Curriculum and Instruction Commons^™

Undergraduate Research Seminars At Your Humanities Center, Anne Dotter

Honors in Practice Online Archive

Communal, collegial spaces for undergraduates to share their research enrich student experience and academic development in the humanities, arts, and social sciences.

Mental Health Matters: College Student Mental Health In The Twenty-First Century, Gary H. Bischof, Alexander J. Hamilton, Adrian J. Hernandez

Honors in Practice Online Archive

Authors present the content, delivery, and benefits of a one-semester honors college lecture series on college student mental health.

Music In The Holocaust As An Honors Colloquium, Galit Gertsenzon

Honors in Practice Online Archive

Forbidden Sounds: The Music of the Holocaust considers the historical events of the Holocaust in the context of music. The honors course explores diverse roles that music played during the years 1933–1945, including the Nazi use of music as a means for censorship and discrimination; music performance and creation in various Jewish ghettos and concentration camps in Europe; and ways that composers, performers, and audiences used music for emotional and physical survival and for spiritual resistance during World War II and after. The author provides a rich and varied curriculum, culminating with student performances and a series of public concerts, …

Engaging And Contributing Professionally In A Global Sustainability Honors Course, Jeffrey Lamp, John Korstad

Honors in Practice Online Archive

Science and Global Sustainability provides honors students with opportunities to engage with field professionals working toward sustainability and to participate in the production of various academic publications across disciplines. Interconnected concerns of social, environmental, and economic factors are considered when assessing the sustainability of any plan of action in the world. Opportunities for mentorship in multiple professional contexts are discussed.

Emphasizing Co-Curricular Experiences To Address Increasing Honors Enrollment And Diminishing Resources, Jason T. Hilton

Honors in Practice Online Archive

A program giving equal emphasis to honors coursework and targeted co-curricular experience provides one solution for a public university facing both increases in enrollment and decreases in financial resources. Undergraduate research, study abroad, and campus leadership provide high-impact experiences to students for honors credit. Measurable outcomes are presented.

Brave New Worlds: Transcending The Humanities/Stem Divide Through Creative Writing, Adam Watkins, Zahra Tehrani

Honors in Practice Online Archive

Creative writing offers a critical and innovative form of inquiry promoting integrative learning that transcends disciplinary barriers. Authors first provide an overview of the scholarship on creative writing pedagogy, its unique capacity to engage a range of knowledge domains, and its significance for honors education. They then offer primary examples of incorporating creative writing projects into two honors classes that bridge STEM fields and the humanities. Analyses of student reflections (n = 35) in relation to learning outcomes strongly suggest that creative writing helps students explore course concepts through several ways of knowing—critical, situational, and affective—while fostering new perspectives on …

Portrayal Of Diverse Family Structures In Children's Literature, Beth Grafft

Graduate Research Papers

Throughout their daily lives, students continuously make connections between themselves and their world, which aids in constructing meaning, strengthening understanding, and facilitating empathy toward others. The purpose of this qualitative content analysis is to ascertain the extent to which diverse family dynamics are represented within books nominated by students for consideration of the 2019-2020 Iowa Children’s Choice Award. The research questions addressed in this study include: What is the extent of representation regarding diverse family dynamics within books nominated by students for consideration of the 2019-2020 Iowa Children’s Choice Award book award, and how human families are portrayed. All fifteen …

Personalized Learning: An Engagement Strategy For At-Risk Student Populations, Abbigail Morris

Murray State Theses and Dissertations

Personalized learning in the United States experienced a resurgence in the educational landscape as a result of increased technology access and computing power. The availability of affordable technology, software solutions, and access to the Internet led to the infiltration of technology into personalized learning approaches and provided a new platform for personalized learning advocates. Engagement and student agency were components of personalized learning attracting many educators to reinvest in personalized learning opportunities. This study focused on a rural, western Kentucky school district that piloted personalized learning through a blended learning environment. The study sought to measure engagement levels of both …

Functional Assessment Of Behavioral And Social Supports, Beth S. Rous

Educational Leadership Studies Faculty Publications

The Functional Assessment of Behavioral and Social Supports is a practice-oriented assessment tool designed to help early childhood teams identify children’s behavioral, social, communication, classroom, work, and self-management skills and the supports needed for successful participation in early childhood settings. The assessment allows teams to document whether skills are present, emerging, inconsistent, or not present; identify adult or classroom supports; describe patterns of support; and summarize priority skills for intervention. The tool is intended for use by teachers, families, and assessment team members as part of early childhood transition, intervention planning, and classroom support processes.

Facilitating Collaborative Supervision In A University Speech-Language Pathology Clinic, Benjamin K. Reece

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

Clinical education is a key element of graduate school training in the field of speech-language pathology. Graduate students are required to obtain 375 supervised clinical practice hours in order to earn their provisional license and begin their career. Supervision of clinical hours is most often provided by experienced speech-language pathologists with minimal, if any, training in effective supervision practices.

Within the field of speech-language pathology, Anderson’s Continuum of Supervision (Anderson, 1988) is the most widely accepted model and provides a structure and sequence for supervisors to follow in order to facilitate the clinical development of their student clinician. Anderson’s model …

Structuring Online Lectures, Hope Y. Kelly

Open Textbooks and Course Materials

A slide deck that examines what online lectures and lessons are, provides a planning template for developing a structured online lecture with a variety of interactions. These interaction ideas are also highlighted in a tools & methods document, and an example planning document is also presented.

