Education Commons^™

Critical-Race Elementary Schooling: Critical-Race Teacher Change Agents Are Challenging Whiteness In Elementary Schools, David R. Rosas

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Children in elementary schools think, talk, and reason in big ways that reflect how they live and experience race, racism, and racialization. Some elementary school teachers -- or critical-race teacher change agents -- intentionally include this work in their classrooms. My aim is to find out what motivates critical-race teacher change agents to challenge Whiteness in their classrooms and understand what they say they do to challenge Whiteness with young children.

An emphasis on racial-justice work in elementary schools has often been overlooked by teacher education and has been further pushed back by the recent backlash on critical race theory …

Identity, Access, And Equity: An Exploratory Mixed-Methods Study Of Mathematics Identity And Socialization In Pre-Service Teachers, Ashley Renaire Davis

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Teaching practices in early childhood through post-secondary learning settings continue to reproduce inequities in mathematics education despite recognition of math’s utility and its necessity for competitiveness in the global economy. For reform efforts to be successful, teachers must change the way mathematics is presented in classrooms where students often experience differences in exposure to mathematics content and time spent covering particular mathematics topics. Therefore, teachers represent a critical component in the cycle of reproduction of unequal access to mathematics. This mixed-methods study examined the processes of mathematics identity formation and mathematics socialization in a diverse sample of pre-service elementary and …

Children And Technology: Why Technology Is Important For Our Children, Jill Mactiernan

Student Theses

Many people get scared when they hear about how much technology runs the world today. They tend to get frightened when they go to a store and have to use a selfcheckout instead of a cashier. Parents are scared of the dangers of the internet and how it will affect their children, so they tend to try to prevent/limit their children’s usage of the internet and other technologies. However, that may not always be the right move. Technology can not be avoided; it is a part of our everyday lives. With proper guidance and teachings, children can learn how to …

Computational Thinking And Coding For Young Children: A Hybrid Approach To Link Unplugged And Plugged Activities, Daisuke Akiba

Publications and Research

In our increasingly technology-dependent society, the importance of promoting digital literacy (e.g., computational thinking, coding, and programming) has become a critical focus in the field of childhood education. While young children these days are routinely and extensively exposed to digital devices and tools, the efficacy of the methods for fostering digital skills in the early childhood classroom has not always been closely considered. This is particularly true in settings where early childhood educators are not digital experts. Currently, most of the efforts in standard early childhood settings, taught by teachers who are not digital experts, appear to revolve around “unplugged” …

A Longitudinal Analysis Of The Development Of Mandarin Chinese In Fourth Grade Chinese Immersion, Robin E. Harvey

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Many studies have confirmed the benefits of dual language immersion programs. Research into reading and writing development in these programs, and particularly in Chinese immersion, is less common. In this dissertation, an attempt is made to address this gap in research by exploring the literacy development of fourth grade Chinese immersion students. Participants were 70 students, the entire fourth grade of an urban Chinese immersion school in the northeastern U.S. The school had recently made several curricular changes. They were adopting a practice of freewriting, or independent writing. In freewriting, students are encouraged to write as much as they can …

Building Racial Literacy Through Relational Trust, Teacher Solidarity, And Antiracist Praxis, Tanya E. Friedman

Theses and Dissertations

Schools in the United States continue to dramatically under-educate students with marginalized identities. Although professional development for teachers regularly fails to develop the knowledge, skills, dispositions, and commitment needed to interrupt educational inequities and ensure all students thrive, scholarship on teacher learning has identified promising practices such as critical inquiry groups for social justice which can foster teachers’ capacity to interrupt inequitable instructional practices and school policies. (Gorski & Dalton, 2020; Manfra, 2019; Peters, 2016). The three manuscripts in this dissertation explore the experience of a CIG comprised of seven teachers working in an urban elementary school that serves multiply …

Elementary Science & Engineering Teaching Methods, David Crismond

Open Educational Resources

Syllabus for EDCE 42000 Elementary Science & Engineering Teaching Methods

When The Elite Control Public Education: A Critical Inquiry On Charter Schools, Marisela Palafox

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis takes a critical look into charter schools in New York City. Through this thesis, I want to answer questions regarding who benefits from the current charter school model in NYC and why this current state of schooling is detrimental to marginalized children. As a former NYC public school student, I know first-hand that good intentions by white educators (and thus white systems) do not always result in beneficial outcomes for the most vulnerable.

