Digital Commons Network^™

In Search Of Effective Second Language Arabic Vocabulary Teaching Strategies: Theory And Implementation, Asmaa Yazidi Alaoui

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This portfolio is the outcome of the author’s studies in the Masters of Second Language Teaching (MSLT) program at Utah State University (USU) as well as her experience as a graduate instructor of Arabic at the same university.

This work has two main parts. The first comprises the three major components that present the author’s perspectives as a teacher, such as professional environment, teaching philosophy statement and the teaching observation.

The second part demonstrated the author’s research interest that aligned with her teaching perspective as an Arabic teacher. It was a position paper that called for Arabic vocabulary teaching strategies …

Developing Confidence And Interest In Teaching Relevant Mathematical Modeling Lessons, Jacy Beck

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

What is mathematical modeling and how can inservice and pre-service teachers develop the skills and competencies necessary to increase confidence and interest in teaching relevant mathematical modeling lessons? Mathematical modeling is “the process of choosing and using appropriate mathematics and statistics to analyze empirical situations, to understand them better, and to improve decisions” (CSSM, 2010, p. 72). By providing students with an opportunity to engage in relevant mathematical modeling prompts, we provide them with transferable skills and knowledge. The aim of this paper will be to provide insight into the relevance of teaching mathematical modeling, provide resources for integrating modeling …

A Computer Programming Intervention For Second Grade Math Students, Eric B. Bagley

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The multiplication algorithms taught to elementary students are made to help students find answers quickly, but why the algorithm works and how it relates to multiplication is not widely known. For example, one intuitive meaning of multiplication is that of iterated, or, repeated, addition. In this paper, we look at the ways a visual, block-based, programming activity uses the concept of iteration to help second-graders learn multiplication. The results of the study observing second-grade students use visual programming and iteration to setup and solve multiplication story problems. We found that generally students enjoyed these activities and found them helpful during …

Exploring Teaching Language With Culture, Sixin Fu

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This portfolio contains the author's insights into teaching a second language, which she gained while in the Master of Second Language Teaching (MSLT) program at Utah State University (USU). It is organized in two major sections: teaching perspectives and research perspectives. The content reflects the author’s main focus and value on language teaching as a graduate instructor and student.

In the teaching perspectives section, the author shares the professional environment that she wants to work in, her teaching philosophy statement, and the professional development in language education through observing her colleagues’ teaching. In the research perspectives, two research papers and …

Teaching The Engineering Design Process To High School Students By Implementing A Non-Traditional Engineering Capstone Course, Joseph Woodard

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This plan B project is to showcase the implementation of an engineering design capstone course at a remote, rural public high school, in a non-traditional (after-school) format with a small group of students. The project documents successful strategies along with challenges that were learned from such an implementation of this course. Three high school students were supported in learning to solve an extended design challenge, in this case creating an augmented reality (AR) sandbox. The project shows how a capstone course can be utilized in teaching students to solve complex, ill-structured problems.

In this project, a manuscript was prepared for …

Espoused And Enacted Beliefs Of High School English Language Arts Teachers In Writing Instruction, Sydnie Schoepf

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The purpose of the current study is to explore the espoused beliefs and enacted practices of secondary English Language Arts teachers with regards to writing instruction and how these beliefs correlate with teacher self-efficacy beliefs. The study worked to build upon the literature mainly in the fields of mathematics and science in order to explore what the perceived and enacted beliefs are and how they affect the self-efficacy belief of teachers within the field of writing instruction in the high school classroom. The study used a collective case study design in order to better understand what espoused and enacted pedagogical …

New Perspectives On Promoting Efl Teaching And Learning In Oman, Jihan Sulaiman Al Naabi

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This portfolio is an accumulation of work that the author accomplished during her study in the program of Master of Second Language Teaching at Utah State University. It is an outcome of the author’s personal teaching experiences, insights gained from her master’s study, and several class observations as well.

The portfolio comprises three primary portions: (1) teaching perspectives, (2) research perspectives, and (3) an annotated bibliography. The teaching perspectives revolve around the author’s beliefs on the role of both teachers and students in L2 classrooms, the communicative teaching of grammar, and the value of a positive learning environment. The research …

Student-Centered, Interaction-Based, Community-Driven Language Teaching, Sharon Lyman

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This portfolio is a compilation that highlights some of the author’s accomplished work while in the Master of Second Language Teaching (MSLT) program at Utah State University (USU). Organized into sections that reflect the author’s teaching and research perspectives as a MSLT graduate student and instructor, who taught intensive English reading, writing, and conversation courses for the Intensive English Language Institute (IELI).

