkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand, July 8, 2006. 

Languages Other Than English

• Spanish, near native fluency
• Portuguese, intermediate fluency

Links

• Curriculum Vitae
• Current Biography
• Sacramento State Compass Project
• Connecting the Dots Between Learning Goals, High-Impact Practices and Assessment (2011)
• These American Lives: Becoming A Culturally Responsive Teacher and the Risks of Empathy (2011)
• Teaching for Change
• Facing History and Ourselves
• Southern Poverty Law Center
• American Foundation for the Blind