Pre-Elementary, Early Childhood, Kindergarten Teacher Education Commons^™

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.

The Effectiveness Of Embedded Picture Mnemonic Alphabet Cards On Letter Recognition And Letter Sound Knowledge, Gabrielle Mcnamara

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to compare the use of embedded letter and picture mnemonic cards and separated letter and picture mnemonic cards on students' letter recognition and letter sound knowledge. The study implemented a single subject, alternating treatment design. The participants were three preschool students. A pretest, posttest, and one week follow-up were utilized to collect data. The independent variables were the use of the embedded letter and picture mnemonic cards and separated letter and picture mnemonic cards. The dependent variable was the measure of the participants' letter recognition and letter sound knowledge. Overall, the results of the …

Investigating The Status Of Early Numeracy Skills In Bilingual Dual Language Learner Latino Children Attending Head Start And The Association With Parent Demographic Characteristics, Chavely Lissette Iglesias

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Research on mathematics achievement has become increasingly important with today's technological advances and demand for specialized knowledge. Though there is much literature regarding mathematics achievement in monolingual speakers, little is known regarding the mathematical abilities of Dual Language Learner (DLL) Latino children. This study examined the early numeracy skills in English and Spanish of 132 DLL Latino children attending Head Start programs in five counties across Florida. Relationships and differences among their performance in both languages were examined, along with the contribution of specific parent demographic variables to math achievement. Findings indicated that DLL Latino Head Start children's performance on …

Number Sense: The Underpinning Understanding For Early Quantitative Literacy, Effie Maclellan

Numeracy

The fundamental meaning of Quantitative Literacy (QL) as the application of quantitative knowledge or reasoning in new/unfamiliar contexts is problematic because how we acquire knowledge, and transfer it to new situations, is not straightforward. This article argues that in the early development of QL, there is a specific corpus of numerical knowledge which learners need to integrate into their thinking, and to which teachers should attend. The paper is a rebuttal to historically prevalent (and simplistic) views that the terrain of early numerical understanding is little more than simple counting devoid of cognitive complexity. Rather, the knowledge upon which early …

Building Conceptual Understanding Through Vocabulary Instruction, William H. Rupley, William Dee Nichols, Maryann Mraz, Timothy R. Blair

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

Instructional design is an integral part of a balanced approach to teaching vocabulary instruction. This article presents several instructional procedures using research-based vocabulary strategies and explains how to design and adapt those strategies in order to reach desired learning outcomes. Emphasis is placed on research-based principles that guide effective vocabulary instruction and on the importance of incorporating vocabulary instruction into all phases of the reading lesson framework--before, during, and after reading (Blair, Rupley, & Nichols 2007; Vacca, Vacca, & Mraz 2011). Vocabulary instruction should encourage students to make associations and accommodations to their experiences and provide them with varied opportunities …

The Professional Development Practices Of Two Reading First Coaches, Charlotte A. Mundy, Dorene D. Ross, Melinda M. Leko

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

To establish job-embedded, ongoing professional development recent policies and initiatives required that districts appoint school-based coaches. The Reading First Initiative, for example, created an immediate need for coaches without a clear definition of coaches’ responsibilities. Therefore, the purpose of this case study was to investigate how two Reading First coaches interpreted and enacted their professional development responsibilities. Cross-case analyses identified similarities and differences in coaches’ enactments. Findings revealed that while each coach engaged in similar professional development responsibilities (e.g. modeling, observing, and classroom walkthroughs) their approach to these responsibilities differed — collaborative versus expert driven. These differences in approaches indicate …

An Evaluation Of The Implementation Of "The Happiest Toddler On The Block" Parenting Strategies By Young Mothers, Amye Elizabeth Bock

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Young parents and their children are considered a high-risk population as they are more likely to lack social support networks, have limited access to opportunities to enhance parenting skills, and are often financially dependent. Young children whose mothers have poor parenting skills are more likely to have persistent problem behavior. Three young mothers living in a transitional housing facility participated in this study. The purpose of this study was to determine if these mothers could implement parenting strategies that are a part of a commercially available parenting book and DVD. This study found that: (1) mothers were able to correctly …

Kindergarten Diagnostic Toolkit, Mayra Yuridia Navarro Gomez

All Graduate Projects

This project was used for multiple purposes. The first was the identification of supplemental intervention activities in attempt to treat reading difficulties. The second was the creation of a Kindergarten Diagnostic Toolkit (KDT) as a means for early detection of learning deficits. Upon completion of beginning of the year assessments and use of the KDT checklist, instructional suggestions for remediation were made with a focus on explicit/systematic alphabetic, phonemic, and decoding skills. The need for such specific diagnostic assessment of early reading skills is further required with such high stakes testing requirements. Strategies specific to early literacy skills are connected …

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 …

A Qualitative Study On Student Reflections During Early Childhood Education Placement, Yiu Fai, James Au

Practical Social and Industrial Research Symposium

No abstract provided.

Professional Development Needs Of Early Childhood Providers: A Focus Group Study, Cristin Caparotta

Honors Scholar Theses

Research indicates that the quality of early childhood (EC) education and care influence child development. While the developmental and educational needs of young children are clear, the characteristics of quality programs are known, and school readiness goals are well articulated, the field lacks a coherent, coordinated approach to preservice training; additionally, the ongoing professional development (PD) needs and priorities of providers are not known. This occurs amidst significant changes in the structure, funding, teacher preparation, and program objectives for CT EC programs. This study employed focus groups to explore the extent to which EC providers feel prepared to address the …

Perceived Efficacy Of Beginning Teachers To Differentiate Instruction, Michelle K. Casey, Robert K. Gable

Teacher Education

A two-phase, sequential mixed-methods design was used to assess perceptions of teacher efficacy (10 item survey, alpha = .90) to differentiate instruction for N = 36 graduates from one MAT teacher preparation program. Research questions addressed levels of self-efficacy, perceptions of preparedness, teaching tenure, and number of certifications held. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, one-way ANOVA and t-test procedures. A focus group with N = 10 purposively selected 2010 graduates and interviews with N = 2 graduates each from the 2008 and 2009 classes, and N = 2 faculty were conducted. No significant relationships were found for tenure and …

Idocument: How Smartphones And Tablets Are Changing Documentation In Preschool And Primary Classrooms, William A. Parnell, Jackie Bartlett

Education Faculty Publications and Presentations

The article discusses the use of smartphones and other digital technology devices in early childhood education as a means of documenting students' daily progress and integrating it into online portfolios. It addresses the benefits of including parents in education through educational blogs and other online resources. The authors suggest tips for effective digital documentation and mobile technology usage. Other topics explored include interpreting children's learning, reaffirming children as learners, and addressing the limitations of handheld technology.