Education Commons^™

Transformative Social Work Education: Student Learning Needs And The Truth And Reconciliation Commission's 94 Calls To Action, Garrison Mccleary

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The social work profession has played, and continues to play, an integral role in the development and implementation of discriminatory and harmful practices against Indigenous individuals, families, and communities across Canada (Blackstock, 2011). The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s (TRC) 94 Calls to Action provide a comprehensive list of recommendations of which the primary focuses on child welfare. This Call to Action centres on ensuring that social workers are, “properly educated and trained about the history and impacts of residential schools” (TRC, 2015). This responsibility falls to Faculties and Schools of Social Work Social work to ensure social work …

Impact Of A Geography-Literature Collaborative On Secondary School Pedagogy, John Matthew Mccormick

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Geography education has been relegated to a subset of social studies standards in most of the United States and has been overshadowed by a history-centered curriculum. Student achievement in geography has not improved for several decades due to the focus on history content in the social studies curriculum. Rooted in a conceptual framework encompassing elements of self-efficacy and the whole teacher approach, the purpose of this case study was to examine the impact of the West Virginia Geographic Alliance (WVGA) professional development workshop on teachers' practices in delivering cross-disciplinary geography education. The research questions addressed teachers' perceived self-efficacy in delivering …

Librarians In Community Colleges: Strategies For Promoting Information Literacy, Sharon Telise Silverman

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This qualitative case study analyzed Inner-City Community College librarians’ pedagogical approach as they facilitate information literacy and the embedded librarian–faculty collaboration. Librarians traditionally provided library instruction in a brick-and-mortar classroom, but classrooms have changed over the past few decades to include the latest technology. This change makes librarians leaders in implementing the latest technology in classrooms. Embedding entails taking the librarian from a traditional classroom environment and supplementing class appointments with the librarian in the library with visits to the classroom by the librarian, which may entail more than one class session, with the librarian even co-teaching the class in …

Unraveling Identity Signifier Literacy: A Case Study Of First-Year Composition Students' Communication Practices, Bailey Mcalister

Master of Arts in Professional Writing Capstones

Identity signifier literacy is defined as one’s ability to accurately read – via personal interactions or via visual, verbal, written, or digital communication – the signifiers others display in direct and indirect ways and interpret these signifiers to gain understanding of others’ identities. In this study, 22 first-year composition students were surveyed about their communication practices in order to see how their identity signifier literacies influence and are influenced by digital environments and composition. These results are meant to improve first-year composition pedagogy by making connections between students’ informal composition practices and their academic composition courses.

Wild Primates In Documentary Films: Biodiversity, Behavior, And Pedagogical Applications, Crystal Marie Riley Koenig

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The representation of wild primates in the nature documentary genre could have important implications for conservation and education. However, no prior research has looked at the content of this genre or its use in education. To fill this gap, the current research included a content analysis of all available documentaries focused on wild primates (n = 210) and a survey of 219 college-level anthropology instructors, with an emphasis on determining how primate biodiversity was portrayed, whether primate behavior was realistically depicted in documentaries, whether mistakes and inaccuracies were common, and how college instructors use primate documentaries as resources in their …

A Comparison Of Restorative Justice Ideology Between Administrators, Teachers, And Parents, Renée J. Alger

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Researchers suggest that restorative justice processes in schools are a successful alternative to traditional punishments for school discipline, and are used for both reactive and proactive responses to behavior issues. However, the processes are not sustainable if the administration implementing restorative justice do not promote a restorative justice ideology (RJI), and if all systems that impact the student are not aligned. Therefore, study was conducted to compare the level of restorative justice ideology between groups of administrators, teachers, and parents with a validated restorative justice ideology survey instrument that includes cooperation, restoration, and healing, and an accumulative score for RJI …

A Lesson In Learning: Improving Learning Outcomes In India Via Pedagogical Innovation, Rhea Handa

Scripps Senior Theses

When delivered well, education is key to addressing a host of individual and societal ills, from poverty and disease to crime and poor voter engagement. India has demonstrated considerable progress in improving various aspects of its primary education system, including infrastructure and buildings, teacher-student ratios, and school enrollment. However, student learning outcomes remain consistently low across the country. A review of the literature surrounding learning outcomes has highlighted gaps in school instruction and has shown the dire need for innovations in pedagogy and curriculum to improve student learning. This paper assesses the long-term impact of one such pedagogy, called Teaching …

African-Centered Pedagogy: Exploring Black Male Identity And Achievement Through An African-Centered Lens, Kenneth Turner Jr.

