Education Commons^™

Spirits In The Dark: Black Community Education And The Light It Bears, Sydoni A. Ellwood

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

“Spirits in the Dark” is a digital space dedicated to the efforts of Black community education. It memorializes the commitment and strategies of spirits, light bearers like Mary McLeod Bethune and Huey Newton – people who devoted their lives to the fortification of their communities via education. This project also presents a variety of answers to one specific question: What lessons can school leaders and educators incorporate from community-controlled education programs to make learning spaces affirming and engaging for Black students? In totality, the digital space contributes to conversations in urban education and sociology, specifically the ones being held around …

An Evaluation Of One School's Reading Program To Support Struggling Readers Through The Use Of Data, Gabrielle Jones

Dissertations

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the efficacy of one school’s reading intervention program, and its impact on struggling readers reading performance. Participants in this study included administrators, Grades 3 through 5instructional staff that directly impact student learning in reading through reading instruction. I collected survey data and analyzed it to determine teachers’ ability to instruct struggling readers with high expectations for student learning. As a result, this evaluation exhibit teachers require more quality planning time to prepare effective reading intervention lessons that includes strategies attained from strategically designed professional development structured to increase students’ reading ability. …

The Latino Achievement Gap: The Role Of Teachers In The Success Or Failure Of Latino Students, Sandra Gonzalez-Adamski

Dissertations

Understanding that the academic achievement of Latino students continues to lag behind their White peers, this study explored the role of the teacher in the success or failure of Latino school-age children. The methodology utilized for this research was qualitative. I used a narrative approach to discuss the thoughts, opinions, and insights of the six teachers interviewed for this study. The in-depth conversations with the participants suggested differences in how Latino and White teachers view their Latino students. Most of the White teachers suggested that academic achievement can be reached through explicit vocabulary instruction, reading a wide variety of books, …

The Effects Of Mindful Yoga Instruction On Participants' Academic Stamina And Self-Regulation In A Kindergarten Classroom, Taylor Jeppson

Education Masters Papers

This study consisted of 15 participants in a kindergarten classroom. Participants were involved in an intervention where they participated in mindful yoga instruction. Mindful yoga instruction refers to the concentration on the present moment in time (Germer, 2004) and consisting of yoga poses that involve stretching in combination with the inhalation and exhalation of the breath (Field, 2011). The yoga instruction was given to participants for ten minutes a day, every day, for a four-week long duration. This intervention was given by the classroom teacher (researcher) and was conducted before participants’ whole-group math lesson. The data collected reflects the impact …

Teacher Led Tier Two Intervention To Increase Student Academic Achievement, Cynthia Shepherd

Education Masters Papers

The purpose of this action research was to determine if the implementation of a tier two teacher led intervention would increase student academic achievement. A small group of ten students in a ninth-grade physical science class participated in the study. Data was collected over a period of three weeks using pre- and post- intervention surveys, an exit slip for self-assessment, researcher observations, comparisons of work completion and grades from previous grading periods, participant performance self-assessment, and a goal setting activity. Results show an inconclusive connection between the tier two teacher led intervention and student academic achievement. This is possibly due …

Literature That Breaks Gender Stereotypes In A Primary Classroom, Alexis Wash

Education Masters Papers

How can literature that breaks gender stereotypes impact attitudes, interests, and interaction in a primary classroom? This action research was conducted in the researcher’s classroom with 16 first grade participants. The researcher observed participants’ disengagement towards literature that is traditionally stereotyped towards the opposite gender. This research was done to further understand how literature that breaks gender stereotypes can impact participants’ attitudes and interests towards traditional gender stereotypes with occupations, toys, colors, interaction, sports, and literature. A focus group of participants were exposed to several storybooks that broke gender stereotypes over the course of four weeks. Data collected suggests that …

How Does Different Level Of Questioning Impact Student Performance, Engagement, And Motivation In A 6th Grade Science Classroom?, Mia Bruesewitz

Education Masters Papers

This study was designed to determine how different level of questioning in a 6th grade science classroom can impact student performance, engagement, and motivation. During the study, students were taught three different lessons, balance and unbalanced forces, friction, and mass versus weight. Data was collected in a 6th grade science class of 25 participants and focused on surveys, pretests, exit slips, at-task checklist, and a final summative assessment. The results of the data showed that there was no significant difference in performance, engagement, or motivation in relation to different level of questioning. The data also showed that activities that students …

The Impacts Of Ability Grouping And Project Based Learning In Stem, Andrea Johnson

Education Masters Papers

Because of a decrease in state standardized test scores in science and an increase in the use of ability grouping in reading, this research investigated the impacts of ability grouping and project based learning in STEM unit. The participants in this study are made up of 24 fourth grades. They were split into groups based on their Cognitive Abilities Test (CogAT) results and completed a unit on matter. In the end, the students created a product explaining everything they learned about matter throughout the unit through choices of a presentation, video, or model. This research aimed to answer the following …

