Elementary Education Commons^™

My Journey On Becoming A Critical Social Justice Educator As A Woman Of Color, America Lopez

CGU Theses & Dissertations

This writing is a narrative that retells different stages throughout my life, including the different experiences I have endured being a graduate student and a first-year teacher at the same time. Its purpose is to share my journey from the beginning to the end of my first year as a teacher. I share my reflections as I continuously look back on how I began to slowly-but surely-develop my criticality lens. While being a graduate student [of color] in a space that was historically and intentionally not created for me, this roller coaster ride has been anything but easy. However, I …

Carousel: Performance And Ritual Of A Child's Play, Erik Maniscalco

Theses and Dissertations

Carousel is a series of oil paintings inspired by my seven year old

daughter, as well as my work towards becoming a childhood educator. My

aim with this project is to explore the performative and ritualistic nature of

children’s play: focusing on the creative ways children stretch and reshape

their reality through imagined play narratives. Upon the carousel’s stage,

children select a character and take part in a performed ritual. I’ve long felt

connected to the visual vocabulary found within baroque and renaissance

styles, and I am fascinated by the mixture of amusement, tradition,

religion, and distortion imbued within the …

9/11 Teaching Guide, Andrew Destefano

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this teaching guide is to help prepare teachers and students in maximizing their visit and experience at the National September 11th Memorial and Museum, located in lower Manhattan, at the site of the former World Trade Center complex. The aim is to deepen student’s understanding of what the World Trade Center actually was, the symbolic role it played in America and in the world, and why the World Trade Center complex was built in the first place. This guide’s aim is to advance knowledge and understanding of all the various artifacts, exhibits, classes, and presentations, and to …

Learning To Teach Reading Responsively Through Tutoring, Jodi Nickel, Scott Frederick Hughes

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

This article describes a community service learning collaboration between a teacher education program and a nonprofit literacy society. Seventeen teacher candidates (TCs) tutored young readers weekly for seven months as part of their course-related field experience and completed reflective assignments analyzing their own learning and the learning of their tutees. The study demonstrates how the tutoring experience enhanced the pedagogical competence of TCs (kid-watching, assessment, instruction, responsiveness, professional conversations, and affirmation of impact). These findings align with contemporary research in literacy teacher preparation, which identifies that the combination of coursework and tutoring is effective in promoting the integration of TC …

Drama Applied To Content-Based Instruction In Elementary Education, A. Rocio Muhs

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Growing public interest in bilingual education has prompted many school districts to offer dual language models. Unaddressed challenges inherent in dual language immersion programs can compromise the quality of implementation, thus affecting student achievement and ultimately program sustainability. This study investigates how the integration of dramatic arts into core subject instruction in Spanish improves student learning and motivation among first grade second-language learners. Based on the existing challenges confronting a Dual Language Immersion Program in Western Montana, this study asks: What is the relationship between students’ attitudes about learning in a second language and the teacher’s pedagogical practices? In this …

Influence Of Book Clubs On Reading Motivation For Third Through Fifth Grade Students, Allyson Reister

Graduate Research Papers

This qualitative case study reports the influence book clubs have on the reading motivation of third through fifth grade students, including reluctant readers, and examines how book clubs can be used as a reading promotion tool to enhance the reading culture of the school library program. Forty-one third through fifth grade students and their teacher librarian from a small Pre-K through eighth grade private school in Midwestern suburb met via Zoom in separate grade level book club meetings once during the spring 2020 semester. The researcher discovered three main themes in response to the research questions: 1) Sociability with Others …

An Investigation Of Elementary School Teachers’ Culturally Relevant Teaching Practices In Two Cultures: A Comparative Study In China And The United States, Alicia R. Thompson

Theses and Dissertations

Effective teaching is one of the most important factors in student achievement. Throughout the world, there are high expectations for teacher and student performance. Teachers and students need to navigate the demographic and cultural shifts occurring around the world. Teachers’ cultural awareness and knowledge base of culturally relevant teaching practices is critical to their effectiveness. Based on the need to better understand the cultural responsiveness of teachers, this comparative study investigated elementary school teachers’ culturally relevant teaching practices in China and the U.S. through the use of video-cued ethnography. The following findings were revealed from the study: (a) differences in …

Makna Numeral Hindu Arab Murid Tahun Empat, Hashmi Syaheela Atikah

Student Works (2020-2029)

