Elementary Education Commons^™

The Type Of Questions Being Promoted In A 3rd Grade Reading Textbook, Suzanne Olivero

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

Asking questions is essential for checking student understanding and keeping them engaged with the task at hand. It is crucial to the way students receive and process information and it encourages independent and critical thinking. Statistics show that the average teacher asks between 300 and 400 questions per day. To have the desired effect, these questions need to be effective, well-considered, and challenging.

Effective, cognitively complex questioning involves using questions in the classroom to open conversations, inspire deeper intellectual thought, and promote student-to-student interaction. Effective questions focus on eliciting the process, i.e. the ‘how’ and ‘why’ in a student’s response, …

Blogging In Elementary Classrooms: Mentoring Teacher Candidates’ To Use Formative Writing Assessment And Connect Theory To Practice, Diane R. Collier, Tiffany L. Gallagher

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

This paper presents a collaborative approach to professional learning in which classroom teachers mentored teacher candidates to connect theory and practice through formative assessment to improve students’ writing. Professional learning sessions pairing the teachers and teacher candidates occurred in each of the fall and winter semesters in two years of this project. Data were collected at these sessions and during focus group debriefings. The findings are themes related to: lines of communication and levels of collaboration; teachers’ pedagogical decisions about blogging and writing in their classrooms; classroom teachers and teacher candidates enacting formative writing assessment in the blogging platform; the …

The Dimensions Of Teachers Who Write And The Essence Of A Writing Life, Shari L. Daniels, Pamela Beck

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

The purpose of this grounded theory case study was to explore the perceptions among ten K-12 teachers who teach writing and also write themselves. What are the key essentials for teachers to sustain a writing life? What habits of mind or attitudes are necessary for teachers to sustain a writing life? Interviews served as the primary data source along with writing artifacts from the participants’ own writing life. Findings indicate that teacher-writers committed to a writing life do so for the purpose of 1) discovering meaning, 2) connections to others 3) commitment to learning and 4) well-being, with an overall …

Assessing The Effects Of Restorative Practices On Teacher Practices In Elementary Classrooms, Cheng Fisher

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Capstones

Restorative practices have been broadly adopted in American schools. However, few empirical studies have rigorously examined the effects of restorative practices on teacher practices through direct observations. This quasi-experimental designed study tested the hypothesis that restorative practices experience would increase positive interactions between teachers and students. Measurably, it would improve positive teacher practices and positive student behavior. The study analyzed data from a school-randomized evaluation with two rounds of observations in a single school year. Observational data of 140 elementary teachers and their students from nine restorative schools were used to examine the impact of restorative practices on teacher practices …

The Case For Mandatory Literacy Training For Elementary Education Principals, Catherine Mcgeehan, Meganlyn Norris

Journal of Organizational & Educational Leadership

The focus of this study was to examine how well Educational Leadership programs prepare principals to serve as literacy leaders. The role of a school leader is complex and multifaceted involving managerial duties and resource allocation (Jenkins, 2009). Yet, the primary role of the school leader is “…to promote the learning and success for all students” (Lunenburg, 2010, p. 1). In a 2017 report commissioned by the Learning Policy Institute, Sutcher, Podolsky and Espinoza noted a strong positive correlation between instructional leadership and student achievement. This raises questions and concerns regarding the extent to which leadership preparation programs are preparing …

What Is Education For? A Response To "What Kind Of Citizens Do Educators Hope Their Students Become? A Response To 'Storypath: A Powerful Tool For Engaging Children In Civic Learning.'", Margit E. Mcguire, Laurie Stevahn, Shari Wennik Bronsther

Democracy & Education

Darwich (2020) asked “What Kind of Citizens Do Educators Hope Their Students Become?” in her response to “Storypath: A Powerful Tool for Engaging Children in Civic Education” (McGuire et al., 2019). She argued that civics should be rooted in social justice grounded by critical civic empathy, which requires focusing on power and privilege given persistent disparities in caring for all people within our democracy. We agree and here further emphasize the importance of dismantling systems of oppression that block efforts to advance this goal. We also recognize pragmatic complexities in elementary school classrooms that require teacher professional judgment to create …

From A Distance: Teaching, Learning, And Parenting During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Melanie Love

Michigan Reading Journal

No abstract provided.

