Education Commons^™

"We Need Educational Confession": A Philosophical Inquiry Of Curriculum As Confession, Christopher M. Cruz

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation theorizes curriculum as confession and attends to questions of justice, selfhood, and the pursuit of truth. An inquiry on confession is atypical among traditional educational dissertations because the practice is normally associated with religious institutions as opposed to schools or higher education. Moreover, confession is something usually associated with guilt or shame, not with traditional educational discourses of learning, teaching, or curriculum. As a result, confession is overlooked within educational discourse.

I argue, however, that confession always occurs because curriculum is the site of subjective educational experience. Taking part in the reconceptualist tradition of the curriculum field, curriculum …

A Phenomenographic Study Of K-8 Mathematics Teachers’ Conceptualizations And Their Accounts Of Enacting Integrated Stem Education, Elizabeth Forde

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Students’ mathematics performance in the United States and internationally continues to cause concern among educators, researchers, and policymakers. This concern coupled with a re-energized interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) has resulted in calls to revisit the approaches used in teaching mathematics. A promising pathway for improving students’ problem-solving skills and mathematical understanding is through integrated approaches (Burghardt et al., 2010; Chiappetta, 2009) as is currently being practiced in STEM education. One of the major stakeholders and catalysts in implementing this transformative possibility is mathematics teachers. Teachers’ conceptualizations and approaches to instruction affect student learning outcomes (Srikoom et …

An Exploratory Examination Of The Financial Knowledge, Attitudes, Capabilities, And Socialization Of Black College Students And Their Lived Experience Of Personal Financial Management, Joycelyn C. Morris

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Financial literacy and education have become hot topics in the U.S. The research of the Black community within this field of study is limited and existing research findings are bleak. The purpose of this study was to understand the financial knowledge, behaviors, and socialization of Black college students. Many existing studies seek to understand financial literacy through quantitative inquiry solely, however this study used a concurrent mixed method research design to obtain a holistic understanding of the research questions while minimizing biases.

The quantitative portion of the study consisted of a survey administered online and grounded in the Family Financial …

A Culturally Sustaining Book Club: The Examination Of African American Students' Motivation And Literacy Achievement, Brittney C. Jones

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Culturally sustaining pedagogy includes centering students’ cultural identities, languages, and practices in the classroom. Such practices have had positive effects on the reading achievement and motivation of African American students. In particular, communalism and interdependence are cultural themes that are preferred by African American students and parents. Book clubs are a long-standing literacy activity that centers student voices and social interactions as the basis of student learning.

This mixed-methods intervention study was conducted to determine the effects of a culturally sustaining book club on second and third-grade African American students’ motivation and reading achievement at a Title I school as …