Education Commons^™

Teacher Allies: An Exploration Of The Professional Experiences Of Teachers Who Support Lgbtq Students, Melissa J. Smith

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation is a year-long qualitative exploration of the experiences and perspectives of classroom teachers who identify as "allies" or "supporters" for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning (LGBTQ) public school students. Nine teachers representing five secondary schools in Central New York participated in three semi-structured interviews and approximately fifteen hours of classroom observation. Questions driving this research focused on (1) how teacher allies make meaning of LGBTQ students' needs and their roles in addressing those needs; (2) how participants integrate "ally" work into the larger context of their professional practice; and (3) participants' management of stigma or resistance …

Programming Generality Into A Performance Feedback Writing Intervention, Bridget Hier

Dissertations - ALL

Substantial numbers of students in the United States are performing below grade-level expectations in core academic areas, including mathematics, reading, and writing (Aud et al., 2012; National Center for Education Statistics, 2012). National estimates suggest that these deficits are greatest in the area of writing (National Center for Education Statistics, 2012; Persky, Daane, & Jin, 2003), presenting a clear need for research efforts that focus on the development of effective writing interventions. Although performance feedback procedures have been shown to produce promising short-term improvements in elementary-aged students' writing fluency skills (Eckert, Lovett, Rosenthal, Jiao, Ricci, & Truckenmiller, 2006), evidence of …

Toward A Co-Vivial Community: Hopes Found In The Friendship Among People With Intellectual Disability Labels, Maho Suzuki

Dissertations - ALL

This is a qualitative study of friendships among people with intellectual disability labels in two countries - the United States and Japan. As a field to study friendships among adults with intellectual disability label, I gained access to two sheltered workshops ("The Farm" in the U.S. and "The Kapu Kapu" in Japan) and conducted participant observation, through which I wished to identify broader, multiple, and more humane ways to define competence and human value that could validate people labeled intellectually disabled whose humanity and citizenship are often doubted by dominant standards in industrialized societies. In addition to resisting social standards …

Learning By Design: Technology Preparation For "Digital Native" Preservice Teachers, Liangyue Lu

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Effective technology integration in teaching requires teachers to construct technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK). To help teachers develop TPACK, the learning environment must address the situated nature and complex interplay of technology, pedagogy and content. Learning By design (LBD) has been proposed as one promising instructional model to create such a learning environment. To explore effective and theory-grounded technology instruction for digital native preservice teachers, an LBD environment was designed, developed and implemented in a technology integration course for preservice teachers. Using design-based research methodologies, this dissertation research study is intended to explore whether LBD is effective in helping digital …

The Chinese New Mathematics Curriculum Reform At Two Elementary Schools: Two Cases Compared, Wei Gao

Dissertations - ALL

Based on a four-month fieldwork in two local schools, Pioneer School and Merits School, in China, the study explores how local schools and parents responded to the Chinese New Mathematics Curriculum Reform. The study found that the schools responded to the reform out of school people's practical concerns as well the established school cultures. Meanwhile, schools' implementation decisions were mediated by the interpretation powers of local educational authorities. Merits School arrived at the two-faces strategy to implement the reform. Pioneer School managed to maintain a balance between promoting reform pedagogies and employing examination-oriented approaches. Both schools marginally involved parents in …

Home-Visitation And Parent Education: The Impact On Home-Based Shared Reading During Kindergarten, Tonia Thompson-Grubham

Dissertations - ALL

All families engage in a range of social practices involving elements of literacy. These practices may be more or less similar to those promoted in school settings. The ways in which family literacy practices mirror those of the school often begin to be revealed as children participate in formal programs. The purpose of conducting this study is to identify how parental involvement in a comprehensive, literacy focused parenting education program results in school readiness and achievement for children and improved parenting skills.

An explanatory mixed methods design is used to determine both the impact and meaning of 48 parents and …

Technology Adoption In Secondary Mathematics Teaching In Kenya: An Explanatory Mixed Methods Study, Leonard Mwathi Kamau

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Abstract

This study examined the factors related to technology adoption by secondary mathematics teachers in Nyandarua and Nairobi counties in the Republic of Kenya. Using a sequential explanatory mixed methods approach, I collected qualitative data from interviews and classroom observations of six teachers to better understand statistical results from the quantitative survey of 135 teachers, and drew on Rogers' (2003) diffusion of innovations theory. In the initial quantitative phase, using multiple regression analysis, I identified six explanatory variables related to technology adoption that resulted in R square of 61.2% and adjusted R square of 59.3%. These six variables and the …

