Curriculum and Instruction Commons^™

Fifth Graders Blog With Preservice Teachers To Discuss Literature, Lindsay Yearta, Katie Stover, Rachel Sease

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

In this study, fifth grade students participated in a pen pal project with pre-service teachers where they blogged for eight weeks about the book, A Long Walk to Water, by Linda Sue Park. Partnerships were established to provide fifth grade students with an authentic audience in an effort to increase engagement in reading and writing. The authors posit that individualized instruction, access to an authentic audience, and the utilization of technology contributed to students' growth as readers, writers, and global citizens.

Similar Settings, Different Story Lines: The Positioning Of Esl Teachers In Two Middle Schools, Mary Mcgriff, Maria Selena Protacio

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

As the need to better support English learners’ achievement in academically rigorous content area classes increases, so does the call for expanded ESL teacher – content area teacher collaboration. However, the nature and outcomes of such collaboration depend on how these professionals are positioned within their school settings. Using positioning theory as an analytic lens, this article investigates the collaborative interactions of two ESL teachers in two separate, but demographically similar suburban middle schools. It examines the impact of these ESL teachers’ collaborations on ELLs’ opportunities for academic language and content area learning, and it calls for the field to …

Selecting Words For Instruction During Primary Read-Alouds, Karen J. Kindle

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

Reading aloud is a wide-spread practice in early childhood and primary classrooms that is purported to develop a range of literacy skills, including vocabulary. Since it is not feasible to teach all of the words in a given text, efforts to maximize the instructional power of read-aloud events have included research regarding word selection. This study explores the extent to which research-based practices for selecting words for instruction have been incorporated into the practices of four primary grade teachers. Findings indicate that teachers may rely more on intuition and personal experience to select words rather than following expert’s recommendations. Implications …

Affirmation, Analysis, And Agency: Book Clubs As Spaces For Critical Conversations With Young Adolescent Women Of Color, Jody N. Polleck, Terrie Epstein

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

This paper explores how female urban adolescents of color who participated in a literacy book club during their senior year in high school understood the impact of race, class, and gender oppression on the novels’ characters, themselves, and their communities. Based on transcripts from book club discussions and interviews conducted at the end of their senior year and the end of their first year of college, the authors illustrate how participants affirmed and asserted their voices; analyzed texts for racism, sexism, and classism; and promoted their own and others’ growth and sense of agency as resilient young women of color.

Reading Horizons Vol. 54 No. 1

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

No abstract provided.

Gaise Into The Future: Updating A Landmark Report For An Increasingly Data-Centric World, Michelle Everson, Paul Velleman, Beverly Wood, John Gabrosek, Megan Mocko, Robert Carver

Publications

Ever since its official endorsement by the American Statistical Association in 2005, the Guidelines for Assessment and Instruction in Statistics Education (GAISE) College Report has had a profound impact on the teaching of statistics. Now, a decade later, it is important to recognize the changing nature in what and how we teach our introductory statistics students. Changes in technology and assessment practices, just over the past 10 years, have made it possible to do new and exciting things in our courses, in very different ways than were envisioned by the authors of the original GAISE College Report. Further, our world …

Catholic Teachers’ Postgraduate Qualifications And Students’ End Of Schooling Outcomes: A Large Scale Queensland Based Comparative Study, Judy Smeed, Beryl Exley

eJournal of Catholic Education in Australasia

Abstract

A key feature of the current era of Australian schooling is the dominance of publically available student, school and teacher performance data. Our paper examines the intersection of data on teachers’ postgraduate qualifications and students’ end of schooling outcomes in 26 Catholic Systemic Secondary Schools and 18 Catholic Independent Secondary Schools throughout the State of Queensland. We introduce and justify taking up a new socially-just measurement model of students’ end of schooling outcomes, called the ‘Tracking and Academic Management Index’, otherwise known as ‘TAMI’. Additional analysis is focused on the outcomes of top-end students vis-à-vis all students who are …

Mathematical Game Creation And Play Assists Students In Practicing Newly-Learned Challenging Concepts, Kalyn Jon Cody, Audrey C. Rule, Benjamin R. Forsyth

Curriculum & Instruction Faculty Publications

Twenty-four high-performing fifth grade students (aged 10 - 11 years) participated in a year-long study in which conditions alternated for six instructional units between lecture-based mathematics instruction and practice through solving additional problems in small groups versus practice through designing and playing mathematics games related to the topic. Students scored similarly on all units at the time of the posttest. Creating games allowed students to examine concepts on their own, making sense of them at a deeper level, avoiding confusion. Game-making may also have made the mathematics more personal, relevant, and interesting. The authors suggest that mathematics teachers consider adding …

Raising Creativity Consciousness In Post-Secondary Education, Dixie E. Hudson Mrs.

