Digital Commons Network^™

Learning: A Teaching Philosophy, Stephen Allen Warren

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This portfolio presents the author’s current understanding of second language teaching. The main section of the portfolio consists of a teaching philosophy that expresses the author’s believe that definitions of learning direct second language teaching. Three artifacts explore language, culture, and literature and express the development of the author’s teaching philosophy. An annotated bibliography covers the essential readings done in the course of study and provides the foundations for the author’s ontological arguments.

A Study Of District Leadership Practices In The Principal Professional Learning Community, Danielle Grace Miller

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This qualitative study was implemented in an urban, Title I school district in the southern portion of the United States. The problem the study addressed was that the various phenomena pertaining to the implementation of the principal professional learning community (PPLC), as perceived by the 14 participating elementary school principals, had not been examined to determine their influence. Qualitative data were acquired from the principals through personal interviews.

Findings suggested that, with the regular opportunities for principals to share ideas and thoughts with their colleagues, PPLC participants perceived improved performance involving (a) the attributes of high skillfulness and high participation …

What Is The Participant Learning Experience Like Using Youtube To Study A Foreign Language?, Yuan-Hsiang Lo

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This research is to explore and understand participants' experience using YouTube to learn a foreign language. YouTube and learning has become more and more popular in the recent years. The finding of this research will be adding more understanding to the emerging body of knowledge of YouTube phenomenon. In this research, there are three interviews and two questionnaires. The interviews are conducted to find in-depth responses from participants; the questionnaires are used to inquire demographic and basic information about the participants. There are twelve themes found in this research. These themes reflect on the perceived experience using YouTube to learn …

Learning As Doing –Common Goals And Interests Across Management And Education., Pauline Joyce

Pauline Joyce

Aim: The aim of this study was to evaluate approaches to learning of healthcare professionals in a postgraduate management programme.

Background: The study was carried out in a higher education institution.

Methods: An evaluation research study of an interprofessional healthcare group was carried out with students (insider stakeholders), and their lecturers and external examiner (external stakeholders). All three perspectives are presented here. Data was collected by interview, document analysis and reflection.

Results: This paper focused on the domain of learning as doing, as a major theme of the study, drawing variances between nurses and other healthcare professionals. The study highlights …

A Rough Look At The Shifting Effects On Learning Through Student Work Placement, Frank Cullen

Articles

The use of internship as a means of informal education is relatively commonplace. This is evident by the vast amount of literature dedicated to workplace learning, however very little research to date has explored the impact of international culinary internships on students. This paper addresses the void in research by exploring the nuances associated with culinary internships and in particular investigates the 2006 and 2007 student cohorts studying in the Technological University Dublin for the degree award of BA in Culinary Arts. The paper examines the internship preparation and experiences examining the impact of internship on the student’s attitudes towards …

Leaving In The Past: The Role History Plays In Video Games, Joseph Fordham

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

How can something considered by many within academia as childish or a waste of time be potentially useful in presenting or even studying history? Not only has the video game industry grown into one of the largest forms of media in the world, but these games are also finding use as a training aid for the military and major companies, as an advertising medium, and, most importantly, as a tool for teaching. As developmental capabilities improve with new generations of graphics hardware, video games are turning towards the recreation of real-world and historical events. This drive towards realism and accuracy …

An Item Response Curves Analysis Of The Force Concept Inventory, Gary A. Morris, Nathan Harshman, Lee Branum-Martin, Eric Mazur, Taha Mzoughi, Stephen D. Baker

Faculty Articles

Several years ago, we introduced the idea of item response curves (IRC), a simplistic form of item response theory (IRT), to the physics education research community as a way to examine item performance on diagnostic instruments such as the Force Concept Inventory (FCI). We noted that a full-blown analysis using IRT would be a next logical step, which several authors have since taken. In this paper, we show that our simple approach not only yields similar conclusions in the analysis of the performance of items on the FCI to the more sophisticated and complex IRT analyses but also permits additional …

Parent And Family Engagement: The Missing Piece In Urban Education Reform, Sonya D. Horsford, Tonia Faye Holmes-Sutton

Lincy Institute Reports and Briefs

Parent and family engagement in the educational lives of children and youth positively influence student learning and achievement. While this connection may seem obvious, varying ideals of parent engagement limit the ways in which school communities understand, encourage, and benefit from meaningful school‐home‐community interactions. This is frequently the case in culturally diverse, urban communities where education reform has focused heavily on high‐stakes testing, teacher accountability, and school choice, but less on the fragile connections that often exist between schools and the families they serve. The purpose of this policy brief is to review selected research on parent involvement and expand …

