Junior High, Intermediate, Middle School Education and Teaching Commons^™

Lesson 2: Tampa’S Cuban Sandwich, Samantha Cook

Hispanic Heritage of Florida Conference 2012

Some historians maintain that the Cuban sandwich has more to do with Tampa than with Havana. In this lesson, students will learn how, with the input of several immigrant groups in Tampa, the “mixto” became the iconic Cuban sandwich.

Lesson 1: Spanish Exploration Of Florida, Samantha Cook

Hispanic Heritage of Florida Conference 2012

Using Garner’s multiple intelligence learning theory, the Teachers Curriculum Institute’s visual discovery strategies, and CRISS reading strategies, students will become familiar with the exploration of Florida by Juan Ponce de León.

Lesson 2: St. Augustine’S Turn Around: From A Small Town To A Tourist Destination For Presidents, Amanda Colborne

Hispanic Heritage of Florida Conference 2012

Once a small town with few residents, St. Augustine went through remarkable changes in the beginning of the 20^th Century, transforming into a major tourist attraction. This lesson explores the transformation of St. Augustine from small town to major tourist attraction in the beginning of the 20^th century.

Lesson 1: Retracing The Steps Of De León And De Soto, Amanda Colborne

Hispanic Heritage of Florida Conference 2012

Juan Ponce de León and Hernando de Soto both explored Florida in the 16^th century. By reading short passages and annotating maps, students will learn more about these historic voyages.

Lesson 5: Spanish Explorers In Florida, Alesha Looper

Hispanic Heritage of Florida Conference 2012

Students will work in pairs to log facts about the Spanish exploreres and their personal background, sponsors, motives, dates, the route they traveled, and their impact on Florida today. Each pair of students will learn about their Spanish explorer and then will report out through creating a matrix.

Lesson 4: Spanish Ybor City In The 19th & 20th Centuries, Today, And Tomorrow, Alesha Looper, Daryl Saunders

Hispanic Heritage of Florida Conference 2012

This lesson addresses the beginning years of the Spanish influence in Ybor City, its current status, and trends for the future.

Lesson 3: Operation Pedro Pan - How 14,000 Children Came To Live In America Without Their Parents, Alesha Looper, Daryl Saunders

Hispanic Heritage of Florida Conference 2012

Operation Pedro Pan was the name given to the 22-month clandestine program involving the political exodus of more than 14,000 Cuban children to the United States in the early 1960s. Fearing communist indoctrination and the rumor of patria potestad — the government assuming legal guardianship of their children— Cuban parents sent their unaccompanied (minor) children to the United States.

Lesson 2: Life In Colonial Florida, Alesha Looper

Hispanic Heritage of Florida Conference 2012

Creating mental maps are useful tools for clarifying assumptions and comprehension of a given place. This lesson affords students the opportunity to reflect on their own neighborhood and consider how cultural, social, and economic components influence its composition. They will also learn how early Spanish settlers helped to contribute to the cultural, social, and economic dimensions of Florida.

Lesson 1: Juan Ponce De León The Explorer, Alesha Looper, Bárbara C. Cruz, Daryl Saunders

Hispanic Heritage of Florida Conference 2012

The purpose of this lesson is for students to learn who Ponce de León was, why he is an important figure in Florida’s history, and what an explorer is and does.

Original Political Cartoon Methodology And Adaptations, John H. Bickford Iii

Faculty Research and Creative Activity

This paper is grounded on the premise that effective educators base lessons on rich and intriguing content which is relevant to students’ lives, implement the content using engaging and age-appropriate methodology, and measure students’ learning through authentic assessments. In order to support practicing teachers’ effective implementation of best practice methodology and assessment, educational researchers investigate the interconnections between content, methodology, and assessment. As technology facilitates teaching methodologies and learning assessments, meaningful activities such as students’ original political cartooning should be examined, detailed, and adapted. In this article, the methodological suggestions for, and adaptations of, students’ original political cartoons guide educators …

Assessing Impulsive-Analytic Disposition: The Likelihood-To-Act Survey And Other Instruments, Kien Lim, Amy Wagler

Selected Works Temporary Series

The likelihood-to-act (LtA) survey is a 32-item instrument that measures impulsive and analytic dispositions in solving math problems. In this research report, we compare it to other instruments related to the impulsive-analytic construct such as Frederick’s Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT) and the Barratt Impulsive Scale in terms of mean scores, Cronbach alpha values, and correlation values. Both LtA-Impulsive and LtA-Analytic subscales have acceptable reliabilities of 0.79 and 0.83 respectively. The LtA-Analytic and LtA-Difference (analytic-impulsive difference) correlated well with other the Need for Cognition subscale and CRT scores. The correlations involving LtA-Impulsive subscale were unexpected and call for further investigation.