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

Abstract

The knowledge of creativity, what it is, and how one applies it, is a valuable tool that all post-secondary students should be taught. Understanding and managing creativity is one of the most significant competitive advantages of business leaders, entrepreneurs, and students. With the current fast-paced changes in our lives and workplace today, creativity is becoming as necessary a tool as any life skill.

The knowledge and skill of creativity should be taught as a core competency in post-secondary institutions. Most students have had minimal if any training in deliberate creativity. In many cases, it may have in fact been …

Teaching & Learning Workshops At The Center For Teaching & Learning At Thomas Jefferson University Ay15-16, Center For Teaching And Learning

Academic Commons and Scott Memorial Library Staff Papers and Presentations

No abstract provided.

Developing Multiplication Fact Fluency, Jonathan Brendefur, S. Strother, K. Thiede, S. Appleton

Curriculum, Instruction, and Foundational Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

Using specific components of three broad learning theories—cognitive, social-interactional, and behavioral—students in 3^rd, 4^th and 5^th grade classrooms were given multiplication fact fluency instruction over a period of five weeks for 10-15 minutes each day. Two different approaches were utilized with two distinct groups of students for the purpose of comparing different approaches to fluency development. Results indicate that students using a strategy-based approach for fluency development by means of instructional tasks emphasizing social-interactional and cognitive theories (particularly Bruner’s theory of Modes of Representation) increased multiplication fact fluency, with a greater degree of consistency, than students …

Determining The Academic Achievement Of English Language Learners (Ells) By Using Additional Measures Of Growth, Adriana Maria Marin

Dissertations

Accountability measures employed in the country to determine the academic achievement of all the student population rely solely on the results obtained on the standardized tests. Such measures have often placed English language learners’ (ELLs) at risk of academic failure despite the fact that research on second language acquisition (SLA) has stated the complexity involved in the learning/acquisition process of a target language. Scholars have also discussed the influence accountability measures and the issues with the validity of the tests implemented to assess ELLs may have on such results. Therefore, in an effort to obtain a more comprehensive idea of …

Implementing Schema-Based Instruction In The Elementary Classroom (Project), Claire B. Lim

Honorable Mentions

Solving mathematical word problems is an ongoing problem for students with both reading and math learning disabilities (Powell, 2011). As more and more students with learning disabilities are included in the general education classroom, teachers must differentiate instruction to benefit all learners. The current strategies emphasized in textbooks are misleading and too general for students who struggle (Jitendra, 2008). Schema-based instruction is an alternative problem solving strategy, which requires students to identify the underlying structure (schema) which each word problem belongs, to translate important information to a diagram, and then to solve the problem. This project uses cognitive theory as …

Career-Focused Course Sequencing And Retention To Graduation In A Tennessee Community College, Samuel S. Rowell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to identify course sequencing associated with Industrial Technology Associate of Applied Science students who persisted to graduation at Northeast State Community College (NSCC) in Blountville, TN. The participants in this study were first-time full-time freshman Advanced Technology students whose 3-year program of study at NSCC happened during the years of 2009-2012, 2010-2013, and 2011-2014. Participants were divided into 2 groups, students who graduated (completers) and students who did not graduate (noncompleters). The researcher examined student persistence to graduation. Data for this study were obtained from the college’s information database.

The predictive variables used included …

Latina Mothers' Expectations And Perceptions About A Dual Language Education In The Rio Grande Valley, Rosalinda A. Cobarrubias

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

The initial purpose of this study was to identify Latino parents’ expectations and perceptions of a dual language program in the Lower Rio Grande Valley. All of the Latino parents of children in one dual language program were invited to participate in the study. The parents who agreed to participate in the study were all mothers. Consequently, only the perceptions and expectations of Latina mothers were explored. The chosen method of this study was qualitative research to explore the expectations and perceptions of the dual language program of twenty Latina mothers of Mexican descent. There were eleven English dominant Latina …

Student Perceptions: Teaching And Learning With Open Educational Resources, Janet L. Rowell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to analyze factors that may contribute to student perceptions of courses using Open Educational Resources (OER). Specifically, the 6 independent variables tested were the course discipline, age, gender, course delivery mode, enrollment status, and number of credit hours taken. The dependent variables were measured as mean scores of 6 OER perception dimensions: motivation to learn, quality of learning experience, value of OER, cognitive learning, affective learning, and course quality. A 27-item online survey was administered to gather data from students enrolled in a course that used OER in the fall semester, 2014. There was …

