Education Commons^™

The Over-Education Of The Negro: Academic Novels, Higher Education And The Black Intellectual, Archie Lavelle Porter

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation focuses on the academic novel - a literary genre which fictionalizes the lives of students and professors in institutions of higher education. In particular this project focuses on academic novels written by black writers and which address issues in black higher education. This dissertation has two concurrent objectives: 1) to examine the academic novel as a particular genre of literature, and to highlight some specific novels on black American identity within this genre, and 2) to illustrate the pedagogical value of academic fiction. Through the ancient practice of storytelling, academic novels link the travails of the individual student …

Automated Learner Classification Through Interface Event Stream And Summary Statistics Analysis, Edgar E. Troudt

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Reading comprehension is predominately measured through multiple choice examinations. Yet, as we will discuss in this thesis, such exams are often criticized for their inaccuracies. With the advent of "big data" and the rise of ITS (Intelligent Tutoring Systems), increasing focus will be placed on finding dynamic, automated ways of measuring students' aptitude and progress.

This work takes the first step towards automated learner classification based on the application of graphic organizers. We address the following specific problem experimentally: How effectively can we measure task comprehension via human translation of written text into a visual representation on a computer? Can …

Teachers At Work: Factors Influencing Satisfaction, Retention And The Professional Well-Being Of Elementary And Secondary Educators, Patrick Edward O'Reilly

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The purpose of this study has been to explore the question of how factors in the work lives of teachers influence their experience of workplace satisfaction, and how satisfaction influences retention in the teaching profession. This study had three specific goals: (1) to examine whether five specified factors that teachers' encounter as workers influence their professional satisfaction, (2) to explore whether teacher satisfaction influences retention in the profession and (3) to determine whether school level taught plays a role in degrees of satisfaction a teacher experiences.

Data was collected over a period of five months, using a survey administered to …

School Librarians And The Common Core: How They Can Help Teachers And Students Through The New Standards, Enito Mock

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The author addresses the critical role school libraries play in student academic achievement. He also addresses the role school librarians could play in successfully implementing the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). Historically being left out of education reforms such as No Child Left Behind in 2001, school media specialists now have the opportunity to shine and show off their unique skill set in curriculum design, information literacy, and research. In collaborating with teachers to carry out lesson plans focused on the CCSS, school librarians can teach students essential skills such as critical thinking, brainstorming, and writing/reading techniques. In discussing why …

How Much Value Is Added By Value Added Models? An Analysis Of Teachers’ Performance Over Time Using New York State Assessment Data, Mariana Ristea

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

There is a strong movement to evaluate teachers on the basis of students’ performance. To compare teachers fairly, as each may have a mixture of students with different abilities in a given subject area, one should account for variables reflective of students’ subject knowledge and background when entering a course. Most methods of control consist of highly sophisticated statistical models mostly difficult to explain to educators who are being evaluated using such methods. This research presents two value-added methods that could be replicated by using in-house resources and standardized student assessment data which are either continuous or ordinal. One method …

On Becoming A Teacher (Or Not): Students Of Color's Perceptions Of Teachers' Work, Consideration Of Teaching As A Career, And Implications For Diversifying The Teaching Force, Amanda Lee Winkelsas

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The racial/ethnic demographics of the American public school teaching force stand in contrast to the racial/ethnic demographics of the students and families who are served by our public school system. In an effort to understand the racial/ethnic demographic disparities between the teaching force and the public school student population, this study explores the perceptions of students of color as they relate to teachers' work, authority, and power. Utilizing a participatory, mixed methods approach in one public, urban, college preparatory school, I analyze the experiences, cultural models, and knowledges that shape students' perceptions of teachers' work and their own consideration of …

Gentle Introduction Resource, James Anderson Laird Evans

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The Gentle Introduciton Resource (GIR) is an open-access web application that offers digital humanities researchers a malleable platform with which they can crowdsource technical material. Such material often poses challenges to the traditional humanities researcher when trying to implement digital layers to his or her research. The Gentle Introduction Resource (GIR) is an open-access web application designed to allow a single classroom or single institution to crowdsource technical information/instruction filtering out the influence of rhetorical analysis. It is written in the Ruby language on the Rails web framework. Though a GIR instance can be invoked to crowdsource primarily web-based information …

Teaching In The Shadow Of Sekou: Reflective Practice, Culturally Relevant And Student-Centered Pedagogy And The Research To Performance Method, Brian Gregory Lewis

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Teaching in the Shadow of Sekou: Reflective Practice, Culturally Relevant and Student-Centered Pedagogy and the Research to Performance Method

By

Brian Lewis

Adviser: Bethany Rogers

I seek to bring the literature of critical pedagogues, reflective practitioners in education and student-centered teachers to bear on a critical examination of my own teaching methods. I reflect on and analyze my past professional teaching and educational experiences, focusing primarily on utilizing Sekou Sundiata's Research to Performance Method to teach a course on Sekou Sundiata and the Black Arts Movement at the New School in New York City. Through my teacher self-study, I attempt …

A Comparison Of Vocabulary Learning From Joint Reading Of Narrative And Informational Books With Dual Language Learner Children, Deborah Bergman Deitcher

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

A Comparison of Vocabulary Learning From Joint Reading of

Narrative and Informational Books With Dual Language Learner Children

By: Deborah Bergman Deitcher

Advisor: Professor Helen L. Johnson

This study examined joint reading of narrative and informational texts in the home setting, between parents and their English-Hebrew dual language learning preschool children. Parent-child dyads were video-recorded while reading two sets of books; each set contained one narrative and one informational text on the same theme. Children's target word learning of 48 target words (12 words per book) of varying difficulty levels was measured from pretest to posttest. Results showed that children …

