Education Commons^™

Finding Connections Between Teacher Motivation And Professional Development In Pursuit Of Mastery In Practice, Ann Carlson

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative case study investigated the connections between teacher motivation and high quality professional development. The research focused on two elementary schools in one large suburban school district in the upper Midwest. Surveys, individual interviews, focus group interviews, and document analysis were all used to collect data. This study identified the attributes of high quality professional development, which include collaboration, sustainability, and active teacher learning (Darling-Hammond, Hyler, & Gardner, 2017; Desimone & Pak, 2017; Macias, 2017; Parsons, Parsons, Morewood & Ankrum, 2016; Steeg & Lambson, 2015). The study explored current research around intrinsic and extrinsic motivation (Deci et al. 1991; …

How Induction Practices Impact Retention: A Case Study, Heidi Dunlap

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations

The topic of this dissertation is teacher induction or the process by which teachers are supported as they enter the profession or a new educational setting. Specifically, case study methodology was used to describe how a particular type of induction program, Peer Assistance and Review (PAR), impacted retention. Examination of program records, secondary data analysis, and interviews were used to describe the process of induction in two ways. First, how PAR impacted teacher retention. Second, how teachers perceived the support components utilized within the program. The results were analyzed using Herzberg’s (1968b) Two-Factor Theory of Motivation; the analysis included teachers’ …

Do Believe The Hype: Teaching Literacy To Urban Students In A Secondary Social Studies Classroom With Culturally Relevant Pedagogy, Jeffrey Engelen

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

Statistics indicate that urban students often underperform in testing for literacy competency and educators have argued that literacy is crucial to narrowing the achievement gap. This project was guided by the research question: What is a more effective approach for delivering literacy strategies and content instruction to urban students in a secondary social studies classroom? Research has shown that the more effective teachers of urban students build positive classroom environments based on restorative behavioral practices, asset perspectives and strong relationships. To answer the guiding question, three areas of focus drove the research: literacy comprehension, culturally relevant pedagogy and authentic social …

Increasing The Participation And Success Of Struggling Students In High School Physics Courses, Ian O'Neill

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

O’Neill, I. Increasing the Participation and Success of Struggling Students in High School Physics Courses (2019) Physics is the most mathematically complex science course offered in the high school setting. Due to the higher level of mathematical proficiency needed to succeed in physics, it is common for school districts to place it as the final science course offered to high school students. Minnesota only requires students to take three years of science in order to graduate and has no specific requirement for physics. This has led to low enrollment and the negative stigma that physics is an unnecessary and difficult …

Effective Instruction Of Social Skills To Increase Student Achievement In Elementary-Aged Students, Kate Grahek

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

The research question addressed by this project is How can educators successfully implement social skills with elementary-aged students to increase their overall achievement? The purpose of this exploration is to identify effective strategies for elementary school educators to reference and utilize supporting their student’s social skill development. This project reviews studies conducted by many researchers in the field of elementary education, social skill development, and child development in order to create a digital resource compiling receptive and expressive social skill strategies to be used with elementary-aged students.The research focuses on the definition of social skills, which skills are necessary for …

Improving Attention And Emotional Regulation For Middle School Students Through The Use Of Mindfulness Practices, Sean Mattner

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

Mattner, S. Improving Attention and Emotional Regulation for Middle School Students Through the Use of Mindfulness Practices. (2019) Research has demonstrated that establishing a mindfulness practice has a range of mental, emotional, social, and educational benefits. The curriculum designed for this project focuses on using mindfulness techniques for 6th-8th grade students to improve attention, concentration, and emotional regulation. Mindfulness practices have been implemented in a number of settings, from hospitals to work environments for decades, but implementing it within the classroom, especially for children, is limited. The project involved creating a diverse curriculum that engages students with mindfulness through activities …

Improving Language Skills Through Digital Storytelling For Primary Students, Stefanie Topinka

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

The guiding question addressed in this project is how can we improve language skills through digital storytelling for primary students? The main idea of this capstone is to address the changes that are occurring in classrooms today and how students can gain confidence in the reading and writing process. Throughout this project capstone, there are multiple examples of how young children can benefit from extending literacy elements through the process of digital storytelling using technology tools. The research for this capstone is based on early childhood psychology and aspects of how incorporating digital storytelling into the classroom can benefit children …

Supplementary Resources To Promote Biliteracy For Emergent Bilingual Students, Elizabeth M. E. Nelson

