Education Commons^™

Engaged Pedagogy And Teacher Discourse: A Critical Examination Of Public Education In Mississippi, Kelsi Ford

Honors Theses

This thesis explores Mississippi K-12 public education in terms of inequality and critical pedagogy with a focus on historical factors, state testing, and personal accounts of current teachers. The research is based on ten in-depth interviews with current schoolteachers regarding their perspectives on education and personal experiences and draws from previous scholarship, notably bell hook’s concept of engaged pedagogy. Critical pedagogy offers a model for transformative education for resisting social inequity and promoting democracy and citizenship, but teacher interviews suggest that the structure and culture of classrooms are contradictory to adopting critical pedagogy. Specifically, the research finds that both standardized …

The Ebp-Cot Assignment: Increasing The Use And Understanding Of Ebps In Preservice Teachers, Margaret Bowman

Honors Theses

This study investigated whether the use of the Evidence-Based Practice-Classroom Observation Tool (EBP-COT) assignment in an introductory teacher education practicum increased the understanding of Evidence-Based Practice-Classroom Observation Tools (EBPCOT). Participants in this study were consenting special education majors in their introductory block practicum course at a mid-south university in the fall semester of 2018. Students were asked to complete the EBP-COT assignment to include focused checklists components and reflections as well as a pretest and posttest. The assignment, pretest, and posttest were analyzed for similarities in increased understanding of evidence-based practices and comfort with the use of evidence-based practices. Overall, …

Education And Economic Development: An Untapped Alliance, Serena E. Williams

Honors Theses

Many Mississippi economic developers firmly believe that education could be the answer to the economic development of a community. However, there is a relatively small amount of research published on how the connection between education and economic development works. This is a case study of the Greater Hattiesburg Area of Mississippi which seeks to explore and to begin to understand how to better the relationship between education and economic development.

The researcher conducted eight in-depth, open-ended interviews with key informants who were directly engaged in the K-12 education system and economic development of the Greater Hattiesburg Area. The researcher coded …