Education Commons^™

How Students Investigate: Understanding Students’ Use Of Scientific Schemas In Open-Ended Labs, J. Alexander Wall

Masters of Education in Teaching and Learning

Schema provides a theoretical framework for understanding the nature of science, inquiry, and open-ended labs. These topics have been emphasized in the state standards, especially in high school sciences. In this study the researcher took field notes, collected lab write ups, and conducted focus group interviews to understand students’ use of schema related to open-ended labs. These data were analyzed with the constant comparative method to generate themes. The author describes the major findings with parallel narratives, one focused on a student’s confusion and the other focused on a student’s understanding. The author concludes by advocating for science teachers to …

Blank Page: A Teacher Begins, John D. Wolfe

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Comprised of seven essays, this collection of literary nonfiction explores one man's journey into the teaching profession. The author recounts his experiences from just before he heard the call, to his first year teaching as an intern at Punahou School in Honolulu, through his first three years teaching full-time, and the challenges, mostly internal conflicts, he worked through as he taught freshmen and then two junior/senior electives before eventually going on sabbatical to Tanzania for his ninth year.

Though This Be Madness, Yet There Is Method In’T: Using Graphic Shakespeare Texts To Create Meaningful Engagement In The High School Classroom, Eric Kallenborn

All Student Theses

This thesis covers the attempt to successfully motivate and connect with high school students by giving them the option of reading a graphic form of Hamlet instead of the original text. This research was conducted to not only dispel the myth that comics and graphic novels are juvenile and adolescent but to also explain the benefits of such texts to educators and administrators.

For this research, 10^th graders were assigned Hamlet and were allowed to select the graphic text over the traditional text, allowing for student buy-in from the selection. Students also took part in a project that …

A Differentiated Unit Of Instruction For A Secondary Social Studies Classroom, David Christopher Tempel

All Graduate Projects

The purpose of this project is to create a differentiated unit of instruction for eleventh grade United States History students as a pilot for the creation of a differentiated curriculum in U.S. History. This unit will examine the relationship between instructional strategies utilized and the impact upon student achievement. This unit will systematically plan instruction that meets the needs of an academically diverse group of students by honoring each student's learning needs and maximizing each student's learning capacity.

The Importance Of High School Nutrition Education, Rebecca Toisie Swanson

All Graduate Projects

This project looks at obesity and undernourishment in American students. The project discusses the importance of physical education and nutrition education and the lack there of in the 21st Century. Research indicates current legislative mandates involving standardized testing and a stress on core academics, changing familial and societal structures and evolving food technology have helped lead to the obesity epidemic in the United States. The project also looks at different ethnic and socioeconomic groups and the impact nutrition and overall health plays in these groups. The project includes a nutrition curriculum that is designed to be used in a ninth …

Benefits Of Using Primary Sources In The High School United States History Classroom, Norene Lee Osborne

All Graduate Projects

History textbooks have not traditionally included the perspectives of the whole of society. The contributions of non-whites, women, the poor and the illiterate are consistently forgotten or ignored in the history classroom. When the stories of these groups are present, the content is incomplete and minimal, due to the resources available to the teacher within the curriculum provided by the textbook manufacturers or the school districts. Primary sources, or first hand accounts of history, can be used to supplement gaps in the curriculum, allowing students to construct a more authentic and complete knowledge of history. This project includes practical supplemental …

An Experiment With A Technical Unit For Teaching Fiction In The High School, Allen R. Goodell

All Master's Theses

This unit will attempt to provide both new and experienced teachers with a practical, easily administered guide for the effective teaching of short stories.

A Language Arts Program For Pasco Senior High School Arrived At Through Group Participation, Doris L. Lisk

All Master's Theses

This study through group consideration, attempted to devise an actual course of study for the language arts at Pasco Senior High School, Pasco, Washington, that would (1) insure basic achievements in each of the language arts for each student; (2) eliminate duplication in teaching previously learned material; (3) give the student opportunity to do makeup and/or catch-up work if necessary without the competition presented by more advanced students; (4) keep alive and foster (by advancement) students’ interest in English; (5) give opportunity for the student to cover as much of the language arts as his ability and ambition permit; and …

An Experimental Study To Determine The Effect Of Frequent Testing On Mastery Of Chemistry Content, Harold L. Lindstrom

All Master's Theses

The purpose of this study was to determine the effect upon a student’s knowledge of chemistry resulting from participation in a program where quizzes were given regularly over all assigned work as an integral part of a course in beginning high school.