Kajian ini bertujuan untuk meneroka makna numeral Hindu Arab murid Tahun Empat. Dalam kajian ini, reka bentuk kajian yang digunakan adalah kajian kes yang melibatkan empat orang murid Tahun Empat sekolah rendah di negeri Selangor yang dipilih melalui kaedah persampelan bertujuan. Data dikumpul melalui tujuh sesi temu duga klinikal dengan menggunakan pelbagai tugasan berkonteks dan juga tanpa konteks diberikan kepada peserta kajian. Dalam kajian ini, empat tugasan pelbagai format berkonteks dan juga tanpa konteks telah diberikan kepada peserta kajian semasa temu duga. Transkripsi temu duga telah di analisis secara dalam kes dan merentas kes. Keputusan analisis merentas kes menunjukkan yang …

Year Five Pupils’ Mental Model Of Environment, Maslamany Kavitha

Student Works (2020-2029)

In the current society, pupils are given less opportunity to discover the natural world around them. This has resulted in ‘nature deficit disorder’ among the pupils especially among those who are living in urban areas which are surrounded by the built environments. This becomes worse when pupils get less exposure to environmental education in schools where they learn environmental concepts as disconnected pieces of information. Pupils who are unable to comprehend the environment as a complex and interconnected system will have less awareness of environmental problems. Studying pupils’ mental models of the environment enable teachers to understand pupils’ conceptualization of …

A Phenomenological Exploration Of Principals' Influence On Teacher Attrition, Kellie E. Gebhardt

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

ABSTRACT

Classroom teachers' decisions to leave the profession negatively affect the educational experience of the students, burden the remaining teachers, and drain school districts of funds that should go to students but instead are spent on recruiting and training. This phenomenological study examined the experiences of former classroom teachers to determine the role their school principals may have played in their decisions to leave the profession. Ten former elementary school teachers from South Carolina participated in the study. The researcher collected data using interviews; a semi-structured interview protocol was created from current literature and designed to align with the research …

The Effects Of A Site-Based Teacher Professional Development Program On Student Learning, Abha Gupta, Guang-Lea Lee

Teaching & Learning Faculty Publications

A mixed methods study is used to investigate the effectiveness of a professional development program intended to enhance teacher knowledge and student learning so as to systematically improve student achievement in elementary literacy. In this study, a large urban school district partnered with a local university to provide intervention in a Title 1, low-performing elementary school. Measures included teacher knowledge and practices based on surveys, classroom observation, and student achievement data. Teachers self-reported their perspectives on schoolbased teacher training in terms of its significance, requirements, challenges, and possible solutions to teacher training. Schools were selected based on their Adequate Yearly …

Peer Review In Online Professional Communities To Support Elementary Disciplinary Literacy Planning, Jaime Colwell, Valerie Taylor

Teaching & Learning Faculty Publications

This chapter reports the results of a qualitative case study focused on elementary pre-service teachers' perspectives on planning for disciplinary literacy using peer review in an online professional community (OPC). Seven pre-service teachers enrolled in an eight-week asynchronous, online content literacy course served as participants. Results indicated pre-service teachers' valued extended opportunities for reflection in the OPC and appreciated diverse backgrounds and experiences offered by their OPC colleagues. However, perceived challenges remained that are important to consider when incorporating peer review cycles into online asynchronous coursework. This study considers these perspectives in light of designing and planning online coursework in …

Characteristics Of Critical Friendship That Transform Professional Identity, Signe E. Kastberg, Melva R. Grant

Teaching & Learning Faculty Publications

We met at CASTLE 2018, two trained mathematics teacher educators (MTEs), interested in mathematics, and teaching elementary mathematics methods to preservice teachers (PTs). Melva’s self-study research, focused on improving her online methods course, was approaching its second year and her second critical friend had lost interest in continuing. Melva invited Signe to be her critical friend (Schuck & Russell, 2005) and Signe agreed. Explicit expectations of our critical friendship included weekly meetings. Our critical friendship seemed to follow an expected trajectory for, “supporting/coaching the transformation of another’s teaching” (Stolle, et al., 2019, p. 20). However, there were implicit ways our …

Writing The Rainbow: Facilitating Undergraduate Teacher Candidates’ Lgbtqia+ Allyship Through Multimodal Writing, Judith Dunkerly-Bean, Julia Morris, Valerie Taylor

Teaching & Learning Faculty Publications

This yearlong qualitative descriptive case study conducted by an interdisciplinary team of education faculty with pre-service elementary teacher candidates sought to disrupt heteronormativity and to increase candidates’ awareness and preparedness for inclusivity with future LGBTQIA+ elementary students. Central to our findings was that in researching and authoring multimodal texts addressing topics and concerns faced by the LGBTQIA+ community for their future classrooms, there was a shift in the perceptions and preparedness of the candidates toward working with children identifying as LGBTQIA+. However, we also encountered resistance and/or apathy that led us to develop an analytical framework for disrupting teacher candidate …

