Teacher Education and Professional Development Commons^™

Emgt 901: Total Quality Management Using Six Sigma Techniques, Jena Shafai Asgarpoor

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

Total Quality Management Using Six Sigma Techniques (EMGT 901) is an elective course in the Master of Engineering Management (MEM) Program at the University of Nebraska – Lincoln and serves as my Peer Review of Teaching Project (PRTP). This is an elective course in a fully online program. Students in this program have an earned undergraduate degree in engineering and are practicing engineers with at least two years of work experience. In this PRTP I will examine the development and delivery of the course based on pedagogical and backward design considerations and the framework proposed by Quality Matters ®. I …

Math/Stat 380: Statistics And Applications, Yuzhen Zhou

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

The portfolio is created for the course STAT/Math380: Statistics and Applications using backward design. It is a service course on introduction statistics for undergraduate students who are not majored in statistics at University of Nebraska-Lincoln. In this portfolio, I’ll provide the detail plans on what I will teach, how it will be taught, and what is my expectation on students learning. Besides, I’ll collect data from students to analyze whether students have achieved the course expectations, from where I’ll adjust and improve the way I deliver the knowledge in the future. This portfolio will be used to help document my …

Legal Research And Writing Lrw (Law 513), Chesi K. Hayden

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

This portfolio explores and documents student learning in a required first-year law course, Legal Analysis, Research and Writing. This portfolio focuses on two specific course learning objectives: (1) organizing a legal argument (CRAC or a variation) and (2) explaining legal rules. I evaluated student work on the two writing assignments with the most weight—Research Memo 1 and Research Memo 2 to analyze whether students improved their understanding of and ability to perform the selected learning goals. I was specifically interested in student improvement from Research Memo 1 to Research Memo 2 because they represent a formative and a summative assessment …

Digging Economics--Econ 200: Economics Essentials And Issues, Tammie Fischer

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

This portfolio examines student engagement in Econ 200: Essentials of Economics course. Econ 200, a large lecture format, serves as a requirement for completing a minor in Business and fulfills the ACE 6 or 8 categories. Much discussion and research exist around the importance of student engagement in large lecture sections which can often be a challenge. Engagement is important in the process of increasing knowledge with added peer effects. At the same time, activities designed to increase engagement often come at a cost, both in terms of precious class time and to faculty in the form of additional grading. …

Middle School Mathematics Teachers' Perceptions Of Opportunities And Challenges, Shelby Eversole

Masters Theses

This study investigates the perspectives of opportunities and challenges of middle school mathematics’ teachers. To gain these perspectives, an ethnographic study was conducted by interviewing four middle school mathematics teachers in central Illinois. The results of this study imply that teachers of different backgrounds and teaching environments have varying perspectives about challenges and opportunities in the classroom. Limitations of this study include but are not limited to, the researcher having one year to conduct the research, only four teachers from two schools being interviewed, interviewees teaching different grade levels, no rural setting involvement, one educator having little teaching experience, teachers’ …

Gifted Education In Elementary Schools, Danielle Wilkinson

Masters Theses

Gifted students have enormous potential, yet there are few consistent opportunities for gifted students to receive challenging instruction. Drawing upon literature detailing the history of gifted education nationally and in Illinois, this study sought to find what services were currently offered to Illinois students, and if the opportunities for gifted students were related to a district’s state funding tier. Findings indicated that the elementary gifted services being offered and the ways in which eligibility is determined were inconsistent among districts. In addition, many districts who offer gifted services are using local/community funds in order to provide services regardless of their …

Work-Life Balance Of Tenured And Tenure-Track Women Engineering Professors, Lily Giang-Tien Gossage

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Balancing the needs of family with career ambitions is often challenging for women who pursue science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) careers, particularly in academia. In these male-dominated workplaces, few incentives exist for women who decide to manage both work and family. In this basic qualitative research study, a modified approach combining in-depth interviewing with life-history interviewing was used to examine the work-life balance experiences of 12 tenured and tenure-track women engineering faculty who have children. The research question addressed participants' perceptions of engineering academia and experiences regarding family formation, child-raising, and the tenure process. Data were analyzed using the …

