Elementary Education Commons^™

Teacher Expectations, Self-Efficacy, And Collective Efficacy In Three Tennessee Literacy Networks, Amanda Tinker

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this quantitative study was to determine if there was a significant difference in the dependent variables- teacher expectations, self-efficacy, and collective efficacy among the three levels of the independent variable- membership in one three literacy networks in Tennessee- Leading Innovation for Tennessee (LIFT), Read to Be Ready Coaching Network (RTBR), and Tennessee Early Literacy Network (TELN)- and if significant correlations existed between the dependent variables for each network. The population consisted of 161 K-3 Tennessee teachers who had been involved in the work of one of the three networks. Participants responded to an online survey via Google …

Supporting Novice Teachers In Struggling Schools: Exploring A Mentoring Program's Components, Geneva J. Feaster

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study addressed the problem of retention for novice teachers in struggling schools. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore a mentoring program in a large school district in Louisiana. Data were collected using questionnaires derived from the teacher questionnaire of the National Teacher and Principal Survey 2015–2016 School Year, in-depth mentor and novice teacher interviews, and mentoring artifacts. Findings indicated that friendships, relationships, common planning times, modeling, feedback, reflection, and training were critical to the success of novice teachers. Additional findings revealed that the end-of-year reflection, cohesiveness, communication, and reciprocity were the most effective components of …

The Benefit Of Test Preparation, Ryleigh Hufgard

Honors Projects

This action research project will explore different types of test preparation and how beneficial they are to students. This project looks at both quantitative and qualitative data. Despite the impact of COVID-19 and online schooling, conclusions were able to be made about the research project. These conclusions show that teacher-made review questions are quantitatively and qualitatively the most beneficial for students when preparing for tests.

Screen Time Reduction, Karmen L. Serda Mrs.

MSN Capstone Projects

Children and adolescents are spending an alarming amount of time engaging in screen time (ST) activities on mobile devices, computers, televisions (TV), and video games; activities include, but are not limited to, watching shows or movies, playing video games, searching the internet, texting, or using social media. This excessive ST is contributing to a vast array of serious childhood complications and health concerns, of which are rarely discussed, acknowledged, or remedied.

The proposed implementation of a structured 3-day elementary school based screen time reduction program (STRP) that would target not only the children and adolescents, but their parents and/or caregivers …

Shifts In Federal Educational Policies And The Effect On Middle Tennessee Band Programs, Vivienne Emde

Honors Scholars Collaborative Projects

The objectives of this thesis are to examine how federal legislation for education has impacted music education and to identify trends that may shape the future funding and operation of band programs in Middle Tennessee.

Educator Researched Methods And Interventions That Increase Below Level Readers’ Fluency And Comprehension, Shawnee Knott, Shannon Tovey

Georgia Journal of Literacy

A student walks into a classroom multiple grades below grade level and already on day one that student is behind and will most likely be behind their entire school year. Many teachers are faced with this scenario year after year. Students entering their classrooms unprepared for the on-level content they need to be on. Reading below grade level is just the beginning of the learning gap that exists in today’s classrooms. Teachers work hard to close that gap, but by upper elementary is it too late? What can teachers do to help these students grow and become successful learners?

This …

What’S Next For Literacy Education In Georgia? An Interview With Dr. Caitlin Dooley, Deputy Superintendent, Georgia Department Of Education, Shannon Tovey Howrey

Georgia Journal of Literacy

An interview with Dr. Caitlin Dooley

Outcome Expectations And Environmental Factors Associated With Engineering College-Going: A Case Study, Holly Matusovich, Andrew Gillen, Cheryl Carrico, David Knight, Jake Grohs

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

Family, school, and community contexts each link to secondary school enrollment, yet these factors have been comparatively examined only in limited ways. A holistic examination of contextual factors will be particularly important for engineering where college enrollment patterns vary by demographics. To begin explaining patterns of engineering college-going at different high schools across the Commonwealth of Virginia, we answered the following research questions: Within a single school system and from a socializer’s perspective, what outcome expectations and environmental factors influence students’ engineering-related postsecondary educational plans? How are these factors the same and different between high schools within a school district? …

Misunderstanding Child-Centeredness: The Case Of “Child 2.0” And Media Education, Pekka Mertala

Journal of Media Literacy Education

This qualitative study demonstrates the kinds of pedagogical pitfalls that are included in simplistic understandings of child-centeredness in the context of media education, an emerging field of early childhood teacher education with only a little empirical research done so far. Course diaries from 15 preservice teachers were analyzed to find answers to the question: How do preservice teachers approach child-centered education in the context of media education? The main findings can be summarized as follows. First, preservice teachers approached child-centeredness as an all-encompassing principle that guides early childhood education. Second, media education-related issues - beliefs about children and media, ambiguity …

Small Places, Big Outcomes: An Ethnographic Case Study On Social Emotional Learning Skills And Development, Organizational Culture, And Place-Making In Small, Rural Schools In Southern New Jersey, Christina Marie Didonato Dillon

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this qualitative, ethnographic case study was to describe the ways in which three school leaders from small, rural PreK-8 districts (less than 1,000 students) in Southern New Jersey used similar methods for fostering partnerships with families and bonds between individuals, families and schools to address social emotional learning skills and development in the early childhood setting (grades pre-kindergarten through third grade). In addition, this study examined how the organizational culture of the educational organizations reinforced or undermined the relationship between school and family partnerships and bonds. This study investigated the linkage between school leaders' experiences and social …

Hansen Elementary School Counseling, Brianna Swarm

INSPIRE Student Research and Engagement Conference

Last semester I had the opportunity to work closely with Jen Alexander, a school counselor at Hansen Elementary School. As a school counselor, Jen helps kids develop social skills, improve their learning, understand their emotions, and much more in order to help them thrive while they are in school. My poster discusses all the things I learned from interning at Hansen. It also goes into detail about what school counselors do, the best parts about being there, and research on Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and how they can affect kids.

