Strategies In Toefl Reading Comprehension For Chinese Students, Xiwen Li

Master's Projects and Capstones

With China’s development, an increasing number of students choose to further their studies abroad. However, many Chinese students do not know how to prepare for the TOEFL test by themselves.Thus, there are three sections in my literature review, which are the introduction of TOEFL, TOEFL Reading Comprehension Strategies for Native Chinese Speakers, and TOEFL test preparation for Chinese students.After that, this project includes original materials so that beginning level students can get a preliminary understanding of the TOEFL reading comprehension tests. The material is deliberately based on Chinese culture, which makes it relevant and easier for beginners to understand. This …

Brain Waste Among Highly Skilled Immigrants In The United States, Kimberly Alva-Chavers Gardner

Master's Projects and Capstones

The issue of brain waste and underemployment among highly skilled immigrants is a key issue facing the United States today. This problem of equity has turned into an issue of economic stability in a country with a waning population whose workforce will soon depend on immigrant and international workers. Multiple agencies, including government programs and nonprofits, are attempting to address this issue from a language learning perspective. Using the theoretical framework of Cultural Capital and Community Cultural Wealth, this research project suggests that the key to reducing brain waste and underemployment among highly skilled immigrants is to take the focus …

The Child Care Crisis: Through The Social Ecological Lens, Jocelyne Saldana

Master's Projects and Capstones

Abstract

Objective - Working mothers face mental strain when returning to work due to the challenges of the current child care system. It is unclear how the instability of the child care sector impacts the mental health of working mothers.

Methods - The systematic review of literature was conducted to identify existing evidence to determine the influence access to quality, dependable, and affordable child care has on maternal mental health outcomes in working mothers. Multiple databases were used including PubMed and Scopus.

Results - Subsidized programs help reduce the cost of child care, however, income eligibility criteria makes it difficult …

The Nonprofit Sector And Cannabis Industry: Creating Cross-Sector Partnerships For A Sustainable And Equitable Future In New Jersey And Beyond, Abigail Rose Perl

Master's Projects and Capstones

The Cannabis industry is currently rolling out a legal industry, medical and recreational, across the United States. While some state legislators are celebrating legalization as a success alongside Multi-State Operators (MSOs), Legacy operators, or those involved in the Cannabis industry prior to legalization, have yet to bask in the benefits of legalizations as their corporate successors. Even more so, those who have faced adversities or have been criminalized by Cannabis have yet to see the benefit of Cannabis than many MSOs do. While legislators try to reverse the wrongdoings of the War On Drugs set out by our own government, …

Remembering The Bracero Program: Decolonizing Community Spaces & Expanding Migrant Representation In Children’S Literature, Ariadna Santoyo Zarate

Master's Projects and Capstones

This applied project explores the history of Bracero workers in the United States. This history of Braceros serves the purpose of deepening immigrant farm working communities’ understanding of who they are. This research study aims to expand narratives of the migrant experience by highlighting the Bracero program and addressing the lack of diverse representation in children’s books. This research gathers the personal experiences of Braceros through the book ‘OUR GRANDFATHERS WERE BRACEROS AND WE TOO’ by Abel Astorga Morales & Rosa Martha Zarate Macias and explores articles teaching us about decolonizing frameworks and indigenous ideologies. I’m writing a book that …

Zest For English: Teaching Esl Content-Based Instruction Through The Culinary Arts, Melinda Joan Wright

Master's Projects and Capstones

ABSTRACT As only one-third of all degree-seeking California Community College English as a Second Language (ESL) students successfully complete transfer-level English within six years, new approaches ought to be considered to better meet the needs of these students. As most ESL classes are skills-based, offering more Content-Based Instruction (CBI) may be one solution to increasing successful student outcomes in ESL classes and pathway programs. The purpose of this project was to develop a content-based curriculum for community college and adult education students who are interested in the culinary arts as a way of engaging learners who may not be as …

Navigating School: An English As A Second Language Curriculum For Multilingual Caregivers, Kerry Stimpson

Master's Projects and Capstones

If multilingual families feel that they are not able to communicate with school staff, then these families may not become involved in their child’s school, and the child’s learning could be negatively impacted. The purpose of this project is to create a roadmap and lessons for English as a Second Language (ESL) instructors to implement in their classes with multilingual caregivers. This curriculum will address the lack of understanding that ESL teachers have in regard to the needs of multilingual caregivers to communicate with their child’s school staff and understand the school system in the United States. Given the content …

Runaman Tukuy: Language Revitalization Strategies For Runasimi Heritage Learners, Allison B. Bejar

