Digital Commons Network^™

Identity In The Classroom: How Opening The Classroom Door Opened My Eyes To Keeping Humanity In Education, Maija Overturf

Honors College

Education can be a dehumanizing experience for both students and teachers. Teachers hold a great responsibility to ensure that student identities are validated in school and to this end, must create a safe and welcoming learning environment. This thesis analyzes common dehumanizing practices in schools and ways in which teachers may unconsciously invalidate their students or be invalidated themselves. In a personal reflective manner, this thesis focuses especially on the text Opening the Classroom Door (Chapter 1 of Teaching Towards Democracy) by Ayers et. al (2017) as I evaluate my experiences in the classroom both as a student and teacher, …

Local Involvement, Memory, And Denial: The Complexities Of The Holocaust In Lithuania, Hailey Cedor

Honors College

The Holocaust was one of the most pivotal and destructive events in the 20th century. While decades of research have been done in order to attempt to understand the events of the Holocaust, its preconditions, its survivors, and its lasting impacts, there is still much to be studied. This thesis explores the complex and understudied relationship of Lithuanians with the Holocaust. Local collaboration with Nazi perpetrators was widespread, yet acknowledgement of and reconciliation with this collaboration is largely absent from Lithuania’s current public memory. While this work does not excuse the actions of perpetrators or condemn those who helped Jewish …

Room For Opportunity: An Investigation Of Catholic Student Life At The University Of Maine, Jacob Buttarazzi

Honors College

Like most Honors graduates before me, the final work for this thesis became something much different than what I had originally intended. Originally, I wanted to make short videos and blog posts about the nature of religion at UMaine. However, the project evolved into a short documentary focused specifically on Catholic students. I produced, directed, shot, and edited the film. My primary goal was to investigate whether or not Catholic students felt like a minority and how that affected them. I was repeatedly forced to reevaluate my own experience with faith throughout the production process. As a practicing Catholic, I …

The Educational Needs Of Children Ages 0-5 Born With Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome In Maine, Julia Casey

Honors College

The goal of this study is to better understand the educational needs of children born with neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS) in Maine. This study will consider two questions. First, what is currently being done to help children born with NAS in Maine? To answer this question, I looked into previous studies that evaluate the needs of children born with prenatal drug exposure. I also looked into Maine’s Strategic Action Opioid Plan to determine what initiatives the state is taking towards helping these children. Second, what should Maine be doing to help the children born with NAS? To answer this question, …

An Evolutionary Approach To Crowdsourcing Mathematics Education, Spencer Ward

Honors College

By combining ideas from evolutionary biology, epistemology, and philosophy of mind, this thesis attempts to derive a new kind of crowdsourcing that could better leverage people’s collective creativity. Following a theory of knowledge presented by David Deutsch, it is argued that knowledge develops through evolutionary competition that organically emerges from a creative dialogue of trial and error. It is also argued that this model of knowledge satisfies the properties of Douglas Hofstadter’s strange loops, implying that self-reflection is a core feature of knowledge evolution. This mix of theories then is used to analyze several existing strategies of crowdsourcing and knowledge …

A Model For Student Success: How Immigrant/First-Generation Teachers Use Cultural Identity And Experience In Pedagogical Practices With Immigrant/First-Generation Youth, Lucie Bonneville

Honors College

The purpose of this study is to identify how immigrant/first-generation teacher populations in the United States apply their cultures and identities to the education of the immigrant/first-generation students that they teach. This study also aims to analyze the specific charter school management system, Ednovate, and how its innovative mission and model have led to its high rates of student success. Culture and identity are two significant factors in a student’s educational experience, as the school system is a critical site for developing identity in children. In this study, eight members of faculty and staff from the Ednovate charter school system …

Alternative Worlds: 3 Short Stories, Katie Perry

Honors College

The following thesis consists of my personal writing and objective writing. First, you will read about my writing process and how I plan to connect this project to my career as a teacher. The format of the stories are as follows: The first version is the “final” version. The versions following are drafts from oldest to most recent. After the stories, I have included my Writer’s Journal. I used the journal as a way to reflect on my work as I completed it.

Before you begin reading, thank you for indulging my writing. I hope you enjoy reading it as …

An Analysis Of The Influence A Teacher's Level Of Science-Based Questioning Had On The Level Of Science-Based Questioning Of Students In A Montessori School, Desiree Labbe

Honors College

Teachers use questions every day to assess their students’ knowledge, allow for more practice with critical thinking, and to help promote collaborative, meaningful classroom discussions. This observational study aims to analyze the effect that the level of science-based questioning the Head Teacher uses has on the level of science-based questioning the students use in a Montessori classroom while they are learning science topics/concepts and/or using science related materials. In this study, observations were performed on preschool aged students enrolled in a Montessori school in rural Maine. These observations consist of science-based questions the Head Teacher asked the students and the …

Building A Better Understanding Of Equine Anatomy Through Integrated Learning, Emily Gorney

Honors College

Most people tend to have horses as their first contact with livestock animals. They are usually more common to see or interact with than cows, sheep, or other farm animals. This makes them a good starting animal for students learning about livestock, as well as the fact that they can be used for show, for work, or as a pet, making the equine industry a big one. While models have been used to teach students in topics such as architecture, cycles, and human muscles, little published research was found on the topic of having students build models of equine anatomy …

Are Schools Educating About Poverty? University Students’ Perceptions Of K-12 Poverty Education, Rachel E. Sirois

Honors College

Research shows that there are disparities in academic outcomes between students living in poverty and those who are not. Poverty will affect all areas of a child’s life. There is potential that with increased poverty education in schools, students will come to better understand their role in the causes and consequences of poverty, and in working to eradicate poverty.