No Excuses Yet No Solutions: The Inherent Anti-Blackness Of The No-Excuses Charter School Model, Tshala A. Pajibo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The No Excuses model of education has routinely been labeled abusive and harmful to students. The No Excuses model has garnered significant pushback from students, families, and stakeholders because of procedures and policies that have caused physical, mental, and bodily harm to young students. While many education stakeholders have examined how No Excuses charters and their policies have harmed Black children, not many have examined why. This paper argues that the No Excuses charter model is completely at odds with Black cultural and educational values. This paper suggests deeper studies of the educational mindsets and opinions of No Excuses …

Equitable Assessment For Elementary Dual-Language Learners, Joliette Mandel

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis points out the contradictions between the goals of standardized testing and the goals of dual-language elementary education. I argue that dual-language elementary schools in the New York City Department of Education would be better served by a performance assessment model to measure student and school accountability for several reasons. Performance assessment is more equitable for students who are marginalized by their race, language, or class. Many students who attend dual-language schools in the NYCDOE fall into all these categories. I will discuss in depth why standardized testing is failing students, particularly those in dual-language elementary programs. Next, I …

Caribbean Immigrant Parents And Elementary School Choice In New York City, Keshia T. James

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

For the over 3 million immigrants of New York City, the education system is one of the many areas they must navigate in their transition to the United States (MOIA annual Report, 2018). However, for the Caribbean immigrant navigating the school system is especially hard. Of the five boroughs in New York City, Brooklyn has the second-largest immigrant population with approximately 28% of the immigrants in the borough from the Caribbean. The 2018 United States Census shows that Caribbean immigrants account for about 258000 of the approximately 900000 immigrants in Brooklyn. The racial and cultural diversity among Caribbean immigrants is …

Discussion Of Educational Philosphy For Elementary Math Educators, Daniel Kurzweil

Open Educational Resources

No abstract provided.

For Critical Language Awareness And Against The “Exclusive-Use-Of-The-Target-Language” Myth: The Effects Of Sociolinguistic Content In English In An Elementary Spanish Classroom, Beatriz Lado, José Del Valle

Publications and Research

Scholars have advocated for critical approaches to language education (e.g., Del Valle, 2014; Leeman & Serafini, 2016), including those that promote the development of Critical Language Awareness, CLA (e.g., Alim, 2010; Leeman, 2018). The goal is to develop students’ critical knowledge of the cultural, political, and social dimensions of language. To this end, Del Valle (2014) suggests the inclusion of language-related content units taught in the first or shared language from the early stages of language learning. This proposal entails revising strong beliefs such as the use of the non-target language in the new language classroom. The purpose of our …

An Online Hub For Queens Parents, Abe R. Levine

Capstones

I sought to build a common hub for parents across District 28 in Queens to connect with one another. I did this by creating a bilingual newsletter called the Queens Boletín. The goal of the Boletín was for parents to share and find resources, to advance the conversation on equity, and to build community.

Pandemic Schooling: Lessons In Equity, Advocacy, And Racial Justice, Donna Rivera

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

It was my fourth year of teaching at a Brooklyn elementary school when the COVID-19 pandemic forced school buildings, and the entire city, to enter a world of lockdown and quarantine. New York City was an early epicenter of the 2020 coronavirus pandemic, and the virus quickly revealed severe racial and socioeconomic disparities across the city. A disproportionate number of cases, serious illnesses, and death has been experienced by low-income Black and Latinx communities. At the same time, 2020 also ushered in a national racial reckoning following the May murder of George Floyd.