How Social Interaction Opportunities And Emotional Skills Instruction Affect Kindergarteners’ Self-Efficacy And Mental Health Within The Distance Learning Model Of School, Sarah Taraba

Education Masters Papers

This study was designed to investigate how implementing social interaction opportunities and emotional skill instruction could improve the overall mental health and self-efficacy levels of students in a kindergarten distance learning classroom. Due to the worldwide pandemic, COVID- 19, students were forced to participate in a distance learning format. This meant that students utilized a technological device to participate in schooling through online meetings with teachers and classmates. The research that was conducted focused on kindergarten students as the participants to see what could be done to improve their overall mental health; increasing levels of positive emotions such as happiness, …

Calming Station: Mindfulness Breathing Techniques And Yogic Stretches To Promote Self- Regulation, Anna Olson

Education Masters Papers

Self-regulation is a life skill that is universal. Everyone has a different level of regulation. Amongst the many different strategies for self-regulation, mindfulness breathing and yogic stretches have substantial amount of positive data based on adults. Mindfulness is an idea that has been explore more and more in a school setting with children. There have been different mindfulness curriculum made to incorporate into a classroom setting. Yoga is also a term that has been used more in schools to help regulate both adults and children. This study is designed to investigate if mindfulness breathing and yogic stretches help promote self-regulation …

Impact Of Brain Breaks On Student Engagement, Motivation, And Achievement In A Third-Grade Classroom, Adrianna Gernes

Education Masters Papers

In a third-grade classroom in a highly populated city, a researcher was concerned about her students’ focus level in the afternoon. Students have a long day at school, their brains get exposed to so much information on a typical day, and it is hard to retain the knowledge as well as being able to stay focused and motivated throughout each and every day. This study investigated how brain breaks affect student engagement, achievement, and motivation. For the entirety of a math unit, math instruction was taught incorporating planned brain breaks throughout each lesson. Data was collected from pre-and post- assessment …

Using Film As A Multimodal Text In The Language Classroom, Kate Marie Steckmest

MA TESOL Collection

Film is a powerful medium for language acquisition; Not only does viewing films allow learners to experience language used in various real-life contexts, but the medium of film itself is a form of communication. Through the active viewing of films, students can explore how people with diverse backgrounds, accents, and cultures communicate using multiple modes such as gestures, images, and sounds. When learners are familiar with the techniques used by filmmakers to convey meaning, they can use the medium of film themselves to tell their stories and share their perspectives through filmmaking projects. Such projects can be collaborative and engaging …

Still Just White-Framed: Continued Coloniality, Hispanic Serving Institutions, And Latin@/X Students, Ilda Guzman

Ed.D. Dissertations in Practice

Abstract

Throughout the Pacific Northwest there are a total of 12 Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs) with an average Latin@/x undergraduate full-time enrollment rate of 33.7 percent. In order to be designated as HSIs, institutions of higher education must have an enrollment rate of 25 percent or more students who identify as Latin@/x. HSIs became recognized in the late 1980s when a small number of higher education institutions enrolled a large number of Latin@/x students, yet did not have the resources to successfully educate the students (Excelencia, 2019). Since then, HSIs have consistently and continuously risen in Latin@/x enrollments. To date, …

Equity By Design And Delivery Model In Online Learning: Educator And Student Perceptions And Behaviors As Leading Indicators Of Systemic Change, Miebeth Bustillo-Booth

Ed.D. Dissertations in Practice

The purpose of this study is to explore educator and student perceptions of and behaviors in the Equity by Design and Delivery (EDD) model and its online courses as leading indicators of systemic change. The EDD model is a pilot intervention to eliminate opportunity to learn gaps at the program level in a mid-sized northwestern college in the United States. It shifts instructional behavior from individual efforts to collective approaches to limit quality variances in online courses, theorized to be a major contributor of missed opportunities to learn at high levels, by developing and delivering reliable quality courses based on …

Whiteness 101: Racial Identity Work For White Educators To Advance Antiracist Pedagogy, Meghan W. Slan

Master's Projects and Capstones

Whiteness, White privilege, and racial inequality are pervasive in K-12 schools and universities. Recognizing that race is a human invented classification construct that has had and continues to have a direct causal effect on the historical and present inequality of the United States, White educators must reckon with their own racial identities as White people in a White supremacist society. White educators are complicit in reproducing White supremacist societal structures through K-12 schooling and in universities, thus bearing responsibility to disrupt, dismantle and rebuild a more just and equitable education system. This field project incorporates my experiences as facilitator of …

Testimonios Of Cultural Wealth: Racial And Ethnic Identity Development For Latinx Youth In Historically White High Schools, Amanda Montez

