Curriculum and Instruction Commons^™

Improving Literacy Outcomes For Adolescent English Language Learners, Grace Diaz-Peterson

Graduate Teacher Education

As the population of English Language Learners in United States public schools has risen significantly in recent years, the unique academic challenges these students faced, particularly in middle and high school, became more apparent. A widening reading and vocabulary gap between English Language Learners and their native English-speaking peers posed particular barriers in secondary content area classes, where many teachers reported feeling ill-prepared to meet the specialized linguistic needs of their English Language Learner students. This paper analyzed a mix of recent, available qualitative and quantitative research on best practices to improve literacy outcomes for adolescent English Language Learners. As …

Innovative Teaching Practices To Accelerate Student Learning In The Areas Of Literacy And Science, Michelle Simmons, Paris Bouchard

Dissertations

The researchers of this joint dissertation aspired to create and implement innovative instructional practices that would accelerate student learning. Both researchers believed in the importance of experimenting with structures and processes that lead to instructional impact. They were both passionate about developing an instructional model that would accelerate student learning by focusing on student transfer of skills. They sought to answer the question, Can learning be accelerated when teachers are supported and encouraged to create and implement instructional practices grounded in research? One researcher studied a practice that would potentially increase students’ ability to think critically and problem solve using …

Exploring The Link Between Students’ Usage Of Aleks And Their Performance On State Benchmark Assessments In Mathematics, Verna Marie Richard

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this mixed methods study was to investigate relationships between students’ ALEKS usage, teachers’ implementation of ALEKS, and student performance on the 2017 – 2018 LEAP 2025 mathematics assessment. The quantitative portion of the study involved district-level analyses and teacher-level analyses that explored relationships between students’ ALEKS usage and LEAP performance. The qualitative portion of the study took into consideration previous research findings that have reported associations between program implementation and student achievement. This portion of the study included thematic analyses that examined the following relationships: ALEKS implementation in relation to teacher groups (i.e., RtI 8, Math 8, …

Full Issue: An Arts-Based Contemplative Pause Part 2_June 2019, Susan Walsh, Barbara Bickel

Artizein: Arts and Teaching Journal

Full PDF of the issue An Arts-Based Contemplative Pause: Part 2. Co-edited by Susan Walsh (guest editor) & Barbara Bickel

Closing Pause, Peter London

Artizein: Arts and Teaching Journal

Peter London was invited to offer a response to the two part special issue of An Arts-Based Contemplative Pause as a last moment of pause. Peter, in turn, graciously offered his contemplative thoughts that we hope will inspire others to pause and engage their own contemplative reflections inspired by the artist scholar offerings in this special issue.

The Lion’S Gaze: Filmmaking As An Awareness Practice, Robyn Traill

Artizein: Arts and Teaching Journal

This is an extract from a Masters study describing my exploration of the art of film as an inner awareness practice from the view of the Buddhist yogic tradition and the teachings by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche called dharma art. I call this contemplative film practice.The article speaks to the initial pre-production and production phases of this research where formless Mahamudra meditations were most important. A camera lens was employed as a cue or reminder to practice the lens of awareness while capturing moving images. In the post-production phase, the creative meditations within Buddhist yogas became a major reference point: visualization, …

Music As Meditative Inquiry: Dialogical Reflections On Learning And Composing Indian Classical Music, Ashwani Kumar, Adrian Downey

Artizein: Arts and Teaching Journal

This dialogical paper explores Ashwani Kumar’s concept of music as meditative inquiry and its implications for teaching, learning, and living. The notion of music as meditative inquiry is rooted in Kumar’s journey of learning, composing, and researching Indian classical music. This paper makes use of an emerging methodological framework called dialogical meditative inquiry (DMI), which has been theorized by Kumar. Due to its emphasis on meditative and holistic listening, DMI goes beyond a usual interview where the intent is to elicit specific information. Through employing DMI to explore Kumar’s ideas regarding music, meditative inquiry, and creativity, this paper engages with …

Lectio Divina: A Call For Salah & Poetic Being, Momina A. Khan

Artizein: Arts and Teaching Journal

I reflect back on the ARTS Pre-Conference 2017 of the Canadian Society for Studies in Education. It was a day full of non-linear knowledge exchanges, conversations, creations, contemplation and arts-based activities. Collaborators dwelled in, engaged, and emerged together spiritually, poetically, and musically to rekindle their learning, coexistence and mystical understandings. I was in my fasting state with dry mouth, hungry stomach, and thirsty soul combined with contemplative sessions, plus my scholarly and poetic inspirations in the flesh. It was purely an epoch of unbridled spirit tenderly wrapped in creative and contemplative ways of being present in the moment, with the …

Incarnatas: An Artist In Residence Practice In The Ubc Botanical Garden, Celeste Snowber

Artizein: Arts and Teaching Journal

This article shares some of the poetry and dance that emerged out of a two-year Artist in Residency in the University of British Columbia Botanical Garden in Vancouver, British Columbia.

