Education Commons^™

Preparing 3rd Graders For Addition & Subtraction Using Differentiated Instructional & Assessment Methods, Emily Brasfield

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

This capstone project reports the effectiveness of four instructional strategies and two assessment methods that were integrated into a second-grade mathematics unit. The unit focused on addition and subtraction within 1,000 with missing numbers and story problems. The unit was taught over five days. The unit included both a pre- and post-assessment to assist in documenting student growth from the first to the last lesson. In my capstone, I will discuss the most effective instructional and assessment strategies and their impact students learning. After the completion of this unit, I analyzed the pre- and post-assessment data. I discovered that using …

This Is Your Life Cycle: Analyzing The Impact Of Graphic Organizers, Collaborative Learning, And Non-Linguistic Representations On Student Learning, Ian Schmidt

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

This capstone investigated the implementation of cooperative learning through turn-and-talks and the use of graphic organizers in a third-grade reading unit. The unit’s topic centered around a story titled “This Is Your Life Cycle” which talks about the life cycle of a dragonfly. Throughout the unit, the students completed a pre-test, multiple summaries using a graphic organizer, multiple formative assessments, and a post-test. Upon completion of the unit, I analyzed the data to determine the effects the strategies used had on students' learning. Student data and performance demonstrated a possible link between an increase in student learning and the use …

Growth Mindset And Its Impact On Math Performance In Third Grade, Alicia Wenger

Master's Theses & Capstone Projects

The purpose of this action research is to describe the effects of the application of daily growth mindset lessons upon the accuracy and level of work completion in math assessments. Participants included the researcher’s class of 13 third grade students from a small rural Midwest school district. Students participated in a daily growth mindset lesson intervention for a period of 4 weeks. Data was collected using math assessments and growth mindset surveys. The results concluded that although students can develop an improvement in mindset with intervention, it does not always directly correlate to the improvement of math accuracy and work …

Third Grade Students Collaborate And Construct Meaning Using New Literacies, Amanda Marie Mazzella

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research was to study how students collaborate and construct learning using new literacies to understand literature. Specifically, this study investigated how responding to literature digitally shapes students' responses and what students perceive to be effective forms of collaboration. Surveys, interviews, students' constructed responses, anecdotal notes, and a teacher research journal were all analyzed and coded for emerging themes. The findings show that responding to literature digitally can increase classroom efficiency, student engagement, and student motivation. Online discussions also provided opportunities for students to effectively communicate and increased their ability to collaborate. As the study progressed, it …

Creating A Sentence Frame Toolkit Based On Third Grade Writing Standards To Support The Writing Instruction Of Spanish-Speaking English Learners, Tanisha J. Rosa Le Bron

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Third grade general education teachers, particularly in Florida, will teach English learners (ELs) in their classroom who must participate in their English Language Arts writing classes at roughly the same pace as native English speakers in order to perform grade-level, standards-based writing tasks. For this reason, general education teachers must be equipped with helpful, research-based resources to support the ELs to become equally successful in writing instruction as their native-speaking peers. This thesis explored the use of sentence frames for improving the English skills of ELs as they start to understand and use the syntax of Standard English. As a …

Barriers To Bilingual: How Students Participate In Spanish And English Classes, Bailey Strahan

Masters of Education in Teaching and Learning

While participation has been linked to achievement in the classroom, various external factors can change students’ willingness to participate. In this study the researcher sought to discover what participation looks like in regards to one of these factors, language. Additionally the researcher wanted to discover what students and teachers in a bilingual program thought of their own participation in regards to language. Through the use of surveys, interviews, and observations over the course of several weeks, the researcher was able to determine that many factors including student motivation, preferences, resources available, and misunderstanding all contribute to their willingness to participate …

Lexical-Level Predictors Of Reading Comprehension In Third Grade: Is Spelling A Unique Contributor?, Kimberly A. Murphy, Laura M. Justice

Communication Disorders & Special Education Faculty Publications

Purpose:

Considerable research effort has focused on understanding reading comprehension and reading comprehension difficulties. The purpose of this correlational study was to add to the small but growing body of literature on the role that spelling may play in reading comprehension, by investigating the full range of lexical-level literacy skills and whether spelling makes a unique contribution. This study also explored whether these relations vary with the spelling scoring metric.

Method:

Data were collected from 63 children attending Grade 3 in a Midwestern state. In addition to measuring reading comprehension, word recognition, and vocabulary, 4 spelling scoring metrics were examined: …

Background Knowledge Conversations About Informational Text, Vanessa Gottesfeld

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to discover what happened when students are given opportunities to discuss their background knowledge before reading an informational text and to discuss how their background knowledge changed and grew after reading the text. The specific aim of this project was to find out how students interacted with each other during these structured and scaffolded conversations. Transcripts of student conversations, student artifacts, observations of conversations, and a teacher research journal were analyzed. The group of students studied demonstrated the ability to learn from each other, expand on each other's comments, and address misconceptions. The implications …

Teacher Perceptions And Effects Of Sustained Silent Reading On Measures Of Academic Progress Scores, Elaina Eddy

Undergraduate Research Journal

Sustained Silent Reading is reading silently for an amount of time in a distraction free environment. Sustained Silent Reading is an important attribute for literacy development. If students read daily and learn to enjoy it, they will become lifelong readers, which leads to improvement in many skills. However, reading instruction varies in schools. Many schools use incentive based approaches to reading. This practice teaches children to read for a prize, instead of reading to read. Many struggling students are assigned to read in isolation or assigned to finish homework during reading time. This method leaves struggling readers with little time …

Mindfulness And Children, Edna Moy-Rome

Graduate Student Independent Studies

The purpose of this study of mindfulness with third grade children is to describe the process using mindfulness as a tool and strategy to help children become self-aware of the present moment, and bring more calm, and focus and attention to learning within a classroom.

The Ifugaos And The Rice Terraces : A Third Grade Social Studies Curriculum About A Philippine Ethnic Community, Emelita Corazon B. Bautista

Graduate Student Independent Studies

The author created an original integrated social studies curriculum for third grade students in an urban community learning about the Ifugaos and the Rice Terraces of the Philippine Cordilleras. The various experiential activities are designed to immerse students in the life and culture of the Ifugao community.

A Curriculum For Mainstreaming The Gifted Third Grader In Reading Through Children's Literature, Suzanne Horn

Theses

Mainstreaming the gifted third- grader in reading should be accomplished through the implementation of a modified curriculum that meets the child's unique educational and specialized needs. This curriculum should be process and product oriented . Process modifications should include the use of higher levels of thinking, inductive reasoning, reasoning strategies, freedom of choice, and open-endedness . It should include appropriate changes of pacing and a variety of teaching models . The curriculum should result in a product that is based on instruction. This curriculum should be enriched with literature that exhibits fluent, flexible, original, and elaborative writing.

With these criteria …