Master's Theses

My goal for this study was to study the experiences of Latina/o/x youth as they transition from a middle school that serves Communities of Color to Historically White High Schools. I wanted to know how the change of community impacted participants’ understanding of their racial and ethnic identity. Through testimonios, the five participants question the nuances of race and ethnicity, convey the need for educators to challenge existing structures of oppression, and recognize their moral obligation to be part of the movement for racial justice. Utilizing the frameworks of Community Cultural Wealth and Critical Race Theory, I center the lived …

Seeking Universal Education: From Singapore’S Educational Success, Gulnar Rzayeva

Master's Projects and Capstones

According to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, education is considered a fundamental human right. However, this right is not accessible for every child. Not all education systems are capable of providing quality education. There are various reasons behind this issue. Based on the OECD and PISA records, Singapore has a successful education system with multiple ethnicities and religions. This study intends to discover some characteristics of Singapore's education system and the feasibility of achieving similar success in other practices. In the methodology part, based on a literature review on the education policy and the education system of Singapore, content …

A Decolonial Middle School Social Studies Curriculum: 19th Century U.S. Westward Colonization, Leah Chatterji

Master's Projects and Capstones

Social Studies education throughout the United States sustains settler futurity, white supremacy, and coloniality, as it rarely engages with Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) hxstories and structural violence. For middle schoolers, this is especially troublesome as social justice pedagogies are minimal for this demographic. To shift this, this field project offers an 8^th grade decolonial Social Studies curriculum on 19^th century U.S. Westward colonization; this topic was intentionally chosen as it is an opportunity to disrupt settler epistemologies. It centers: Land; relationality; and collective liberation. It complements the California unit 8.8 standards, yet different grades, subjects, …

Mapping Out Our Space In Stories: A High School Curriculum For A Social Justice Tour Of San Francisco, Elena Ramírez Robles

Master's Projects and Capstones

How do youth engage with the spaces around them? In what ways might students connect their personal, lived knowledge to the politics and intricacies of space? The manners in which schools approach outside-of-school learning includes non-critical Place-Based Learning and field trips as optional material; however, doing so breaks the powerful relationship waiting to be explored between Critical Geography and Critical Education. This field project uses Henri Lefebvre’s concepts of The Production of Space and Rhythmanalysis as foundations to argue for the implementation of Critical Geography into high school curricula, and offers a 9-week high school curriculum to create a student-led …

Mechanisms Of Biases And Cultural Literacy In International Language Education: One Such Story To Carry, Yukari Birkett

Ed.D. Dissertations in Practice

Despite equity and inclusion initiatives, the English based colonial model has permeated the kindergarten to college systems, teaching/learning, theories and methods, the perception of second language acquisition, multiculturalism, and language education (Knowles et al., 2015; Macedo, 2019; Phillips & Abbot, 2011; Battiste, 2013). Additionally, cognitive neuroscientific discoveries of the complexity of language learning, emotional intelligence, and cultural literacy systematically failed to reach educators. Few studies have focused on what factors impact on cultural biases of foreign language learners, or what factors in learning facilitate the dismantling of durable biases. What are the hidden agendas for teaching and learning foreign languages? …

Integrating Adult Mentorship Module Within Youth Oriented Programs, Shady Elfaham

Capstone Collection

ABSTRACT

World Learning (WL) is a non-governmental entity focused on the advancement of leaders around the world through educational exchange programs and sustainable development initiatives. Its Youth Exchange Unit comprises an experienced and inventive team designing and implementing cultural exchange programs centered on capacity and skills building in civic engagement, teambuilding, leadership, youth workforce development, and entrepreneurship. Through such experiential learning initiatives, WL staff have recognized the correlation between mentorship and positive youth development.

Recognizing the short- and long-term benefits that quality mentorship can generate for youth, this capstone project integrates a tailored adult mentorship module within upcoming WL youth-oriented …

Meditation And The Inner Life Of Today’S Educator, Summer Nicklasson

Education | Master's Theses

This project stemmed from the researcher’s feeling stress as a new teacher and the need for self-care. The study is contextualized and the theoretical frameworks include meditation and mindfulness. (Venditti et al., 2020). Teaching is a stressful profession and many teachers experience daily stresses that can often lead to teacher burnout. When teachers are stressed, their ability to effectively teach and connect with students is diminished. This is further exacerbated by the fact that educators are teaching through the unprecedented times of COVID-19. Meditation and mindfulness are universal and free tools that educators can use to decrease stress and increase …

Biomedical Ethics In The Medical School Curriculum: Lessons Learned From The Holocaust, Emma Flanagan

