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The Role Of The Kindergarten : History, Concerns, And Guidelines For Developing An Effective Kindergarten Program, Amanda N. Herber

Graduate Research Papers

This literature review examined the recent literature on the subject of the role of today's kindergarten program. The age of the children, maturity level, attitude.and stress, and confidence were discussed. Guidelines were also presented for developing an effective kindergarten program. Conclusions were drawn from the current literature and recommendations were made for future kindergarten programs.

Contextual Learning Vs. Standardized Testing : And The Winner Is ... ?, Lorinda Leedom

Graduate Research Papers

Our educational system is currently in the grips of No Child Left Behind and the stress of proving students' abilities via mandated standardized tests. This stress is changing teachers' focus from providing a contextual learning environment for students to passing tests. Six struggling middle school students participated in a summer program where contextual learning and frequent standardized assessment existed together. Through this program, the students' needs were met and data was provided that demonstrated educational gains. This data suggests that authentic real world experiences do not need to be omitted from the curriculum in order to provide measurable results on …

Parental Involvement: Teachers' And Parents' Voices, Karen Shearer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Parents have been involved in the education of their children since the early days of our nation. Their roles have evolved from teaching the basics of reading writing and arithmetic in Colonial times to overseeing the selection of teachers and designing the curriculum during the early 1800s to providing academic support in the home up through the present time. Although educators are generally viewed as professionals and in charge of their students' education, the importance of parental involvement is readily acknowledged. Confusing to both parents and educators is what constitutes parental involvement. The research revealed numerous definitions for the term, …

Science Education On The U.S./Mexico Border: Field-Based Studies For Future Teachers In Bilingual/Binational Schools, William Robertson, Judith Munter, Claudia Garcia

Departmental Papers (TE)

The University of Texas at El Paso’s field-based program of studies for future teachers provides opportunities for powerful learning through a dialectical union of reflection and action. Methods courses in academic disciplines are linked with seminars and coursework on community partnerships, critical pedagogy and culturally responsive education. This article illustrates the processes of planning, implementation and evaluation of this approach, highlighting the impacts of community service learning. Parents, students and future teachers interact in workshops that center on validating native language literacy, increasing parental involvement and providing conceptually correct science education. The project indicates that two-way dual language programs with …

Career-Related Issues In Secondary Schools: A Literature Review, Jennifer E. Mcghee

Perspectives In Learning

The career counselor’s role over the past 100 years or so has evolved from being a placement tool in the industrial revolution to that of providing a more holistic approach to meeting both the career and personal concerns of individuals. More and more counselors are beginning to focus on the person as a whole, including values, interests, abilities, skills, and work-life experiences, as they counsel on career-related issues (Zunker, 2006). As a focus on human development and the whole person enters the counseling field, school counselors are faced with developing comprehensive school guidance systems that meet the needs of students …

Alcohol And Drug Use: The Negative Effect On Health And Academic Achievement, Judson Mccarley, Heather Holloway

Perspectives In Learning

Most know the damaging and lethal effects that drugs and alcohol pose upon our children and young people today. Parents and schools work hard at limiting these terrible and devastating results. However, is this effort enough and what is the latest research on alcohol and drug use by school age children? Although there are significant effects from drug and alcohol use on health and academic achievement, there are a variety of interventions used in keeping children clean. Alcohol and drug use by school-age children poses serious health and safety risks. The three leading causes of death for 15-24 year olds …

Not Making Or Shaping: Finding Authenticity In Faculty Development, Patricia Cranton

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Authenticity is defined as a multifaceted concept that includes self-awareness, awareness of others, genuine relationships, awareness of contextual constraints, and living a critical life. Authenticity develops over time and with experience; a developmental continuum for authenticity is discussed. Drawing on a three-year research project on authenticity in teaching in higher education, this chapter suggests ways in which faculty developers can help foster authentic practice.

Tailoring Faculty Development Programs To Faculty Career Stages, Peter Seldin

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

College faculty progress through a series of sequential career stages. Each is characterized by different motivations and professional development needs. Yet, too often, faculty developers rely on hunches rather than empirical data to guide programming decisions. This chapter describes the important research findings of a just completed national study to determine the different programming interests and needs of more than 500 beginning, mid-career, and senior-level faculty in the United States.

Creating Engaged Departments: A Program For Organizational And Faculty Development, Kevin J. Kecskes, Sherril B. Gelmon, Amy Spring

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Portland State University encourages faculty participation in service-learning by providing faculty with individual incentives to support and reward them. Now, in recognition of this central role of the department in higher education, administrators interested in creating sustained civic engagement initiatives on campus are looking to the department as a strategic leverage point for change. This chapter investigates a yearlong engaged department initiative and finds that a collective approach can (re)connect individual faculty to their initial motivations for engaging in the profession, to a community of scholars, to their students, and also to their surrounding community.

