Education Commons^™

Redefining Supports And Resources For Students And Families In High Poverty Schools, Rick Grayes

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This capstone project was part of a team project completed by two school principals in Hillsborough County, Florida. The project began because of our passion for meeting the needs of our students in urban high poverty schools being supported by varying district turnaround initiatives. We looked at our district’s previous and current attempts to increase student success in high poverty schools. We questioned the ways in which supports and resources were provided, and we explored ways through which success in high poverty schools might be increased by redefining the supports and resources provided. Our appreciative exploration of the topic was …

Culturally Relevant Curriculum And Instruction In A Culture Of Care, Johan Von Ancken

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This capstone project was part of a group project completed by five school and district administrators in Hillsborough County, Florida. The project began because of our passion for teachers who are able to establish a culture of care in their classrooms that support students academically but transform their learning through experiences that enable them to be more highly engaged and productive students, regardless of ethnicity, socioeconomic status, perceived academic abilities, and backgrounds.

Our school district has spent significant resources attempting to address the deficiencies that exist within its lower performing schools. A variety of curriculum specialists have addressed challenges these …

Behavioral Interventions And Positive Systems Of Support In A Culture Of Care, Olayinka Alege

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This capstone project was part of a group project completed by five school and district administrators in Hillsborough County, Florida.

The project began because of our passion for teachers who are able to establish a culture of care in their classrooms that support students academically but transform their learning through experiences that enable them to be more highly engaged and productive students, regardless of ethnicity, socioeconomic status, perceived academic abilities, and backgrounds.

My focus in this group project looked at school climate, culture and student behavior in high needs schools. I asked, what steps can be taken by a school …

School-Based Health Centers In High Poverty Schools, Felicia Davis

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This capstone project was part of a team project completed by two school principals in Hillsborough County, Florida. The project began because of our passion for meeting the needs of our students in urban high poverty schools being supported by varying district turnaround initiatives. We looked at our district’s previous and current attempts to increase student success in high poverty schools. We questioned the ways in which supports and resources were provided, and we explored ways through which success in high poverty schools might be increased by redefining the supports and resources provided. Our appreciative exploration of the topic was …

Building Capacity And Sustainability Through Teachers Leading Teachers, William Woodland Johnson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This capstone project was part of a group project completed by two principals in elementary schools and a principal coach in Hillsborough County, Florida. Each of the team members has a passion for the work of administrator and lead learner in a turnaround school. Through creating a culture of teacher leadership, especially in high poverty schools, we believe students will succeed. We were looking for what a high performing school culture would look like if teachers were leading the work through ongoing inquiry and personalized support.

My individual focus was, in what kinds of work experiences did teachers feel they …

Supporting A Culture Where Teachers Are Leading Teachers, Gloria Waite

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This capstone project was part of a group project completed by two principals in elementary schools and a principal coach in Hillsborough County, Florida. Each of the team members has a passion for the work of administrator and lead learner in a turnaround school. Through creating a culture of teacher leadership, especially in high poverty schools, we believe students will succeed. We were looking for what a high performing school culture would look like if teachers were leading the work through ongoing inquiry and personalized support.

My individual focus was, how can district and school leaders support a culture where …

Investigating The Effectiveness Of A Community Leadership Program Based On The Experiences And Perceptions Of Alumni Participants, Sandi Wolff

Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation investigated the perceptions of alumni who participated in a civic leadership program (LP) in a large, metropolitan city with over 1.7 million residents in its local community. The program, with a 42 year-long history, had no formal data on its participants, the program, or its efficacy. The research investigated the expectations, experience, and engagement of participants over its 42-year history. To examine these concepts, the study was motivated by three research questions: (1) What is the relationship between the participants’ program satisfaction and the program elements? (2) To what extent did the program meet expectations, based on participant …

The Initial Planning Process Of An International Service-Learning Pilot Initiative Under Development, Denise P. Krohn

Theses & Dissertations

This research explored the initial planning process of an international service-learning (ISL) initiative under development that involved a collaboration among a south-central Texas private university, a ministry of Catholic Sisters in Peru, a U.S. non-profit organization, and a Peruvian optometry school. Three collaborators were founded by the same religious order. An overlapping in mission and values influenced the context. By delving into the expectations of higher education and its pedagogical practices, ISL’s history and conceptualizations, and concepts of program planning and designing related to the fields of ISL and adult learning, this study presented significant program development aspects. Furthermore, the …

A Study Of The Protective Factors That Foster Resilience In Teachers, Zundra Gates

