Digital Commons Network^™

Journal Of Multilingual Education Research

Journal of Multilingual Education Research

No abstract provided.

How Do The Life Stories Of Non-Traditional Students Impact Their Educational Journeys, Janna Lynn Graham

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations

The research question highlights the importance of personal narrative and explores the notion that reframing one’s story can have a strong impact on future success. The author discusses research pertaining to disconnected learners and examines the way in which personal stories influence classroom motivation. The data collection process takes an autobiographical approach as three non-traditional students share their educational life histories. Students’ stories are comprehensively explored through interviews, a review of student records, and observations. Each documented educational journey emphasizes the significance of individual stories and the importance of acknowledging the unique struggles faced by non-traditional students.

The Most Effective Efl Approach For An Elementary School In Spain, Krista Emily Swanson

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations

The main research question addressed in this paper is: what does the literature say about effective EFL approaches to be implemented in a private elementary school in Spain? In order to fully answer that question this capstone addressed the following question as well: what teaching strategies are effective for developing fluency in an EFL setting for children? The method of study was a systematic review of literature. Key influencers were Björklund and Suni (2000) and Björklund (2005). They studied a Finnish immersion school that used content-based instruction in a multilingual program with successful results. Another key influencer was Pérez-Vidal (2013). …

Use Of Vocal Prosody To Express Emotions In Robotic Speech, Joe Crumpton

Theses and Dissertations

Vocal prosody (pitch, timing, loudness, etc.) and its use to convey emotions are essential components of speech communication between humans. The objective of this dissertation research was to determine the efficacy of using varying vocal prosody in robotic speech to convey emotion. Two pilot studies and two experiments were performed to address the shortcomings of previous HRI research in this area. The pilot studies were used to determine a set of vocal prosody modification values for a female voice model using the MARY speech synthesizer to convey the emotions: anger, fear, happiness, and sadness. Experiment 1 validated that participants perceived …

The Southern Vowel Shift In The Speech Of Women From Mississippi, Whitney Leigh Knight

Theses and Dissertations

Though previous research has documented the Southern Vowel Shift (SVS) in Alabama and Tennessee, none has focused on Mississippi. Also, the majority of research has focused on European-Americans. In this study, data was collected from women from northern and central Mississippi, with central residents evenly recruited from urban and rural areas. Of these, 15 were European-American and 19 were African-American. Participants read a word list including target vowels in the b_d frame. F1, F2, and vector length were analyzed to determine to what extent participants exhibited the SVS and Back Vowel Fronting. For the SVS, there were effects such that …

Volume 40, Issue 1: Full Issue, Manuscripts Staff

Manuscripts

No abstract provided.

Atlantis Ii, Eric C.A. Johnson

Manuscripts

No abstract provided.

Teachers’ Perceptions On The Use Of Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol As A Districtwide Professional Development Reform, Christina Portillo Dr.

Dissertations

The purpose of this mixed-methods study was to ascertain to what degree of application the K-5 elementary teachers in Learning First School District have transferred the 8 components of Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol into their instructional practices. In addition, it was the purpose of this study to determine which conditions supported and limited the teachers’ successful implementation of the SIOP professional development trainings into daily classroom instruction, as perceived by teachers. Finally, it was the purpose of this study to determine whether Learning First School District’s professional development had an effect on student achievement, as perceived by teachers and archival …

Mind The Gap: Understanding The Lack Of Social Integration Between U.S. National And International Students, Danika Delano

Capstone Collection

This capstone paper explores the issue of social integration between international and U.S. national students and focuses on the international student community of the Foundation for International Understanding Through Students (FIUTS), a non-profit that supports students at the University of Washington-Seattle (UW). A survey was administered to 106 UW students involved in FIUTS to test the hypothesis that the FIUTS community desired to have more U.S. nationals involved in the program. After establishing a desire for increased social integration between U.S. national and international students from within the FIUTS community, fifteen U.S. national students who were not involved in FIUTS …

