Curriculum and Instruction Commons^™

It Turned Into A Bioblitz: Urban Data Collection For Building Scientific Literacy And Environmental Connection, Kelly O'Donnell, Lisa Brundage

Publications and Research

In 2013, Macaulay Honors College redesigned its required science curriculum to focus on scientific literacy skills rather than content. Central to this shift was inclusion of a data collection event, a BioBlitz, to provide students with the basis for their own semester-long research projects. Students are teamed with naturalists in an urban green space to find as many species as they can in 24 h and to contribute to a global biodiversity database via the app iNaturalist. We have learned two important lessons: (1) developing an interdisciplinary curriculum with a high degree of experiential learning is more successful when both …

A Queens Community Teacher Storytelling Project: A Qualitative Research Study Of Five Local Afro-Caribbean And Latina Public School Teachers And Community Teachers In New York City, José Alfredo Menjivar Ortéz

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation thesis examines the lived experiences, life stories, and storytelling of five Afro-Caribbean and Latina people, who are all local from the borough of Queens, alumni of New York City’s public schools, and since then, became their local public school teachers, classroom practitioners, and local community teachers. We refer to this specific and unique population of teachers as alumni-community teachers and to these and other similar stories as teacher life stories.

This qualitative research and study were conducted through a series of writing workshops and semi-structured interviews. The study’s main examination is preoccupied to understand how local teachers make …

Interdisciplinary Thinking: Financial Literacy Crosses Disciplinary Boundaries, Marla A. Sole

Publications and Research

Financial literacy is ideally suited to be integrated into mathematics courses and taught in an interdisciplinary manner. Students learn best and are motivated when tackling real-world meaningful questions. This article shares how elementary mathematics was applied to better understand the debate about raising the minimum wage and the United States National Debt. To serve as a guide for other teachers who wish to incorporate financial literacy into their mathematics courses and take an interdisciplinary approach, this article suggests readings, data sets, and pedagogical practices. Students were engaged and enthusiastic to work on problems that challenged their thinking about financial issues.

Overcoming Adversity In The Stem Classroom: Examining Learned Helplessness In First-Year Community College Students Using Salivary Cortisol, Surveys And Interviews, Diane M. Price Banks

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation seeks to determine whether a relationship between STEM attrition and Learned Helplessness exist in a group of first year STEM majors studied at an urban community college. STEM attrition rates have shown that 69% of the 20% of incoming STEM freshmen in associate degree programs, drop out or switch their majors to non-STEM curriculum within their first year of college (NCES, 2013). Learned helplessness is a behavioral phenomenon where some may become helpless as the conditions surrounding their success become adverse. Classic signs expressed with learned helplessness include: lack of motivation, depression, poor social skills, absence of control …

Streamlining Time Spent In Alternative Developmental Mathematics Pathways: Increasing Access To College-Level Mathematics Courses By Altering Placement Procedures, Marla A. Sole

Publications and Research

Developmental mathematics, which is designed to prepare students for college-level mathematics courses, can be a barrier to students’ success. In the United States, the majority of students placed into developmental mathematics courses fail to complete the developmental sequence. Alternative mathematics pathways offer some benefits when integrated with “just-in- time support” or expedited instruction on specific prerequisite concepts needed solely for the current lesson. This study compares two statistics courses taught at a public community college: a complete course taught in one semester and a two-semester version with just-in-time developmental content integrated into the course. The study found that students placed …

Aligning The Curriculums For College Success: High School And College Library Collaborations, Carl R. Andrews, Dickens Saint Hilaire

Publications and Research

In today’s highly competitive global economy, City University of New York (CUNY) graduates need strong critical thinking skills. More New York City students than ever before are applying to college and enrolling into CUNY schools. This is especially the case with high schools throughout the Bronx, a good portion of these schools are feeder schools for Bronx Community College (BCC). Unfortunately, many of the students who matriculate into BCC come un-prepared for college level work, where information literacy skills are essential. A strong body of published scholarly literature discusses the importance of information literacy instruction at the high school level, …