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to compare the protective factors of teachers in various fields: discipline, tested and non-tested subject areas, and teacher certification route. The study involved 161 kindergarten to twelfth grade Mississippi teachers who were full-time during the 2016-2017 school year. The 36-item Resiliency Questionnaire was used to measure the presence of six protective factors. The six protective factors that were examined on the questionnaire are: purpose and expectation (PE), nurture and support (NS), positive connections (PC), meaningful participation (MP), life guiding skills (LGS), and clear and consistent boundaries (CCB). A multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) test …

Motivators And Barriers To Health Behaviors In African American Women, Teresa M. Depratt

Theses and Dissertations

Women who identify as African American are at particularly high risk of developing obesity and associated health concerns such as diabetes, heart disease, and cancers. Eating healthfully and engaging in a minimal amount of physical activity are known to be both preventative and curative. Based on review of research, this study investigated potential constructs of Motivators and Barriers to health-supporting behaviors as they are perceived in African American women. The study also constructed a novel scale, Motivators and Barriers to Health Behaviors (MBHB), which intended to capture some constructs of each domain via two surveys. Also of interest was if …

Failure-To-Rescue Simulations As A Risk Management Strategy For Registered Nurses, Trena K. Seago

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Capstones

In the hospital setting, prevention of failure-to-rescue (FTR) events is an important aspect of patient safety. The use of patient simulation as a strategy to educate nurses on the prevention of these events offers two modes of learning: 1) experiential learning through simulation and 2) reflection through debriefing. The act of practicing to recognize a deteriorating patient through experiential learning and reflection may help increase nurses’ self-efficacy in recognizing a similar situation in their future practice. This quasi-experimental, one-group, pretest-posttest pilot study investigated the use of patient simulation among registered nurses (RNs) in the hospital setting as an anticipatory educational …

School Climate: A Comparison Of Teachers, Students, And Parents, James A. Jacobs

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study was designed to examine the benefits of positive school climate and to measure the perceptions of school climate for intermediate grades in a Northeast Tennessee School district. An online school climate survey was used to collect responses from participants in intermediate grades and focused on the 3 major components of school climate: school engagement, school environment, and school safety. Data were collected for 2 consecutive years in 2016-2017 and 2017-2018. Response totals included 1,955 student responses, 116 teacher responses, and 210 parent responses that were analyzed and used for this study. Of the student totals, some students that …

Speech-Language Pathologists' Practices And Attitudes Toward App Use In Therapy, Tessa Alexandra Benedon

Theses and Dissertations

Numerous national surveys have established that Americans of all ages are using mobile technologies (e.g. cell phones, smartphones, and tablets) more than ever before (Pew Research Center, 2018; American Academy of Pediatrics, 2016a; American Academy of Pediatrics, 2016b; Reid-Chassiakos et al., 2016; Tsetsi & Rains, 2016; Kabali et al., 2015). In the same vein, Morris, Jones, and Sweatman (2016) found that Americans with visual, hearing, motor, learning, and speech disabilities area also engaging with apps on smartphone and tablet technologies for vocational, educational, and social purposes. Developers of the iOS and Android operating systems have prioritized user-friendly design and accessibility …

The ‘Just City’ Or Just A City? : Evaluating Social Justice And Equity In Planning Education., Wes Grooms

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Contemporary evaluations of accredited planning education performance have eschewed the principles and methodologies of formal program evaluation and performance management. This dissertation tests hypotheses that this contributes to the lack of social equity and justice commitment, content, and inquiry on the part of accredited graduate planning degree programs, their clients, and administrators. The organizations, resources, and processes involved in the purveyance of accredited graduate planning education were conceptualized as a singular, evaluable program and illustrated in a series of program logic models. These models revealed sources of the inattentiveness to normative issues that past evaluations have evidenced, and informed assertions …

Breaking Burnout: How Daily Mindfulness Can Break The Cycle Of Clinician Burnout And Restore Passion Within The Pediatric Treatment Environment., Gretchen Blackmer

Graduate Student Independent Studies

Caregiver burnout is a common condition that impacts clinicians, patients, and institutions, across all healthcare service lines. Caregivers who serve patients and families directly, including Child Life Specialists, have been found to hold a greater risk of burnout, due to the increased stress and potential for vicarious trauma that exists in the daily responsibilities this position demands (Moody, 2014). Clinicians just entering the Child Life profession, as well as those with only a few short years in the field, have been identified as being especially susceptible to experiencing burnout (Kemper).

