Education Commons^™

The Fear Of Science: A Study Of Science Anxiety And The Learning Capabilities Of Adult College Students, Erik Alton Sanstad

Theses and Dissertations

One of the most challenging things a professor of science in a college setting deals with is the apprehension of students toward the very idea of science and scientists. This feeling of science anxiety does not appear to be limited by nation or culture and is often spread across all ages of students. The concept of “science is hard” is widespread and constant for many students entering a science course. This is quickly becoming a critical issue in education during a time in our world when we need to increase the numbers of well-qualified scientists. In a world where technological …

Best Practices To Help English Language Learners Succeed In Community College, Santina Caster

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

After researching various types of support to help English Language Learners (ELLs) succeed in community colleges, the support methods were categorized into four groups: family, peers, faculty and institutions. To share these practices with ELL students and professionals, a website was developed. The intent of the website is to create a community to encourage students to seek out resources and for professionals to implement more support methods, with the ultimate goal of increasing the retention rate of ELL community college students. The website includes a tab with a form asking for feedback on whether the website was helpful and inviting …

How Environmental Education Based Camps Can Create An Inclusive Opportunity To Ensure Children With Autism Have A Positive And Meaningful Experience, Emma Leslie

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

In a world that is becoming increasingly disconnected, environmental education has the ability to reach diverse audiences and create an environmentally literate community capable of making decisions that support sustainable practices. Diversity implies inclusion of all individuals, including those with autism. Autism is one of the most prevalent developmental learning disabilities in the United States and those with the neurobiological disorder experience challenges in areas such as social reasoning, language, cognition, sensory sensitivities and emotional regulation. Environmental education often occurs in informal learning environments, including day camp programs. While day camps provide the ideal setting for addressing deficits in peer …

Movement Activities For Classroom Teachers, David Fischlowitz

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

This Capstone Project examines the connections between students’ use of various digital media, accompanying sedentary behavior, and the associated detrimental effects. Research has shown that excessive screen time and sedentary behavior can have a range of negative impacts on student development and progress. In a qualitative research method, the literature review shows physical activity as a mitigating factor to the negative effects of excessive screen time. This project grew from the research question: how can teachers use part of their instructional time in movement activities in order to improve student performance? Based on research that is beginning to suggest learning-skill …

A Lesson Unit On Aurally Differentiating Between The Phonologies Of English & Arabic: /P/ And /B/, Iten Ezz

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

This project analyzes one of the common English pronunciation errors experienced by Arab learners of English which is /p/ and /b/. Such error is systematic, not accidental. The most important factors leading to this error are the interference of the first language and the difference in the sound systems between Arabic and English. A specific curriculum was developed to help Arab learners of English overcome their pronunciation error. The curriculum started with controlled activities, then practiced in authentic speech using interactive learning activities to ensure learners exposure to the target sounds.

Crt And Educational Equity: Professional Development At The High School Level, Jessica Carlson

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

The research question addressed in this project was, how can I create professional development designed to help teachers implement culturally responsive pedagogy in the classroom? It documents one teacher’s creation of a 20 week, 10 module, professional development surrounding the topic of culturally responsive teaching. The project and paper integrate combined knowledge of culturally responsive teaching, best practices for teaching adults, best practices for enacting effective professional development, as well as instructions for deep and thoughtful reflection. The author documents the details of the creation of the professional development sessions as well as the literature and research methods involved. She …

Teaching Word Stress: A Curricular Resource For Adult English Language Learners At The High Beginner/Low Intermediate Levels, Ellen M. Clore-Patron

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

The purpose of this study was to determine what materials were needed to inform the development of a curricular resource contributing to adult English language learners’ awareness and improved pronunciation of North American English word stress. A review of contemporary literature revealed that pronunciation instruction is key to adults’ acquisition of intelligible speech, and that instruction needs to focus foremost on prosodic features that are global to the needs of learners,

such as word stress. The author’s curricular resource includes a series of lesson plans and student- centered activities. To guide the development of the resource, the author employed a …

Equitable Access To Education For Adult English Language Learners, Colleen Schmitt

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

The research question addressed in this project was, How can adult education programs provide more equitable access to education for adult English Learners? To answer this question, the author researched the historical expansion of language access rights for English Language Learners (ELLs) in federally-assisted education programs, including nondiscrimination provisions for adult ELLs in adult basic education programs. These standards of equitability were then used to examine gaps in policy and practice related to equal educational opportunity for adult ELLs in programs governed by the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (2014). The author then developed an advocacy project in the form …

An Analysis Of Adult Educators’ Experiences With Professional Development Activities, Robbie Scott Cornelius

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study was designed to explore Adult Basic Education (ABE), Adult Secondary Education (ASE), and English as a Second Language (ESL) teachers’ experiences with professional development. The study sought to determine whether adult learning principles were evident in the facilitation of professional development activities. The study instrument was administered online to members of the Coalition on Adult Basic Education (COABE), with a total of n=348 respondents to the survey. The survey consisted of demographic questions, questions related to professional development experiences, and an open response question. The majority of respondents were teachers/instructors (n=232, 66.7%), held a master’s degree (n=187, 54.4%), …

The Effect Of An Adult Esl Project-Based Literacy Training On Teacher Practice, Rachel Lynn Gerner

