Education Commons^™

Alumnos Transnacionales En México Y Estados Unidos. Docentes Y Los Desafíos De La Globalización, Juan Sánchez García, Edmund T. Hamann

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

La migración internacional es un fenómeno que se encuentra presente en el desarrollo histórico de todos los países. Un hecho reciente es la migración escolar de niños y adolescentes en el contexto de la globalización. Este estudio se enfoca en la migración de retorno o llegada por vez primera de alumnos transnacionales que tuvieron la experiencia de haber vivido y estudiado en Estados Unidos y que se encuentran en escuelas mexicanas. El propósito de este artículo es explicar los resultados de una investigación de largo plazo sobre los alumnos transnacionales. Con la aplicación de métodos mixtos a través de un …

Learning To Walk In Two Worlds: An Examination Of Soul In My Pedagogy, Colette M. Polite

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

Who exactly is a teacher without soul? The answer is complex. First, this study will explore the concept of soul in education. There are varying cultural, religious and spiritual ways to examine soul. This inquiry does not seek to prove the existence of soul. Its existence is considered to be complex, and even abstract, but exists nonetheless. Soul is explored from a cross-cultural approach, which includes an emphasis on a Native American philosophical worldview and discourse. My approach involves teacher autobiography and auto-narrative to provide insights to teacher identity and the presence of soul in education. This project utilizes métissage …

Interactive Usage Of Demonstration Videos: An Experimental Evaluation, Ryan Anderson, Shiyuan Wang, Lisa M. Pytlikzillig, Kevin M. Lee

DBER Speaker Series

Crouch et al (2004) posit that students will be more engaged by and learn more from classroom demonstrations when asked to predict the outcome of the demonstration and discuss it with peers. We tested this hypothesis in an experiment involving 116 students enrolled in an undergraduate astronomy class using an online survey and five video demonstrations. Students were randomly assigned to one of four conditions, including watching a set of videos (about convection, sun spots, and buoyancy) under one of Crouch’s three modes of presentation (observe, predict, and discuss) and a control condition which involved viewing different videos (about differentiation …

The Mindful Learning Model, David W. Brooks, Guy Trainin, Khalid Sayood

DBER Speaker Series

Earlier we published the Unified Learning Model which speaks to learning based on achieieving the "top slot" in working memory, repetition, and connections. The Mindful Learning Model accounts for more recent understandings of learning, and especially connections to "consciousness." The model has many parts. Inputs to the brain from sensors (eyes, ears) are not so much information about what is perceived but about discrepancies between that perception and one's mental model of the current context. The voices in our heads are after‐the fact reports rather than realtime executives. Working memory is a series of detectable brain events taking place over …

Tech Edge Student Rubric Grades 2-3, Laurie A. Friedrich, Guy Trainin

Research and Evaluation in Education, Technology, Art, and Design

This rubric can be used to evaluate formative and summative assessments of technology integrated products across the curriculum for grades 2-3.

Tech Edge Student Rubric Grades 4-5, Laurie A. Friedrich, Guy Trainin

Research and Evaluation in Education, Technology, Art, and Design

This rubric can be used to evaluate formative and summative assessments of technology integrated products across the curriculum for grades 4-5.

Boys, Books, And Boredom: A Case Of Three High School Boys And Their Encounters With Literacy, Loukia K. Sarroub, Todd Pernicek

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

We examine the literacy gender gap through the documented experiences of three representative high schools boys and their teacher—how they view themselves as students, their dispositions toward schooling and education, and their engagement with literacy— as a way to further understand how literacy teachers can better work with them. We offer a case study analysis of the boys’ struggles with academic reading in high school reading classes aimed at addressing the needs of young people who read far below grade level in school. We highlight the multifaceted, complex nature of “struggle” or “reluctance” toward academic reading and argue that no …

The Effect Of Morphological Strategies Training For English Language Learners, Qizhen Deng, Guy Trainin

Research and Evaluation in Education, Technology, Art, and Design

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of morphological strategies training for English language learners from an Intensive English Program with different English proficiency levels. A secondary goal was to investigate how the training influences their cognitive load during morphological analysis tasks. Findings from 22 participants revealed that morphological strategies training positively affects the morphological awareness of ELLs and reduces the cognitive load of ELLs for all types of morphological tasks regardless of their English proficiency level: sentence completion, analogy, break down words, and meaning guess.