Newcomer Perceptions Of Identity And School Membership: Program Comparisons Between English Only And Dual Language Immersion Tracks, Jeanne Lorraine De La Riva [Whisler]

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations

This study examined the differences is ways newcomer ELs in the dual language immersion program characterized identity and sense of belonging in comparison to newcomer ELs in the English-only track. Interview data was analyzed to reveal differences in perceptions of school membership along three different themes: perception of Spanish in the school, academic participation, and peer acceptance. The concept of communities of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991) was employed to understand students’ participation and sense of belonging within the school community, and the topics of agency and self-efficacy are discussed as they relate to students’ identities. The results of this …

Je Me Suis Couché De Bonne Heure: The Explicit Teaching Of Collocations To High School French 2 Students, Callie Anne Kunz

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations

Two research questions guided this project: With explicit instruction, to what degree will students be able to acquire and use collocations in a descriptive writing task? And, to what degree will knowledge of collocations affect student confidence in their ability to communicate in French? Watching her students struggle with acquiring and using new vocabulary motivated the author’s interest in trying a novel approach to teaching vocabulary. This capstone discusses the results of explicit collocation instruction to nineteen high school French 2 students. The author uses research to support the teaching of collocations and documents the details of teaching a vocabulary …

Implementation Of Wida Standards: A Cross-Case Analysis Of Twelve Public School Districts In Minnesota, Ashley Elizabeth Karlsson

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations

Implementation of new educational initiatives is never without challenges, and the implementation of WIDA’s English Language Development (ELD) Standards is no exception. As a transformative framework aligning content standards with indicators of language proficiency growth, WIDA Standards have the potential to support and enhance differentiation efforts for English learners. Drawing on the work of implementation science, this research analyzes qualitative interview data from twelve public school districts in Minnesota to determine what is being done to put WIDA Standards into practice. Semi-structured interviewing techniques and cross-case data coding form the basis of the research methodology. The study examines the relationship …

Effective Conversations Around Tough Text Within Middle School Literature Circles, Gretchen Elizabeth Enselein

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations

The research question addressed in this project was, how can I ensure that effective conversations around tough text are occurring within middle school literature circles? It explores the role of literature circles within middle school classrooms. The capstone outlines the scaffolding provided for student success. Defined is the term “tough text” and how text can successfully be implemented with the use of discussion to promote effective conversations. The author documents the related research to identify and define best practice strategies to implement and support existing curriculums in a middle school. Created to be implemented school-wide as a supplement to existing …

Arts & Humanities News, Georgia Southern University

Arts & Humanities: News & Publications (2009-2023)

• CLASS Honors Two Outstanding Faculty Members with Yearly Awards

Articulating Refug-Endity In Vietnamerica And The Diasporas 1975-2015: From Ethnic Autonomy To Global Visibility, Trangdai Glassey-Tranguyen

Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement

Since the culmination of the Vietnam War on April 30^th, 1975, waves of Vietnamese evacuees, refugees, and immigrants arrived in the United States and created a new home across the country. Orange County, California, is home to the largest concentration of Vietnamese Americans since 1975 in the U.S., and has notoriously been known as the “Vietnamese refugee capitol” in the diasporas. I argue that there has been an organic, thriving – albeit very under-studied – body of Vietnamese-language literature and media in Orange County and VietnAmerica since 1975, which provides a fertile ground for the articulation of what …

2015 Fall Convocation Program, Office Of Communications & Marketing, Morehead State University.

Communications and Marketing Publications Archive

Fall convocation program held on August 12, 2015.