In this thesis, I will provide a …

Safety And Belonging In Immigrant-Serving Districts: Domains Of Educator Practice In A Charged Political Landscape, Rebecca Lowenhaupt, Dafney Blanca Dabach, Ariana Mangual Figueroa

Publications and Research

Drawing from a context of reception framework, this article asks the following questions: How do educators describe issues of safety and belonging in the context of a charged immigration policy climate? What practices have educators developed to support immigrant-origin youth? And, what are the relationships between educators’ perceptions of safety and belonging and educator practices? We analyze educators’ survey responses administered across six school districts in different contexts across the United States, including the Northeast, Midwest, South, and West. We synthesize four domains of educator practice: signaling affirmation, building shared knowledge and capacity, finding and mobilizing resources, and creating space …

Linguistically Diverse Read Aloud Analysis, Ivana Espinet

Open Educational Resources

No abstract provided.

Social Studies Children’S Books Review, Ivana Espinet

Open Educational Resources

No abstract provided.

Covid-19 And Racial Justice In Urban Education: Nyc Parents Speak Out, Kelly Brady, Mieasia Edwards, Whitney Hollins, José Luis Jiménez, Wendy Luttrell, William Orellana, David Rosas, Nga Than

Publications and Research

The COVID-19 pandemic and global calls for racial justice surfaced tremendous inequities and revitalized the debate about schooling and its purpose. NYC Parents Speak Out is a public engagement project, based on an interactive survey and interviews that records and reflects NYC family educational experiences during the unprecedented school year of 2020-2021. Our research collective, comprised of researchers, parents, advocates, teachers, and school leaders from the Urban Education Ph.D. Program at The Graduate Center (CUNY) identified three key recommendations based on research findings: to improve communication through family and community engagement; give greater attention to social-emotional and mental health; and …

Introducing Pre-Service Teachers To Computational Thinking At Scale, Aankit Patel, Ashleigh B. Thompson, Heidi Williams, Octavia Abell, Carolyn Sykora

Publications and Research

This paper describes a replicable partnership model developed by a graduate school of education that aims to improve elementary student performance in science and math through modifications to pre-service methods courses using computational thinking (CT) content and pedagogy. In collaboration with computational thinking subject matter experts at the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), a team of childhood education faculty adapted methods courses and field seminars to integrate CT instruction and activities. Pre-service teachers (PSTs) were asked to draw on methods and seminar coursework to design and facilitate CT integrated lessons for grades 1-5 students during field work and …

School Recess And Changes To Children's Play Opportunities In New York City, Keyonna Hayes

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The policy, No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2001 in US public schools was designed to improve how children learn and test in schools, but it has resulted in the decline or removal of recess from most schools. This thesis examines two important issues. The first issue is to assess the play opportunities that public elementary schools offer to children, in terms of both the time available for recess and the quality of the spaces and resources for play during recess. The second issue is to learn, alongside the question of the quality of school recess, how parents’ work …

Floor Plan Assignment In Elementary Mathematics Education, Tunde Jakab

Open Educational Resources

In this upper elementary mathematics education assignment, the prospective teachers gain hands-on experience in measuring distances in feet and inches, calculating areas, and converting distance and area measurements. Moreover, they solve a real-life situation by choosing the most economical tiles for their kitchen. This last part (3) of the assignment develops critical thinking and expressing one's thought processes. Part 3 can be used as an in-class discussion, which further promotes reasoning skills.

Impact Of The 2020 Pandemic Of Covid-19 On Families With School-Aged Children In The United States: Roles Of Income Level And Race, Cliff (Yung-Chi) Chen, Elena Byrne, Tanya Vélez

Publications and Research

This study examined the experiences of families with school-aged children during the first three months of the 2020 pandemic of COVID-19 in the United States, while focusing on the roles of income level and race/ethnicity in their experiences. Two hundred and twenty-three parents of school-aged children participated in this study by completing an online survey. The results revealed that low-income and lower-middle class parents, as well as parents of color, experienced more instrumental and financial hardships due to the pandemic, when compared to their higher income, White counterparts. In contrast, parents with higher income and White parents were more likely …