[Note: Download button links to pdf version; PowerPoint slide version attached …

Pre‐Service Teachers’ Use Of Content Knowledge To Inform Formative Assessment Strategies In An Integrated Life Sciences Methods Course, Jaime Sabel, Cory Forbes

DBER Speaker Series

Pre‐service elementary teachers should learn essential science concepts, how to apply those concepts to practice in elementary science learning environments, and how to effectively connect students’ ideas to appropriate instructional strategies. In order to effectively engage students in scientific practices and connect students’ ideas about science to appropriate instructional strategies, teachers should learn to engage in high‐leverage instructional practices, such as formative assessment. However, teachers may not understand formative assessment or possess enough science content knowledge to effectively engage in related instructional practices. To address these needs, we developed an innovative course for elementary pre‐service teachers built upon two pillars—life …

An Investigation Of The Soar Study Strategy For Learning From Multiple Online Resources, Tareq Daher

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

This dissertation investigated the effects of the SOAR study strategy for learning from multiple online resources. SOAR includes the components of Selection, Organization, Association, and Regulation. In past research, the effects of SOAR training were investigated with one online resource and with students studying provided or partially provided materials following training. This dissertation examines the effects of SOAR when learning from multiple online resources and when students create their own study materials following training and thus addresses this research gap. One hundred thirty-four (134) college students were assigned randomly to the control or experimental groups. All students participated in online …

Laptops And Language Learning: A Mixed Methods Study Of Technology Integration And Student Engagement, Ginger R. Starks-Yoble Ph.D.

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

Student engagement and motivation have been a common focus among educational researchers over the last forty years. Self-determination theory and the inclusive definition of self-regulated learning have identified that both cognitive and motivational engagement are paramount for successful language learning. Within this canon of research, few have looked at student engagement as a result of effective technology integration during the language learning process. This mixed methods study explored students’ perceptions of engagement while learning with technology integration in a first-year language class. Qualitative data was collected from a sub-sample of ten students, in the form of semi-structured interviews, journal reflections, …

Children, Mathematics, And Videotape: Using Multimodal Analysis To Bring Bodies Into Early Childhood Assessment Interviews, Amy Noelle Parks, Mardi Schmeichel

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

Despite the increased use of video for data collection, most research using assessment interviews in early childhood education relies solely upon the analysis of linguistic data, ignoring children’s bodies. This trend is particularly troubling in studies of marginalized children because transcripts limited to language can make it difficult to analyze embodied power relations between majority researchers and minority children. This article responds to this problem by outlining a theoretical position on power and bodies, describing multimodal analysis strategies, and using these strategies to analyze the subject positions available during a mathematical assessment interview for three African American preschool child-participants and …

College Dreams À La Mexicana . . . Agency And Strategy Among American-Mexican Transnational Students, Nolvia A. Cortez Román, Edmund T. Hamann

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

Drawing from in-depth interviews with university-level transnational students in Mexico, we highlight these students’ resistance and agency in the face of US legal and educational policies that have marginalized them and other undocumented students. We also illustrate pitfalls and possibilities that students encounter in a Mexican system that has not anticipated their presence. The interviewed students viewed return migration for higher education in Mexico as a strategy that could allow them to access/develop their imagined identities as college-educated professionals and one day, legalized citizens of the United States. At the time they made their decisions, before Deferred Action for Childhood …

Fidelity Of Implementation, Teacher Perspectives And Child Outcomes Of A Literacy Intervention In A Head Start Program: A Mixed Methods Study, Dawn Davis

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

The success of early childhood interventions have been influenced by the degree to which they were implemented with fidelity (e.g., Davidson, Fields & Yang, 2009; Dusenbury, Brannigan, Falco, & Hansen, 2003; Elliot & Mihalic, 2004), meaning “the degree to which teachers and other program providers implement programs as intended by the program developers” (Mellard & Johnson, 2008, p. 240). This study examines relations among implementation fidelity, teacher characteristics, their perceptions, and child literacy outcomes within a preschool literacy intervention using a mixed methods design.

This study examines child literacy outcome data from 247 preschool children and fidelity, perceptions and demographic …

Student Characteristics, Prior Experiences, And The Perception Of Mixed Methods As An Innovation, Sydney E. Brown

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

There are persistent challenges to teaching mixed methods and innovative solutions are sought in order to address the needs of an increasingly diverse global audience seeking mixed methods instruction. This mixed methods study was conducted to gain insights to course design by more fully understanding the relationships among graduate student characteristics and prior experiences with research approaches with the perceived characteristics of the innovation of mixed methods.