Helping Faculty Learn To Teach Better And “Smarter” Through Sequenced Activities, Barbara J. Millis

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Faculty developers can help faculty learn to intentionally sequence assignments and activities to promote greater learning when they understand the convergent research—with its practical implications for teaching—on how people learn, on deep learning, and on cooperative learning. Such a sequence includes a motivating out-of-class assignment (homework), in-class “processing” that includes active learning and student interactions, and feedback and assessment, often given in multiple ways. This approach is modeled through two examples using graphic organizers.

A Theory–Based Integrative Model For Learning And Motivation In Higher Education, Chantal S. Levesque, G. Roger Sell, James A. Zimmerman

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

The shared mission of higher education institutions is to develop educated persons who are able to make connections and build on knowledge acquired across disciplines and fields and through various life experiences. This chapter offers a theory-based model that can be used by researchers and practitioners to enhance academic learning and motivation. Educators can create learning environments that move students from external regulation to self-determined forms of motivation. This model is used to describe conditions that enhance/restrict learning. It also has the potential to be used to interpret research on teaching and learning in higher education.

Colby College Catalogue 2006 - 2007, Colby College

Colby Catalogues

Colby College Catalogue: September 2006 - August 2007

The Effects Of Eating Disorders On Student Academic Achievement And The School Counselor’S Role, Dana Livingston, Lori Sammons

Perspectives In Learning

Eating Disorders have become an increasing reality among today’s youth. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, “approximately one out of every 100 adolescent girls develops anorexia.. .another two to five out of every 100 young women develop bulimia nervosa” (Understanding Disordered Eating and Eating Disorders, 2005, p. 6). Although eating disorders are usually seen as affecting girls, studies have shown that hundreds of thousands of boys experience eating disorders as well (Boys and Eating Disorders, 2004). Factors that make anorexia and bulimia painful, such as intense fear of weight gain and lack of self-esteem, cannot be …

Health Attitudes, Knowledge And Literacy Of Primary Caregivers With Elementary School Children, Susan Stuib

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Previous research has indicated that physical activity and healthy eating in elementary school children are the exception rather than the norm. Increased attention to the rising rates of childhood obesity, coupled with the recognition that changes in the school environment are critical to reducing this trend, has intensified the need to adopt better practices in school nutrition, physical activity and physical education. Apart from being physically active, children need to learn fundamental motor skills and develop health related physical fitness (cardiovascular endurance, muscular strength and endurance, flexibility, and body composition). Primary caregivers play an important part in developing and teaching …

Bryant University Undergraduate Course Catalog 2006-2007, Bryant University

Bryant University Undergraduate Course Catalog

No abstract provided.

Anti-Ethnography?, Ian Barnard

English Faculty Articles and Research

"Many of the ongoing difficulties teachers face revolve around the 'translation' of disciplinary knowledge—especially critical theory—into pedagogical praxis. It often seems that our teaching lags behind our theoretical knowledge by about two decades, and sometimes we wonder if it will ever catch up. This sense of disjunction has been compounded by the difficulty of teaching postmodern understandings of subjectivity, truth, and epistemology in an increasingly commodified teaching context, where consumers expect to purchase a clear, identifiable, and literally usable product, and where 'knowledge' often means easily digestible and repeatable content rather than analytic skills, critical understandings, or complex world views. …

Jaepl, Vol. 12, Winter 2006-2007, Kristie S. Fleckenstein, Linda T. Calendrillo

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Essays

Lynn Z. Bloom and Carla Hill. High Stakes Gambling in the Master Class

High Stakes Gambling in the Master Class explores some of the unarticulated intangibles in a relationship between Master Teacher and Honors Student (who collaborated in writing this essay), calculated to produce a distinguished honors thesis, sometimes out of thin air, gambling, playing the hunches that will allow a gleam in the eye to metamorphose into gold on the page.

Judith Beth Cohen. The Missing Body—Yoga and Higher Education.

Using her own yoga practice as a basis, this author argues for more bodily involvement in learning …

Writing Aphrodite: Imagining A Rhetoric Of Desire For A Feminist Writing Course, Hildy Miller

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Reaching back to the post-Jungian goddess feminism of decades past, this essay shows how the mythical figure Aphrodite can serve as an image for an alternative rhetoric of desire in a contemporary feminist writing class.

Mcluhan’S Warning, Frye’S Strategy, Emerson’S Dream, Rich Murphy

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

McLuhan's Warning, Frye's Strategy, Emerson's Dream argues the vital function of literary writing in the academy. The essay maps a road from the warnings of catastrophe by Marshall McLuhan to Emerson's dream of all American citizens being poets through the writing strategies of Northrop Frye. It is argued that what one learns through literary writing is especially important during the crises that are ongoing in the West.