Radical Solace And Young Adult Writing: Racialized Dis/Ability, Fan Fiction, And Feel(Ing)S In Composition, Jenn Polish

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Deficit-model pedagogies too often abound in our writing classrooms, in everything from punitive attendance policies to content selection and course design methodologies that inadvertently favor students whose bodies fit a white supremacist, ableist norm. I develop conceptions of fandom and consent-based pedagogical practices, and I argue that these can bring us closer to radical solace in our college writing classrooms, particularly when our classrooms are full of variously marginalized students. These students too often must endure deficit-model pedagogies that assume inexpert writing styles in both their written compositions and, indeed, in the very composition of their bodies. What happens, I …

Embodying Rhythm Nation: Multimodal Hip Hop Dance As A Site For Adolescent Social-Emotional And Political Development, Lauren M. Roygardner

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This exploratory study employed qualitative methodology, specifically values analysis, to learn more about how being involved within Hip hop dance communities positively relates to adolescent development. Adolescence was defined herein as ages 13-23. The study investigated Hip hop dance communities in terms of cultural expertise (i.e. novice, intermediate and advanced/expert) to look specifically at dance narratives (i.e. peak experience narratives and “I dance because” essays) and hip hop dance performances. The primary purpose of this dissertation was to (1) explore how adolescents use multimodal Hip hop dance discourse for social-emotional development and critical consciousness, and to (2) understand how values …

What Do You Do When Your Student Plagiarizes A Minor Assignment?, Norman Eng

Publications and Research

Time to ask the class, I thought. In the K-12 classroom, teachers do this all the time. When patterns of behavior occur, such as bullying or tattling, the best teachers call for “community meetings.”

Spectators Or Patriots? Citizens In The Information Age, Amrita Dhawan

Publications and Research

In theory, a strong democracy rests on robust citizen participation. The practice in most democracies is quite different. This gap presents a challenge, which can be narrowed by augmenting civic education to bring it up to date with the current information environment and thus give citizens the opportunity to participate. Robert Dahl’s work on democracy provides a model that looks at this problem structurally. He writes about the ideals and the actual institutions necessary for a democracy and if we situate his model in the modern information environment we get a better idea of how to improve civic education. Successful …

Multiple Problem-Solving Strategies Provide Insight Into Students’ Understanding Of Open-Ended Linear Programming Problems, Marla A. Sole

Publications and Research

Open-ended questions that can be solved using different strategies help students learn and integrate content, and provide teachers with greater insights into students’ unique capabilities and levels of understanding. This article provides a problem that was modified to allow for multiple approaches. Students tended to employ high-powered, complex, familiar solution strategies rather than simpler, more intuitive strategies, which suggests that students might need more experience working with informal solution methods. During the semester, by incorporating open-ended questions, I gained valuable feedback, was able to better model real-world problems, challenge students with different abilities, and strengthen students’ problem solving skills.

Improving Motivation, Engagement And Differentiation In Lesson Development Using An Interactive White Board: 10-Hour Workshop Cycle Toward Professional Development Certificate, Leslie Lieman, Jenelle Fiori, Naliza Sadik

Publications and Research

The School of Education prepares aspiring teachers for teaching in 21st century classrooms by offering intensive interactive white board training cycles. In designing interactive lessons, the workshop cycle focuses on the pedagogical decision making that can improve classroom teaching and student engagement and understanding.

Lessons Learned From Lesson Study: Focusing On Differentiation For Ells And Students With Special Needs, Anne Marie Marshall, Khalilah Arrington

Publications and Research

This poster will present an overview of the lesson study process within the MATH-UP program. The poster will summarize the components of lesson study and highlight candidate learning from the process. Specifically, the lesson study selected will demonstrate evidence of candidate learning about emergent bilinguals.

