Digital Commons Network^™

Benefits Of Teaching Pre-Literacy In Waldorf Education In Early Childhood, April Guerrero

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

This senior capstone research project examines the benefits of teaching pre-literacy in Waldorf education in early childhood. In Waldorf Education, literacy development incorporates differentiated instructions that fosters cognitive and social emotional learning of their students. Through the use of literature review and several teachers in various grades of Waldorf schools, the result findings revealed that pedagogical practices around literacy instructions promote critical thinking skills, nurtures children’s creative expression, and imagination. Literacy curriculum in Waldorf schools allows students to create tangible evidence of self-expressions and communication skills. Given its emphasis on holistic curriculum, it allows teachers to engage with their diverse …

Examining The Impact Of Eds And Meds Anchor Institutions On Local Communities: A Mixed Methods Case Study On University Medical Center New Orleans, Samuel P. Firmin

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine how the University Medical Center New Orleans (UMCNO), a major Eds and Meds anchor institution, has contributed to the well-being outcomes of surrounding communities within the New Orleans BioDistrict since its opening in 2015. Eds and Meds institutions often have mixed impacts on their local communities, and little research has focused on their effects in the Deep South, particularly in New Orleans, a region with pronounced socioeconomic disparities. This study aimed to address this research gap by investigating the following question: to what extent does UMCNO's Community Health Needs Assessments align with …

Harvesting Hope: How La Casa De La Cultura Serves Migrant Families Through Health And Advocacy Programs, Ana Ruiz

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

This project aims to enhance community engagement in Pajaro through strategic outreach and marketing efforts for weekly meetings hosted at La Casa de la Cultura. By increasing awareness and participation, the initiative seeks to empower residents, especially those from marginalized backgrounds, to access vital resources and services. The project will collect data on attendance and community interests, leading to more tailored presentations that address pressing concerns. Ultimately, this outreach aims to foster a unified, informed community capable of advocating for its needs and accessing available support systems effectively.

Combating Social Work Burnout With Agency Trainings, Franchesca Weaver

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

Supporting providers to alleviate the high level of burnout is proven to ameliorate their ability to provide efficient care. With the understanding of the importance of supporting providers in this field, the deep dive into utilizing trainings that helps combat burnouts is equally important. This research project was aimed to investigate the relevance of the implemented trainings by reviewing finalized progress notes of county social workers who have taken the Sleep Coach training. This was done by analyzing notes using search keys, then giving a score to each time the word ‘sleep’ was mentioned, based on the context it was …

The Importance Of Mental Health In Children, Haide Batres

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

This capstone project focuses on teaching children how to identify and cope with their mental health challenges. Ho and Funk's (2018) research highlighted how children's social and emotional health impacts their development and social interaction. During this time, children experience changes within themselves, increased sensitivity to stress, and challenges to socially interact with others. They begin to develop mechanisms, which can either support or delay their emotional well-being. Understanding these changes is important for contributing to their future mental health. To promote resilience and healthy coping mechanisms, I presented a three-day workshop to third-grade students (8-9 years old) from Hispanic …

Utilizing Machine Learning For Categorizing Disaster-Related Tweets, Ahmad Alfalasi

Theses

This study presents the development of a machine-learning model that recognizes tweets about disasters in real-time. The fast-paced development of social media, especially Twitter, has drastically changed the field of news transmission during crises. This change creates new challenges for the management of the volume, velocity, and veracity of data that are generated in such situations. The present tools do not have the capabilities of real-time processing of the huge volume of data; hence, new solutions are required. The model we are proposing addresses this problem by using advanced machine learning methods, such as natural language processing, to filter and …

The Mythical Nexus: Illuminating The Rich Tapestry Of Global Folklore, Trishala Parmar

Theses

There is a lack of accessibility and exposure to global folklore for a wider audience. Despite the richness and diversity of folktales worldwide, many people may not have access to them due to limited resources, language barriers, cultural isolation, and a lack of exposure. I saw a need to preserve and celebrate cultural heritage through stories and make it fun. I created an interactive website called The Mythical Nexus which allows an audience to interact with different stories and cultures through a series of rotating cubes. This website connects stories and folklore from around the globe through the power of …

Urban Japanese, Rural American: How Regionality Shaped Nisei Girlhood In Prewar America, Lauren Reiko Yanase

University Honors Theses

This thesis explores Nisei girls' racial and cultural identity formation in the American West before their forced removal to the World War II Japanese American mass incarceration camps. Japanese American history has long been dominated by male narratives, from labor histories of the 1880's first-generation Issei to the American patriotism of the 1930's second-generation Nisei. Japanese American women are generally considered through generational categories, promulgating a linear story of American progress. I argue that regionality is the main factor that shaped Nisei girls' self-identity, employing transcribed interviews with Nisei women born 1924-1929 as primary sources to write narrative histories differentiated …

