Bilingual, Multilingual, and Multicultural Education Commons^™

Finding Lost & Found: Designer’S Notes From The Process Of Creating A Jewish Game For Learning, Owen Gottlieb

Articles

This article provides context for and examines aspects of the design process of a game for learning. Lost & Found (2017a, 2017b) is a tabletop-to-mobile game series designed to teach medieval religious legal systems, beginning with Moses Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah (1180), a cornerstone work of Jewish legal rabbinic literature. Through design narratives, the article demonstrates the complex design decisions faced by the team as they balance the needs of player engagement with learning goals. In the process the designers confront challenges in developing winstates and in working with complex resource management. The article provides insight into the pathways the team …

Promoting Student Success: Bilingual Education Best Practices And Research Flaws, Lillian Fassero

Senior Honors Theses

This paper first determines the benefits which bilingual education offers and then compares transitional, dual-language, and heritage language maintenance programs. After exploring the outcomes, contexts, and practical implications of the various bilingual programs, this paper explores the oversight in most bilingual studies, which assess students’ syntax and semantics while neglecting their understanding of pragmatics and discourse structures (Maxwell-Reid, 2011). Incorporating information from recent studies which question traditional understandings of bilingualism and argue that biliteracy requires more than grammatical and vocabulary instruction, this paper proposes modifications in current research strategies and suggests best practices for transitional, dual-language, and heritage maintenance programs.

The Effectiveness Of Dual Language And Sheltered English Immersion Esol Programs: A Comparative Study, Thomas Meyer

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

During the 2005-2006 school year, 20% of students in the United States spoke a language other than English at home. Projected growth of English Language Learners in the United States is that by 2015 that number will rise to 50%. Research shows that vocabulary development is key to helping young English language learners acquire English mastery, but there is presently no commonly adopted English for Speakers of Other Languages teaching strategy. Dual Language and Sheltered English Immersion are two English for speakers of other languages programs used extensively throughout the United States and exclusively by the school district in this …

Achievement Gap In United States History End Of Course Assessment Scores In Ga High Schools, Kris Watkins

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this dissertation study, which employed a quantitative correlational research design, was to determine if the school-level variables of percentage of African American students, the percentage of economically disadvantaged students, and type of school scheduling significantly influence student performance on the Georgia Milestones U.S. History end-of-course assessments (EOCs) for the school years 2014-15 and 2015-16. The study utilized a sample of 163 high schools located in the Atlanta metropolitan statistical area (MSA). Results from simultaneous linear regression analyses showed that school-level percentage of economically disadvantaged students was significantly associated with school-level Georgia Department of Education (GADOE) U.S. History …

Interview With Peter Mclaren: “Critical Education Must Transform The World”, Javier Collado-Ruano, Peter Mclaren

Education Faculty Articles and Research

Javier Collado-Ruano interviews Peter McLaren about his views on critical pedagogy and how to transform traditional formal education away from capitalist structures.

A Case Study Of Hanban’S Chinese Language Teaching Program At Western Kentucky University: Developmental History And Preliminary Outcomes, Sheng-Huei Yu

Dissertations

This case study provides a historical overview of foreign language development (especially Chinese) in the United States and the growing number of Confucius Institutes (CIs) established in the U.S through Hanban, China’s National Office for Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language. This case study specifically captures the growth of the Western Kentucky University (WKU) CI from its inception in 2010. According to Hanban’s annual assessment reporting guidelines, since the conception of CIs sheer quantity of teachers and students has always been the primary focus. Therefore, the growth in the numbers of Hanban Chinese teachers and number of students enrolled in …

Measuring The Effectiveness Of Critical Literacy As An Instructional Method, Edward Lehner, Kaemanje Thomas, Jean Shaddai, Toni Hernen

Publications and Research

This paper reports the results of a quasi-experiment investigating the efficacy of using critical literacy as an instructional method. Using a quantitative comparison method, critical literacy is the study’s treatment. The treatment measures the final exam scores of linguistically diverse urban community college students enrolled in college developmental reading courses against 13 other statistically similar classes. The primary data are the results of a standardized final exam. This quasi-experimental study demonstrates the effectiveness of a critical literacy model when employed in a community college setting. Further, this study introduces a quantitative rationale for using critical literacy and establishes the practice …

English Language Learners In The Mathematics Classroom, Julia Mccormick

Senior Honors Projects

Mathematics is often considered a universal language. Most of us have heard this statement from a math teacher at some point throughout our academic careers. However, for students moving to the United States from another country with minimal fluency in English, this is clearly not the case. They may walk into math class, a subject area in which they may have excelled in their native country, and see the words “polynomial”, “coefficient”, and “differentiate” on the board. Regardless of their experiences in their native language, there are disconnects and cultural differences between languages and skills emphasized that prevents mathematics from …

Un Rescate Incompleto: Los Éxitos Y Limitaciones Del Programa De Educación Intercultural Bilingüe Como Un Proyecto Anticolonialista / An Incomplete Rescue: The Successes And Limitations Of The Bilingual Intercultural Education Program As An Anticolonialist Project, Aviva Thal

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This project is an exploration of the Bilingual Intercultural Education Program (EIB) mandated in Chilean schools with a high density of indigenous students. It focusses on the implementation and impacts of EIB in Putre, a small town in the Arica and Parinacota region of Chile where the majority of the residents are Aymara. After gaining the region in the War of the Pacific at the end of the 19th century, the Chilean government waged a violent campaign of forced cultural assimilation known as “Chilenization” against the local Aymara people. The effects of the linguistic repression that occurred during this period …