Voices From On High: Rhetorical Education In A Jewish Women's Writing Center, Andrea Rosso Efthymiou

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This ethnographic dissertation looks at how the mission statement at one institution of higher education--Yeshiva University (YU)--establishes rhetorical education for its undergraduate students. The research site for this study of rhetorical education and institutional mission is the college writing center at YU's women's campus, Stern College for Women. This study defines rhetorical education as the way an institution authorizes written, spoken, and behavioral communication, with the goal of developing its students as civic beings, through its institutional mission. My findings demonstrate how undergraduate writing tutors disidentify with institutional rhetorical education to subvert, resist, and revise institutional rhetorical education, offering alternatives …

A Primer For Mathematical Modeling, Marla A. Sole

Publications and Research

With the implementation of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics recommendations and the adoption of the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics, modeling has moved to the forefront of K-12 education. Modeling activities not only reinforce purposeful problem-solving skills, they also connect the mathematics students learn in school with the mathematics they will use outside of school. Instructors have found mathematical modeling difficult to teach. To successfully incorporate modeling activities I believe that curricular changes should be accompanied by professional development for curriculum developers, classroom teachers, and higher education professionals. This article serves as an introduction to modeling by …

Queer Pedagogical Desire: A Study Guide, Matt Brim

Publications and Research

This essay explores the queer pedagogical desires that attended my writing of the Study Guide for the documentary film United in Anger: A History of ACT UP (Jim Hubbard, 2012). The analysis takes up Robyn Wiegman’s central question in Object Lessons, “What is it we expect our relationship to our objects of study to do?”, which is of particular importance to the discipline of queer studies insofar as the field is oriented around the desire to meld social justice with critical pedagogy. The queer professor’s desire in the case of the Study Guide-as-object was to create a text that …

The Mathematics Portfolio: An Alternative Tool To Evaluate Students’ Progress, Marla A. Sole

Publications and Research

This article describes the need for more thorough and varied forms of assessment to evaluate students’ level of understanding in mathematics. Portfolios are one type of assessment tool that, when added to a teacher’s repertoire can improve students’ comprehension and retention and enable students to monitor their own progress and to take more responsibility for their own learning. Portfolio assignments can also help students and teachers to detect and remedy weaknesses and misunderstandings and can increase students’ self-confidence in mathematics. This article discusses what a portfolio is, gives an example of a unit portfolio used in an undergraduate Finite Mathematics …

Libraries And General Education: New Strategies To Enhance Freshman Orientation, Faculty Collaboration, And Curriculum Development, Carl R. Andrews

Publications and Research

My research will attempt to re-evaluate the academic library's role in supporting a general education program. The emphasis will focus on student centeredness, faculty collaboration, outreach and curriculum support. In the short time that I have worked in academic libraries I have learned that quality customer service and reference desk work is far from the list of priorities in some settings. Coming from the public library I found this to be unacceptable. We are service providers and the way in which we communicate with students and faculty is important. As professionals we should do more in the way of making …

Fostering Liberatory Teaching: A Proposal For Revising Instructional Assessment Practices, Jane E. Hindman

Publications and Research

Appraises the assumptions that drive standard evaluation methods and compares them to those assumptions that undergird more critical approaches to teaching. Presents an alternative teacher evaluation instrument and explains how it more accurately measures what is said and believed to be effective teaching. Offers statistical evidence supporting the instrument and suggests further steps to foster teaching practices

Reinventing The University: Finding The Place For Basic Writers, Jane E. Hindman

Publications and Research

A poststructuralist critique of basic writing placement and pedagogy, this paper argues that our notions of good writing (i.e., the criteria by which we as English professors and compositionists authorize and "place" students) come not from some general or transcendent standards, but rather from the practices by which we self-authorize within our own discourse community. Using Bartholomae and Petrosky's curriculum presented in Facts, Artifacts, Counterfacts as a point of departure, I propose a language-centered curriculum which uses discourse itself as the subject of the semester-Jong project wherein students eventually learn to critique our practices and create their own discourse communities. …