Education Commons^™

Lemons Into Lemonade: Black Undergraduate Women's Embodiment Of Strength And Resilience At A Pwi, Jordan Shelby West

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation is a qualitative research project for Black undergraduate women and about Black undergraduate women. The aim of this dissertation is to lift, center, and share the lived experiences of Black undergraduate women as they reflect on the messages and memories of coming into their Blackness, their transition to and experiences while attending a PWI, and the ways in which they continue to make meaning of space. Informed by Black Feminist Theory and Critical Race Theory, the framework and methods used in this project prioritize the care of the participants and allow them to be co-creators of their own …

“Is That Okay With You?”: Examining A Simulated Discussion About Accommodations Between University Students Identified As Having A Disability And A Standardized Faculty Member, Justin E. Freedman

Dissertations - ALL

Postsecondary students identified as having a disability in the United States are commonly expected to discuss the use of disability-related accommodations with faculty members. Researchers have previously used surveys and interviews to examine what students report about discussing accommodations with faculty members. However, little is known about how students advocate in the moment when communicating with faculty members about accommodations. In this study, I designed a clinical simulation to examine how 15 university students identified as having a disability engaged in and reflected upon a meeting with a standardized faculty member – an actor who I trained to communicate questions …

Schooling At The Intersection Of Refugee Identity And (Dis)Ability: Implications From North Korean Students With Refugee Backgrounds, Yosung Song

Dissertations - ALL

Researchers have previously found that school-age refugees and asylum-seekers are frequently characterized as experiencing physical, emotional, or psychological disabilities or disorders in schools because of the adversity that they face and a lack of adequate resources during their refugee journey. In their relocated society, many refugee students are interpreted as having disabilities or receiving special education services. While refugee experiences are often framed as causing deficits in students, the purpose of this study was to better understand the interplay of (dis)ability and refugee identity at a school that publicly proclaimed refugee experience as an asset. Grounded in a qualitative methodology, …

Narrating Political Disability Identity, Steven J. Singer

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation documented the political disability identities of nine disabled adults. It also explored how these disabled adults enacted their political disability identities. I used narrative analysis to analyze the data, which included life history interviews and the authoring of memoirs. From these memoirs, the participants (Narrators) and I selected critical moments in the formation of the political disability identities. The findings show Narrators shifted or shaped their political identities when strangers pushed them beyond their personal limits by spouting ableist norms. Narrators also developed their political disability identities when they had access to political discourse and the relative freedom …

A Mixed Methods Comparison Of The First Principles Of Instruction In Flipped And Face-To-Face Technology Integration Courses, Jacob Hall

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation examines the impact of the First Principles of Instruction (FPI) model when applied to face-to-face (F2F) and flipped technology integration courses. Through this investigation, I demonstrate how the FPI inform the design of problem-centered environments, their impact on participants’ technological, pedagogical, content knowledge (TPACK), and the essential aspects of experiencing these FPI-based courses. Using an embedded quasi-experimental mixed methods design, the quantitative analyses of pre- and post- TPACK outcomes were examined and related to the interventions’ mechanisms via the descriptive phenomenological analysis of participants’ course learning experiences. Participants were 32 preservice teachers enrolled in the second of three …

An Investigation Of Practices, Resources, And Challenges In Mathematical Word Problem Solving Among Swahili-Speaking African High School Bi-/Multilingual Students In The United States, Victoria Mwia Wambua

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In this study, I examined the practices, resources, and challenges in mathematics word problem solving (MWPS) among the Africa Swahili-speaking refugee high school students in the United States. Specifically, I investigated the language practices and linguistic resources the participants used during MWPS, as well as the linguistic challenges they faced. I also explored the mathematics practices and mathematical resources the participants used as well as the mathematical challenges they faced during MWPS. Lastly, I determined the role of the language practices and/or resources (LPRs) in the participants’ mathematical processes.

To accomplish this study, I used a language background survey (LBS) …

Cognitive Presence In Peer Facilitated Asynchronous Online Discussion: The Patterns And How To Facilitate, Ye Chen

Dissertations - ALL

This study, in the context of peer-facilitated asynchronous online discussion, explored the characteristics and patterns of students’ cognitive presence, and examined the practices that aim to enhance cognitive presence development. Participants were 53 students from a graduate-level online course that focused on the integration of educational technologies. Data were collected from discussion transcripts, student survey, student artifacts, and researcher’s observations.