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

In the United States public schools, there is a significant and growing number of students that are Spanish-English emergent bilinguals. Dual language programs with the common goals of bilingualism and biliteracy have proved to provide these emergent bilinguals with the highest levels of long-term academic achievement. This capstone explores research aimed at answering the question relevant to these dual language programs: What are the critical elements that need to be included in developing and implementing effective biliteracy strategies for early elementary Spanish-English emergent bilingual students? Using a holistic biliteracy framework, specific qualities, approaches, and strategies were defined that support biliteracy …

The Lost Boys: An Exploration Of The Male Gender Gap And Its Causes, Derek Swart

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

The male gender gap refers to a discrepancy between achievement and investment levels of male and female students. Demonstrated through a variety of metrics such as graduation rates, grade point average, enrollment in Advanced Placement courses, special education identification, and behavioral intervention, male students demonstrate lower levels of academic success than female students. Factors influencing this gap appear to include social factors such as male disinclination to orient peer relationships around academic topics, internal factors such as lower measured time spent on study or homework in males, and different academic expectations for males and females from their teachers. This project …

What A Waste! A Secondary Environmental Science Unit On Waste Reduction And Management, Megan Wagner

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

This writing serves as an introductory unit to waste management and reduction to be used in a high school urban environmental education classroom. The research question for this capstone was, does teaching environmental science through waste reduction and management in an urban classroom affect student engagement and connection? The research outlined in this paper explores and examines the concept of an urban classroom environment, the importance of teaching environmental science, and tools and materials to incorporate a unit on waste into an environmental science course. The paper goes on to explain the importance of educating students about the waste crisis …

How Place-Based Education Increases Student Interpretation Of Minnesota's Landscape And Geologic Processes, Jessica Strom

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

Gaining perspective on one’s surroundings comes in many ways. One method to connect students to their local area and help them develop a sense of place is through place-based education. Making scientific-based observations and interpretations of a physical landscape and also interviewing community members can help students build an understanding of an area’s past and can help students make better educated decisions about how to take care of an area in the future. This capstone paper and curriculum unit project addressed the topic of how place-based education increases student interpretation of Minnesota's landscape and geologic processes. Place-based education is a …

A Two Year Education Plan To Support The Goals Of The Nine Mile Creek Watershed District, Gael Zembal

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

In Minnesota, and nationally, the general public’s understanding of environmental topics is sub-optimal. Recent studies have also noted an alarming trend of children spending less time in nature, and suffering physical and mental impacts as a result. To help increase environmental literacy, and encourage people to get outside and protect nature, watershed districts (local government units in Minnesota) are making use of environmental education. The Nine Mile Creek Watershed District (NMCWD) is no exception, with a robust education team, and a diversity of programs and messaging about water and the environment. As a local unit of government, the NMCWD protects …

Teaching Chemistry Through An Environmental Science Lens And The Effect Of Student Understanding And Motivation In Learning High School Science, Sara Peterson

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

Research has shown that on average, student motivation for secondary sciences, especially physical sciences, decreases from ages nine to seventeen due to a perceived lack of connection to content. The curriculum designed for this project focuses on using socio-scientific issues (SSI) to relate an introductory knowledge of chemistry to environmental examples. Using SSI and real world, environmental examples has been shown to increase student understanding and interest in secondary science content. The project has combined the two to create a curriculum which lends to both socio-scientific issues and environmental examples to increase scientific relevancy in students. The curriculum will be …

Discovering Who We Could Become: Culturally Responsive And Rigorous Resources For Middle-Grade Theatre Teachers, Rachel Brady

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

Brady, R. Discovering who we could become: Culturally responsive and rigorous resources for middle-grade theatre teachers. (2019) Theatre education can be a powerful tool at the middle school level in terms of providing students the opportunity to think creatively and find autonomy in their learning. However, the dearth of resources appropriate to the middle-grade drama classroom create challenges for teachers in terms of designing a curriculum that is both culturally responsive to the students within it, and artistically and academically rigorous. This capstone aimed to address this challenge by developing a middle school drama resource library and examines relevant research …

What Advantages Can Be Leveraged By Offering A Spanish For Heritage Learners Class As An Elective To Spanish Speaking Long-Term English Language Learners In Middle School?, Claire Milne

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

There is increasing evidence of academic underachievement in school-age Spanish speaking emerging bilingual students - the largest second language speaking group in the USA. Research in the field of heritage language learning has been ongoing since the 1970s. Most research has been concentrated at the elementary school level. This capstone seeks to answer the question of what advantages can be leveraged by offering a Spanish for Heritage Learners class as an elective to Spanish speaking long-term English language learners in middle school. Research is reviewed on themes of long-term English language learners, bilingual literacy, academic self concept and cultural identity. …

