Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Physical To Virtual: A Model For Future Virtual Classroom Environments, Stephen J. Fink

Masters Theses

Virtual reality is a technology that has seen unprecedented growth since the turn of the century with increasing applications within business, entertainment, and educational applications. As virtual reality technologies continue to develops and markets expand, the world may see an increased demand for virtual classrooms: virtual environments (VEs) that students may access through immersive virtual reality technologies to receive guided instruction, conduct simulations, or perform tasks typical in a classroom setting. While many studies document how virtual reality is beneficial to educational processes, there is little discussion on how virtual environments should be architecturally designed. Thus one may hypothesize that …

The Benefits Of Anime Background In Comprehension With Manga In Japanese, Tomoaki Ito

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study is to examine whether manga and anime can be used as learning materials. Manga is one of the biggest entertainments in Japan and is read all over the world. Many Japanese language learners read manga for fun and use it as a learning material. Similarly, several Japanese language learners watch anime for fun and use it as a learning material. Due to the fact that Japanese language learners use manga and anime as learning materials, this study examines whether using manga and anime together provide high contribution for inferring novel words. There were 6 participants …

Too Taboo For You? - Questions, Lessons, And Strategies For Engaging Students With Challenging Materials, Blake Spitz

University Libraries Presentations Series

This talk will briefly present experiences of, and strategies for, teaching with challenging topics and materials in archives. In recognizing that our collections include (or have archival silences around) challenging, controversial, and even disturbing topics, when and why do we decide to share and prioritize these records, and how do we present and contextualize them for students? I will present a few case studies from my work presenting difficult records and topics to undergraduates, and some of my professional training and growth in these areas. I would love to start a dialogue, and hear from others in reaction to my, …

Japanese Pronoun Adventure: A Japanese Language Learner's Exploration Of His Japanese Gender Pronoun, Takumi Nakano

Masters Theses

In Japanese, there are various kinds of first-person pronouns, and some of them express the referent’s gender identity. Gender-neutral pronouns are made in English- speaking world day by day, but there is not any common first-person pronoun which indicates the gender identity that positions the referent’s gender somewhere between masculine and feminine. The present paper conducted a life story research on the “Japanese life” of an advanced learner of Japanese at a university in the United States who has been exploring his gender identity by coining and using a new Japanese first- person pronoun 㛪 ore, which indicates “in the …

Colonialism, Education, And Gabon: An Examination Of The Self-Translation Of Gabonese Citizens In Their Post-Colonial Space Through Education And Language, Moussavou F. Batsielilit

Masters Theses

ABSTRACT

COLONIALISM, EDUCATION, AND GABON: AN EXAMINATION OF THE SELF-TRANSLATION OF GABONESE CITIZENS IN THEIR POSTCOLONIAL SPACE THROUGH EDUCATION AND LANGUAGE.

SEPTEMBER 2016

MOUSSAVOU FROY BATSIELILIT, B.A., UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA

M.A., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST

Directed by: Professor Maria Tymoczko

Gabon’s educational model, mode, and language of instruction are similar to that of France. Likewise, the official language in Gabon remains French. The similarities between both countries, as a result, have continued to perpetuate and reinforce the indirect, or direct, influence of French culture in Gabon. The resemblance also contributed to the inability of Gabon to create an independent identity …

Teaching Piano To Students With Disabilties: A Collective Case Study, Anthony Tracia

Masters Theses

The purpose of this collective case study was to explore the ways in which piano teachers most effectively alter their curriculum to accommodate students with disabilities. Three piano teachers were recruited for this study and were interviewed about their education and teaching experiences. The interview questions used in this study were constructed to detail their educational background, specifically considering their background in special education, if any, and to describe specific ways in which they have accommodated students with disabilities. The questions also sought to discover how familiar they were with the resources available for accommodating students with disabilities.

The participants …

Reading Queerly In The High School Classroom: Exploring A Gay And Lesbian Literature Course, Kirsten Helmer

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this dissertation is to explore how teaching an English literature curriculum centered on the stories, experiences, cultures, histories, and politics of LGBTQI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex) people constitutes a meaningful site for teaching and learning in a high school classroom. The dissertation offers insights on how the teaching of LGBTQI-themed texts in English language arts classes can be reframed by bridging the goals, practices and conceptual tools of queer theory to critical literacies teaching. The project follows principles of critical qualitative research and employs an ethnographic case study approach with the purpose of transforming educational …

Engineering Victory: The Ingenuity, Proficiency, And Versatility Of Union Citizen Soldiers In Determining The Outcome Of The Civil War, Thomas F. Army Jr

Doctoral Dissertations

My dissertation explores the critical advantage the Union held over the Confederacy in military engineering. The skills Union soldiers displayed during the war at bridge building, railroad repair, and road making demonstrated mechanical ability and often revealed ingenuity and imagination. These skills were developed during the antebellum period when northerners invested in educational systems that served an industrializing economy. Before the war, northern states’ attempt at implementing basic educational reforms, the spread of informal educational practices directed at mechanics and artisans, and the exponential growth in manufacturing all generated a different work related ethos than that of the South. Plantation …

Contemplative Education: How Contemplative Practices Can Support And Improve Education, Judith Johannes

Master's Capstone Projects

The purpose of this study is to explore how contemplative education can have a viable role in education. In the first part of this thesis I will share my own personal experience with contemplative practices and how they led to my personal growth and transformation.

