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Full-Text Articles in Education
How Can Educators Use Multicultural Materials To Create A More Inclusive Classroom Community?, Jenna Urick
How Can Educators Use Multicultural Materials To Create A More Inclusive Classroom Community?, Jenna Urick
School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects
A common goal among educators is to create a classroom environment where students feel welcomed, seen, and heard. This Capstone Project provides a resource guide of multicultural materials that teachers can use in order to create a more inclusive learning environment. The resource guide includes literature, games, technology, and community resources. The project and review of literature helped to answer the research question: How can educators use multicultural materials to create a more inclusive classroom community? Research concludes that students are more engaged and more likely to be successful at school if they feel they are represented in their curriculum.
Creating A Nonprofit Organization To Reduce And Eliminate Disparate Access To Quality Environmental Education To Students That Are Black, Indigenous, And People Of Color And To Increase Overall Access To Education On Environmental Justice, Nicholas Leonard
School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects
Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) have a disparate access to quality environmental education (EE) in proportion to their white peers. (Bell, 2016; Taylor, 2014). Furthermore, BIPOC also experienced a disproportionate share of the effects of environmental degradation and destruction. (NEEF, 2015). This capstone addresses the following question: How can a nonprofit organization reduce and eliminate disparate access to quality EE to students who are BIPOC and increase overall access to education on environmental justice? The capstone proposes an organizational plan to specifically address this question. The organization will create programming and curriculum of high-quality EE designed to engage …
The School To Prison Pipeline And The Importance Of Its Recognition And Understanding By Professional Educators, Ericka Yang
The School To Prison Pipeline And The Importance Of Its Recognition And Understanding By Professional Educators, Ericka Yang
School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects
The school to prison pipeline is an important topic in the field of education and has been an up and coming topic for discussion. A problem that the school to prison pipeline has created is the influx of students being funneled into the mass incarceration system. Researchers have found that students with certain demographic characteristics, such as race, disability, socio-economic status, may pose a greater risk for becoming victims to the school to prison pipeline. There has not been as much effort into understanding how educators can mitigate the issue of the school to prison pipeline. The purpose of this …
Creating Environmental Education Programming And Access To Diverse Students, Heidi Hanson
Creating Environmental Education Programming And Access To Diverse Students, Heidi Hanson
School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects
The racial diversity of students in environmental education (EE) is minimal for a myriad of reasons. Factors that environmental educators can control in welcoming students to programming is content and teaching. Research on racial diversity, past and present environmental education, students’ land histories and different pedagogies that incorporate culture and address discrimination and justice inform educators how what and how to optimally teach racially diverse students to maintain engagement. Research finds that incorporating students’ cultures into teaching, representing diverse people in lessons, understanding systems of racism, how that impacts people’s actions along with finding ways to change and or confront …
Shifting Literacy Methods And Teaching Practices To Improve Equity In Schools For Black Girls, Danae Ross
Shifting Literacy Methods And Teaching Practices To Improve Equity In Schools For Black Girls, Danae Ross
School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects
Throughout the United States’ history, Black girls and women have found themselves as one of America’s most oppressed groups due to the systemic discrimination of both their race and gender. This problem still persists today and has made schools a place for oppression against Black girls from the time they enter the school system in kindergarten, creating low self-esteem, a feeling of alienation, and a disdain for the school system. Using an intersectional lens, this capstone explores the oppression of Black girls from the past to the present, beginning with slavery and ending with criminalization and the school-to-prison pipeline. This …
Addressing Issues Surrounding Food Insecurity And Promote Environmentalism In Urban Settings Using Community Gardens, Tucker Jensen
Addressing Issues Surrounding Food Insecurity And Promote Environmentalism In Urban Settings Using Community Gardens, Tucker Jensen
School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects
This capstone project reviews the effect community gardens have on the low-income, urban population. After reviewing the history of racism in America, disproportionalities of food insecurity, how poverty correlates to health, and various environmental impacts specific to urban communities, this project was an effort to expand on that research and provide a solution. Food deserts exist in many of today’s American cities, which lead to food insecurity and negative health outcomes. A community garden is a low-cost, effective way to obtain healthy food and simultaneously benefit the environment. This five-day unit of study takes place at an established community garden. …