How Do Art Teachers Describe The Ways In Which Choice-Based Art Lessons May Contribute To An Inclusive Learning Environment?, Skylar M. Gerken

Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of this research was to highlight the many different ways art educators in New York City create lessons, prompts, and projects with the use of choice-based lessons. By using a choice-based curriculum students will become empowered to make artworks that best represent them. When working within choice-based parameters an inclusive classroom can emerge. The research is backed by literature, theorists and educators that work or have worked in the field of art education. The topic explores how choice should be at the forefront of lesson making, if educators are interested in creating a classroom that could be seen …

Emergent To Fluent Literacy, Megan Blumenreich

Open Educational Resources

No abstract provided.

Teaching Children To Decode Words: Connected Versus Segmented Phonation, Selenid M. Gonzalez-Frey

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Two methods of decoding instruction were compared. Kindergartners who could not decode nonwords participated in the study, N = 38, M = 5.6 years. Segmented phonation, frequently used in synthetic phonics programs, taught students to convert graphemes to phonemes by breaking the speech stream (“sss – aaa – nnn”) before blending. Connected phonation taught students to pronounce phonemes without breaking the speech stream (“sssaaannn”) before blending. Kindergartners were matched and randomly assigned to the two conditions. Both groups were taught to decode the same set of CVC nonwords consisting of continuant consonants and vowels that could be stretched and connected …

A Narrative Inquiry To Explore The Connection Between Gender And Discipline In Grades Pre-K–8, Nicole Salazar

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Because behavioral discipline can impact children’s development, it is important to ensure that educators work in fair and unbiased ways with all children, across gender, race, and other groups. Biased disciplining of children’s behavior in classrooms can occur as micro-aggressions (McCabe, 2009), sometimes counter to what educators may believe about their own behavior. As a means of raising awareness of gender-biased treatment in classrooms, this thesis involved narrating – a dynamic activity that elicits accounts of events – and thus as a means of reflecting on behavior in everyday practices. Educators anonymously completed a questionnaire requesting narratives of various disciplinary …

Black And Brown Students’ Mathematics Anxiety In Elementary School: The Use Of Restorative Justice Circles And Critical Concepts Of Care, Hope, And Love, Mariana E. Winnik

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Children navigate their world and are constantly making meaning of their experiences. Through this meaning making, children are also constructing their identities. Black and Brown children have an added layer of identity construction compared to their White peers. Black and Brown students develop their racial identity in conjunction with multiple other identities. This paper focuses specifically on how Black and Brown students construct a "mathematics identity" that is meaningful to their racial identity in order to help lessen their mathematics anxiety. I argue that the use of Restorative Justice Circles (RJC) in classrooms will allow for students to bring their …

Goals, Power, And Culture: The Effects Of School Organizational Features On Parental Involvement, Vandeen A. Campbell

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Drawing on organizational theory and the school effectiveness literature, this project incorporates new methodological approaches to the analysis of a national longitudinal data set (ECLS-K: 2011) in order to investigate ways in which school goals around parental involvement, distribution of power, and culture affect parental involvement in children’s education, especially in schools serving large proportions of lower socioeconomic status families.

Parental involvement is widely accepted among researchers and policymakers to be essential for students’ academic success; however, parents with lower socioeconomic status exhibit less participation in both home-based and school-based activities compared to those of higher socioeconomic backgrounds.

Many recent …

"Clavis Aurea": An Augmented Reality Game For The Teaching Of Local History, George Koutromanos, Theodora Pittara, Christopher Tripoulas

Publications and Research

The aim of this study was the design, development, and evaluation of an Augmented Reality game to teach students about the local history of a Greek island. Design-based research served as the foundation of this study’s methodology. Experts in ICT in education, teachers with knowledge of the local history and primary education students participated in the evaluation of this study. The results of the evaluation showed that the game presents satisfactory levels of usability and that its content is compatible with the island’s local history. Among the factors influencing its use by students were internet connectivity, the large number of …