Education Commons^™

Creating A Safe And Supportive School Climate For Transgender Students, Taylor Dewilde

Culminating Experience Projects

Research has shown that transgender students do not feel safe at school and as a result experience negative outcomes. An effective teacher training program on transgender students will help these students feel a greater sense of safety at school. Additionally, this project will explore inclusive curricular resources for educators. The research reviewed for this project includes the key findings for why transgender students feel unsafe that included bullying & harassment, untrained and unprepared staff, and unsafe spaces in school. It is imperative for transgender students to feel safe at school so they may have the same opportunities for success in …

Standardized Testing And The Call For Alternative Assessment Methods, Rebekah Weiss

Culminating Experience Projects

Standardized testing has become the primary means of measuring success of students, educational stakeholders, and educational entities themselves, in turn permeating a practice of subsidiarity while further segregating educational opportunities for the American public. The research suggests this gap in practice is due to federal mandates enforcing standardized testing policies that hinder educational leaders from assessing students in more reliable ways. The experimental qualities of the research also contribute to this gap because the educational research holds a lack of generalizability and weak external validity due to subject and researcher bias’. This practice in subsidiarity could be addressed by taking …

An Examination Of The Role Of Total Instructional Alignment And The Impact On Teacher Confidence And Student Success, Catherine Cushway

Culminating Experience Projects

Research has revealed alignment in curriculum and expectations is beneficial to all stakeholders within an educational system. Recent projects have focused on the alignment of standards and curriculum but districts, including Coopersville Area Public Schools, have neglected to put together a strategic plan for total instructional alignment hence seeing adverse effects in both teacher confidence and student success. Total instructional alignment can be reinforced through vertical teaming, professional development, and the use of common language for behavior and academic expectations.

This project explores the importance of total instructional alignment and challenges districts to implement this alignment. This project provides a …

Spirituality In Secular Schools: A Grounded School Counseling Intervention, Alexis P. Joseph

Culminating Experience Projects

The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, also known more commonly as separation of church and state, is a policy implemented at the federal and state level that schools must strictly adhere to. This means religion can neither be supported nor denied in educational institutions to receive federal and state funding. Due to the intertwining of religion and spirituality, this policy encourages spirituality to be invisible in schools in order to neither support nor reject any one religion. While this policy presents an opportunity for everyone to practice their religion of choice, lack of intentional spiritual development, such as expanding …