In the first section, teaching perspectives, the author describes her desired professional environment, shares her personal teaching philosophy statement, and accounts for her professional development through classroom observations. In the second section, research perspectives, two research papers and …

Racial Conflict In Early Utah: Mormon, Native American And Federal Relations, Raelyn M. Embleton

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This website is for teachers to gain information and sources about Utah history during the early territorial period, specifically relating to conflicts between Mormon settlers, Native Americans, and federal officials. The content and site were designed with the C3 curriculum in mind, as such, at the bottom of this page you can find a downloadable Inquiry Design Model Blueprint. As you teach students this information, the compelling question to have students focus on is: “Does culture and the interaction of cultures shape the development of place?” Each event highlighted on this website is related to the other and demonstrates how …

Contexts And Perspectives For Foreign Language Learning And Teaching, Kimberly Paige Fallis

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This portfolio highlights what the author believes are important facets and implementations of second language teaching and second language learning. This portfolio is grounded in two elements: second language acquisition theory and the author’s first-hand observations as a student in the Master of Second Language Teaching (MSLT) program. The target languages focused in this portfolio are English and French.

This portfolio is divided into three main sections. The first section contains the author’s teaching philosophy statement with focuses on student and teacher roles, tasks in the classroom, and the author’s experiences teaching English. After the teaching philosophy statement, there are …

Dynamics Of War: Culture, Society, Environment, And Pedagogy, Breanne Jacobsen

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

War is an ever-present feature of human civilization. Nearly all cultures and societies show accounts of human conflict. This portfolio seeks to provide both a multidimensional analysis of war and a means of instructing students to appreciate its significance as a driving force of history using three different components.

The syllabus project provides a long-term view of how the various wars and conflicts came to be and progressed in Western Civilization in the modern era.

The chapter-length paper shows the ravaging effects that war and conflict can have on a physical landscape and the environment in which the conflict takes …

Teaching Social Studies Through Drama, Colin Anderson

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Educators and researchers have long discussed methods for improving student achievement in the social studies and history. Research on student attitudes reveals that the social studies suffers from a lack of interest among students. Common complaints among students are that the subject is tedious, does not relate to their lives, is not particularly useful for their future careers, is repetitive, or that it is simply boring (Schug et al., 1982). Even when students recognize the utilitarian value of skills they learn from social studies / history, they rarely express an interest in the subject (Chiodo, 2004). After reviewing the body …

Second Language Teaching In The Esl Classroom: The Role Of The Teacher, Ariel Serrell Finlinson

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This portfolio covers what the author believes to be important teaching practices for a teacher in the English as a Second Language classroom, with a specific emphasis on the role of the teacher. The first section of the portfolio contains the author’s teaching philosophy which describes the author’s beliefs of what constitutes good teaching. The beliefs include the importance of using meaning-bearing and comprehensible input in the classroom, the use of task-based activities to facilitate language learning, and understanding the role of the teacher in the classroom. Following are three artifacts that the author wrote during her time in the …

Breaking Traditional Ways Of Teaching: Communicative Second Language Teaching, Nadiya M. Gifford

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This portfolio is a collection of the author’s beliefs about second language
teaching that represent the change of the author’s views about teaching. The first sectionof this portfolio contains the author’s teaching philosophy statements, which include adescription of a communicative classroom, the role of input, and brain-based research.Three artifacts support the teaching philosophy and reflect what the author had learnedduring the MSLT program. First, the language artifact is a collection of technologicalideas that can be helpful in teaching Russian to different level students. Second, theliteracy artifact is a literature review regarding benefits of authentic materials indevelopment of language skills, cultural …

Language Teaching In The Secondary Education Classroom: Strategies For Teaching Spanish And English, Alexandria Adair

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This portfolio is a compilation of the author’s beliefs about effectively teaching English as a Second Language and Spanish as a Foreign Language. All of the work in the portfolio centers on the teaching philosophy statement, which contains what the author believes to be the most important aspects of second and foreign language teaching. This statement discusses the importance of communicative language teaching, with a focus on real-life interactions with others. It also advocates teaching content via the second language for more concrete understanding. Four artifacts follow the teaching philosophy statement. The first artifact examines the role of neutral Spanish …

Beginning Teachers' Perceptions Of Their Novice Year Of Teaching, Rebecca Bingham Rees

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This study was conducted to understand the perceptions of beginning teachers concerning the training they received in their teacher preparation program helped them with the successes and challenges they faced during their novice year of teaching. Comprehending novice teachers' perceptions of their successes and challenges is important as a method to help beginning teachers avoid feelings of burnout.

