Digital Commons Network^™

Teaching Languages Communicatively: The Journey Of Becoming An Effective Teacher, Indira Garrido

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

This portfolio is a compilation of various papers written throughout my studies in the Master of Second Language Teaching (MSLT) program at Utah State University. These papers are the result of research and reflections on the most relevant and important topics I have learned during these two years of study. My journey through the MSLT program has been an experience of growth as I reflected on my own teaching practices and what research demonstrates as the most effective approaches for language teaching.

Breaking Tradition: My Journey Of Becoming A Teacher Of Chinese As A Foreign Language, Wenrui Chen

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

This portfolio is a completion of the author’s work through the Master of Second Language Teaching program. The portfolio contains the author’s teaching philosophy, reflection on the author’s teaching and that of others, three artifacts, and an annotated bibliography. The teaching philosophy discusses what the author believes constitutes effective language teaching, such as a learned-centered classroom, communicative language teaching, and effective assessment. The artifacts are papers wrote for the MSLT courses to support the author’s teaching philosophy. The literacy artifact emphasizes the importance of reading and writing in teaching Chinese as a foreign language. The culture artifact explores lesson plans …

Communication-Based Teaching For Chinese Language Learners, Hsiao-Mei Tsai

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

This portfolio is founded on the author’s principles of communicative teaching for Chinese language learners, which were cultivated and developed in the Master of Second Language Teaching program. The initial part of the portfolio is the teaching philosophy, which contains the author’s beliefs of teacher and student roles and effective teaching approaches in the Chinese as a foreign language classroom. The teaching philosophy is supported by three artifacts, which further clarify how to associate culture, literacy, and linguistics with language learning. The literacy artifact explains the process of Chinese and English biliteracy acquisition. The culture artifact is a comparison of …

A Primary Document Analysis-Centered Curriculum In A Residential Treatment Center, Jared Peterson Collette

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

This study examines the challenges and rewards of applying Stanford History Group’s Thinking Like a Historian program in the context of a residential treatment center to better understand the necessary modifications and adjustments that would be needed to successfully apply this program. The researcher used an action research methodology, an analytic autoethnographic journal, as well as student work to investigate student successes and challenges in learning history through the use of primary documents. The findings demonstrate that students did not successfully apply historical thinking even after explicit instruction, extensive modeling, and guided practice. The author argues that low literacy rates, …

Cognition In Adults’ Experience Of The Art Therapy-Projective Imagery Assessment, Gaelan Harmon-Walker

EVMS School of Health Professions Theses & Dissertations

The Art Therapy-Projective Imagery Assessment (AT-PIA) is a direct-observation clinical interview consisting of six drawings. It is administered by art therapists to children, adolescents, and adults to identify developmental level, areas of clinical concern, strengths, defenses, diagnoses, and potential for engaging with art processes and materials in a therapeutic relationship. Although assessment remains a research priority for art therapists, paucity exists in the literature regarding art therapy clinical interviews.

This qualitative multiple case study explored the experiences of five adult standardized patients, recruited from the Sentara Center for Simulation and Immersive Learning. Participants were individually administered the AT-PIA and then …

Angel In Skirts, Mary Ruth Chen

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

Angels In Skirts is a memoir composed of organic memories thematically linked through essays and chapters. I re-create the story of a young girl’s vivid and imaginative way of seeing life, the intensity of her emotions and what it feels like to desperately want to control men by handing over her body. Highlighted is a discussion of the struggle I had with labeling my work nonfiction. I also explore the effective use of parataxis in dialogue and the effect structure has on the narrative arc and characters in a work. I discuss my process when deciding on a form for …

Portrayals Of The Dehumanization Of The American Prisoner In Miguel Piñero's “Short Eyes” And Tom Fontana's “Oz”, Gerardo C. Martinez

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

This thesis analyzes the way in which Miguel Piñero, through his 1974 play Short Eyes, and Tom Fontana, through his television series Oz, portray the way in which American prisoners are transformed by a racially-defined code of behavior. This code of behavior, defined by Miguel Piñero as “the program” encourages inmates to over-identify themselves in terms of race and leads them to engage in behavior that contributes to their dehumanization. In the first chapter, the introduction, I establish the social, political, and theoretical concepts through which it is possible to analyze the process of prisoner identity transformation in these two …

[No Titles In Utopia], Esteban J. Rodriguez

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

The intended purpose of this thesis it to compose a collection of poetry consisting of four sections with each section containing between four to ten poems. The poems themselves will range between one to three pages and will be divided according to their particular subject matter, such as, but not limited, to childhood reflection, father-son relationships, the estrangement from suburbia and modernized America, and ekphrasis-inspired pieces that weave both art and narrative elements together. My main goal with this collection is to write poems in a clear straightforward manner without obscuring language, and constructing persona narratives that invite the reader …