The Role Of Restorative Practices In Building Community, Increasing Student Learning And Reducing Racially Disparate Discipline In Secondary Schools, Lawrence Koszewski
The Role Of Restorative Practices In Building Community, Increasing Student Learning And Reducing Racially Disparate Discipline In Secondary Schools, Lawrence Koszewski
School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects
The highly negative outcomes of persistent racially disparate discipline for students and communities of color are well documented and wide-ranging. In response many districts are instituting Restorative Practices in order to reduce the racial discipline gap and mediate negative outcomes for communities. Research of these districts shows a reduction in suspension rates for all students although a racial gap persists. In order to maximize the potential positive benefits of Restorative Practices teachers, administrators and facilitators must fully and properly implement Restorative Practices. To do so will require support through clear, personalized and tangible Restorative resources. This project involved the production …
Redefining Maine: Grade 3 Maine Studies Curricular Unit, Margaret Hutchison
Redefining Maine: Grade 3 Maine Studies Curricular Unit, Margaret Hutchison
School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects
Social Studies is considered an essential element of American public education as an academic discipline that cultivates essential knowledge and skills for meaningful participation in democratic society but has become marginalized in recent decades at the elementary level. The current-day state of Maine passed LD291 in 2001 to require K-12 teachers to include Maine Native Americans in all Social Studies instruction. The full implementation of this vision has not yet been achieved due to various barriers and limitations. Yet this work is more critical than ever in current-day Maine, the Whitest state in the nation and a place where the …
Implementing Student-Centered Learning Strategies For Multilingual Learners Through A Social Justice Lens, Erik Reynolds
Implementing Student-Centered Learning Strategies For Multilingual Learners Through A Social Justice Lens, Erik Reynolds
School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects
This project answers the question, How can we create an equitable student-centered environment through project and problem based learning? The research focuses on student centered learning, specifically project and problem based instruction, while creating an equitable learning environment, along with supporting learnings through differentiated instruction. The project creates a curriculum for a 7th grade Social Studies unit of study of the Foundations of Systems of Power in the United States from 1787 - 1800. Application of this curriculum is a tool that teachers can use to create a safe and equitable learning environment for all of their students.
Effective And Engaging Ways Of Teaching The Civil Rights Movement To K-2 Students By Sarah Westad, Sarah Westad
Effective And Engaging Ways Of Teaching The Civil Rights Movement To K-2 Students By Sarah Westad, Sarah Westad
School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects
The research question addressed in this project is, what are the most effective and engaging ways to teach K-2 students about the Civil Rights Movement while fostering meaningful connections to history? It documents the research and creation of a curriculum unit discussing the Civil Rights Movement as it existed in the past as well as in the 21st century. The curriculum unit developed in this capstone covers eleven instructional days beginning with slavery and ending with current events discussions. The capstone chapters address issues like master narrative myths, incorporating student experiences and interest, and research based practices. It looks at …
Advisors Help You Get There: Personalized Learning Plans In The Alternative School, Christy Irrgang
Advisors Help You Get There: Personalized Learning Plans In The Alternative School, Christy Irrgang
School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects
As has been discussed in many venues, the achievement gap continues to be a problem for underserved learners of all ages, and it also poses issues for the larger society. Personalized learning plans and specialized advisories that utilize culturally contextualized learning may improve student outcomes and help close the achievement gap. The theoretical backing used to design this project for an urban Indigenous alternative school included personalized learning, culturally relevant pedagogy, teacher-student relationships, and advisement programs. Outlined herein is a year-long program, but three- and five-year implementation models are also provided. The concepts may be successful in other alternative schools …
Equity In Social And Emotional Learning In The Elementary Classroom: An Introduction For Educators, Kirsten Hoffer
Equity In Social And Emotional Learning In The Elementary Classroom: An Introduction For Educators, Kirsten Hoffer
School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Projects
Research has demonstrated that social and emotional learning is key in early elementary education, and that a lack of social and emotional skills has many negative implications for the lives of students in the future. It is also widely accepted that the education system in the United States has a great deal of work to do in regards to equity. The course designed for this project pulls together texts that encourage educators to examine their own teaching practice through a lens of equity, to identify places where white supremacy culture is prevalent in their subtle messages to and actions toward …