Eighty- six undergraduate students enrolled at the University of Maine participated in this study. Participants completed a survey designed to gain insights into their recollection of poverty education during their primary and secondary school years. Results showed that enrolled students did …

The Importance Of Social Science In Biomedical Education, Kathryn Asalone

Honors College

This study proposes an intervention in undergraduate education that could enhance doctor-patient interactions. This intervention would provide evidence, to pre-medical students, that social science training is important during medical school. Semi-structured interviews were conducted of six doctors from hospitals in the Maine. The goal was to determine whether or not taking more social science courses during an MD’s undergraduate education would result in better reported doctor satisfaction with their patient interactions. The interview questions were designed to encourage doctors to explain how they interact with patients and coworkers and to describe their undergraduate education. This information and the impressions that …

Examining Student Reasoning In Introductory Physics: Reversing The Chain, William S. Johnson

Honors College

While physics education researchers have investigated student conceptual understanding of specific topics in physics for over thirty years, much less is known about the ability of students to construct qualitative inferential reasoning chains. Such reasoning chains are ubiquitous in scaffolded, research-based instructional materials. As part of a multi-institutional effort to develop instruments to probe student reasoning skills, this thesis describes an investigation into whether the direction of a question can influence the ability of the students to construct correct reasoning chains. Reasoning reversal tasks were administered to introductory calculus-based physics students at the University of Maine. Students were randomly presented …

A Study Of Teacher Practices And Perspectives On Nutrition Education In Maine Elementary Schools, Alexandra J. Courtney

Honors College

The purpose of this study was to identify how multiple influencing factors on nutrition education, relating to professional development, teacher self-efficacy, teacher beliefs, program use, wellness policies, and environmental factors, influence the amount of time elementary educators spend teaching nutrition in their classrooms. The primary tool for data collection was a comprehensive survey developed using Qualtrics software. The survey was distributed to Maine superintendents and principals who were asked to pass the survey along to K-5 teachers. Out of 270 responses collected before the survey end date, 233 were used for statistical analyses. The factors that influenced time teaching nutrition …

Assessing Achievement In Honors: The Importance Of A Need For Cognition In Higher Education, Christopher Paradis

Honors College

Honors programs are increasingly common in academic institutions today. However, what makes a student successful in a program like this is not clear. Is it their ability to remember information, the amount of knowledge they have, or the way they process this knowledge? Or could it be something else like how humble they are, what political party they affiliate themselves with, their thirst for complex problems, or even their motivations for engaging in the program? Much of the academic world focuses on the concepts of intelligence, test-taking, and study habits when discussing factors that make a student successful. These factors …

A Multi-Institution Investigation Of Educational Practices And Strategies In Stem Courses, Scott James Merrill

Honors College

This study examines the teaching practices of faculty participating in the Automated Analysis of Constructed Response (AACR) project. The AACR project focuses on using short-answer assessment questions to elicit the mixed models students have about key concepts in STEM courses. The 19 faculty from six different institutions who participated in this project are all teaching biology courses, asking biology AACR questions, and participating in Faculty Learning Communities (FLCs). FLCs are a method of faculty professional development in which groups of faculty regularly meet to discuss issues of teaching and learning. Here I use a combination of classroom observation data and …

Teaching Literature In America: Demonstrating Relevance In The Early Cold War 1945-1963, Jennifer Chalmers

Honors College

This historical research focuses on how literature was taught in American high schools in the early Cold War period (1945-1963) and why it was taught that way. It aims to discover how the Cold War culture of conformity impacted secondary literature education. What were literature teachers’ concerns? What was the historical context of these concerns, and how did they affect methods in the classroom and rhetoric in academic journals? Finally, how did methodology and rhetoric change over time? Research involved gaining familiarity with Early Cold War culture, politics, and events through secondary sources; narrowing to U.S. education in the early …

Humanizing The Humanities: A Historical, Cultural, And Philosophical Examination Of The Disintegration Of Humanities Higher Education, Nicholas Moore

Honors College

This essay is an examination of the multifaceted reasons humanities education in American colleges is losing standing and funding. Historical, cultural, and philosophical perspectives are used to analyze the grounds that have justified the decreasing levels of support for humanities education. Historically, there is no longer any external justification provided, as there was when Sputnik was launched and the Cold War was endured. Culturally, the high culture model of ascension through the accrual of cultural signifiers is no longer the dominant form of raising one’s status, as it was when the humanities could be justified as cultural initiation. Philosophically, market-based …

Situational Interest In Professional Development, Jean Stevens

Honors College

In this case study we look at three cases of situational interest during a teacher professional development workshop. The cases were selected because they illustrate events where multiple teachers exhibited spontaneous interest in a geologic feature or phenomena. This research was conducted at a three-day professional development workshop on the seashore in the northeastern part of the United States. The professional development involved 17 middle school teachers who spent the three days at three different locations learning about the geologic history at those locations. In this study, we express the signs of interest shown by the teachers in each case …