Impulsive-Analytic Disposition In Mathematical Problem Solving: A Survey And A Mathematics Test, Kien Lim, Amy Wagler

Selected Works Temporary Series

The Likelihood-to-Act (LtA) survey and a mathematics test were used in this study to assess students’ impulsive-analytic disposition in the context of mathematical problem solving. The results obtained from these two instruments were compared to those obtained using two widely-used scales: Need for Cognition (NFC) and Barratt Impulsivity Scale (BIS). The exhibited correlations of the LtA scores with the NFC, BIS, and a math test provide evidence of the criterion validity of the analytic LtA items, and suggests further revision of the impulsive LtA items to improve the overall measurement validity of the LtA scale. Students LtA scores were found …

The Hammer-And-Nail Phenomenon In Mathematics Education, Kien Lim

Selected Works Temporary Series

"For a person with a hammer, everything looks like a nail" is a proverb that can be used to highlight the phenomenon that students tend to rely on familiar ideas as opposed to taking time to think about and analyse a problem. Presented in this theoretical paper is the usefulness of the hammer-and-nail metaphor, other related theoretical constructs, pedagogical causes of student impulsive behaviours, and pedagogical suggestions for addressing them.

Great Books For Late Summer Reading, Terrell A. Young, Barbara A. Ward

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

For decades now, reading experts have expressed concern that the competence gained by struggling readers during the academic year is lost during the summer months. While academic enrichment and remediation programs can reduce that loss, one of the best practices to build better readers is by having them read during breaks from school. At least one study clearly supports this suggestion. In his study of 1,600 elementary students in the mid-Atlantic area, researcher James Kim (2009) found that regardless of previous achievement level or race or socioeconomic level, children who read more books performed better on reading comprehension tests in …

The Nature And Role Of Physical Models In Enhancing Sixth Grade Students' Mental Models Of Groundwater And Groundwater Processes, Debra Lynne Foster Duffy

Teaching & Learning Theses & Dissertations

Through a non-experimental descriptive and comparative mixed-methods approach, this study investigated the experiences of sixth grade earth science students with groundwater physical models through an extended SE learning cycle format. The data collection was based on a series of quantitative and qualitative research tools intended to investigate students' ideas and changes in ideas rather than measure their achievement. The measures included a groundwater survey, classroom observations, and one-on-one follow-up student interviews for triangulation of data sources. The research was carried out at a K-12 independent school in eastern Virginia using two classes of sixth grade earth science students (n=30).

The …

Teacher Professional Development Through A School-University Partnership. What Role Does Teacher Identity Play?, John Trent

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

This study examines the continuing professional development of one group of secondary school English language teachers who participated in a school-university partnership in Hong Kong. Grounded in a framework of teacher identity and using in-depth interviews conducted over the entire 12 month period of the partnership, the study explores the teacher’s professional development experiences in terms of their negotiation of membership within and across multiple communities. Results suggest that the teachers’ experienced professional development through partnership partly as identity conflict, as they negotiated recognition of the competencies they associated with the partnership within the different communities of teachers in which …

Effective Coaching Strategies For Increased Use Of Research-Based Instructional Strategies For Linguistically Diverse Classrooms, Cindy S. West

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

This thesis explores effective coaching strategies that support the classroom teacher in implementing research-based instructional strategies designed to assist English language learners (ELLs) in language acquisition and content learning. Through individual interviews, ELL instructional coaches assisted in the identification of coaching strategies they perceived to be most supportive as classroom teachers learned and implemented instructional strategies for supporting ELL students.

The data gathered from the interviews is organized under four main themes: Developing Partnerships, Identifying Student and Teacher Needs, Practical Applications, and The Role of Professional Development. The data indicated participants strongly endorsed instructional coaching as an effective form of …

'Me As A Science Teacher': Responding To A Small Network Survey To Assist Teachers With Subject-Specific Literacy Demands In The Middle Years Of Schooling, Anne-Marie Morgan

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

Middle years’ teachers in primary schools are increasingly required to teach curriculum-specific subjects at a depth requiring considerable content and pedagogical knowledge, as well as a detailed understanding of the particular literacy requirements specific to each subject. Science teaching, in the latter years of primary schooling, is particularly demanding for non-specialist teachers. Many teachers struggle with feelings of (in)adequacy and (in)competence to be ‘science literate’ and ‘good’ science teachers, providing sufficient and valuable science learning opportunities for their learners.

This paper describes one primary school’s attention to teachers’ feelings of wellbeing and competence in relation to themselves as science teachers. …

A Preliminary Examination Of The Cost Savings And Learning Impacts Of Using Open Textbooks In Middle And High School Science Classes, John Hilton Iii, David Wiley, Shelley Ellington, Tiffany Hall

Faculty Publications

Proponents of open educational resources claim that significant cost savings are possible when open textbooks displace traditional textbooks in the classroom. Over a period of two years, we worked with 20 middle and high school science teachers (collectively teaching approximately 3,900 students) who adopted open textbooks to understand the process and determine the overall cost of such an adoption. The teachers deployed open textbooks in multiple ways. Some of these methods cost more than traditional textbooks; however, we did identify and implement a successful model of open textbook adoption that reduces costs by over 50% compared to the cost of …

An Integrated Approach: Incorporating Literature And Writing Into Middle School Mathematics Instruction, Amanda Renee Huffman

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

Integrated curriculum, including integrated mathematics curriculum, is becoming more common in classrooms as teachers look for ways to improve students' understanding and performance across the board. Specifically, the presented thesis explores and reflects on the implementation of meaningful integration of literature and writing into mathematics instruction to promote students' mathematical literacy. Through carrying out an action research project involving teaching an integrated mathematics enrichment unit with the novel The Number Devil: A Mathematical Adventure by Hans Magnus Enzensberger and constantly reflecting and analyzing the lessons conclusions were drawn. Cross-curricular mathematics instruction can work if carried out effectively and it can …