Experiences Of African American Teachers In Desegregated Pk–12 Schools: A Systematic Literature Review, Yonghee Suh, Brian J. Daugherity, Jihea Maddamsetti, Angela Branyon

Teaching & Learning Faculty Publications

This literature review reports findings from 19 empirical studies on the experiences of African American teachers in PK–12 desegregated schools. The research questions were: What do we know about the experiences of African American teachers in desegregated PK–12 schools? What are the challenges African American teachers experience in desegregated PK–12 schools? In response to these questions, the article first discusses school desegregation after the Brown v. Board of Education decision and its impact on African American teachers as a historical backdrop. Findings from 19 studies were analyzed through grounded theory. Two core themes were identified from our findings: persistent structural …

Cultural Diversity Professional Development In Schools Survey, Krystal R. Thomas, Hillary Parkhouse, Jesse Senechal, Zoey Lu, Laura Faulcon, Julie Gorlewski, David B. Naff

MERC Publications

This report presents findings from the Metropolitan Educational Research Consortium (MERC) Cultural Diversity Within Schools Survey. This survey was designed for school- based professionals (i.e., teachers, instructional staff, administrators) within the MERC region. Administered in the fall of 2018, the survey collected information about experiences of professional development related to cultural diversity, attitudes toward cultural diversity within schools, perceptions of barriers and opportunities, and perspectives on the need for professional development. Section 1 of the report discusses the context for this survey effort: increased cultural diversity in our schools, increased cultural mismatch between students and teachers, and multicultural education as …

Use Of Student Teams-Achievement Divisions Approach In Science For Verbal Interactions And Performance Among Year Four Pupils, Murugan Rhubhambikhei

Student Works (2020-2029)

The purpose of this study was to investigate the verbal interactions and performance of selected Year Four science pupils in National Type Tamil School. Generally, National Type Tamil school pupils are passive and tend to be listeners in the classroom. Even though pupils talk, they do more social talk and there is no increase in pupils’ cognitive skills. Hence, this research focuses on pupils’ verbal interactions among their cooperative group members when using the prepared Student Teams-Achievement Divisions (STAD) Teaching and Learning Guide. STAD Teaching and Learning Guide was prepared to help teachers to promote verbal interactions among pupils. The …

Unpacking "Giftedness": Research And Strategies For Promoting Racial And Socioeconomic Equity, David B. Naff, Genevieve Siegel-Hawley, Amy Jefferson, Michael Schad, Morgan Saxby, Kathryn Haines, Zoey Lu

MERC Publications

Giftedness as a construct continues to be contested in academia, in the classroom and around kitchen tables. It means different things to different communities and, as a result, acquiring the "gifted" label looks different around the country. Once labeled, student giftedness produces different responses depending on state and district guidelines. A constant among the patchwork of defining, identifying and responding to student giftedness, though, is a serious racial and economic disparity in who is considered gifted and who is not. This report provides key takeaways from research literature on gifted and talented (GT) programs. It is organized according to five …

Elementary School Teacher Characteristics Associated With Self-Efficacy For Using Technology To Implement Constructivist Content Instruction: An Explanatory Correlational Study, Patricia Barton

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Technology mediated constructivist practices may be effective, but there are challenges for implementing them, and one challenge is the teachers themselves and their self-efficacy. Teachers of different backgrounds may differ on self-efficacy in technology mediated constructivist practices, and those possible differences can warrant different training approaches. For this study, 212 K-5 teachers from small to medium sized rural and suburban school districts in the Midwestern US, as well as teachers from a variety of other geographic areas, completed an online survey. The dependent variable self-efficacy in Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge (SE-C-TPACK) was regressed on the independent variables. The independent …

The Efficacy Of Educational Robotics In An Integrated Stem Elementary Curriculum, Colleen Marie Cannon-Ruffo

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

While there has never been a greater demand for STEM education, the U.S. is still struggling to define and implement this type of instruction. Identifying innovative and effective ways of improving STEM education in the K-12 environment is vital to the U.S. to remain economically viable on a global level. The multidisciplinary aspect of educational robotics facilitates an integrated approach to STEM learning which espouses the educational theories of Constructionism and Computational Thinking. The purpose of this study was to compare the cognitive and affective out-comes of participation in an integrated STEM curriculum based on educational robotics. The integrated STEM …