Digital Commons Network^™

Bringing The Outside In: Connecting Literacy Practices In A Layered, Technologically-Driven Seventh Grade Honors English Curriculum, Geneva L. Scully

Wayne State University Dissertations

As technology consumes our society today, it was one intention of this study to examine whether purposeful curriculum design that both scaffolded and layered technological tools into a unit of study in a seventh grade honors English classroom would lead to more critical and creative thinking. Through a qualitative design, case study analysis of three students whose experiences demonstrated how students were able to achieve increased levels of critical thinking was described. Another intention of this study was to examine whether or not students connected their in-school and out-of-school literacies through this experience in a more meaningful way as contributors …

Transoceanic Race: A Postcolonial Approach To Italian American Studies, Cristina Lombardi-Diop

Modern Languages and Literatures: Faculty Publications and Other Works

No abstract provided.

Colloquia Education: An Examination Of Roman Second Language Education For Social Implications, Jennifer Newton

HIM 1990-2015

The expansion of the Roman Empire had compelled disparate cultures to mingle and assimilate. In relation to education this fact meant that teachers used a variety of curricula to convey an amalgamation of cultural dynamics. Evidence for this phenomenon is found in the content Colloquia, a fourth-century elementary language textbook, which displays aspects Greek and Roman culture through the explicit and implicit instruction of the text. The existence of this mixture education displays the motivations of the author, as well as information about the values of the contemporary culture.

The Power Of Critical Reflection: Exploring The Impact Of Rhetorical Stories On Metacognition In First-Year Composition Courses, Amy Elizabeth Ratto Parks

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Abstract

The Holmes School Of Law: A Proposal To Reform Legal Education Through Realism, Robert Rubinson

All Faculty Scholarship

This article proposes the formation of a new law school, the Holmes School of Law. The curriculum of the Holmes School would draw upon legal realism, particularly as articulated by Oliver Wendell Holmes. The proposed curriculum would focus on educating students about "law in fact"—how law is actually experienced. It rejects the idea that legal education should be about reading cases written by judges who not only bring their own biases and cultural understandings to their role, but who also ignore law as experienced, which, in the end, is what law is. This disconnect is especially troubling because virtually all …

Creating Theatre-Based Curriculum For Use In The Esl/Efl Language Classroom: A Model, Alexandra Williams-Fleck

Master's Projects and Capstones

Many countries require the study of the English language as part of the standard curriculum in K-12 schools. Unfortunately, many students lack the interest and motivation to learn, despite English’s potential to open future academic and professional doors. This is particularly true for students living in countries where English is not a nationally spoken language. They receive no language support from their surrounding environment, which affects their rate of language acquisition. Coupled with a prevalence of out-of-context materials and non-native English-speaking teachers (NNESTs) who may be unable to impart the non-verbal and cultural implications of the language, students are at …

Content-Based Instruction And Corpus Linguistics Curriculum For Early Advanced Efl Saudi Students, Ahmed Alattar

Master's Projects and Capstones

For many years now EFL teaching and learning in Saudi Arabia has suffered from a lack of authentic life-related and meaningful materials. Most of the EFL books available, therefore, pay more attention to form and less attention to meaning. This has resulted in many Saudi EFL students having difficulty improving their L2 proficiency. For this reason, I developed a curriculum that incorporates content-based instruction and corpus linguistics. The curriculum is divided into six units. The units focus on the five basic language skills: Reading, Writing, Listening, and Speaking. Each unit focuses on different content and includes examples form several corpus …

Teaching Health Literacy In Conjunction With Esl, Dora Lee

Master's Projects and Capstones

In the United States, many English as a Second Language (ESL) speakers who have limited English proficiency also have low levels of health literacy. The purpose of this project is to create a curriculum that ESL teachers can implement to improve the English language proficiency and the health literacy skills of adult ESL speakers with limited English proficiency residing in the United States. The curriculum is designed for teachers who work with ESL speakers who may be having trouble obtaining, processing, communicating, or managing health information due to language barriers.

