Education Commons^™

16th Century Shakespeare And 21st Century Students, Sheridan Lynn Steelman

Dissertations

Drawing on examples from the author’s and colleagues classrooms, this dissertation shows how an historical approach to teaching Shakespeare, drawing on primary documents from the period, opens meaningful interpretations, issues and questions for secondary students. Chapter One reviews current pedagogical approaches to teaching Shakespeare, close reading, reader response, and performance to set forth the rationale for teaching Shakespeare using primary documents. Chapter Two highlights ninth grade students studying Romeo and Juliet and includes classroom stories about engagement with documents about gender, sexuality, violence, and potions. Chapter Three describes two general English 11 classes and their successes and challenges with Hamlet …

Enhancing And Evaluating Scientific Argumentation In The Inquiry-Oriented College Chemistry Classroom, Annabel D'Souza

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The research presented in chapters 2, 3, and 4 in this dissertation uses a sociocultural and sociohistorical lens, particularly around power, authority of knowledge and identity formation, to investigate the complexity of engaging in, supporting, and evaluating high-quality argumentation within a college biochemistry inquiry-oriented classroom.

Argumentation skills are essential to college and career (National Research Council, 2010) and for a democratic citizenry. It is central to science teaching and learning (Osborne et al., 2004a) and can deepen content knowledge (Jiménez-Aleixandre et al., 2000; Jiménez-Aleixandre & Pereiro-Munhoz, 2002). When students have opportunities to make claims and support it with evidence and …

Testing Acceptance Of Language Difference In Academia: Perceptions In A First-Year Composition Classroom, Crystal Rodriguez

Theses and Dissertations

In response to Bawarshi’s collective call for educators to be “more responsive and responsible users and teachers of English,” and motivated by the research of Michelle Hall Kells, I argue that it is necessary for educators to introduce first-year writing students to the historical and sociopolitical aspects of language use in academia through implementing lessons that focus on facets of language diversity. After describing a lesson plan focused on language diversity, I then analyze student feedback using Norman Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis as a lens. I also discuss the results of a Likert scale implemented during the three-phase study. Student …

Meeting Yourself Without Rose Colored Glasses: An Urban Charter, Apryll L. Mendez Gaskew, Shenelle M. Dubose

Dissertations

Abstract

The impact of a culturally relevant professional development series on classroom teacher’s cultural lens was determined. Fifty teachers from two different school districts participated in 16 hours of professional development in an attempt to impact their understanding of how culture and instruction are connected.

During the professional development, participants took part in activities, dialogues and reflections designed to impact their cultural competency. The content of the four professional development sessions included (a) videos on culturally relevant teaching; (b) discussion of cultural identity of participants and how it surfaces in the classroom; (c) discussion of the culture, values, and beliefs …

Effectiveness Of The Flipped Classroom Model In Anatomy And Physiology Laboratory Courses At A Hispanic Serving Institution, Gerardo Sanchez

Theses and Dissertations

A flipped laboratory model involves significant preparation by the students on lab material prior to entry to the laboratory. This allows laboratory time to be focused on active learning through experiments. The aim of this study was to observe changes in student performance through the transition from a traditional laboratory format, to a flipped format. The data showed that for both Anatomy and Physiology (I and II) laboratories a more normal distribution of grades was observed once labs were flipped and lecture grade averages increased. Chi square and analysis of variance tests showed grade changes to a statistically significant degree, …

The Power Of Empathy: A Critical Narrative Inquiry Of Cultural Competencies In New Teachers, Marcus K. Hughes, Sr.

LMU/LLS Theses and Dissertations

Given the large homogeneous workforce of predominately White, middle-class female K–12 educators combined with the rising population of diverse students in the United States and the disproportionate achievement gap of students of color compared to their White peers, I sought to discover how new millennial educators defined and used empathy to build their own cultural competencies as well as discover how these teachers used empathy to strengthen the teacherstudent relationships across cultural differences. Using the conceptual frameworks of Paulo Freire’s (1970) pedagogy and Wang et al.’s (2003) definition of ethno-cultural empathy, I conducted a critical narrative inquiry of five first-year …

Reconceptualizing The Work Of A Content Provider For An Online Audience: A Case Study For How Pedagogical Strategies Can Provide Models Of Engagement For Producers Of Entertainment, Diane Cooke