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

This mixed method study researched African-centered pedagogy and examined if it made a difference for Black males in middle school. The study examined what it meant to be Black for the participants through administering the Multidimensional Model of Black Identity (MMBI) which measures Black males' connections to their own cultural group. Students were asked three semi-structured questions about their experiences in school. In addition, MCA test scores and GPA were compared. Twenty-four middle school students participated for two different middle school types in Minnesota: one traditional school and one African-Centered school. Findings revealed that there were substantially different scores on …

Reconceptualizing The Work Of A Content Provider For An Online Audience: A Case Study For How Pedagogical Strategies Can Provide Models Of Engagement For Producers Of Entertainment, Diane Cooke

English Theses & Dissertations

With the interconnectivity of the Internet, and the availability of affordable media compositional tools, the proliferation of online media continues to grow exponentially. However, each day is still comprised of a fixed 24 hours, with far fewer hours spent in active media consumption. Considering the global potential for content to be found (Moreville), discovered (Cormier) or spread (Jenkins), content providers are looking for ways to attract, cultivate and hopefully expand their audiences amid all this digital clutter. In the field of entertainment, this challenge is complicated when small content providers are not aligned with an online, curated network such as …

The Technocratic Politics Of The Common Core State Standards In History, Kate Duguid

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This paper shows that the explicit aims of the American educational standards for public schools, the Common Core State Standards to teach history to create “college and career ready” students, marks a shift from preparing students for political participation to preparing them for market participation. I trace the intellectual and pedagogical origins of the Common Core’s pretense of technocratic apolitical values back through the previous two major American curricular reform efforts. In the first section I discuss the origins and development of the National History Standards and show how Cold War anxiety prompted a shift in evaluating students as potential …

Pedagogy, Partnership, And Practice: Challenges And Opportunities Through Service-Learning, Matthew Aaron Pajunen

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Service-learning has been prominently featured as a best or high impact practice for education. Yet throughout its existence, this pedagogy has been troubled with questions regarding its effectiveness, controversy in its impact on communities, and even confusion surrounding what its definition is. Within the Anthropology Department at Minnesota State University, Mankato, the impact of service-learning has often been uncertain, with exemplary stories coming out as much as negative ones. This mixed success of service-learning's application throughout the years motivated Dr. Susan Schalge to commission a student research project in 2012 to interview service-learning stakeholders to obtain a more certain grasp …

Food Insecurity In Higher Education: Awareness And Response, Rudy Correa

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

How many college students are food insecure? Studies show a wide array of responses to that question, but some of the factors that are consistent are student characteristics, such as living arrangements, parental status, economic status, and racial or ethnic background. Students are impacted in several physical and emotional ways with food insecurity. Colleges and universities are studying food insecurity and responding with campus pantries, educational workshops, and increasing awareness of the issues. How should students learn about the issues and the resources they can access? This paper outlines the research findings and proposes a specific learning module for one …

Communication Patterns And Strategies In Software Development Communities Of Practice, Shreya Kumar

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Some of the greatest challenges in the relatively new field of software development lie in the decidedly old technology of communication between humans. Software projects require sophisticated and varied communication skills because software developers work in a world of incomplete, imperfect information where teams evolve rapidly in response to evolving requirements and changing collaborators. While prescriptive models for software process such as Agile suggest ways of doing, in reality these codified practices must adapt to the complexities of a real workplace. Patterns, rather than rules of behavior within software process are more suitable to the varied and mutable nature of …

Effect Of Mindfulness Training On Interpretation Exam Performance In Graduate Students In Interpreting, Julie E. Johnson

Doctoral Dissertations

Many graduate interpreting students struggle because the real-time, interactive nature of interpreting dictates that they be able to regulate their attention across different parallel cognitive activities and manage the inherent stress and unpredictability of the task. Within the framework of Cognitive Load Theory, this mixed-methods study explored the effect of short-term mindfulness training on consecutive interpreting exam performance using a quasi-experimental repeated-measures design. It also examined the relationships among mindfulness, stress, aspects of attention, and interpreting exam performance. The sample included 67 students (age M = 26.9 years; 82% female) across seven language programs (Chinese, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Russian, …

Transition And Transformation - From Military Combat To College Classroom: Strategies For Success, Charles Mark Brewer

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Research shows that faculty, staff, and administrators at institutions of higher learning have a fundamental responsibility to create a safe and effective learning environment for returning military combat veterans. Studies of student veterans have shown that combat veterans have both unique strengths and barriers that must be taken into account if they are to complete an advanced degree. This study contributes to the literature on educational barriers faced by student veterans and their educators. Knowles' andragogy theory provided the theoretical framework for this transcendental-phenomenological research study. Ten randomly chosen student military veterans from Tacoma Community College in Tacoma, Washington, participated …

The Lived Experiences Of Counselor Educators Using Mindful Teaching Approaches, Abby E. Dougherty