The Influence Of The Classroom Environment On Children's Learning Of Multiculturalism, Alberta Siaw

Student Theses and Dissertations

Today's rapid increase in diversity highlights the impact of classroom environment on children's perspectives. The growth of numerous cultures encourage people to learn from experiences, beliefs, and perspectives that are different from their own. Education within diverse classrooms prepare students to become good citizens in a pluralistic society. This study takes a critical look at the impact of the classroom environment on children's perspectives of multicultural awareness. The participants involved in the study were twenty-five teachers and forty-five children. The focus of the study was to determine how the classroom environment could affect children's perspectives of multicultural awareness. Through daily …

Umm Curriculum Program Changes 11/20/2014, Curriculum Committee

Curriculum Committee Reports

No abstract provided.

Connecting Curriculum To Context: Our Story Of Two Liberal Arts College Spanish Programs Engaged In A Changing South, Laura Barbas Rhoden, Julee Tate

PRISM: A Journal of Regional Engagement

The purpose of this article is to reflect upon the process by which two professors in Spanish programs at small liberal arts colleges in the southeastern United States developed courses with civic engagement components that enabled our students to engage with the local Hispanic community in meaningful ways. From the outset, we focused on what we saw as an opportunity for connecting the curriculum we taught to our specific regional context, which had been shaped by new immigration patterns that brought large populations of Latin Americans to our region during the 1990s. We also explain how our interactions with local …

Improvisation Within The Beginning Band Curriculum: Creating A Comprehensive Improvisational Resource For The Middle School Music Educator, Christopher R. Gagne

Open Access Dissertations

Previously conducted research has contributed to a prevalent view that the study of improvisation is an integral component to a holistic music education. The MENC embraced this view of the importance of improvisational studies in 1994 when it established improvisation instruction as a core standard of music education. However, a multitude of surveys observing music educator practices conducted in the wake of this declaration by the MENC revealed improvisation as a classroom activity lagging behind the other core standards in terms of student practice and teacher emphasis. Findings from these surveys also suggest that many educators lack a requisite background …

Achievement Of Elementary School Students And Attendance In Preschool Programs In Johnson County, Tennessee, Emogene C. South Mrs.

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine if a difference in achievement scores exist between students who attended the Johnson County School System preschool program and those who did not as measured by standardized TCAP achievement test Reading/Language Arts and Math scores of students in the third and fourth grades. The variables of grade level and preschool attendance were considered. The population consisted of students who were in the third or fourth grades in the Johnson County School System during the 2010-2011 school year through the 2012-2013 school year. Data gathered were from the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program achievement …

Exploring How Faculty Members In Higher Education Respond To An Assessment Of Their Intercultural Competency, Naomi Rae Taylor

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations

This study addressed the response of faculty members in higher education completing the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) to measure their developmental level of intercultural competency. In addition, this study described how faculty members implemented their intercultural development plans (IDPs) and also identified the supports or barriers to their future development of intercultural competency. The literature review examined research on both K-12 and higher education to highlight the problems related to diversity and culturally relevant pedagogy that are consistent at all levels of education. Three case studies and one partial case study were cross-examined to capture the similarities and differences between …

Curriculum, Marginalization, And The Professoriate, William L. White

Journal of Inquiry and Action in Education

The author exposes the subtext on which education and particularly curriculum making is based by focusing on the notion that the professoriate has been marginalized within curriculum planning by an educational hegemony that utilizes the sorting and classification mechanisms present in schooling to co-opt the development of educational plans.

Infusing Visual Arts With Elementary School Curriculum To Promote Student Equity And Academic Performance, Celeste Ward

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

The Arts, including visual arts, has been used as a teaching and learning aid throughout history. It has the potential to positively affect learners. The goal of this action research study was to analyze the effects of infusing visual arts with a writing curriculum emphasizing on promoting learning equity, academic performance, and student attitude toward writing. The conceptual framework included triarchic and social-cultural theories. Participants in the study were elementary school students. Data included surveys, student artifacts, and teacher reflection journal. The data was analyzed using quantitative and qualitative analysis. Findings indicated that when well planned, integrating visual art with …

Teaching Information Fluency: How To Teach Students To Be Efficient, Ethical, And Critical Information Consumers, Carl Heine, Dennis O'Connor

Publications & Research

Searching is becoming easier than thinking. Enter a query in a search engine, and the searcher is instantly flooded with results. Information has never been easier to retrieve and consume. At the same time, determining the quality of the results remains a daunting task. Despite the attempts to make search tools "brain dead easy"¹ to use, searching that reduces the need to think invites problems. Machines cannot reliably predict what each individual is hunting for, machines cannot determine what is credible, yet that is the direction search engine development is headed.