An Educator's Response To Michigan's Stay At Home Order, Kristin M. Scherkenbach

Michigan Reading Journal

This article examines the educational impact of the stay at home order issued in the spring of 2020. It explores methods that were used to connect with students during this time such as YouTube videos, book drop offs, parent education PowerPoints, and online teaching. It concludes with the understanding that a passion for literacy can be ignited in students even in challenging situations.

Let's Read A Story!: Collaborative Meaning Making, Student Engagement, And Vocabulary Building Through The Use Of Interactive Read-Alouds, Shaya Helbig, Susan V. Piazza

Michigan Reading Journal

The interactive read-aloud has long been a practice during early literacy instruction in schools and in homes. Reading aloud to children provides a platform for teachers or caregivers to model meaning-making interactions with text. Students are able to collaboratively engage in conversations to create a collective understanding of texts. Interactions during a read-aloud can foster engagement, create meaning, and promote vocabulary acquisition. This article examines current research that supports the use of interactive read alouds to engage learners in meaning-making processes and translates research and theory into practical recommendations for effective interactive read-alouds.

Poverty, Literacy, And Race: A Middle School Teacher's Iterative Investigative Journey, Rebecca Tuttle

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Theses and Other Student Research

This study describes an iterative design process that helped me gain a better understanding of the problems (how motivation affects learning and gaining the trust of children that I worked with) I was inquiring about. The design process chronicles three iterations before reaching my final research question focused on building relationships with children of minoritized communities within their learning environment and integrating culturally relevant pedagogy into their learning. By combining these two strategies, the children in this study seemed to embrace being part of a culturally relevant experiment. The components of these iterations include pre-reading activities, read alouds, group discussions, …

2019 Pulaski County Education Report Card, Sarah Mckenzie

Education Report Card

Our goal is to help parents, school personnel, community members, and policy makers understand how effectively the students in their community are being served.

Pulaski students are demonstrating similar growth in achievement on the ACT Aspire as students in the state overall, but in achievement, graduation rates, and School Quality and Student Success, Pulaski County schools are performing below the state average.

This report card presents information about these key performance indicators for the districts in Pulaski counties. The Growth, Achievement, School Quality, and Overall scores of the four traditional districts are compared to the average for that group, and …

أثر الخرائط المفاهيمية المحوسبة في اكتساب طالبات الصف الأول المتوسط للمفاهيم العقدية في مادة التوحيد في منطقة الجوف, Etaf Ayasrah

Al Jinan الجنان

هدفت الدراسة إلى معرفة أثر استخدام طريقة الخرائط المفاهيمية المحوسبة في اكتساب طالبات الأول المتوسط للمفاهيم العقدية، في مادة التوحيد وذلك من خلال الإجابة عن سؤال الدراسة الآتي: ما أثر استخدام استراتيجية الخرائط المفاهيمية المحوسبة في اكتساب طالبات الصف الأول المتوسط للمفاهيم العقدية، في مادة التوحيد مقارنة بالطريقة التقليدية؟ وتكونت عينة الدراسة من (39) طالبة في الصف الأول المتوسط للعام الدراسي 1434/1435هـ. أعدت الباحثة اختبار اكتساب المفاهيم العقدية مكونا من (30) فقرة من نوع الاختيار من متعدد. اتسمت بالصدق والثبات، وقامت الباحثة بتطبيق اختبار اكتساب المفاهيم العقدية، كاختبار قبلي على مجموعتي الدراسة للتأكد من تكافؤهما، وكاختبار بعدي على مجموعتي الدراسة …