Despite the common nature of burnout, complex and long-held cultural …

Leader Self-Renewal: Mind, Body, Spirit Connection Inherent In Sustainable Leadership, Lasonja Roberts

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation builds upon stress and burnout research on school leaders by exploring the beliefs and practices regarding well-being and self-renewal of principals identified as successful. This study utilized a 3-fold framework that consisted of mind, body, and spirit, falling under the all-encompassing umbrella of thriving, asserting the three domains work together to support the optimal well-being of the leader. The research questions were as follows: (1) In what ways are principals' well-being and self-renewal supported by principals' personal beliefs and practices, district policies and practices, and educational programs and organizations? (2) To what extent does attentiveness to well-being and …

Adopting Active Learning Classroom (Alc) Technology And Overcoming Barriers: A Faculty Development Intervention Model For Technology-Enhanced Learning Spaces, Bradford D. Wheeler

Doctoral Dissertations

The goal of this study was to understand how instructors use technology, and what challenges they face, but also to increase the participants’ understanding of Active Learning Classroom (ALCs) technologies as it applies to their teaching by applying action research methodologies. This study also seeks to lay a foundation for additional research on ALCs, education technology, and the needs of instructors in terms of faculty development in technology. This study investigates a group of 13 faculty members in multiple disciplines teaching in ALCs. Thus far, research on the impact of technology-enriched learning environments like Active Learning Classrooms has typically centered …

Teacher Talk: How Many White, Middle-Class, Female Educators Perpetuate White Privilege In School, Theresa Nomensen

Dissertations

This paper examines the ways middle-class, white, women, who comprise more than eighty percent of the teaching force in public schools perpetuate white supremacy in public schools, explicitly at looking at how and what middle-class, white teachers say to and about their students of color. I interrogate and analyze my own beliefs and experiences, using autoethnography, revealing my journey from learning about my white privilege to understanding how I perpetuate white privilege in schools. Using the theoretical framework of Critical Whiteness Studies, I will interrogate my own whiteness as I confront and wrestle with whiteness in myself and in five …

Poetics Of Sixteenth-Century Widowhood: Vittoria Colonna’S Use Of Gender And Grief As A Means Of Social And Spiritual Transcendence, Sarah Conner

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis project surrounds the life of sixteenth-century poet Vittoria Colonna, and the poetry she wrote following the death of her husband Ferrante D’Avalos, Marquis of Pescara, in 1525. Often regarded in tandem with the works of Michelangelo, Vittoria Colonna’s literary accomplishments in the face of personal tragedy speak for themselves as she became one of the foremost female poets of her time. Beyond her relationship with Michelangelo, the surrounding literature on Colonna looks at her widowhood as a stage for her poetry, her use of Neoplatonist imagery, and the influence of the Petrarchan sonnet. Expanding on the arguments presented …

A Participatory Action Research Using Photovoice To Explore Well-Being In Young Adults With Autism, Gary Yu Hin Lam

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Young adults with autism transitioning from school to adulthood are commonly described as exhibiting poor outcomes. Although there has been research efforts measuring quality of life and life satisfaction in individuals with autism, these conceptualizations of well-being are still predominantly deficit-focused and based on normalizing ideals of the dominant culture. Only by incorporating individuals with autism’s perspectives and involving their meaningful participation in research can we better understand and promote well-being among individuals with autism. The present study aims to explore young adults with autism’s ideas about well-being. I conducted a Photovoice project using a participatory action research approach with …

Talk Matters: Graduate Students’ Perceptions Of Online Learner-Learner Interaction Design And Experiences, Eraldine Williams-Shakespeare

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study explored the design of learner-learner activities including types of pedagogy and media in online courses and graduate students’ perceptions of social interaction, cognitive learning and overall satisfaction. Data collection and analysis involved both quantitative and qualitative methods following a Sequential Explanatory Model. Data instruments include a modified version of the Community of Inquiry (CoI) Survey version 14b (Swan, Shea, Richardson, Ice, Garrison, Cleveland-Innes, & Arbaugh, 2008), a Rubric for Assessing Interactive Qualities of Distance Learning Courses (Roblyer, 2004), and a semi-structured interview protocol.

A total of 106 graduate students participated in the survey. Twelve of the participants were …

Parent-Child Interaction Therapy For Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder: An Analysis Of Behavioral Patterns And Treatment Barriers, Kimberly A. Knap

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) experience difficulties with social communication and restrictive, repetitive, and stereotyped behavior patterns that place them at an increased risk for developing challenging behaviors that warrant early intervention (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). These problems are unlikely to decrease without intervention. Research indicates that parents’ involvement in behaviorally based interventions improves the functioning of children with ASD (Horner, Carr, Strain, Todd, & Reid, 2002). . Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (Eyberg & Funderburk, 2011) is an empirically supported intervention for young children with disruptive behaviors. PCIT shares similarities with numerous proven ASD treatments including caregiver involvement, structure …

Towards Fundamental Understanding Of Thermoelectric Properties In Novel Materials Using First Principles Simulations, Artem R. Khabibullin