Jamaican Kindergarten And First Grade Teachers’ Expectations For Readiness Skills, Sadie Henrietta Harris-Mortley

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Children’s readiness to meet demands in Grade 1 is a common concern in most primary schools in Jamaica. Teachers have voiced their expectations that students should display a level of mastery in readiness skills so that they can be engaged in academic tasks when they transition from the kindergarten to Grade 1. The purpose of this qualitative case study, guided by social constructivism, was to explore kindergarten students’ readiness for Grade 1 based on the perceptions of kindergarten teachers compared to Grade 1 teachers on readiness skills, instructional practices, and expectations of students’ competency. The research questions were designed to …

Teachers’ Self-Efficacy Beliefs In Relation To Perceived English Proficiency And Teaching Practices: An Investigation Of Chinese Primary English As A Foreign Language (Efl) Teachers, Yun Zhang

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

Research on self-efficacy has been a productive field and abundant research has shown that teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs influence teachers’ actions and performances and thus affect students’ learning outcomes. However, there is a lack of literature on EFL teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs and even less research was set in Chinese EFL contexts. On the one hand, this study was conducted to provide a general picture of the current status of EFL teachers’ perceived English proficiency, self-rated self-efficacy beliefs and self-reported teaching practices in terms of some demographic perspectives; On the other hand, it aimed to explore the correlations among Chinese primary EFL …

Teaching With Technology: Using A Virtual Learning Community And Peer Mentoring To Create An Interdisciplinary Intervention, Rebecca Mazumdar, Nadia Benakli, Pamela Brown

Publications and Research

This paper describes the development and implementation of engaging and supportive experiences to promote student engagement, persistence and success at a commuter, open enrollment, public, minority serving institution. Project components included faculty development at the SENCER Summer Institute (SSI) 2016, attended by a team comprised of an academic administrator, full-time faculty from English and math, and part-time faculty in chemistry; creation of a virtual learning community of freshmen enrolled in chemistry, English, and math linked by the specific theme of the environmental impacts of deicing roads with salt and the overarching theme of the impacts of human activities on the …

Student Perceptions And Grade Comparisons After Exposure To Instructor-Made Skills Videos In A Kinesiology Course, Pamela Karp, Robert G. Gallagher

Journal of Occupational Therapy Education

The purpose of this mixed method, descriptive case study was to determine whether the use of pre-recorded instructor-made videos (PRIMVs) in a kinesiology course, along with curricular design changes, facilitated increased conceptual and practical student learning. The study examined three student cohorts in one occupational therapy program. Two of the student cohorts had unrestricted access to the PRIMVs designed to support student learning of bone and muscle palpation and joint actions. Students from the two cohorts completed a survey about their experience of having access to the videos. Exam data from the student cohorts who had access to the videos …

Theorizing The Experiences Of Chicana Faculty At A Hispanic-Serving Institution, Karina Chantal Canaba

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Hiring and retaining a diverse faculty has demonstrated to have positive outcomes on student success. However, different forces have made it difficult for universities to have a diverse make-up that reflect their student populations, making it particularly important to investigate how faculty engage with the university. This study seeks to better understand how Chicana faculty engage with the university through the tenure and promotion process. Situated in a Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI), this study looks to better understand how Chicana faculty navigate the complex, political environment of academia through their testimonios as faculty at the university.

The importance of retaining Chicanas …

School Principal's Leadership Style And Teacher's Self-Efficacy In High And Low Achieving Schools In Chikankata, Zambia, Pardon Mwansa

Dissertations

Problem and Purpose

Much research has been done in past years on the topic of student achievement, with most of those studies focusing on factors that contribute to student achievement. Little, or no research has been done, especially in the country of Zambia, that has focused on the relationship between leadership style, teacher self-efficacy, and the extent to which these constructs impact student achievement. This study explored the school principals' leadership style, teacher self-efficacy, and the extent to which these factors contribute to student achievement in Chikankata District, Zambia. The Ministry of Education in Zambia and other educators, especially those …