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Researchers have indicated that mindful teaching approaches support students and educators throughout the learning process. The purpose of this hermeneutic phenomenological study was to explore the lived experiences of counselor educators with a daily mindfulness practice in the classroom with culturally diverse students. Relational-cultural theory (RCT) was the conceptual framework. Relational cultural theory concepts of relational connections and disconnections were used to explore the participants' lived experiences implementing a mindful teaching approach. Purposeful sampling yielded 10 participants who participated in semi-structured interviews. Using an inductive approach, the data were analyzed to identify essential themes. Thematic analysis was conducted by hand …

#Networkedglobe: Making The Connection Between Social Media And Intercultural Technical Communication, Laura Anne Ewing

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Preparing students of technical communication in the twenty-first century means training them to rhetorically utilize a wide variety of online tools. Technical communicators are now required to employ social media applications on a daily basis to communicate with clients, consumers, colleagues, and other organizations. These online modes have also opened the door to global communication wider and continue to present opportunities and challenges to technical communicators worldwide. Using Japan as a model, this dissertation sought to demonstrate a rhetorical exigency for teaching intercultural social media communication strategies to future technical communicators in the United States. The goal of this dissertation …

Pedagogy At Play: Gamification And Gameful Design In The 21st-Century Writing Classroom, Danielle Roney Roach

English Theses & Dissertations

The language used to discuss play in current academic spaces tends to center around formal games (and computer games in particular in the 21st century classroom). Scholarly conversations tend to distort the actual practices that occur in classrooms and subsequently limit the scope of any investigation of the pedagogical function and outcomes of those practices. This project explores the use of play and games in the classrooms of nine composition instructors. From these stories, this project begins to map out a taxonomy in order to begin building toward a pedagogy of play for 21st century writing classrooms. Using a multiperspectival …

Materiality, Craft, Identity, And Embodiment: Reworking Digital Writing Pedagogy, Kristin Prins

Theses and Dissertations

Too often in Rhetoric and Composition, multimodal writing (an expansive practice of opening up the media and modes with which writers might work) is reduced to digital writing. “Reworking Digital Writing” argues that the opportunities and insights of digital writing should encourage us to turn our attention to all kinds of nondigital materials that have not traditionally been considered part of composing—including the materials that are already familiar to crafters and do-it-yourselfers (DIYers). Further, I argue that the material, technical, rhetorical, economic, and social dimensions of DIY craft provide a coherent framework for teaching multimodal writing in ways that encourage …

Technical Communication As Teaching: A Grounded Theory Study Of Cognitive Empathy And Audience Engagement Among Computer Science Majors In A Technical Communication Classroom, Robert Michael Rowan

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is a grounded theory study of empathy, ethical awareness, and audience engagement activities in students in a technical writing service course. The course was designed around an empathy-oriented approach to teaching technical writing and writing research. The students are primarily computer science majors, and the teaching methods include a genre and writing research approach as well as the use of an extended metaphor of technical communication as a form of teaching. Findings indicate that students respond to the metaphor by drawing upon positive and empathetically-informed models of teachers and teaching to guide how they would work with and …

The Writing Is The Wall: Expanding The Means Of Communication With Multimodal Approaches To Teaching Composition, Matthew Williams Schering

All Student Theses and Dissertations

As the paradigm of communication shifts into the digital realm, it seems only logical that instructors’ pedagogical approaches to teaching writing should shift as well. Though there is still much merit to teaching tradition approaches to composition, are there more modern methods that could be employed to teach communication in a contemporary setting? This thesis shall examine the role that new media can play in a multimodal composition course, as new media seems to be the most effective way to teach rhetorical communication skills in a modern setting. By looking at new media elements, such as podcasts, wikis, and images, …

Pedagogical Development Of Zen Buddhism And Taoism For Taos Ed. Ventures, Kelsey Tyler

Social Sciences

Taos Ed. Ventures is an outdoor guiding company that will be offering backpacking trips in Taos, New Mexico to high school and college students, with ages ranging from 16 – 29, starting the summer of 2015. Along with backpacking skills, the philosophies of Zen Buddhism and Taoism will be taught while on the trail. To teach these philosophies, a pedagogy was created, combining aspects of Sentipensante and Contemplative pedagogies that seeks to teach the daily applications of Zen Buddhism and Taoism through experiential and innovative learning methods, such as journaling, meditation, and mindfulness practices. The benefits of these alternative learning …

The Lived Experiences Of Master's Level Counseling Students In Beginning Skills Classes: A Qualitative Study, Brian K. Knight

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Abstract

According to McAuliffe and Lovell (2006), regardless of the training received in skills classes, master’s level counseling students continue to be rote in their approach to clients and their use of counseling skills as opposed to understanding how skills fit into the helping process. Students also experience confusion manifested by fear, anxiety, self-doubt, and questioning of abilities to perform the required skills (Skovholt & Jennings, 2005). The purpose of this research study was to explore the lived experiences of master’s level counseling students in a beginning counseling skills class. I used Perry’s (1970) scheme of cognitive and intellectual development …