Studying The Effects Of An Efl Curriculum For Young Adults In Brazil, Nancy E. Dubetz

Publications and Research

The ability to speak English offers young adults in Brazil opportunities to prepare for the global job market and promotes cross cultural understanding, which are national curriculum goals for public education. The study reported in this article documents the implementation of the Empregabilidade, Tecnologia e Inglescurriculum, which was designed to expand educational and economic opportunity for young adults attending public schoolsin Salvador, Brazil by providing them with basic communicative proficiency in spoken English. The results of a mixed method curriculum study demonstrate that the published curriculum was implemented differently than intended. Results of the study of the relationship between the …

Culture Wars: A Quest For Justice In Arizona, Crystal Lynne Pfeiffer

Master's Theses

The Southwest is the location of an ongoing culture clash between proponents of a unified "American" culture and Mexican-American culture. The significance of the debate is not just about Mexican-American studies; it reflects a broader debate about individual and collective identity in the United States. The two cultures have historically had a contentious relationship that is further intensified by their geographical proximity to one another. Some of the tensions have culminated in a conflict within the school system between supporters and opponents of Mexican-American studies. One side of the debate sees the program as a means to help students succeed …

Graduate Students' Perception Of Curriculum-Based Efficacy Of The Acquisition Of Multicultural Counseling Skills, Demond Ethridge Bledsoe

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The United States is undergoing a period in which the demographics of the population are shifting drastically. The profession of counseling is tasked with providing services to diverse groups of clients, many of whom may have experienced racism, prejudice, and oppression as a result of their cultural or ethnic identity. Literature suggests that cultural and ethnic minority clients have poorer outcomes than their majority counterparts, and a significant factor in gaining positive treatment outcomes is the multicultural skill development in the clinician; however, little research focusing on effective delivery methods for multicultural skill development in counselor trainees has been conducted. …

Susan Bauer's 2003 Theory Of Well-Educated Mind: Could The Classical Approach To Teaching History Work In Southern California History K12 Classrooms?, Tomasz B. Stanek

LUX: A Journal of Transdisciplinary Writing and Research from Claremont Graduate University

The main purpose of this research evolved from the publication of S. W. Bauer Well-educated mind, a study of the significance of new methods of teaching history course. Bauer (2003) argues that the grammarian approach of simple recognition and memorization removes students from reading primary sources. This theory suggests a new methodology for the instructors and students through the three-stage process of grammar, dialectic, and rhetoric preparation with aid of primary sources or “great books list”. This paper supports Bauer’s thesis and provides evidence through extensive interviews that indeed this concept of pedagogy is present in Southern California schools.

Teachers' Perception Of The English Language Curriculum In Libyan Public Schools: An Investigation And Assessment Of Implementation Process Of English Curriculum In Libyan Public High Schools, Salem Altaieb

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

With the advent of globalization and technological development, English has become a necessary tool of international communication in many areas such as education, business, politics, commerce, science, and technology throughout the world. Also, English has become the most widely taught foreign language in the world (Kachru &Nelson, 1996). Moreover, the issue of successful implementation of the English language curriculum has been the focus of a number of studies. In the case of Libya, however, little research has been conducted on teachers' perceptions of the new English language curriculum in Libyan high schools. Thus, teachers' voices have not been examined or …

The Curriculum For English Language Teacher Education In Australian And Vietnamese Universities, Minh Hue Nguyen

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

This paper examines the curricula for English language teacher education in two universities, one in Australia and the other in Vietnam. Specifically, it analyses the structures of the two curricula, compares and contrasts them, and examines how the development of the curricula was shaped by distinctive contextual factors. Sources of data include relevant literature, policy and curriculum documents, and interviews with curriculum developers from the two universities. Analysis of data revealed great variation across and within the two curricula in terms of structure and content. Findings also reveal specific contextual factors that influenced the development of the curricula. Although the …