English Theses & Dissertations

With the interconnectivity of the Internet, and the availability of affordable media compositional tools, the proliferation of online media continues to grow exponentially. However, each day is still comprised of a fixed 24 hours, with far fewer hours spent in active media consumption. Considering the global potential for content to be found (Moreville), discovered (Cormier) or spread (Jenkins), content providers are looking for ways to attract, cultivate and hopefully expand their audiences amid all this digital clutter. In the field of entertainment, this challenge is complicated when small content providers are not aligned with an online, curated network such as …

Narrating School, Narrative Self: Identity, Agency And The Hidden Curriculum Of (Hetero)Normativity, Mikela Bjork

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation analyzes sober women’s narratives of their schooling experiences to reflect on how educators and policy makers can improve the schooling experiences for othered students.. Inspired by the self-reflective and agentic pedagogy found within the figured world of Alcoholics Anonymous, I focused on the narratives of women in Alcoholics Anonymous, ages 18-85, as they narrated their schooling stories from pre-Kindergarten up to the last grade they completed. What the data of this qualitative research project reveals is that, despite the detrimental culture of denial at home and school, the participants, through the radical act of self-reflexivity and personal narrative, …

A Comprehensive Study Of Attributes Found Within Accomplished Middle School Band Programs, Jacqueline H. Messinetti Jacqueline

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Going Old School: Using Eighteenth Century Pedagogy Models To Foster Musical Skills And Creativity In Today's Students, Monique Arar

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Recent research has illuminated a pedagogical approach to keyboard improvisation of the Italian conservatories of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, namely that of partimenti: single-stave, multiple clef exercises in which students were trained to improvise (Gjerdingen 2007, Sanguinetti 2012, van Tour 2015). This approach was passed down through oral instruction until the mid-twentieth century, when pedagogical priorities shifted away from improvisation and compositional creativity towards virtuosity, technique and adherence to the printed page. Simultaneously, the tradition of decade-long musical apprenticeship was replaced with semester-long courses in music theory and harmony.

The existing research on partimenti presents a compelling historical narrative …

Comparing The Differences In Access To Professional Development For General Education And Special Education Teachers And The Subsequent Impact On Instructional Practice, Lori L. Slater

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The demands on schools, teachers, and students continue to increase as greater accountability measures are put into place at all levels. For teachers to meet these increased demands, it is important that they be provided opportunities to improve and enhance their content knowledge and pedagogy. One way to ensure the provision of these opportunities for teachers is through professional development. There is significant evidence that professional development can improve instructional practice and student outcomes (Drago-Severson, 1994; Garet et al., 2001; Guskey, 2000; Sparks & Loucks-Horsley, 1989; Wei et al., 2010; Zhang et al., 2015). However, there continues to be a …

Enhancing Teacher Efficacy And Pedagogical Practices Amongst General And Special Education Teachers, Michael E. Coleman

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this action research project was to collect both qualitative and quantitative data to acquire information in teacher efficacy from the viewpoint of teachers themselves so that pedagogical practices could be enhanced to better serve the special needs student population. In this study, the relationship between teachers' perception of their pedagogical knowledge and beliefs and teachers' sense of self-efficacy was examined. This particular study was aimed at helping general and special education teachers understand, develop, and implement pedagogical practices that would increase their ability to educate students with special needs. The findings from this study revealed a substantial …

Don Lorenzo Milani (1923-1967) Lettera A Una Professoressa And Italian Educational Reform In The 1960s, Luca R. Albisetti Mr.

Senior Theses and Projects

The Italian school system’s methodology and pedagogy have long been the subject of great controversy. The official Italian school system was born in 1859 with the implementation of the Legge Casati, which was the first organic law establishing a true system of education. During the 20^th century the schooling system underwent several reforms, amongst the most important are the Riforma Gentile in 1923 and the legge n.1853. Many consider the latter to have the most impactful change on the system given that it created a unified middle school that was obligatory until the age of 14. The educational system …

A Close Look At Learning Styles, Joanna Haswell

Honors Senior Capstone Projects

The term “learning style” refers to the idea that each student learns in his or her own way. More specifically, a learning style is the preferential way that a student is able to learn, retain, and apply the information that they are learning. In order to bring about success in anything that one does, it is important to understand learning styles, the history of them, their evolution, and how research on them can help one better understand how he or she learns.