The Intersection Between Cultural Intelligence And Targeted Achievement Gap Groups: Understanding Factors Affecting Latino Student Achievement In Arkansas School Districts, Kathy Sue Collins

Theses and Dissertations

Educators across the nation have seen an increase in diversity in their classrooms, which challenges them to be more aware of the need for cultural intelligence in working with their students. Demographic data indicate that the Latino student population is the fastest growing minority group nationally. The growing Latino population has also been noted in states where that population has historically been low. In Arkansas, a nontraditional destination state for Latino immigrants, that population increased by 114% from 2000 to 2010. While the Latino population is growing, Latino student academic achievement has tended to remain static. Given the increase in …

Refining Measures For Assessing Problematic/Addictive Digital Gaming Use In Clinical And Research Settings, Kyle Faust, David Faust

Psychology Faculty Publications

Problematic or addictive digital gaming (including all types of electronic devices) can and has had extremely adverse impacts on the lives of many individuals across the world. The understanding of this phenomenon, and the effectiveness of treatment design and monitoring, can be improved considerably by continuing refinement of assessment tools. The present article briefly overviews tools designed to measure problematic or addictive use of digital gaming, the vast majority of which are founded on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) criteria for other addictive disorders, such as pathological gambling. Although adapting DSM content and strategies for measuring …

Using A Culturally Relevant Text Effectively To Support Diversity, Racial Equity, And School Community Building, Syra Yang

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations

The research question addressed is, how can a culturally relevant text be used effectively to support diversity, racial equity, and school community building? This capstone shows how our school system is not constructed to support African American students’ learning as it does not acknowledge racial and cultural differences. The author was influenced by her own educational experiences and current racial equity journey. The author stresses how culturally relevant text and meaningful conversations or dialogue implemented into classrooms provides opportunities for everyone to learn from and acknowledge each other. In addition, she includes a curriculum design that is culturally responsive, focusing …

Disordered Speech Disrupts Conversational Entrainment: A Study Of Acoustic-Prosodic Entrainment And Communicative Success In Populations With Communication Challenges, Stephanie A. Borrie, Nichola Lubold, Heather Pon-Barry

Communicative Disorders and Deaf Education Faculty Publications

Conversational entrainment, a pervasive communication phenomenon in which dialogue partners adapt their behaviors to align more closely with one another, is considered essential for successful spoken interaction. While well-established in other disciplines, this phenomenon has received limited attention in the field of speech pathology and the study of communication breakdowns in clinical populations. The current study examined acoustic-prosodic entrainment, as well as a measure of communicative success, in three distinctly different dialogue groups: (i) healthy native vs. healthy native speakers (Control), (ii) healthy native vs. foreign-accented speakers (Accented), and (iii) healthy native vs. dysarthric speakers (Disordered). Dialogue group comparisons revealed …

Three More Doublets, Daniel W. Galef

Word Ways

A collection of doublets.

Urban Art And Uneven Development: The Geography Of “Artwashing” In Miami And Philadelphia, Mackenzie Sheldon

Open Access Theses

This thesis explores the intersections of art and urban redevelopment by evaluating the strategic uses of urban art forms in distressed neighborhoods of Philadelphia and Miami. Specifically, this thesis takes to task the trend of “artwashing” in which developers appropriate and aestheticize markers of urban decay in order to market real estate to consumers seeking an industrial chic backdrop. While most discussions of artwashing center on the upgrading of austere industrial buildings, I believe the term should also be applied to the appropriation of urban art forms for neighborhood rebranding purposes. In recent years, the commissioning of street art has …

Scaling Up Teacher Professional Learning: How To Grow Teacher Knowledge While Growing School Networks, Emily J Klein, Reva Jaffe Walter, Meg Riordan

Department of Teaching and Learning Scholarship and Creative Works

This research reports data from case studies of three intermediary organizations facing the challenge of scaling up teacher learning. The turn of the century launched scaling up efforts of all three intermediaries, growing from intimate groups, where founding teachers and staff were key supports for teacher learning, to large multi-state organizations. The authors drew on data from three earlier qualitative studies of professional development at Big Picture Learning, Expeditionary Learning, and the Internationals Network, and reveal some of the benefits and challenges of taking teacher learning to scale.

