Education Commons^™

Engaging Every Student In American Government: A Vertical Learning Approach, Tatiana Schumacher

Graduate Research Showcase

This project is a research-based creative endeavor that aims to design an innovative high school course on American government. The course, titled “American Government: Thinking Classrooms,” has several unique and effective features. It promotes equity in the political science classroom by focusing on student assets, such as their cultural backgrounds, personal experiences, and interests. The course also incorporates social-emotional learning, helping students develop skills such as self-awareness, empathy, and collaboration. Culturally responsive teaching methods are utilized, connecting the content to the students’ lives, using diverse sources and perspectives, and fostering critical thinking. The course adopts Peter Liljedahl’s “building thinking classroom” …

The Thinking Classroom: High School Physics Reimagined, Donovan Baker

Graduate Research Showcase

This project is a research-based creative endeavor that reimagines high school physics education. It proposes “The Thinking Classroom: High School Physics Reimagined”, a novel course design that fosters equity, engagement, and learning in the physics classroom. The course design draws on various principles and practices, such as student assets, social-emotional learning, culturally responsive teaching, Peter Liljedahl’s “building thinking classroom” approach, project-based learning, formative feedback, brain-based learning, and AI personalization. The project shows how this course design can transform physics education and prepare students for the 21st century.

How To Spark Bio Curiosity: An Innovative High School Biology Curriculum, Audrie Charles

Graduate Research Showcase

This project is a researched creative endeavor focused around the creation of an exemplary high school biology course. This presentation will showcase an original high school biology curriculum designed to ignite students’ innate curiosity and empower meaningful learning of core concepts like cell structure, genetics, evolution and ecology. Students revisit key ideas through a spiral curriculum that builds complexity, tackling open-ended problems and collaborating on hands-on inquiries like formulating hypotheses, designing experiments, collecting data and drawing evidence-based conclusions. Tangible projects allow students to demonstrate content knowledge in addition to critical thinking abilities like synthesizing concepts, evaluating claims and applying learning …

Proactive Classroom Management In Elementary Music, Gregory Jacot

Graduate Research Showcase

The elementary music classroom is a different environment than the normal elementary classroom, and requires careful attention to classroom management. Rather than only focusing on reactive classroom management, teachers should consider using proactive strategies to enhance their teaching and the classroom experience. Building positive relationships with students, both in and out of the classroom, will make them more receptive to corrective actions if necessary, and building strong relationships with parents and guardians can help address individual challenges that may arise. Designing lessons with thought towards student interest, visuals, pacing, teacher proximity and participation, and physiological needs of students will help …

Advocacy For Music Education Programs, Katelyn Gibson

Graduate Research Showcase

The main focus of this research is to provide strategies for raising awareness and promoting support for elementary music programs. This literature review seeks to empower music educators with specific strategies for gaining support for music education in a society where budget cuts are vast and the demand for improved test scores on standardized exams favors the increased attention to be placed on core subjects alone. Music education is proven to have many lasting benefits outside of music education alone. Key elements for creating and maintaining a successful program include; collaboration efforts, communication with stakeholders, community performances, highlighting the integration …

Pre-Calculus: Thinking Deeply About Simple Things, Jacob Carter

Graduate Research Showcase

“Pre-Calculus: Thinking Deeply About Simple Things” is a research-based creative endeavor focused on designing a high-school pre-calculus course. This course aims to foster deep, meaningful thinking, as well as an appreciation of the values of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the math classroom. The course leverages students’ funds of knowledge to employ culturally responsive teaching methods to connect mathematical concepts to the students’ backgrounds, interests, and real-life situations. This course also integrates social-emotional learning to create an engaging and supportive learning environment for all students. By combining Peter Liljedahl’s “Building Thinking Classroom in Mathematics” approach with problem-based learning, the course …

The Assessment Of The Program Theory And Processes Of Books For Keeps’ Literacy Mentoring Program, Allison Shaw

Graduate Research Showcase

The significance of reading proficiency is frequently emphasized by the time a student reaches the third grade. Third-grade reading proficiency serves as a crucial indicator of a student's potential success in high school and beyond, including college. Research indicates that a failure to attain grade-level reading proficiency by the third grade correlates with increased challenges in comprehending educational requirements and meeting the demands necessary for graduation.