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This case study evaluates the effectiveness of a project-based learning professional development training conducted at a literacy center for nine ESL teachers who are working in a workforce literacy environment. The researcher investigated principles of andragogy in the training and examined whether participants implemented the content of the training in their teaching environments via observation, self-reported answers on a questionnaire, individual interviews, and a focus group. There was no direct follow-up after six weeks of the training. The findings of the study indicate that none of the teachers implemented project-based learning in their teaching environment directly following the professional development …

Teaching And Learning Pragmatics And Speech Acts: An Instructional Pragmatics Curriculum Development Project For Efl Learners, Bridget Borer

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

The intent of this curriculum development project is the advancement of instructional pragmatics as a component of interlanguage pragmatic development. The guiding question underlying this project is: What might an instructional pragmatics curriculum for adult EFL learners look like? Pragmatics as a level of linguistics is concerned with language use in context. The research for this project focused on concepts in pragmatics such as Speech Act Theory, especially the expressive speech act of apologizing, interlanguage pragmatics, and instructional pragmatics. This curriculum project was designed for teaching and learning concepts in pragmatics and developing English learner pragmatic competence when performing apologies …

Integrating Interprofessional Education Curriculum Into A Vascular Sonography Course, Tammi Wiesner

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

This capstone addresses interprofessional and collaborative learning and aids in answering the following question: What are the benefits and challenges of integrating Interprofessional Education into vascular sonography coursework? Teaching team-based care can be accomplished by integrating Interprofessional Education (IPE), a complementary curriculum that teaches students to collaborate with other health science students, into an already existing health science specific curriculum. The author addresses the need for finding new ways to teach IPE. IPE is typically taught in a half-day or full- day event with students from multiple health disciplines working together in one large room. The author weaves Interprofessional Education …

A Curriculum And Instruction Resource For Teachers Of Low-Literacy Adult English Language Learners: Incorporating Reading Standards Foundational Skills For Low-Literacy Esl, Mya Shaftel

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

The research question addressed in this project was, how does a teacher of non-literate and low-literacy adult English language learners align instruction with college and career-readiness standards? The author analyzed the Reading Standards Foundational Skills from the College and Career Readiness Standards (USDE, 2013). Through the lens of SLA theory, the author took into consideration how native language literacy, age, and trauma factor into learning for non-literate and low-literacy adult ESL learners. Similarly, the author relied on existing research in instructional strategies for low-literacy adults to inform curriculum and instruction. This project implements systematic and sequential classroom activities around the …

Fossilization Of L And R Phonemes And Effective Pronunciation Teaching Practices For Adult English Language Students, Sacha Chandavong

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

The research question answered in this paper was, in order to implement effective pronunciation instruction, to what extent does fossilization affect adult learners' ability to acquire another language? The concluding research found that despite adult English learners’ (EL) long exposure to the target language, some ELs find themselves unable to progress in their second language development due to fossilization. Thus, ultimate attainment to achieve native-like comprehensibility becomes difficult, but not impossible. The literature researches the details of fossilization, phonemic awareness, and best approaches for pronunciation instruction in the classroom. The paper includes a complementary curriculum project that comprises /l/ and …

The Pragmatics Of Politeness As Expressed By Native Arabic-Speaking English Learners, Michael Marn

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

The research question addressed in this project was, what are the areas of pragmatic difficulty for adult, native Arabic-speaking English learners when expressing politeness in English in ESL settings? Research of literature on the topic, accounts by cultural informants, and the author’s observations as an instructor of adult, native Arabic- speaking ELs informed five areas targeted for lessons in a pragmatics education seminar designed for this group—compliments, requests, inter-familial communication, communication between the sexes, and euphemisms. The author documents the details of the seminar lessons, which use a variety of student-centered instruction based on authentic language samples as advocated by …

Determining The Extent To Which Information Literacy Online Learning Objects Follow Best Practices For Teaching And Assessing Critical Thinking, Goodsett Mandi

ETD Archive

Critical thinking is widely accepted as a primary goal of higher education. The skills and dispositions of critical thinking have much in common with those of information literacy, and instruction librarians could improve their information literacy instruction by integrating critical thinking. However, it is not currently clear to what extent instruction librarians encourage critical thinking in their teaching. Moreover, rather than credit-bearing courses, much of library instruction currently consists of either “one-shot” (single class period) sessions or online learning objects which students complete asynchronously. This study focuses on online learning objects, which are often created with great effort, have long-lasting …

Student Perceptions Of Environmental Quality While Attending Accelerated Medical Technology College Courses, Ralph L. Westbrook

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Regional weather patterns in the southwestern United States frequently test the engineering involved in indoor air handling equipment in college facilities. Although an adequate indoor thermal environment has been found to affect student learning, little is known about students' perceptions of classroom heating and ventilation and impacts on learning. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore how students in accelerated medical technology courses perceived the environmental quality in their classrooms and discern whether these conditions affected overall gains in knowledge, persistence, and retention in their learning. Fourteen participants from 2 local community colleges were interviewed using purposeful sampling. …

A Program Evaluation Of A Preadolescent Girls' Youth Development Program, Linda F. Weekley

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Programs that include skills to help girls successfully navigate the difficulties of preadolescence have been shown to be beneficial. One such youth development program in the southeastern part of the United States began in 2014 but has had no formal evaluation completed. The purpose of this qualitative study was to conduct a utilization-focused process evaluation, asking questions that addressed the perceptions of a school leader (n = 1) and volunteers of the program (n = 8). Their input was solicited concerning successful implementation strategies used, and recommendations for adaptations, recruitment, and volunteer training. Semistructured interviews were conducted using predetermined open-ended, …