Education Commons^™

Potentially Electric: An E-Textiles Project As A Model For Teaching Electric Potential, Doug Ball, Colby Tofel-Grehl

Teacher Education and Leadership Faculty Publications

Electric potential is one of the most challenging concepts taught in high school physics classes due to the abstract nature of the concept.¹ When taught, electric potential is often taught using a poorly triangulated set of instructional analogies, each possessing different strengths and limitations. Within this paper we share our learning from a two-week electronic textiles (e-textiles) unit designed to help students in an AP high school physics course improve their understanding of electric potential through the construction of a project entitled “The Slouching T-shirt” (STS) (Fig. 1). The STS project was part of a larger instructional unit on …

Learning Logic: Examining The Effects Of Context Ordering On Reasoning About Conditionals, Christina W. Lommatsch, Patricia S. Moyer-Packenham

Teacher Education and Leadership Faculty Publications

Logical statements are prevalent in mathematics, science and everyday life. The most common logical statements are conditionals, ‘If H … , then C … ’, where ‘H’ is a hypothesis and ‘C’ is a conclusion. Reasoning about conditionals depends on four main conditional contexts (intuitive, abstract, symbolic or counterintuitive). This study tested a theory about the effects of context ordering on reasoning about conditionals. Researchers developed and tested a virtual manipulative mathematics app, called the Learning Logic App.

A total of 154 participants, randomly assigned to a context ordering, interacted with the Learning Logic App. Researchers collected data using a …

An Examination Of The Role Of First-Year College-Level Mathematics In Stem Field Major Persistence At A Hispanic-Serving Institution, Jaimi Paschal, Amanda Taggart

Teacher Education and Leadership Faculty Publications

This study examined the influence of mathematics course-taking on Latina/o science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) major persistence utilizing data from first-year STEM majors at a Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI). Findings indicated that students who passed a first-term college-level mathematics course had significantly greater odds of persisting in STEM majors than those who did not, demonstrating the importance of early mathematics support to increased STEM major persistence.

Navigating Award-Winning Nonfiction Children's Literature, Jennifer M. Smith, Marla K. Robertson

Teacher Education and Leadership Faculty Publications

Nonfiction children's literature has changed in recent years, including an increase in organizational, design, and text features. The authors conducted a content analysis of 112 nonfiction award-winning and honor books from 2000 to 2018 to examine how the books have changed over time. The authors discuss the patterns, changes, and complexities found in nonfiction children's literature and provide text sets and guiding questions for classroom instruction and exploration of three features that appear in books in a variety of ways and may be challenging for students: atypical text, graphics with information, and supplemental expository information.

A Counting-Focused Instructional Treatment To Improve Number Sense: An Exploratory Classroom-Based Intervention Study, Jessica F. Shumway, Patricia S. Moyer-Packenham

Teacher Education and Leadership Faculty Publications

Developing students’ number sense is a critical area of research in mathematics education because of the role number sense plays in early mathematics learning. In particular, cognitive psychology research has pinpointed verbal counting as a number sense construct that is critical in later mathematics achievement. This study explored variations in 7- and 8-year-old students’ number sense outcomes as they engaged in a counting-focused instructional treatment for differing durations. Sixty students in three elementary classrooms in the United States participated in the counting-focused instructional treatment. A generalized estimating equations (GEE) analysis showed an associated average increase in test scores for students …

Technology For Equity And Social Justice In Education: Introduction To The Special Issue, Sherry Marx, Yanghee Kim

Teacher Education and Leadership Faculty Publications

In this Introduction to the IJME Special Issue on Technology for Equity and Social Justice in Education, Sherry Marx and Yanghee Kim highlight key trends in technology education research that address issues of equity and multicultural education. Seven articles are introduced.

Wrestling With Competency And Everyday Literacies In School, Kortney Sherbine

Teacher Education and Leadership Faculty Publications

In this essay, I detail the entanglements of three young Black boys - Million Dollar Man, DJ, and Francisco - and their interests in and experiences with WWE wrestling. Drawing on posthumanist philosophies that attend to the productive relationships between the human and more-than-human objects, I consider ethnographic data composed during a second-grade literacy workshop to describe the ways in which the boys' talk, play, embodiments, drawing, and writing created new ways for them to demonstrate competencies in school. A rhizoanalysis of field notes, audio and video recordings, and artifactual documentation demonstrates the overlapping and diverging traditional and indeterminate literacies …