Literacy Co-Teaching With Multi-Level Texts In An Inclusive Middle Grade Humanities Class: A Teacher-Researcher Collaboration, Kelly Chandler-Olcott, Kathleen A. Hinchman

Journal of Inquiry and Action in Education

This article reports on a middle school literacy intervention implemented during a yearlong teacher-researcher collaboration. The purpose of this collaboration was to combine and adjust commonly recommended pedagogical approaches to address the literacy needs of a heterogeneous group of seventh graders attending an urban school. University researchers designed and implemented the intervention with an interdisciplinary team of three teachers. The intervention drew on sociocultural theories of language and learning. It had three main features: integration of English and social studies, multi-level texts, and co-teaching of heterogeneous groups. Qualitative data included field notes from classroom observations and planning meetings, transcripts from …

Similar Settings, Different Story Lines: The Positioning Of Esl Teachers In Two Middle Schools, Mary Mcgriff, Maria Selena Protacio

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

As the need to better support English learners’ achievement in academically rigorous content area classes increases, so does the call for expanded ESL teacher – content area teacher collaboration. However, the nature and outcomes of such collaboration depend on how these professionals are positioned within their school settings. Using positioning theory as an analytic lens, this article investigates the collaborative interactions of two ESL teachers in two separate, but demographically similar suburban middle schools. It examines the impact of these ESL teachers’ collaborations on ELLs’ opportunities for academic language and content area learning, and it calls for the field to …

Selecting Words For Instruction During Primary Read-Alouds, Karen J. Kindle

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

Reading aloud is a wide-spread practice in early childhood and primary classrooms that is purported to develop a range of literacy skills, including vocabulary. Since it is not feasible to teach all of the words in a given text, efforts to maximize the instructional power of read-aloud events have included research regarding word selection. This study explores the extent to which research-based practices for selecting words for instruction have been incorporated into the practices of four primary grade teachers. Findings indicate that teachers may rely more on intuition and personal experience to select words rather than following expert’s recommendations. Implications …

Affirmation, Analysis, And Agency: Book Clubs As Spaces For Critical Conversations With Young Adolescent Women Of Color, Jody N. Polleck, Terrie Epstein

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

This paper explores how female urban adolescents of color who participated in a literacy book club during their senior year in high school understood the impact of race, class, and gender oppression on the novels’ characters, themselves, and their communities. Based on transcripts from book club discussions and interviews conducted at the end of their senior year and the end of their first year of college, the authors illustrate how participants affirmed and asserted their voices; analyzed texts for racism, sexism, and classism; and promoted their own and others’ growth and sense of agency as resilient young women of color.

Reading Horizons Vol. 54 No. 1

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

No abstract provided.

Community Development And Its Socioeconomic Impact On A Latino Enclave: A Case Study Of The Frog Hollow Neighborhood In Hartford, Connecticut, Reinaldo Rojas

Doctoral Dissertations

The topic of low-income neighborhoods and the different approaches to community development dominate the national discussion on urban revitalization and poverty reduction. The debate is ongoing, regardless of whether economic development models serve the broader interests of the community or the narrow interests of proponents and benefactors. This study analyzes the impact of urban revitalization projects in the Frog Hollow neighborhood of Hartford, Connecticut, an impoverished but vibrant Latino enclave in the city. Frog Hollow underwent a highly publicized series of revitalization projects during the 2000s, where business owners, community organizations and local government were involved in both development and …

English Language Proficiency, Academic Confidence, And Academic Success: A Case Study Of First-Year Female Students At An Ethiopian University, Jennifer Sue Miller

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations

Despite increased access to higher education for female students in Ethiopia, gender inequality in universities persists. The present study investigates a group of sixty first-year female students in the natural science fields who were attending an Ethiopian university and who voluntarily participated in an English mentoring pilot program. This research uses a mixed methods approach with qualitative data from participants’ writing samples and quantitative data from grade point averages, English language proficiency (ELP) levels from the British Council’s International Language Assessment (ILA) placement exam, and academic confidence ratings from the Academic Behavioral Confidence (ABC) survey. Results show differences between groups …