Digital Commons Network^™

An Effort To Untangle Efforts Standards Under Delaware Law, Ryan Aaron Salem

Penn State Law Review (2003 - Present)

No abstract provided.

July 2018 News Releases, University Of Montana--Missoula. Office Of University Relations

University of Montana News Releases, 1928, 1956-present

No abstract provided.

Black Box, White Cube, Gray Zone: Dance Exhibitions And Audience Attention, Claire Bishop

Publications and Research

Relocated from the “black box” of experimental theatre to the “white cube” of the gallery, dance in the museum brings about new forms of performance — the dance exhibition — and new protocols of audience behavior that permit, even encourage, smartphone photography. This is the “gray zone” of recent performance, which is both a symptom of, and compensation for, the virtualization of contemporary perception.

El Futuro Ya Está Aquí: A Comparative Analysis Of Punk In Spain And Mexico, Rex Richard Wilkins

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the punk genre's evolution into commercial mainstream music in Spain and Mexico. It looks at how this evolution altered both the aesthetic and gesture of the genre. This evolution can be seen by examining four bands that followed similar musical and commercial trajectories. In Spain, Kaka de Luxe and Radio Futura; in Mexico, Size and Ritmo Peligroso. Since punk music's gesture is both visceral and political, various methods of suppressing or containing the punk gesture arise. For both Spain and Mexico, containing the punk gesture was a matter of government censorship in the early years of punk. …

Preservice Teachers Perceptions Of Literature: A Study In A University Spanish Literature Class For Future Spanish Teachers, Stephanie Chantall Harrison

Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative study gave insight on the benefits that a university literature course for future Spanish teachers could contribute to preservice teachers as part of their preparation program. Nine university students participated in this study as they were the ones enrolled in this first-time offered university literature course for Spanish teachers. Data were collected from pre- and post-questionnaires, journals, and course observations. The findings suggested that the preservice teachers grew in pedagogical content knowledge, literary content, resources and strategies, and felt an overall sense of preparedness to use literary sources in their future classrooms

Best Practices And Culture Change In Two-Way Immersion Through The Use Of An Action Plan, Kimberly Johnson

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

This project consists of an action plan developed for the purpose of guiding planning committees through the process of implementing a two-way immersion program rooted in best practices. The action plan lays out important key components that must be addressed within a two-way immersion program that is in its second year of implementation. It also provides a timeline for project completion, a section for action items to be addressed, sections to determine who is responsible for implementation of the action items and who will monitor the implementation of the items, and research to support the need for the program components …

Adapting Project-Based Learning For English-Language Learners In Middle-School Social Studies, Maria May

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

This research project addresses the question, how can Project-Based Learning (PBL) be adapted to enhance middle school social studies lessons and learning outcomes for English Language Learners and other struggling students? It reviews theory and practice for middle-school social studies teachers to invite ELLs and others reading below grade level into authentic PBL. Supports for PBL should include effective language acquisition scaffolds like Guided Language Acquisition Design (GLAD) and content engagement through non-text, multimedia strategies like Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) to invite students into deeper critical thinking and rigorous collaborative projects. Research connections are made to constructivist theories of Dewey …

Teaching Social Studies Content Vocabulary Words To Middle-School English Learners: Vocabulary Strategies For Sheltered Instruction And Mainstream Classroom, Bradley Storm

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

Research on reading indicates that vocabulary knowledge plays a significant role in comprehension and content learning. Textbooks remain the primary instructional medium in most social studies classrooms, but are rarely written with supports that allow struggling readers to comprehend the text independently. Because typical textbooks do not contain adequate guidance or materials for effective vocabulary instruction, social studies teachers must incorporate these features into their curriculum. This is especially important for teachers of English learners. In order to learn grade-level content, English learners who lack a sufficient background in content vocabulary require rigorous vocabulary instruction that draws on established best …

Engaging, Supporting, And Scaffolding Instruction For Students With Limited Or Interrupted Formal Education (Slife), Frances Christensen

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

The central research question of this capstone project was How can English learners with limited or interrupted formal education best be supported at the secondary level? Students with limited or interrupted formal education (SLIFE) have unique needs that differ from other English learners. As more English learners with limited or interrupted formal education enter U.S. middle and high schools, it has become increasingly important to consider how to best serve this student population. The author conducted a review of the literature on SLIFE and examined best practices for teaching SLIFE. Although SLIFE have needs that differ from other English learners, …

Equitable Access To Education For Adult English Language Learners, Colleen Schmitt