Master's Projects and Capstones

The legacies of colonization remain a pervasive force in society and actively work against Indigenous communities and their right to their languages, knowledge systems, and cultural practices. More specifically, the colonial legacy of linguicide has endangered and marginalized thousands of Indigenous languages all over the world. This field project focuses on Quechua language revitalization and aims to better understand and contribute to Indigenous language and identity scholarship. This field project is informed by a brief qualitative study through participant interviews with six Quechua heritage learners and educators. The study explores the limitations and possibilities of formal Quechua language learning, reiterates …

The Need To Belong: Interweaving State History In Adult Esl To Support Culturally Responsive Teaching, Sandra Watkins

Master's Projects and Capstones

As an increasing variety of cultures is represented in our adult ESL classrooms, and there is a growing need for instructors to employ culturally responsive teaching methods to bridge the gap between students’ cultural backgrounds and the current curriculum and instructional practices being used in our community college noncredit classrooms. The existing cultural dissonance between the mainstream culture and their own may cause learners to internalize negative individual and group identities resulting in low expectations for life changes. Without understanding the relationship between your home and your host country, the history of the new place, or a sense of connection …

Bridging Language Through Folktales And Authentic Outings: A Guidebook For Esl/Efl Teachers, Natalie Sauvain

Master's Projects and Capstones

There is a real need for authentic and culturally relevant materials to be integrated into ESL and EFL classrooms. Swiss classrooms, as well as the language acquisition curricula used in them, need to be redesigned with the native languages and culture of the learners’ in mind. All too often, teachers are dependent on textbooks, which can raise anxiety and decrease motivation among ELLs since the learners lack an authentic relationship with the teacher, language and materials. The aim of this field project is to address the lack of authentic materials in Swiss ESL classrooms. The creation of this field project …

“I Want Them To See Me As A Complete Person”: Sustaining People Of Color In Predominantly White Institutions Through Counter-Hegemony, Jessica Albavera

Master's Projects and Capstones

Education in the United States is inequitable. Independent schools in particular add to this inequity because of limited access and affordability. This creates a situation in which educators who are fighting for more diversity, equity, and inclusion have to reconcile working in an institution that is part of an inequitable system. This research-based field project, through the method of focus groups, sought to examine the ways in which educators in an independent school in San Francisco are utilizing counter-hegemonic strategies in their classrooms to support the diverse and intersecting identities of their students. The focus group also provided a space …

Teaching American English Pronunciation In A Spanish Speaking Context: A Guide For Efl Teachers In Chile, Martin P. Quarto

Master's Projects and Capstones

This field project addresses the lack of education surrounding pronunciation teaching, and it specifically responds to the opportunities available within English as a Foreign Language settings. This project is especially relevant to English language teachers who would like to study pronunciation teaching and its history. The objective of this research is to inform educators of the validity of teaching pronunciation and to teach educators effective strategies that can be used. Theories of Contrastive Analysis and Error Analysis form the foundation of this project, as well as theories of Interlanguage and Markedness. The literature review includes extensive research into the subject …

Reducing Implicit Bias: Evaluating Cultural Humility And Mindfulness Practices In The Perinatal Microsystem, Charlene Johnson

Master's Projects and Capstones

Problem: In one perinatal microsystem, an assessment revealed 49 reported events that alleged perceived bias occurred over a one-year period. This project aims to address implicit bias and educational solutions to improve communication and create a culture of humility and equity.

Context: The setting was an urban hospital within a large non-profit healthcare organization. The improvement team included registered nurse champions, obstetrical technicians, midwives, physicians, managers, and an educator.

Intervention: A virtual interactive education session for a multidisciplinary volunteer group (n=18) was introduced followed by five weekly follow-up discussions. The education focused on translating the cultural humility …

Improving An Electrocardiogram Competency Assessment Tool For Registered Nurses, Laurel K. Ng

Master's Projects and Capstones

Abstract

Problem: Rapid and accurate interpretation of an EKG rhythm is an advanced-level competency required for all acute care nurses working in a cardiac monitored/telemetry unit. Observational data collected over a 4-month period by the facility clinical nurse educators identified that less than half of the nurses required to take the EKG exam passed on the first attempt.

Context: The education department at the facility onboards approximately 550-600 nurses annually for the 241-bed community hospital in the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California, part of a larger healthcare organization.

