Education Commons^™

Professional Learning Communities (Plcs) For Early Childhood Science Education, Jungwon Eum

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This study explored the content, processes, and dynamics of Professional Learning Community (PLC) sessions. This study also investigated changes in preschool teachers’ attitudes and beliefs toward science teaching after they participated in two different forms of PLCs including workshop and face-to-face PLC as well as workshop and online PLC. Multiple sources of data were collected for this study including participant artifacts and facilitator field notes during the PLC sessions.

The participants in this study were eight teachers from NAEYC-accredited child care centers serving 3- to 5-year-old children in an urban Midwest city. All teachers participated in a workshop entitled, “Ramps …

Making Sense Of Sound: Fourth Graders Use Physical And Technological Models To Illustrate And Explain The Nature And Characteristics Of Sound, Deepika Menon, Deanna Lankford

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

From the earliest days of their lives, children are exposed to all kinds of sound, from soft, comforting voices to the frightening rumble of thunder. Consequently, children develop their own naïve explanations largely based upon their experiences with phenomena encountered every day (Driver et al. 1994). When new information does not support existing conceptions, explanations are refashioned to agree with prior experiences, often resulting in misconceptions (Wesson 2001). Science education literature identifies multiple misconceptions related to sound commonly held by elementary students, including: Sound can only travel through air and not through solids and liquids; sound can travel through a …

Heteroglossic Practices In A Multilingual Science Classroom, Lydiah Kananu Kiramba

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

This paper uses sociocultural theories of language learning to investigate how teachers and students navigate between monolingual institutional policies and the multilingual realities encountered in a rural Kenyan fourth-grade classroom. The paper addresses not only how learners’ communicative repertoires are deployed to make meaning in a foreign language instruction context but also the sociocultural significance of these communicative practices. Results illustrate how the science teacher used heteroglossic practices to mediate students’ access to literacy, hence, supporting the content learning and language development of students. Both the science teacher and the students preferred a more flexible use of language to make …

Leveraging A Teacher Mentorship Program In A Complex System, Jami L. Holbein Swanson

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The support a beginning teacher receives varies from school to school, and from district to district. When beginning teachers are not supported, their learning as teachers is not maximized. New teacher induction is the strategy most school districts employ to support new-hires. Current scholarship suggests the terms induction and mentor program are often used interchangeably, but actually have very different definitions. Mentors programs are one component of a comprehensive induction program; where as, an induction program is a series of events or activities in the beginning years of a teacher’s career. Effectively leveraging the mentorship program in a complex system …

Nefdc Conference Program, Fall 2016, New England Faculty Development Consortium

New England Faculty Development Consortium Conference Programs

New England Faculty Development Consortium

Civic Engagement and Service-Learning

November 18, 2016

College of the Holy Cross

Worcester, Massachusetts, United States

Keynote address: Randy Stoecker, Toward Liberating Service Learning

Nefdc Exchange, Volume 29, Fall 2016, New England Faculty Development Consortium

NEFDC Exchange

Contents

President’s Message -Dakin Burdick, Mount Ida College

Save the date, spring conference - Student-Faculty Research Collaborations, keynote speaker, Alan November, founder of November Learning; keynote address: Helping Students Build a Global Network for Lifelong Learning

Exploring the Universe Through a Cultural Lens - Kristine Larsen, Central Connecticut State University

Scientific Literacy Skills for the 21st Century - Cynthia Brandenburg, Champlain College

Using Celebrity to Discuss Diversity - Kellie Deys, Nichols College

Reacting to the Past: Learning Diversity of Perspectives Through Role Playing - Frances Alexakos, Roger Williams University

Mindsets Matter in Education - Cheryl Williams, Salem State University

The …

Black Female Adolescents And Racism In Schools: Experiences In A Colorblind Society, Nicole Joseph, Kara Viesca, Margarita Bianco