Terry L. Fairfield: A Portraiture Of Nonprofit Leadership In Educational Fundraising, Stephanie R. Davis

Department of Educational Administration: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The purpose of this qualitative study was to create a narrative of Terry L. Fairfield’s leadership legacy at the University of Nebraska Foundation. Using the educational research methodology of Portraiture, this biographical sketch analyzed personal and professional events in Fairfield’s life and chronicled notable achievements, as well as the strife involved in securing financial support for the University of Nebraska system through means of philanthropy and private gifts. Exploring these experiences share and extend knowledge on his personal and professional history. As the financial health of colleges and universities continue to dwindle, both leadership in fundraising and the reliance on …

Culturally Proficient Teachers, Lori R. Piowlski

Department of Educational Administration: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Action needs to be taken by teacher preparation programs to prepare culturally proficient educators who are able to deliver equitable instruction and inspire all students to strive for greatness if the achievement gap is to be closed. Existing literature mainly describes the importance and urgency to prepare future teachers for the changing demographics with classrooms across the United States. There is not significant literature on how it is being done. Therefore the purpose of this qualitative study was to discover how university teacher education programs are preparing teachers to be culturally proficient. A cross-reference of data collected from Adequate Yearly …

In What Array That They They Were In And Participating Godlike Food, Thomas Jackson Wills

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

I am submitting two manuscripts for my creative dissertation, In What Array That They Were In and Participating Godlike Food. The former is a sequence of odes followed by a brief epic, followed by a cycle of verse dramas, with an ode epilogue. The latter is a book-length excerpt from an epic poem/crime novel/Menippean satire/television show/Dada collage/historical document/vatic investigation that comes in 20 page sections that are supposed to approximate the 42 minutes of an average crime show.

The Impacts Of Colonial And Environmental Processes On Ceramic Plainware At Salinas Province, New Mexico, Lindsey Elizabeth Daub

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This thesis investigates whether Spanish demands on native time, labor and diet resulted in changes to the plainware ceramics used by the Salinas Pueblo Indians of New Mexico from the early 1600s to the 1670s. Increased pressures on native women's time may have resulted in a decline in the quality of the ceramic pastes, an increase in the presence of mend holes, changes in household size and composition that may have resulted in changes in the sizes of cooking vessels, and a decrease in food availability that may have resulted in decreased sizes or quantities of storage jars. While the …

Comparison Of The Pervasive Developmental Disorders Screening Test And Modified Checklist For Autism In Toddlers: Which Is The Better Predictor Of Autism In Toddlers?, Vanessa Marie Fessenden

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Early intervention for children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) has significant impact on children and families. Early intervention optimizes long-term diagnosis for children with ASD. Unfortunately, many children with ASD are not diagnosed until after age three and often receive services from a local school district rather than through early intervention services. However, many of the symptoms of ASD can be hard to identify because symptoms during infancy may be more difficult to detect or may present differently than manifestations of the symptoms at older ages. Despite the difficulty in identifying symptoms of ASD in young children, there are certain …

Parental Stress, Family-Professional Partnerships, And Family Quality Of Life: Families Of Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder, Yun-Ju Hsiao

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship among the quality of life of families that have at least one child with autism spectrum disorder, parental stress level, and partnerships between the family and professionals. Also, parent perceptions of parental stress, family quality of life, and family-professional partnerships were assessed to ascertain if they could be predicted from different variables (e.g., ethnicity, educational levels, income levels, and parental relationship status, etc.). The study examined the relationship among the three variables (e.g., family quality of life, parental stress, and family-professional partnership). Participants were recruited from an autism center located …

James Joyce And Post-Imperial Bildung: Influences On Salman Rushdie, Tayeb Salih, And Tsitsi Dangarembga, Robert Michael Kirschen

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Joyce's "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" functions as an axis around which writers from former British colonies--Salman Rushdie (India), Tayeb Salih (Sudan), and Tsitsi Dangarembga (Zimbabwe)--construct their own Bildungsromans. This nodal point is possible because Joyce's Bildungsroman represents a unique rendering of the genre which has proven useful for narratives of growth and development in newly independent nations. This dissertation focuses on a single narrative paradigm which acts as a common thread among the four authors. In each text (Rushdie's "Midnight's Children", Salih's "Season of Migration to the North", and Dangarembga's "Nervous Conditions"), the use of …

Strange Little Vehicles, Andrew Merecicky

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

It isn't an exploration in or an experiment regarding. It is a praxis, as a commute is the opposite of an adventure. As le chat regarde le poisson. As when one looks at anything, it becomes strange. That is, a thing (a thought, a feeling, Gertrude Stein's "piece of coffee") once considered becomes little and different. It is the world that is large and alike. It is ultimately the similarity, the recognition of which we, who feel small and unique in the grand scheme, find terrifying. Language is always, as Lyn Hejinian wrote, social; it is a vehicle.