Hispanic Students' Perceptions Of Success: A Phenomenological Study On The Impact On K-12 Academic Achievement, Rodney Stephens

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to understand the impact of Hispanic learners’ perceptions of success on their completion of secondary/post-secondary studies. The following served as a guiding research question: How do the perceptions of success among male and female Hispanic high school completers/non-completers ages 18-29 impact their educational pursuits? This qualitative study examined the lived experiences of Hispanic participants through social/cultural contexts framed around Bronfenbrenner’s (1974) ecological systems theory, Vygotsky’s (1978) social learning theory, Rotter’s (1954) social learning, and Bandura’s (2002) social cognitive theory. Participants included 22 Hispanic high school completers/non-completers ages 18-29 who were clients or students …

“Thank God I’M Mexican”: Cognitive Racial Reappraisal Strategies Of Latino Engineering Students, Elvira Abrica

DBER Speaker Series

Despite the fact that Latinos pursue science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) degrees as often as their peers, Latino degree completion rates lag behind those of other demographic groups. In an effort to better understand Latino persistence in STEM, this qualitative study explored the non-cognitive persistence strategies of Latino men pursuing engineering degrees at two highly selective, four-year institutions. Specifically, this study explored Latino engineering students’ understanding and responses to race and racism, with attention to ways in which understanding and responses differed by immigrant generation. A total of 37 semi-structured interviews were conducted and analyzed. Findings indicate that immigrant …

Applying Encoding And Retrieval Techniques To Chinese Rhyme Reading In Advanced Placement Chinese Instruction, Nan Wang

The Nebraska Educator: A Student-Led Journal

Learning Chinese as a foreign language is increasingly prevalent in public school districts in the U.S. As ACTFL (2011) reported, an increasing number of enrollments of Advanced Placement Chinese courses indicate a growing demand for Chinese language courses in U.S. public school districts (ACTFL, 2011; ACTFL, 2017). AP foreign language exams indicate that students from the mainstream culture in the U.S. do not perform as well as racial minority test takers (Brown & Thompson, 2016). Therefore, implementing appropriate teaching strategies in a student-centered foreign language environment is a desperate need. This is a pragmatic instructional design proposal, which emphasizes the …

Math Is More Than Numbers: Beginning Bilingual Teachers’ Mathematics Teaching Practices And Their Opportunities To Learn, Cathery Yeh

Education Faculty Articles and Research

In this article, the author provides results from a 3-year, longitudinal study that examined two novice bilingual teachers’ mathematics teaching practices and their professional opportunities to learn to teach. Primary data sources included videotaped mathematics lessons, teacher interviews, and field notes of their teacher preparation methods courses. Findings revealed that the teachers were oriented toward differing views of learning that shaped how they organized students’ learning of language and mathematics during classroom instruction. While both teachers used similar teaching strategies to support students’ development of mathematics specific literacies, there were variances in how the learners were positioned within the classroom …

Teaching Race In Cyberspace: Reflections On The “Virtual Privilege Walk” Exercise, Kafi D. Kumasi

School of Information Sciences Faculty Research Publications

Teaching for Justice describes the efforts of LIS faculty and instructors who feature social justice theory and strategies in their courses and classroom practices

The Role Of The Short-Term Mission Trip Process In The Development Of Cultural Intelligence In University Students: A Collective Case Study, Ashley Haygood

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this collective case study was to determine how, if at all, Cultural Intelligence (CQ) develops in undergraduate students through a three-stage mission trip process for students at a large Christian university in the southeast participating in three separate short-term mission trips (Africa, Asia, and Europe). This study found that across the entire short-term mission (STM) trip process, religious faith was a consistent theme impacting CQ development. Three spring break short-term mission trip teams were used as three separate cases, from which several participants, or embedded units, provided their individual experiences within the case. Data collection methods occurred …

Pedagogía Crítica Y Decolonial En Tiempos De Trump. Entrevista A Peter Mclaren, Peter Mclaren, Pablo Cortés-Gonzálezener

Education Faculty Articles and Research

Se trata de una entrevista que versa en los siguientes tópicos: Panorama internacional de las políticas sociales y educativas de corte neoliberal y los discursos sociales respecto de las minorías étnicas, identidades y migración; las implicaciones del cambio de discurso en las políticas sociales y educativas hacia los sistemas y modelos educativos; los estudios culturales y la transformación social en América Latina.

This is an interview that deals with the following topics: International panorama of social and educational policies of neoliberal and social discourses regarding ethnic minorities, identities and migration; The implications of the change of discourse in the social …

The Girl Factor: How Single-Sex Learning Environments Affect African American Girls' Discipline Referral Rate, Devonne Lampkin

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The mission of the single-sex education is to provide learning environments that will bring out the best in each student and will provide opportunities for success that may not be available in co-educational settings. Several explanations have been suggested for differences between single-sex and coeducational settings in educational processes and in student outcomes. Schools that implement single-sex schools do so with the hope of decreasing the social pressures and distractions that will lead to a decrease in office discipline referrals which unenviably lead to suspensions. The purpose of this ex-post facto casual comparative study examines the impact single-sex schools have …