Education Commons^™

Musicalization: Early Childhood Music Access, Discourse, And Praxis In Nyc Charter Schools, 2014-2015, Andrew Aprile

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Over the past two decades, charter schools have become a hallmark of education reform in the United States. Concurrent with this movement is the increasing prominence of high stakes testing. While much research has sought to compare the effectiveness of charter schools and traditional public schools in terms of standardized assessments, scant attention has been paid to the role of arts and music in charter schools, and little has been done to distinguish the distinct strands of the charter school movement. Given what we know about the importance of music education and the growth of charter schools, it was the …

An Evaluation Of The Effects Of The Search For Education, Elevation, And Knowledge (Seek) Program On Short- And Intermediate-Term Outcomes, Raymond Galinski

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The Search for Education, Elevation, and Knowledge (SEEK) program is an educational opportunity program within the City University of New York designed to provide economically and academically disadvantaged students, who otherwise would not have such access, the opportunity to attend college and to succeed once enrolled. However, despite being in existence for a half-century, surprisingly little is known about how the SEEK program contributes to student achievement and success. This study was the first to empirically measure the short- and intermediate-term impacts of this program on student outcomes.

Using propensity scores to match SEEK students to similar non-SEEK students to …

Effect Of Implementation Of Simulation On Critical Thinking Skills In Undergraduate Baccalaureate Nursing Students, Joanne M. Knoesel

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Human patient simulation (HPS) is a time and cost intensive teaching modality that is used widely in nursing education, and has been implemented with little evidence to support its efficacy (Jeffries & Rizzolo, 2006). Researchers note the lack of reliable tools to measure learning using this teaching modality, and consequentially there is a paucity of research linking critical thinking and simulation (Jeffries, 2007; Kneebone, 2003; Nehring, 2008). Nursing clinical decision making affects patient outcomes. Critical thinking is a key factor in clinical decision making. A review of the relevant literature is equivocal on the use of simulation in undergraduate nursing …

Open Source Micro Diplomas: New Credentials For New Learning, Jack F. Powers

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The standard model for college in America—a four-year bachelor’s degree that teaches critical thinking, analytic reasoning, and written communication skills—is unaffordable and unattainable for most Americans. Only about a third of citizens aged 25 and over have achieved a baccalaureate degree or better. Two-thirds are left behind in precarious jobs that pay substantially less and that are losing ground. Everyone from politicians to parents repeats the mantra of “college for all”, but the reality is more like “college for the socio-economically gifted.”

At the same time, the modern world of work is evolving into a more complex, technical, and computerized …

Letter To The President: Longitudinal Critical Discourse Analysis Of Academic And Hip Hop Genres In A Rap Narrative Program, Debangshu Roygardner

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The objective of this study was to examine an in-school rap narrative workshop through critical discourse theory (Bamberg, 2012; Daiute, 2014). Twelve youth from a public school serving youth in urban Houston, TX were recruited from an in-school and after-school Hip hop/Rap narrative program to participate in a two-year cohort research study. The primary research question guiding the study was “How do young people participating in a school-based Hip hop/Rap program use a wide range of narrative genres for literacy and psycho-social development over two years in the program?”

The data-intensive study involved assessments of literacy and psycho-social development via …

The Racial Politics Of Elementary School Choice For Black Parents Living In Brooklyn, Ny, Shannon N. Allen

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Charter school proliferation has disproportionately affected Black urban neighborhoods and the debate about the relationship between racial educational equity and enhanced public school choice through charters has created dissension and discord in scholarship and across Black politics, educational organizing efforts, neighborhoods, and school communities. This study is an interpretive policy analysis of the effects of charter school policy on the elementary school choice preferences and experiences of twenty Black parents living in predominately low-income and racially segregated Black Brooklyn neighborhoods where charter schools are disproportionately concentrated. It was designed to identify disparities between the values and goals of school choice …

The Value Of Value-Added: Science, Technology, And Policy In Educational Evaluation, Daniel Douglas

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In the first decade of the 21^st century, researchers and policymakers in K-12 education began to focus on evaluating teacher and school performance based on students’ standardized test scores. One evaluative technique, value-added assessment (VAA), has been given particular attention. This research presents a comprehensive study of the theoretical, technical, historical and political dimensions VAA. Theoretically, the assumptions that underlie value-added diverge significantly from the observed operations of the schools and classrooms these models are supposed to evaluate. Technically, even if the theoretical assumptions are accepted, teachers’ actual value-added rankings are shown to be unstable across time periods and …

Reinventing The Wheel Of Teaching Business? Learning In The Academic Classroom - The Case Of The Business Consulting Course, Francesco R. Frova

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The purpose of this study is to use the case of the Business Consulting course to demonstrate and enhance the significance of the application of effective and experiential learning in the academic classroom. Three Learning Theories are considered: Classical, Social, and Experiential Learning. Principles of effective learning and learning goals are described, and are looked at through the description of a Business Strategy and Business Consulting courses run in a US North-Eastern public university. The Business Consulting course is then compared with a standard lecture course and a course that uses case studies to demonstrate how the learning goals can …