Education Commons^™

Reevaluating Student Engagement: Exploring And Applying Alternative Assignments In Higher Education Undergraduate Applied Saxophone, Anthony S. Cincotta Ii

Dissertations, 2020-current

Undergraduate applied saxophone study revolves around the conservatory model. This inflexible model, often referred to as a master-apprentice relationship, can create an instructor-centric power dynamic which does not address the needs of the modern student. A classroom where the power lies so heavily with the instructor can stifle student engagement and can create a sense of disenfranchisement. In this setting, students have limited input on their assignment selections. While curricula have evolved with regards to being more culturally diverse, relevant, and inclusive, the approach that educators use to deliver the material has remained largely unchanged. There is limited research on …

A Survey Of School Psychologists To Promote Support For Developing Self-Advocacy Skills In Students With Disabilities, Kiarra K. Steer

Educational Specialist, 2020-current

Self-advocacy is a critical skill for effective communication and for individual assertion of interests, needs, and rights (Hengen & Weaver, 2018). It is especially important for people with disabilities to be able to self-advocate, which includes understanding their own abilities and rights and being able to voice when they need assistance or when their rights are being violated (Hengen & Weaver, 2018).

Even though self-advocacy has been determined to be a necessary skill for students with disabilities to develop, research indicates that self-advocacy instruction is often not provided to students with disabilities. Furthermore, while researchers have shown that teaching students …

Evaluating Phonemic Proficiency And Oral Reading Fluency In Middle School Students, Cara Mcquaid

Educational Specialist, 2020-current

Research on reading performance in both public and private schools in the United States notes that students’ reading skills are declining compared to previous years, and there is a need for effective identification of skills and interventions to bridge the gap between current performance and the target skill level. While some research on reading instruction and reading skills primarily focuses on initial skills such as phonological awareness only in early grades, other research suggests that as reading skills develop and become more advanced, foundational skills such as phonological awareness also develop.

The purpose of the current study was to assess …

Online Art Education: Teaching Through A Pandemic, Jordan Pepper

Masters Theses, 2020-current

Due to the Coronavirus Pandemic of 2020, most school systems have been forced to move to online instruction presenting a unique set of unprecedented challenges for art educators. This thesis analyzed what three individual art teachers experienced when transitioning from an in-person art classroom to a virtual one through the use of interviews as the primary source of data collection. This research project examined what art teachers experienced with online art education; how art teachers learned about, adjusted to, or prepared for an online visual art education; and the ways in which art teachers responded to issues of inequity related …

Integrating Ethics And The Opioid Crisis Via Simulation: An Ethical Debriefing For Nursing Students, Raigan A. J. Shackelford

Senior Honors Projects, 2020-current

Over the past three decades, opioid medication misuse and abuse has skyrocketed. The increase in improper use has created the need for more frequent exercise of ethical reasoning skills in practice. This study was designed to determine the effect of an ethics-centered debriefing exercise following a standardized simulation scenario concerning opioid misuse/abuse on nursing students’ value of and perceived confidence in ethical reasoning skills. 18 senior level BSN students at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, VA, participated in an ethics- focused debriefing exercise following the simulated scenario. The debriefing was constructed using the ANA Code of Ethics and James Madison …

Implementation And Program Evaluation Pilot Study: Educating Health Care Providers About Protecting Population Health During Climate Change., Christine Fasching Maphis

Doctors of Nursing Practice (DNP) Final Projects, 2020-current

Recommendations regarding the need to prepare nurses and other health care providers (HCPs) for the health impacts of climate change (CC) have grown ubiquitous in the literature. Timely, efficient and sustainable strategies by the health care industry are necessary. Failure to act is predicted to result in catastrophic and lethal population health consequences. A growing body of research identifies related knowledge gaps and supports HCP competencies and best practice interventions to mitigate adverse population health impacts of CC. A social ecological framework and the PRECEDE-PROCEED approach were employed to develop and evaluate a series of online webinars designed to equip …

An Exploration Of High School Principals’ And Assistant Principals’ Perceptions Of Implementing Mental Health Curriculums In Schools, Jacqueline M. Billy

