Education Commons^™

Implementation Of The Essential Elements Of Standards-Focused Middle-Level Schools And Programs And Their Relationship To Student Achievement, Jeffrey Craig

Dissertations - ALL

In New York State, there are regulations that describe many of the practices that middle-level schools are supposed to implement. Yet, little is known about the effectiveness of these middle-level practices in schools in the state. Without definitive information about the impact of middle-level practices on student achievement, it's difficult for practitioners and leaders to know if the school improvement decisions they make are the right ones and whether they will have the desired impact on student achievement.

This study compares the implementation of the middle-level guidelines for New York State, known as The Essential Elements of Standards-Focused Middle-Level Schools …

Is Faith On The Campus Tour? Rural, Public College Students' Exploration Of Spiritual And Religious Identity, Tamara Durant

Dissertations - ALL

Abstract

This dissertation examined how students of diverse spiritual or religious beliefs or worldviews at a rural, public college interpreted, made meaning of, and drew upon their spirituality in relation to other aspects of their identity (e.g., race, gender, sexual identity), focusing particularly on the intersections of students' multiple marginalized identities. It was a single-site, qualitative study involving 20 participants attending a rural, mid-sized, predominantly-White northeastern public university. The researcher used semi-structured, in-person interviews, gathering and analyzing data using symbolic interactionism (Blumer, 1969) with the critical stance possible from applying the lens of the Reconceptualized Model of Multiple Dimensions of …

Deficit Discourse, Urban Teachers' Work And The Blame Game, Heidi Katherine Pitzer

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation explores how urban public school teachers navigate the contradictory social position of having little power over their work and considerable power over their students. This qualitative interpretive study begins from a perspective that is attentive to and critical of both (a) neoliberal approaches to education, particularly the market-based, audit culture logics and practices that devalue, discipline and target teachers as workers, and (b) the racialized deficit discourse, a predominant framework in urban schools--often taken up by urban teachers--that blames poor urban youth and youth of color for school problems, constructs them as objects in need of control and …

The Effects Of Extended Time On Reading Comprehension Performance For English As A Second Language College Students: Is There A Need For Accommodations?, Laura Ann Miller

Dissertations - ALL

American colleges and universities are enrolling an increasing number of students for whom English is a second language (ESL). These students face literacy challenges that may impact their academic performance as well as create disadvantages on tests, particularly reading intensive tests under time constraints. This study examined the effects of extended time as a test accommodation on a timed reading comprehension test for ESL students compared to non-ESL peers under standard time, time and one half, and double time conditions. Results revealed that under standard time conditions ESL students with low Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP) in English access significantly …

Programming Generality Into A Performance Feedback Writing Intervention, Bridget Hier

Dissertations - ALL

Substantial numbers of students in the United States are performing below grade-level expectations in core academic areas, including mathematics, reading, and writing (Aud et al., 2012; National Center for Education Statistics, 2012). National estimates suggest that these deficits are greatest in the area of writing (National Center for Education Statistics, 2012; Persky, Daane, & Jin, 2003), presenting a clear need for research efforts that focus on the development of effective writing interventions. Although performance feedback procedures have been shown to produce promising short-term improvements in elementary-aged students' writing fluency skills (Eckert, Lovett, Rosenthal, Jiao, Ricci, & Truckenmiller, 2006), evidence of …

Writing And The Internationalization Of U.S. Higher Education: The Roles Of Ideology, Administration, And The Institution, Melissa May Watson

Dissertations - ALL

In this dissertation,Writing and the Internationalization of U.S. Higher Education: The Roles of Ideology, Administration, and the Institution, I examine one private institution, Syracuse University, for how it has approached internationalization (both currently and in historical efforts), how it has dealt with the increased presence of English language learners (ELLs), and how both realities may affect the research and practice of writing program administrators (WPAs). I use scholarship from Second Language Writing and Writing Program Administration as frameworks for examining some of the sociopolitics involved in addressing the new needs of an internationalized higher education institution, including the politics and …

Teacher Allies: An Exploration Of The Professional Experiences Of Teachers Who Support Lgbtq Students, Melissa J. Smith

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation is a year-long qualitative exploration of the experiences and perspectives of classroom teachers who identify as "allies" or "supporters" for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning (LGBTQ) public school students. Nine teachers representing five secondary schools in Central New York participated in three semi-structured interviews and approximately fifteen hours of classroom observation. Questions driving this research focused on (1) how teacher allies make meaning of LGBTQ students' needs and their roles in addressing those needs; (2) how participants integrate "ally" work into the larger context of their professional practice; and (3) participants' management of stigma or resistance …

Toward A Co-Vivial Community: Hopes Found In The Friendship Among People With Intellectual Disability Labels, Maho Suzuki

Dissertations - ALL

This is a qualitative study of friendships among people with intellectual disability labels in two countries - the United States and Japan. As a field to study friendships among adults with intellectual disability label, I gained access to two sheltered workshops ("The Farm" in the U.S. and "The Kapu Kapu" in Japan) and conducted participant observation, through which I wished to identify broader, multiple, and more humane ways to define competence and human value that could validate people labeled intellectually disabled whose humanity and citizenship are often doubted by dominant standards in industrialized societies. In addition to resisting social standards …

Runners, Biters, And Chair Throwers: Discourses Of Order And Medicalization In Inclusion, Joshua Bornstein

Dissertations - ALL

Inclusive leaders find that one of their greatest challenges is helping their schools to work with students regarded as acting disorderly, or having emotional or behavioral disorders. In this study, superintendents, special education directors, and principals in five districts in the Northeast who have been previously identified as inclusive leaders were interviewed and observed to document the discourses they promote and are themselves regulated by as they meet this challenge. They employed the tenets of Response to Intervention (RTI) and Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) as systems that would help advance that work. In particular, they believed that RTI/PBIS …

