Higher Education and Teaching Commons^™

If Only They Tried; The Complicated Crusade For Salvation In The Post-Katrina Education Reform Movement, Brooke Wanamaker

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Education reform is shifting the landscape of New Orleans public schools, where alternative certification programs are thriving and changing the demographics of core teachers. This study follows a Teach for America (TFA) Corps Member from 2007 (just after the historic flooding from Hurricane Katrina) who brought a promise of innovation through idealism and green wisdom. The teacher’s preparation and motivations are shown to be problematic. Examining the assumptions and privileges that underlie the import of inexperienced talent to urban education systems, this study considers the ways that community voices have been lost or undervalued in New Orleans schools. The thesis …

The Immigrants In The Central Coast Of California Need Motivation To Attend Classes And Learn English As Their Second Language, Martin Rodriguez-Juarez

Master's Projects and Capstones

This field project shows that the immigrant community that works in the fields from the Central Coast of California need the motivation to attend adult school to learn English as their second language. A six-week courses is included.

Final Ma Portfolio, Rebecca L. Sims

Master of Arts in English Plan II Graduate Projects

This portfolio consists of four projects I selected from various courses I took while completing my Master of Arts in the field of English. The first piece featured in my portfolio is titled “I’m Not Being “Short” With You: Providing Effective Feedback Efficiently Using a Computer Program.” I completed this piece in English 6200: Teaching Writing with Dr. Lee Nickoson. In this essay, I explore the role that feedback plays in the English classroom from both a student and faculty perspective. The second piece in my portfolio is a project I wrote for Teaching Grammar in the Context of Writing …

Gameful Design In The Development Of Asynchronous Online Discussion Activities: A Case Study, William Michael Trest

Dissertations

This study investigates Gameful Design as a method to improve the development and implementation of Asynchronous Online Discussions in online learning environments. A qualitative methodology, an instrumental case study design, was used to examine the effectiveness of this design method by exploring the experiences of the participants and the meaning they gave to those experiences. Data was collected through observation, discussion transcript analysis, and pre/post-course interviews. Validity was strengthened by triangulation of these sources.

The findings showed that gameful design was an effective method to encourage the development of a connected and engaged learning community within an online class and …

Out Of Sync: Analyzing The Paradoxical Impact Of Synchronous Learning In Distance Education, Benjamin David Luce

All Theses And Dissertations

Modern forms of distance education provide students and instructors with the ability to access their online experiences without being limited by time or place. Though this quality is convenient for many, the predominantly asynchronous nature of online learning creates transactional distance that challenges the depth of engagement between instructors and students. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to examine the impact of technology-assisted synchronous transactional interventions on the social construction of knowledge created between instructors and their students in distance education. Research was conducted through a series of interviews with instructors who have used synchronous methods within their online …

Development Of An Associate Degree Level Course On Lean, Jeremy Espinoza

Master of Technology Management Plan II Graduate Projects

Lean training and education has become a focal point in both industry and the realm of academics; however, the need within the industry remains, and oftentimes companies must take on the additional and high expense of training new graduates once they enter the workforce. Often, the classes that students study in the lean methodology, if any are studied at all, are taught within other disciplines, and the instruction is in a general sense as opposed to in depth and hands on. Within the past eight years it has been referenced in different academic articles that students are not coming into …

The Student Experience Of Other Students, Brian Kelleher Sohn

Doctoral Dissertations

The literature on higher education classroom climate and its relationship to teaching and learning is dominated by studies and theorizing regarding the role of the instructor. But when instructors use learner-centered approaches and diffuse the role and authority of the teacher, students gain a higher level of influence in the learning experience of their peers. In this phenomenological case study of a unique graduate seminar, I interpreted the thematic structure of the student experience of other students (SEOS). Data sources included field notes, audio recordings of class sessions, weekly student post-class reflections, and individual and focus group interviews with students. …

College Student Engagement Patterns In Small Group Learning Activities Conducted In Courses Organized Using A Flipped Learning Instructional Pedagogy, John Creighton Cummins

