Education Commons^™

Hidden Curriculum In A Special Education Context: The Case Of Individuals With Autism, Mona F. Sulaimani, Dianne M. Gut

Journal of Educational Research and Practice

This article examines the issue of hidden curriculum as it pertains to the experiences of individuals with disabilities, primarily those diagnosed with autism disorders. Examining the assumptions regarding the hidden curriculum, this article explores the challenges these assumptions create for individuals with autism. We provide suggestions for how these challenges could be overcome through the use of specific strategies.

Frequency And Nature Of Elementary School Teacher-Student Interactions, Thomas Ratkos

Dissertations

Schools are a social environment. Students are learning how to interact with others, both peers and adults outside their immediate family. The classroom teacher is an important part of academic instruction but also with respect to socialization. Teachers and students form a relationship, the quality of which is both important and varied. Students are an active part of that relationship; their behavior changes the way their teachers perceive and act toward them. Past studies have shown that teacher-student relationships are correlated with academic success, student behavior problems, disciplinary consequences such as suspension and expulsion, and school dropout. The present study …

A Social Influences Framework Related To College Student Learning Failures, Keith R. Proctor

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explored ways that college students reflectively described the social influences related to their learning failures. This exploration was conducted using semi-structured interviews and Stake's multiple case analysis method. The findings from the interviews were used to develop a framework that describes the key social influence attributes of the learning failure experiences. The key attributes of the framework include: (a) roles, (b) context, and (c) phases. Each key attribute is discussed in detail. The framework serves as the means for exploring several related strands of research related to learning failure in a cohesive way, potentially enriching our understanding of …

Evaluación Del Impacto De La Desnutrición Por Exceso E Interacción Social En Escolares Del Segundo Ciclo Del Nivel Básico, Ysabel Noemí Tejeda Díaz

Theses and Dissertations

Esta investigación consistió en la evaluación del impacto de la desnutrición por exceso e interacción social en los escolares del segundo ciclo del nivel básico en una escuela pública en Santo Domingo, Republica Dominicana. Se estudiaron (a) los tipos de interacciones que se producen entre los participantes y (b) las interrelaciones sociales desarrolladas en el entorno escolar. Así como el impacto en los niveles de popularidad e influencia de acuerdo a las teorías de Herrera (2008) y Rizo (2007) en el ámbito escolar.

Se realizó una investigación mixta, a partir del abordaje del problema desde los aspectos cualitativo y cuantitativo, …

Move, Interact, And Connect Personally Barter Theatre’S Project Real Gets Implicit In Order To Learn, Megan E. Atkinson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Body movement, hands-on activity, embodiment, social interaction, emotions, and self-reflection allow teaching artists of Barter’s Theatre’s Project REAL to conduct a lesson with an implicit learning experience as the focus. Barter Theatre’s Project REAL exists as a theatre for education program that collaborates with regular classroom teachers on delivering the curriculum through specific theatre exercises in order to connect the material personally to the students’ lives. Theatre tools provide a human experience that enhances learning for the student by use of kinesthetic movement, social learning, emotions and interpersonal skills. To understand the effects of Barter Theatre’s Project REAL, the director …

The Effect Of The Visual Gender Of An Embodied Agent: A Cross-Cultural Comparison, Yanghee Kim, A Guiz, A Silveryarg, M Haake, T Chen, N Kim

Yanghee Kim

This study explored if the visual gender representations (androgynous, male, or female) of an embodied agent would influence students’ perceptions of their agent and their attitudes toward the agent as their conversational partner. The study also explored if students’ gender and cultural background would interact with the agent’s visual gender to influence their perceptions and attitudes. Participants were 208 early-teen students sampled from US and South Korea. The results revealed that student gender was a significant factor for influencing students' perceptions and attitudes and that the students showed positive attitudes toward an androgynous agent more than toward a gendered agent …

Can A Pedagogical Agent Help Reduce Mathematics Anxiety?, Q. Wei, Yanghee Kim

Yanghee Kim

No abstract provided.

The Role Of Student Gender For Determining The Impact Of A Pedagogical Agent, Yanghee Kim, J. Lim

Yanghee Kim

This study was to understand how male and female teenage students reacted differently to the presence of a pedagogical agent (an animated human-like character) in a computer-based algebra-learning environment. The study first examined, in classroom experiments, if learner gender would be a determining factor for the effectiveness of a pedagogical agent on learner attitudes and learning. Next, in-depth interviews inquired into the two groups of students’ perspectives of their agent’s role for their learning and affect.

Toward Creating Computer-Based Math Learning Favoring High-School Females, Yanghee Kim

Yanghee Kim

Research indicates that teenage females prefer to work and perform better at the learning environment that supports frequent interactions and allows them to build relationships with others. This paper will introduce a computer-based algebra-learning environment MathGirls equipped with pedagogical agents (digital life-like characters) that simulate real-world social interactions and relations. The goal of MathGirls is to help young women of high-school age build positive attitudes toward and self-efficacy in math learning through this simulated social context. To investigate the efficacy of MathGirls, a classroom experiment was conducted with 83 high-school females. The experiment examined the effects of agent attributes (female …

Creating Pedagogical Agents As Social Models In An Online Learning Environment Mathgirls, Yanghee Kim, B. Xu, A. Sharif

Yanghee Kim

This paper introduces the learning environment MathGirls for high school girls learning fundamentals of algebra. Grounded in social cognitive theories of learning, MathGirls utilizes pedagogical agents to create a girl-friendly virtual learning environment. The design constituents of pedagogical agents are reviewed. These constituents are likely to influence building agent/learner relations. The agent design and system architecture of the MathGirls environment are developed to integrate some of the design constituents. Empirical findings from MathGirls deployment in classrooms support the efficacy of the presence of pedagogical agents in shaping affective and cognitive characteristics of the learner. The paper concludes with the discussions …

Mathgirls: Toward Developing Girls’ Positive Attitude And Self-Efficacy Through Pedagogical Agents, Yanghee Kim, Q Wei, B Xu, Y Ko, V Ilieva

Yanghee Kim

MathGirls is a pedagogical-agent-based environment designed for high-school girls learning introductory algebra. Since females are in general more interested in interactive computing and more positive about the social presence of pedagogical agents, the environment provides a girl-friendly social learning environment, where pedagogical agents encourage the girls to build constructive views of learning math. This study investigated the impact of agent presence on changes in the girls’ math attitude, their math self-efficacy, and their learning; on the girls’ choice of their agents; and, on their perceptions of agent affability. The results revealed that the girls with an agent developed a more …

Pedagogical Agents’ Personas: Which Affects More, Image Or Voice?, Yanghee Kim, A. L. Baylor, G. Reed

Yanghee Kim

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of image and voice of pedagogical agents on student perception and learning. Pedagogical agents were developed with differing image (expert-like vs. mentor-like) and voice (strong vs. calm vs. computer-generated), but with identical gesture, affect, comments, and gender. 109 undergraduates in a computer literacy course were randomly assigned to one of the six conditions. The results revealed a significant main effect for agent image on role perception: the mentor-like image was perceived as more motivating, as hypothesized. Also, there was a significant main effect for voice: the strong voice was overall …