Innovation In Higher Education: Three Sites In Haiti, Lucas Endicott

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Recent decades have brought seismic changes to global higher education. Educational leaders labor to sharpen administration, funding, teaching and learning practices in response to an increasingly globalized and technological world. The possibilities that this changing landscape may provide are perhaps most exciting for those currently economically disadvantaged and historically underserved by higher education. The advent of a knowledge economy and the need to train hundreds and thousands of new students paired with technological developments may help correct inequalities in access and excellence in education. This study asks the question: What, however, is the lived reality on the ground? Are university …

Using Spanish In English-Language Spaces: Identifying Bilingual Composition Students' Translanguaging Practices, Maria Isela Maier

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This Dissertation is a qualitative study that uses ethnographic research methods to examine the translanguaging practices of bilingual students in first-year composition at a university along the U.S.-Mexico border. Specifically, I observe how and why bilingual students employ translanguaging practices, as they are encouraged or invited by their instructors, in contexts where English Standard Language policies exist. The results of this qualitative project demonstrate bilingual students' use of translation as part of their translanguaging practices, as well as a tool that uncovers students' writing processes which also demonstrates their language negotiation. Furthermore, the students' translanguaging practices reveal the rhetorical use …

Art As A Mediating Tool: Children And Learning In A Music And Arts-Based After School Program, Claudia Saldana

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This study explores the experiences of primarily Latina/o children with learning music in a Music and Arts-Based Program (MABP) the context of a low-income neighborhood on the U.S- Mexico border. This year-long ethnographic study was conducted in an after-school art program in the Rio Grande Elementary School, in a low-income neighborhood located within one-mile of the U.S.-Mexico border. The purpose of the study is to understand how music and art can be used as a mediating tool for children to construct social and cognitive learning within a culturally diverse community, thus, enhancing the social environment in which they interact. The …

Advising As Literacy: A Cultural Capital Approach To Academic Advising In An Hispanic Serving Institution, Heather Smith

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This Dissertation examines academic advising through the lenses of cultural capital and sociocultural literacy. I reframe advising as a literacy practice that facilitates opportunities for students to access and acquire the navigational and cultural capital required to navigate the complex structures of higher education. I describe an advising as literacy model that was designed specifically for and has been implemented at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP), a large, four-year, Research I Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) situated on the US-Mexico border, whose student demographic reflects the bi-national region from which UTEP draws the majority of its students.

The advising …

Teacher Preparation And English Language Learners: The Negotiation Of Teaching Identities In Communities Of Practice, Eleni Giatsou

Dissertations

This dissertation unveils the identity formation and negotiation processes of teacher candidates, through their practice with English Language Learners (ELLs) in a field-based teacher preparation program. Identity, like learning, is socially constructed and continuously negotiated by someone's engagement in a community (Wenger, 1998). Thus, sociocultural theory and specifically the theoretical construct of communities of practice (Wenger, 1998), guided the exploration of candidates' teaching identities to reveal the processes of becoming a teacher of ELLs. I conducted a qualitative case study to examine candidates' teaching practices with ELLs at a surface level and the (re)construction of their teaching identities at a …

Literature In The Australian English Curriculum: Victorian Primary School Teachers’ Practices, Challenges And Preparedness To Teach, Louise Paatsch, Kirsten Hutchison, Anne Cloonan

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

The introduction of the Literature strand within the Australian Curriculum requires all teachers to engage students in print and digital literature that embrace the cross-curriculum priorities and support students to examine, evaluate, and discuss literary texts. However, such curriculum change assumes that primary school teachers who have often not studied literature as a specific method, have the confidence and content and pedagogical knowledge to plan and implement programs. This paper investigates teachers’ views of their level of confidence and preparedness to teach literature, and to explore teachers’ practices, challenges and enablers in teaching literature in both print and digital environments. …

Developing Children’S Physical Literacy: How Well Prepared Are Prospective Teachers?, Judith Dinham, Paul Williams

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

While the known health impacts of sedentary lifestyles have focused attention on children’s outdoor activity, the development of their physical literacy – the physiological, social, cultural, cognitive, expressive, and psychological dimensions of their physicality – is much less in focus.

Developing children’s physical literacy is embedded in the Early Years Learning Framework and Primary curriculum: Health and Physical Education, and the performing arts subjects within The Arts. This study asks “How well prepared are pre-service teachers to implement a program that contributes to developing children’s physical literacy?”

This mixed methods study includes an environmental scan of BEd courses at 12 …