Not You/Like You, With You: Toward A Praxis Of Love, Learning, And Liberation In Teaching Efl Writing — On Zombies, De-Colonial Feminisms, And Freire In Efl Contact Zones, Jessmaya Morales

MA TESOL Collection

This paper explores EFL writing as a critical contact zone in which identity and subjectivity are found, denied, contested, de/constructed and occupied. The author opens with an account of a dream, utilized as a metaphor to examine EFL learning through the analytical lens of Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed. The paper’s first section is a self-reflexive discussion of Freire’s pedagogy and why his unambiguous analyses of power, subjectivity, and the “banking system of education” are vital to the field of ELT. In the second section, the author discusses subjectivity, identity, and intersectionality as rooted in the work of …

The Gaise College Report: The American Statistical Association Meets Sound Pedagogy In Central Virginia, Beverly Wood

Publications

Research in undergraduate statistics education often centers on the introductory course required for a large percentage of college students. While acknowledging the diverse setting, audience, and purpose of introductory courses, existing research assumes that courses offered by different disciplines share the same goals and teaching practices. The purpose of this study is to examine the objectives for student outcomes and pedagogical delivery of introductory statistics courses in various academic departments to provide explicit evidence for this assumption. The American Statistical Association’s Guidelines for Assessment and Instruction in Statistics Education (GAISE) are meant to apply to all introductory courses. The College …

Simulating Real Lives: Promoting Global Empathy And Interest In Learning Through Simulation Games, Christine Bachen, Pedro F. Hernández-Ramos, Chad Raphael

Communication

In response to an increasingly interdependent world, educators are demonstrating a growing interest in educating for global citizenship. Many definitions of the “good global citizen” value empathy as an especially important disposition for understanding others across national borders and cultural divides. Yet it may be difficult for people to achieve empathy with others who are perceived as psychologically and geographically distant. Can computerized simulation games help foster global empathy and interest in global civic learning? This quasiexperimental classroom study of 301 Northern California high school students in three schools examined the effects of playing REAL LIVES, a simulation game that …

Knowledge, Learning, And Teaching: Striving For Conocimiento, Tim Sieber

Tim Sieber

Anzaldúa inspires my courage to write and speak plainly, and together with encouragement from several good colleagues, I offer personal testimony, as part of a critical reflection on my own long teaching practice, my earlier writing and speaking about education, and an even longer history as a learner. Love is at the heart of it, a concern for students' well being, intellectual and spiritual. As bell hooks has noted, an "engaged pedagogy" involves the teacher in "sharing in the intellectual and spiritual growth" (hooks 1994: 13) of students, not only for the student's sake, but also for the professor's. Of …

Art Is Always A Series Of Questions To Contemplate, Not Solve, Carla Poindexter

UCF Forum

Why do people value a painting or drawing? An elementary-school student I know recently answered: “Because when we look at art we can see how the artist felt about things.”

Café Culture: Promoting Empowerment And Pleasure In Adolescent Literacy Learning, Brandi Gribble Mathers, Amanda J. Stern

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

The 160 third, seventh, and eleventh-graders involved in this study agreed, almost unanimously, that reading was“important.” Participants cited the empowering benefits of reading as they justified this opinion. However, with regards to the enjoyment of reading, fewer middle and high school participants reported “liking” reading than their elementary counterparts and fewer reported reading in their free time.

One solution to this dilemma involves providing adolescent students with a context devoted solely to pleasure reading. In doing so, educators can look to an institution that boasts both an historical link to literate culture and current-day pop culture appeal: the coffeehouse. When …

Getting Your Research Published, From Student To School: Third Annual Graduate Student Conference, 12 June, 2012, Learning, Teaching, Technology Centre, Roisin Donnelly

Graduate Student Conferences

Proceedings and abstracts of the 3rd. annual graduate student conference held in DIT, Aungier Street, 12 June, 2012.

