Education Commons^™

There’S Action In Silence: An Action Research Study On The Impacts Of Diverse Narratives In An Advanced Placement United States Government Class, Ashley Kristen Wright

Theses and Dissertations

In this action research study, I facilitated and evaluated student exposure to politically, socially, and economically diverse source material within my Advanced Placement United States Government classroom, seeking to resolve students’ apparent disconnect from experiences that differ from their own, which had made connections to topics like civil rights challenging to grasp. Because the supplemental material I had chosen for my government classes failed to provide opposing narratives for my students to make these connections, this study arose as a way to research and ultimately correct this problem from within my government classroom.

Over the course of a semester, I …

White Blindness: An Investigation Into Teacher Whiteness And Racial Ignorance, Mary Katharine Brasche

Theses and Dissertations

White supremacy and domination are the backbone foundation of the United States and have been long documented in its history. The prevalence of whiteness and white supremacy is not isolated to social situations or commerce but fundamentally ingrained in the education system. While Brown v. the Board of Education abolished the notion of separate but equal, the education of a diverse American student population remains predominantly at the hands of White, female educators. This action research study, using an investigative mixed-methods design, attempted to address educator whiteness at a small, rural high school in the Southeastern United States. Treatment …

The Impact Of An Interactive Simulation Program On English Language Learner Achievement In A Middle School Science Classroom, Scott Sutherland

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine how a particular technology program, Gizmos, would impact English language learner students in demonstrating their verbal and written comprehension of science content at a proficient level. Gizmos were incorporated as an intervention to facilitate the teaching of two different topics, convection cells and hurricane motion. This study involved three English language learner students with varying World-Class Instructional Design and Assessment (WIDA) proficiency levels between one and four. Semi-structured interviews, semi-structured observations, and work samples were conducted and collected from each of the participants. My analysis demonstrated a strong correlation between the use …

The Effects Of Game-Based Learning On The Motivation And Engagement Of Career Technical Education Students In The High School Chemistry Classroom, Samuel Lackey

Theses and Dissertations

The problem of practice in this dissertation in practice focuses on the lack of motivation and engagement exhibited by career technical education (CTE) students within the traditional high school chemistry classroom as a response to textbook and teacher-centered pedagogy. This qualitative action research study utilizes a game-based learning intervention that is ultimately based upon the personal interests and sociocultural discourses of the six case study participants and analyzes its impact on both the motivation and engagement of this particular sample of rural, socioeconomically disadvantaged, CTE secondary students. During the intervention, a total of five chemistry video games were played by …