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

The research question addressed in this project was, How can adult education programs provide more equitable access to education for adult English Learners? To answer this question, the author researched the historical expansion of language access rights for English Language Learners (ELLs) in federally-assisted education programs, including nondiscrimination provisions for adult ELLs in adult basic education programs. These standards of equitability were then used to examine gaps in policy and practice related to equal educational opportunity for adult ELLs in programs governed by the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (2014). The author then developed an advocacy project in the form …

Best Teaching Practices For English Language Learners Who Have Experienced Trauma: A Book Of Trauma-Informed, English Language Mini-Lessons For Ell Teachers, Anna Klompien

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

The purpose of this capstone project is to explore the available resources and research on teaching English to elementary students who have experienced traumatic situations or events. The guiding research questions for this project are: How do traumas and adverse experiences in English Language Learning (ELL) elementary students affect English language acquisition and general academic functioning, and how can I create mini-lessons, based on best practices, for elementary ELL teachers to teach ELL students with previous or ongoing traumatic or adverse experiences? Through the review of the literature on this subject, this capstone paper shows the glaring insufficiency of the …

The Special Education Referral And Evaluation Process For English Language Learners, Celeste Norlander

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

Research shows that there is a disproportionate number of English Language Learners (ELLs) in special education. The over and under representation of this population in special education can be linked back to issues within the referral and evaluation process. This project looks to answer the question: What accommodations need to be made to the special education process to ensure that English Language Learners are appropriately referred and evaluated? This project resulted

in a flowchart for each step in the special education referral and evaluation process. Research- based practices are presented for each step of the process. The flowchart was created …

How Teachers Can Best Use E-Books To Help Ell Students: A Web-Design Project, Paul Davis

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

The research question addressed in this project is, How can teachers best use independent reading with E-Books to benefit elementary English language learner students? The author describes how hearing Stephen Krashen speak about the importance of independent reading made him curious about using E-Books with ELLs. In his review of literature, he describes how E-Books can best provide comprehensible input to help ELLs learn language, how E-Books can best meet the needs of emergent readers, how they can best use special text-tools, and how teachers can make sure independent reading is successful in their classrooms. With this information he makes …

Preparing 9th Grade English Learners For Critical Thinking And Advanced Discussion Skills: Curriculum For Paideia Seminar, Sonia Nunez-Gibbs

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

Participation in academic conversation and disagreement with peers is a key vehicle in development of critical thinking and academic language. Ninth-grade English Learners and mainstream students often have difficulty building on each others’ thoughts during discussions, rather than sharing their ideas developed in isolation. Students need multiple experiences of direct instruction of content-embedded language and content coaching to develop these advanced discussion interactions. In order to answer the question How to prepare mid-level ELs to demonstrate critical thinking and advanced discussion skills?this project designs curriculum for a structured debate Paideia seminar questioning the role of borders. This two-week long curriculum …

Strategies Teachers And Families Can Use To Support Home Language Maintenance For Early Elementary Students, Anastasia Redemann

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

The primary research question for this project is: What are strategies teachers and families can use to support home language maintenance for early elementary students? This capstone project presents literature about the benefits of multilingualism, the impact of language loss, factors that support home language maintenance or loss, and strategies for teachers and families to support home language maintenance. The project following the research is two resources: one for teachers and one for families. The resource for teachers has two learning targets: teachers will be able to describe why home language maintenance is important and teachers will be able to …

Creating Smart Board Activities To Engage Students’ Learning In Chinese Immersion Kindergarten, Wenting Qiang

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

The research question addressed in this capstone is How to create SMART Board activities to engage students’ learning in Chinese immersion kindergarten. Through literature review and my personal experience as a Chinese immersion kindergarten, I find that SMART Board offers very interactive activities that can be very beneficial to young children in learning. That to be said, SMART Board has transformed a typical classroom into a stimulating and encouraging learning environment. The project for this research is a website of SMART Board activities that can be used and shared among Chinese immersion teachers, as well as students and parents who …

Acute Salivary Cortisol Response Among Mexican American Adolescents In Immigrant Families, Su Yeong Kim, Minyu Zhang, Katharine H. Zeiders, Lester Sim, Marci E. J. Gleason

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Objectives: Though previous research has indicated that language brokering can be stressful, the findings are mixed, pointing to potential moderators of the association. Guided by an ecological perspective, we examined the role of individual, family, and environmental factors in Mexican American adolescents’ acute cortisol responses to language brokering. Method: The study consisted of 46 Mexican American adolescents recruited around a metropolitan city in Central Texas. Participants translated a difficult medical document from English to Spanish for their parents, followed by an arithmetic task (modeled after the Trier Social Stress Test [TSST]). Participants’ perceptions (perceived efficacy and parental dependence), parental hostility, …