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

This article takes up the questions: (a) How do Black female adolescents define racism?, (b) What kind of experiences with racism to they report having in schools?, and (c) How can these perspectives and experiences inform educational reform efforts? The in-depth analysis of 18 student surveys and interviews revealed that most of the definitions of racism centered on prejudice, discrimination, and differential treatment; and most of the experiences the girls described regarding racism in school illustrated issues of prejudice, discrimination, and differential treatment as well as stereotypes, labels and low teacher expectations. Critical Race Theory, Critical Race Feminism, and Black …

Community Partnerships In Urban, Title 1 Elementary Schools: A Mixed-Methods Study, Jae L. Strickland

Department of Educational Administration: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The purpose of this mixed-methods study was to identify and describe community partnerships in Urban, Title 1 Elementary Schools.

Fifty-one principals from the Southern and Midwestern regions of the United States completed a 19-question on-line survey designed to explore community partnerships in Urban, Title 1 Elementary Schools. Of the 51 principals who completed the survey, 26 agreed to participate in a semi-structured interview.

The findings of the study suggest that community partnerships play an essential role in supporting Urban, Title 1 Elementary Schools. Finding community partners can be challenging. Principals who wish to engage community partners should identify the needs …

Translanguaging In The Writing Of Emergent Multilinguals, Lydiah Kananu Kiramba

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

This article discusses the findings of an empirical study that investigated the writing practices in a multilingual, rural, fourth-grade classroom in Kenya. The study was undergirded by Bakhtin’s heteroglossia. Analysis of texts indicated that these emergent multilinguals used multiple semiotic resources to maximize the chances of meeting the communicative goals through translanguaging. However, the translanguaging process in writing was a tension-filled process in terms of language separation and correctness. The emergent multilingual writer went through tensions in the process of finding a balance between authorial intentions and the authoritarian single voicedness required by the school and the national curriculum. The …

Secondary Pre-Service Teachers’ Algebraic Reasoning About Linear Equation Solving, Christina Alvey, Rick A. Hudson, Jill Newton, Lorraine M. Males

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

This study analyzes the responses of 12 secondary pre-service teachers on two tasks focused on reasoning when solving linear equations. By documenting the choices PSTs made while engaging in these tasks, we gain insight into how new teachers work mathematically, reason algebraically, communicate their thinking, and make pedagogical decisions. We will share qualitative results from our examination of teacher knowledge through pre-service teachers’ explanations, models, language, and conjectures about student thinking.

In This Issue [Of Tesol Quarterly, On Language Teacher Identity], Monka M. Varghese, Suhanthie Motha, Gloria Park, Jenelle Reeves, John Trent

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

Our decision to propose a special issue of TESOL Quarterly on language teacher identity (LTI) grew out of our growing recognition of the profound embeddedness of LTI within the research, teaching, and policy practices of (multi)lingual professionals and the immense interest generated by LTI work within the disciplines that engage with language education. We use (multi) in (multi)lingual to underscore our desire to move beyond a monolingual lens in TESOL and to highlight potential extensions to the notion of multilingualism, such as (pluri), (trans), (ethno), and (racio). This allows us …

Educator Responses To Migrant Children In Mexican Schools, Juan Sánchez Garcia, Edmund T. Hamann

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

A decade-long, five-state, mixed-method study of students encountered in Mexican schools with previous experience in the United States suggests there may be 400,000 such students in educación básica alone (elementary and middle school). The focus here, however, are data from 68 educators asked how they have responded to such students and their families. We offer an emergent taxonomy of teacher sensemaking about these students and teachers’ responsibilities to respond. We then assert that because they are at the interface between a national institution (school) and transnational phenomena (migration), educators can provide key insight into how migration is shaped and negotiated. …

The Relationship Of Formative Assessment To The Professional Development And Perspective Transformation Of Teachers, Kimberly K. Snyder