An Analysis Of The Nevada K.I.D.S. Read Program Funding, Allie Ryerson

Student Research

The United States has a literacy problem; in fact, it has an education problem in general. Piecemeal reforms that differ wildly from state to state, and even county to county, have had varying levels of success from none to showing real potential. Nevada is not exempt from this literacy problem. In 2015, only 47.57% of the students taking the state mandated third grade exams were deemed proficient on the English Language Arts portion of the exam. The purpose of this paper is to examine the efficacy of one such literacy program, “Nevada K.I.D.S Read”, with a goal of establishing early …

Building Partnerships To Support Teachers With Distance Learning During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Rebecca Birch, Katherine Lewis

Education | Faculty Scholarship

Seven weeks into the spring semester, we were learning what it means to build community in our online classes and then, our lives quickly and drastically changed. School districts shuttered their doors in response to the Covid-19 pandemic and K-12 teachers moved to distance learning. This was a challenging moment for our school systems and many teachers and parents felt understandably overwhelmed. This narrative describes how two teacher educators partnered with a local county office of education to launch a professional development series to support K-12 teachers with virtual learning. We learned that building partnerships and proactively addressing educators’ needs …

Mindfulness And Social Emotional Learning: The Lived Experience Of Students Learning English As A Second Language, Lara Catherine Donnelly

Dissertations

In a phenomenological case study, the author sought to gain an awareness of the lived experiences of 4th and 5th grade ESL students, their parents, and their teachers who participated in the MindUp mindfulness curriculum. The author was interested in the relationship between the mindfulness curriculum and SEL based on the perspective of all three participant groups. Qualitative interviews were conducted with 3 students, at least one parent of each of those three students, and the two classroom teachers who conducted the MindUp lessons. Five main themes developed from coding of the raw data: (1) positive impact on students; (2) …

Emergent To Fluent Literacy, Megan Blumenreich

Open Educational Resources

No abstract provided.

Optics In Art: Ways Of Seeing, Christian J. Baker

P-12 Lesson Plans

In this lesson, which relies on art from the ZMA Collection and the exhibition it's your world for the moment displayed in fall 2020, students will learn about the basic mechanics of the eye and its similarities to the camera, explore the history of the camera obscura and its use in art and early photography, learn about perspective as a principle of photography, and learn to relay information on major artists by way of their relationship or impact on photography as an artistic medium.

Growth Mindset And Its Impact On Math Performance In Third Grade, Alicia Wenger

Master's Theses & Capstone Projects

The purpose of this action research is to describe the effects of the application of daily growth mindset lessons upon the accuracy and level of work completion in math assessments. Participants included the researcher’s class of 13 third grade students from a small rural Midwest school district. Students participated in a daily growth mindset lesson intervention for a period of 4 weeks. Data was collected using math assessments and growth mindset surveys. The results concluded that although students can develop an improvement in mindset with intervention, it does not always directly correlate to the improvement of math accuracy and work …

Examining Title I Elementary Schools In Tennessee: A Quantitative Study Of Predicted Outcomes, Jessilon Ann Madison

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this predictive, correlational study was to determine how accurately Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program (TCAP) English Language Arts (ELA) achievement scores can be predicted from a linear combination of Lottery for Education Afterschool Programs (LEAPs) participation, geographic location, and Community Eligibility Participation (CEP) at Title I elementary schools in Tennessee: A quantitative research method using a linear multiple regression analysis was used to assess these variables. Data was gathered from publicly available records. For the sample, 100 Title I elementary schools participated in LEAPs and 100 Title I elementary schools did not participate in LEAPs. One hundred and …

Elementary Teachers’ Mental Images Of Engineers At Work, Rebekah Hammack, Juliana Utley, Toni Ivey, Karen High

Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-PEER)

The purpose of the current study was to determine the impacts of a multiple-day engineering-focused professional development program on elementary teachers’ perceptions of the work of engineers and their use of mathematics and science. Data were collected in the form of drawings of engineers prior to and immediately after the professional development program as well as an open-ended exit survey at the end of the program. Participants’ drawings were scored in the following areas: use of mathematics, use of science, and work of an engineer. Wilcoxon signed-rank tests revealed that the only significant change between measures was in ‘‘work of …