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Professional Learning Communities (Plcs) For Early Childhood Science Education, Jungwon Eum

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This study explored the content, processes, and dynamics of Professional Learning Community (PLC) sessions. This study also investigated changes in preschool teachers’ attitudes and beliefs toward science teaching after they participated in two different forms of PLCs including workshop and face-to-face PLC as well as workshop and online PLC. Multiple sources of data were collected for this study including participant artifacts and facilitator field notes during the PLC sessions.

The participants in this study were eight teachers from NAEYC-accredited child care centers serving 3- to 5-year-old children in an urban Midwest city. All teachers participated in a workshop entitled, “Ramps …

Successful Female Students In Undergraduate Computer Science And Computer Engineering: Motivation, Self-Regulation, And Qualitative Characteristics, Melissa Patterson Hazley

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Computer Science (CS) and Computer Engineering (CE) fields typically have not been successful at recruiting or retaining women students. Research indicates several reasons for this shortage but mainly from three perspectives: social issues, exposure/prior knowledge and curriculum issues in K-12 settings. This mixed-methods research addresses a gap in the literature by investigating the motivation and self-regulation behaviors of successful female students who are studying computer science and computer engineering. The findings in phase one of this study indicated that learning and performance approach goals predicted adaptive strategic self-regulation behaviors including strategy use, knowledge building and engagement. Learning avoidance goals predicted …