The Impact Of Meaningful High School Computer Science Experiences In The Chicago Public Schools, Lucia Dettori, Ronald I. Greenberg, Steven Mcgee, Dale Reed

Computer Science: Faculty Publications and Other Works

We report on initial outcomes of the Taste of Computing project, under which a meaningful computer science course has been initiated in many high schools of the Chicago Public Schools system. Surveys of students have shown that they attribute high value to the course and have experienced increases in their understanding and interest regarding the computing field. Data was also collected from teachers participating in professional development regarding their preparation and confidence in teaching the new course. We report on the strengths of various survey responses and their relationships, and we compare student responses by race and gender. The data …

An Analysis Of The Correlation Between Act Scores And One-To-One Computing, Jeffrey Brian Heath

Dissertations

This study examined whether a relationship exists between one-to-one computing and student achievement, specifically ACT scores. This study also examined whether relationships exist among teachers’ perceptions of one-to-one computing, teachers’ years of experience, subjects taught by teachers, teachers’ skill level in the use of a computer for instruction, and teachers’ perceptions of changes in ACT scores. The results of this study could help policymakers and educators with decisions regarding implementation of one-to-one computing programs.

The sample of schools for investigating the relationship between one-to-one computing and ACT scores consisted of 33 secondary public schools with one-to-one computing programs located in …

Ideological Becoming : Intern Teachers' Experience Of Becoming Culturally Responsive Teachers., Sonya Burton

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explored the ways that teachers on an intern license who have been recruited by a Teacher Recruitment program experience ideological becoming into culturally responsive teachers in the Four Corners region of the United States. Bakhtin’s theories on ideological becoming and authoritative and internally persuasive discourses frame this study with emphasis on the experiences that caused intern teachers tension and helped them make culturally responsive teaching practices an internally persuasive discourse. I used narrative inquiry methodology to discern intern teachers’ stories and experiences. I interviewed 5 intern teachers teaching in elementary classrooms in the Four Corners region of the …

Transforming Pedagogy: Changing Perspectives From Teacher-Centered To Learner-Centered, Sharon Dole, Lisa Bloom, Kristy Kowalske

Interdisciplinary Journal of Problem-Based Learning

This study used an online-structured interview methodology to examine the impact of an intensive field experience in facilitating problem (PBL) and project-based learning (PjBL) on teachers’ pedagogy. The purpose of the study was to determine to what extent the field experience had transformed their teaching. Data were collected in the form of online interviews with 36 participants who completed the gifted education licensure program at a regional state university in the southeast. The online interviews were followed up with telephone interviews with four of the participants. The resulting themes can be grouped under the major categories of teacher-related and student-related …

Mathematical Writing: What Is It And How Do We Teach It?, Byung-In Seo

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) recommends that students be able to communicate mathematics, using correct and appropriate language, by eighth grade [8]. Mathematics teachers at all levels agree that they have the responsibility to teach their students content-specific writing, but many feel that they don’t have the tools to do this work. This article offers a foundation and methodologies for different writing assignments that can be used in mathematics classes.

Performance, Assessment And Communication In One App: Mobile Tablet Assessment Is Here To Stay, Alistair Campbell Phd, Susan J. Main Mrs

eCULTURE

It is high time we moved performance assessment into the mobile age. Performance is one of the most difficult tasks to assess using traditional methods. The pen-and-paper method generates multiple administrative bottlenecks that prevent the assessor from focusing on their primary task of professional judgment. The application of mobile technology and tablet devices can now replace pen-and-paper assessment, and achieve significant synergies resulting from the combination of technology with the assessors’ professional judgment.

The presentation will demonstrate how the application of mobile technology to the assessment of performances can be successfully achieved. The Touch2Assess (T²A) software process developed …

“It’S The Best Idea Ever!”: Exam For The Byod Generation., Susan J. Main Mrs, Alistair Campbell Phd

eCULTURE

This research sought to investigate the feasibility of digitising exams to improve student outcomes and was based on research suggesting that the handwriting speed of undergraduate students limits their ability to demonstrate knowledge, while poor legibility makes it difficult for the assessor to accurately judge the quality of the response. Research found that the handwriting speed of undergraduate students was equivalent to fluency data on 11-year-old schoolchildren, which is a significant concern when we consider that handwriting fluency accounted for considerable variance in writing quality and tutor marks for examination answers. This generation of students typically relies on digital technologies …

Clinical Placement Before Or After Simulated Learning Environments? A Naturalistic Study Of Clinical Skills Acquisition Amongst Early-Stage Paramedicine Students, Brennen W. Mills Mr, Owen Carter A/Prof, Cobie Rudd Prof, Nathan Ross Mr, Louise Claxton Mrs

eCULTURE

Background

There is conflicting evidence surrounding the merit of clinical placements (CP) for early-stage health-profession students. Some contend early-stage CPs facilitate contextualisation of subsequently learned theory. Others argue attending CP before attaining skills competency is problematic and should only occur after training in simulated-learning environments (SLE). The evidentiary basis surrounding the extent to which either is true remains limited.

