Education Commons^™

Bellevue-Santa Fe Charter School Scitechatorium Shake Table, Joshua Clemens, Kellen Fujishin, Alysson Loo, Samara Van Blaricom

Mechanical Engineering

The purpose of this report is to document the Senior Project that has been laid out by Bellevue-Santa Fe Charter School, assigned to Team W45, or “Experiment 626.” The school’s SciTechatorium is a classroom of displays relating to STEM subjects and the challenge presented to the Cal Poly team of mechanical engineers was to design and build a new, exciting exhibit that would be added to the SciTechatorium. The display should be engaging to children, educational in demonstrating a STEM concept, and be durable enough to withstand excessive use by children. The Scope of Work summarized in Sections 1-3 presents …

How Students Communicate Knowledge: Written Versus Drawn Responses To Formative Assessment Questions In An Introductory Undergraduate Marine Science Course, Christina Siddons

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Undergraduate science education suffers from a lack of concrete instructional strategies that address real-world postgraduate skills such as visual literacy and science communication. Research within marine science education especially lags behind other, more well-researched fields such as physics or mathematics education, both of which have extensive literature addressing specific instructional strategies that instructors can implement in the classroom. Undergraduate marine science programs overlap with content areas from chemistry, physics, and biology, and provide a rich opportunity for examining how to include more authentic educational experiences in an undergraduate classroom. However, the types of assessments that are typically employed tend to …

Improving Care Experience Of Total Joint Home Recovery Patients Through Nursing Education, Earvin Ledi

Master's Projects and Capstones

Problem: At a Northern California hospital (NCH), there is a current effort to ensure the perioperative patients are satisfied with their care. These patients receive the Outpatient and Ambulatory Surgery Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (OAS CAHPS) survey after surgery. The scores regarding discharge process and patient knowledge over the last five quarters have fluctuated between the 10th percentile and the 36th percentile. NCH relies on patient satisfaction scores to better serve their members.

Context: NCH understands the higher the scores, the more members they will retain and the higher the overall income. Based on the low OAS …

Overcoming Adversity In The Stem Classroom: Examining Learned Helplessness In First-Year Community College Students Using Salivary Cortisol, Surveys And Interviews, Diane M. Price Banks

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation seeks to determine whether a relationship between STEM attrition and Learned Helplessness exist in a group of first year STEM majors studied at an urban community college. STEM attrition rates have shown that 69% of the 20% of incoming STEM freshmen in associate degree programs, drop out or switch their majors to non-STEM curriculum within their first year of college (NCES, 2013). Learned helplessness is a behavioral phenomenon where some may become helpless as the conditions surrounding their success become adverse. Classic signs expressed with learned helplessness include: lack of motivation, depression, poor social skills, absence of control …

The Effects Of Project Lead The Way Launch Curriculum On Elementary Girls’ Perception And Career Interests In Science, Technology, Engineering, And Mathematics, Mina Blazy

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

The United States has examined the quality of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education since before the turn of the century. STEM educators are still having the conversation around why more women are not joining STEM pathways. Girls and boys as early as birth are curious about the world; through their own lens they learn about gravity from dropping spaghetti on the floor or seeing a small insect on the wall. As children get older they are influenced by the perceptions of their parents and peers.

This study looked at the perception and career interests of girls in STEM …

Stem Education In The Elementary School Classroom, Kendal C. Carter

Education | Master's Theses

There is a disparity in research conducted for STEM education across elementary, middle, high school, and college. STEM learning teaches students to ask questions, look at a problem through multiple lenses, work collaboratively with others, plan carefully, become flexible, embrace change, improve upon their idea, persevere through challenges, and open themselves up to discussing new ideas and differing points of view. The literature review revealed the differing schools of thought regarding STEM education, a variety of implementation methods, and the changes seen in classrooms detailing how students connect in class curricula to real world examples. The literature also highlighted a …

Engaging Students In Science Through Effective Teaching, Alexis Nader

Honors Projects

What does effective teaching look like? How can research be implimented into the classroom?

The Embark® Protocol: Dog Genomics In Genetics Laboratories, Alexandra Kissel

Honors Theses

In a world of ever-advancing technology, it is imperative that young pre-health professionals are educated according to the most relevant research. One of the most fundamental, foundational concepts of health is genetics. This field is rapidly expanding, and quickly engraining itself into the realm of healthcare. Genetic testing and gene therapies, once subjects of science fiction, have become commonplace. It is more important than ever that health professionals have a concrete knowledge of genetics, and this begins with the proper education of pre-health students.