(Age)Ncy In Composition Studies, Alaina Tackitt

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The number of adult learners entering or returning to institutions of higher education is increasing in general and in relation to the traditional student population, and projections suggest that the trend will continue. As automation and technology impact the labor force, educational access is becoming a national concern and a necessity for more adult learners. Access to higher education impacts minority and economically depressed populations disproportionally and increases the personal and professional success of adult students and the long-term prosperity of their families. Although Composition Studies has a history of recognizing and facilitating student populations as they enter the Academy, …

Students’ Expectations And Faculty Approaches To Instructional Activities: Are Faculty Meeting The Needs Of This Generation?, Julie Ann Brines

Theses and Dissertations

Students who engage academically and socially with others on campus are more likely to stay at their institution and graduate, and the continued success of higher education institutions depends on the persistence of those students. An extensive body of literature for student retention and faculty teaching practices exists, but the present study focused on how student persistence may be affected by the interactions between students and faculty, especially when students and faculty were members of different generational cohorts. Investigating those interactions revealed there is a significant difference between students’ expectations and faculty approaches to instructional activities inside and outside the …

A Critical Analysis Of Sexuality Education In The United States: Toward An Inclusive Curriculum For Social Justice, Tiffani Kocsis

LMU/LLS Theses and Dissertations

Sexuality education in public schools in the United States excludes a large population of students. These exclusions are due to a long history of legal and economic battles, as well as the politicized nature of adolescent sexuality. This critical interpretive inquiry explored the long history of sexuality education through the lens of economics, law, and psychological paradigms and examined the way in which each of these lenses furthered the exclusion of nonheterosexual males in curricula. Using a framework comprised of critical feminist theory, critical pedagogy, and queer theory, this manuscript provides an understanding of the social structures of sexuality education …

The Technocratic Politics Of The Common Core State Standards In History, Kate Duguid

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This paper shows that the explicit aims of the American educational standards for public schools, the Common Core State Standards to teach history to create “college and career ready” students, marks a shift from preparing students for political participation to preparing them for market participation. I trace the intellectual and pedagogical origins of the Common Core’s pretense of technocratic apolitical values back through the previous two major American curricular reform efforts. In the first section I discuss the origins and development of the National History Standards and show how Cold War anxiety prompted a shift in evaluating students as potential …

Observing The Effectiveness Of Secondary School Science Instructors And The Instructional Climate Through The Analysis Of Student Performance And Feedback, Keesha D. Lewis

Education Dissertations and Projects

The relationship between student performance and instructor effectiveness has been the subject of pedagogical studies for numerous years. The purpose of this project was to determine the extent to which student feedback could positively impact instructor performance, thus influencing student performance and achievement. Additionally, North Carolina instructors are evaluated based on student performance. The evaluations are represented by three colors: red, green, and blue. Instructors who are assessed as “red” are ineffective. Instructors who are assessed as “green” are minimally effective. Instructors who are assessed as “blue” are exceedingly effective. For a minimum of 3 consecutive school semesters, I provided …

Multimodal Pedagogies, Processes And Projects: Writing Teachers Know More Than We May Think About Teaching Multimodal Composition, Jessica B. Gordon

Theses and Dissertations

Multimodal writing refers to texts that use more than one communicative mode to convey information. While there is much scholarship that examines the history of alphabetic writing instruction and the alphabetic composing processes of students, little research explores the historical origins of multimodal composition and the processes in which students engage as they compose multimodal texts. This two-part project takes a fresh approach to studying multimodal writing by exploring the multimodal pedagogies of ancient Greek and Roman rhetoric and writing teachers, analyzing the role of mental and physical images in modern writers’ composing practices, and investigating contemporary students’ processes for …

Culturally Relevant Pedagogy In Adult Esl Classrooms: A Case Study Of A University Intensive English Program, Arongna Borjigin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative case study explored the English as a second language (ESL) teachers' perceptions and implementation of the culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP) in an Intensive English Program (IEP) in Mountain University (pseudonym). IEPs are university-based language learning institutes for the pre-admission of English language learners (ELLs). The monolingual approach to ESL teaching does not fit the diverse language and cultural backgrounds of ELLs. It brings challenges for both ESL teachers and ELLs in IEPs. CRP encourages teachers to incorporate students' home cultures and first languages in their teaching and to bridge the gap between school culture and students' home culture, …

Pedagogy Of The Transplanted: A Study Of Selected First-Year Jamaican Immigrant Elementary School Teachers And Their Perspectives On South Carolina’S Curriculum Processes, Claudia Fletcher-Lambert

Theses and Dissertations

The study explores the experiences of four first-year Jamaican immigrant teachers in rural southern South Carolina regarding their descriptions of the experiences and the researcher’s observations. The main research question was concerned with first-year Jamaican immigrant elementary school teachers’ experiences as they navigate the curriculum landscape in South Carolina. The inquiry engages a qualitative research design.

