Education Commons^™

Supporting Exceptional Learners Through Evidence-Based Practices In Social Emotional Learning And Academic Settings, Lexia Werner

Honors Projects

My honors project will be purposeful in researching the learning strategies that help all students and comparing and contrasting them to strategies that specifically help learners with learning differences and/or have special education plans. These exceptional learners have specialized accommodations or educational plans tailored towards their learning needs. In other words, I will research the teaching strategies that are used in the classroom environment from a standard general education standpoint and strategies that are used, specifically, with students that obtain learning differences. In addition, I will analyze this information by comparing and contrasting the groups of strategies with one another. …

Writing Center Resources, Samantha Hince

Honors Projects

This project facilitated the composition of a series of resources for the Bridgewater College Writing Center website, part of the MyBC online portal. The result was thirty resources on writing-related topics such as the writing process, including prewriting, drafting, and revising; citation styles and avoiding plagiarism; and grammar, mechanics, and style. These resources are available to Bridgewater College students, faculty, and staff. The primary purpose of these resources is to assist Writing Center tutors during tutoring sessions with students and to provide supplemental writing assistance for students. Project development was based on research into college writing centers and best practices …

To Read Or Not To Read: Navigating Young Adult Literature In The Classroom In The Age Of Trigger Warnings And Banned Books, Ashley Sell

Honors Projects

Most public school libraries or English classrooms celebrate Banned Books Week during the school year, featuring dozens of Young Adult novels that have been challenged or banned in public schools across the country. However, books aimed towards young readers are typically not optimized for educational use in the classroom. In this project, I will explore the benefits of using Young Adult literature in the classroom, while also investigating the obstacles that one might face in order to do so, i.e. censorship, sensitive subject matter. I also want to summarize and respond to an argument for the retainment of classic literature …

Inequality In Ethnic Representation In Secondary-School Literature Textbooks And National Examination In Vietnam, Anh Nguyen

Honors Projects

This essay studies the dynamic between ethnic minorities and majority in the Vietnamese education system. By examining the appearance and representation of ethnic minorities in national literature curriculum, textbooks, and examinations, the analysis reflects the government's perspectives regarding the “appropriate” portrait of ethnic minorities' heritage and relationship with the majority. The study finds that Vietnamese education framework and content comply with the national construct of a Vietnamese identity across ethnicities. The state determines educational materials and selectively permits only aesthetic, politically benign, and Kinh-like narratives of ethnic minorities’ cultures, many written and/or chosen by Kinh authority rather than the ethnic …

Exploring Hpe Teachers' Self-Efficacy Toward Technology Integration, Danielle Werner

Honors Projects

The digital age has specifically called on physical educators to enhance their instruction using various digital tools (Krause, 2017). Although it is evident that physical educators need to incorporate technology, few studies have examined in-service physical education teachers perceived self-efficacy to integrate technology in their curriculum, and how mastery, vicarious, and social persuasion experiences impact overall self-efficacy. The purpose of this research is to analyze health and physical education (HPE) teachers’ self-efficacy toward technology integration in the physical education classroom, with a specific focus on how teachers’ present self-efficacy to integrate technology in physical education is related to prior training …

The Effectiveness Of Mathematical Manipulatives In One-On-One Intervention For Third And Fourth Grade Students, Jenifer Lantz, Caitlyn Miller

Honors Projects

The use of manipulatives in elementary schools is one beneficial method that has been utilized to help students grasp abstract mathematical concepts. To examine the effectiveness of implementing mathematical manipulatives, researchers designed a seven week intervention for ten low-achieving third and fourth graders. Topics focused on the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics number and operations strand. Data was collected based on observation with the use of a Likert scale measuring each student’s achievement with the chosen and designed manipulatives. Success is defined as students being able to complete assessments using the manipulatives without aid and with little to no …

Relational Response: Preservice Teachers Providing Writing Feedback In Three Middle School Partnerships, Beth M. Lehman Ph.D., Jenny M. Martin Ph.D., Karen Santos Rogers Ph.D.