A survey was sent to graduates of a teacher preparation program at a large, land-grant university, who were embarking on their novice year of teaching. Responses were received from 16 teachers. In the survey, teachers were asked to answer demographic questions regarding …

Sources Of Authority For Leadership And Instructional Technology Coaches' Diffusion Of High Access Teaching And Learning, Gregory M. Proffit

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The purpose of this qualitative study was to use a leadership theory to explore the professional work of three school-based instructional technology coaches. The leadership theory is drawn from Thomas Sergiovanni’s Moral Leadership: Getting to the Heart of School Improvement.

The study used typical qualitative data gathering techniques: participant observations, informal and formal interviews, and the collection of representative workplace professional documents. A single researcher spent two school years in district office meetings and in three secondary schools gathering qualitative data.

The data were analyzed for bureaucratic, psychological, technical rational, professional, and moral sources of authority for leadership. The data …

Teaching Bystander Skills Through Fluency Training, Emilee Hagloch

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This study examined the effectiveness of an intervention that adds a fluency component to teaching bystanders how to defend other students during a bullying situation. Bystander skills were taught to fourth- and fifth-grade classrooms and fluency training was added to several of these classrooms as an experimental group. Students also filled out rating scales to find out what their participant role in bullying situations was (defender of the victim, outsider, bully, victim of the bully, assistant to the bully). Results showed that there was more growth on the fluency scores for those who participated in the fluency training as opposed …

Second Language Teaching And Learning: The Roles Of Teachers, Students, And The Classroom Environment, Martin Briggs

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This portfolio is a compilation of the concepts and practices that the author believes constitute effective second language teaching. It is centered on the author’s teaching philosophy, which is based on the teacher’s roles as facilitator and the students’ roles as active participants in a student-centered, communicative classroom. The author claims that as teachers and students understand and carry out their respective roles, student proficiency in the target language will increase. In support of this teaching philosophy, three artifacts are included that discuss the following: 1) The use of television commercials and other media from the target culture to facilitate …

A Review Of Steel Content Taught In U.S. University Construction Management Programs, Jeremy Miles Thompson

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Throughout the rocky mountain region there are 18 universities that offer a bachelor’s degree in Construction Management (CM). Only two of those universities, Colorado State University and Brigham Young University Idaho, offer an in-depth course on the application of steel in the construction industry. The other universities offer structures courses that teach only the basics of steel in the construction industry, like how to calculate loads using steel beams and columns.

An Investigation In The Use Of Memorizing As A Learning Method When Teaching Measurement In A Technology Education Classroom, Joseph R. Porter

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

The Utah State Office of Education (USOE) has indicated in the objectives for many courses that students need to be able to identify measurements on a conventional ruler including 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, and 1/16-inch increments (Utah State Office of Education Career and Technology Education Division, 2012, p. 2). This objective is present in Career and Technical Education (CTE) Introduction, a required class for all Utah seventh graders, and is repeated in most of the CTE Technology and Engineering courses offered in the state. In conference with many other technology teachers, it has been observed that although they have taught this …

Traditional Lecture Versus An Activity Approach For Teaching Statistics: A Comparison Of Outcomes, Jennifer L. Loveland

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Many educational researchers have proposed teaching statistics with less lecture and more active learning methods. However, there are only a few comparative studies that have taught one section of statistics with lectures and one section with activity-based methods; of those studies, the results are contradictory. To address the need for more research on the actual effectiveness of active learning methods in introductory statistics, this research study was undertaken.