Comprehensible Input And Output In The Math Immersion Classroom: A Professional Development Series, Kimberly Kulhanek

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

The one-way immersion classroom provides a unique environment for students to learn content through instruction in their non-native language. However, students in early elementary grades typically have not had enough exposure to the target language to maintain sentence-level dialogue. The professional development series designed for this project uses the concepts of growth mindset, cognitively guided instruction, comprehensible input, and comprehensible output to increase students' ability to process and explain their mathematical thinking in the target language. Both growth mindset and cognitively guided instruction have been used in classrooms for years, but there has been little research into their implementation in …

The Implementation Of Plant-Based Diets In Lower-Income Public Schools, Jesse Rock

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

The central question of this capstone is: What are the problems and solutions of adopting a plant-based diet into lower income (as defined by Title 1) public schools (grades K-12) ? A plant-based diet is a diet that “consists of all minimally processed fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, nuts and seeds, herbs, and spices and excludes all animal products, including red meat, poultry, fish, eggs, and dairy products” (Ostfeld, 2017, p. 315). The purpose of this capstone is to begin plant-based initiatives within lower income school districts which would provide students with the opportunity to consume more fruits, vegetables, whole …

A Professional Development Presentation For Code-Switching, Patsy Lee

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

Lee, P. A Professional Development Presentation for Code-Switching (2019) Code-switching is a nationwide phenomenon that occurs to give meaning to their listeners. This happens especially in the classroom in the education realm. With the increased diversity of languages within schools, this capstone project seeks to bring awareness of this occurrence to the public of everyday professionals who are working within the realm of education. It seeks to identify the occurrences of when code-switching happens and the reasoning for it. It addresses theories, methods and framework of code-switching, such as the Markedness Model and Culturally Responsive Teaching. In the Markedness Model, …

A Trauma-Informed Devised Theater Curriculum, Christopher Michael

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

This project seeks to understand how trauma affects the brain in order to inform more effective approaches for engaging high-school aged survivors of trauma in devising theater. By understanding how the brain responds in unfamiliar situations, a teacher can be more informed on how to prevent triggering the natural flight, fight, or freeze responses common to post-traumatic stress disorder. The realization that many trauma survivors need additional exercises and time to transition from survival mode to their more cognitive processes informs the processes necessary for creating theater from scratch. Planning for this results in a more carefully selected scaffolding of …

Strategies To Enhance The Positive Effects Of Bilingualism, Danielle Mcmillan

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

Supporting bilingual students is critical not only for the bilingual students but also for monolingual students. Prominent bilingualism in the classroom can translate to higher test scores, increased engagement, and long-term impacts on brain agility. This capstone project seeks to answer the question: What strategies are available to educators to enhance the positive effects of bilingualism in their students? The final result of this project is a website which includes a series of strategies focused on the four domains of language which seeks to meet the educational needs of both bilingual and mainstream students. The website includes a description of …

How Can Educators Make Use Of Feedback Types And Process To Optimize Student Performance?, Trang Nguyen

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

Feedback is one of the most common educational tools, which is frequently used in classrooms among multiple fields and grades. Although teachers use it to improve students’ learning, not all feedback would impact students positively. Instead, some feedback can be ineffective or damaging to learners, leading to a decrease in educators’ teaching productivity. This paper strives to answer the question, How can educators make use of feedback types and process to optimize student performance? It addresses research surrounding feedback and categorizes it based on four factors: positivity, levels, language used, and forms of feedback. From the research findings, this paper …

U.S. History Curriculum Project Using Blended Learning To Improve Formative Feedback, Timothy Kennealy

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

Kennealy, T. U.S. History Curriculum Project Using Blended Learning to Improve Formative Feedback. (2019)

This capstone project leverages a 1:1 device classroom setting to create opportunities for effective teacher-to-student formative feedback. Classroom feedback is complex and proven effective but the practice of giving excellent feedback is rare, even for the most dedicated K-12 teachers. The implementation of effective feedback is rare but there is significant and specific research that identifies important characteristics and formats for offering effective formative feedback. A 1:1 classroom using blended learning offers opportunities to implement excellent feedback practices by allowing teachers more time for conversation with …

Content Specific Math Instruction To Improve English Language Learners' Comprehension Of Comparison Math Word Problems, Abigail Snyder