Transformative Science Education Through Action Research And Self-Study Practices, Olga Calderon

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The research studies human emotions through diverse methods and theoretical lenses. My intention in using this approach is to provide alternative ways of perceiving and interpreting emotions being experienced in the moment of arousal. Emotions are fundamental in human interactions because they are essential in the development of effective relationships of any kind and they can also mediate hostility towards others. I begin by presenting an impressionist auto-ethnography, which narrates a personal account of how science and scientific inquiry has been entrenched in me since childhood. I describe how emotions are an important part of how I perceive and respond …

Child Development Theory As A Mediator Of Novice Teachers' Ethnotheories To Increase Learning And Justice In The Classroom, Nancy Michele Cardwell

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Many urban public schools use teaching methods that isolate and silence children to compel compliance (Schwebel, 2004; Saltman & Gabbard, 2003; Baumrind, 1991). In these contexts, black and brown children are disciplined more often and harshly than white, sent through the court system 70% of the time (Alexander, 2012). Novice teachers, appearing expert without expertise, use unconscious personal theories or ethnotheories to compel compliance, projecting an illusion of expertise without understanding the consequences for children's development and achievement (Elliott, Stemler, Sternberg, Grigorenko & Hoffman, 2010; Skovholt, 2004). An advance in the field would be to learn how ethnotheories interact with …

Non-Standard Italian Dialect Heritage Speakers' Acquisition Of Clitic Placement In Standard Italian, Lionel Chan

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines the acquisition of object clitic placement in Standard Italian by heritage speakers (HSs) of non-standard Italian dialects. It compares two different groups of Standard Italian learners--Northern Italian dialect HSs and Southern Italian dialect HSs--whose heritage dialects contrast with each other in clitic word order. The syntactic constructions tested include restructuring contexts (i.e., constructions in which clitic climbing can take place), and negative first- and second-person informal imperatives. The overarching research question guiding this pilot study is to determine what influences non-standard Italian dialect HSs' clitic placement when learning these constructions in Standard Italian. Three possible sources that …

The Effect Of Morphological Awareness On Reading Comprehension: A Study With Adolescent Spanish-English Emergent Bilinguals, Rebecca Curinga

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The present research examines the role of morphological awareness in reading comprehension of high school emergent bilinguals. As an increasing number of research studies contribute to our understanding of morphological awareness, i.e. the ability to reflect on and manipulate morphologically complex derived words, we are better able to appreciate some essential components of reading that may have been overlooked in past decades. Previous research suggests that morphological awareness contributes to academic reading vocabulary and higher-level text comprehension, both crucial to the success of secondary school students in the United States (U.S.).

The population in the present study is newcomer Spanish-speaking …

Principals' Perceptions Of Teacher Ineffectiveness In Elementary Classrooms And How They Relate To Specific Content Areas, Steven Franklin

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The current dissertation was effected to contribute to the existing literature on teacher evaluation. More specifically, the study utilized principals' perceptions to identify what principals, who often evaluate teachers, believe are the most frequent causes of teacher ineffectiveness. For this dissertation, the researcher extended a study by Torff and Sessions (2005). In that study, the authors measured principals' perceptions of the causes of teacher ineffectiveness within high school classrooms. This study extended Torff and Sessions' (2005) research by including elementary school principal perceptions, investigating whether differences exist in elementary school principals' perceptions when asked to rate teacher ineffectiveness across specific …

I Hope I Don't See You Tomorrow: A Phenomenological Ethnography Of The Passages Academy School Program, Lee Adam Gabay

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study examines Passages Academy, a school program that offers educational services for court-involved youth in New York City. Looking specifically at the Department of Education teachers who work in facilities run by the Department of Juvenile Justice, this research focuses on the beliefs and behaviors that inform the teaching experience within these facilities. The critical question of how these educators negotiate the learning spaces within this school community is also examined.

The question that informs much of this study is: how are the philosophies of the various stake-holding agencies enacted daily in real classroom settings? This leads to a …

In And Out Of Uniform: The Transition Of Iraq And Afghanistan War Veterans Into Higher Education, Vienna Messina

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

IN AND OUT OF UNIFORM:

THE TRANSITION OF IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN WAR VETERANS INTO HIGHER EDUCATION

by

Vienna Messina

Advisor: Professor Colette Daiute

With the exit of US combat troops from Iraq in 2011 and the subsequent drawdown of forces in Afghanistan, much public attention became focused on the reintegration of veterans of these wars into all aspects of civilian life. Record numbers of returning veterans enrolled in higher education. Abramson (2012) reported that, since 2009, when the Post-9/11 GI Bill became effective, more than 860,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans had used its generous provisions for further education and projected …

Conditional Discriminative Functions Of Meaningful Stimuli And Enhanced Equivalence Class Formation, Roxana I. Nedelcu

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Two experiments explored how the formation of two 3-node, 5- member equivalence classes by college students was influenced by the prior acquisition of conditional discriminative functions by one of the abstract stimuli, designated as C, in the class. In Experiment 1, participants in the GR-0, GR-1, and GR-5 groups attempted to form classes after mastering 0, 1 or 5 conditional relations between C and abstract stimuli that were not included in the to-be-formed classes. Participants in the GR-many group attempted to form classes that contained four abstract stimuli and one meaningful, familiar picture that served as the C stimulus. In …