Education Commons^™

Differentiation Revealed: A Multiple-Methods Qualitative Study On The Implementation Of Differentiated Instruction In A Mixed-Ability Elementary Classroom, Curtis James Cunningham

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Differentiated instruction as a philosophical approach to teaching has been around for decades. In recent weeks differentiation has come under fire as being an approach to teaching that is simply too difficult for teachers to implement. While teachers may attend a workshop or take a graduate class on the topic of differentiation and choose not to embrace the philosophy, there are also teachers who have successfully implemented differentiation. The argument against differentiation is based on the amount of effort required to simultaneously implement all components of differentiation.

To address these concerns the following question provided guidance for the present multi-method …

Economic Literacy: Measuring The Economic Human Capital Of Arkansas K-12 Teachers, June Marie Freund

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Economic literacy is recognized as a deficit quality in the United States, no more prevalent than during the last great recession. It is paramount the K-12 educational system lead the movement to educate the public on economic content and issues, as it is the one institution that has direct contact with all citizens. The question then must be asked, how economic literate are teachers entrusted with the responsibility of imparting economic knowledge to his/her K-12 grade level student. A sample of Arkansas teachers at each grade level K – 12 were tested using national normed economic literacy tests designed to …

"An Easy Switch": A Descriptive Case Study Exploring The Shift Toward Informational Text Accompanying The Implementation Of Common Core State Standards In Five Primary Classrooms, Heather Denise Kindall

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this descriptive case study was to discover how the newly implemented Common Core State Standards (CCSS) may have changed teachers' practices and philosophies regarding literacy instruction and to determine which teaching strategies were being presented in regard to informational text in the studied Kindergarten through second grade classrooms.

The research was conducted in five classrooms within one elementary school in the mid-Southern United States. The study design involved semi-structured interviews, classroom observations, and teacher-reported lesson plans over a fourteen week data collection period. The aim of this research was to portray a vivid description of the implementation …

The Effects Of Summer Reading Programs On The Academic Achievement Of Elementary Students, Renee Deshommes

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Children with weakened academic skills face the possibility of having less access to higher education, or advanced career opportunities later in life. Such disadvantages, if not addressed, may result in a series of diminished opportunities that may affect a child's overall quality of life. Several educational experts suggest that the negative effects of the academic achievement gap are cumulative, and many educational experts also believe that the achievement gap between high and low socioeconomic students continues to be a persistent problem for which few solutions have materialized. The potential for summer reading programs to be implemented as a mechanism to …