College Honors Program

The Holocaust, the murder of 6 million Jews, is the only medically-santioned genocide. This thesis explores the roles of Nazi doctors in the planning, organizing, and implementation of the organized mass murder of European Jewry. Given the German medical community’s complicity, it is imperative that physicians today are well informed about their profession’s history of involvement in the Holocaust. In addition, and by way of contrast, a study of the moral challenges faced by doctors imprisoned in concentration camps or in the ghettos of Nazi-occupied Europe might serve to better prepare physicians for future ethical dilemmas. In a survey of …

“Fixed Mindsets” And The Deprecation Of Youth Voice, Brenham Cozine

Education | Master's Theses

This research explored reflective writing as a tool for understanding critical consciousness, with 10th and 11th-grade history students as a form of engaged research toward understanding self-efficacy and civic agency. It was situated in a framework of Critical Race Theory (Bryant et. al., 2015) critical consciousness (Furman, 2012; Shih, 2018), and Participatory Action Research (Maguire, 1987). Through in-depth interviews, focus groups and reflective writing prompts with 9 students and a faculty member, the findings showed that the deprecation of youth’s voice by adults affects youth’s sense of self-efficacy and perceived abilities to create meaningful change. It was further found that …

The Name Curriculum: Exploring Names, Naming, And Identity, Isabel Taswell

Graduate Student Independent Studies

The act of naming, or using and respecting one’s name, is a humanizing act: it is foundational to one’s sense of identity and belonging. Conversely, the act of ‘de-naming,’ or changing, forgetting, or erasing one’s name, is an act of dehumanization: it denies one’s sense of identity and belonging. The Name Curriculum provides an opportunity for third grade students to explore the role of names and naming as they relate to one’s sense of self and community. It draws on the role of developmental psychology, the urgency of historical context, and the power of children’s literature. Specifically, it explores how …

Approaches To Narrative Instruction For Second Language Learners, Mathew Peters

MA TESOL Collection

Narratives have reemerged as a dominant form of rhetoric over the last fifty years. This dominant use of narrative discourse has only increased with the rise of social media. Walther Fisher (1987) proposed the narrative paradigm as a unifying theory of human communication. His major claim is that people are inherently storytellers and that people use a narrative rationality and a logic of good reasons to inform their beliefs, values, and actions. This paper utilizes his theories, along with recent findings in neuroscience, to establish an argument for greater inclusion of narratives into second language teaching. Narratives can have a …

The Effects Of Bibliotherapy On Students With Behavioral Problems: Combating Negative Behavior With Books, Alaina J. Peters

Masters of Education in Teaching and Learning

At the time of the study, the researcher was a graduate student serving in a yearlong clinical teacher placement. The researcher sought to find an intervention to behavioral problems taking place in a third grade classroom setting. The aim of the study was to diminish the negative behavior occurring in the classroom setting through the use of bibliotherapy. For this study, the researcher collected data through the use of surveys, document collections, interventions, and observation with the addition of field notes. Using the constant comparative method with the addition of descriptive statistics, the author found common themes amongst the data …

“Now I Feel Like I’M Supposed To Make Mistakes”: Changing Student Perceptions Of Mistakes, Ellison Lunde

Masters of Education in Teaching and Learning

This study examined how second-grade students in a GT-clustered classroom perceived making mistakes. The researcher implemented literature discussion circles focused on growth mindset and making mistakes as an intervention to improve student perceptions. She collected data through surveys, field notes, and student focus group interviews. Data were analyzed using the constant comparative method to look for recurring themes as well as descriptive statistics in the case of numerical data. Three major themes emerged including struggles with mistakes, internal processes, and benefits of mistakes. Statistics confirmed that the intervention effectively improved the perceptions of almost every student and that GT students …

Coloring In The Grey Area: The Fine Line Between Academic And Student Affairs, Mannie Brown

M.A. in Higher Education Leadership: Action Research Projects

The purpose of my research was to examine the bridge between academic and student affairs within a learning community (LC) program by assessing holistic student well-being practices taking place within the classroom, residence halls, and general campus community. My research sought to answer the following question: How are current University of San Diego faculty, staff, and student leaders, within the LC program, working to articulate competencies of integration, collaboration, and student thriving? What I found was a strong need to better translate the onboarding experience into the LC program. There was also the strong desire of making the experience of …

K-12 Economically Disadvantaged Students, Poverty, And Education: Ecological Narratives Of Successful Raised-In-Poverty, Texas Educators, Rebecca N. Morris

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research study aimed to understand how successful Texas educators who grew up in poverty understood and improved the educational experience of economically disadvantaged students. This study utilized a structural ecological theory and three theories of social relationships (Social Identity, Standpoint, and Cultural Capital). This phenomenological and qualitative study used a cross-sectional, descriptive, online case study design rooted in narrative nonfiction. Virtual interviews with six successful Texas educators that grew up in poverty were conducted. A narrative method of analysis was utilized to generate codes then organize them into themes, and to construct and compare the narrative findings. The results …