Supporting Well-Being For The Home Visiting Workforce: Organizational Supports For Experiences Of Bias & Discrimination, Beth L. Green, Nicole M. Lauzus, Yumi Lee, Ron Joseph, Erin Gaines, Center For Improvement Of Child And Family Services

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

This learning brief is the third in a series to share findings from a 2023 statewide survey of over 700 members of Oregon’s home visiting workforce. This study has provided a wealth of information about Oregon’s home visiting workforce and what could be done to improve and support worker well-being and retention, with a focus on the needs and experiences of home visitors of color and those who speak languages other than English.

Little research has examined the extent to which home visitors experience racism or discrimination on the job, how this may impact their professional and personal well-being, and …

Building On Strengths: A Collaborative, Asset-Focused Approach To Teaching Critical Information Literacy Skills, Rebecca B. Penrose, Kristi J. Chavez

Communications in Information Literacy

This article showcases an instructor–librarian collaborative model for teaching critical information literacy (CIL) skills in a higher education course by incorporating interactive workshops into a sequence of required course assignments. Using an asset-focused design, this assignment sequence allows students to first demonstrate their existing research strategies and then evaluate those strategies during workshop activities, applying the CIL principles they are learning. In this way, the approach recognizes students’ existing strengths and builds upon them, while emphasizing self-reflection opportunities and an intentional research focus on diversity, equity, inclusion, and representation. Results from our one-year study are also highlighted. The suggested instructional …

Ta'tsir Al-Wasilah As-Sam'iyyah Al-Bashariyyah Fi Ta'allum Maharah Al-Istima' Li Al-Lughah Al-'Arabiyyah 'Ala Mukhtalif Al-Mustawayat., Ali Farhan, Asep Sopian

Al-Arabi: Journal of Teaching Arabic as a Foreign Language

This study aims to identify the general trends in the impact of audio-visual media. The research examines the effects of audio-visual media on listening skills and motivation in Arabic language learning, considering educational levels, research design,

Families’ Experiences Accessing Care After Genomic Sequencing In The Pediatric Cancer Context: “It’S Just Been A Big Juggle”, Blake Vuocolo, Amanda M Gutierrez, Jill O Robinson, Alva M Recinos, Lauren R Desrosiers, Mary A Majumder, Juan Carlos Bernini, Jonathan Gill, Timothy Griffin, Gail E Tomlinson, Kelly Vallance, Amy L Mcguire, D Williams Parsons, Sharon E Plon, Sarah Scollon

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Access to genomic sequencing (GS) and resulting recommendations have not been well described in pediatric oncology. GS results may provide a cancer predisposition syndrome (CPS) diagnosis that warrants screening and specialist visits beyond cancer treatment, including testing or surveillance for family members. The Texas KidsCanSeq (KCS) Study evaluated implementation of GS in a diverse pediatric oncology population. We conducted semi-structured interviews (n = 20) to explore experiences of KCS patients' families around learning about a CPS diagnosis and following up on recommended care. We used qualitative content analysis to develop themes and subthemes across families' descriptions of their experiences accessing …

Detecting Community-Level Ethnic Variation Through Classic Vernal Style Rock Art, Victoria Ramirez

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

The Uinta Basin in Northeastern Utah was where farming first took hold in the far north of western North America. This shift from hunting to farming saw the rise of many farming communities among the Fremont people. These communities left behind stunning rock art known as the Classic Vernal style. Recent studies suggest that these communities were made up of two different groups who came from the Four-Corners area around AD 300, bringing farming with them. This idea means that different cultural groups may have created the Classic Vernal style rock art in the Uinta Basin. By looking closely at …

Are Universities Adequately Preparing Undergraduate Students For Careers As Professional Wildlife Biologists?, Trevon D. Strange

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

The demands for diversely skilled wildlife biologists and scientific researchers in the wildlife profession are projected to increase. Increasing urbanization has affected wildlife management, and the recruitment of future wildlife professionals. Thus, state and federal supervisors in agencies that hire wildlife professionals are concerned that recent graduates of university wildlife programs lack the necessary skill-sets to address these complex contemporary wildlife management issues. My research sought to identify where the educational performance gaps may exist between university wildlife programs, wildlife agencies, and student expectations. To conduct my research, I evaluated undergraduate wildlife curricula offered by 42 accredited universities listed on …

Supervised Generative Adversarial Networks For Time Series Generation In Embedding Space, Mohammadreza Eskandarinasab

