Digital Commons Network^™

Educating Teachers About The Complex Writing Processes Of Preschool Students (Project), Mary Kathleen Barrett

Honorable Mentions

Preschool teachers traditionally view young children’s written literacy development as a linear continuum that progresses from making scribbles, to lines, to letter strings, to invented, and finally, conventional spellings on paper. This project seeks to change preschool teachers’ perceptions of children’s writing development to encompass a more broadened definition of literacy. On the path from emergent to conventional writing, young children naturally negotiate and mediate a number of symbol systems in order to make sense of their worlds and create meaning as they come to understand the complexities and intricacies of the writing process. Exploration of these symbol systems is …

Investigating The World Of Mathematics To Uncover How Language Proficiency Influences English Language Learners Performance On High Stakes Tests (Thesis), Deborah Elizabeth Schuitema

Award Winners

English language learners (ELLs) must take the mathematics portion of state standardized tests regardless of their time spent in U.S. schools. This practice follows the misconception that mathematics is a ‘universal language’ and less language dependant, however, a significant performance gap between non-ELLs and ELLs on high stakes mathematics tests persists and must be addressed. In order to investigate the impact of language proficiency on high stakes test performance a cross-sectional study was conducted. The study included item performance data, by group, for 24,693 seventh and eighth grade students who took the 2007 and/or the 2008 mathematics Michigan Education Assessment …

Language And Culture, Chi-Yue Chiu

Online Readings in Psychology and Culture

Language pervades social life. It is a primary means by which we gain access to the contents of others' minds and establish shared understanding of the reality. Meanwhile, there is an enormous amount of linguistic diversity among human populations. Depending on what counts as a language, there are 3,000 to 10,000 living languages in the world, although a quarter of the world’s languages have fewer than 1,000 speakers and half have fewer than 10,000 (Crystal, 1997). Not surprisingly, a key question in culture and psychology research concerns the role of language in cultural processes. The present chapter focuses on two …

Lanthorn, Vol. 45, No. 36, January 24, 2011, Grand Valley State University

Volume 45, July 8, 2010 - June 9, 2011

Lanthorn is Grand Valley State's student newspaper, published from 1968 to the present.

Lanthorn, Vol. 45, No. 33, January 13, 2011, Grand Valley State University

Volume 45, July 8, 2010 - June 9, 2011

Lanthorn is Grand Valley State's student newspaper, published from 1968 to the present.

Theory Of Mind Understanding In Narration: A Study Among Children From Different Socioeconomic Backgrounds In India, Nandita Babu

Papers from the International Association for Cross-Cultural Psychology Conferences

This study investigates the theory of mind understanding as reflected in the narratives of children from families of low as well as high socioeconomic-status (SES). A group of 30 Hindi-speaking children from six to seven years of age and their mothers participated in this study. Children were asked to narrate six stories prompted by pictures and standard verbal probes. In addition, they were also administered false-belief tasks to assess their theory of mind understanding. Later, their mothers were asked to narrate three stories to their children. Content analysis of the stories indicated the frequency of occurrence of words referring to …

Validation Of The Infant-Toddler Home Inventory Among Households In Low Income Communities At The Kenyan Coast, Penny Holding, Amina Abubakar, Elizabeth Obiero, Fons J. R. Van De Vijver

Papers from the International Association for Cross-Cultural Psychology Conferences

The aim of this paper is to describe the adaptations made to the Infant-Toddler version of the Home Observation Measure of the Environment for use in a low income Kenyan population. A total of 425 (214 girls) children aged 6-35 months were involved in this cross-sectional study. Focus groups and in-depth individual interviews were used to generate culturally appropriate modifications. Translations and back translations of the HOME were carried out using a Panel Approach. A significant number of items from the original HOME (N = 26) showed limited variability and were excluded from the final schedule. Two more items were …

Estonians And Russians In Contemporary Estonia: Is The Soviet Past Still Dominating The Present?, Aksel Kirch, Tarmo Tuisk, Hanna-­‐Hulda Reinkort

Papers from the International Association for Cross-Cultural Psychology Conferences