Nontraditional Approaches With Nontraditional Students: Experiences Of Learning, Service And Identity Development, Suzanne Marie Buglione

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

Nontraditional students are a growing population in higher education, yet our understanding of the unique factors that predict their success have not increased. Economic challenges, changing work demands, and the desire for personal and professional advancement fuel the nontraditional student's return to school (Kelly & Strawn, 2011). Their isolation and lack of social networks lead to poor academic outcomes as defined by retention, graduation and degree attainment. The classroom offers a beacon of hope for the engagement of nontraditional students, an opportunity to strengthen student identity and draw connections across the multiple worlds where these students reside. This phenomenological inquiry …

The Acquisition Of Cultural Competence: A Phenomenological Inquiry Highlighting The Processes, Challenges And Triumphs Of Counselor Education Students, Douglas L. Garner

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Although research has effectively isolated and identified the key characteristics of a culturally competent counselor, there are few studies regarding the acquisition of these characteristics. To close the gap between theory and practice, studies are needed researching the emergence and, acquisition of these characteristics. This study explores how Masters-level Counselor Education students narrate the encounters, challenges, triumphs and epiphanies associated with their preliminary attempts to practice in a culturally competent manner. This phenomenological inquiry seeks to shed light students attitudes, beliefs and dispositions; defines the processes related to the acquisition of cognitive awareness and learning, skills and abilities; and illuminates …

Applying Ajzen's Theory Of Planned Behavior To A Study Of Online Course Adoption In Public Relations Education, Ann Knabe

Dissertations (1934 -)

This study used Icek Ajzen's Theory of Planned Behavior to research public relations faculty intentions of teaching online. All of the main predictor variables (Subjective Norms, Attitude toward the Act and Perceived Behavioral Control) were statistically significant at varying degrees in predicting intent to teach public relations online. Of the three, Subjective Norms was found to be the strongest predictor of Intention. Collectively, Subjective Norms, Attitude toward the Act and Perceived Behavioral Control explained 49% of the variance in intent to teach a public relations course online. Subsequent tests, however, revealed a poor model fit when the Theory of Planned …

The Use Of Humor In The Classroom: Exploring Effects On Teacher-Student Immediacy And Student Learning, Francisco Antonio Galindo

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The field of education is constantly evolving; however, the goal of bridging the gap between teacher and student relationships remains the same. The focus of pedagogical theories is to inform and orient educators on how they can maximize the learning experience of their students through effective and constantly evolving teaching methods. Many studies have been conducted in regards to how educators can establish a positive learning environment while promoting solid comprehension and lasting retention of the material being taught. Among the methods being tested and practiced by educators is the use of humor (Garner, 2005) in order to achieve immediacy …

Creating A Learning Environment To Increase Early Adolescent Motivation: A Dissertation, Mark Logan

Educational Studies Dissertations

This study focuses on early adolescent motivation in school. It is an inquiry that seeks to understand the factors that contribute to students’ engagement in their learning through student and teacher perceptions. I examined significant research often cited as impacting motivation, including early adolescent development, middle school structures, transitions, student/teacher relationships, and parental involvement. I surveyed 345 sixth grade students on their perceptions of their own learning, thoughts, and behaviors. Participating students attended schools with various middle school age configurations, including K-8, K-12, 5-8, and 6-8. Schools represented public and charter public schools and were located in urban, suburban, and …

Deliberate Practice In Professional Speaking Expertise, Helen Lie

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to explore expertise development in professional speaking from the perspective of deliberate practice. A convenience sample of 10 elite and 12 experienced professional members of the National Speakers Association participated in 30-60 minute phone interviews in which they described behaviors and activities that contributed to their skill development in speaking and what factors motivated them to pursue excellence in their craft. The group of elite subjects averaged 62.9 years of age (SD = 8.03) and 34.9 years (SD = 7.78) of professional speaking experience. The experienced group had an average age of 53.3 years …

Namaste: Pedagogical Methods For Designing Yoga & Art Experiences For/With Teen Participants, Tiffani Olivia Bryant

English Theses & Dissertations

Within this study, teens are asked to analyze yoga studio homepages in relation to their experiences with the practice of yoga. This dissertation research engages the teen girls as participants responsible for co-designing the learning constructs through which they make meaning out of their experiences. This research is rooted in informational design, experiential design, and design practices for a teen demographic through the artifact of yoga.

Participant observation is used to examine how eight teen girls understand yoga as a practice, internalize their experiences with yoga, and thusly communicate what they have learned about yoga and a sampling of digital …