An introductory, university level course was divided into two sections. One section was taught entirely with traditional lecture. The other section was taught using active learning methods and a minimal amount of …

An Exploratory Study Of Purposeful And Strategic Communicative Techniques To Teach Vocabulary From Core Reading Programs To English Learners, Danell Bench Mieure

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This study investigated the effect of instructional practices when teaching vocabulary from a core reading program to English learners. Participants were 73 fifth-grade English learners nested in classrooms of 11 teachers who were randomly assigned to the instructional treatment group or to the comparison group. Both the treatment and comparison groups were taught vocabulary words from the district-adopted core reading program. The treatment group implemented an intervention specifically designed to teach vocabulary using techniques with the potential to increase vocabulary acquisition of English learners situated in principles of the communicative approach. Data were collected on a mastery test that measured …

Communication-Based Teaching For Chinese Language Learners, Hsiao-Mei Tsai

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This portfolio is founded on the author’s principles of communicative teaching for Chinese language learners, which were cultivated and developed in the Master of Second Language Teaching program. The initial part of the portfolio is the teaching philosophy, which contains the author’s beliefs of teacher and student roles and effective teaching approaches in the Chinese as a foreign language classroom. The teaching philosophy is supported by three artifacts, which further clarify how to associate culture, literacy, and linguistics with language learning. The literacy artifact explains the process of Chinese and English biliteracy acquisition. The culture artifact is a comparison of …

Does Teaching Narrative Structure To Children With Language Impairments Improve Comprehension Of Expository Text?, Brynne Cook Evans

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Research has shown that knowledge of narrative text structure enhances students’ abilities to comprehend and produce narrative discourse. The current study was designed to determine if training in narrative text structure was associated with improved comprehension for expository passages that adhered to a narrative structure. Six children between the ages of 5:3 and 9:7 with language impairments participated. Children were matched by grade and randomly assigned to the intervention or control group. Participants in the intervention group received instruction 2 times a week for 45-minute sessions for a duration of 12 weeks from a graduate student in speech-language pathology with …

Communicative Language Teaching, Karina C. Mora

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This portfolio is a compilation of second language teaching research and

ideas put together during the author’s time as a MSLT student. It includes a

personal teaching philosophy supported by three related artifacts. It also contains

an annotated bibliography with an overview of some of the research examined

during her time in the program. Her personal teaching philosophy underscores

how communicative language teaching can help students learn language through

meaningful use. The artifacts suggest ways to implement communicative

language teaching by teaching language in content, using multimedia authentic

texts, and teaching sociolinguistics and pragmatics.

Development Of Standards, Objectives, And Curriculum Guide To Teach Basic Electronics For Utah Science Credit In Secondary School Education, Rick Pierce

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Recently, the Utah State Office of Education (USOE) has accepted Basic Electronics, Classification of Instructional Programs (CIP) code 47.0105, as an elective to fill the required third science credit for secondary education (grades 10-12) students. The current Utah state core standards and objectives used for curriculum development in the Basic Electronics classes are now inadequate, as they are more than 15 years old, and designed specifically for students pursuing a technical career path. A formatting change to the document was implemented in 2008, but the standards and objectives were not changed.
Students are subsequently being taught the fundamentals of technology …

Learning: A Teaching Philosophy, Stephen Allen Warren

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This portfolio presents the author’s current understanding of second language teaching. The main section of the portfolio consists of a teaching philosophy that expresses the author’s believe that definitions of learning direct second language teaching. Three artifacts explore language, culture, and literature and express the development of the author’s teaching philosophy. An annotated bibliography covers the essential readings done in the course of study and provides the foundations for the author’s ontological arguments.

A Descriptive Analysis Of The Effectiveness Of Faculty Inservice In Latter-Day Saint (Lds) Seminaries, Mark A. Mathews

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of professional development in the Seminaries and Institutes of Religion (S&I) of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) through a descriptive analysis of the processes and outcomes of faculty inservice. To accomplish this purpose, 140 randomly selected LDS seminary teachers completed a survey measuring the processes and outcomes of faculty inservice training. Descriptive statistics were used to determine the frequency and variation that teachers reported five features of effective professional development (content focus, active learning, coherence, duration, and collective participation) as being part of seminary faculty inservice …

The Language Teaching Puzzle, Gregory S. Child

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This portfolio is a compilation of beliefs about effective foreign language (FL) teaching. The core of this portfolio is a teaching philosophy, in which theories, such as comprehensible input, teacher and student roles, and activities are explained. The teaching philosophy is accompanied by a reflection of the authors teaching observed from a video. Following the teaching philosophy and personal teaching reflection are three artifacts centered on language, culture, and literacy. The language artifact contains an observational study in which instructors’ practices are compared with their beliefs. The cultural artifact is focused on storytelling. Many civilizations employ storytelling in the form …