Quantitative and qualitative data was gathered using a self-developed survey. Correlational analyses were done between measures of quantitative, qualitative, mixed methods, and overall prior experience and the perceived innovation characteristics of relative advantage, …

Student Engagement And Action In Classroom And Community: Place-Based Education And Social Action For The High-Achieving Student, Rachel M. Jank

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This paper briefly discusses the work done in a college-preparatory, Senior English class to combat the disengagement present in many educational institutions. This disconnect does not allow for learning retention and, therefore, does not allow for students to apply the moment of learning to life outside of the secondary classroom. The work I do is based off of Jessica Singer Early, Bruce Bigelow, Linda Christensen, and many other master teachers who work with the educational designs of Place Consciousness and Social Action within their respective classrooms. The theories of John Dewey and Paulo Freire suggest that a non-traditional style of …

Digital Print Concepts: Conceptualizing A Modern Framework For Measuring Emerging Knowledge, Kristin H. Javorsky

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

This dissertation sought to produce and empirically test a theoretical model for the literacy construct of print concepts that would take into account the unique affordances of digital picture books for emergent readers. The author used an exploratory study of twenty randomly selected digital story applications to identify print conventions, text features and book handling methods present across digital picture books which were then mapped against the traditional paper reading experience. Combining study results with existing research in the reading literature, a structural model of digital print concepts as a second order measurement model accounting for five factors of concept …

Students’ Perceptions Of Academic Self-Efficacy And Self-Regulation While Learning In A 1:1 Laptop Environment, Joan M. Carraher

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

1:1 Laptop initiatives continue to grow throughout Nebraska schools. There are many questions regarding their effectiveness in improving student learning, justifications for expenses, and the process to guide such an initiative.

The purpose of this case study was to explore students’ perceptions of academic self-efficacy and self-regulation while learning in a 1:1 district where students in grades 7 through 12 have 24/7 access to a school-issued laptop. Students in their first (8^th grade) and third-year (10^th grade) of learning in a 1:1 environment at a Nebraska school district participated in this study. Data was collected from an online …

Currere And The Beauty Of Soulful Classroom Moments, Jessica Sierk

The Nebraska Educator: A Student-Led Journal

Drawing on Pinar’s (1975, 2011) work on currere and the author’s own experience as an educator both in the K-12 and higher education arenas, the author argues that curriculum is a living entity and should therefore be allowed to deviate from the “plan” that most people think of when the topic of curriculum arises. Gaudelli & Hewitt’s (2010) idea of “the beauty of soulful moments” is also used to illustrate the utility of such deviations. Dewey’s (1934, 1938) themes of improvisation, participation, communication, and experience, as well as the idea of “the unexpected turn” also serve as backdrops to discussing …

Preparation For Practice: Elementary Preservice Teachers Learning And Using Scientific Classroom Discourse Community Instructional Strategies, Elizabeth Lewis, Oxana Dema, Dena Harshbarger

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

Despite historical national efforts to improve elementary science education, science instruction continues to be marginalized, varying by state. This study was designed to address the ongoing challenge of educating elementary preservice teachers (PSTs) to teach science. Elementary PSTs are one of the science education community's major links to schools and science education reform. However, they often lack a strong background in science, knowledge of effective science teaching strategies, and consequently have low confidence and self-efficacy. This investigation explored the initial learning of elementary PSTs using an interdisciplinary model of a scientific classroom discourse community during a science methods course. Findings …

Planning And Enacting Mathematical Tasks Of High Cognitive Demand In The Primary Classroom, Kelly Georgius

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

This study offers an examination of two primary-grades teachers as they learn to transfer knowledge from professional development into their classrooms. I engaged in planning sessions with each teacher to help plan tasks of high cognitive demand, including anticipating and planning for classroom discourse that would occur around the task. A detailed description of the planning and teaching that took place during the study provides information about how a teacher can learn and what a teacher learns to consider in order to plan and implement meaningful mathematical lessons. This design experiment describes the work of two teachers who participated in …

E.C.9997 Your Friends The Herbs

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Extension: Historical Materials

Our colonial forefathers called them "yarbs." Although herb with the "h" sounded is the more approved pronunciation, "erb" is also acceptable. Herbs are friendly things even though they're quite modest and a bit shy. You really have to know them well to appreciate all the things they are ready and eager to do for you. Everyone who enjoys preparing and eating delicious food should be as "at home" with herbs as with salt, pepper, and vanilla.

Look in your cupboard. There you will find the magic ingredients you use to add life and flavor to your everyday foods.

