Teacher Education and Professional Development Commons^™

Teacher Definitions Of Integration In Primary Grades, Jeanne Sperry Prestwich

Theses and Dissertations

One obstacle that challenges the implementation of effective curriculum integration practices is the confusion caused by the existence of numerous definitions of this construct in the literature. This concern is further compounded by the potential disconnect between the varied definitions proposed by scholars and classroom teachers' acceptance and use of curriculum integration. The purpose of this study was to analyze K-3 grade teachers' self-reported definitions of curriculum integration. Teachers responded to an Internet survey in which they provided their personal definition of curriculum integration, described integrated teaching examples from their own classroom, and rated six teaching scenarios for quality of …

Agent Based Modeling As An Educational Tool, Jonathan H. Fuller, Rodger Johnson, Vic Castillo

STAR Program Research Presentations

Motivation is a key element in high school education. One way to improve motivation and provide content, while helping address critical thinking and problem solving skills, is to have students build and study agent based models in the classroom. This activity visually connects concepts with their applied mathematical representation. “Engaging students in constructing [models] may provide a bridge between frequently disconnected conceptual and mathematical forms of knowledge.” (Levy and Wilensky, 2011)

The Culture Boundary: How Awareness Informs Teaching Practice, Angela Richardson

MA TESOL Collection

In this paper I discuss the value of exploring student culture through ongoing reflective processes for effective and responsible language teaching. I reflect on my own experience of teaching in a foreign language context for the first time, and discuss how developing cultural awareness helped me move from a place of frustration to understanding, and how a change in attitude and teaching approach impacted my relationships and significantly improved the quality of teaching and learning in my classroom. Using Pat Moran’s ‘Cultural Knowings’ framework as a guide, I reflect on my personal transformation while working in South Korea and report …

Cuisenaire Rods: Pedagogical And Relational Instruments For Language Learning, Sevilay Akarcay

MA TESOL Collection

Cuisenaire Rods are pedagogical and relational instruments with great potential for exploring the way a language works. With their flexibility and simplicity, they allow the students to focus on the process of learning; helping them notice patterns, make associations, and engage in a social and personal relation with the language and deepening their awareness of themselves as learners. The Cuisenaire Rods’ potential for creating simplicity within complexity enables a way of working with language that engages the playful and creative powers of the users. In the introductory part of the paper, the author explores Caleb Gattegno’s approach to learning and …

The Development Of Culturally Responsive Literacy Practices In The Classrooms Of Three Teachers, Alicia N. Stephens

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The responsibility of educators continues to increase as they serve an increasingly diverse population, while attempting to narrow achievement disparities between students with mainstream backgrounds and those who are culturally diverse. Educator cultural perceptions remain unique to their own background and experiences, yet when presented with the challenge of educating the culturally diverse, teachers are often less than enthusiastic toward their instructional obligations. This study targeted how professional development can enhance teacher capability in a culturally diverse school, with the intent to add to existing literature regarding this topic.

This twelve-week qualitative study examined teacher beliefs pertaining to their own …

The Effects Of Positive Behavioral Interventions And Support On Student Discipline Referrals And Attendance, Gregory E. Ross

Dissertations

As school districts work to utilize instructional time, student behavior is often a huge hindrance to maximizing instruction. In 2001 while at the University of Oregon, Horner and Sugai created Positive Behavior Interventions and Support (PBIS), now utilized in over 7,000 schools throughout the country (Sugai & Horner, 2002). This program is provided to schools throughout Kentucky through a federal grant extended to the Kentucky Center for Instructional Discipline (KYCID).

