Education Commons^™

Curriculum For Addressing Potential Linguistic Misconceptions Of Early Elementary Somali- Speaking Learners Of English, Rachel Durkee

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

In this project, I examine common linguistic differences between Somali and English in an effort to answer my research question “How can I create a curriculum that explicitly addresses potential linguistic misconceptions of K-2 Somali learners of English?” This project consists of a document entitled “Somali/English Comparative Tool for ELD Teachers,” that points out common linguistic differences between Somali and English, and a corresponding curriculum that is created to be responsive to areas where students could potentially have challenges acquiring the grammatical form in English. Aspects of the Second Language Acquisition (SLA) theories of comparative and error analysis are used …

How Environmental Education Based Camps Can Create An Inclusive Opportunity To Ensure Children With Autism Have A Positive And Meaningful Experience, Emma Leslie

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

In a world that is becoming increasingly disconnected, environmental education has the ability to reach diverse audiences and create an environmentally literate community capable of making decisions that support sustainable practices. Diversity implies inclusion of all individuals, including those with autism. Autism is one of the most prevalent developmental learning disabilities in the United States and those with the neurobiological disorder experience challenges in areas such as social reasoning, language, cognition, sensory sensitivities and emotional regulation. Environmental education often occurs in informal learning environments, including day camp programs. While day camps provide the ideal setting for addressing deficits in peer …

Getting More Young Children Outdoors By Supporting And Encouraging Their Teachers, April Greibrok

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations

This capstone thesis used an Explanatory Sequential Mixed Methods (ESMM) research design to answer the question, How do we support and encourage teachers to take their early childhood classes outdoors? While anecdotally, and through literature review, there appear to be barriers to outdoor activities, e.g., policies and regulations, or lack of safe clothing or equipment, there also is an abundance of research on the benefits of having children spend time in nature, or with natural elements. In the early childhood setting the mixed method survey research identified actual-stated common barriers to spending time outside with a class. An initial quantitative …

What Middle School Teachers Can Learn From Athletic Coaches, Christopher Lutz

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations

The research question addressed in this study was: How can implementing athletic coaching techniques improve academic and social success for students in a middle school setting? Topics explored in the literature review include student safety, student relationships with adults, student relationships with peers, setting high expectations for students, motivation of athletes, and working as a team. A mixed methods approach was used to detail how the author implemented goal setting and groupwork strategies in his middle school math classes over 9 weeks of a school year. Results of both strategies are discussed and recommendations for interested educators are suggested.

A Culturally Relevant Opening Weeks Curriculum: Seeking To Engage All Students To Succeed In The Middle School Science Classroom, Altringer Nicholas

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations

The research question addressed in this project was How can a culturally relevant opening weeks unit help all students to succeed in the middle school science classroom? Topics explored in the literature review include challenges, themes, engagement of all students, gaps between students of color and their white peers, students of color and disproportionality trends in discipline, youth positions as hip-hop or survival mode, social construction of black inferiority, curriculum as windows and mirror, culturally responsive classroom management, using citizen science and student-driven investigation, restorative practices and restorative circles in the science classroom, shared responsibility for the classroom community, and …

Professional Development For Educators In Order To Support English Learner Students From Oral Cultures, Xue Xiong

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

This capstone project addresses the question, How can I create professional development for educators in order to support English Learner (EL) students from oral cultures? This project uses a series of frameworks and theories to provide the best comprehensive two-part professional development for educators supporting EL students from oral cultures. It is tailored to educators by recognizing their unique needs as adult learners who receive ongoing training in their field. By catering to adult learners and drawing from both EL best practices and culturally responsive teaching, this professional development offers educators insight and tools to implement when working with EL …

Adult Education, Community Building, Environmental Studies, Special Education, Staff Development, Teachers/ Teaching, Jennifer Whelan

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

Language and culture are dynamically connected. The culture of a place refers to its people, traditions, beliefs and products such as music or food. Despite the body of evidence to support the importance of teaching about these cultural aspects, many world language teachers struggle to include cultural study alongside their language instruction. One engaging way to improve students’ linguistic and cultural competence is through read-alouds. Read-alouds are the foundation of early literacy and provide a number of benefits for young learners: they support a solid linguistic foundation for further study of the target language’s grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation; they engage …

Preparing Teachers For Their Zoo Trip With An Interactive Website, Jamie L. Hardcastle