Interventions: A total of 19 nurses from various …

Motivating Poetry In The Adult Esl Classroom, Lenore Marin Myers

Master's Projects and Capstones

Current research into motivation in second language acquisition, including Dörnyei (2005, 2009, 2015), offers compelling evidence that adult language learners who develop and habitually strengthen a vision of their future, linguistically capable selves using concrete, sensory imagery are more likely to sustain the necessary motivation to achieve their personal language-learning goals. My thesis proposes that poetry writing can be an effective medium for language learners to build facility in developing concrete, sensory imagery (tactile, visual, kinesthetic, olfactory, and auditory), including creating a motivating vision of their future, linguistically capable selves. Because poetry can directly support and build learner motivation, it …

Through Critique And Beyond: Speculative Fiction As A Tool Of Critical Pedagogy, Syd Thorne

Master's Projects and Capstones

This field projects centers around the issue of hopelessness among teachers and students and examines the genre of speculative fiction as a potential tool for cultivating critical hope in the classroom and as an asset to critical pedagogy. Utopian pedagogy and critical pedagogy make up the theoretical framework of this research and project development. The research explores the use of speculative fiction in three areas: activism and identity, student engagement, and utopian performance. The review of the literature demonstrates that the use of speculative fiction in the classroom has the potential to engage students in conversations about social justice and …

Eservice-Learning During Covid-19: How Community-Engaged Learning Courses At The University Of San Francisco Responded To The Pandemic, Erin I. Hassett

Master's Projects and Capstones

During the COVID-19 pandemic, universities and colleges had to quickly transition their courses from in-person to online. This switch to online learning heavily impacted community-engaged learning (CEL) courses because it meant that internships with community partners had to become remote as well as the coursework. The University of San Francisco (USF) requires their undergraduate students to take at least one CEL course during their four years there as a way to connect them to the school’s Jesuit Catholic values, so pivoting these courses to a remote setting and keeping them available to students throughout the pandemic was imperative. This paper …

Biodiversity Monitoring And Volunteer Motivations: A Case Study On The Imagined Communities Of Citizen Scientists In Meinung, Taiwan, Serena May Calcagno

Master's Projects and Capstones

The Asia Pacific’s biodiversity is under threat. One significant step that can improve conservation is gathering data on what species exist in different areas over time, which can provide insight into ecosystem health. This is especially important in biodiversity hotspots, where high levels of endemism and anthropogenic risk overlap. Though it is one of the few places in the Pacific not classified as a biodiversity hotspot, Taiwan has an unusually high saturation in terms of biodiversity data points. Investigating the motives of biodiversity monitoring volunteerism is already a topic of growing scholarly interest, but relatively few studies have focused on …

Whiteness 101: Racial Identity Work For White Educators To Advance Antiracist Pedagogy, Meghan W. Slan

Master's Projects and Capstones

Whiteness, White privilege, and racial inequality are pervasive in K-12 schools and universities. Recognizing that race is a human invented classification construct that has had and continues to have a direct causal effect on the historical and present inequality of the United States, White educators must reckon with their own racial identities as White people in a White supremacist society. White educators are complicit in reproducing White supremacist societal structures through K-12 schooling and in universities, thus bearing responsibility to disrupt, dismantle and rebuild a more just and equitable education system. This field project incorporates my experiences as facilitator of …

Creating An Engaging Environment For Adult Esl Learners In E-Learning Settings: Reducing Affective Filters And Cognitive Overload, Qian Liu

Master's Projects and Capstones

Countless online ESL programs targeting adult learners have emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially since the unemployment crisis made people start thinking about self-improvement. This emergence of online education is a life-changing chance not only for the ESL education industry and teachers, but also for countless learners. This field project includes appropriate background, a review of relevant literature, and ultimately presents a free, online self-training session for novice online ESL teachers who teach adults.

Research that informed the creation of this project indicated that online second language education programs that use technological tools can lead to positive learning outcomes. Adult …

Raising Awareness Of Bilingual Education: A Website And Resource For Immigrant Parents, Lesi Wang

Master's Projects and Capstones

Under the influence of English Only Movement (Macedo, 2000), bilingual education has been neglected for 18 years in California from Proposition 227 in 1998 to Proposition 58 in 2016. This leads to a result that many immigrant parents were not aware of the importance of bilingual education and have passive attitudes and perceptions towards bilingual education. For example, some immigrant parents think that English is more important than their home language, or that learning their home language will significantly hinder their children’s English acquisition. Yet, according to the three-generation shift suggested by Baker and Wright (2017), immigrant families will often …

The Environmental Mandate Of Heaven: Confucian Global Governance And Environmentalism In Chinese Policies, Wanchu Changliao

Master's Projects and Capstones

Environmental degradation is a contemporary issue that has gained a lot of attention in recent history for China. The developing country’s industrial revolution has led to unprecedented carbon emissions, and despite efforts to curb population growth, China’s expanding and aging population has presented the country with numerous challenges. In this essay, I examine China’s environmental issues and the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) policy decisions through the lens of Confucian role relations. Through this lens, and given the multitude of challenges China is facing, it may be argued that the PRC is acting out its role as the leader and …

Seeking Universal Education: From Singapore’S Educational Success, Gulnar Rzayeva

