Education Commons^™

Brainwaves, Memory, And Reward, Rebecca Mccune

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The development of effective educational curricula for enhancing learning involves the crucial consideration of effort and rewards. In the realm of education, teachers commonly employ rewards as motivational tools. Traditionally, these rewards are given to students as a recognition of their successful performance. However, a thought-provoking idea emerges: What if we were to extend rewards to students not solely based on accurate answers, but also on the effort they invest, even in cases where their actual response might be incorrect? Our study explores the potential impact of this approach on the way information is absorbed and subsequently retained, specifically focusing …

Make The Kind Choice, Gina R. Foster

Open Educational Resources

During the early days of the pandemic, Dr. Gina Rae Foster, Teaching & Learning Center Director at John Jay College of Criminal Justice wrote a series of emails to faculty to support and guide instructors in helping their students and in redesigning their courses in the midst of lockdowns and racial violence. This guide is intended to address multiple interests and needs: as an informal and partial teaching guide, as an edited historical artifact, as a developing set of perspectives on social justice, and as a reminder that our individual and collective wellbeing can be reciprocal and can be amplified.

Mapping Learning Ecologies: A Diffractive Exploration Of The Emergence Of Learning, Laurie Hurson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In this dissertation, drawing on Karen Barad’s theory of agential realism (2007), I explore the learning ecology as a “specific material configuration” that produces learning, an emergent, “onto-epistemological” phenomenon of entangled being-knowing. I offer a new materialist approach to the learning ecology to better define the concept, taking seriously the material nature of the ecology and acknowledging that learning and knowing is a material practice of being in the world.

To explore learning ecologies, I conducted qualitative interview and mapping sessions with 26 undergraduate students at the City University of New York. To analyze the narrative and visual data, I …

Understanding Functional Assessments, Ife Damon

Open Educational Resources

As special education teachers, having students with behavior challenges is highly likely. Functional assessments are used to support individuals with their challenging behaviors. Therefore, it is important for teachers to understand what functional assessments are, when to use them, and how to use them. This OER is adapted from Chapter 2, The Methodology of Functional Assessment, of the book, Instruction in Functional Assessment by Desrochers and Fallon (2014). Chapter 2 answers the following questions:

• What is functional assessment?

• What are the three main functional assessment approaches and how are they used?

• What are the advantages and disadvantages of each approach? …

  ---

  Go to article

Journalism Through Learning Design, Geoff Decker

Capstones

Abstract

At its core, journalism is a civic enterprise with a mission to help citizens better understand their world and communities. Fulfilling this lofty mission in today’s digital media landscape poses new and evolving challenges, but it also presents a unique opportunity to reexamine the relationship between storytellers and their audiences. Advancements in the learning sciences in recent decades offer important insights into how the mind works. In teaching and learning, pedagogical experts and practitioners increasingly utilize these insights to refine and implement instructional strategies that increase student engagement, motivation, and learning. This capstone project aims to establish a framework …

Supporting The Changing Practices Of Teaching In Business - Baruch Summary, Ryan Lee Phillips, Louise Klusek, Charles Terng

Publications and Research

This report details the results of a study examining the teaching practices of business faculty at the Zicklin School of Business at Baruch College, City University of New York. The contents within cover how instructional resources and services are developed and used to support business faculty and their pedagogy. This report is the local results of Baruch College and the Newman Library’s portion of a larger suite of parallel studies with several other institutions of higher education in the U.S., coordinated by Ithaka S+R, a not-for-profit research and consulting service. Conclusions and recommendations detail targeted library programs and potential collaborations …

Using Oximeters Heuristically: A Case For Emotionally Adaptive Pedagogy, Corinna Brathwaite

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Part of teaching a learner includes the emotions of the teachers and learners, as emotional experiences arise throughout teaching | learning that can be better addressed and coped with. The Sheffer stroke (|) is used to emphasize that teaching and learning are both simultaneous and dependent on the social interaction of learning as both the roles, teacher and learner, are interchangeable. Emotional experiences of teachers and learners impact their emotional state of being. Reflective tools such as heuristics, emotion diaries, clickers, cogenerative dialogues, and oximeters have been used alongside video recordings to prompt awareness of experienced emotions. When educators intentionally …

Peer-Leaders’ Perceptions Of Learning After A Semester Of Peer Facilitation, Yasmine A. Soofi, Nadia Kennedy

Publications and Research

The study examines the perceptions of a group of new peer-leaders of their learning during a semester of peer-leading training and experience working with a group of students. Data was collected through individual interviews in the beginning of the semester and through administering a survey at the end of the semester. The data was organized, analyzed and presented at the poster session.

Struggling To Learn, Learning To Struggle: Strategy And Structure In The 2010-11 University Of Puerto Rico Student Strike, José A. Laguarta Ramírez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

From April 2010 to March 2011, the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) underwent a two-phase strike sequence against neoliberal austerity measures. Altogether, that process resulted in the eventual concession of all of the students’ main demands, an unprecedented feat at the UPR, and a rare one in Puerto Rican history in general. In this dissertation I seek to cast light on this improbable event by examining, first, how neoliberalization patterned and contoured the choices facing the century-old UPR student movement. Second, I explore how interactions within the movement, including the framing contest among leadership teams and their interaction with the …

Child Development Theory As A Mediator Of Novice Teachers' Ethnotheories To Increase Learning And Justice In The Classroom, Nancy Michele Cardwell

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Many urban public schools use teaching methods that isolate and silence children to compel compliance (Schwebel, 2004; Saltman & Gabbard, 2003; Baumrind, 1991). In these contexts, black and brown children are disciplined more often and harshly than white, sent through the court system 70% of the time (Alexander, 2012). Novice teachers, appearing expert without expertise, use unconscious personal theories or ethnotheories to compel compliance, projecting an illusion of expertise without understanding the consequences for children's development and achievement (Elliott, Stemler, Sternberg, Grigorenko & Hoffman, 2010; Skovholt, 2004). An advance in the field would be to learn how ethnotheories interact with …

Does Increasing Biology Teacher Knowledge Of Evolution And The Nature Of Science Lead To Greater Advocacy For The Teaching Of Evolution In Schools?, Ross Nehm, Irvin Sam Schonfeld

Publications and Research

This study investigated whether or not an increase in secondary science teacher knowledge about evolution and the nature of science gained from completing a graduate-level evolution course was associated with greater preference for the teaching of evolution in schools. Forty-four precertified secondary biology teachers participated in a 14-week intervention designed to address documented misconceptions identified by a precourse instrument. The course produced statistically significant gains in teacher knowledge of evolution and the nature of science and a significant decrease in misconceptions about evolution and natural selection. Nevertheless, teachers' postcourse preference positions remained unchanged; the majority of science teachers still preferred …

Does Increasing Biology Teacher Knowledge Of Evolution And The Nature Of Science Lead To Greater Advocacy For The Teaching Of Evolution In Schools?, Ross Nehm, Irvin Sam Schonfeld

Publications and Research

This study investigated whether or not an increase in secondary science teacher knowledge about evolution and the nature of science gained from completing a graduate-level evolution course was associated with greater preference for the teaching of evolution in schools. Forty-four precertified secondary biology teachers participated in a 14-week intervention designed to address documented misconceptions identified by a precourse instrument. The course produced statistically significant gains in teacher knowledge of evolution and the nature of science and a significant decrease in misconceptions about evolution and natural selection. Nevertheless, teachers' postcourse preference positions remained unchanged; the majority of science teachers still preferred …