Methods

First-year paramedicine students (n=85) undertook three days of CP and SLEs as part of course requirements. Students undertook CP either before or after participation in SLEs creating two groups (Clin→Sim/Sim→Clin). Clinical skills acquisition was measured via objectively-structured clinical examinations (OSCE) …

The Influence Of Curriculum Customization On Grade 3 Student Achievement In Language Arts And Mathematics In New Jersey’S 30 Poorest School Districts, Michael Deturo

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

The purpose for my correlational cross-sectional study was to explore the influences of proximal and distal forces on curriculum development and how it affects student achievement as it pertains to NJ ASK Grade 3. I sought to determine the strength and direction of the relationships between curriculum customization at the local level and student achievement on the NJ ASK 3 in Mathematics and Language Arts. Seventy-four elementary principals were surveyed pertaining to development, design, and implementation of their curriculum.

Applying Systems Theory As A Lens On Teacher And Student Perceptions Of Assessment And Feedback In An Intensive English Program, Thomas A. Germain

MA TESOL Collection

The goal of this project was to apply systems theory, or more generally, systems thinking as a lens on the perceptions of teachers, students, and administrators who work together at an intensive English program (IEP). This goal necessitated a two-part project: a review of pertinent literature on systems theory and a limited qualitative study situated at the IEP. Sixteen participants, including seven teachers (more than half of the current faculty), two teacher/administrators, and seven students from different levels within the program, were invited to participate. The primary focus of the study was on participants’ awareness of and attitudes about two …

A Textbook Case: The Connection Between Textbooks, Standardized Testing, And Student Achievement, Megan P. Miller

Theses & Honors Papers

The textbooks physical presence, though, is marginal compared to their theoretical presence, as textbooks can drive almost every decision a teacher makes when preparing for a day, a week, a month, the year. For example, in my 11^th-grade English classes at Grafton High School in York County, Virginia, there are two levels of understanding. One is that I am teaching American literature, its development, importance, people, and purpose; the other is that everything I teach will, in some way, better prepare my students for their SOL test at the end of the year. The textbook has been laid …

What Does It Mean For A Teacher To Bring The Whole Person To The Classroom? Reflections And Strategies To Access The Authentic Self And Connect With The Energy Of Joy In The Classroom Learning Experience, Arline M. H. Saturdayborn

MA TESOL Collection

Since I began teaching 10 years ago, I have been summoned by an energy, a vitality that is guiding me. Most days when I walk into the classroom, no matter what is going on in my life, I connect with an energy that makes my heart feel full, brings my whole body alive and fills me with joy. This thesis is an investigation of what I experience when I enter the classroom. I love the energy I have in the classroom. I don’t think it is special to me. I think this energy is available to anyone, if they are …

Quantitative Reasoning: Interdisciplinary Stem 21st Century Reasoning Modality, Robert L. Mayes

Teaching & Learning: Faculty Presentations (2012-2017)

The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS 2013) and the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (NGA 2010) call for improving scientific, engineering, and mathematical practices. Among the practices called for are model-based reasoning which engages students in developing and using models, analyzing and interpreting data, and using mathematics and computational thinking. Fundamental to these processes is quantitative reasoning (QR), which for this project is defined as:

Quantitative reasoning is mathematics and statistics applied in real-life, authentic situations that impact an individual’s life as a constructive, concerned, and reflective citizen (Mayes et al. 2014b).

In the NSF project, Culturally Relevant Ecology, …

The Role Mentorship In Supporting African-American Students’ Entry Into Stem Careers, Charles Edwards, Kaemanje Thomas

Publications and Research

African-American students are under-represented in STEM careers. The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) reported in 2009 that African-American students received 7% of STEM bachelor’s degrees, 4% of master’s degrees and 2% of Ph.Ds. Mentorship programs are identified as one strategy of improving African-American students’ outcomes in STEM careers. The researchers reviewed articles which examine strategies to improve STEM academic and career success. This review focused on exploring the role of mentorship programs in addressing the underrepresentation of African-American students in STEM careers. Despite references to the role of mentorship, the literature reviewed lacked a structured approach for the design …