Results demonstrated four phases of students’ cognitive presence: Triggering event, Exploration, Integration, and Resolution. Among the four phases, students’ cognitive presence tended to aggregate at the middle phases: Integration and Exploration. Percentage of the Resolution was very low. The distribution …

Peer-Led Team Learning: The Effect Of Peer Leader And Student Interactions On Student Learning Gains And Course Achievement In Introductory Biology, Christina Winterton

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This study sought to connect the literature on Peer-Led Team Learning (PLTL) to the work on student-teacher interactions as well as STEM role models. Student and peer leader interactions were explored to determine the effect of these interactions on student learning outcomes. Students and their peer leaders were both asked to determine the student’s learning gains from the PLTL course. Perceived learning gains were measured using a modified version of the Student Assessment of their Learning Gains (SALG) instrument. Peer leader responses were paired with their student’s responses to determine differences in peer leader ability to discern learning gains, learning …

Use And Integration Of Ipads With Students With Low Incidence Disabilities In Elementary Schools, Katie Louise Heath

Dissertations - ALL

I focused this dissertation on what is happening within schools regarding iPad usage and students with disabilities. Technology usage is thought to help provide students with another modality for learning the curriculum. iPads, specifically, are leading the technological revolution in classroom environments. One benefit of iPads in instruction is that they assist all students, especially those with disabilities by helping them complete a task with increased ease. The focus of this research was to study the usage of iPads in K-6th educational settings with students with low incidence disabilities. Technology usage among students with disabilities continues to rise, yet teachers …

Middle Grades Mathematics Teachers’ Learning Through Designing Structured Exercises And Learner Generated Examples, Annmarie H. O'Neil

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Exemplification is significant for the teaching of mathematics and revealing mathematical structure to learners. Structured exercises and learner generated examples (LGEs) are pedagogical tools intended to provide opportunities for learners to discern and generalize mathematical structure. The aim of this study was to understand how middle school mathematics teachers develop their knowledge about designing and implementing sets of structured exercises and LGEs and the factors that influenced their use and implementation of structured exercises and LGEs. Four middle grades mathematics teachers participated in a series of four learning study cycles focused on the design and implementation of tasks that incorporated …

We Know, Now What? Teaching, Learning, (Un)Knowing And Educating Toward Epistemic Justice, Azam Wendy Nastasi

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This dissertation maps the role of testimonial injustice in education and the role of pedagogy in addressing knowledge injustices. Drawing from the disciplinary positions of philosophy of education and social justice education, this dissertation provides an analysis of student academic work to explore intergroup dialogue pedagogy. Specifically, this dissertation investigate if and how the education practice of intergroup dialogue pedagogy can facilitate epistemic justice. This analysis combines philosophical inquiry and document analysis to describe the ways in which practices of learning are related to social identifications. Finally, this dissertation offers applications of this theoretical analysis of epistemic justice for education …

Engineering Is Elementary: Identifying Instances Of Collaboration During The Engineering Design Process, Lora Kulakowski Gruber-Hine

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21st century educational reform initiatives value creativity, collaboration, innovation, and higher-order thinking (Scardamalia, 2002), the skills needed for students to successfully address the complex engineering challenges facing society. A Framework for K-12 Science Education: Practice, Crosscutting Concepts and Core Ideas (NRC, 2012) acknowledges that advances in knowledge occur through collaboration, with many minds working together to communicate and share ideas over time. It has been proposed that collaboration, creativity, and persistence are of value to engineering (Cunningham, 2012), and that engineering possesses a unique set of epistemic practices, including envisioning multiple solutions and teamwork (Cunningham and Kelly, 2017). Cunningham (2012) …

Consensus Messaging Using Scholarly Literature: Impacts On Students' Conceptions Of Global Climate Change, Jeremy David Sloane

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Despite near-unanimous consensus among climate scientists, the misconception of substantial scientific disagreement over the reality of human-induced global climate change persists among members of the general public. Within the research literature on climate science, there exists robust work which quantifies and reviews the scientific consensus on human-induced climate change. This study evaluated the efficacy of using such research literature as a tool for consensus messaging among undergraduates taking an introduction to biological research course at a large, private, research-intensive university in the northeastern United States. Outcomes investigated include the potential impact that reading and discussing such research literature may have …

Struggles Of Korean Americans Labeled With Intellectual Disabilities To Claim Adult Status, Eun Young Jung

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The transition to adulthood is complicated for youth with intellectual disabilities from culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) Families. This ethnographic research explores the daily lives of six adults with intellectual disabilities who live in one urban Korean American community. In particular, the ethnographic observational, interview and textual data have been analyzed in terms of which activities associated with adulthood the participants could or could not engage in, in comparison to the practices of their non-disabled peers in this community. Besides the six focus participants with intellectual disabilities, I also interviewed six other youth and adults with disabilities, six parents of …

Inclusive Education In Practice: District-Level Special Education Administrators' Leadership, Chelsea P. Tracy-Bronson

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Considering six million children ages six through 21 receive special education services in the United States (Department of Education, 2017), it is critical to examine the leadership it takes to provide equitable education to students with disabilities. This study employs a qualitative research methodology utilizing in-depth interviewing to understand the leadership experiences of seven district-level special education administrators who are committed to enacting inclusive educational practices using the following three paradigms or ideological approaches: phenomenological perspective, social construction perspective, and transformative inquiry. The following research questions guide this dissertation: 1) How do district-level special education leaders articulate their conceptualization of …