Teaching In A Flipped Classroom., Jillian Grose-Fifer

Publications and Research

In this chapter, I describe how I switched to using a flipped class model in an upper-level Sensation and Perception course, by reversing where different types of learning take place. In the flipped model, instead of introducing students to basic concepts in class, they answered guiding questions after watching videos or reading the textbook before attending class. They then spent class time working collaboratively in small groups on more challenging assignments, many of which had been homework assignments in prior (non-flipped) courses. In-class activities consisted of mini-experiments, and other student-centered hands-on learning experiences designed to foster higher-order critical thinking and …

The History Of Monuments And The Opportunity To Reimagine Them: A Lesson Plan For Virginia And U.S. Government, Kristina Lee

Open Textbooks and Course Materials

This lesson plan was developed for a VCU School of Education doctoral externship. It is designed to foster discussion at the high school level about the purpose of monuments and the possibilities for their repurposing or reimagining. The lesson draws on an article from the Journal of Social Theory in Art Education, a VCU MFA thesis on the design of a slavery museum, and videos from the Richmond Peace Education Center.

The plan aligns with VA SOL GOVT.1 and includes opening discussion questions, a group project for students, and selected readings for class discussion.

A Comparison Study Of Teacher Efficacy And Principal Leadership Behaviors At The Elementary And Middle School Levels, Keith Ezell

Doctor of Education Dissertations

The single most important factor for the success of a student in school is the teacher, yet many factors impact the teacher’s ability to do the job as effectively as possible. Data exists regarding the multiple influences that affect the teacher’s sense of self-efficacy, however, specific data regarding leadership behaviors is limited. Research shows that student achievement is affected by the teacher, therefore it is imperative to determine what leadership behaviors impact teacher efficacy the most. The purpose of this quantitative study was to explore the impact of principal behaviors on teacher efficacy. Also, the study sought to compare the …

Instructional Strategies Manual, 4th Edition: For The Helpful Entry Level Skills Checklist, 4th Edition, Beth S. Rous

Educational Leadership Studies Faculty Publications

The Instructional Strategies Manual, 4th Edition is a companion resource for the Helpful Entry Level Skills Checklist. The manual provides teachers, families, and early childhood teams with strategies, activities, and adaptations to support young children’s development of social, behavioral, communication, classroom, work, and self-management skills during the transition from preschool to school-age programs. The manual is organized around five major skill areas: classroom rules, work skills, communication skills, social behavior skills, and self-management skills. It includes strategies that can be embedded into daily classroom routines, family activities, and individualized supports, with adaptations for children with hearing, vision, cognitive, physical, speech/language, …

The Impact Of Number Talks On Kindergarten Math Growth In A Large Private Independent School, Rebecca Knight

Doctor of Education Dissertations

This mixed methods action research study examined the implementation process and impact of a 9-week Number Talk intervention to build number sense in kindergarten students. Fifty-eight kindergarten students engaged in daily Number Talk lessons for 9 weeks. Qualitative data were collected to evaluate the strengths and challenges of the implementation process with the teacher participants through a twice weekly observation tool and through bi-weekly math professional learning community discussions. The qualitative data gathered were coded for themes using Tesch’s Eight Steps for coding information. The data allowed me to evaluate the implementation process to determine if Number Talks were implemented …

Assessing The Effectiveness Of An Electronic Environmental Education Curriculum With Applied Use Of Trail Camera Photographs, Lucas Martin Coccoli

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Place-based conservation education programs are continuously adapting to ever evolving technological advancements to remain effective and connected to K-12 schools and students. One response to this challenge was an inquiry based, learner centered pedagogy which teaches science-based concepts via real life images captured on trail cameras.

This paper will describe the benefits of a distance learning program which teaches students about wildlife science using trail camera photos and associated lessons. In a time when students are more disconnected from the outdoors than ever. The use of trail cameras, based on these experiences, has the potential to reconnect students to the …

How The Change To Online Learning Affected Chinese Language Teaching In California Schools Due To The 2020 Covid-19 Pandemic, Jing Ren

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

This research study investigates how Chinese language teachers in California made the change from in-person learning to distance learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, how they set up and taught virtual classes and what their reactions were to the online transitions. Teachers utilized various interactive tools and strategies to teach students in their virtual classrooms. Parental involvement with the child’s education at home increased. Some public school district polices caused greater reductions in student participation than others. Teachers applied various communication strategies to engage students in creative ways while teaching online. This together with curriculum development and assessment design required that …

Is Inclusion The Answer?, Jacqueline M. Hewins

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Inclusion is the method by which many school districts meet the requirement of educating students with disabilities in the “least restrictive environment”. While it is an established practice, supported by the educational community and most families alike, there is a gap in the literature regarding how students feel about being in inclusion classes. In order to learn more about the student experience, five students with special education needs from a rural high school were interviewed about their involvement in inclusion. Students were asked about whether they felt included, if they socialized with peers from the inclusion class, and if they …

Managing Science Teachers’ Adoption Of The 2005 Tanzanian Inquiry And Student-Centred Curriculum: Revealing Schoolbased Leaders’ Practices And Achievements, Noel Mark Makwinya

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Many countries have made considerable changes to their education systems in response to the forces of globalisation. Tanzania is no exception. The most recent educational change attempt in Tanzania relates to the introduction of the 2005 Tanzanian Inquiry and Student- Centred Curriculum.

Sound change-leadership is a necessary condition for the realisation of change, particularly in influencing its adoption. Within the descriptive qualitative research paradigm, this study employed a Type IV (embedded and multiple) case-study design to examine and describe science teachers’ lived experiences in dealing with this latest Tanzanian curriculum and the role played by school-based leaders in influencing such …