Teacher Education Program Faculty Scholarship

Providing meaningful feedback to student writers is a nuanced, fully human endeavor. Thus, teaching preservice teachers, in all disciplines, to respond to students’ writing is a complex task, one that requires intentional instruction and practice. In this article, we use practitioner inquiry to analyze our experiences and teaching approaches with preservice teachers who provided feedback to middle school writers through three public school partnerships. The partnerships employed varied modes of communication, including digital platforms, paper notebooks, letter writing, one-to-one tutoring, and face-to-face school visits. Response patterns suggest authentic experiences that explicitly teach and support writing practice spur the ability of …

Digital Internships: Enriching Teaching And Learning With Primary Resources, Jenny M. Martin Ph.D.

Teacher Education Program Faculty Scholarship

Purpose – To explicate how to design a digital internship that encourages both the teacher candidate and the K-12 student to participate in problem-based learning. Framed by the theories of academic motivation and new literacies, this chapter presents templates to demonstrate how a digital internship can be designed that results in the learning goals of both the students and the teacher candidates being met.

Design – Digital internships provide teacher candidates with the opportunity to teach K-12 students online, observe licensed teachers design and employ lessons, and analyze this pedagogical learning space, yet education preparation programs (EPPs) fail to harness …

Learning In Between: Partnerships As Sites Of Discovery, Beth L. Lehman Ph.D., Jenny M. Martin Ph.D.

Teacher Education Program Faculty Scholarship

This article explores the benefits of one-to-one, undergraduate partnerships with public school students in teacher education courses. These partnerships, enacted through letter writing in paper notebooks and through a digital internship, involved teacher candidates communicating individually through writing and in product creations with public school students. The teacher educators unpack the discoveries they think enhanced the learning for teacher candidates including one-to-one teaching, asynchronous timing, authentic purpose, and co-construction of knowledge. A goal of the partnerships was to make purposeful experiences for teacher candidates in the spaces between their own school experience and their future teacher selves; which is, in …

Digital Poetry Practicum: Preservice English Language Arts Teachers’ Dispositions Of New Literacies, Katie Dredger Ph.D., Susanne Nobles Ph.D., Jenny M. Martin Ph.D.

Teacher Education Program Faculty Scholarship

This qualitative study investigated how graduate preservice teachers (PSTs) engaged in a digital practicum experience with a geographically distant secondary English Language Arts (ELA) classroom. The graduate PSTs, enrolled in a Masters of Arts, English Education program at a university in the mid-Atlantic United States, mentored the 9th-grade students in the online spaces of a course wiki and video conferencing. In this portion of a larger study, PSTs mentored the students during a poetry unit organized by the ELA cooperating teacher and housed in the ELA classroom. A goal of this practicum was building PSTs’ Pedagogical Content Knowledge (Shulman, 1986) …

Variations On An Information Literacy Theme: Student Research Consultations And Multiple Oral Communication Sections, Cori (Strickler) Biddle, Vickie Montigaud-Green

Presentations

This poster, presented at the 2016 Virginia Library Association Annual Conference, highlights our use of research consultations in 8 oral communication sections, and our look into whether these consultations effect the sources used for their speeches.

Revisiting The Writing Process: The Teacher Writer In The Workshop, Alice L. Trupe Ph.D., Jenny M. Martin Ph.D.

Teacher Education Program Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Professional Seminar: Valuing A One-Credit Course Through The Lens Of Doctoral Students, Naina A. Bhandari Ph.D., Beth L. Macdonald Ph.D., Jenny M. Martin Ph.D., Amanda M. Biviano, Jamie M. Simmons, Windi D. Turner Ph.D., Susan Asselin Ph.D.

Teacher Education Program Faculty Scholarship

Professional seminar for doctoral students at a Research I University is a 1-credit course, 2 below the conventional courses. However, the course content covers at least 3 years’ worth of experiences, knowledge, and processes compressed into a single school year. The course typically extends over 16 weeks and 24 actual contact hours with 1 professor to 7 students on average. Assignments expose students to professional jobs in academia, resources available on campus, grant writing procedures, and facilitate the trajectory and purpose of the doctoral process. The purpose of this study is to investigate doctoral students’ narratives on the value they …