The current article focuses on a study about Estonians and Russians living in Estonia. As a method we used Identity Structure Analysis (ISA) to investigate their patterns of identification with 'Estonians', 'Russians in Estonia', 'Russians in Russia', and 'Estonian Government'. The themes embraced constructions of the past, including the context of the Soviet Union's role in WWII. Findings suggest that alarming events on the streets of Tallinn (April 2007) appear to be related to the role of the Soviet Union in WWII inter alia, where its construction as 'occupier' of Eastern Europe (as opposed to 'liberator') forms a 'core evaluative …

Meaning Correlates Of Value Orientations, Shulamith Kreitler

Papers from the International Association for Cross-Cultural Psychology Conferences

The purpose was to explore the relations between value orientations and meaning assignment tendencies. The hypotheses were that values would be related to a certain number of meaning variables that would be similar in three cultural groups. The participants were 150 individuals of both genders living in Israel. They are from three cultural communities (50 participants each): Israeli, French, and Russian. They were administered the values inventory PQ IV by Schwartz (1992) and the Meaning Test by Kreitler and Kreitler (1990a). The relations between the values of hedonism, power, and benevolence and the meaning variables were analyzed by correlations. The …

To Learn Or Not To Learn: When Policy And Pedagogy Collide, Priscilla Shannon Gutierrez

Language Arts Journal of Michigan

No abstract provided.

The Veil Of Esteem: On Seeing Oneself Being Seen (Part Two: Riddle And Accident), Melba Vélez Ortiz

Peer Reviewed Articles

This article is the second of a three-part series entitled: The Veil of Esteem: On Seeing Oneself Being Seen. Inspired by Walter Benjamin’s “reflection through vignette” method, the author inquires into the notions and interconnections between memory and esteem. Esteem is the truth of oneself through the eyes of the other, and any truth of esteem must be told from the perspective of that other, through the spectating other. Thus, the author finds that any story of esteem is veiled. This second part, Riddle and Accident, explores unconditional love as maintained without the merit-worthy, yet it is its esteem that …

Object Associations Of Early-Learned Light And Heavy English Verbs, Josita Maouene, Aarre Laakso, Linda B. Smith

Peer Reviewed Articles

Many of the verbs that young children learn early have been characterized as ‘light.’ However, there is no agreed upon definition of ‘lightness’ and no usable metric that could be applied to a wide array of verbs. This article provides evidence for one metric by which the ‘lightness’ of early-learned verbs might be measured: the number of objects with which they are associated (in adult judgment) or co-occur (in speech to and by children). The results suggest that early-learned light verbs and heavy verbs differ in the breadth of the objects they are associated with: light verbs have weak associations …

Using Handheld Touch Screen Enabled Devices And Persuasive Game Mechanics To Teach Quadratic Functions, Alejandro Montoya

Technical Library

Research has shown that many students are not interested in learning mathematics; they find it difficult to understand, irrelevant to their daily lives, and uninteresting. This thesis explores elements of computer games that may satisfy children’s learning needs and ultimately motivate them to learn mathematical concepts.

According to a 2008 survey conducted by the Washington, D.C. based Pew Research Center, 97% of children between the ages of 12 and 17 in the United States play computer, Web, portable or console games. Based on these numbers we can conclude young students like video games. Over the past few years, a new …

When Policies Collide With Conviction, Amy Seely Flint, Eliza Allen, Nicole Anderson, Tara M. Campbell, India Fraser, Danielle Hilaski, Linda James, Sanjuana Rodriguez, Natasha A. Thornton

Language Arts Journal of Michigan

No abstract provided.

Challenging The Literacy Policy Of The Other In College Composition, Gregory Shafer

Language Arts Journal of Michigan

No abstract provided.

Book Reviews, Tina Schuck, Mary Fahrenbruck, Kay L. Vronko

Language Arts Journal of Michigan

No abstract provided.

When Pedagogy And Policy Collide, Brigitte Knudson

Language Arts Journal of Michigan

No abstract provided.

Using Standards As An Opportunity For Teacher Reflection Revisiting The "Best Practices" Debate, Amanda Stearns-Pfeiffer

Language Arts Journal of Michigan

No abstract provided.

Four Decades Ago: Learning From Mina Shaughnessy, Gregory Shafer

Language Arts Journal of Michigan

No abstract provided.

Editors' Message, Nancy Defrance, Mary Fahrenbruck, Nancy Patterson, Elizabeth Petroelje Stolle

Language Arts Journal of Michigan

No abstract provided.