With this idea in mind, a laboratory protocol was designed for students of the Bisc 336 …

Correcting Student Motivation In A Mathematics Classroom, Joshua Mcpheron

Honors Projects

The intentions of this action research study are to analyze the motivational components of students in a classroom and test which forms of encouragement will create the most motivation. Utilizing the Motivational Systems Theory of Martin E. Ford, students will be measured quantitatively and qualitatively for their classroom motivation and which component of the theory causes them to lack it. The results will reveal how each type of student responds to different teaching styles, and how they will be motivated as a result.

An Investigation Of The Impacts Of Traditional, Virtual, And Hybrid Biological Laboratories On College Students’ Achievement And Motivation To Learn Biology, Shavonda Jackson

Dissertations

Virtual courses function in a different manner than traditional courses, therefore they require teaching methods and assessment techniques geared specifically to maximize this learning experience. Internet-based learning and distance-education are no longer new concepts in the science field. Because of this, many collegiate biology programs have created courses that can be taken virtual or hybrid. A number of experimental studies have had great influence in terms of the effects and impacts of educational technology in relation to virtual laboratories.

However, not many studies emphasize the impact of hybrid laboratories on student achievement or assess students’ motivation to learn in a …

Introducing Science Education In Early Childhood, Marissa M. Arciniega

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

The increasing focus on literacy development and kindergarten readiness in preschool has created a lack of science education in early childhood education. In recent research, Head Start found that of the four academic readiness domains for preschoolers (i.e., language, literacy, math, and science), science is the lowest-performing area amongst students in their program (Bustamante, White, & Greenfield, 2018). Research is showing that declining performance in science is partly due to the lack of science education in classrooms. Lack of science is not only affecting school performance down the road, but it also limits children in receiving the benefits of early …

College Student Changing Attitudes And Beliefs About The Nature Of And Teaching Of Mathematics And Science, Stephen R. Skinner

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

With an estimated 17.3 million STEM jobs in the US, there exists a need for a STEMready workforce that is science literate with positive attitudes and beliefs toward the learning and teaching of mathematics and science (Graf, Fry, & Funk, 2018). However, the US has seen a steady decline in the number of high school students interested in STEM-related fields with only 16% of interested students with proven proficiency in mathematics and science and are ready to enroll in college STEM programs (ACT, 2017; Osborne & Dillon, 2008; Stake & Mares, 2001). With the decline in student interest, the US …

The Marshmallow Lab: A Project-Based Approach To Understanding Functional Responses, Melissa Pulley

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This paper presents a three-part lesson plan to improve student’s understanding of Holling’s type II functional response model. This model describes the interaction between a predator and how much it is able to consume given a constant number of prey. According to the model, while increased availability of prey allows predators to consume portionately more prey for low values, after some number of prey, predators will only be able to capture a limited number of prey even as the prey continues to increase. This phenomenon is known as saturation. Holling first develop this important ecological theory through his “disc experiment” …

Reconsidering Undergraduate Anatomy And Physiology Curriculum, Eric Michael Walsh

Theses and Dissertations

In the past 50 years several convergent factors have spurred unprecedented change in anatomy and physiology (A&P) instruction. An explosion of biomedical knowledge, an increased demand for students well-versed in A&P, and decreased resources for the course has provoked a vast array of research. However, most studies employ one of three strategies to enact change: testing the effectiveness of new pedagogies, exploring the utility of new technologies, or documenting learning in new contexts. By comparison, a much smaller body of research focuses on changing the A&P curriculum to improve student learning. To address this gap, the musculoskeletal curriculum for an …

First Grade Educators' Perceptions Of Their Confidence To Integrate The West Virginia Mathematical Habits Of Mind Into Classroom Practices, Monica Lynn Dellamea

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Mathematical proficiency during the early years is directly linked to later success in life, both regarding academics and economics. First grade educators must have the knowledge and skills to integrate the West Virginia Mathematical Habits of Mind (WV MHM) into their existing classroom instructional practices to help establish strong foundations for mathematical learning and thinking early on in children’s lives. This study investigated first grade educators’ perceptions of their confidence with integration of the WV MHM into their classroom instructional practices. Barriers to and supports for implementation, as well as educator demographics, were examined to determine any effect they may …

Middle School Science Teachers’ Experience With The Change To Inquiry-Based By Instruction, Patricia Adams-Gouthro

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Middle school science teachers in a Northeastern urban school district incorporated an inquiry-based curriculum (IBC) using the full option science system (FOSS) to improve instruction; however, the teachers struggled to change their teaching practices. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore teachers’ experiences with and their changes in instructional practices using the FOSS curriculum. The concerns-based adoption model was the framework that guided this study. The research questions focused on identifying the levels of use, stages of concern, and experiences and needs teachers had using the FOSS curriculum. A purposeful sample of 14 middle school science teachers, …

Mindset Matters: Using Research-Based Strategies To Enhance Middle-School Math Instruction, Catherine Harvey

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.