"You Missed The Exam!" A Discourse With College Students With Learning Disabilities On Their Experiences With Self-Determination, Self-Advocacy, And Stigma In Secondary And Postsecondary Education, Karen Diane Grella

Dissertations - ALL

The purpose of this study was to learn about the participants' academic and social experiences in high school and college as students with a learning disability. In particular, this study focused on the self-determination of college students with learning disabilities, how they understand the concept of self-advocacy, and how they utilize self-advocacy skills in educational settings. Eleven college students with learning disabilities participated in one-on-one in-depth interviews at a university in the Northeastern United States. The data was informed by Carol Dweck's theoretical work on motivation and intelligence and Erving Goffman's stigma theory. The results of this study provide insight …

Home-Visitation And Parent Education: The Impact On Home-Based Shared Reading During Kindergarten, Tonia Thompson-Grubham

Dissertations - ALL

All families engage in a range of social practices involving elements of literacy. These practices may be more or less similar to those promoted in school settings. The ways in which family literacy practices mirror those of the school often begin to be revealed as children participate in formal programs. The purpose of conducting this study is to identify how parental involvement in a comprehensive, literacy focused parenting education program results in school readiness and achievement for children and improved parenting skills.

An explanatory mixed methods design is used to determine both the impact and meaning of 48 parents and …

Technology Adoption In Secondary Mathematics Teaching In Kenya: An Explanatory Mixed Methods Study, Leonard Mwathi Kamau

Dissertations - ALL

Abstract

This study examined the factors related to technology adoption by secondary mathematics teachers in Nyandarua and Nairobi counties in the Republic of Kenya. Using a sequential explanatory mixed methods approach, I collected qualitative data from interviews and classroom observations of six teachers to better understand statistical results from the quantitative survey of 135 teachers, and drew on Rogers' (2003) diffusion of innovations theory. In the initial quantitative phase, using multiple regression analysis, I identified six explanatory variables related to technology adoption that resulted in R square of 61.2% and adjusted R square of 59.3%. These six variables and the …

Describing Students' Talk About Physical Science Phenomena Outside And Inside The Classroom: A Case Of Secondary School Students From Maragoli, Western Region Of Kenya, Grace Nyandiwa Orado

Dissertations - ALL

Because of cultural and linguistic influences on science learning involving students from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds, calls have been made for teachers to enact teaching that is sensitive to these students' backgrounds. However, most of the research involving such students has tended to focus on students at elementary grade levels from predominantly two linguistic backgrounds, Hispanic and Haitian Creole, learning science concepts mainly in the life sciences. Also, most of the studies examined classroom interactions between teachers and the students and among students. Not much attention had been paid to how students talk about ideas inherent in scientific phenomena …

Reform-Based Science Teaching: A Mixed-Methods Approach To Explaining Variation In Secondary Science Teacher Practice, Lauren E. Jetty

Dissertations - ALL

The purpose of this two-phase, sequential explanatory mixed-methods study was to understand and explain the variation seen in secondary science teachers' enactment of reform-based instructional practices. Utilizing teacher socialization theory, this mixed-methods analysis was conducted to determine the relative influence of secondary science teachers' characteristics, backgrounds and experiences across their teacher development to explain the range of teaching practices exhibited by graduates from three reform-oriented teacher preparation programs. Data for this study were obtained from the Investigating the Meaningfulness of Preservice Programs Across the Continuum of Teaching (IMPPACT) Project, a multi-university, longitudinal study funded by NSF.

In the first quantitative …

Twenty-First Century Exclusion, Valarie Ann Torrence

Dissertations - ALL

No abstract provided.

Learning By Design: Technology Preparation For "Digital Native" Preservice Teachers, Liangyue Lu

Dissertations - ALL

Effective technology integration in teaching requires teachers to construct technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK). To help teachers develop TPACK, the learning environment must address the situated nature and complex interplay of technology, pedagogy and content. Learning By design (LBD) has been proposed as one promising instructional model to create such a learning environment. To explore effective and theory-grounded technology instruction for digital native preservice teachers, an LBD environment was designed, developed and implemented in a technology integration course for preservice teachers. Using design-based research methodologies, this dissertation research study is intended to explore whether LBD is effective in helping digital …

The Chinese New Mathematics Curriculum Reform At Two Elementary Schools: Two Cases Compared, Wei Gao

Dissertations - ALL

Based on a four-month fieldwork in two local schools, Pioneer School and Merits School, in China, the study explores how local schools and parents responded to the Chinese New Mathematics Curriculum Reform. The study found that the schools responded to the reform out of school people's practical concerns as well the established school cultures. Meanwhile, schools' implementation decisions were mediated by the interpretation powers of local educational authorities. Merits School arrived at the two-faces strategy to implement the reform. Pioneer School managed to maintain a balance between promoting reform pedagogies and employing examination-oriented approaches. Both schools marginally involved parents in …

Negative Social Constructions Of “Disability” And How Individuals With Disability May Better Transition From Childhood To Adulthood In The United States, Estella Li

Honors Capstone Projects - All

The objectives of this study are to assess the meaning of “disability” through etic and emic frameworks, to bring awareness to effects that negative social constructions have on individuals with disabilities’ self-worth, and to find more accommodating approaches to not only help individuals with disabilities grow in inclusive classrooms, but to also help them apply confidence, creativity, and problem-solving skills to their community after the age of 21 in the United States. Since the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) fall short of providing individuals with disabilities adequate services and support for adulthood …