Education Commons^™

Teachers Developing Exemplary Inquiry Practices, Sara Berry Sweetman

Master's Theses, Dissertations, Graduate Research and Major Papers Overview

If students are to be successful in the ever-changing scientific world they need to be taught how to think critically, to manipulate materials, and to gather evidence to build knowledge. Most teachers fall short in providing students the inquiry instruction described in the Next Generation Science Frameworks (National Research Council, 2011). This study examined three elementary science teachers’ processes as they developed inquiry practices over time. The Electronic Quality of Inquiry Protocol (EQUIP) was used to gather quantitative and qualitative evidence of the teachers’ inquiry practices in terms of four factors, Curriculum, Instruction, Discourse, and Assessment. A chronological analysis was …

Lecciones Quijotescas De La Vida: Teoría Y Práctica - Quixotic Life Lessons: Theory And Practice, Julia Kennedy

Senior Independent Study Theses

This study focuses on the life lessons in Don Quijote de la Mancha, written by Miguel de Cervantes in 1605 (First Part) and 1615 (Second Part). Literary classics can be applicable in current situations to teach valuable life lessons to people in any culture, society, and at any age. The goal was to first analyze and later modify certain episodes in the novel to teach several important, age-appropriate values to children: friendship, acceptance, gender equality, and knowing oneself. Short fables were written about each value using characters and episodes from the novel. During February, using the fables as a central …

Assessing The Effectiveness Of Gordon Allport's Contact Hypothesis Ability To Increase Cultural Openness In First Year College Students, David Alan Kahn

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to test Gordon Allport's theory of Contact Hypothesis about cultural attitude change in college students. Participants were college First year students participating in First year seminar classes in a small southeastern liberal arts university. The treatment group of randomly selected First year seminar classes was exposed to a one-week seminar designed to address the issue of cultural diversity. A non-treatment group received the standard instruction on this issue. The content of the seminar included exposure to multicultural issues that include Allport's most important tenants for changing prejudicial attitudes. For this study components of Allport's …

E-Learning Implementation Strategies For An Ict-Challenged Environment : Case Of The University Of Ghana, Legon, Isaiah T. Awidi

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

E-learning implementation in higher education continues to gain prominence in both developed and developing countries, and while most universities in ICT-rich environments are exploring different ways of using ICT and multimedia resources to enhance teaching and learning, the same cannot be said about ICT-challenged environments. Nevertheless, the question of successful and sustainable e-learning implementation continues to remain a challenge, particularly in ICT-challenged environments.

The primary purpose of this research was to examine policy and strategy issues that have influenced the process of e-learning implementation at the University of Ghana (UG), given that previous ICT and e-learning initiatives failed to improve …

Improving Classroom Discourse In Inquiry-Based Primary Science Education, Prudence Smith

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Teachers‟ capacity to use classroom discourse to deepen student learning through sustained conversation is considered crucial to increasing students‟ intellectual development. Learners actively construct knowledge and develop understandings from their shared experiences and via interaction with others (Driver, Asoko, Leach, Mortimer & Scott, 1994). However, talk that fosters students‟ capacity to reason is lacking in many classrooms (Alexander, 2006) and, what is more, teachers tend to control the discourse by asking a predominance of closed questions and using a question-answer recitation script which limits the exploration of students‟ ideas (Nystrand, Gamoran, Kachy, & Prendergast, 1997). The purpose of this study …

The Teaching And Learning Of Word Problems In Beginning Algebra : A Nigerian (Lagos State) Study, Omolola A. Ladele

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

At both the junior and senior secondary school levels in Nigeria, student performance in mathematics examinations has been poor. Within the context of large classes, with inadequate facilities, and teaching and learning in a second language, algebra and algebra word problems are introduced to students during their first year of junior secondary school. The transition from primary school arithmetic to the use of the algebraic letter is challenging to students and it is important that teachers should know the likely difficulties and misconceptions students may have as they begin algebra (Welder, 2012).

In this study, the impact of a teacher …

The Use Of A Narrative Simulation In Rural Residential Fire Prevention: A Preliminary Study Of Changes In Behavioral Intention, William Clark Goetz

Theses and Dissertations--Curriculum and Instruction

Rural Kentucky residents suffer twice as many fire residential deaths than the national average. Fire prevention programs are primarily aimed at elementary school children however these children do not make the decisions nor take the precautions necessary to alter these conditions; their adult parents do. There is little research into the development of fire safety instructional interventions that need to reach these rural at-risk adults. In this study, a well-designed story simulation Uncle Charlie’s Christmas was developed to provide an instructional intervention to prevent injury and fatality from rural residential fires.
An intervention-control repeated measure research design was conducted to …

Comparing Second Grade Students' Creative And Content Knowledge Performance On Figural Transformation Activities Introduced In A Standard Or Enhanced Manner With Nutrition Content Knowledge Taught Through Factual Or Fantasy Reading, Angela Naomi Webb

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Creativity and problem solving are skills students need for success in the 21st century. With the increasing pressures of achieving higher student scores in emphasized content areas, teachers' instruction in science, social studies, music and art has been reduced to provide additional time for teaching reading and mathematics.These lost instructional areas often allowed students to express themselves creatively. Therefore, educators need to find a way to incorporate creativity into content areas like reading and mathematics.

This 16 week repeated measures study examined second grade students' academic and creative performance on figural transformation drawings during an extended reading-science-creativity integrated unit. A …

Systems Simulation Using Promodel: An Online Teaching Method, Gustavo Sioni Bosoli

Masters Theses

This study was designed with the purpose to create an online method to deploy the concepts and practical knowledge necessary for the course System Simulation {TEC 5523) offered by Eastern Illinois University. The course is currently offered on a hybrid format, with part of it being ministered in the classroom and the remaining on the online environment. This research focused on creating a set of multimedia and step-by-step lessons aimed to substitute the part of the course that demands the students to be present in the classroom. These lessons were developed based on exercises from the textbook currently used for …

Using Field Studies To Meet The Next Generation Science Standards, Amy Brown

Masters Theses

New science standards, the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), recently have been released which require students to use modeling and other process skills and cross-cutting concepts to show understanding of core concepts. Understanding by design approach was used to develop an ecology curriculum in line with the NGSS framework, using field studies to involve students in real science. A schoolyard habitat area on Neoga School District property was used for the field studies. Students were assessed with pre- and post-tests, traditional classroom grades on labs and projects and the Modified ATSI and Children's Science Curiosity Scale. All students showed significant …