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

The research question addressed in this project was, how can math instruction and comprehension of comparison word problems for ELL students be enhanced through content specific vocabulary on, many, more, and fewer, and combinations of these words? The research demonstrated a need for vocabulary knowledge for English Language Learners to comprehend mathematical word problems and acquire academic English. The project involved creating a ten day vocabulary unit addressing strategies for learning vocabulary found in the research. The Understanding by Design process was used in creating this project. This project utilizes the Math Expressions curriculum by Fuson (2009), utilized in the …

Curriculum Development Resources For Teachers In Adult Basic Education: Facilitating Learner Self-Advocacy, Erin Cary

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

The research questions addressed in this capstone project were, “What educational support do ABE learners need to develop and employ self-advocacy skills to respond to barriers in their lives? What tools will help ABE instructors facilitate that support in the classroom?” The author researched barriers that may be preventing learners in adult basic education programs from succeeding in their goals, including systemic social discrimination, a lack of understanding by instructors and administrators of their intersectional identities, and state and federal framing of ABE policy as an economic investment in workforce development instead of the provision of education as a fundamental …

Smartphones In The Classroom, Isaac Flynn Buggs

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

Research has shown that districts, schools, and teachers routinely ban students’ smartphones from the learning environment. Students see their smartphone as their most important possession. This project incorporates students’ preferred device within the academic environment. Bringing smartphones into the classroom, in a controlled way, can engage students and teach them to use their phones responsibly. The project involves modifying Pearson’s iLit ELL curriculum with Mentimeter presentations and G Suite for Education homework assignments. The Mentimeter presentations allow students to engage in the content and to launch class discussions using their smartphones. Homework is also assigned using G Suite for Education …

Integration Of Social Studies And/Or Science Within Your Literacy Workshop Model: A Professional Development Presentation, Karry Helgestad

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

The research question examined for this capstone was “How does the integration of science and/or social studies standards with language arts standards impact the reading comprehension of upper elementary students? Topics explored in the literature review were different models of integration, such as CORI - Concept of Oriented Reading Instruction; Science IDEAs - In-Depth Expanded Application of Science; Dr. Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences; and project-based learning. Additional literature was examined on how background knowledge and vocabulary impact reading comprehension. A teacher professional development workshop was developed as the project to educate teachers about the benefits of integrated instruction. …

Literacy Strategies For Secondary Social Studies Classrooms Website, Rachael Shaner

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

Multiple experts agree that using literacy in secondary classrooms can be a gateway in multiple content areas (Alvermann, Phelps, & Ridgeway, 2007; Kottler & Gallavan, 2008; Schneider, 1994) and this project is focused on integrating different literacy strategies into secondary social studies classrooms. The website project is focused on three main categories of literacy: Reading (pre-reading, during reading, and post-reading), Writing (formal and informal), and Speaking and Listening (discussions and debating). The website is designed with over 25 literacy strategies, each of which has its own web page with a detailed explanation of how to integrate and use the strategy …

Ipad Initiatives In The Elementary Classroom Enhancing Literacy Instruction, Vanessa Forsman

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

This project answers the question: How can the use of iPads in the elementary classroom enhance literacy instruction? The paper reviews how to best implement technology, motivation for using it and how technology has evolved. Research has demonstrated that a balance of technology and traditional print has the greatest benefits for students. These resources show how and why technology can be used to guide, differentiate and enhance student learning. The framework of the website was created for teachers to explore all areas of literacy with ideas, lessons and information on how to include technology. The website will be most beneficial …

Barriers That Impede The Progress Of Cld Families Entering And Navigating The Special Education System, Julia Zanabria

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

This capstone seeks to address the barriers that Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CLD) families face when navigating the Special Education system; and best practices for overcoming those barriers. Research finds that when educators and CLD families can work together, students who are being referred to Special Education will have their needs better met. In order for this collaboration to take place however, educators must practice cultural humility as means of gaining trust from CLD families. The findings of this research also highlight the many misconceptions around Special Education that CLD families may possess. These misconceptions often lead to a negative …

Trained Home Literacy Program And Its Advantages In Pre-Kindergarten Through First Grade, Zachary Singleton

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects

The research question covered in this project was: how will a Trained Home Literacy Program provided with a curriculum, implemented in a child’s home, help improve literacy skills for students pre-kindergarten through first grade? The research indicated a need for more literacy intervention in the home setting. This project addresses this need through a fifteen week literacy curriculum written for parents, to be implemented in the home literacy environment. The curriculum consisted of a series of literacy based activities, designed to help parents support their children’s literacy development at home. The researcher used the Understanding by Design model when developing …