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Beauty, Ugliness, And Meaning: A Study Of Difficult Beauty, Christine Anne Palmer Nov 2009

Beauty, Ugliness, And Meaning: A Study Of Difficult Beauty, Christine Anne Palmer

Theses and Dissertations

The emergence of modern art, and subsequently contemporary art, has brought with it a deep-rooted deliberation of the definition of beauty and its role in the realm of art. Unlike many representational artworks, contemporary art less often contains a beauty that is readily available on the surface of an artwork- an easy beauty. Instead, it often possesses a beauty that requires substantial reasoning and understanding- a difficult beauty. Just as the definition of beauty has and will continue to be culturally and historically changing, so must our methodological and pedagogical practices in regards to beauty and Aesthetics. As Art Educators, …


Perceptions Of School Civility: A Survey Of School Of Education Alumni, Keely Marie Swanson Nov 2009

Perceptions Of School Civility: A Survey Of School Of Education Alumni, Keely Marie Swanson

Theses and Dissertations

Very little empirical data exists on the topic of civility in schools, although much theory and philosophy are proffered in the literature. Literature on moral education and character education also informs the study of civility. Many of the philosophical theories mention education as a way of increasing civility in society. Some schools have attempted to implement various civility interventions and research supports the use of similar interventions to teach social skills; however, none have systematically collected data for these interventions to evaluate their effectiveness for teaching civility. The present research systematically gathered data on perceptions of civility and incivility in …


Positioning, Spectatorship, And Teen Films: Giving Students The Power For Effective Media Education, Bradley David Moss Jul 2009

Positioning, Spectatorship, And Teen Films: Giving Students The Power For Effective Media Education, Bradley David Moss

Theses and Dissertations

What is the most effective curricular and pedagogical approach to use in increasing media literacy among students? This is the challenge that I and most media educators must address today. This thesis charts my exploration of that question and demonstrates the results of a unit of instruction created to enhance the critical media literacy of students by focusing on positioning theory, spectatorship, and considering teen representation in mass media films. In creating curriculum, I needed to define the end goal of the instruction. My research led me to critical media literacy and its focus on moving beyond media textual analysis …


The Trouble With Transfer, Kathryn Jane Groneman Jul 2009

The Trouble With Transfer, Kathryn Jane Groneman

Theses and Dissertations

It is hoped that the scientific reasoning skills taught in our biology courses will carry over to be applied in novel settings: to new concepts, future courses, other disciplines, and non-academic pursuits. This is the educational concept of transfer. Efforts over many years in the Cell Biology course at BYU to design effective assessment questions that measure competence in both deep understanding of conceptual principles and the ability to draw valid conclusions from experimental data have had at least one disquieting result. The transfer performance of many otherwise capable students is not very satisfactory. In order to explain this unsatisfactory …


Understanding Acculturation Patterns Of Burmese Refugee Children In Utah Public Schools, Stacie Jai Fraire Jul 2009

Understanding Acculturation Patterns Of Burmese Refugee Children In Utah Public Schools, Stacie Jai Fraire

Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative study explored the experience of 21 Burmese refugee adolescents as they acculturated into public schools in Salt Lake City, Utah. Unstructured, open-ended interviews were conducted to elicit information on the students' perception of the U.S. educational system, as well as their feelings about acculturation. The interviews were conducted with the aid of a Burmese/Karen translator and were transcribed and analyzed utilizing a grounded theory approach. The findings detail the acculturation process of the Burmese refugee students, the positive effect motivation has on the pace of acculturation, the impact of unfamiliar technology and language-based misunderstandings on the students' educational …


It Is Not Good That Man Should Be Alone: What Adam And Eve Can Teach Us About Relationships In Learning Communities, Julene Bassett Jul 2009

It Is Not Good That Man Should Be Alone: What Adam And Eve Can Teach Us About Relationships In Learning Communities, Julene Bassett

Theses and Dissertations

Human existence (or be-ing) is profoundly relational. Yet educational environments often assume that learning happens individually. Though many educators are trying to rectify this problem by introducing community into the learning process, these efforts are too often simply overlaid onto a system that works through competition and rewards individual achievement. Therefore, an alternative perspective for who we are as humans and how we should be together is needed. In this dissertation, I examine what it means to be fundamentally related and show how such an understanding might impact learning. We often think of “community” as a place, but I also …


The Culture Of Habits And Dispositions: Associationist Psychology And Unitarian Education In Gaskell's Wives And Daughters, Lori Ann Dickson Jul 2009

The Culture Of Habits And Dispositions: Associationist Psychology And Unitarian Education In Gaskell's Wives And Daughters, Lori Ann Dickson

Theses and Dissertations

Although Victorian psychology has been the subject of much recent scholarship, Elizabeth Gaskell's work has not been considered in relation to nineteenth-century theories of mind. In this thesis, I argue that Gaskell's final novel, Wives and Daughters, deals with associationism, an early branch of psychology that played a key role in public debates over cognition that took place throughout the century. Gaskell was exposed to associationism through her Unitarian faith, and Unitarian educators in particular articulated associationist principles in their writings about cognitive development. Gaskell was preoccupied with a similar model of learning throughout her fiction, and I read …


The Design Of A Blended Approach For Teaching The Tpck Framework In A Technology Integrated Course, Andrea Velasquez Mar 2009

The Design Of A Blended Approach For Teaching The Tpck Framework In A Technology Integrated Course, Andrea Velasquez

Theses and Dissertations

This report describes the design, development, implementation, and evaluation of a web-based unit that was designed to enable blended learning in a course for pre-service teachers learning about technology integration. The unit aims to teach students about the TPCK (Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge) framework and how to incorporate it in their teaching designs to make their instruction more effective. The report describes the process of design and development using the rapid prototyping technique. The evaluation section describes the results of the implementation of the design. Finally, the conclusion provides a critique of the project's strengths and weaknesses.