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

Time series data, such as weather forecasts, stock market trends, or heart rate monitors, plays a vital role in many areas of our lives. However, creating realistic synthetic time series data for research and testing purposes has been a significant challenge due to limitations in existing methods, which often struggle with accuracy and consistency. In this study, we developed two new approaches to generate high-quality time series data more effectively. The first method introduces a dual-feedback system that helps the model learn and replicate real data patterns more accurately by providing guidance at different stages of the learning process. The …

Comparative Analysis Of Multi-Criteria Techniques In Neutrosophic Environment And Their Applications To Economic Condition Assessment, Asmaa Elsayed, Mai Mohamed

Neutrosophic Systems with Applications

In economic decision-making, the challenge of evaluating multiple, often conflicting criteria necessitates advanced Multi-Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM) techniques. Traditional methods can struggle with the inherent uncertainty, ambiguity, and imprecision of real-world data. This paper addresses these challenges by investigating the effectiveness of various MCDM techniques within neutrosophic environments, with a particular focus on the Criteria-wise Alternatives Ranking and Correlation Analysis for Composite Scoring (CARCACS) method. Neutrosophic sets, which incorporate truth, falsity, and indeterminacy, provide a robust framework for addressing the vagueness and inconsistencies found in economic indicators such as GDP growth, employment levels, inflation rates, trade balances, investment activity, and government …

A Distinct System For Presidential Succession On Inauguration Day: Getting The Most Out Of Section 3 Of The Twentieth Amendment, Brian C. Kalt

Cardozo Law Review

The current presidential-succession statute uses the same line of succession for every conceivable situation. But there are many different types of potential succession scenarios. Succession need not—and should not—be governed by a one-size-fits-all approach.

Before the Twentieth Amendment was ratified in 1933, the Constitution authorized Congress to provide only for double vacancies during the term, when there already is a President and Vice President. Recognizing this gap, Section 3 of the Twentieth Amendment empowered Congress to cover inauguration-day double vacancies: at the outset of a term, when nobody is available to become President or Vice President in the first place. …

The Positivity Principle: Investigating A School Administrator Training Series Designed To Promote Systemic Positivity, Catherine Gillach

Theses and Dissertations

Education has historically been recognized as a stressful profession, yet the Covid-19 pandemic (2020) paired with intensified socio-political influences have exacerbated educator stress, anxiety, and negativity, prematurely pushing more career educators to leave the profession. Teacher and principal pre-service preparation programs largely neglect to train educators in strategies for personally managing negative stressors, and negativity mitigation strategies are often overlooked as a critical facet of school climate and culture. Therefore, the purpose of this dissertation in practice was to examine the degree to which a school administrator training series could stimulate personal and systemic positivity within participants’ schools in a …

Targeting World Language Learning In The Target Language: A Qualitative Inquiry Of The K–12 Foreign Language Teacher Experience, Igor Ljevaja

Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative study explores the current practices of K–12 foreign language teachers (FLTs) in using the target language (TL) within an urban school district in the Midwest United States. Focusing on how FLTs engage in professional development (PD) to optimize their TL use in the classroom, the study investigates the strategies and knowledge FLTs employ to foster TL proficiency among students. Purposeful sampling was employed to recruit participants (n = 5) who represented full-time FLTs, taught between sixth and 12th grade, and had at least four years of teaching experience and valid state licenses. Semi-structured interviews with current FLTs provide …

Yet Further South: The Brazilian Confederados Through The Lens Of Historiography, Christian Mumpower

Bound Away: The Liberty Journal of History

As the American Civil War drew to a close, Confederate soldiers began to desert at an ever higher rate. Among the deserters, some ambitious souls who could not fathom living under a restored Union began to look beyond the borders of the United States for refuge and were soon joined in their endeavor by several high-ranking officials and military officers. Many of these expatriates soon found themselves in the equatorial Empire of Brazil, where they were allowed to perpetuate their plantation way of life. These Confederados, as the locals referred to them, unknowingly facilitated a massive scientific and cultural exchange …

From Research To Practice: Considering Context And The Teacher As Theorist, Maria Chona S. Lin

Kritika Kultura

Language pedagogy has drawn on various disciplines to inform it, one of which is Second Language Acquisition (SLA). However, while considerable developments in SLA have generated more confidence in it, there are still those among SLA researchers who have been reticent in applying results of their research to language pedagogy. Perhaps the problematic relationship between theory and practice and between specialists and teachers need not in principle be oppositional, if we have a greater understanding of the complex nature of the language classroom, as Prabhu has suggested in “The Dynamics of the Language Lesson” (TESOL 1992). In this paper, I …