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This study uses practitioner research to explore teacher perspectives about formative assessment. The researcher engaged in a four-month-long series of professional development sessions with one middle school and two high school English-Language Arts teachers from the Capital View School District. Understanding formative assessment as a process to monitor student learning and then customizing instruction based on the data gathered from the formative assessment is a complex skill in which teachers need practice and even coaching to become adroit. The sessions were intended to help early-career teachers better understand formative assessment and incorporate it as a strategy in their teaching praxis. …

Intersecting Asset-Based Service, Strengths, And Mentoring For Socially Responsible Leadership, Lindsay J. Hastings

Department of Agricultural Leadership, Education, and Communication: Faculty Publications

Grounded in a youth leadership and mentoring program, this chapter discusses the value of asset-based community development from the service-learning literature and the concept of generativity from the leadership development literature.

College students are frequently engaged in the community through local mentoring programs, as mentoring youth has become an increasingly popular service-learning pedagogical strategy among many higher-education institutions (Schmidt, Marks, & Derrico, 2004; Wells & Grabert, 2004). While many mentoring programs are designed to build resiliency in at-risk youth, mentoring has been identified as an effective practice in leadership development (Day, 2000; Dziczkowski, 2013).

This chapter will discuss the value …

A Study Of Home Emergent Literacy Experiences Of Young Latino English Learners, Guy Trainin, Stephanie Wessels, J. Ron Nelson, Patricia Vadasy

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

This empirical study explored the home environment literacy practices of young Latino English learners and their families. The participants were 217 incoming Kindergarten Latino EL students and parents. The data collection included a completed HLEQ by the parents. In addition, children were administered the PPVT, the pre- LAS, the PALS-K screening, the Woodcock Reading Mastery assessment, and the Wide Range Achievement test. All of the literacy assessments given to the children provided the researchers with comprehensive look at their literacy knowledge base. The results of this study indicate that there were two significant paths for students’ achievement: availability of books …

Examining Bridges Between Informal And Formal Learning Environments: A Sequential Mixed Method Design, Dagen L. Valentine

Department of Agricultural Leadership, Education and Communication: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Scholarship

The purpose of this sequential mixed method study was to identify schools implementing a technology-based engineering design intervention in a way that connects or bridges formal learning environments of the school-day to informal learning environments such as afterschool programs. Further, this study investigated educators’ decisions that enabled or facilitated bridging between formal and informal learning environments. This cooperation and/or linking between informal and formal learning time is bridging. Participants included public schools (n=16) in Eastern Nebraska that incorporated the Nebraska Wearables Technology (WearTec) program at their school, club or Out-of-School-Time program during the 2015-2016 school year. Three of the schools …

Cultivating A Learner’S Stance For Engagement In Teacher-Inquiry: An Aim For Writing Pedagogy Education, Jessica Rivera-Mueller

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This dissertation argues that writing teacher educators (WTEs) can more purposefully advance their commitment to sponsoring inquiry-oriented teacher development by helping pre-service and practicing writing teachers examine how they are developing as inquirers. Building from scholarship in Composition and English Education and the findings from a narrative-based qualitative study that included four secondary and post-secondary teachers of writing, I have named this attention to how teachers learn and grow their inquiry processes a learner’s stance for engagement in teacher-inquiry. This stance is a readiness to see and engage professional work with an eye toward growing one’s ability to engage …

Teacher Stories, Parent Stories, Stories Of School: Educator/Parents Navigating School Landscapes, Jennifer C. Nelson

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Situated within this narrative inquiry are four parents, who are also educators, negotiating their teacher/parent identities while examining their praxis within their classrooms. Educators, who are also parents, have a unique position within education. They have a personal, practical, professional knowledge of schools—and a personal, practical knowledge of their children. In the process of juxtaposing these parent stories of teaching and learning with their own child(ren) alongside their teacher stories of teaching and learning with their students, various curricular practices are called into question. It is the personalized stories that often bring silenced voices to the forefront; thus, the researcher …