As a site-specific performance artist, my practice has explored being with and in the Botanical Garden and allowing poetry and dance to emerge out of my walks, arts-based practice of listening, observing the various species in the Asian garden from all over Asia as well as indigenous plants and trees in B.C. My offering was to bring an artistic lens to the exploration and interpretation of the garden. Out of …

“Metramorphosis”: A Socially-Engaged Arts-Based And Contemplative Inquiry, Barbara Bickel

Artizein: Arts and Teaching Journal

The birth story of the Metramorphosis book begins in 2010 at an artist residency on Toronto Island. The book is bound with buttons allowing the cloth pages to be unbound and bound over and over again. In this way it is read anew each time, as it is never re-buttoned in the same order. After a year of stitching into the book I realized it was not my book alone to complete, as the study of matrixial theory (Ettinger, 2005) I was contemplatively engaging in the book making is about relationality, co-becoming and copoiesis. In 2012 I began to carry …

Living With A Liminal Mind, Yoriko Gillard

Artizein: Arts and Teaching Journal

Learning to be an educational storyteller entails using every creative skill I learned since my childhood and has allowed me to connect with others especially those in pain. This paper is a reflection of my emotional past. My tears are coming from the ocean and rivers in my liminal space. In this space, I contemplate my hopeful future and seek its contemplative challenges to discover what I still do not know and could learn as an educator. My sincere contemplation to serve society shall be a poetic reflection of who I am becoming each step of my life. Creative writing …

Indigenous Poiesis: Medicine For Mother Earth, Vicki Kelly

Artizein: Arts and Teaching Journal

Indigenous knowledge practices are ecological encounters of profound ethical relationality that acknowledge the act of co-creating through living embodiments of Indigenous Poiesis. This radical participation in Indigeneity through the offering of our humble humanity allows us to move into the living intensity of profound reciprocal relationship. Through Indigenous Poiesis, art becomes ecological activism. This Indigenous Métissage weaves life writing, indigenous woodcarving, and experiences of native flute playing, and presencing Anishinaabe stories in the spirit of Indigenous oral tradition.

An Arts-Based And Contemplative Pause: Introduction To Part Two: Creating Restorative And Caring Learning Spaces, Susan Walsh, Barbara Bickel

Artizein: Arts and Teaching Journal

The introduction to Part Two of this special issue attends to arts-based and contemplative practices in inquiry and teaching. Co-editing this two-part special issue has been a gift of co-labour that we have been transformed by. For as Lewis Hyde wrote so beautifully in 1979, “it is when art acts as an agent of transformation that we may correctly speak of it as a gift. A lively culture will have transformative gifts as a general feature…. And it will have artists whose creations are gifts for the transformation of the race.” (pp. 59-60). The 20 contributors to Part One …

Front Matter Artizein June 2019, Susan Walsh, Barbara Bickel

Artizein: Arts and Teaching Journal

No abstract provided.

“Her Sentence Is Correct, Isn’T It?”: Regulative Discourse In English Medium Classrooms, Lydiah Kananu Kiramba, Patrick Henry Smith

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

Research on discourse in African classrooms has shown the predominance of teacher centered instructional practices. Teacher centered discourse patterns have been blamed for student passivity and disengagement in knowledge production. In this article, we investigate teachers' use of the invariant tag isn't it in Kenyan primary classrooms during ELA and math lessons. Using Bernstein's pedagogical device theory, we submit that the tag plays a regulative function in classroom discourse. Based on our findings, we argue for greater attention to teachers' language choices and discuss implications for classroom discourse practice and research. The invariant tag isn't it is a common linguistic …

Center-Based Learning In A First Grade Classroom, Ariana Beers

Graduate Student Independent Studies

This thesis provides a review of literacy that supports incorporating phonics within a balanced approach to literacy approach and using center-based literacy instruction that can target individual students needs and provide engaging and hands-on instruction.

