Educational Methods Commons^™

“We All Is Teachers”: Emergent Bilingual Children At The Center Of The Curriculum, Ysaaca D. Axelrod

Occasional Paper Series

Incorporating data from an ethnographic case study of a bilingual (Spanish/English) Head Start program serving the children of Dominican and Mexican immigrants, Axelrod explores the tensions in parents’, teachers’, and administrators’ beliefs about language use and the role of play.

A Humanizing Approach To Improving School Disciplinary Culture, Darrick Smith

Occasional Paper Series

Smith summarizes efforts to transform the negative and disrespectful culture at a small California high school with a racially diverse student population. Here a humanizing approach to discipline, rooted in an affirmation of students and their families, and entailing an alignment of school and family values with the school’s mission, has been successful.

Beyond Child-Centered Constructivism: A Call For Culturally Sustaining Progressive Pedagogy, Alisa Algava

Occasional Paper Series

Algava argues that twentieth-century constructivist pedagogies are not sufficient to fulfill progressive education's inherently political, activist and democratic potential. She calls for a culturally sustaining progressive pedagogy that critically engages questions of power with both children and teachers.

The Center For Inquiry: Anatomy Of A Successful Progressive School, Christine H. Leland, Amy Wackerly, Christine Foxen Collier

Occasional Paper Series

Describes the work of the Center for Inquiry Schools in Indianapolis, Indiana. Authors Leland, Wackerly, and Collier were part of the original cohort of teachers and university faculty who founded a progressive magnet school. Premised on inquiry-based teaching and learning, the Center for Inquiry has grown from one to four schools.

City-As-School: Internship-Based Learning In New York City Public Schools, Rachel Seher, Melissa Birnbaum, Alan Y. Cheng

Occasional Paper Series

Paints a portrait of a high school with experiential learning at its core; at City-As-School in New York City, internships take the place of many classroom-based courses.

Reenvisioning The Classroom: Making Time For Students And Teachers To Play, Jill Leibowtiz, Corinthia Mirasol-Spath

Occasional Paper Series

Explores the benefits of play for students and teachers alike in a New York City elementary school that provides students with time to explore their interests through long-term projects of their choosing.

Now Is The Time, Jonathan Silin, Meredith Moore

Occasional Paper Series

In an era when intense pressure has been brought to bear on educators at all levels to “fix” education, Progressive Practices in Public Schools is designed to shine a light on the programs and pedagogy that are too often hidden from public view. The goal is to highlight what is hopeful by identifying educators who model rich, complex, and compelling alternatives to what is on offer from many contemporary “reformers.”

Motivational Situations Of Choice, Charles N. Elliott, Paul A. Story

The Kennesaw Journal of Undergraduate Research

The present research explores situations that demonstrate enhancing effects on motivation based on the amount of choice seen by individuals. Individuals who are intrinsically motivated see more choice in certain academic settings, including those that foster self-regulation and autonomy. Extrinsically motivated individuals are predicted to see more promise in reward and external regulation strategies. We identified six separate situations: a free will situation, a learning of materials situation, an instructor feedback situation, an extra credit situation, and two time-based situations. Four of these situations target a certain type of motivation, either intrinsic or extrinsic. The other two situations were used …

Positive Influence Of A Dental Anaesthesia Simulation Model On The Perception Of Learning By Mexican Dental Students, C. López-Cabrera, E. J. Hernández-Rivas, Takashi Komabayashi, E. L. Galindo-Reyes, D. Tallabs-López, Bernardino Isaac Cerda-Cristerna

Dental Medicine Faculty Publications

Introduction: This study evaluated the influence of 3-repetition training with a dental anesthesia simulation model (DASM) on the perception of learning by dental students. Materials and methods: Dental students who had never used a dental anesthesia technique were randomly divided into 2 groups that were taught the anterior superior alveolar nerve infiltrative anesthesia technique. Group 1 (G1, N=10) followed a 3-stage learning method: 1^st) theoretical lecture, 2^nd) clinical demonstration, and 3^rd) DASM training, including 3 repetitions of the anesthesia technique. Group 2 (G2, N=10) followed only the 1^st and 2^nd stages. The …

Leonard Covello: A Study Of Progressive Leadership And Community Empowerment, Lorenzo Krakowsky, Patrick Shannon

Occasional Paper Series

Describes Leonard Covello's progressive work at and around Benjamin Franklin High School in East Harlem, NY.