Systems Thinking With Biology Models, Joseph Dauer

DBER Speaker Series

The recent AAAS call to improve undergraduate biology education suggested university instruction should focus on teaching core concepts like matter and energy, evolution, and systems and core competences like quantitative reasoning, modeling and integrating disciplines. My research has focused on how undergraduate biology students organize their knowledge of biological systems and how they reason about the myriad interactions and potential outcomes inherent to these systems. I will report ongoing research into students’ model construction during an introductory biology course and during clinical interviews 2 years after the course. My colleagues and I have found students’ models change dramatically in both …

Learning Catalytics Workshop, Chad Brassil

DBER Speaker Series

Come and participate in a demonstration using Learning Catalytics in the classroom. Experience how this system takes a step behind clickers, facilitating peer learning and active learning pedagogies in even very large classrooms. Hear about experience of using this system from instructors at UNL. Note, attendees are encouraged to bring a laptop computer, smartphone, or tablet to the workshop and to contact Chad Brassil cbrassil@unl.edu beforehand to set‐up a demonstration Learning Catalytics account.

An Empirical Analysis Of Factors Affecting Honors Program Completion Rates, Hallie Savage, Rod D. Raehsler, Joseph Fiedor

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

One of the most important issues in any educational environment is identifying factors that promote academic success. A plethora of research on such factors exists across most academic fields, involving a wide range of student demographics, and the definition of student success varies across the range of studies published. While much of the research is devoted to looking at student performance in particular courses and concentrates on examination scores and grades, many authors have directed their attention to student success in the context of an entire academic program; student success in this context usually centers on program completion or graduation …

Journal Of The National Collegiate Honors Council, Volume 15, Number 2, Fall/Winter 2014 (Complete Issue)

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Forum on Rubrics, Templates, and Measurable Outcomes in Honors

Joan Digby

Annmarie Guzy

Beata M. Jones and Catherine M. Wehlburg

Giovanna Walters

Ce Rosenow

research essays

Kim Andersen and Gary Thorgaard

Heather C. Camp

Jay Trucker

Deborah Engelen-Eigles and Janice Levinsohn Milner

Journal Of The National Collegiate Honors Council, Volume 15, Number 1, Spring/Summer 2014 (Complete Issue)

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Forum on Honors for Sale

Forum Articles

Gary Bell

Benjamin Moritz

Lisa Avery

Sam Schuman

Jeffrey A. Portnoy

Destenie Nock, Justice Plummer, Ashleigh R. Wilson, and Michael K. Cundall Jr.

Annmarie Guzy

Barbra Nightingale

Brian C. Etheridge

Research Essays

Ted M. Brimeyer, April M. Schueths, and William L. Smith

Gordon Shepherd and Gary Shepherd

Hallie Savage, Rod D. Raehsler, and Joseph Fiedor

Kate Wintrol

Reflections On Effective Writing Instruction The Value Of Expectations, Engagement, Feedback, Data, And Sociocultural Instructional Practices, Kara Mitchell Viesca, Kim Hutchison

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

This reflection on effective writing practice is the result of a university–school partnership focused on collaboratively investigating the work of a successful 5th grade-writing teacher. The co-authors collectively present the work of Mrs. Hutchison, a veteran teacher who worked in a predominately low-income school with a high percentage of students labeled English language learners. Mrs. Hutchison’s class was a space where each student was both a learner and a teacher and most students developed a great interest and love of writing. This reflective piece presents data documenting Mrs. Hutchison’s success as well as a collaborative reflection on her work intended …

A Pragmatist Perspective On Building Intercultural Communicative Competency: From Theory To Classroom Practice, Aleidine J. Moeller, Sarah R. Faltin Osborn

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

This article analyzes and synthesizes the major theoretical frameworks for building intercultural communicative competency (ICC) within the domain of the foreign language classroom. Researchers used a pragmatist orientation as a venue for the translation of theoretical models into usable, accessible guidelines for classroom teachers in order to provide a deeper understanding and clarity of ICC and its implementation in the language classroom

A Study On The Elementary School Teachers’ Awareness Of Students’ Alternative Conceptions About Change Of States And Dissolution, Chanho Yang, Taehee Noh, Lawrence C. Scharmann, Sukjin Kang

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

Knowledge about students’ conceptions is one of the requisite components of pedagogical content knowledge. A keen awareness of students’ alternative conceptions provides teachers with information about prospective difficulties students may incur as they make attempts to learn more accurate scientific representations of critical concepts. In this study, we investigated elementary school teachers’ understanding of their students’ alternative conceptions about change of states and dissolution. The subjects were 152 elementary school teachers and 529 sixth graders in Korea. A conceptions test and the test of the understanding about students’ conceptions were administered in order to examine students’ alternative conceptions and the …