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

Zoos and aquariums have an attendance of 50 million children visitors every year with 12 million of those being student learners on field trips (Association of Zoos and Aquariums, 2018, Annual Survey Results, Informal Science Education). According to Willis, Weiser, and Kirkwood, (2014) field trips are not just a ‘day off’ from school, they serve to provide enriching experiences that help students to explore the world outside of their direct environment. To ensure that learning is happening before, during, and after the field trip takes preparation on part of the teacher. Anderson, et al. (2006) state that students should be …

Implementing Tier I And Ii Fluency Based Interventions In An Elementary Classroom, Shelley Rhein

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

The research question addressed in this project was, how do regular education classroom teachers best use fluency based interventions in the classroom to accelerate fluency skills and improve comprehension? The project is a reference guide that includes a compilation of fluency based strategies for elementary teachers to use when creating an intervention plan for students to address reading fluency needs. The project integrates learnings from the research of reading behaviors, definitions and examples, fluency strategies, and assessments. The author based the information in her project on the most heavily researched, proven strategies for effective fluency instruction specifically by Rasinski, Allington, …

Perceptions Of Adult-Child Collaboration In Toddler Environments In A Midwestern Montessori School, Anne Estes

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to investigate adult perceptions of adult-child collaboration in two Montessori toddler environments and how it affects language, independence, and social interaction development. The study took place in one Midwestern Montessori school. The study was conducted on perceptions of adult-child collaboration through an electronic survey and intensive interviews. Five Montessori toddler assistants took the survey and two Montessori toddler guides completed intensive interviews. Once data were collected, qualitative theory methods were utilized to code, evaluate, and analyze all data. After data were re-analyzed, new theories and insights emerged surrounding how adult-child collaboration in a Montessori …

Culturally Responsive Teaching And Social Emotional Learning: A Self-Assessment Tool For Educators, Kathleen Kessler

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

The research question addressed in this project was, how can a culturally responsive framework be used to modify a social emotional curriculum so that it is linguistically and culturally relevant for middle school ELs? It documents one educators exploration of a variety of frameworks that could be used to enhance a social emotional curriculum, particularly when working with English Language Learners. Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Mutually Adaptive Learning Paradigm were two of the frameworks chosen to inform the creation of a tool to be used by educators as they plan, prepare and deliver a social emotional curriculum. The author …

Crt And Educational Equity: Professional Development At The High School Level, Jessica Carlson

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

The research question addressed in this project was, how can I create professional development designed to help teachers implement culturally responsive pedagogy in the classroom? It documents one teacher’s creation of a 20 week, 10 module, professional development surrounding the topic of culturally responsive teaching. The project and paper integrate combined knowledge of culturally responsive teaching, best practices for teaching adults, best practices for enacting effective professional development, as well as instructions for deep and thoughtful reflection. The author documents the details of the creation of the professional development sessions as well as the literature and research methods involved. She …

Culturally Responsive Teaching: A Professional Development Project, Rebecca Foster

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

Why does culture play such an important role in education? Can culturally responsive teaching positively affect elementary student behavior and academic effort? It is imperative that students and teachers know each other beyond the subjective cultural experiences that each may bring to the classroom, and that educators possess an understanding of diverse cultures but not stereotype people into a one-size-fits-all cultural mold. Students need to be related to as full, complex, multidimensional people. It is more important now than ever to focus on student culture and learning differences. The political environment has changed so drastically in the last few years …

How Teachers Can Integrate Absent Narratives Into Their Manifest Destiny Curriculum To Better Understand The Experiences Of People Of Color, Daniel Gerber

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

The research question addressed in this project was, how can teachers integrate absent narratives into their Manifest Destiny curriculum to better understand the experiences of people of color? It documents one teacher’s reasons for modifying a Manifest Destiny and Pre- Civil War unit in a mainstream, high school-level curriculum, that incorporates absent narratives of people of color negatively affected by American expansion. The author documents through research that many curriculum textbooks and standards do not adequately mention what happens to people of color when the U.S. takes over territory through expansion. The author includes research related to why absent narratives …

Visual Thinking Tools To Enhance Nonfiction Reading Comprehension In The Middle School, Anna Lund

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

This capstone explores the question; How can visual thinking tools be used as a foundation for middle school student’s critical approach to understanding nonfiction texts? Although adolescent learners in the U.S. have greater literacy demands placed on them in the 21st century than ever before, some remain poorly prepared for the rigor of post-secondary education and many content area specific teachers lack instructional techniques to support student literacy in their field. As such, I was drawn towards visual learning tools as avenues to get my students thinking more critically about nonfiction text. Through these understandings, I have assembled a visual …