This study analyzed PBIS in an elementary school in southwest Kentucky, McNabb Elementary, to measure the effect of PBIS on student discipline referrals and attendance. Referrals were evaluated from 2006-2012, …

Student-Teacher Interactions For Bringing Out Student Ideas About Energy, Benedikt W. Harrer, Michael Wittmann, Rachel Scherr

Faculty Publications

Modern middle school science curricula use group activities to help students express their thinking and enable them to work together like scientists. We are studying rural 8th grade science classrooms using materials on energy. Even after spending several months with the same curriculum on other physics topics, students' engagement in group activities seems to be restricted to creating lists of words that are associated with energy. Though research suggests that children have rich and potentially valuable ideas about energy, our students don't seem to spontaneously use and express their ideas in the classroom. Only within or after certain interactions with …

Ua3/9 Challenging The Spirit Action Plan 2012-2013 To 2017-2018, President Gary Ransdell

Presidential Publications

No abstract provided.

Fall 2012 E-Certi Newsletter, Center For Educational Research And Teaching Innovation

CAFE Faculty Newsletters

Hello S&T instructors: The fall semester is here and with it a time of saying farewell to Vice Provost Harvest Collier. Read a tribute to him here. Also, read about how Hank Pernicka teaches rocket science and consistently garners teaching awards, plus, find out little known facts about S&T’s Woman of the Year and details of this year’s Curators’ Teaching Summit. Welcome back!

Elementary School Experience With Comprehension Testing May Influence Metacomprehension Accuracy Among Seventh And Eighth Graders, Keith W. Thiede, Joshua S. Redford, Jennifer Wiley, Thomas D. Griffin

Curriculum, Instruction, and Foundational Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

We explored whether exposure to different kinds of comprehension tests during elementary years influenced metacomprehension accuracy among 7^th and 8^th graders. This research was conducted in a kindergarten through eighth grade charter school with an expeditionary learning curriculum. In literacy instruction, teachers emphasize reading for meaning and inference building, and they regularly assess deep comprehension with summarization, discussion, dialogic reasoning and prediction activities throughout the elementary years. The school recently expanded, doubling enrollments in 7^th and 8^th grades. Thus, approximately half of the students had long-term exposure to the curriculum and the other half did not. …

Concept Mapping Improves Metacomprehension Accuracy Among 7Th Graders, Joshua Redford, Keith W. Thiede, Jennifer Wiley, Thomas Griffin

Curriculum, Instruction, and Foundational Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

Two experiments explored concept map construction as a useful intervention to improve metacomprehension accuracy among 7th grade students. In the first experiment, metacomprehension was marginally better for a concept mapping group than for a rereading group. In the second experiment, metacomprehension accuracy was significantly greater for a concept mapping group than for a control group—a group of students who were given already constructed concept maps had accuracy between these two groups. In both experiments, control groups had poor metacomprehension accuracy. That is, they performed worse on tests they predicted better performance and performed better on tests they predicted worse performance. …

Turkish Pre-Service Teachers` Perceived Self-Efficacy Beliefs And Knowledge About Using Expository Text As An Instructional Tool In Their Future Classroom Settings, Kasim Yildirim, Seyit Ates

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

The aim of this research was to examine Turkish pre-service teachers` knowledge and perceived self-efficacy beliefs toward using expository text as an instructional tool in their future classroom settings. The research sample were 346 pre-service teachers who studied in different teacher preparation programs which included elementary classroom and middle content classrooms (for example, science, social studies and Turkish language arts) teaching professions. A teacher efficacy inventory and a knowledge test about using expository text were developed and administered to the pre-service teachers in a public university in Turkey. The research findings showed that there was a small but positive correlation …

A Case Study Of Two High School English Teachers Transitioning From Arkansas Writing Standards To Common Core Writing Standards In The Secondary English Classroom, Cindy M. Williams

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of the study is to gain an understanding of secondary English teachers' perceptions towards implementing Common Core writing standards. The study allowed me to examine how teachers' perceptions affect the level of implementation of Common Core writing standards in their English classrooms during the first year. The study focused on two research questions and two sub-questions centering on the perceptions of secondary English teachers and how they are responding to early implementation to the Common Core State Standards. Specific facets to consider in teachers' transitioning from state standards to Common Core standards are what pedagogical training opportunities teachers …

