Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Family-Friendly Science: Increasing Family Engagement In Stem Education, Alison Bixler

Honors Projects

Family engagement is vital to a child’s success in his or her academic career. Current research has focused more specifically on the relationship between parent engagement in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education and a student’s success in his or her STEM education. This paper is a summary of present research pertaining to this topic, as well as a summary of the results of a field-based study the author and faculty mentors completed to learn more about methods for engaging families in STEM education, particularly in the area of science. Present research indicates that a successful method for engaging …

Teaching Presence And Intellectual Climate In A Structured Online Learning Environment, Janice Marie Orcutt

CCE Theses and Dissertations

Teaching presence and its implications for the intellectual climate of an online classroom cannot be fully understood unless explored from the perspective of the instructors who experience it. Framed in the theoretical perspective of the Community of Inquiry (CoI) model, this collective case study investigated the actions, intentions and perceptions of instructors with the intent of developing an in-depth understanding of the phenomenon of teaching presence as it was established in a structured online learning environment.

The experiences of selected successful instructors in this specific online context were explored to gain insight on how pedagogical choices influenced the establishment of …

Blended Learning For Faculty Professional Development Incorporating Knowledge Management Principles, Julie E. Hewitt

CCE Theses and Dissertations

Adjunct faculty comprise a large percentage of part-time faculty for many colleges and universities today. Adjunct faculty are hired because they are experts in their content areas; however, this does not guarantee that they are skilled in effective classroom management. These instructors can become bewildered and frustrated because they lack the knowledge and skills that are needed to run an effective classroom.

While educational organizations have adopted blended learning environments as an effective delivery method for their students, this method has not gained much traction as a way to deliver instruction to their own employees. Thus, there are opportunities to …

Teachers' Perceptions Of Manipulatives During Middle School Math Instruction, Angela L. Vizzi

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

In a Colorado school district, school personnel and parents were concerned that middle school math proficiency levels were low for 2011-2014 and math teachers were not using manipulatives in their classes to increase math performance. The district's math coordinator did not foresee providing specific professional development (PD) for math manipulative use to address these concerns. Without this PD, math teachers may be ill-quipped to teach math concepts when using manipulatives, which, in turn, could lead to further poor math performance. The purpose of this qualitative bounded collective case study was to explore middle school teachers' perceptions of PD and perceived …