Towards Internationalising The Curriculum: A Case Study Of Chinese Language Teacher Education Programs In China And Australia, Danping Wang, Robyn Moloney, Zhen Li

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

This paper presents a comparative curricular inquiry of teacher education programs of Chinese as a foreign language in China and Australia. While there is an increasing demand for qualified Chinese language teachers both within China and Western countries, pre-service teacher training is regarded as one of the major factors in impeding success in effective student learning. Using an interpretative approach, this paper captures voices from teacher educators and pre-service teachers through in-depth interviews to supplement curriculum document reviews. The results identify curriculum differences in educational aims and objectives, learning content, methods of delivery and assessment. The study suggests aspects of …

Breastfeeding: An Analysis And Community-Based Curriculum For The Contemporary Central Arkansas Audience, Jennifer Susan Atkins-Gordeeva

Theses and Dissertations

Contemporary society includes many features that impede women's decision-making about infant feeding. The Central Arkansas community is particularly affected by those features. Because informed decision-making involves an acknowledgment of the risks of formula use, breastfeeding advocates must talk about risk. This curriculum offers one way to discuss risks of formula and challenges and supports within the community, to create a supportive environment for making informed decisions, and to commit to a lactation plan, inside a supportive, community-based setting.

Law Schools As Knowledge Centers In The Digital Age, Vern R. Walker, A.J. Durwin, Philip H. Hwang, Keith Langlais, Mycroft Boyd

Chicago-Kent Law Review

This article explores what it would mean for law schools to be “knowledge centers” in the digital age, and to have this as a central mission. It describes the activities of legal knowledge centers as: (1) focusing on solving real legal problems in society outside of the academy; (2) evaluating the problem-solving effectiveness of the legal knowledge being developed; (3) re-conceptualizing the structures used to represent legal knowledge, the processes through which legal knowledge is created, and the methods used to apply that knowledge; and (4) disseminating legal knowledge in ways that assist its implementation. The Article uses as extended …

Developing A Creative Thinking Course For Community College Students, Noreen Mcginness Olson

Critical and Creative Thinking Capstones Collection

This project describes the development of an online Creative Thinking course designed specifically for community college students. This interdisciplinary college course will be one component of an entrepreneurial certificate program aimed at business students, but will be open to all students seeking to improve their creative thinking abilities. While developing the course the author engaged in the process described in Cameron’s The Artists Way as a structured reflective practice.

In this writing, selected theories of creativity are described in their connection to course content and approach. The course was informed by traditional western ideas on creativity as well as an …

Integrating Social Emotional Learning Into Secondary Curriculum, Marilyn Janette Lindsay

Dissertations, Masters Theses, Capstones, and Culminating Projects

When students are able to cope with, manage and maneuver the social and emotional landscapes of their lives, their ability to learn on all levels improves. Teaching Social / Emotional Learning (SEL), as a component of secondary education, not only increases academic performance, but prepares students to meet the challenges of lifelong learning in a changing global society. Currently, students are so busy passing tests that measure their capacity for logical, analytical and objective reasoning, it leaves little time for developing self-awareness, social awareness, and the ability to cope with ambiguous situations, to adapt, to learn how to learn and …

Adaptive And Technical Problems In Curriculum Alignment Reform, Christopher S. Winters

Doctoral Dissertations

This study explored the match between (a) strategies suggested in the research as necessary for a well-honed curriculum alignment reform focused on the instructional core and (b) the strategies actually used by one district, Middlerock, in its implementation of a curriculum alignment reform. The study used interpretive qualitative methods (Caelli, Ray, & Mill, 2003) in order to describe the complex inter-relationships involved among the data sources (e.g., district documents, interview data, and an equity audit). The unit of analysis for this study was the set of strategies identified in the research that were used to address technical problems and adaptive …

Student Centered Mathematics In An Isolated Skill Environment-Constructivist Methods In Mathematics, Amy Katherine Sorenson

Mathematics Graduate Theses

"A research paper submitted to the Faculty of the Department of Mathematics in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Elementary and Middle Mathematics Education"