How National Culture Influences Individuals’ Subjective Experience With Paradoxical Tensions, Joshua Keller, Erica Wen Chen, Angela K. Y. Leung

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine how national culture influences individuals’ subjective experience of tension when confronting paradoxical demands that arise during their day-to-day organizational experience. The paper further explores two types of paradoxical demands (task-oriented and relational-oriented) and two mediating mechanisms (tolerance for contradictions and harmony enhancement concerns) that exhibit contrary cultural effects.Design/methodology/approach: Drawing from a sample of white-collar workers in China and the USA, the authors first inductively generated scenarios with task-oriented and relational-oriented paradoxical demands and then conducted three studies where participants rated the perceived tension from the scenarios. In Study 1, they examined …

The Perception Of Spontaneous And Volitional Laughter Across 21 Societies, Gregory A. Bryan, Daniel M. Fessler, Riccardo Fusaroli, Edward Clint, Dorsa Amir, Brenda Chavez, Kaleda K. Denton, Cinthya Diaz, Lealaiailoto T. Duran, Jana Fancovicova, Michal Fux, Erni F. Ginting, Youssef Hasan, Anning Hu, Shanmukh V. Kamble, Tatsuya Kameda, Kiri Kuroda, Norman P. Li, Et Al

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Laughter is a nonverbal vocalization occurring in every known culture, ubiquitous across all forms of human socialinteraction. Here, we examined whether listeners around the world, irrespective of their own native language andculture, can distinguish between spontaneous laughter and volitional laughter—laugh types likely generated by differentvocal-production systems. Using a set of 36 recorded laughs produced by female English speakers in tests involving 884participants from 21 societies across six regions of the world, we asked listeners to determine whether each laugh wasreal or fake, and listeners differentiated between the two laugh types with an accuracy of 56% to 69%. Acoustic analysisrevealed that …

My Land Is My Flesh Silver Bluff, The Creek Indians, And The Transformation Of Colonized Space In Early America, Bryan C. Rindfleisch

History Faculty Research and Publications

This essay explores how Native peoples like the Creek (Muscogee) Indians invested colonized spaces in early American society with their own material, commercial, political, and spiritual meanings and importance. In particular, Creek Indians from the town of Coweta transformed Silver Bluff, the plantation of the trader and merchant George Galphin, into a “white ground,” as a place connected to Creek Country by a “white path,” and as a space where Creek and British leaders congregated to conduct business and negotiate politics. For it is no coincidence that the treaties of Augusta in 1763 and 1773, peaceful resolutions agreed to by …

The Enhancing Reading Comprehension Performance Using The Strategy Of Highlighting Electronic Text, Christa Ashbaugh

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Reading comprehension is a criterial skill that an individual must utilize to navigate in the twenty-first century. This skill is developed throughout grade school and continues into adulthood. Many successful readers use active highlighting to assist in their reading comprehension. Active Highlighting is one of the most commonly used approaches to increase reading comprehension. Technology is ever growing and slowly replacing its paper-format counterparts. Educational settings are beginning to use this tool as a more efficient way to teach and test student’s abilities. High-stake tests such as the SAT, are wanting to provide an online format for their exams. As …

Experience Constructing The Artifact Genome Project (Agp): Managing The Domain's Knowledge One Artifact At A Time, Cinthya Grajeda, Laura Sanchez, Ibrahim Baggili, Devon R. Clark, Frank Breitinger

Electrical & Computer Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications

While various tools have been created to assist the digital forensics community with acquiring, processing, and organizing evidence and indicating the existence of artifacts, very few attempts have been made to establish a centralized system for archiving artifacts. The Artifact Genome Project (AGP) has aimed to create the largest vetted and freely available digital forensics repository for Curated Forensic Artifacts (CuFAs). This paper details the experience of building, implementing, and maintaining such a system by sharing design decisions, lessons learned, and future work. We also discuss the impact of AGP in both the professional and academic realms of digital forensics. …

Preservice Teachers Perceptions Of Literature:A Study In A University Spanish Literature Class For Future Spanish Teachers, Stephanie Chantall Harrison

Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative study gave insight on the benefits that a university literature course for future Spanish teachers could contribute to preservice teachers as part of their preparation program. Nine university students participated in this study as they were the ones enrolled in this first-time offered university literature course for Spanish teachers. Data were collected from pre- and post-questionnaires, journals, and course observations. The findings suggested that the preservice teachers grew in pedagogical content knowledge, literary content, resources and strategies, and felt an overall sense of preparedness to use literary sources in their future classrooms

Differently Abled Staff Welcomed By Library Recruiters, Bec Muir Aalia, Kim M. Thompson, M. Asim Qayyum

Faculty Publications

The article focuses on the benefits of reading therapy for improving health and well being for people living with disability. Topics discussed include providing knowledge or skills to provide services or resources to people living with a disability; encouraging library employers to form job advertisement with diversity and disability in mind; and encouraging employment of the same.