Rethinking Apprenticeship Training For The Construction Industry In Ireland, Eoghan Ó Murchadha, Roisin Murphy

Conference papers

The construction industry is of strategic importance to any economy, as it delivers the building and infrastructural needs of society; it is also a major provider of employment. The over-reliance on construction was a contributing factor to the collapse of the Irish economy and employment in construction fell to under 50% of its 2007 peak as a consequence. The decline devastated apprentice training with a reduction in excess of 90% of new registrations of construction apprentices at the lowest point. The implication of this to the industry is disquieting, given the crucial role apprenticeships play in the sector. The Irish …

Strengthening The Farm To School Movement In Mississippi: Strategies And Policy Goals, Harvard Law School Mississippi Delta Project

Delta Directions: Publications

In recent years, Mississippi has seen increasing demand for locally grown food. Many consumers, policymakers, and advocates now see locally grown food as bringing health, economic, and environmental benefits to the local community. “Farm to school,” a means of building relationships between local farms and schools, has become increasingly popular, increasing fruit and vegetable consumption among students and strengthening the local economy. In the last decade, farm to school in Mississippi has gone from a little-known concept to a state-supported approach adopted by school districts across the state. For example, through the Mississippi Department of Defense Farm to School Program, …

University Rankings: Evidence And A Conceptual Framework, Jonathan G.S. Koppell, Jacob Fowles, H. George Frederickson

Publications from President Jonathan G.S. Koppell

University ranking has high public visibility, the ranking business has flourished, and institutions of higher education have not been able to ignore it. This study of university ranking presents general considerations of ranking and institutional responses to it, particularly considering reactions to ranking, ranking as a self-fulfilling prophecy, and ranking as a means of transforming qualities into quantities. The authors present a conceptual framework of university ranking based on three propositions and carry out a descriptive statistical analysis of U.S. and international ranking data to evaluate those propositions. The first proposition of university ranking is that ranking systems are demarcated …

Spatial Skills & Introductory Computing, Steve Cooper

Discipline-Based Education Research Group Speaker Series

Our questions

Is there a correlation between a student's spatial abilities and her ability in programming? Spatial abilities are measured through the R-PSVT, and CS programming ability is measured the 2009 AP CS MC questions

If yes, can we increase programming success through the teaching of spatial skills?

Results

Spatial training seemed to be correlated with better CS gains, and in particular helped Hispanic women and students from low SES backgrounds

Caveats

We measured code reading, but taught code writing

Differing student demographics for the 2 sessions

Small n

The Influences Of Teacher Self-Reflection Practices While Interacting With Families, Nena M. Cunningham

All Theses And Dissertations

Self-reflection in early childhood education is one reform effort that has taken hold in the education community. This study shares some of the findings of a qualitative study that explored how five teachers identified and implemented strategies of self-reflection, and how these strategies informed their practice. The purpose of this study was to better understand self-reflection and how it influences interactions with families. The theoretical framework originates in the works of Touchpoints® and Bandura, and applies a theoretical framework to give voice to the teachers within the context of their community action program. Four themes were culled from the data …

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 …

Investigating The Influence Of The Level Of Inquiry On Student Engagement, Emily K. Faulconer

Publications

Previous studies investigating student-generated questions in a laboratory class compared inquiry to a traditional approach without characterizing the inquiry level. This study investigated the influence of inquiry level on the quantity and quality of student-generated questions over one semester in a General Chemistry course with 356 participants. The researchers studied two types of inquiry in labs: structured inquiry and open inquiry. Quantity and quality of student-generated questions were analyzed and student attitudes were measured using a LIKERT survey while content knowledge was assessed via post-test. A close relationship was not found between the level of inquiry and the quantity or …

Eighth Grade Perspectives: The Relationship Between Students’ Attitudes Towards Math And Students’ Attitudes Toward Music, Glen Lowe

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Being successful in math is considered to be important for future employability, and music may be an important venue for students to improve their math skills. Rather than being unrelated, strong musical education programs have been linked to higher performance in math and academics in general. The purpose of this correlational study was to determine whether a statistically significant relationship exists between students’ attitudes toward math and their attitudes toward music with regard to gender. A convenience sample of 107 eighth grade students from a metropolitan Atlanta, Georgia school district participated in two surveys: Tapia’s Attitude Toward Mathematics Inventory (ATMI) …

A Phenomenological Investigation Of Elementary Educators' On-The-Job Experiences After Self-Selected Professional Development, Cindy Manzanares

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study is to describe elementary educators’ on-the-job experiences after completing a self-selected professional development (PD). This study was guided by the overall question: How do elementary educators describe on-the-job experiences after completing self-selected professional development? To provide further direction of the vast experiences three sub questions were utilized. (a) To what extent, if at all, have practices from the professional development been implemented? (b) What factors are perceived to positively impact implementation of the professional development? (c) What factors are perceived to negatively impact implementation of the professional development? Albert Bandura’s social cognitive theory, …

Experiences Of Elementary Teachers Using Inclusion Models To Serve Gifted Students, Mandy Sears

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Gifted education has undergone recent changes because of the decrease in funding set aside for gifted students in the public school system. The use of inclusion to provide gifted education within the general education classroom is one option that is more cost-effective than the traditional resource, or pullout, programs that have been used in the state of Georgia. This phenomenological study investigated the perceived experiences of general elementary educators who were new to teaching gifted students and were required to use an inclusion model in the general education classroom. Participants included 13 teachers from 4 school districts in Northern Georgia. …