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Thermoelectric materials play an important role in energy conversion as they represent environmentally safe and solid state devices with a great potential towards enhancing their efficiency. The ability to generate electric power in a reliable way without using non-renewable resources motivates many experimentalists as well as computational physicists to search and design new thermoelectric materials. Several classes of materials have been identified as good candidates for high efficient thermoelectrics because of their inherently low thermal conductivity. The complex study of the crystal and electronic structures of such materials helps to reveal hidden properties and give fundamental understanding, necessary for the …

Parent Involvement In The Urban Community For Children With A Diagnosed Disability, Gloria Pope

CUP Ed.D. Dissertations

Parent involvement within the education system has been identified as a concern, especially in urban schools. Children with disabilities have been suggested to be at a higher risk of not receiving an adequate education. In most cases, the way in which parents engage with the child and their school will determine the success of their educational experience. Within the urban community, there are factors that affect parents’ ability to work cooperatively with the school district. Through this multi-case study, the researcher will determine what are the hindrances and limitation affecting these families from being involved.

Leading And Learning: Principal And Instructional Leadership Team Implementation Of A District Multi-Tiered System Of Support Initiative, Jennifer Rinck

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

There are gaps in the literature between implementation research and organizational learning describing how local school systems successfully implement initiatives that change practices within school sites. Until recently, there has been a pattern for federal and state policies to overlook the role of the local school district in impacting school reform efforts (Honig & Copland, 2008; Knapp, 2008). With the importance of the school district gaining attention from researchers and policy makers, research on various aspects of district based reform efforts is expanding (Knapp, 2008). However, there is limited research on the influence of district reform strategies and the transfer …

Simulation Of Radiation Flux From Thermal Fluid In Origami Tubes, Robert R. Bebeau

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Spacecraft in orbit experience temperature swings close to 240 K as the craft passes from the shadow of the Earth into direct sunlight. To regulate the craft’s internal energy, large radiators eject unwanted energy into space using radiation transfer. The amount of radiation emitted is directly related to the topology of the radiator design. Deformable structures such as those made with origami tessellation patterns offer a mechanism to control the quantity of energy being emitted by varying the radiator shape. Three such patterns, the Waterbomb, Huffman Waterbomb, and Huffman Stars-Triangles, can be folded into tubes. Origami tubes offer greater control …

Behavioral, Affective, And Cognitive Engagement Of High School Music Students: Relation To Academic Achievement And Ensemble Performance Ratings, Joel E. Pagán

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of the study was to determine the relation between student engagement, academic achievement, and music ensemble performance ratings. The study was guided by two research questions: how do students’ varying degrees of student engagement relate to their academic achievement and their ensemble’s performance rating, and to what extent do behavioral, affective, and cognitive engagement predict ensemble performance ratings? Participants were 259 high school band students who completed the Classroom Engagement Inventory in Music. They were also asked to report their GPA, and the researcher recorded their ensemble’s performance rating. Results suggested that higher levels of student engagement were …

Power To Transform: Teaching In Educational Leadership Preparation Programs, Ericka L. Roland

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The pervasiveness of injustices is rooted in structures and ideology that reinforce and reinvent oppression; there is a need to engage in transformative change to dismantle systems of domination and subordination. Educational leadership is essential in the social transformation of educational settings and the wider society. In the collective responsibility for transformative change, educational leadership preparation programs serve as spaces to encourage the development of students’ capacity to address issues of oppression and create new power relations for social justice. Faculty play a role in preparation programs to enact teaching that uncover to power dynamics of oppression and domination for …

Looking Beyond Patient Satisfaction: Experiences Of Spanish-Speaking Patients Seeking Non-Urgent Care In An Emergency Department, Seiichi Villalona

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This exploratory mixed-methods study examines the experiences of Spanish-speaking patients seeking non-urgent care in an emergency department setting. Emphasis is placed on understanding variables that influence patient satisfaction among this particular special patient population. This study draws from the explanatory models of illness and perspectives of clinically applied anthropology in contributing to the limited body of scholarly work that utilizes ethnographic approaches in clinical spaces to investigate how patients experience seeking emergency care services. Health-related deservingness, social determinants of health, and health literacy are used as complementary frameworks in understanding the unique experiences of these patients. The combination of methodological …

Aged 539 Graduate Internship Report, Natalie Vaz Sanchez

Agricultural Education: Graduate Internship Reports

The AGED 539 graduate internship report contains a multitude of validated documents that is required in meeting the quality criteria for the Agriculture Incentive Grant. This grant is specifically allocated for secondary- level programs of instruction in agriculture. All documents in this report are used for the Agriculture Incentive Grant review process for Kingsburg High School, which is administered by a representative of the California Department of Education. The internship includes information in regards to the development, current standing, and future goals for the Kingsburg High School Agriculture Department. The supporting material includes all required evidence needed in order to …