Executive Summaries

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Funding Cultural Adaptations To Promote Effective And Efficient Mental Health Service Provision, Lynda E. Frost, Rick Ybarra

The Foundation Review

· Given the changing demographics of the U.S. and documented racial and ethnic health disparities, behavioral health service providers must look at adapting their services to better meet the needs of their diverse client populations.

· Grantees implemented three types of cultural adaptations: sociocultural/organizational, structural/ service delivery, and clinical.

· Most adaptations were not directly related to the specific evidence-based practice and would be relevant in many service-provision settings.

Gvsu Undergraduate And Graduate Catalog, 2011-2012, Grand Valley State University

Course Catalogs, 1963 - Current

Grand Valley State University 2011-2012 undergraduate and/or graduate course catalog published annually to provide students with information and guidance for enrollment.

Reframing Assessment Of Grantee Perceptions: Reconsidering Effectiveness With Broader International Stakeholder Engagement, Laurel Pendleton, Michael Y. Moon

The Foundation Review

· Stakeholder engagement is important in philanthropy because it allows grantmakers and grantees to pool their respective resources more effectively to address their shared target issues.

· As more and more foundations and other grantmaking entities venture into the expansive world of self-evaluation, it is prudent that these methods be examined in light of international funding relationships.

· In order to better understand how these tools and methods can be used internationally, we outline the opportunities presented when using frames as one basis for decision-making in complex situations.

· Using the hypothetical case of a U.S. funder seeking to understand …

Lanthorn, Vol. 45, No. 06, September 13, 2010, Grand Valley State University

Volume 45, July 8, 2010 - June 9, 2011

Lanthorn is Grand Valley State's student newspaper, published from 1968 to the present.

Lanthorn, Vol. 44, No. 60, April 26, 2010, Grand Valley State University

Volume 44, July 8, 2009 - June 10, 2010

Lanthorn is Grand Valley State's student newspaper, published from 1968 to the present. The Lanthorn, Vol. 44 No. 59 is missing.

Lanthorn, Vol. 44, No. 45, February 25, 2010, Grand Valley State University

Volume 44, July 8, 2009 - June 10, 2010

Lanthorn is Grand Valley State's student newspaper, published from 1968 to the present.

Writing Spaces: Readings On Writing, Volume 1, Charles Lowe, Pavel Zemliansky

Open Textbooks

Volumes in Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing offer multiple perspectives on a wide-range of topics about writing, much like the model made famous by Wendy Bishop’s “The Subject Is . . .” series. In each chapter, authors present their unique views, insights, and strategies for writing by addressing the undergraduate reader directly. Drawing on their own experiences, these teachers-as-writers invite students to join in the larger conversation about developing nearly every aspect of the craft of writing. Consequently, each essay functions as a standalone text that can easily complement other selected readings in writing or writing-intensive courses across the disciplines …

Identity, Language Practices And Ideologies Among Nepali-Bhutanese In West Michigan, Trevor Dewaard, Kathryn Remlinger

Student Summer Scholars Manuscripts

The languages that we use are a result of our identities and the social contexts and related roles in which we participate. The language practices of one small community of ethnic Nepali-Bhutanese who were revoked citizenship in Bhutan, expelled into refugee camps in Nepal for nearly twenty years, and who now reside in Grand Haven, Michigan were of interest here. Identity, Language Practices and Ideologies among Nepali-Bhutanese in West Michigan builds on previous research that examines the relationship between language choice and socio-cultural factors such gender, age, language proficiency, education, citizenship, and context among multi-lingual speakers (Baquedano-López 2009, Booth 2009, …

Children's Understanding Of The Semantics Of Negation, Amanda Hiltz

Honors Projects

The central focus of this project is to discover children’s understanding of the semantics, or meaning, of negation. Children’s knowledge of negation develops, in part, by directing attention away from a word to something else (i.e., contrast classes), yet little is known about to what attention is directed. Two possible relations upon which contrast classes operate are taxonomic and thematic relations. For example, when looking at the concept of a “dog”, a thematic relation could be a dog bone, while a taxonomic relation would be a cat. Two experiments were completed to look at children’s use of thematic and taxonomic …