Reviews, Mary Pettice, Kerrie R. H. Farkas, Edward Sullivan, Brad Lucas

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Reviews

Mary Pettice. Writing New Media: Theory and Applications for Expanding the Teaching of Composition. (Ed. Anne Frances Wysocki, Johndan Johnson-Eilola, Cynthia L. Selfe, and Geoffrey Sirc, 2004).

Kerrie R. H. Farkas. Writing at the End of the World . (Richard Miller, 2005).

Edward Sullivan. Field Notes on the Compassionate Life: A Search for the Soul of Kindness. (Marc Ian Barasch, 2005).

Brad Lucas. (Re)Writing Craft: Composition, Creative Writing, and the Future of English Studies. (Tim Mayers, 2005).

Connecting, Helen Walker, Darina Garcia, Ryan Skinnell, Lee Roecher, Louise Morgan

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Helen Walker. Connecting.

Danina Garcia —Message from a Student Writer.

Libby Falk Jones—Anger in the Teaching Life

Ryan Skinnell —Connections of a First-Year Teacher

Lee Roecher —Guiding the Passion.

Louise Morgan —Emails to Blow Off Steam

High Stakes Gambling In The Master Class, Lynn Z. Bloom, Carla Hill

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

High Stakes Gambling in the Master Class explores some of the unarticulated intangibles in a relationship between Master Teacher and Honors Student (who collaborated in writing this essay), calculated to produce a distinguished honors thesis, sometimes out of thin air, gambling, playing the hunches that will allow a gleam in the eye to metamorphose into gold on the page.

Bodies In The Classroom: Integrating Physical Literacy, Carolina Mancuso

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

This essay, based on research in Masters level classrooms for education students enrolled in a Graduate Literacy Program, addresses issues of mind-body-spirit teaching and learning..

“Lashing Out At ‘Intellectuals’”: Facing Fear On Both Sides Of The Desk, Stephanie Paterson

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

The author identifies stages in working through a personal attack in a student's composition. Turning toward conflict in a teacher researcher stance is a creative, self-renewing way to conduct the ongoing (often unexplored) intellectual-emotional work of writing teachers.

Uniting Creativity And Research: A Holistic Approach To Learning, Susan A. Schiller

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

The academy needs to move closer to a holistic form of education, one that values creativity and research equally.

Back Matter

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

No abstract provided.

Front Matter

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Editors' Message

Leaping into Uncertainty: Teaching and Learning beyond Logic and Reason

In 1846, Soren Kierkegaard set forth the limits of logical systems and objective truth, neither of which can shed light on the important questions of life. “In logical systems,” the nineteenth century Danish philosophy argues, “nothing may be incorporated that has a relationship to existence, that is not indifferent to existence” (141) because a logical system is purely speculative. Existence is an actuality, a doing. Logical systems cannot account for the necessary leap in life between almost doing something—thinking about doing something (and Kierkegaard’s example is taking the …

Moving Past Oppression To Empowerment: A Framework For Infusion Of Positive Historical Attributes Of Diverse Populations In High School United States History Curriculum, Grifan Inglis Cayce

All Graduate Projects

The relationship between student dispositions and content regarding historically marginalized cultures was studied. Research explored how the delivery by the teacher on challenging subjects would have a direct result on student dispositions and learning. The research supported the need to change the current approach of teaching United States history into a transformative model where students are challenged to think about history from different perspectives. Implications for curriculum delivery are discussed.

A 5-Stage Cross-Cultural Reentry Training Model: Proactive Curriculum And Training Giude For Exchange Organization Representatives, Sponsor Teachers And Returning Student Sojourners, Stacey Anne Howell

All Graduate Projects

This project is the result of an exploration into the process and product of cross-cultural reentry; that is, reentry into one's country of origin following an extended stay in a host country. The history of reentry training programs in the United States was researched, the process of cross-cultural adjustment was explored, and research involving the identity development of adolescents and the effects of stress on adolescents and adolescent sojourners was reviewed. Following a review of the research in these areas, an extensive five-stage curriculum model for cross-cultural reentry training was designed. The curriculum model includes a complete training outline, a …

Using Pop Culture And Media Together With Effective Literacy Instruction: A Teacher's Tool Kit For Selah H.S. Read Write Class, Stephanie Marie Sevigny

All Graduate Projects

A toolkit has been created to assist secondary teachers in using popular culture and the media in conjunction with explicit comprehension strategy instruction in the classroom in an effort to improve struggling students' comprehension. The toolkit consists of an introduction, examples and suggestions for using popular culture and media in the classroom, examples and guidelines for strategic comprehension instruction. CutTent literature and research regarding the use of popular culture and media in the classroom and effective comprehension strategy instruction were reviewed.