Working-Class Students And Historical Inquiry, Leslie Schuster

Faculty Publications

For the past twelve years, I have been teaching a lower division introductory historical methods course that uses active learning to introduce students to the issues and practices of historical methods, the "how to" of historical inquiry, research and writing. While there are many models for such a course, including the one described by Jeffrey Merrick in the February 2006 issue of this journal, the design of such a course at my institution requires consideration of an often-overlooked dimension. The student body at Rhode Island College (RIC) is primarily working class, mirroring a significant transformation in the traditional college student …

Health Education In A Web-Based Learning Environment - Learners' Perceptions., Lori Lockyer, Barry Harper, John W. Patterson

John Patterson

The increasing utilization of the World Wide Web in higher education allows instructors to re examine pedagogical strategies and explore ways of taking advantage of the Web's potential to provide for learning experiences that go beyond that possible in the traditional classroom environment. Assumptions on how this enhances the learning experience for students require examination. This paper discusses a study which examines, among other issues, student perceptions of the learning experience when asynchronous, Web-based, collaborative tutorial activities are utilized within an undergraduate health education subject. Analysis of the study data demonstrates that students' perceptions of the effectiveness of the Web-based …

The Development Of An On-Line Learning Community Of Physical And Health Education Professionals, Lori Lockyer, Gregg S. Rowland, John W. Patterson

John Patterson

While ad hoc, course-specific projects have allowed early adopters to explore possible innovations in the use of information and communication technologies in facilitating flexible learning situations, educational institutions are now exploring more integrated strategies to such developments. This paper describes the development of one such strategy that attempts to foster a community-wide approach for a group of professionals coming to terms with the most effective way to utilise technologies -- physical and health educators. The Faculty of Education at University of Wollongong is developing an on-line learning community to facilitate the pre-service education and continuing professional development of students, faculty …

Blogging About Summer Reading, Janice Becker Place

Master's Theses, Dissertations, Graduate Research and Major Papers Overview

The purpose of this study was to investigate what happened when grade 11 high school honors students blogged about their summer reading under the monitoring of a teacher during vacation. I proposed that an educational blog might serve as an effective tool during summer vacation to help students retain skills or learning while at a physical distance from their school and teacher. In addition to the blog’s transcripts, a pre-project survey, post-project survey,and post-project interviews provided complementary data to inform my analysis. Qualitative analysis was applied to the blog discussion entries for evidence of peer learning, scaffolding, critical thinking, and …

Understanding The Design Context For Australian University Teachers: Implications For The Future Of Learning Design, Susan Bennett, Lisa Thomas, Shirley Agostinho, Lori Lockyer, Jennifer Jones, Barry Harper

Professor Lori Lockyer

Based on the premise that providing support for university teachers in designing for their teaching will ultimately improve the quality of student learning outcomes, recent interest in the development of support tools and strategies has gained momentum. This article reports on a study that examined the context in which Australian university teachers design in order to understand what role design support tools and strategies could play. In-depth interviews were conducted with 30 academics across 16 Australian universities. The findings suggest that most Australian university teachers have a high degree of flexibility in their design decisions suggesting that opportunities exist for …

Integrating Technology To Enhance Teaching And Learning In Physical And Health Education: An Activehealth Framework, Gregg S. Rowland, Douglas Hearne, Lori Lockyer, Philip J. Pearson

Professor Lori Lockyer

In an era of limited resources across educational sectors, academics associated with faculties of education are under increasing pressure to find innovative ways to support their teaching and research activities - activities with which collaboration and interaction with pre-service teachers, practicing teachers and fellow academics is crucial. As such, developing a sustained community that involves such representative members is paramount for academics. A team at the University of Wollongong has initiated this concept through research and development of the ActiveHealth learning community for physical and health educators. Whilst it is envisaged that such a project will take time to establish, …

An Examination Of Learning Design Descriptions In A Repository, Shirley Agostinho, Susan J. Bennett, Lori Lockyer, Lisa Kosta, Jennifer Jones, Barry Harper

Professor Lori Lockyer

The past decade has seen a significant expansion of flexible learning in higher education as new communication technologies have broadened the scope and potential for online learning. With this expansion has come the need for pedagogically sound learning experiences and an interest in reusing effective pedagogical designs. The concept of a ‘learning design’ - a formalism for documenting educational practice to facilitate sharing and reuse by teachers, is being researched as one way of supporting dissemination of ‘best practice’. This paper reports an analytical study that sought to advance understanding of what constitutes an effective learning design description based on …

Learning Or Performance: Predicting Drivers Of Student Motivation, Shane P. Dawson, Leah Macfadyen, Lori Lockyer

Professor Lori Lockyer

There is substantial research demonstrating that a student’s motivation for learning can be largely explained in terms of their preferred achievement orientation. This paper explores a case study investigating ICT derived lead indicators of student achievement orientation, and therefore underlying motivations. The study incorporated Tan’s (2009) research on learning dispositions to quantify student achievement orientations. These findings were then correlated with student LMS data to identify if patterns of online behaviour are indicative of the observed achievement orientation scores. The results suggest that there is a significant correlation between student achievement orientation and participation in discussion forums. Students reporting a …

