Education Commons^™

Mindful Inquiry - A Deweyan Assessment Of Mindfulness And Education, David John Wolken

Dissertations - ALL

Mindfulness-based interventions are becoming an increasingly popular means for helpingstudents deal with the multidimensional challenges they face in contemporary educational settings. While potentially helpful, an uncritical employment of mindfulness in education can paradoxically function to reify the very neoliberal social conditions leading to the need for mindfulness in the first place. I assess this trend in educational theory and practice through John Dewey’s pragmatic philosophy. I show that the potential for both mindfulness and Dewey’s theory of mind and inquiry to support critical, sustainable social change is truncated by an uncritical retaining of the modern paradigm of mind that defines …

Mentor Teaching In Four Communities Of Catholic Sisters In The Mid-Twentieth Century (1940-1965), Melanie Nappa-Carroll

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation is a qualitative study that explores mentoring experiences of Catholic teaching nuns– hereafter called sisters and/or women religious– who served in parochial schools in the mid-twentieth century in the Diocese of Syracuse, NY. Teaching sisters comprised the majority of the professional workforce in Catholic schools through ministry as classroom teachers, building principals, diocesan-level administrators, service providers, and more. The purpose of this qualitative study was to develop an understanding of how teaching sisters engaged in mentoring to develop instructional and pedagogical skills in the mid-twentieth century, specifically 1940 through 1965.

In addition to researching archival records, this study …

Understanding Integrated Stem Science Instruction Through The Experiences Of Teachers And Students, Margery Gardner

Dissertations - ALL

Integrated STEM education comprises an exploration of the interconnections between science, technology, engineering and mathematics in order to reflect on how each discipline operates within real world contexts. Students benefit from the integrated STEM approach because it values students’ real-life experiences and hands-on applications that mirror professional STEM work. However, Integrated STEM instruction remains ill defined, with many gaps in the existing research. The school setting central to this study was a suburban public middle school with a nationally recognized integrated STEM program. Through the use of hermeneutic phenomenological inquiry, I focused on both teachers’ and students’ experiences of participation …

Implementation Of The Essential Elements Of Standards-Focused Middle-Level Schools And Programs And Their Relationship To Student Achievement, Jeffrey Craig

Dissertations - ALL

In New York State, there are regulations that describe many of the practices that middle-level schools are supposed to implement. Yet, little is known about the effectiveness of these middle-level practices in schools in the state. Without definitive information about the impact of middle-level practices on student achievement, it's difficult for practitioners and leaders to know if the school improvement decisions they make are the right ones and whether they will have the desired impact on student achievement.

This study compares the implementation of the middle-level guidelines for New York State, known as The Essential Elements of Standards-Focused Middle-Level Schools …

Education On The Underground Railroad: A Case Study Of Three Communities In New York State (1820-1870), Lenora April Harris

Dissertations - ALL

In the mid-nineteenth century a compulsory education system was emerging that allowed all children to attend public schools in northern states. This dissertation investigates school attendance rates among African American children in New York State from 1850-1870 by examining household patterns and educational access for African American school-age children in three communities: Sandy Ground, Syracuse, and Watertown. These communities were selected because of their involvement in the Underground Railroad. I employed a combination of educational and social history methods, qualitative and quantitative. An analysis of federal census reports, state superintendent reports, city directories, area maps, and property records for the …