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Full-Text Articles in Education

Language Learners As Agentive Meaning-Makers: Exploring Learners' Investment And Meaning-Making, Shinji Kawamitsu Jul 2019

Language Learners As Agentive Meaning-Makers: Exploring Learners' Investment And Meaning-Making, Shinji Kawamitsu

Doctoral Dissertations

The motivation for this research is the subordinated position of writing in Japanese language education. As many studies indicate, writing in Japanese language education is often perceived as a space for teachers to monitor learners’ acquisition of grammar structures and kanji (Hirose, 2015; Kumagai & Fukai, 2009; Ramzan & Thomson, 2013). Such discourse of writing conceives Japanese writers, especially elementary writers, as individuals who have little agency in making meaning. The purpose of my dissertation study is to explore alternative discourses of writing that position elementary Japanese language learners as agentive meaning-makers. For this inquiry, first, I explore literatures that …


Retrofitting Educators Through Sheltered Instruction Training: A Longitudinal Case Study Examining The Efficacy Of A Five-Year District-Wide Intervention Effort, Marisa Ferraro Jul 2019

Retrofitting Educators Through Sheltered Instruction Training: A Longitudinal Case Study Examining The Efficacy Of A Five-Year District-Wide Intervention Effort, Marisa Ferraro

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation examines the impact of a district-wide professional development initiative to foster equitable pedagogies and practices for emergent bilingual students. The initiative spanned five years, 2012-2017, across one of the largest school districts in the Northeast. This quasi-experimental, mixed methods case study was conducted across twelve schools to investigate the efficacy of a sheltered instruction professional development program in three areas: 1) teacher learning and knowledge about sheltered instructional practices (n=1457) and application of the newly learned practices (n=70), 2) student learner outcomes, as measured by a standardized assessment, through three cohorts of third through eighth graders (n=457) and …


When Healing And High-Stakes Meet: Restorative Justice In An Era Of Racial Neoliberalism, Dani O'Brien Jul 2019

When Healing And High-Stakes Meet: Restorative Justice In An Era Of Racial Neoliberalism, Dani O'Brien

Doctoral Dissertations

Based on a 3-year ethnography, this dissertation documents the story of Presente, an explicitly critical youth-led restorative justice group attempting to dismantle the school-prison nexus and create a more youth-centered culture at their high-reform high school. This dissertation addresses the questions: How does serving as a restorative justice peer leader impact students? What challenges and opportunities arise as the school tries to transition to more restorative practices? And how do the values central to restorative justice come up against, challenge, and get challenged by neoliberal education reform?


Interfaith Education And The Quest For Peacebuilding In Northern Nigeria, Ezekiel Abdullahi Babagario Jul 2019

Interfaith Education And The Quest For Peacebuilding In Northern Nigeria, Ezekiel Abdullahi Babagario

Doctoral Dissertations

INTERFAITH EDUCATION AND THE QUEST FOR PEACEBUILDING IN NORTHERN NIGERIA Over the past thirty years, relationships between ethnic and religious groups in the northern regions of Nigeria have deteriorated. Conflict occurs on an almost daily basis between Christians and Muslims. Most Nigerians consider themselves very religious which often leads followers of the major religions to fight to protect the teachings of their faith. The high level of illiteracy and lack of interreligious understanding between the faith groups contributes to the propensity for violent clashes in the region. The literature review discusses the concept of religious education, interfaith dialogue and interfaith …


A Semiotic Analysis Of Linguistic And Conceptual Development In Mathematics For English Language Learners, Hyunsook Shin Jul 2019

A Semiotic Analysis Of Linguistic And Conceptual Development In Mathematics For English Language Learners, Hyunsook Shin

Doctoral Dissertations

This study explores how an elementary mathematics teacher supported English language leaners’ (ELLs’) academic language and concept development in the context of current high- stakes school reform. The conceptual frameworks informing this study include Halliday’s theory of systemic functional linguistics (e.g., Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014) and Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory of concept development (Vygotsky, 1986). Specifically, this study analyzes the interplay between academic and everyday language and how this interplay can facilitate the development of what Vygotsky referred to as “real” or complete concepts as students shift from “spontaneous” to more “scientific” understanding of phenomenon (Vygotsky, 1986, p.173). This year-long qualitative …


Combining Active Learning Exercises, Blake Spitz Jan 2019

Combining Active Learning Exercises, Blake Spitz

University Libraries Presentations Series

This lightning talk offers an example of combining active learning exercises to achieve multiple learning outcomes (some simple, such as resource identification, and some more complex, such as understanding archival silences and power dynamics in research access). The class was in Special Collections, but the active learning exercises – one a version of “speed-dating,” and the other a version of exhibit or bibliography curation – could easily be used in a more general library information literacy class. These activities are not new, but I had never combined them in this way before, and I have found, as a result, that …