Popular As Political Culture: The Fatherland, Nationalist Films, And Modernity In South Korea, Taiwan, And The Philippines, Rolando B. Tolentino

Kritika Kultura

The experience of modernity results from the emergent social relations formed in liberalized market economies, which also posit as sites of newer forms of pain and suffering as especially experienced by those in the margins. As national economies undergo liberalization to survive in globalization, so are their political structures reshaped to become conducive to transnational capital. The essay discusses the relationship of the state and civil society in a postcolonial national setting, looking into their operations and parameters in the South Korean film A Single Spark. The analysis of the effects of the state and civil society in issues of …

The Androgynous Baglan: Interruption, Withdrawal, And Reclaiming, Aurelio S. Agcaoili

Budhi: A Journal of Ideas and Culture

The pursuit of decolonization is a first act in the manifold acts of real, because substantive, liberation of a colonized country like the Philippines. The reason is clear: every colonizer not only colonizes a country but invades and occupies the mind of the people of that country, puts a claim to their bodies, and replaces their language and cultural practices with his own to complete his violent act of “discovering” the Other. Even with independence granted to a colonized people, the intellectual residues in a colonized consciousness that has coopted with the colonizer if only to survive continue to haunt, …

The Paradox Of Deliberation: JüRgen Habermas And The Rational Approach To The Normative Theory Of Democracy, Ian Clark R. Parcon

Budhi: A Journal of Ideas and Culture

Jürgen Habermas anchors his theory of democracy on communicative rationality, which he translates into procedural rationality geared towards the attainment of consensus. In this study, I present his theory of democracy and discuss its limitations. I then argue that for a more comprehensive theory of democracy, the insights from other theories, specifically, the agonistic perspective of Chantal Mouffe, should be seriously taken into account.

Philosophical Research And Narrative Inquiry, Jovino G. Miroy

Budhi: A Journal of Ideas and Culture

This article endeavors to re-understand philosophical research through narrative inquiry. It proposes that inquiry in philosophical research leads to new relationships based on the articulation of the individual’s interaction in terms of temporality, spatiality, and sociality. Philosophical research may be considered as asking questions that emanate from the life situation of inquirers. Such investigation seeks to keep the questions alive and to tell better stories through doubt and movement. Research conceived as such is a way of living with others, especially those who cannot tell their own stories. Philosophical research, I argue, turns out to be crucial to democracy as …

The Filipino Christ And The Historical Jesus, Michael Demetrius H. Asis

Budhi: A Journal of Ideas and Culture

The Filipino Christ and the Historical Jesus is a book based on current historical Jesus studies in the Philippines and abroad. It asks the question, “How does the historical Jesus interact with Filipino Christianity—its popular Christ figures and images, doctrinal pronouncements, cultic practices, and ethical choices?” The book ultimately proposes Jesus as “Bayani”—one who gives himself up for others and the nation and inspires “bayanihan”—so that Filipinos may become life giving agents and catalysts of meaningful social change in the nation.

How To Love In Easy Steps: Heteronormativity, Queer Love, And Foucault's Counter-Conduct, Hannah Jane S. Carpiso, Ninotchka Mumtaj B. Albano

Budhi: A Journal of Ideas and Culture

Love is one of the most pervasive human experiences, yet its definition remains elusive to this day. Attempts to describe love have led to the institutionalization and privileging of heterosexual identities, relationships, and ways of loving. Michael Warner refers to this phenomenon as “heteronormativity,” which rigidifies subjectivities and relationalities into fixed, heterosexist structures. However, queer love unfolds in ways different from this relational structure. It invents and re-invents love, relationalities, and subjectivities by moving beyond the dichotomies of heteronormativity. The inventive characteristic of queer love is found in what is known as the “gay mode of life,” an instance of …

The Contributors, Contributors Contributors

Budhi: A Journal of Ideas and Culture

The Contributors

"Is It Desirable To Do Philosophy With Students In Their Second Language?", April Capili

Budhi: A Journal of Ideas and Culture

Advocates of philosophizing with children report the benefits of the practice: tapping into a natural sense of wonder, cultivating the willingness to listen to others, developing critical reasoning, etc. A mother tongue shared by both students and teacher would go a long way in facilitating these learning processes. However, given that in many classrooms the language of instruction is not necessarily the students’ mother tongue, the question of the desirability of practicing philosophy with them arises. This paper considers some arguments in support of the negative response to this question: (a) children learning in a second language have limited vocabulary …

Democratic Education For The Common Good, Rainier A. Ibana

Budhi: A Journal of Ideas and Culture

Democratic Education for the Common Good