Education Commons^™

The Experiences Of Tier 3 Early Reading Intervention Providers Three Years After A School Closure: A Phenomenological Study, Sue Ellen Nilena Washington

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this transcendental phenomenological study was to describe the lived experiences of Tier 3 early reading intervention providers at the Urban Independent School District in Texas three years after a school closure. The central research question was, what are the lived experiences of Tier 3 early reading intervention providers in the Urban Independent School district three years after a school closure? Sub-questions explored early reading intervention providers’ beliefs, attitudes, mental states, and actions three years after a school closure. This study was guided by two central theories: the Vygotskian sociocultural theory of human learning and Bandura’s self-efficacy theory. …

Adults' Recollections And Reflections On The Impacts Of Grade Retention, April Dockery

Curriculum and Instruction (Ed.D.) Dissertations

This qualitative study chronicles the experiences of retention as told by adults who experienced retention. Through criterion sampling and snowball sampling, ten participants were identified and interviewed to learn more about their experiences with retention. Through one-on-one interviews, the researcher sought to examine what characterizes the experiences and responses of adults who were retained during their K-12 academic career. Their in-depth responses revealed participants’ perceptions of retention and the effects that it produced in their lives. This study humanized the data by allowing participants to tell an account of retention that coincides with past research. The findings of this study …

Pre-Mentoring Training On Financial Literacy For Small Business Owners, Marwa Abduljawad

Instructional Design Capstones Collection

Small business owners are continuously faced with challenges to grow their business. These challenges are not only related to market conditions, some of them are associated with the business owner's lack of knowledge or skills; thus, many of them seek mentoring opportunities. This project explores the knowledge gap between the mentor and mentee, with a focus on financial literacy and how it impacts mentoring outcomes. A needs assessment was done to assess this performance problem through interviewing project SME’s, surveying stakeholders, and literature review. Based on the findings, a self-paced micro eLearning was proposed with an instructional goal of the …

Volunteerism - Sowing Seeds Early, Geeta S. Shetty

Teacher India

Volunteerism is a concept of social activity that is based on the philosophy of free will. The seeds of volunteerism need to be sown early in life to ensure that the future generations are empowered for social advocacy. This article throws light on the concept of volunteerism and its implications for social accountability of learners.

Teach Men How To Fish And They’Ll Know How To Fish; Teach Them How To Learn And We Just Might Save The Ocean, Steven F. Freeman, Phd

School of Continuing and Professional Studies Faculty Papers

No abstract provided.

Prosocial Religion And Games: Lost & Found, Owen Gottlieb, Ian Schreiber

Articles

In a time when religious legal systems are discussed without an understanding of history or context, it is more important than ever to help widen the understanding and discourse about the prosocial aspects of religious legal systems throughout history. The Lost & Found (www.lostandfoundthegame.com) game series, targeted for an audience of teens through twentysomethings in formal, learning environments, is designed to teach the prosocial aspects of medieval religious systems—specifically collaboration, cooperation, and the balancing of communal and individual/family needs. Set in Fustat (Old Cairo) in the 12th century, the first two games in the series address laws in Moses Maimonides’ …

Youth Developing Political Efficacy Through Social Learning Experiences: Becoming Active Participants In A Supportive Model United Nations Club, Brett Levy

Educational Theory and Practice Faculty Scholarship

Prior research indicates that individuals are more likely to take political action (e.g., vote, contact representatives, protest) when they have higher levels of political efficacy, the belief that one’s actions can influence political processes. In this mixed methods longitudinal study, I draw on Wenger’s and Bandura’s theories of social learning to examine how adolescents’ political efficacy developed during their experiences in a Model United Nations club. Through analyses of data from questionnaires, interviews, and observations, I found that students’ political efficacy increased as they became active club participants. Supportive relationships with club peers and advisors encouraged regular involvement, which in …

Your Teaching Strategy Matters: How Engagement Impacts Application In Health Information Literacy Instruction, Heather A. Johnson, Laura C. Barrett

Dartmouth Scholarship

The purpose of this study was to compare two pedagogical methods, active learning and passive instruction, to determine which is more useful in helping students to achieve the learning outcomes in a one-hour research skills instructional session.

Teachers, Students, And The Hero's Journey, Lori Desautels

Scholarship and Professional Work – Education

"The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek." -- Joseph Campbell

Joseph Campbell, an American mythologist who studied myths from all over the world, created the famous Hero's Journey, a monomyth that explains how each individual goes through continuous cycles of change and transformation. Nothing could be more accurate than when we apply this monomyth to educators, students, and schools, because the teaching and learning process and emotional connection are real-life cycles of continual challenges, births of new ideas, successes, and transformations.