Looking For Trouble And Causing Trauma, Marquita D. Foster

Occasional Paper Series

The purpose of this paper is to examine the genuine but misguided efforts to address the behaviors of Pre-K students in a Texas public school. After espousing the concept of building strong children through correction, evaluation, and intervention in my role as assistant principal, I began to question how these methods tended to lead to pathologizing the behaviors of Black pre-kindergarteners in my school. In an attempt to find solutions to the children's perceived misbehavior, Pre-K teachers were charged with utilizing PBIS strategies and the RTI process for behavior. Social and emotional learning (SEL) was also considered. We discovered that …

"Some Days We Don't Learn Anything New": A Phenomenological Study Of Intellectually Gifted Elementary Students, Frank Luzaich

Doctor of Education (EdD)

With accountability pressures to help all students reach grade-level proficiency, the needs of gifted students may be neglected. This qualitative phenomenological study explores the nature of intellectually gifted students in a suburban elementary setting in the Pacific Northwest. After several close observations with six participants in grades 2-5, semi-structured conversational interviews revealed recurring feelings of frustration, constraint, and missed opportunities in classrooms. Participants claimed that school was not challenging and they did not learn much. When classroom life did not provide intellectual stimulation, gifted students often engaged in reading. The voices of intellectually gifted students show how they experience life …

Family Matters. Or Does It? Family Involvement In American Education, Isaiah Fink Avraham Cohen

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

“Family Matters. Or Does It?” uses select data and waves from the 1996-2016 Parents and Family Involvement in Education Surveys to investigate the following research questions in its efforts to probe the influence of familial involvement: (1) Does child behavior influence family involvement; (2) has the effect of family involvement on academic performance persisted over the past two decades; (3) does school selection influence family involvement; and (4) are homeschooling families monolithic in their involvement? Results indicate that behavior has unique associations with involvement, with no support being found for the reactive involvement hypothesis. Family involvement has a generally positive …

“From School Of Crisis To Distinguished”: Using Maslow's Hierarchy In A Rural Underperforming School, Molly H. Fisher, Ben Crawford

Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Education Faculty Publications

Despite conditions that would work against a small and rural school in an impoverish rural area of the United States, Fairway Elementary School has managed to excel in its accountability measures. Through interviews with faculty, staff, teachers, students, and parents of children at Fairway Elementary School a model was developed through the lens of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. It was found that a new administrator at the school started with the physiological needs of the children and are now working within the esteem stage of Maslow’s Hierarchy. Details from each stage of the hierarchy are provided as a promising practice …

Using Robots To Teach Mathematics To First-Grade Students: Preservice Teachers’ Perspectives, Alyssa Argila, Maryssa Leventhal

Transformations: Research Papers

Helping preservice teachers develop positive attitudes toward using new pedagogical practices requires engaging them in professional learning and teaching practice. In this study, 16 preservice teachers engaged in an intervention that focused on integrating robots to teach mathematics to a group of first-grade students. The mathematical tasks engaged first-grade students with concepts such as counting, addition, subtraction, and identifying patterns. After the teaching experience, the preservice teachers responded to five open-ended questions that elicited their perceptions of using robots to teach mathematics to first-grade students. We conducted qualitative content analysis of teachers’ responses to identify common trends regarding teaching mathematics …

Preservice Teachers’ Strategies For Interpreting Fractions Represented In Discrete And Continuous Models, Victoria Webster

Transformations: Research Papers

Teaching and learning fractions have been a focus of research in mathematics education for decades. Current practices of teaching fractions emphasize the partitioning perspective, or part-whole, to conceptualize fractions. Another approach to teaching fractions is measurement. The part-whole approach limits students’ conceptualization of fractions and impedes learning improper fractions, whereas the measurement approach has the potential to overcome these difficulties and supports learning improper fractions. In this study, 55 preservice teachers engaged in an intervention to reexamine fractions using a measurement perspective. Before and after the intervention, the preservice teachers were asked to interpret proper and improper fractions using discrete …

Characteristics Of The Recess Team That Mediate Recess Quality, Christina Mcchesney

Community Engagement Student Work

This evaluation assessed the significance of recess team and Recess Coach (RC) characteristics on the quality of recess at elementary schools implementing the Playworks TeamUp program. Recess quality was measured by Great Recess Framework (GRF) data collected by Playworks staff across 18 regions. Three GRF factors: Student Behavior, Adult Engagement and Supervision; and Transitions were evaluated along with each of the individual GRF items that comprise them. Schools were characterized using Recess Team Member Surveys. Results indicate that neither recess team size nor Recess Coach’s time on the recess team relative to length of employment are significant predictors of recess …

French Club, Brett Foster, Madisen Bell

Honors Program: Expanded Learning Clubs

Afterschool club that introduces French Language and Culture to young elementary students. Through hands-on activities and discussions, students will learn the basics of French Language and complete a French Journal full of everything they learned that semester to take home.

"We Mean Green" Environmental Science Club, Maria E. Heyen, Lauren Prehn

Honors Program: Expanded Learning Clubs

Lesson Plans for an Environmental Science Club. This club seeks to promote environmental awareness to elementary students through hands-on activities, videos, and discussion.