Learning To Teach Mathematics With Reasoning And Sense Making, Amy L. Nebesniak

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

This study uses teacher research to examine teacher learning in the context of instructional coaching. The author, a mathematics instructional coach, engaged in an intense three-week coaching relationship with a high school Algebra teacher. A detailed description of the teaching and learning of quadratics that took place during this research provide information about what and how a teacher learns to teach mathematics with reasoning and sense making. Mapping the terrain of quadratics deepened the teacher’s understanding of the mathematical content and encouraged him to adapt his textbook in order to build mathematical reasoning. Through the coaching process, the teacher also …

Exploring Second Language Learning: Communicative Competence, Pragmatics, And Second Language Literacy, Timothy M. Mecham

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This portfolio is a compilation of the author’s teaching philosophy and three artifacts that explore elements of second language teaching. The teaching philosophy contains the author’s strategies of second language teaching including instructional practice, communicative language teaching theory, and application. This portfolio also contains artifacts of second language teaching that explore communicative competence, formal address pragmatics, and second language literacy. An annotated bibliography of books and articles that have impacted the author’s teaching beliefs and practices is also included.

Sassin' Through Sadhana': Learned Leadership Journeys Of Black Women In Holistic Practices, Rachel Panton

Communication, Media, and Arts Faculty Book and Book Chapters

Women of color, especially Black women, are underrepresented in the extant literature and research of adult development and mind, body, spirit leadership. This in-depth qualitative portraiture study explored the lives of three Black women who have been leading their communities as adult educators of mind, body, spirit practices. This examination seeks to extend the research on Black female adult development and learning to include those who are guiding their respective communities through Yoruba, Yoga, and Christian-based holistic practices by addressing these questions: How have their spiritual/religious practices changed from childhood? What was their preparation for their current teaching practice like? …

An Investigation Into The Practicality And Applicability Of The Pendandragogic Framework: A Case Study Of Faculty Attitude Toward A Learner-Centered Model Of Teaching And Learning At A University In The Southern United States, Selwyn Samaroo

Masters Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

This study defines and explores pedandragogy as a teaching and learning model using a southern university in the United States of America as a case study. It examines its applicability to a multiplicity of academic disciplines, testing the attitudes of faculty towards the implementation of the learner-centered approach in higher education. Pedandragogy focuses on the concept of self-engagement and the independence of learners through the creation of a learning environment conducive to a learner-centered approach. This study seeks to answer the question: Can the pedandragogic framework be practically applied to a multiplicity of academic disciples in higher education? And, among …

Role-Playing And Simulation Based Learning In Higher Education: Case Study In Model United Nations, Jason Fortin

Honors Projects in History and Social Sciences

It is currently estimated that more than 200,000 high school and university students participate in model United Nations each year. With over 400 annual conferences in thirty-five countries, this fifty-year-old tradition has redefined how students engage international relations in an academic setting (Educational Outreach 1). Active learning has been heralded for decades as a superior technique to teach various disciplines, including international relations. It allows students to experience deep learning and develop skills unattainable through conventional pedagogical methods. This paper explores the specific impact of a model United Nations simulation on the academic experience and student performance through a controlled …

A Student's Perspective Of Learning On A Dedicated Education Unit, Rachael L. Johnsen

Honors Projects

It is the intent of this honors project to give a student’s perspective of learning in the Dedicated Education Unit (DEU) on Bridge 7 at Rhode Island Hospital. Bridge 7 is a 38-bed unit specializing in general medical surgical patient care services. A student’s perspective is illustrated by journal entries written from each clinical experience over the course of one semester, during the course Adult Health II. In addition to a student’s perspective, it is the intention to compare the learning experience on the DEU, to the traditional model of clinical learning. This project will include current nursing research that …

Self-Directed Learning In Problem-Based Learning Versus Traditional Lecture-Based Learning: A Meta-Analysis, Heather M. Leary

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Problem-based learning is an approach to education and learning that focuses on students investigating problems, rather than being directly instructed by teachers. Reviews, also called meta-analyses, comparing traditional lecture-based learning to problem-based learning report modest positive learning gains in student cognitive outcomes. Many meta-analyses have been conducted to analyze the effectiveness of problem-based learning, but none examine the extent of self-directed learning in problem-based learning. The purpose of this study was to conduct a meta-analysis across all disciplines (medicine, education, business, history, etc.) while examining self-directed learning in problem-based learning.

This study used a random effects model meta-analysis using 75 …