U.S. Racial/Ethnic/Cultural Groups In Counseling Psychology Literature: A Content Analysis, Jared Mark Hawkins

Theses and Dissertations

Research on ethnic/racial/cultural (REC) groups can contribute to reducing mental health risks and treatment disparities among REC minorities. Content analysis is a way to measure the quantity and quality of REC-focused research within a given field. For this study, counseling psychology was chosen for its leadership in multicultural and social justice issues. Three journals (Journal of Counseling Psychology, The Counseling Psychologist, and Journal of Counseling & Development) were coded for several variables, including REC-minority focus, article topic, geographic location of sample, urban/rural setting of sample, and inclusion of ethnic identity and acculturation measures. The results showed that 490 (21.3%) of …

Storying Experience: Young Children's Early Use Of Story Genres, Erin Elizabeth Flynn

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

The purpose of this study is to support early childhood teachers’ understanding of the diversity and sophistication present in young children’s storytelling to counteract singular and tacit conceptualizations of story. Drawing on the notion of genre, this study uses systemic functional linguistics to examine rhetorical patterns in the storytelling of a group of children in multilingual and multicultural classrooms. Stories were collected in the context of a small group storytelling activity called story circles. Participation in story circles resulted in 176 stories. Children’s stories were parsed into story stages and story genres based on functional purpose and known patterns in …

Pull The Andon Rope On Working Memory Capacity Interventions Until We Know More, Sandra Laing Gillam, Sarai S. Holbrook, Jamie Mecham, Daylene Weller

Communicative Disorders and Deaf Education Faculty Publications

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to discuss the current state of interventions for improving working memory (WM) capacity language, and academic skills and to provide suggestions for speech language pathologists working with students who have WM capacity limitations.

Method: Meta-analyses, systematic reviews, randomized controlled trials and non-randomized comparison studies investigating the role of WM interventions for improving WM capacity language, and academic skills are reviewed. Strategies for improving WM are discussed.

Results: The use of interventions designed to improve WM capacity and other cognitive skills is currently not supported by the research. Direct working memory interventions should be …

A Correlational Study Of 5th Students' Handwriting Legibility And Scores On Writing Samples In A Northwest Georgia School, Julia Houston

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This study explored the relationship between legibility in handwriting scores and compositional scores of students in grade five in one Northwest Georgia school. The ability to recall and write the letters automatically may impact the composing skills of students engaged in the writing process. Handwriting, often considered a motor skill in young children, may have a greater impact on literacy learning than is often considered. The strong connection to literacy learning along with the importance as a skill in communications both contribute to the importance of this study. Data was collected from one elementary school in Northwest Georgia. The school …

Grammatical Classes In Irish Sign Language: A Corpus-Based Investigation, Robert G. Smith Mr

Conference Papers

This paper provides an overview, and some preliminary findings from a sociolinguistic analysis of the Signs of Ireland (SOI) corpus (Leeson et al., 2006). The work, accomplished using the ELAN media annotation tool (Brugman, 2004) and its various search features, investigates the demographic diversity available in the SOI corpus. The recent addition of grammatical-class transcriptions has for the first time, provided a window into how different social variables affect Irish Sign Language (ISL) performance. It is possible to measure, for example, how often a mature signer uses directional verbs against the frequency of use by signers from younger generations. Given …

Coping With Stereotype Threat: Multiple Identities And The Role Of Gender-Professional Identity Integration (G-Pii), Amy Jia Ying Lim

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

Negative stereotypes concerning females’ inferior quantitative abilities continue to hinder females’ preference and success in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. Studies on multiple identities show that priming females with a favorable identity, a social identity they possess that is associated with superior quantitative abilities, can reduce the aversive effects of stereotype threat. However, this line of research overlooked the fact that females manage their multiple identities in different ways and therefore respond to identity cues differently. This paper examined the role of gender-professional identity integration (G-PII), an individual difference on perceived compatibility of gender and professional identities, in …