Calming End-Of-Year Stress, Lori Desautels

Scholarship and Professional Work – Education

For many teachers and students, nearing the end of the school year can be a time of mixed feelings, sometimes including fear and anxiety. Students who walk through our doors with what Dr. John Seita and Dr. Larry Brendtro call "family privilege" look forward to time with friends and family, summer outings, and a freer schedule. These students are entering summer break "feeling felt and accepted" within their home environments. Their secure attachment with caregivers allows for expression, mistakes, and freedom to explore their self. Family privilege is defined as an invisible package of assets and pathways that provide us …

The Adolescent Brain: Leaving Childhood Behind, Lori Desautels

Scholarship and Professional Work – Education

There isn't a more profound scene in the film Inside Out than the death of Bing Bong, Riley’s imaginary friend. As the main character approaches her 12th birthday, her brain is beginning to develop in ways that leave her imagination behind. This is the time when children between the ages of 10 and 14 begin dying to their childhoods to be born into their adolescence.

Contagious Emotions And Responding To Stress, Lori Desautels

Scholarship and Professional Work – Education

Neuroscience research suggests that emotions are contagious. Our brains are social organs, and we are wired for relationships. When we encounter or experience intense emotions from another individual, we feel those feelings as if they were our own. Mirror neurons in our brains are responsible for empathy, happiness, and the contagious anger, sadness, or anxiety that we feel when another person is experiencing these same feelings.

Islands Of Personality And Trains Of Thought, Lori Desautels

Scholarship and Professional Work – Education

In the film Inside Out, 11-year-old Riley holds several islands of personality in her brain. These islands were created from her past core memories, experiences, interests, and passions. Positive and negative core memories create these islands that make up our personality or sense of self. Riley's included Family Island, Friendship Island, Soccer Island, and Goofball Island. Our brains form islands of personality (or, for the purposes of this discussion, islands of self) because of our interests, relationships, experiences, and how others in our lives have affirmed, supported, or possibly weakened our thoughts about who we are and …

Creating Core Memories In The Classroom, Lori Desautels

Scholarship and Professional Work – Education

We all create core memories. When we encounter an experience with heightened emotion, our memory systems remember the experiences because of the intense emotions associated with the event. We know that memories can become diluted or distorted with time and distance. When we remember an event from our past, our brains secrete the same chemicals from the same neurotransmitters called forth when the experience happened, creating the same feelings.

How Emotions Affect Learning, Behaviors, And Relationships, Lori Desautels

Scholarship and Professional Work – Education

We need all of our emotions for thinking, problem solving, and focused attention. We are neurobiologically wired, and to learn anything, our minds must be focused and our emotions need to "feel" in balance. Emotional regulation is necessary so that we can remember, retrieve, transfer, and connect all new information to what we already know. When a continuous stream of negative emotions hijacks our frontal lobes, our brain's architecture changes, leaving us in a heightened stress-response state where fear, anger, anxiety, frustration, and sadness take over our thinking, logical brains.

Regenerative Change: Engaging At The Intersection Of Inner And Outer Work Through Contemplative Learning, Heather L. Burns, Celine Fitzmaurice

University Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

This article explores the intersection of the inner and outer work of regenerative change making through contemplative practices at Portland State University. It describes contemplative strategies employed with graduate students and university faculty including classroom practices and a professional development retreat series for faculty. The authors discuss the importance of inner work in fostering transformative teaching and learning, and explore the connections between inner work, contemplative practices, and transformative learning theory.

Brains In Pain Cannot Learn!, Lori Desautels

Scholarship and Professional Work – Education

Educators want nothing more than for our students to feel successful and excited to learn, and to understand the importance of their education. We want our students' attention and respect to match our own. I believe that most if not all of our students desire the same, but walking through our classroom doors are beautifully complex youth who are neurobiologically wired to feel before thinking.

Brain Labs: A Place To Enliven Learning, Lori Desautels

Scholarship and Professional Work – Education

Although emotion and cognition originate in different parts of the brain, they interact and play a powerful role in learning and memory. According to neuroscientists like Eric Jensen, priming the brain for particular states of engagement -- such as curiosity, intrigue, surprise, suspense, a bit of confusion, skepticism, and the feeling of safety -- prepares the mind to learn. Furthermore, incorporating emotion into our instruction and content supports long-term memory. This might not be news to teachers, but not enough students know how to optimize their brain for learning. That's why every child should have the opportunity to explore …

Creating Safe, Strength-Based Classrooms, Lori Desautels

Scholarship and Professional Work – Education

Schools are not machines. Schools are a network of human beings who feel, think, behave, and function within a human system that is alive and never static. Inside living systems, we need to feel safe and felt. This system is wired to thrive, even through difficult times. We're here for deep learning, which is profoundly relational, and connection to one another is a prerequisite for our collective emotional, social, spiritual, and cognitive growth and development.

3 Things Students Desire To Hear From Teachers, Lori Desautels

Scholarship and Professional Work – Education

A year and a half ago, I decided that I needed to return to the K-12 classrooms and really experience ground-level teaching, testing, core standards, differentiating, and emotionally connecting with children and adolescents in ways I had not for many years. I have been and still am an assistant professor in the school of education at Marian University, but the environments, experiences, and my own learning have grown and changed immensely from returning to the classroom 18 months ago.

