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Full-Text Articles in Education

Making A Difference: Accommodating Students With Autism In A General Education Classroom, Luci Ottaviano Mar 2009

Making A Difference: Accommodating Students With Autism In A General Education Classroom, Luci Ottaviano

Leah A. Nillas

“Increasingly, parents and professionals are looking to inclusive settings to provide social interactions and opportunities for children with autism that might otherwise be lacking in a self-contained setting” (Boutot, Bryant, 2005). However, most general education high school teachers have limited experience and knowledge regarding autism, and the purpose of this study was to determine how to accommodate and modify curriculum to address the needs of students with autism. Data was collected in two phases: the first phase took place during student teaching and was comprised of observational journals from my experience; the second phase consisted of three interviews with special …


Basic Math Skills: Can High School Students Do The Math?, Samantha Sebastian Mar 2009

Basic Math Skills: Can High School Students Do The Math?, Samantha Sebastian

Leah A. Nillas

This article examined high school students’ basic mathematics skills. 126 Students participated in a study that lasted ten weeks in which a pretest and post-test were taken. In between the tests, students took weekly quizzes to refresh and relearn the following basic mathematics skills: adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing whole numbers, decimals, and fractions; proportions; conversion between percents, decimals, and fractions; and order of operations. The scores of the pretest and post-test were analyzed to see if improvements were made. Scores were compared by gender and grade level. The study showed an overall improvement on students’ ability to do basic …


Breaking Language Barriers: Connections Between Foreign Language And English Language Arts, Lauren Booth, '09 Mar 2009

Breaking Language Barriers: Connections Between Foreign Language And English Language Arts, Lauren Booth, '09

Leah A. Nillas

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships between foreign language and English language arts. In previous literature, foreign language has been shown to positively affect students' performance in other subject areas as well as developing their cognitive abilities. When I thought about my own teaching experiences, I made direct connections between foreign language and English language arts in terms of vocabulary acquisition and grammar. Through interviews I found that other teachers are also aware of those connections and deliberately use them to enhance their instruction and defend the study of a foreign language. Upon investigating foreign language …


Literacy Work Stations: Effects On Students’ Reading Comprehension And Fluency, Amy Burns Mar 2009

Literacy Work Stations: Effects On Students’ Reading Comprehension And Fluency, Amy Burns

Leah A. Nillas

According to the National Center for Educational Statistics, “Despite recent national attention to the importance of teaching early reading skills, many children in America continue to struggle with reading. Forty percent of U.S. fourth grade children read below a ‘basic level’ and have ‘little or no mastery’ of the knowledge of skills necessary to perform work at each grade level” (Choutka, Jitendra, Edwards, Starosta, Sacks & Jacobson, 2004). With this data in mind, the purpose of this research is to determine how literacy work stations are affecting students’ literacy skills. This research was conducted in a fourth grade classroom at …


The Impact Of Extracurricular Activities On High School Students’ Academic Success, Nicholas Cooprider Mar 2009

The Impact Of Extracurricular Activities On High School Students’ Academic Success, Nicholas Cooprider

Leah A. Nillas

“Although we cannot conclude from the data that extracurricular activities alone caused these improvements, we can say with virtual certainty that when we help a student move from no participation in extracurricular activities to engagement in three or four such activities, it does not harm academic performance” (Reeves, 2008, p.2). Previous research concluded that participation in extracurricular activities does correlate to academic achievement in the classroom. This research examined how students perceived their involvement in extracurricular activities affected their academic performance. Surveys were distributed to a local, rural high school and students were asked to document the amount of time …


Modern Novels: How To Make Them More Relevant To High School Students, David Wendler, '09 Dec 2008

Modern Novels: How To Make Them More Relevant To High School Students, David Wendler, '09

Leah A. Nillas

There have been numerous studies conducted researching ways to reinvent how we teach outdated texts that are increasingly losing relevance to the current generation of students because of gaps in interest and culture. Because of this irrelevancy, students do not understand these books as well and are not thinking critically about the issues that they present. My research follows along the same lines, but deals specifically with the increasing irrelevancy of modern novels. I distributed a questionnaire to the class I observe at a local high school. My findings have been that modern novels, while lacking relevance with many students, …