Education Commons^™

Success Against All Odds Lessons Learned From Successful, Impoverished Students, Amanda L. King

Senior Honors Theses

The effects of poverty on students’ education have been well documented and a positive correlation can be seen between these effects and their academic success. What is unclear, however, are the exceptions to this correlation. How do students from low-socio-economic status (SES) families succeed despite the seemingly insurmountable odds they face? The literature from a wide variety of longitudinal—and interview-based studies from the past three decades suggests that character traits such as persistence, determination, and curiosity are key to their success. Schools with a majority student body from low-SES homes have found success in meeting and exceeding state standards through …

Motivations To Pursue The Doctoral Degree In Counselor Education And Supervision, Michelle Hinkle, Melanie M. Iarussi, Travis W. Schermer, Jennifer F. Yensel

Journal of Counselor Preparation and Supervision

Pursuing a doctoral degree in Counselor Education and Supervision (CES) requires a significant commitment. Although there is research on motivations to pursue a doctorate in general, there has not been a specific examination of motivations among those who have pursued a doctorate in CES, which warrants investigation given the diversity of training and potential career paths offered by the degree. In this Q methodology study, 35 students, counselor educators, and practitioners sorted statements pertaining to their motivation for doctoral studies in CES. The sorted statements were correlated and factor analyzed, resulted in four distinct motivations. The motivations are described and …

Shoot For The Moon! The Mentors And The Middle Schoolers Explore The Intersection Of Design Thinking And Stem, Maureen P. Carroll Ph.D.

Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-PEER)

This paper describes the journey of a group of university students as they worked with underserved middle school students as mentors in a STEM-based afterschool program. Design thinking provided a frame within which students learned how to be mentors, how to create user-centered learning experiences, and how to share their experiences as developing STEM professionals with middle school students.

3pointfoundation Partnership, Joan Arches

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

An exciting partnership in collaboration with the Division of Athletics, Recreation, Special Projects and Programs, and the College of Public and Community Service. The project involves students at UMass Boston and the 3PointFoundation which is affiliated with the Boston Celtics. Its mission is to provide academic support and mentoring to middle school urban males using basketball as an incentive and vehicle for growth and development. Through their roughly two hour weekly sessions they hope to build character, academic strength, and promote the pipeline to higher education.

The Relationships Between The Process Of Acculturation Of Teachers And Beliefs About Student Learning, Gabriella Blakey

Teacher Education, Educational Leadership & Policy ETDs

One of the most challenging aspects of being a school leader is the struggle to get the school staff to embark on school improvement initiatives. The culture of the school can be a powerful driver in or a resister to our ability to move a school forward to increase student learning. New teachers struggle to understand the culture of the school along with the unwritten norms, values, and customs. As they observe the school culture, beginning teachers try to understand their individual power and role in the school culture. A teachers belief in students can help students enhance their chances …

Navigating The Roles Of Leadership: Mentors Perspectives On Teacher Leadership, Saundra Shillingstad, Sheryl Mcglamery, Barbara Davis, Carol Gilles

Teacher Education Faculty Proceedings & Presentations

The qualitative study described in this paper began as a collaborative project between three Universities offering comprehensive induction programs to first year teachers. Fourteen teacher mentors were selected to participate in this case study of teacher leaders and leadership. Three of the fourteen teacher leaders were selected to participate in a special case study of their leadership development. The researchers found their leadership qualities to be exemplary and wanted to explore in more depth the three teacher leaders and how they developed and shared their skills as leaders with their mentees and colleagues. The three participants represent perspectives from three …

The Undergraduate Teaching Assistant: Scholarship In The Classroom, Sarah M. Flinko, Ronald C. Arnett

Journal of the Association for Communication Administration

This essay casts the role of the Undergraduate Teaching Assistant (UTA) within a Kantanian sense of imagination—the not yet pushes off of the actual and the tangible (Kant, 1781/1963). The UTA accesses a temporal glimpse into a professional scholar/teacher vocation through experience in a lived context that unites teaching and scholarship. The role of the UTA offers what Martin Buber (1965/1988) called “imagining the real” (p. 60), a moment of creative ingenuity that begins with the doing of concrete tasks within the profession.

The Role Of Academic Factors, Self-Efficacy, Mentoring Relationships, And Learning Communities In Persistance And Academic Success Of Freshmen College Students, Stefanie Theresia Baier

Wayne State University Dissertations

Many U.S. universities are concerned with student retention. The current study surveyed 237 first time college students at a Midwestern university to determine the extent to which social-cognitive factors, such as high school GPA, ACT scores, first semester college GPA, college self-efficacy and perceptions of mentorship support influence freshmen's intent to persist and academic success.

Pearson Correlations, Standard Multiple Regression Analyses, PROCESS for Mediation and Moderation, and a MANOVA were performed. The study's findings show that college self-efficacy and perceptions of mentorship were the strongest predictors for intentions to persist past the first college semester. High school GPA was the …