Interviews, observations, and artifacts were engaged to collect data. These data were analyzed deductively and inductively through a process of content analysis. These data findings in the study covered four dominant themes these included immigrant teachers’ strengths, challenges, changes, and navigation strategies. The data …

Postsecondary Instructor Attitudes Toward Tablet Use For Collaboration And Critical Thinking Development, Jerry Hubbard

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Although research has identified critical thinking (CT) as an objective of higher education, limited quantitative research has focused on how postsecondary instructors view using handheld devices for classroom collaboration to support CT. There are studies examining how the use of tablet technologies influence collaborative learning (CL), showing a link between CL and CT, and connecting CT to academic achievement. However, understanding how instructors perceive the intersection of these factors has not been well studied. Applying Vygotsky's social cognitive theory as a foundation of CL, using adapted questions from two questionnaires (Technology Acceptance Model and Cooperative Learning Implementation) and two frameworks, …

Pedagogical Methods Used By Probationary Elementary Teachers, Ronda Scarrow

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Heeding current best practice, many teachers prioritize student-centered instruction as the most effective pedagogy to achieve student learning. However, preservice teachers at a small, southeastern U.S. university have expressed reservations in executing student-centered instructional methods when they become lesson facilitators. The purpose of this qualitative study was to determine whether probational elementary teachers have the knowledge and skill set to execute student-centered instruction and identify the characteristics of this method based on their preservice experiences. The conceptual framework consisted of constructivist, humanism, and social learning, theories . The four research questions focused on participants' understanding of student-centered and teacher-centered pedagogical …

The Use Of Hands-On Educational Pedagogy In A Standardized Science Curriculum, Sarah Alam

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Introduction

The purpose of this project is to implement an innovative, and engaging knowledge transfer pedagogy for 5th grade science students. This project utilized Stealth Learning, a learning pedagogy developed by Dr. James Rosser.^{99,100,109,110} The program featured applied learning to develop skill sets in general and drone aviation, as well as minimally invasive surgery techniques. This was facilitated through the use of computers, table simulators, and drones.

Methodology

This project took standardized subject matter from the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) and converted it into content featuring the Stealth approach. The section that was converted was the "Practice of …

Food Insecurity In Higher Education: Awareness And Response, Rudy Correa

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

How many college students are food insecure? Studies show a wide array of responses to that question, but some of the factors that are consistent are student characteristics, such as living arrangements, parental status, economic status, and racial or ethnic background. Students are impacted in several physical and emotional ways with food insecurity. Colleges and universities are studying food insecurity and responding with campus pantries, educational workshops, and increasing awareness of the issues. How should students learn about the issues and the resources they can access? This paper outlines the research findings and proposes a specific learning module for one …

Pedagogy, Partnership, And Practice: Challenges And Opportunities Through Service-Learning, Matthew Aaron Pajunen

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Service-learning has been prominently featured as a best or high impact practice for education. Yet throughout its existence, this pedagogy has been troubled with questions regarding its effectiveness, controversy in its impact on communities, and even confusion surrounding what its definition is. Within the Anthropology Department at Minnesota State University, Mankato, the impact of service-learning has often been uncertain, with exemplary stories coming out as much as negative ones. This mixed success of service-learning's application throughout the years motivated Dr. Susan Schalge to commission a student research project in 2012 to interview service-learning stakeholders to obtain a more certain grasp …

Lost In Translation? – The “Integration Of Theory And Practice” As A Central Focus For Senior Schooling Physical Education Studies, Andrew Jones

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

In February 2007 a new senior secondary Physical Education Studies (PES) was introduced in Western Australia (WA). The course was one of some 50 new courses that were developed in conjunction with the introduction of a new Western Australian Certificate of Education (WACE). Notably, the rationale for PES claimed that the “integration of theory and practice is central to studies in this course” (Curriculum Council of WA [CCWA], 2009, p. 2). Focusing on the initial years of implementation this study explored curriculum change and reform within the Health and Physical Education (HPE) Learning Area and specifically, in the context of …