Master's Projects and Capstones

According to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, education is considered a fundamental human right. However, this right is not accessible for every child. Not all education systems are capable of providing quality education. There are various reasons behind this issue. Based on the OECD and PISA records, Singapore has a successful education system with multiple ethnicities and religions. This study intends to discover some characteristics of Singapore's education system and the feasibility of achieving similar success in other practices. In the methodology part, based on a literature review on the education policy and the education system of Singapore, content …

A Decolonial Middle School Social Studies Curriculum: 19th Century U.S. Westward Colonization, Leah Chatterji

Master's Projects and Capstones

Social Studies education throughout the United States sustains settler futurity, white supremacy, and coloniality, as it rarely engages with Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) hxstories and structural violence. For middle schoolers, this is especially troublesome as social justice pedagogies are minimal for this demographic. To shift this, this field project offers an 8^th grade decolonial Social Studies curriculum on 19^th century U.S. Westward colonization; this topic was intentionally chosen as it is an opportunity to disrupt settler epistemologies. It centers: Land; relationality; and collective liberation. It complements the California unit 8.8 standards, yet different grades, subjects, …

Teaching The English Language Through American Holidays: Halloween And Thanksgiving, Naranchimeg Bat-Yondon

Master's Projects and Capstones

ABSTRACT

Culture remains one of the crucial issues in foreign language education research worldwide, and theories related to linguistics suggest that culture must be emphasized as an important part of language classrooms. Learning any foreign language without learning the focal culture of it is less meaningful, so it is important to include cultural instruction in every language class. Compounding these already tenuous issues in Mongolia, students have little chance to be exposed to real-life situations where they can interact with native speakers from different cultural backgrounds, so the students face great challenges of not being able to become fluent speakers …

Seeking Universal Education: From Singapore’S Educational Success, Gulnar Rzayeva

Master's Projects and Capstones

According to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, education is considered a fundamental human right. However, this right is not accessible for every child. Not all education systems are capable of providing quality education. There are various reasons behind this issue. Based on the OECD and PISA records, Singapore has a successful education system with multiple ethnicities and religions. This study intends to discover some characteristics of Singapore's education system and the feasibility of achieving similar success in other practices. In the methodology part, based on a literature review on the education policy and the education system of Singapore, content …

Facilitating Adaptive And Dynamic Learning Transfer Using Genre-Based, Translingual, And Multimodal Pedagogies In L2 Composition Instruction, Raina Levesque

Master's Projects and Capstones

Ensuring that students can transfer the knowledge and skills they learn in L2 composition classes to future personal, academic, and professional contexts outside of the classroom is perhaps the most important goal of L2 college writing instruction. However, while research shows that pedagogies based in adaptive and dynamic learning transfer, defined as the repurposing or innovation of knowledge to negotiate new and unfamiliar writing contexts, are more successful in preparing students to transfer their knowledge to future contexts than pedagogies based in similarity learning transfer, defined as the matching of knowledge across comparable known contexts, many L2 college composition instructors …

Mapping Out Our Space In Stories: A High School Curriculum For A Social Justice Tour Of San Francisco, Elena Ramírez Robles

Master's Projects and Capstones

How do youth engage with the spaces around them? In what ways might students connect their personal, lived knowledge to the politics and intricacies of space? The manners in which schools approach outside-of-school learning includes non-critical Place-Based Learning and field trips as optional material; however, doing so breaks the powerful relationship waiting to be explored between Critical Geography and Critical Education. This field project uses Henri Lefebvre’s concepts of The Production of Space and Rhythmanalysis as foundations to argue for the implementation of Critical Geography into high school curricula, and offers a 9-week high school curriculum to create a student-led …

Bridging The Gap: The Digital Divide Among Higher Education Instructors, Allan Siochi

Master's Projects and Capstones

Technology is rapidly and invasively transforming classroom instruction and student expectations. The demand for technology places higher education instructors at a disadvantage due to a lack of technical resources. The attitudes and beliefs of higher education instructors must be considered to build alignment with technology. The approach of institutions must be addressed to ensure higher education instructors are equipped with adequate technical support.

The complexity of technology, such as multimedia and gamification, requires meticulous attention to acquiring the technical expertise needed in modern classrooms. As a result, failure to consider attitudes and beliefs, negligence from institutions, and lack of initiative …

Re-Centering Racial Justice In White-Dominated School Settings, Brian A. Davis

Master's Projects and Capstones

Any institution that does not give students the critical and theoretical frameworks to understand White supremacy in the United States is an active contributor in the proliferation of this hegemonic force. White supremacy is a system that produces violence educationally, socially, politically, environmentally, ontologically, and epistemologically. The study of Whiteness and White supremacy has been discounted in high school settings for various reasons. This project seeks to solve this critical issue within the field of secondary education through the implementation of a course that unpacks White supremacy while center Black history. This course will provide students with a historical framework …