Walking Field Trips: Mapping Outdoor Instruction Opportunities, Anna Cochran

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

The research question addressed in this project was the following: How can upper elementary educators in a rural school district utilize walking field trips and outdoor instruction to support achievement of state academic content areas and to integrate principles of environmental education? The project extends upper elementary school instructional settings to public lands, open spaces, parks, trails, river access points, and beyond in order to enhance the academic experience. It is informed by Sobel’s place-based education theory and Lieberman and Hoody’s proposal of using outdoor settings to connect multidisciplinary content areas. A walking field trip map was produced for a …

Will An Environmental Focused Genius Hour Affect Students’ Attitudes Toward The Environment?, Claire Opsahl

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine if an environmental focused Genius Hour will affect students’ attitudes toward the environment. Over an eight week period ninth grade students in an Honors Civics class self-selected an environmental topic to research, write a research paper and present their findings. The study was completed in a suburban high school setting. The study Quantitative and qualitative data was gathered using student interest surveys and the New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) Likert Scale Survey. The participants were surveyed before completing their Genius Hour project and after completion. The results of the survey show that an …

The Aspect Hypothesis And Its Application In The Comprehension Of Perfective Telic And Imperfective Atelic Situations In Leveled English Language Learners: Insights Into The Link Between Comprehension And Production, Collin Klagmann

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations

The motivating factor for this research was to determine if predictive meaning-based tenets of the Aspect Hypothesis can be applied to the comprehension of perfective telic and imperfective atelic situations, and to assess the role lexical aspect plays in the attribution of perfective –ed to telic and imperfective –ing to atelic predicates for English language learners in WIDA proficiency Levels 2, 3, 4 and Exited. Student’s preference for aspectual attribution, and ability to notice completedness were measured. Results suggest that the perfective is more salient in a telic context, and is therefore acquired first. However, the salience of the imperfective …

Creating Smart Board Activities To Engage Students’ Learning In Chinese Immersion Kindergarten, Wenting Qiang

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

The research question addressed in this capstone is How to create SMART Board activities to engage students’ learning in Chinese immersion kindergarten. Through literature review and my personal experience as a Chinese immersion kindergarten, I find that SMART Board offers very interactive activities that can be very beneficial to young children in learning. That to be said, SMART Board has transformed a typical classroom into a stimulating and encouraging learning environment. The project for this research is a website of SMART Board activities that can be used and shared among Chinese immersion teachers, as well as students and parents who …

Effects Of Evaluative Praise Versus Behavior Descriptive Praise On Intrinsic Motivation And Behavior, Stacie Mccormack

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations

The author’s research inquiry was: what is the impact of behavior descriptive praise and evaluative praise on intrinsic student motivation and behavior? The literature states that using evaluative praise can cause a ‘fixed mindset’ where a child is fearful of trying new tasks, and confused on the desired behavior of the educator. Moreover using behavior descriptive praise allows children to view effort and working hard a positive aspect of learning, while the educator is able to easily establish clear expectations for the students. This study took place over a four month period with two different third grade art classes. Through …

Culturally Relevant Pedagogy And Student Motivation: An Applied Study Of Their Relationship In Fourth Grade English Learners, Joy Mcclain

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations

The research question addressed in this paper is: How are feelings of motivation observed in and

reported by English learners when they are educated in culturally relevant ways? Using Ladson- Billings’ definition of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy, Ryan and Deci’s self-determination theory

of motivation, and Gonzalez’ definition of culture as lived experience, the author conducts classroom research with fourth grade English learners in an urban setting in the American Midwest. Student surveys, teacher observations, and field notes are used for the duration of two co-taught lessons that can be classified as being culturally relevant. One lesson introduces the metaphor to students …

Creating A Culture For Outdoor Environmental Education In An Elementary Setting, Daniel Huldeen

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

Many elementary educators believe in the importance of providing opportunities for outdoor environmental education but fewer actually offer activities and lessons to their students. A review of the literature detailed the many benefits that outdoor environmental education offers to students. It was also clear through research and a review of the literature that many teachers have perceived barriers preventing them from offering environmental education to their students. After identifying the barriers and highlighting the benefits this ten lesson curriculum was created to address the major barriers teachers face when teaching outdoor environmental education and provide students all of the many …

Informing Educators On Best Practices For Former Refugee English Language Learners, Sarah Kiiskila