As I …

A Comparison Of Two After School Strategies For Improving The Parenting Knowledge And Parenting Perceptions Of Preschool Families Enrolled In A Title 1 Program, Rae Ette Veronna Newman

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

A parent is a child's first educator in communication, social/emotional skills, motor development, and academics. As the achievement expectations placed on schools increase and the schooling population continually diversifies, the need to increase the overall parental involvement in schools and their ability to assist with academics in the home becomes more significant to ensure academic success for all children. By acquiring the fundamental parenting knowledge and skills, despite the barriers and additional disadvantages, parents can overcome daily obstacles, reduce family stress, and support developing proficient children. By encouraging positive parenting skills, parents can increase their parenting self-efficacy.

The purpose of …

An Analysis Of English Language Learning Instruction Provided In Teacher Education And Inservice Training Programs For General And Special Educators, Lidia E. Sedano

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

It is essential that English language learners (ELLs) are able to effectively receive an education. Recent national data indicates that the achievement gap between English and non-English learners in school is approximately a two grade-level difference (NCES, 2012). The increase of students who are learning English and who have a disability is a challenge for schools in terms of curricula adjustments, to meet the needs of this population. (Artiles & Ortiz, 2002).

The need to prepare general and special educators to provide appropriate instruction to ELLs is crucial for positive learning outcomes (Shyyan et al., 2008; Youngs & Youngs, 2001). …

Mitochondrial Dna Control Region Sequence Polymorphisms From A South Indian Population Sample: A Forensic And Phylogenetic View, Robin Gwydion Bombardi

Master's Theses

India is characterized by a human migration history spanning more than 60,000 years. Contemporary populations evolved from early migrations shortly following the African exodus but also recent movements possibly related to the spread of agriculture or t?e Indo-Aryan invasion. India has been underrepresented in mitochondrial surveys of human variation. The aim of this study was to establish a mtDNA dataset for the state of Tamil Nadu, India for forensic purposes and to investigate the diversity of the Tamil Nadu population sample with respect to global populations. The hypervariable regions I, II, and III within the mtDNA control region of a …

Utilizing The Spectator Perspective In The Acting Process., Jocelyn K. Matsuo

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is an examination of my goals and outcomes as a theatre practitioner in the role of Beatrice in Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing at the University of Louisville, in November, 2012. In Chapter One I will define my goals in theatre. I will discuss how I have succeeded and failed in pursuit of these goals and asses the causes of each. I will also address the challenges of teaching acting and theatre and how these goals relate to each other. In Chapter Two I will explain my acting process and its application to my thesis performance. In Chapter …

The Autodidact : Constantine Samuel Rafinesque And The Limits Of The Posthumanities., Elijah Pritchett

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The autodidact has a curious structural relationship to knowledge, education, and that assumed distillation of institutional learning, the academy. Because of its subjectivity-producing function, knowledge represents a site of tremendous cultural investment, and one that is challenged, if not even undermined, by the renegade ethos and idiosyncratic approach of the autodidact. Nineteenth century self-taught scholar and Renaissance man, Constantine Rafinesque, serves as a vivid exemplar, or even theoretical matrix, for demonstrating certain problems that the autodidact raises for post-Enlightenment knowledge as it assumes the various institutional states, metaphysical postures, and ideological closures necessary for its culturally privileged function. As the …

Relations Between Nonverbal Cognitive Ability And Spoken Language Development : Implications For Deaf Toddlers Who Use Cochlear Implants., Carissa Lynn Shafto

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The first aim of this dissertation was to determine whether early deafness is related to children's nonverbal cognitive abilities. Performance of a group of deaf infants were compared to that of same-aged hearing infants on visual sequence learning (VSL) and visual recognition memory (VRM) tasks. The hypothesis was that if deafness is negatively related to general cognitive ability, then the deaf infants would perform more poorly than same-aged hearing infants on the two tasks. There were no significant differences in VSL (n = 19) or VRM (n = 13) performance between the two groups (Chapter III). These results are inconclusive …

Translingualism In Post-Secondary Writing And Language Instruction : Negotiating Language Ideologies In Policies And Pedagogical Practices., Nancy Bou Ayash