Program Monitoring Practices For Teachers Of The Deaf And Hard Of Hearing In Early Intervention, Anne E. Thomas, Christine Marvin

Department of Special Education and Communication Disorders: Faculty Publications

Program monitoring is an important and necessary assessment practice within the field of early childhood deaf education. Effective program monitoring requires a focus on both the consistent implementation of intervention strategies (fidelity) and the assessment of children’s ongoing progress in response to interventions (progress monitoring). Teachers of the deaf and hard of hearing (TODs) who provide early intervention services need to conduct regular program monitoring to evaluate the merit of their efforts. However, progress monitoring is a practice often overlooked by practitioners within the field of early intervention. It is recommended that TODs monitor children’s progress “regularly,” but evidence of …

The Assimilation Of Beginning Teachers Into An Established School Improvement Project: A Qualitative Case Study Examining Formats Of Job-Embedded Professional Development, Lynn A. Fuller

Department of Educational Administration: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This dissertation examined formats of job-embedded professional development that were experienced by beginning teachers at a high-poverty, high-mobility elementary school in the third year of a School Improvement Grant. A qualitative case study was conducted to examine formats of job-embedded professional development that were most useful to help beginning teachers assimilate into an established school improvement project and support gains in effective teaching practices and student achievement.

In an effort to define what good teaching is and how we can support it, this study informs education leaders about the power of instructional coaching as a way to provide support and …

Evolving Roles Of Librarians: Juggling Print And Electronic Collections While Making Meaningful Connections, Jorge Leon Jr., Barbara Pope

Nebraska Library Association: Conferences

The traditional role of librarians has long been to support the university’s needs through instruction, collection development, and research assistance. Pittsburg State University’s challenge has been to balance our print and electronic collections at a university whose programs sometimes do not draw enough on library resources while also creating meaningful connections with students and faculty. In an effort to increase the relevancy of our collections and create meaningful connections with the university community, we have been actively creating opportunities for patrons to create content in the library. This has allowed users to engage with library resources and services in a …

Building Exemplary Teaching Practices: Following The Paths Of New Science Teachers, Elizabeth B. Lewis, Ana Rivero, Aaron A. Musson, Jia Lu, Lyrica Lucas

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Posters and Presentations

There are few comprehensive studies of beginning science teachers that describe enacted teaching practices in terms of inquiry-based instruction, classroom discourse, assessment, and curricular choices, and explore how these factors interact with teaching self-efficacy. We conducted a 3-year, longitudinal study of four cohorts of master’s level science teacher education program graduates. We coded and analyzed 319 science lessons of new teachers from student teaching to third year post-program to describe teachers’ enacted practices and gathered annual teaching self-efficacy reports to examine teachers’ beliefs. Our analysis resulted in key findings relevant to future programmatic improvements. First, when we reviewed specific inquiry-based …

Preservice Teachers' Knowledge Of Learning Technologies, Shannon Feagin, Krista Adams

UCARE Research Products

The question driving my research is as follows: What kind of knowledge do preservice teachers have dealing with learning technologies, and specifically evaluating learning technologies (mobile applications) for classroom use? Learning technologies as defined by Krajcik and Mun (2014), "can involve multimedia, Web-based learning, computer assisted learning, e-books, and other new technology that supports student learning" (p. 337). My goal is to better understand if preservice teachers are prepared to appropriately select mobile applications that will support and enhance student learning their classrooms. This idea is something that has not been addressed to any large degree by current literature or …

Fostering Metacognition In K-12 Classrooms: Recommendations For Practice, Markeya S. Peteranetz

