Curriculum and Instruction Commons^™

Vamos A Pláticar: The Sense-Making Process Of Career Services Practitioners At California Community Colleges In A Guided Pathways Epoch, Claudia Estrada-Howell

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

The California Community College system and its vision for success, which includes a focus on increasing students' degree and certificate completion, as well as increasing the percentage of existing Career and Technical Education students who report being employed in their field of study is highlighted. To help support these goals, the California Community College System has adopted the Guided Pathways framework. This framework requires all campuses to fundamentally redesign their programs and support services to ensure they are clear, more educationally coherent pathways to credentials that in turn prepare students for success in the workforce and further education. To do …

Instructional Technology Implementation: Barriers Impacting Student Success, Roxanna Zendejas

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Purpose. The purpose of this comparative case study is to explore the benefits of effective technology integration in the classroom, as well as the best teaching practices related to instructional technology. It was designed to identify (a) educator beliefs, (b) digital divide, as well as other barriers, and (c) best practices and instructional strategies.

Methodology. This qualitative comparative case study research design explored the best practices of 10 middle school teachers by using a semi-structured interview protocol. A qualitative design was selected to focus on an individual, partnership, small group, and organization. Using comparative case study allowed the researcher to …

Language Ideologies In First Year Composition Textbooks, Joanna Clevenger

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

This thesis examines how standard language ideologies are perpetuated in the five most frequently assigned first year composition textbooks from four higher education institutions in Southern California’s Inland Empire. Standard language ideologies position one variation of a language as superior, correct, appropriate and the normal variation of a language which everyone should be able to speak. Using Critical Discourse Analysis, the five textbooks were analyzed in order to uncover the embedded power and hegemony over women, people of color, and those from a lower socioeconomic status which are prevalent throughout society because they are unchallenged and widely accepted as the …

Lesson Plan Template For Clinical Practice, Teaching Performance Assessment, And In-Service Teaching, Karen Escalante

Teacher Education and Technology Faculty Publications

Becoming an effective teacher takes time, preparation, purposeful planning and deep knowledge of your students and the content / curriculum. Purposeful lesson planning supports you in your development as an educator and it works to ensure PK-12 students are being taught to think and engage with the content area, with the ultimate goal of transferring that knowledge to global understandings and patterns.

Transforming Technology & Engineering Educator Inputs Into Desired Student Outputs Through Mechanism Analysis And Synthesis, Andrew J. Hughes, Chris Merrill

Educational Leadership & Technology Faculty Publications

The intention of this article is to provide middle and high school Technology and Engineering Educators (T&EEs) with a more thorough understanding of an engineering approach to the teaching and learning of mechanics. During the teaching and learning of engineering content, in this case mechanics, the educator should attempt to align pedagogical content knowledge with engineering content knowledge and practices. T&EEs will also need to focus on terminology, structure, and applying theory to practical hands-on learning activities inside and outside of the classroom. T&EEs have the potential to foster middle and high school students’ mechanical knowledge and the ability to …

Scope Process: Fostering Students' Design Outcome Effectiveness, Andrew J. Hughes, Cameron D. Denson

Educational Leadership & Technology Faculty Publications

The purpose of this article is to help Technology and Engineering Educators scaffold engineering design and problem-solving experiences so that students taking technology and engineering courses will develop an improved ability to design. Technology and Engineering Education seems to increasingly focus on problem-solving, design, and engineering. Technology and Engineering Education is not the only discipline with this focus. The fact that both Science and Technology and Engineering Education are similarly focused on the teaching and learning of engineering begs the question of what separates technology and engineering educators from science educators in the teaching of engineering? Lewis (2004) cautioned that …

Mechanism Design And Analysis: Developing An Understanding Of Mechanism Motion Through Graphical Modeling, Andrew J. Hughes, Chris Merrill

Educational Leadership & Technology Faculty Publications

The intention of this article is to provide Technology and Engineering Educators with foundational knowledge of mechanism design and analysis and the ability to develop middle and high school students' mechanism knowledge during practical hands-on learning activities in the STEM classroom. Technology and Engineering Educators' implementation of mechanism design and analysis could promote students' increased depth of mechanical knowledge and ability to apply this knowledge during engineering design challenges. In this article, the authors present an introduction to four-bar mechanism design and analysis using CAD software to produce graphical representations. After designing mechanisms graphical, students should be allowed to produce …