I asked the university for a course release, taking the lectures, research, and strategies into the early adolescent grades. And three …

Meta-Collaboration: Thinking With Another, Lori Desautels

Scholarship and Professional Work – Education

What if we could dramatically improve our thought processes and learning strategies by tapping into the social genius of another? What if a classmate, colleague, or friend could help us recognize and claim our strengths, new habits of thought, and strategies from a perspective that we never imagined by ourselves? As human beings, our survival depends on others. Our ability to cooperate and collaborate has trumped the stress response state of competition within our species and throughout evolution. With a group affiliation to nurture these relationships, we can strengthen and reappraise our own thought processes.

Incentivizing Your Class: The Engagement-Based Classroom Management Model, Lori Desautels

Scholarship and Professional Work – Education

When I think of our most struggling and distracted students, I see how social pain and rejection often hijack their ability to be academically focused and successful. Optimal school performance requires positive emotional connections with those students that we want to prosper while feeling capable and competent.

When students and teachers feel this connection, we are all responding from the higher cortical regions of the brain, and our dopamine reward centers are activated by these feelings, these positive emotions. Our interactions with students are intimately connected with our own feelings and agendas. When our efforts in the classroom meet with …

Tweeting And Blogging: Moving Towards Education 2.0, Tian Luo, Teresa Franklin

STEMPS Faculty Publications

This paper reports on an exploratory study that employed Twitter and blogs as instructional Web 2.0 tools to support student learning in an undergraduate-level class. Case study methodology entailing a usage survey, an exit survey, and 12 in-depth semi-structured interviews was sought to examine patterns and characteristics of students' usage of social media and to elicit their perceptions on how the incorporation of Twitter and blogs facilitated their learning. Findings demonstrate that as advanced users of social media, the students highly embraced the incorporation of Twitter and blogs in the class. Not only were the students motivated to utilize social …

New Class Roles: Building Environments Of Cooperation, Lori Desautels

Scholarship and Professional Work – Education

We see students survive every day. We ourselves survive every day -- a class, a test, a conflict, a relationship, and a challenge. Yet surviving is very different than thriving! Many students that we see daily bring a degree of their stress into our classrooms. Thankfully, many of them also have supports in their lives that allow them to manage this stress in a productive manner.

"Whatever! You Think I Care?", Lori Desautels

Scholarship and Professional Work – Education

I was thinking this afternoon of the misunderstood "language" from developing children and adolescents that we often receive as educators. This is the type of language that catches us off guard as we posture for the perfect discipline-minded "one-up" response. Sometimes it feels frustrating -- and actually downright awful -- when we hear our reactions unintentionally mirroring those anxious or angry emotions, personalizing these conversations when, in actuality, it has nothing to do with us!

Self-Assessment Inspires Learning, Lori Desautels

Scholarship and Professional Work – Education

Self-reflection is self-assessment, and one of the most significant learning tools we can model for our students. Ultimately, we want our children and adolescents to be the self-assessors of their work, dispositions, and goals. Research repeatedly reports that the difference between good teachers and superior teachers is that superior teachers self-reflect.

Perspective: A Game Changer In The Classroom And In Our Lives, Lori Desautels

Scholarship and Professional Work – Education

What is perspective? What does it have to do with teaching, leadership, and learning? The Oxford English Dictionary defines perspective as: "A particular attitude toward or way of regarding something; a point of view." Blending this definition into our instruction, classroom cultures, and relationships, perspective drives all we are and do in our classrooms. Perspectives are bundles of beliefs, a mindset that we each embrace determining how we see one another, our experiences, and possibilities or lack thereof. As teachers, our perspectives directly impact student emotions and their learning, because emotions are contagious.

Emotions Are Contagious, Lori Desautels

Scholarship and Professional Work – Education

Through millions of pairs of lenses, we each see ourselves, others, and relationships from a variety of views. Each brings his or her inner world, unmet needs, emotional baggage, culture, and belief system into the human connection. So perhaps I shouldn't have been stunned a few weeks ago while reading the resiliency research associated with troubled youth inside our schools, when I encountered these words from Dr. Nicholas Long: "The number one reason for the increase in student violence in schools is staff counteraggression." Yet I was stunned.

The Key Of Connection, Lori Desautels

Scholarship and Professional Work – Education

Over the past few weeks, I have learned deeply. My students were paramount teachers as I was privileged to share a part of their interior worlds, their "private logic" that is a culmination of accumulated beliefs, experiences, values, thoughts and feelings. This inner world is often kept tucked away unless an environment is created that allows for feelings of safety and an untainted sense of belonging. When any child or adult enters into a space that accepts, inspires and affirms their "ever-changing personhood," we have finally found the key that unlocks the door to extravagant learning! What is that key? …

Efficacy Of Hybrid Coursework On Retention Rate In Online Higher Education, Kevin Struble

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Recent developments and technological advances in online education have provided the adult learner with new opportunities to obtain a college education. However, online coursework offers new challenges particularly for online student retention, as these rates are lower than traditional students on a college or university campus. The following research outlines a quantitative study for the perceived effect of social learning for adult online learners through hybrid coursework on undergraduate retention rates through two research questions using a causal-comparative design for research question one and a correlational design for research question two. This study examined retention theory in regards to social …