Teachers’ Critical Reflections On Using The Nysed Bilingual Common Core Progressions And Implications And Their Use For The Quality Of Multilingual Learners’ Instruction, Patricia Velasco

Journal of Multilingual Education Research

In this article I discuss findings of a qualitative study that explores the insights of a group of teachers about implementation of the New York State Education Department (NYSED) Bilingual Common Core Progressions (BCCP). Moreover, I explain teachers' suggestions on best pedagogical practices that could be used in the instruction of multilingual learners when implementing the Next Generation English Language Arts (ELA) Standards. The findings may guide any future revision and implementation of BCCP.

Modelos Pedagógicos Y Metodológicos Para Los Estudios De Género En Clases De Pregrado, María Claudia André

Faculty Publications

En este ensayo, se examina una aproximación pedagógica y metodológica al teatro como herramienta en cursos de pregrado a través del análisis de “El bigote” y “La casa chica”, dos obras cortas de la afamada dramaturga mexicana Sabina Berman. Ambas piezas se prestan como ejemplos para estudiar una extensa variedad de temas inherentes a la dramaturgia contemporánea y al discurso feminista latinoamericano, tales como la dinámica entre poder y género, machismo y marianismo, consumismo y clases sociales y el aspecto performático del género. Para enriquecer la comprensión de los estudiantes y profundizar en los temas relacionados con la identidad de …

Using Primary Sources In Content Areas To Increase Disciplinary Literacy Instruction, Salika A. Lawrence, Elise Langan, Julie Maurer

The Language and Literacy Spectrum

This paper describes how a three-day summer workshop on using primary sources helped teachers increase the emphasis placed on disciplinary literacy when teaching social studies and history. Two specific issues in teacher education and practice are addressed. First, increasing teachers’ content knowledge of history topics can help them plan lessons that connect local and global events. Second, content area reading requires literacy practices, which are unique to disciplines. Therefore, teachers need to apply historical inquiry and disciplinary literacy methods in the curriculum.

Iron Range Engineering - An Overview Of Design And Open-Ended Problem Solving Activities In An Interdisciplinary, Project-Based Learning Program, Elizabeth Pluskwik

Integrated Engineering Department Publications

Project-based learning (PBL) in engineering education is growing at a rapid pace. The Iron Range Engineering (IRE) Program of Minnesota State University Mankato, is an upper division (3rd and 4th year) undergraduate engineering education program based on the Aalborg, Denmark PBL model. Students work in teams to solve industry-sourced projects each semester. The learning of engineering is accomplished in three domains - technical learning of engineering concepts, professionalism, and design, which we call the “three-legged stool” of engineering education. The program promotes entrepreneurial mindset and innovative open-ended problem-solving in context. Fifty students are enrolled in 3rd and 4th-year studies at …

The Effect Of Formative Assessment On Student Motivation And Self-Regulation, Beau Simon

Graduate Teacher Education

The main purpose of this study was to determine whether the use of formative assessment in a high school classroom setting would increase student motivation and self-regulated learning strategies. The sample (n=41) in this study included students from grades 7-12 social studies course. The researcher engaged in formative assessment strategies paired with formative feedback aimed at improving student understanding of concepts and ideas in social studies. Based on the research, formative assessment, paired with formative feedback, can give students the motivation to aide their learning, and help them learn rather than memorize. The shortened 44-item Motivational Strategies for …

Adapting An Instructional Routine: Stronger & Clearer Each Time, Dylan Kane

Colorado Mathematics Teacher

How can math teachers help students take notes that are useful and also promote thinking and reasoning? In this article, the instructional routing Stronger and Clearer Each Time facilitates student discourse around a learning goal, helps students to create meaningful notes, and allows the teacher to better understand student thinking.