Behavioral Interdependence In Project Team Collaboration: Study Of Engineering Students’ Collaborative Behaviors In High Levels Of Interdependent Task Settings, Yiyan Wu

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In teamwork learning settings, tasks are often designed at varying levels of interdependence that requires students to complete the tasks by relying only on their team members sharing resources, knowledge, and skills. However, well-structured tasks do not always guarantee task-related collaborative behaviors will occur and are simply not adequate for us to understand the collaboration process and participants’ actual collaborative behaviors. To deepen our understanding of collaboration and explore how increased collaboration may be promoted in high-level interdependent task settings, this study uses behavioral interdependence as an analytical concept to describe and examine individual students’ actual behaviors as they worked …

Entering The Inclusive Space: An Autoethnography Of A Future Educator, Lindsey Reuter

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Inclusive Education is the practice of educating all students in one classroom. Students with disabilities or who qualify for special education are members of regular education classrooms, and remain in the classroom for as much of the day as possible. The Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA) legalized that schools provide free and appropriate education, as well as educate students in the least restrictive environment. The least restrictive environment is in the general education classroom. This legislation helped to increase the prevalence of inclusion in schools.

This research represents my development as a future educator. I entered Syracuse University as in …

Cross-Cultural Competence Development For Tutors, Dulce Morales

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

This capstone was done through the Maxwell Citizenship and Civic Engagement program (CCE) and SU Literacy Corps (SULC). The Cultural Competence Development Training Design created from this project will be reviewed for the Fall 2018 semester. The action plan created a mandatory cultural competence training workshop in order to engage SULC tutors in initial conversations about a range of topics that are important for developing cultural competence.

An Examination Of Elementary Teachers Perspectives On The Learning And Mastery Of Basic Math Facts, Emily Guydan

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

A popular goal in every mathematics classroom is conceptual and computational fluency. Fluency in mathematics includes efficient use of strategies, accuracy when applying those strategies to provide an answer, and flexibility in problem solving with known and unknown problems. This paper explains my interest in looking into the relationship between what teachers believe about teaching and teaching techniques and how those same teachers execute teaching techniques in their classroom. The following sections include literature review that provides definitions of the key terms and support for my interest in researching this relationship. It also includes evidence of beliefs from interviews with …

The Children’S Focus: Creating A Brand – A Look At Website Influence On Preschool Choice, Hope Meltser

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

This project is divided in two parts. The first part consists of branding The Children’s Focus, a Montessori-style preschool in Manlius, New York. Over the course of the project, I have developed a brand with a logo and a live website to provide information and resources both for prospective and enrolled families. The second half of the project is a survey study of parents of preschoolers to investigate how preschool websites influence parents’ preschool selection. This survey included a brief look at parent priorities, website usage, and social media considerations. The survey data established the importance of a functional, updated …

What Are The Characteristics Of A Residential Summer Camp Setting That Allows For Campers To Develop As Leaders In Their Communities?, Bari Margolis

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

This study is framed in the following question: Exploring the characteristics of summer camp that create leaders at camp and in their home communities. Findings will show that campers have learned confidence, how to support peers, were able to safely take risks, and become independent in residential summer camping environments. Findings will also show, campers and staff are now able to use those skills to help them in their lives outside of residential summer camping in many ways. In the course of eight interviews the researcher discovered how campers and staff members were able to find their niche or passion …

Determinants Of Employment And Earnings For Hurricane Katrina Evacuees, Kyle Putnam

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans and the Southeast region of the United States in late August of 2005 and is considered the most catastrophic natural disaster in US history. Many argue that the federal government response was implemented too late and was insufficient to lift the residents of New Orleans, a city plagued by racial income and employment gaps, out of a dire situation. This paper examines the economic impact of Hurricane Katrina by analyzing CPS data to determine how the earnings and employment of different groups of evacuees differed from non-evacuees. The findings show a difference between the employment-population …

Black Students White Teachers: An Autoethnographic Analysis, Julie Harnett

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

This paper explores the many factors at play in a classroom and how they impact students of non-white identities. Embedded with thought experiments for you to analyze your schooling experience, the paper calls to recognition the imbalanced treatment of students based upon individual demographic profiles. This paper calls particular attention to how teachers perceive students and how this manifests itself in disciplinary practices and tracking. This relates to an analyzes the school-to-prison pipeline and links to other forms of school segregation. The paper also calls into consideration the educational experiences of the author and how they were shaped by the …

A Journey Toward Better Understanding Disability In The Classroom, Connor Bradley

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Beginning with the institutionalization movement, where children with intellectual and physical disabilities were put in institutions because they were deemed to be hopeless and uneducable, and continuing today, intellectual and physical disabilities have been a cause for discrimination and inequality in the world of education. In the current education system, students with disabilities still face segregation, but are increasingly being included in classes with their peers who do not have intellectual and physical disabilities.

Through the passage of legislation such as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, students with intellectual or physical disabilities have been guaranteed a free and appropriate …