Education Commons^™

The Classroom Environment: The Silent Curriculum, Brittany Allen, Katie Hessick

Psychology and Child Development

This senior project focused on the physical environment of elementary school classrooms, with a particular emphasis on how environmental factors influence behavior and academic achievement. Such environmental factors included lighting, color, acoustics, temperature, seating arrangements, space and crowding, and living kinds such as plants and animals. Previous research has demonstrated a connection between student behavior and the classroom environment. Taylor and Vlastos (2009) developed a theory regarding the relationship between environment and design within the classroom. They referred to the physical environment of the classroom as the “silent curriculum” and hold strongly to the belief that understanding the physical environment …

Bank Street And Teach For America: Process And Preparation, Paul Shirk

Graduate Student Independent Studies

In this paper I analyze the goals and practices of education that are implied in the mission statements and literature of Bank Street College of Education (Bank Street) and Teach for America (TFA). I noticed and struggled to understand the tension between the mission statements of the two organizations that I was a part of during my master's program. While analyzing the readings and my experiences, I began to see differences between these two organizations' theories and beliefs about child development. I considered how my experiences with children supported or refuted these beliefs. From Bank Street, I recognized many beliefs …

What Archetypes Of Representation Do Children Between The Ages Of Four And Seven Employ When Creating Route Maps Of Familiar Interior Spaces?, Christine G. Price

Educational Studies Dissertations

This study investigated the symbols of representation young children choose to incorporate when they draw route maps of familiar interior spaces, based on the premise that development of map-making skills might unfold in much the same stage-like manner as the development of the ability to draw the human figure. In this investigation, children between the ages of 4 and 7 enrolled in a small independent elementary school were each asked to draw a map showing the route a person unfamiliar to the school would take to travel from the child's classroom to the school gymnasium. Strategies during map-making were noted; …

Educational Brain Research As Compared With E.G. White's Counsels To Educators, Linda Bryant Caviness

Dissertations

Purpose. The purpose of this study was threefold: to review current, education-relevant brain research; to review the educational writings of Ellen G. White for major emerging themes/principles; and to compare these findings for similarities and differences.

Method and Results. Using an inductive process, the synthesis and comparison revealed 15 themes from brain research and 12 principles from White's writings from the middle 1800s and early 1900s.

Comparison of the two lists revealed alignment on eight themes/principles, nonalignment on three themes/principles, and partial-alignment on seven themes/principles.

Aligned themes/principles included: body and mind function as one; exercise and movement are vital …

Talking About Tales: Creating A Culture Of Stories For Moral Engagement, Lana Rae Smylie

Theses Digitization Project

No abstract provided.

A Catalyst For Culture: Early Child Development And Education In Japan, Kate Swenson

Senior Scholar Papers

A popular Western perception of Japan is that it is an eminently homogeneous and conformist society. However, both conformity and homogeneity, recognized even by the Japanese themselves, coexist with the concept of individuality, which is valued in a manner unique to its culture. In order to come to a deeper understanding of that dynamic, it is important to comprehend the specifics of child rearing and education within Japanese society. Based in part on the author's observational fieldwork conducted while in Japan in 1994, the thesis explicates the manner in which various core relationships exhibit the socialization of an individual that …

Taking Charge: Second Graders Negotiate Ownership Of Their Expressive Writing, Susan Douglas Fleming

Educational Studies Dissertations

This ethnographic study of a single, second grade, public school classroom explores students' ownership of their writing as they negotiate their dual roles of active writer and compliant student.

Writing process advocates such as Calkins (1987), Graves (1983), and Murray (1968, 1985) stress the need for student writers to assume ownership of their work by writing from personal experience and by making the decisions governing direction of the text. This involvement encourages awareness of self as learner and as person, and stimulates cognitive and identity development. Robert Brooke (1991), in a study of college students, points out that the power …

The Relationship Between Achievement, Intelligence, Personality, And Sociometric Test Scores And The Number And Types Of Questions Asked By Students Of A Fifth-Sixth-Grade Class, Howard Morris Call

All Master's Theses

It was the purpose of this study to systematically gather data based on actual classroom episodes, which would verify or deny previous findings. More specifically, the purpose was to evaluate questions asked by a fifth-sixth-grade class through a pre-determined classification, to show the relationship between questioning and the following measures: achievement, intelligence, personality, and sociometric measures, and to determine if age or sex is a relative factor in question asking.

An Investigation To Determine Ways Of Further Meeting The Felt Needs Of Bremerton Seventh Graders, Alice Keithahn Fraser

All Master's Theses

The purpose of this investigation was to determine to what extent Bremerton intermediate schools are meeting the felt needs of seventh graders. A second purpose of the survey was to discover ways and means to further meet the felt needs of seventh graders.

A Study Of The Relationship Between Defects Of Articulation In Speech And Emotional Stability Of Children In The Primary Grades, Frances P. Oechsner

All Master's Theses

This study is concerned with the relationship between defects of articulation in speech and emotional instability in elementary school children. The general procedure followed throughout the study involved a comparison of children having articulatory defects with speech normal children for personal and social adjustment.

The Importance Of Play, Laura V. Douglas

Education Student Dissertations

While reading the "Principles of Educational Sociology" by Walter Robinson Smith, the writer was deeply impressed by the statement that "Next to the family group and home life, the play group and play life exert the most vital influence upon the unfolding personality of the child." The writer wondered if it was the absence of play life, as American born children of fair social background experience it, that would in some measure explain the dullness of the Italian-American child of Sicilian and Neapolitan origin, who, as the writer knew him, was so lovable, so anxious and eager to please and …