The Nebraska Educator: A Student-Led Journal

This article makes the case for why it is important for educators to intentionally foster students’ metacognition. Metacognition is often defined as thinking about thinking, but it is more complete to describe it as including knowledge, awareness, and control of one’s own cognition and human cognition in general. Two primary components of metacognition, knowledge of cognition and regulation of cognition, are presented and described with regard to learning contexts. Metacognition grows as part of cognitive development and can also be further enhanced through instruction at all levels of schooling. Research that indicates metacognition can be increased through instruction and is …

Hist 340: American Legal History—A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Inquiry Portfolio, Katrina Jagodinsky

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

This inquiry portfolio measures the success of revisions made to HIST 340: American Legal History after a previous benchmark portfolio revealed a number of problems in communicating to students the importance and meaning of the course objectives, in correlating assessments to the final grade, and in documenting student learning and quality of instruction. The findings, outlined below, indicate that identifying a clear course theme; more strongly aligning readings, assessments, and discussions to course objectives; and restructuring the verbal and written analysis of readings dramatically improved students’ performance and satisfaction. Measures used include formal and informal student evaluations of instruction, formal …

Language, Literacy And Dewey: "Experience" In The Language Arts Context, Jessica E. Masterson

The Nebraska Educator: A Student-Led Journal

Blending the Deweyan idea of “experience” with the work of contemporary literacy pedagogues and classroom examples, this paper explores the implications of Dewey’s principles upon today’s classroom contexts. If experience is a central component to education, how might Dewey’s ideas help to re-focus our scattered perceptions of what literacy learning “ought” to be in the 21st century? Furthermore, what possibilities are created therein for language arts teachers and students?

Korea And The Dominican Republic: A Transnational Case Study-Analysis, Aprille J. Phillips

The Nebraska Educator: A Student-Led Journal

The study of transnational movement and the lives of individuals who cross nation-state boundaries has grown in recent decades. Transnational study regarding the Dominican Republic has continued since migrations to the U.S. in the 1960s and has primarily focused on “transnationalism from below” (Smith & Guarnizo, 2002) narratives, while study of South Korean transnationalism has focused on movement motivated by access to English in order to assure access to the competitive job market and opportunities for social mobility. This pair of case studies examines the lives of two relatively privileged Korean students who lived transnationally between Korea and the Dominican …

The Nebraska Educator, Volume 3: 2016 (Complete Issue), Abraham Flanigan, Kristine Sudbeck, Jeff Beavers, Sarah Mcbrien, Jessica Sierk

The Nebraska Educator: A Student-Led Journal

There are not many student-run academic journals, so The Nebraska Educator is excited to provide a forum for researchers, scholars, policymakers, practitioners, teachers, students, and informed observers in education and related fields in educational settings in the United States and abroad. Now in our third year, it is exciting to see the work that continues to be accomplished when those interested in educational research have a venue to share their contributions. To date, articles published in the previous two volumes of our journal have been downloaded more than 7,000 times by readers all across the globe.

The Nebraska Educator has …

Nebraskans Speak About Early Care And Education: Buffett Early Childhood Institute/Gallup Survey On Early Childhood Care And Education In Nebraska, Gallup, Inc.

Buffet Early Childhood Institute Reports and Publications

The Buffett Early Childhood Institute/Gallup Survey on Early Childhood Care and Education in Nebraska demonstrates that the vast majority of Nebraskans recognize the importance of high-quality early care and education. However, Nebraskans also report its lack of availability and affordability across the state. Most Nebraskans agree that the state should make early care and education a higher priority than it currently is today. Results from this study are based on questionnaires completed by more than 7,100 Nebraska residents. Gallup conducted the survey in English and Spanish via mail in late August through September 2015. The following represent key findings from …

Thea 401: Advanced Acting—Acting For Camera—A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Benchmark Portoflio, Wesley Broulik

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

In the pursuit of teaching the art of acting, and specifically acting for the camera, how do we measure growth? Additionally is there a correlation between high academic achievement and talent? In this portfolio we will examine how to evaluate acting, student growth, and examine test and paper results to see if the most “talented” performers are also the highest academic achievers.