Educational Specialist, 2020-current

Mental health literacy is one’s knowledge of mental health conditions and their accompanying symptoms as well as their understanding of available treatments and mental health services. Virginia Bill SB953, signed into law in 2018, made mental health a mandated topic in health education for all ninth and tenth grade students. There are several Health Education Standards of Learning for Virginia Public Schools which are specifically aimed at increasing students’ mental health literacy. Many of the standards can be met through implementation of evidence-based curriculums focusing on mental health, known as mental health curriculums (MHC). MHC are designed to increase mental …

A Pilot Study On The Impact Of Teaching Assistant Led Cs1 Study Sessions Using Peer Instruction, Megan E. Gilbert

Senior Honors Projects, 2020-current

James Madison University’s Computer Science program strives to be a student-centered learning environment with a focus on creating a community for undergraduate success. National data reveals computer science has the lowest student retention rate compared to other STEM majors. The National Center for Women and Information Technology (NCWIT) has compiled a list of ways to retain students in Computer Science. In particular, NCWIT calls for collaboration indicate that “a sense of belonging, or a feeling of fit, is important for supporting student interest and persistence.” One aspect of creating community is the department’s longstanding commitment to provide undergraduate teaching assistants …

Impacts Of An International Professional Development Program: A Qualitative Study, Marijn W. T. De Waal

Masters Theses, 2020-current

This qualitative study with phenomenological components examined the impacts of a U.S. State Department-funded teacher professional development program, hosted at a liberal-arts university on the east coast of the United States in the spring semester of 2018. An initial review of the public literature revealed that it was challenging to find evaluation data pertaining to this particular program or ones of a similar nature. Through semi-structured synchronous online interviews with five program alumni, the researcher probed if—and if so, how—the professional development (PD) program had made the intended impacts on participants’ (1) teaching methods/curriculum, (2) content knowledge in their personal …

Threshold Concepts And Transfer: A Curriculum Mapping Tool For First-Year Writing, Kerry Smith

Masters Theses, 2020-current

Writing scholars Adler-Kassner and Wardle, Beaufort, and Devet have placed pragmatic learning goals of transfer at the core of education’s purpose. This thesis shares the assumption of pragmatic learning goals for education and examines these goals for transfer through Meyer and Land’s theory of threshold concepts in the context of first-year composition courses. Covering Meyer and Land’s foundational work on threshold concepts and Thorndike and Woodworth’s groundbreaking research that later informed Perkins and Salomon’s work in transfer, this thesis aims to contextualize this literature within and operationalize it for first-year writing programs’ curriculum course design through the creation and testing …

See And Be Seen: Young Adult Refugee Literature In The High School Curriculum, Patrice Splan

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, there are more than 25 million refugees in the world today, over half of whom are under the age of 18. As these young people adapt to new schools and communities, it is essential that all students have opportunities to see themselves represented in literature and to develop understandings of the experiences of others. This project provides an analysis of young adult refugee literature with a unit plan for application of texts in a ninth-grade Virginia English classroom, stressing the importance of education as a tool for awareness, reflection, and empathy.

Rewriting Honors 300: Teaching For Teaching Assistants, Nina Schenk

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

The purpose of this project is to rewrite the curriculum of Honors 300: Teaching Honors for Honors Students. After conducting research via survey and reading and analyzing works by Gonzales, Dallimore, and other university and pedagogy websites, meeting with organizations on campus, and getting feedback from other Honors TAs, the goal of my final project is to rewrite the Honors 300 curriculum and syllabus; this includes a restructuring of the TA selection and pairing process, a series of suggestions on training and orientation, and the recommendation for renaming the Teaching Assistants. I developed the following by consulting literature on pedagogy, …

Public School Teacher's Experience Of Technostress In A Mandatory Technology Adoption Policy Environment, Brandon Liu