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Drawing on text-oriented data from the American University of Beirut, Lebanon, this study examines how writing teachers and students constantly negotiate tensions between translingual sociolinguistic realities on one hand and monolingualist assumptions about language and language relations on another that dominate curricular and pedagogical designs in first year writing courses. The study involves a multiplicity of data sources, such as official institutional documents, individual instructional materials, classroom observations, structured interviews, and a method of "talk around texts." Writing teachers in this study sensitively grappled with tensions between the constant political pressures of generating the status quo and their ideological orientations …

The Feeling Of Faith : A Thomistic Account Of Religious Emotions., John K. Dryden 1976-

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is a philosophical analysis of religious emotions. It draws upon Thomas Aquinas’s theory of the passions to build and apply a framework for thinking about religious emotions and their role in the spiritual life. The first two chapters are dedicated to building the theoretical framework. Chapter one outlines Aquinas’s theory of emotions in a very general way and compares this account to recent versions of cognitivism. By placing Aquinas in conversation with contemporary accounts, I show that his theory is able to capture the central insights of this mainstream philosophical view. According to the Thomistic account that emerges …

Understanding Social Determinants Of Healthcare Access From The Perspective Of Hispanic Latino Immigrants In Louisville, Ky., Jean S. Edward

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In the last decade, the total foreign-born population in the U.S. has grown exponentially, with the Hispanic Latino immigrants (HLI) experiencing the greatest growth. The literature clearly identifies that HLI experience significant health disparities as a result of the negative impact of influential social determinants of health, such as access to healthcare services. Barriers to healthcare access among HLI are related to the access dimensions of accessibility, availability, affordability, and acceptability. Despite research on the barriers to healthcare for this population, issues of access from the perspective of immigrant community members are poorly understood. There is an increased need to …

Context-Driven Image Annotation Using Imagenet, George E. Noel, Gilbert L. Peterson

Faculty Publications

Image annotation research has demonstrated success on test data for focused domains. Unfortunately, extending these techniques to the broader topics found in real world data often results in poor performance. This paper proposes a novel approach that leverages WordNet and ImageNet capabilities to annotate images based on local text and image features. Signatures generated from ImageNet images based on WordNet synonymous sets are compared using Earth Mover's Distance against the query image and used to rank order surrounding words by relevancy. The results demonstrate effective image annotation, producing higher accuracy and improved specificity over the ALIPR image annotation system. Abstract …

Differences In Early Childhood Environmental Rating Scale Scores In Collaborative And Non-Collaborative West Virginia Pre-K Classrooms Located In Child Care Facilities, Jessica S. Day

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Quality of pre-k collaborative and non-collaborative classrooms was investigated for differences in environmental quality between the two types of classrooms. Data was collected through the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources grant titled, "Quality Rating and Improvement for West Virginia Child Care." Quality was measured using the Early Childhood Environmental Rating Scale-Revised (ECERS-R), which has 43 items across seven subscales: Space and Furnishings, Personal Care Routines, Language-Reasoning, Activities, Interaction, Program Structure, and Parents and Staff. Thirty-six pre-k collaborative programs participated and 136 non-collaborative programs participated in the study. Non-collaborative pre-k classrooms had lower mean scores on all subscales …

The Retreats Of Reconstruction: Race, Leisure, And The Politics Of Segregation At The New Jersey Shore, 1865--1920, David E. Goldberg

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This dissertation examines the political meanings of consumption and racial segregation in the public and commercial leisure spaces of the New Jersey shore during the Reconstruction era. Moving beyond issues of identity, racial violence, and labor disputes, I show how Jim Crow unfolded and operated in the post-Civil War North by emphasizing the importance of political economy and ideas about public health and welfare. Beginning in the 1880s, ideas about the rights and health of consumers became more important in helping shape the meanings of freedom than did the triumph of free labor ideology. The rise of mass consumption as …

Evolutions In Class Visibility, Morality, And Representation In Chilean Teleseries: From Military Regime To Current Moment, Sadie Smeck

Undergraduate Theses—Unrestricted

This work begins by exploring the concepts of class and class-consciousness as they are represented in the Chilean teleserie, Pobre Rico (2012-13), examining elements of class-marked aesthetics, linguistics and spaces in Santiago as these are manifested in the television program. The work will question how these representations relate to national, urban realities, and problematize the manner in which they at times reflect, exaggerate and/or misrepresent particular attitudes, dynamics and realities of class stratification in present-day, urban Chilean society. The work then examines how representations of class in Chilean television and media have evolved in the past three decades, since the …

Teaching Preservice Teachers To Teach Diverse Learners: A Pilot Study, Samantha Caughlan, Ellen Cushman

Language Arts Journal of Michigan

No abstract provided.