Education Commons^™

Institutional Changes In Western Michigan University For Incorporation Of Education For Sustainability, Saman Khan

Dissertations

Higher Education institutions (HEIs) have the potential to be significant contributors in the pursuit of a sustainable world through the incorporation of Education for Sustainability (EFS). However, HEIs are entrenched with structures and values that are often resistant to change. The literature reveals that instructors’ beliefs and institutional contexts are the two main factors that impact the implementation of institutional change for sustainability education. Western Michigan University (WMU) has created new required curriculum “WMU Essential Studies” (WES) for undergraduate students and they have targeted sustainability as an essential learning outcome, by integrating and applying it in content courses. Using a …

Saudi Arabian Science Teachers And Formative Assessment In The Gender Segregated Male School System, Khalid Abdullah Kariri

Dissertations

Formative assessment is a key pedagogical tool that allows teachers to make instructional assessments in real time for the improvement of student learning. It gives students the opportunity to provide evidence of their learning thus giving teachers assurances that their hard work is not in vain. Formative assessment is commonly practiced in Western schools, while most Saudi science classroom teachers rely on end-of-unit summative assessment. A review of the literature reveals that very little research has been done related to Saudi teachers’ use of formative assessment in science classrooms. The goal of this dissertation was to address this absence of …

Limited By Design: Expanding The Boundaries Of Schooling Policies From Demanded Passivity To Transformative Practice, Natalia T. Carvalho-Pinto

Masters Theses

Schooling is often imagined as the great equalizer and the primary venue towards personal and collective liberation. However, hegemonic ideals and practices have limited the ability for educators to craft and utilize policy in a way that best benefits their students. In this thesis, I utilize the state of Michigan’s Common Core curriculum to examine the limits beyond policy and practice. Specifically, I argue that the demands for student passivity and institutional measurable as signs of success, prohibit student growth. Throughout the document, I describe hope in the ability to instill a variety of transformative educational theories and practices that …

An Ethnohistorical Study Of The Dowagiac Chieftains, Kathryn A. Bishop

Masters Theses

This research uses ethnohistorical methods to examine the use of imagery appropriated from American Indian cultures by the Dowagiac Union Schools. High School yearbooks from 1899- 2014, along with other artifacts, were identified as sources of information to describe students’ experiences. Applying Brayboy’s (2005) Tribal Critical Race Theory, an off-shoot of Critical Race Theory, combined with the research of historical and theoretical scholars like Davis (2002), Pewewardy (2001), and Deloria, King, and Springwood (2001), a case is made for the removal of American Indian mascots used by educational institutions, including the Dowagiac Chieftains. Though over 1,750 occasions of American Indian-appropriated …

A Teacher's Journey In School Improvement And Reform, Kristi Domrase

Masters Theses

Today America‘s schools are failing to prepare its students to compete in the 21st century knowledge based economy. The work presented in this thesis addresses current and historical educational reform movements in the United States with an emphasis on why American reforms are failing to keep pace with other countries in preparing its new students for the new global economy. As a teacher in a persistently low achieving school the paper is a culmination of course studies, research, and personal experiences with the school improvement process and reform policies. What I discovered is that the current educational reforms in America …

A Comparative Study Of Exact Versus Propensity Matching Techniques Using Monte Carlo Simulation, Mukaria J. J. Itang'ata

Dissertations

Often researchers face situations where comparative studies between two or more programs are necessary to make causal inferences for informed policy decision-making. Experimental designs employing randomization provide the strongest evidence for causal inferences. However, many pragmatic and ethical challenges may preclude the use of randomized designs. In such situations, subject matching provides an alternative design approach for conducting causal inference studies. This study examined various design conditions hypothesized to affect matching procedures’ bias recovery ability.

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