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine student engagement patterns in smallgroup learning activities conducted in courses organized using a Flipped Learning Instructional Pedagogy (FLIP) at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville (UTK). A literature search on FLIP revealed no papers that examined student engagement at a fine-grained level. Classrooms were examined using an observational tool developed specifically for the examination of fine-grained student engagement. In order to observe overt engagement patterns of students during active learning in small groups, an observation tool was designed by combining an engagement framework with an in-class activity inventory.The Complex Level of Overt …

A Comparison Of The Effectiveness Of Two Educational Interventions Developed To Teach Early Infant Hunger Cues To Junior Level Nursing Students., Melissa D. Gainer

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Due to multiple learning styles, it can be difficult to teach to large groups of students. The purpose of this study is to compare the effectiveness of two different educational interventions designed to teach infant hunger cues to undergraduate nursing students to increase the knowledge and confidence levels needed for the future teaching of infant hunger cues to new parents. Flemings VARK theory was used to guide this quasi-experimental study. A pretest posttest two-group design was used to evaluate both knowledge and confidence levels in the participants (N= 86). Data was analyzed utilizing a paired t-test. The results noted significant …

Effective Teaching Practices In Online Higher Education, Kim Mcmurtry

CCE Theses and Dissertations

In the context of continuing growth in online higher education in the United States, students are struggling to succeed, as evidenced by lower course outcomes and lower retention rates in online courses in comparison with face-to-face courses. The problem identified for investigation is how university instructors can ensure that effective teaching and learning is happening in their online courses. The research questions were:

1. What are the best practices of effective online teaching in higher education according to current research?
2. How do exemplary online instructors enact teaching presence in higher education?
3. What are the best practices of effective online teaching in …

Writing Center Editor Strategies For Addressing Student Academic Entitlement In Intervention Editing, Sarah Ann Matthey

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Not all students who enroll in postsecondary institutions have the skills needed to be successful in higher education in reading and writing. At a for-profit, online university in Minnesota, many students were not completing 4 weeks of a remedial writing program, Intervention Editing (IE). According to internal surveys and personal communications, students' struggles to complete IE were partly due to academic entitlement (AE). AE is defined as students placing the responsibility for their academic success on third parties rather than on themselves. Using the theory of self-efficacy as a framework, the purpose of this intrinsic case study was to determine …

Teaching Through The Lens Of Humane Education In U.S. Schools, Kristine Cecilia Tucker

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Humane education (HE) is a specialized niche in higher education and adult learning. HE provides a curricular framework positioning environmental ethics, animal protection, human rights, media literacy, culture, and change processes as the nexus for understanding and inspiring social change. Research-derived experiences illuminating how educators conceptualize and implement HE in U.S. schools are absent from the scholarly literature. Facing this gap, practitioners and administrators of HE programs cannot access nor apply research-derived practices to inform instruction. To address this gap, a conceptual framework was advanced weaving together HE teaching experience, Freirean philosophy, hyphenated selves, reflection-in-action, transformative learning, and transformative education …

Patterns Of One-Course Cohort Participation In Online Teacher Education Programs, Janeal Crane Smith

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Online higher education is a field that can benefit significantly from further research on innovative pedagogical methods designed to support students and decrease attrition rates. One method shown to improve engagement and retention of students in online environments is to include interactive engagement. This case study explored the patterns of students' interactions and assessment performance in an introductory teacher education one-course cohort. The study used a conceptual framework incorporating Bandura's social learning theory and Siemens' theory of connectivism. The study assessed archival data, from Adobe Connect recordings and records of competency pass rates, on the interactions and patterns of behavior …

Learning To Notice And Use Student Thinking In Undergraduate Mathematics Courses, Anna Pascoe

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

The goal of this study was to evaluate the outcomes of an intervention focused on developing mathematics graduate teaching assistants’ skills of noticing and effectively responding to instances of student mathematical thinking that have significant potential to further students’ learning. Four mathematics graduate teaching assistants participated in a semester-long intervention in which video of undergraduate mathematics lessons was individually analyzed and then discussed collectively with the researcher on a weekly basis. The MOST Analytic Framework (Leatham, Peterson, Stockero, & Van Zoest, 2015; Stockero, Peterson, Leatham, & Van Zoest, 2014) was introduced as a tool to aid in the analysis and …