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

With new technology restructuring instructional practices, many school systems are working towards adoption and integration to meet learning standards and demands (Çoklar, Efilti, Şahin, & Akçay, 2016; Al-Fudail & Mellar, 2008; Hixon & Buckenmeyer, 2009; McCannon & Crews, 2000; Nepo 2017; Straub, 2009; Sang, Valcke, van Braak & Tondeur, 2010; Wood, Mirza, & Shaw, 2018). However, few studies have been conducted within educational environments on technology-related stress and well-being when technology adoption is mandatory. Building off of Jena’s (2015) prior technostress study, this study aims to contribute to and better understand technostress within a Mandatory Adoption Policy Environment (MAPE). This …

Failure To Launch?: Advancing The Case For Financial Literacy Interventions In Postsecondary Education, Cathleen Snyder

Dissertations, 2014-2019

For college undergraduates, the thought of managing money is often new, exciting, and terrifying in the same breath. Some students have learned well from their parental and prior academic influences, and yet others may be overwhelmed by a lack of those same resources. As postsecondary institutions endeavor to level the proverbial playing field, helping college graduates launch into meaningful, financially independent lives, it begs additional consideration on the intervention methods that might be most impactful.

This study examined a for-credit, curriculum-based intervention specific to personal finance topics. It attempted to answer several key questions: How knowledgeable are students relative to …

The Art Curriculum As A Model Approach For Cultivating Higher Order Thinking Skills, Nicole Ross

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

As a life-long learner, I am fascinated by the abyss of knowledge that characterizes and composes a life of consciousness. As a teacher and mentor, I am committed to igniting this quest for knowledge in others and developing effective practices in doing so. The curriculum functions as an invitation to knowledge—or what can be seen as the crux of an education. The question I am most interested in answering is: “how can we most effectively approach curriculum in a way that inspires higher order thinking?” Throughout this study, I examined the factors that go into the formation of curriculum, the …

The Student Role In Catalyzing An Innovation Movement In Higher Education, Christopher D. Ashley

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the significance of the student role in enhancing the innovative and entrepreneurial landscape of higher education. Furthermore, the paper presents methods in which students can go about catalyzing a movement of change, and discusses examples of how these methods have been effectively applied. It is important to note that the methods and examples included in this paper are by no means the only ways students can go about creating change at their institutions. They are simply some of the methods that have been taught by Stanford University’s University Innovation Fellows (UIF) Program …

Integrating Implementation Fidelity And Learning Improvement To Enhance Students’ Ethical Reasoning Abilities, Kristen L. Smith

Dissertations, 2014-2019

Examples of demonstrable student learning improvement in higher education are rare (Banta, Jones, & Black, 2009; Banta & Blaich, 2011). Perhaps because outcomes assessment practices are disconnected from pedagogy, curriculum, and learning improvement. Through partnership with the Madison Collaborative, the current study aimed to bridge this disconnect. Specifically, researchers applied implementation fidelity methodologies (O’Donnell, 2008) to an academic program, under the guiding framework of the Simple Model for Learning Improvement (Fulcher, Good, Coleman, & Smith, 2014). In doing so, researchers helped faculty create and elucidate an ethical reasoning educational intervention and accompanying fidelity checklist. Both were well-aligned with a University-level …

Learning Through Meaningful Experiences With Self, Others, And The Environment: A Curriculum Framework Tailored To The Needs Of English Language Learners, Haley Leopold

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Our current education system is, in many cases, failing the most vulnerable among us, including, but not limited to, the impoverished, immigrants, and nonnative speakers of English. Thus, it is crucial that curricula begin to focus on improving the educational experiences of these students so that all children may have the opportunity to succeed. Within this framework, the following aspects are outlined as they relate to the context of an inclusive, 21^st century general education classroom with English Language Learners: an overview of influential pedagogical philosophies, broad educational goals for students, sample unit summaries and lesson plans, and evidence-based …

The Experience Of Reading: What Elementary Children Think Of Reading, Francesca Simpson

Educational Specialist, 2009-2019

As students with disabilities prepare to move from high school to vocations or post-secondary schooling it is essential they be able to self-advocate for their needed services. During their public school years, school psychologists, counselors, and other school administrative personnel are responsible for ensuring they are provided with an “appropriate,” barrier-free education under federal law. But upon graduation from high school, that responsibility shifts entirely onto the individual. In order to self-advocate successfully a student with a disability must know about their cognitive strengths and weaknesses. In regards to learning the student must be able to describe them to others …