The Neglected Minority: Interviews With Successful Community College Students From Poverty, Heather Hollifield-Hoyle

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Poverty in the US is growing at an alarming rate. The current economic climate demands higher education to embrace the economic diversity of all students and to prepare them, regardless of economic class, for a globally competitive workplace. Unfortunately, the higher education community is not as adept at serving low-income students, as it is middle- and upper- income students. Low-income students are less likely than their more affluent peers to enroll in college or graduate. Employing qualitative narrative methods, this dissertation explores the factors that contributed to the persistence and success of 18, low-income, community college students. This study addresses …

Variables Associated With Sense Of Community In Online And On-Ground Clinical Doctorate Education, Tracy Chapman

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

This study examined classroom community, as measured by the Classroom Community Scale (Rovai, 2002c), among online and on-ground students (N = 386) enrolled in Doctor of Pharmacy or Doctor of Occupational Therapy courses. Multiple regression analysis identified variables (student and course variables) shown to significantly predict the presence of community among students. Results revealed the set of predictor variables are different for each sub-group of students. Community among on-ground students was predicted by the amount of small group work used in a course, the course’s primary type of learning outcome (affective or cognitive), and the students’ self-reported estimated grade. …

Adolescent Mothers In An Intervention Study A Qualitative Analysis Of Variables Relating To Their Teaching Interactions With Their Infants, Janisse Guzman

HIM 1990-2015

The intent of this thesis was to study, in depth, the experiences of four adolescent mothers who underwent a home intervention program. I studied two mothers who did well with teaching their 12-month old children during play, and two mothers who did not do as well. All four mothers received weekly intervention from the time of their child's birth through 12-months of age. I studied the following variables: 1) how much time the home visitors spent on selected child development and parenting topics; 2) the mother's perceived social support; 3) how many community resources the mother used; and 4) if …

Modes Of Presentation In The Education Of Secondary Students With Disabilities, Annie Laurie Quinn

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Abstract: bold

Characteristics Of Quality Agricultural Magazine Capstone Courses Based On The Five R'S Model, Traci Nicole Rushing

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study sought to assess students' and instructors' perceptions regarding the value of an agricultural communications magazine capstone course at three universities that were identified as exemplary in an effort to describe the characteristics leading to the course's success. Using a qualitative survey methodology, the investigator administered an open-response survey, conducted personal interviews with purposively-selected students in each course and the instructors, and made field observations. Both the interviews and the surveys consisted of six, in-depth questions crafted after Andreasen's (2004) of a successful magazine capstone course. Based on students' and instructors' perceptions through the lens of Andreasen's (2004) model, …

A Pilot Study: The Use Of A Survey To Assess The Food Knowledge Of Nutrition Students At Various Levels Of Nutrition Education, Chante Chambers

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

A working definition of a concept known as ‘food literacy’ encompasses using basic food preparation knowledge that has been learned, understood, and practiced to make better food decisions. To advance these skills for client service, a post-secondary nutrition program would need to include objectives that allow application of knowledge. For this reason, the purpose of this study was to determine the difference in knowledge and application among students in 100, 200 and 400 level college nutrition course(s). A survey was developed to measure the food knowledge of these college students as they prepare for careers as health care professionals. The …

Implications Of The No Child Left Behind Legislation On Career And Technical Education, Thomas Kyle Wallace

Dissertations

The passage of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation in 2001 brought about a multitude of education reform policies for education institutions that made the future of Career and Technical Education’s (CTE) role in secondary educations unclear. These mandates forced educational leaders to emphasize student enrollment in tracks that prepare them for post-secondary educational opportunities that require a stronger background in academic courses. The standards-based mandates required by NCLB legislation make promotion of CTE courses more difficult because these courses are primarily elective courses and have caused educational agencies to look at what CTE programs provide in terms of meeting …