Method Of Joints: Theory And Practice Of Designing, Building, And Testing Trusses, Andrew J. Hughes, Chris Merrill

Educational Leadership & Technology Faculty Publications

The authors of this article, like many of us, are proponents of engineering education but are also proponents of shop skills, craftsmanship, technological literacy, and the tacit knowledge and skills developed through applying sound theories during practical hands-on learning. The authors believe that engineering is an important aspect of our discipline, but so are the application of thinking, tool skills, measurement, geometric construction, manufacturing, instrumentation, testing and analysis, mathematical and scientific theories, and many other hands-on, minds-on skillsets that all need to maintain association with our discipline. As the authors are proponents for engineering education that is done well, they …

Solving Concurrent And Nonconcurrent Coplanar Force Systems: Balancing Theory And Practice In The Technology And Engineering Education Classroom, Andrew J. Hughes, Chris Merrill

Educational Leadership & Technology Faculty Publications

The basic concepts inherent to statics, including unbalanced and balanced forces and instability and stability of physical systems, have traditionally been covered in middle and high school physical science courses (Physical Science as indicated in Next Generation Science Standards). Yet, these concepts are covered using a physical science approach that has minor but significant differences in terminology, structure, and focus when compared with an engineering approach. Since a robust understanding of statics is considered an essential component for most engineering disciplines, Technology and Engineering Education’s (T&EE) implementation of statics with an engineering approach could promote students’ ability to transfer learning …

Reinforcing Inequity: The Advanced Placement English Language And Composition Exam As Gatekeeper, Lorrie Cobain

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

The Advanced Placement (AP) program was started in the 1950s to give talented students an opportunity to accelerate their studies and earn college credit. The AP English Language and Composition test that was established in 1980 became a cornerstone of the program because it allowed students to skip part or all of first-year composition. Despite the exponential growth of the course throughout the country and attention from the College Board to foster increased access for underserved students and to support program equity, the mean score on the AP Language exam for all but one ethnic minority is consistently below the …

Lesson Plan Template, Karen Escalante

Q2S Enhancing Pedagogy

Lesson planning supports beginning teachers in their development as an educator and it helps to ensure PK-12 students are being taught to think and engage with the content area, with the ultimate goal of transferring that knowledge to global understandings and patterns. Becoming an effective teacher takes time, preparation, purposeful planning and deep knowledge of your students and the content / curriculum.

Concrete Beam Design: Pouring The Foundation To Engineering In T&E Classrooms, Andrew J. Hughes, Chris Merrill

Educational Leadership & Technology Faculty Publications

Ask a middle or high school student if they could design a concrete beam that weighs only 20 pounds and is 36” long but must hold 600 pounds without failing. What is the student likely to say? What if the student was told that, with some optimized decision making based on relatively straightforward mathematics, their beam could hold 2400 pounds or more? The focus of this article is not on concrete beam design, it is rather an introduction to engineering principles in beam design using a lab activity. The concepts and skills learned in this article will lead students into …

Promoting Preservice Stem Education Teachers' Metacognitive Awareness: Professional Development Designed To Improve Teacher Metacognitive Awareness, Andrew John Hughes, Eddie Partida

Educational Leadership & Technology Faculty Publications

This quantitative portion of a convergent complementarity, mixed-methods, exploratory study describes the design and implementation of a 5-week preservice teacher professional development (PD) experience and the associated Metacognitive Awareness Inventory (MAI) measures before and after the experience. The PD experience was designed to explicitly address participants’ domain-general and domain-specific knowledge and regulation of cognition through a highly integrated academic and clinical preparation regimen centered on a cognitive coaching model. The study participants comprised preservice STEM education teachers (N = 11) enrolled in a dual teaching certification and Master’s in Education program. The findings showed an increase in participants’ regulation …

Examining The Educational Experiences Of Community Day School Graduates: A Narrative Inquiry, Willie J. Jones Iii

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Community day school graduates enter society with decisions about college, career, and work. Community day schools operate as a non-traditional education system that provides a separate and often unique education to many disenfranchised students, with lessened accountability protocols to assess whether these systems prepare graduates for life after high school. The number of community day schools and enrollment is declining, due in part to excessive changes within the law and stricter guidelines required to be met.