Describing Students' Talk About Physical Science Phenomena Outside And Inside The Classroom: A Case Of Secondary School Students From Maragoli, Western Region Of Kenya, Grace Nyandiwa Orado

Dissertations - ALL

Because of cultural and linguistic influences on science learning involving students from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds, calls have been made for teachers to enact teaching that is sensitive to these students' backgrounds. However, most of the research involving such students has tended to focus on students at elementary grade levels from predominantly two linguistic backgrounds, Hispanic and Haitian Creole, learning science concepts mainly in the life sciences. Also, most of the studies examined classroom interactions between teachers and the students and among students. Not much attention had been paid to how students talk about ideas inherent in scientific phenomena …

Twenty-First Century Exclusion, Valarie Ann Torrence

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No abstract provided.

Reform-Based Science Teaching: A Mixed-Methods Approach To Explaining Variation In Secondary Science Teacher Practice, Lauren E. Jetty

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The purpose of this two-phase, sequential explanatory mixed-methods study was to understand and explain the variation seen in secondary science teachers' enactment of reform-based instructional practices. Utilizing teacher socialization theory, this mixed-methods analysis was conducted to determine the relative influence of secondary science teachers' characteristics, backgrounds and experiences across their teacher development to explain the range of teaching practices exhibited by graduates from three reform-oriented teacher preparation programs. Data for this study were obtained from the Investigating the Meaningfulness of Preservice Programs Across the Continuum of Teaching (IMPPACT) Project, a multi-university, longitudinal study funded by NSF.

In the first quantitative …

"You Missed The Exam!" A Discourse With College Students With Learning Disabilities On Their Experiences With Self-Determination, Self-Advocacy, And Stigma In Secondary And Postsecondary Education, Karen Diane Grella

Dissertations - ALL

The purpose of this study was to learn about the participants' academic and social experiences in high school and college as students with a learning disability. In particular, this study focused on the self-determination of college students with learning disabilities, how they understand the concept of self-advocacy, and how they utilize self-advocacy skills in educational settings. Eleven college students with learning disabilities participated in one-on-one in-depth interviews at a university in the Northeastern United States. The data was informed by Carol Dweck's theoretical work on motivation and intelligence and Erving Goffman's stigma theory. The results of this study provide insight …

Runners, Biters, And Chair Throwers: Discourses Of Order And Medicalization In Inclusion, Joshua Bornstein

Dissertations - ALL

Inclusive leaders find that one of their greatest challenges is helping their schools to work with students regarded as acting disorderly, or having emotional or behavioral disorders. In this study, superintendents, special education directors, and principals in five districts in the Northeast who have been previously identified as inclusive leaders were interviewed and observed to document the discourses they promote and are themselves regulated by as they meet this challenge. They employed the tenets of Response to Intervention (RTI) and Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) as systems that would help advance that work. In particular, they believed that RTI/PBIS …

Predictors Of Postsecondary Education Attendance For Youth With Learning Disabilities, Jennifer Lorene Koehler

Dissertations - ALL

Given the increasing number of students with learning disabilities attending postsecondary educational institutions, it is essential to determine the factors which may play a predictive role in postsecondary education in order to inform educational practices and interventions prior to high school graduation. As such, the primary aim of the current study was to examine which variables may hold predictive value for postsecondary education attendance for students with learning disabilities. This study analyzed the National Longitudinal Transition Study-2 (NLTS2) in an attempt to identify the variables that predicted the likelihood that youth with disabilities would attend more postsecondary education. A total …

I Ain't Do Nothing: The Social And Academic Experiences Of Black Males In A Dismantled School, Don Sawyer

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation is an ethnographic study of the experiences of Black eighth grade males attending an urban middle school dismantled in the midst of mandated educational reform in a Central New York school district. Some of the students were the victims of repeated school closures and were left behind because of a lack of space in other schools as a result of efforts to disperse students across the district. These students are part of a group that attends classes in a small section of their former building that has been converted into a high school. To gain insight into the …

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 …

The Influence Of Game Design On The Collaborative Problem Solving Process: A Cross-Case Study Of Multi-Player Collaborative Gameplay Analysis, Nilay Yildirim

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This cross-case study examines the relationships between game design attributes and collaborative problem solving process in the context of multi-player video games. The following game design attributes: sensory stimuli elements, level of challenge, and presentation of game goals and rules were examined to determine their influence on game player's collaboration and joint problem solving processes. Six participants were placed into four collaborative teams and asked to play at least one video game. Three multi-player video games were utilized: Portal 2, Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues, and Borderlands. Seven cases were identified based on a combination of teams and video …