The second part will give some brief insights about the benefits the ancient wisdom traditions Hinduism and Buddhism attributed to contemplative practices. They claim that those practices help to reach a state of expanded awareness and stillness of the mind. Contemplative practices such as mindfulness, which is a Buddhist meditation technique, were used to better …

Subversive Representations Of Education In Francophone Novels Of The Colonial Maghreb, Whitney Bevill

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

Much work exploring alterity and hybridity in the Maghreb ignores representations of education which confront seminal formative experiences, specifically education. French colonial education was problematic because it granted access to the colonizer’s culture, yet it also created a rupture in self-identity for Maghrebi students. In this thesis, I interrogate the literary representations of sites and sources of education by analyzing how these representations discuss the tension between formal French education and informal Maghrebi education.

My thesis begins with a historical overview of colonial education in the Maghreb. I then discuss literary methods of negotiating identity, contrasting Arab and Western autobiography …

Digital Storytelling At An Educational Nonprofit: A Case Study And Genre-Informed Implementation Analysis, Lisa Dush

Doctoral Dissertations 1896 - February 2014

Digital stories--two- to five-minute videos consisting of a first-person voiceover set to a slideshow of personal photographs--combine personal reflection with digital technologies. The stories and the process of making them appeal to many organizations, particularly those with a mission of outreach or education. However, despite the inexpensive and fairly easy-to-use digital technologies involved, organizations have typically had difficulty implementing the practice.

This dissertation presents a case study of one organization that hoped to implement digital storytelling, detailing the 15 months after its Writing Director completed a digital storytelling train-the-trainer workshop. The case study organization, Tech Year, is a one-year intensive …

The Effects Of English Teaching Methods Course Of The English Department Of Kabul Education University On Secondary School English Teachers, Ali Hikmat

Master's Capstone Projects

No abstract provided.

Reading In A Second Language Classroom: A Pedagogical Report On Sociocultural Strategies For Reading Texts In The Elementary French Classroom, Kimberly Buescher

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

This thesis focuses on reading in a second language (L2) classroom and specifically on Sociocultural strategies for reading texts in the elementary French classroom. This pedagogical report first outlines the theoretical basis of the two pedagogical experiences presented which include Vygotsky’s Sociocultural theory of learning and development (SCT), specifically Cole’s (2003) Question-Asking-Reading (QAR) approach, traditional reading approaches and a literacy approach to teaching reading. The key concepts of SCT that influenced these pedagogical experiences include the zone of proximal development (ZPD), mediation, the shift from interpersonal to intrapersonal, prolepsis, and shared activities based on a specific division of labor. Cole’s …

Grounded History: A Keynote Address To The 14th Annual Massachusetts Statewide Undergraduate Research Conference, Amilcar Shabazz

Afro-American Studies Faculty Publication Series

No abstract provided.

Permanently Temporary: Roma Refugee Youth Seeking Schooling, Karen N. Binger

Master's Capstone Projects

This study investigates the experiences of education in exile from a small case study of Roma refugee male youths from Kosovo temporarily settled in Macedonia as ‘asylum seekers.’ These refugees are at an overlooked age where they have slipped through the cracks between the post-war, short-term relief and longer-term development efforts in terms of education. Many of the frustrations of this community stem from their difficulties in accessing education, and their uncertain legal limbo or ‘permanently temporary’ situations.

As adolescents, refugees, and Roma, the youth are at a triple jeopardy of marginalization and invisibility. Through conversations with four Roma refugee …

The War On Aids: The Abc's Of Fighting This War, A Historical Perspective, Laura A. Ivey

Master's Capstone Projects

No abstract provided.

One For The Crows, One For The Crackers: The Strange Career Of Public Higher Education In Houston, Texas, Amilcar Shabazz

Afro-American Studies Faculty Publication Series

The dynamics of how the dual system of higher education in Jim Crow America emerged and operated is explored in this article in the context of the largest city in the 20th century U.S. South: Houston, Texas. The history herein moves from a pragmatic response to a deep need for postsecondary educational opportunity in the 1920s to a major expansion in the 1940s in the face of the lawsuit of Heman Sweatt to the 1960s after state-mandated segregation is officially ended.

One For The Crows, One For The Crackers: The Strange Career Of Public Higher Education In Houston, Texas, Amilcar Shabazz

Amilcar Shabazz

The dynamics of how the dual system of higher education in Jim Crow America emerged and operated is explored in this article in the context of the largest city in the 20th century U.S. South: Houston, Texas. The history herein moves from a pragmatic response to a deep need for postsecondary educational opportunity in the 1920s to a major expansion in the 1940s in the face of the lawsuit of Heman Sweatt to the 1960s after state-mandated segregation is officially ended.

Film And Development: An Annotated Bibliography Of Classroom Resources, Sue Thrasher

Master's Capstone Projects

No abstract provided.

Dope Is Death, Amilcar Shabazz

Afro-American Studies Faculty Publication Series

"Dope is Death" started as a study document for revolutionary nationalist cadres in the 1980s at the height of the Crack Wars and Reaganomics. It was later published in the September/October 1987 issue of "By Any Means Necessary!" newspaper published by the New Afrikan People's Organization. The version seen here is the 1988 pamphlet edition.

Statement By New Afrikan Prisoner Of War Kuwasi Balagoon, Amilcar Shabazz

Afro-American Studies Faculty Publication Series

As a member of Kuwasi Balagoon's political defense collective, called the National Committee to Defend New Afrikan Freedom Fighters, I transcribed this statement that he attempted to present in court at his trial in Goshen, NY, that opened July 11, 1983. Orange County Judge David Ritter denied him from giving the full statement that is presented here from the pamphlet that was published for Black August 1983, with the brief introduction that I wrote.