This study focuses on the Books for Keeps Literacy Mentoring Program in Athens, Georgia, which is designed to cultivate supportive relationships between mentors and students, fostering enthusiasm for reading. The examination of the program …

Case Study Of The Little Caterpillars Development Center, Soyun Park

Graduate Research Showcase

Music therapy is a clinical and evidence-based field in which a certified music therapist manipulates music in a therapeutic relationship to help a client reach healthcare or educational goals. In this case study of the Little Caterpillars Development Center, a student music therapist (SMT) performed music therapy on infants and emerging toddlers, while being supervised by a music therapy professor at GCSU. The CDC Developmental Milestones Checklist was used to assess the highest need of each population. For infants, the music therapy goal was to promote language development, measured by sticking out tongue, blowing raspberries, and saying “mama” or “dada.” …

Effect Of Leveled Literacy Intervention On Reading Comprehension Of Students With Specific Learning Disabilities​, Joni Talbert

Graduate Research Showcase

The Leveled Literacy Intervention System was designed by Fountas and Pinnell to address deficits in reading and comprehension. This intervention system consists of a 30-minute scripted lesson designed to address phonics/word work as well as comprehension skills to increase a student’s reading proficiency. The researcher will determine the effectiveness of the Leveled Literacy Intervention program in reading comprehension for students who have an eligibility of Specific Learning Disability. Presentation will include a description of a student with an eligibility of Specific Learning Disability in the academic area of reading. This research is a single-subject A-B design over a six-week period. …

Effects Of American Sign Language On Communication For Students With Language Deficits, Haley Thigpen

Graduate Research Showcase

Effects of American Sign Language on Communication for Students with Language Deficits was conducted in a K-2 self-contained class at a primary school. This research was conducted in order to study the benefits of the use of American Sign Language (ASL) for students in order to communicate in the classroom setting. Ensuring that students with a language deficit have a form of communication in the classroom is key to making sure that they are getting the most out of their educational experience. Researchers have demonstrated the benefits of sign language including effective communication, speech and emotional development, lowered frustration levels, …

Help Me Help You: Impact Of Outreach On Recruitment And Client Engagement, Mary Brigid Harding, Abigail Mccabe

Graduate Research Showcase

The purpose of this research is to determine how much outreach is too much outreach when recruiting students to Georgia College Graduate Programs. Within the College of Business and Technology we track inquiries and applicants as well as tracking the outreach that is conducted within the office. The outreach tracking, being updated weekly, is intended to watch for potential impact on our conversion rates. The process being researched is that we will find the point at which outreach increasing conversion rates might plateau, and if ever it were to go down due to “too much” outreach. We will be tracking …

What Do Struggling Readers Think?, Janelle Butler, Emily Blankenship, Samuel Conway, Brittany Culbreath, Marine Foron-Leabeater, Michael Ferra, Damiale Johnson, Megan King, Kimberly Vinson, Leila Warren, Linda Bradley, Alexandra Berglund

Graduate Research Showcase

Research Question How do struggling readers identify their experiences with reading, both inside and outside of school?

Purpose In an era of high stakes testing and pressure for students to demonstrate academic achievement, particularly in reading, the state of Georgia has emphasized additional rigor over the past ten years. Data demonstrates that 36% of Georgia’s children read below grade level at the end of third grade (GADOE, 2022). A range of efforts to improve reading levels include the establishment of the Deal Center, Senate Dyslexia Bill (SB 48), and a state reading task force addressing teacher preparation for teaching reading. …

Can Close Reading Improve Skills And A Desire To Read? (Action Research Proposal), Whitney Moon

Graduate Research Showcase

“I have no idea what this paper is talking about, what does this word mean, do we have to read all of it?” I hear these phrases and questions repeatedly in my eighth-grade classroom from students that not only struggle reading but also to dig deeper and pull out the meaning of specific passages given to them. This school year I realized that students are being required to read less (for numerous reasons this action research will not cover) and when they are expected to complete a reading assignment; there is pushback, apathy and a lack of desire to …

Using Song To Teach Sight Words, Taylor Hagood Guin

Graduate Research Showcase

This research is about how a group of seven kindergarten classes used a short and straightforward song to recognize the following six common kindergarten sight words: on, off, up, us, no, & go. As a current music educator and former middle grades English teacher, I wanted to create an opportunity to establish cross-curricular connections in my music classroom. For this specific experiment, seven different classes, including General Education, Self-Contained Special Education, and English Language Learning classes, were selected. They were taught these six sight word songs through the “Sight Word Song.” I selected the sight words specifically because the students …

Impact Of A Puppet On Music Performance Anxiety In Elementary Students, Jessica Nohner

Graduate Research Showcase

Music Performance Anxiety (MPA) is a common problem among musicians and has been shown to impact young children. There are many factors that may contribute to student feelings of MPA including perfectionism. Music educators are in a unique position and have a responsibility to assist students with MPA. While some strategies have been used to help individuals cope with feelings of MPA, music educators do not have researched strategies available to them which are easily implemented in general music classrooms. In music therapy and psychology, puppets have been used in work with children. In this study I research the use …