An Epic Teaching Experience: A Case Study Of Pedagogically Innovative Undergraduate Classrooms, Tiffany T. Runion

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

This qualitative study examined seven professors who taught undergraduate classes in spring 2016 in the EPIC (Enhancing Pedagogy through Innovative Classrooms) spaces housed in the Student Success Center at James Madison University. The problem is that we do not know how instructors use the EPIC classrooms. In order to explore the pedagogical methods and classroom amenities used in these classrooms, I interviewed and observed seven instructors over a period of nine weeks. A collective case study methodology was used to describe the experiences of the instructors during this time period. My findings suggested that these instructors often used a combination …

The Achievement Gap And Students Living In Poverty: The Role Of Core Self-Evaluation And Transformational Leadership In Teachers, India Harris

Dissertations, 2014-2019

Research has shown that the combination of locus of control, self-efficacy, self-confidence, and emotional stability is a good predictor of life success. Until now, this second order factor, called core self-evaluations (CSE) has only been studied in adults. Findings from this study, showed levels of CSE were significantly and positively connected with academic achievement for middle and elementary aged students. CSE appears to play to a similar role between students and academic achievement as it plays with adults and job performance. In this study, the dimensions of transformational leadership were applied to teacher behaviors and students were grouped based on …

How To Teach Hamlet, Rachel A. Wolfe

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

This thesis is a discussion of the history and previous methods of teaching Hamlet followed by a unit plan and lesson plans that are grounded in a more modern understanding of how to teach dramatic literature.

Lev Vygotsky Speaks: Early Childhood Curricula, Dakota L. Gagliardi

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Early childhood curricula have become a major source of conversation in recent decades. The desire for growth and reform in the education field has contributed to changing tides in the classroom, leading to more child-centered approaches that are believed critical in the acquisition of holistic development. Two such curricula that have received recent attention are Reggio Emilia and Tools of the Mind, both of which stem from the foundational beliefs of Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky. It is the aim of this paper to analyze both Reggio Emilia and Tools of the Mind in terms of how they compare to Vygotsky’s …

Exploring Graduate Student Parent Experiences: How To Better Support And Reduce Attrition In An Underserved Population, Christine R. Leaman

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

Changes in the global economy, employer expectations, and cultural norms are causing a shift in the demographics of post-baccalaureate students. Out of necessity to support oneself in an increasingly demanding job market, female graduate student enrollment has been on the rise for a number of years. This, in combination with a general increase in the number of individuals enrolling in graduate degree programs while trying to balance the responsibility of raising children presents a growing problem for institutions of higher education. Graduate student parents are a population that requires additional and varying support services than those of the traditional graduate …

Emergency Cardiac Care In Athletic Training Education, Erica M. Filep

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

In the field of athletic training, preventing sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) has become a vital component of undergraduate athletic training students’ education. Specifically, SCA is the “leading cause of death in young athletes due to a structural cardiac abnormality” (Casa et. al, 2012, p. 15). Numerous studies about sudden death in athletics have been conducted but there is a gap in educational literature. Teaching students how to respond to catastrophic injury or illness is still an area that needs to be expanded upon. Educational competencies and standards have rapidly evolved with each edition of the National Athletic Trainers’ Association (NATA) …

Successful Approaches To Encourage Family Involvement In A School Division Located In Southeastern Virginia With Varying Income Levels, Katelyn Elizabeth Montague

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

The purpose of this project was to identify successful approaches that teachers use to encourage involvement of all families. Following a review of professional and research literature, a survey of Pre-kindergarten through fifth grade teachers was distributed in a school division located in southeastern Virginia with varying income levels.

The findings in this survey suggested that participating teachers encouraged family involvement by inviting families into the classroom and explaining to them how they could help their children at home. The teachers utilized weekly communication in various forms such as printed material, electronic formats, and classroom websites. Teachers were also flexible …