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

Teachers need to be able to teach all their students, including students who have been in refugee situations and have experienced trauma due to fleeing their home countries.There are many people leaving their home countries for a variety of reasons and many are experiencing gaps in their literacy i.e., SLIFE students. In order to address the question How can I inform educators about best practices for teaching former refugee English Language Learners? research was done and four professional development sessions were made to inform educators on best practices for students who have been in refugee situations. To teach these students …

Students Reactions To The Pacer Fitness Test After Stretching Interventions, Kathryn Hagen

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

The research question addressed in this study used a researcher created pre- and post- google survey to investigated eighth grade student reaction to the PACER fitness test after a stretching intervention. Topics explored in the review of the literature include different types of stretching, effects of stretching, history of fitness testing, new approaches to fitness testing, fitness and academic success and the decline of Physical Education. The research design used a qualitative approach. A cohort of mainstream Physical Education eighth grade students participated in the research. At the beginning of class forty-five students completed a pre-fitness google survey focusing on …

How Can Student Learning Be Improved Through Project Based Curriculum That Gives Access To All Students?, Joseph Salzer

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

How can student learning be improved by creating project based curriculum that gives access to all students? This project contains a unit curriculum guide for a 3 dimensional solids unit for a 10th grade geometry classroom. The curriculum is a project based curriculum based on the 7 essential pieces of project based learning of Larmer (2010). This is then woven with standards based practices to ensure that all learners have access. The project is broken up and intermixed with direct skill instructional days and time for feedback. It is necessary to make sure students are supported in project based learning …

How Can Guided Math Techniques Be Integrated Into A Third Grade Multiplication Unit?, Erin Schmidt

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

The research question investigated in this Capstone Project was: How can guided math techniques be integrated into a third grade multiplication unit? Many instructional techniques that are incorporated and used in the classroom only allow the content to connect and reach a small portion of the students. When using instructional techniques like whole-group, many students are bored because the content is too easy or lost because the content is too challenging. This project explores utilizing the instructional technique of guided math. Guided math provides a framework that allows educators to meet the individual needs of every student through multiple methods …

What Do Educators Need To Know To Identify Human Trafficking In Their Schools And Communities?, Candace Brailsford

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

The research question in this project addresses what educators need to know to identify human trafficking in their schools and communities. Its purpose is to design a one hour training for educators to both raise their awareness of human trafficking as a worldwide problem as well as provide them with a practical picture of what human trafficking looks like in both their classrooms and neighborhoods. Educators will also be equipped with the knowledge of what to do if they encounter human trafficking. A victim’s risk factors and vulnerabilities to human trafficking are also explored in order to enable teachers to …

Adapting Project-Based Learning For English-Language Learners In Middle-School Social Studies, Maria May

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

This research project addresses the question, how can Project-Based Learning (PBL) be adapted to enhance middle school social studies lessons and learning outcomes for English Language Learners and other struggling students? It reviews theory and practice for middle-school social studies teachers to invite ELLs and others reading below grade level into authentic PBL. Supports for PBL should include effective language acquisition scaffolds like Guided Language Acquisition Design (GLAD) and content engagement through non-text, multimedia strategies like Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) to invite students into deeper critical thinking and rigorous collaborative projects. Research connections are made to constructivist theories of Dewey …

Examining The Effectiveness Of An Esl Teacher Observation Tool, Hetal Ascher

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations

This research investigates the effectiveness of a teacher created ESL teacher observation tool. This paper argues that although commonly used tools such as the Charlotte Danielson Framework (2013) exist, they do not fully meet the needs of ESL teachers. A mixed methods study was conducted in order to compare the Charlotte Danielson (2013) rubric to the ESL Teacher Observation Tool in terms of language related feedback. Principals from a Midwestern school district conducted evaluations based on a video clip using both tools, and subsequently, principals were interviewed. The ESL Teacher Observation Tool appeared to yield more language-instruction related feedback in …

The Most Effective Methods Of Small Group Reading Instruction In Upper Elementary Grades, Nicole Snoberger

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations

The research question addressed in this thesis was, what is the most effective way to group students for reading instruction in the upper elementary classroom? This work documents one teacher's experience of grouping students in two main ways, trying to determine if one way is more effective than another. Students were grouped based on reading level using a common text during part of the research. Students were also grouped based on their reading strategy need, using self-selected books during the remaining research time. The goal was to determine if one grouping method was more effective. While the research and data …