The Potential Of Industry Standards In Undergraduate Education, Heather A. Howard, Margaret Phillips, Alyson Vaaler, David Hubbard

Libraries Faculty and Staff Presentations

Industry standards have a significant impact on business as a means to eliminate waste, reduce costs, market products (e.g., for quality, safety, interoperability) and lessen liability (Thompson, 2011). Consequently, an understanding and the ability to use standards, agreed upon practices among interested or vested parties, is a critical workplace competency for those engaged in business and industry. To have a workforce competent in the use of standards, higher education curricula must be developed to integrate standards education at appropriate points within the curriculum. Despite the importance of standards, they are not universally integrated into the college and university curricula. Given …

A Student Research Manual: Helping Students Help Themselves Identifying And Addressing Challenges Facing Prospective Undergraduate Researchers, Landon Rohrer, Karen L. Sirum

Honors Projects

Undergraduate research does not only help equip STEM majors to be better researchers and employees but increases retention of students to graduate school in needed scientific fields. However, while resources are being produced for undergraduates like Undergraduate Research Experiences (UREs), Centers for Undergraduate Research and Scholarship (CURS), and Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs), undergraduate involvement and awareness about these resources, and the value of undergraduate research in general, does not seem to be improving. Therefore, it would be valuable to figure out why undergraduates aren't autonomously seeking out undergraduate research during their studies. To investigate why, a two-part survey was …

Supporting Faculty To “Do The Flip!” Lessons Learned When Transitioning Faculty To Active Pedagogy In The Classroom, Laura Sullivan-Green, Patricia Backer, Ravisha Mathur

Faculty Publications

San José State University, in partnership with California State University-Los Angeles and Cal Poly Pomona, are developing supportive methods to transition STEM faculty from lecture-based instruction to instruction using active learning pedagogies. These efforts, sponsored by the Department of Education’s First in the World Grant Program, focus on providing faculty training through workshops conducted in the active learning model, resources to support their material development, and peer support through access to multi-disciplinary/multi-campus learning communities. Active learning pedagogies like the flipped classroom have been shown to be a high impact practice that increases URM student success and retention. The partner campuses, …

Engineering Design In Scientific Inquiry, Leslie Atkins Elliott

Curriculum, Instruction, and Foundational Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

The Engineering Design in Scientific Inquiry (EDISIn) Project addresses the engineering preparation of secondary science teachers by embedding engineering design into a science course for single-subject STEM education majors (future secondary teachers), and developing a sequence of lesson plans and annotated video for faculty who seek to embed engineering design in their science courses. While undergraduate laboratories are rich with designed experimental apparatus, it is rare that students themselves play a role in designing and producing artifacts in the service of scientific inquiry. Our expectation is that (1) existing science courses offer opportunities for students to engage meaningfully with engineering …

Voices Of Our Students: Using Evidence-Based Methods To Inform A Multidisciplinary Engineering Program Design, Vicki Stieha, Noah Salzman, Amy J. Moll

Materials Science and Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Listening carefully to our students and integrating the variables that matter to them is a step that we can take to increase the number of women and underrepresented minority graduates in engineering. This paper shares an evaluative case study as we report findings from data gathering tools guiding our continuous improvement process. The findings illuminate students’ perceptions of their engineering design course and curriculum. We conclude by discussing the pedagogical decisions the teaching team is making as a result of listening to our students’ voices.

A Winning Mindset: How The Infusion Of Mindset Training Can Enhance Scholarly Work, Kevin Leichtman

Curriculum Studies Summer Collaborative (2011-2025)

Presenter will provide.

A Phenomenological Investigation Of Early Childhood Education Preparation And Experiences Of California Certificated Elementary School Educators Assigned To Transitional Kindergarten, Elizabeth A. Golchert

CUP Ed.D. Dissertations

This dissertation represents original, independent research that is a contribution of new knowledge to the field of educational practice. As a new phenomenon in the California public school system, transitional kindergarten (TK) is now bringing about a closer look by researchers at legislative practices, TK program implementation, local school district policies, teacher preparation, and teacher implementation of best practices related to the education of children of approximately four years of age. The purpose of conducting this study was to broadly examine these topics, but more specifically, investigate the problem of children being assigned to teachers who do not have the …

Using Systematic Prompt Fading To Program A Self-Questioning Strategy With Elementary Students With Disabilities, Leah Michelle Turner

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Standardized assessments are focused on integrating knowledge from multiple sources and developing composed written responses. This requires the students to be able to read and comprehend on grade level, within the various subject areas (reading, math, science, and social studies), which are skills students with disabilities struggle to do. The purpose of the study was to use a systematic prompt fading procedure as a vehicle to program a self-questioning strategy for students with disabilities. The intervention package occurred in seven phases: baseline, embedded questions training, embedded questions independent practice, self-questioning training, self-questioning independent practice, self-questioning fading, and maintenance. A systematic …