Curriculum and Instruction Commons^™

Digital Literacies To Develop Biliteracy: A Case Study Of Latino Students Exploring Multimodal Writing In English And Spanish, Laura Berenice Ramos Lopez

Theses and Dissertations

Schools in the United States are witnessing a rich ethnic and linguistic diversity in their student corpus. Languages spoken by these children vary from state to state; however, Spanish is the second language most spoken after English (Office of English Language Acquisition, 2015). As a nation, there is a tremendous potential for these students to become biliterate or academically proficient in Spanish and English. Furthermore, with the advent of the 21st century, the educational setting is experiencing an increased interest in the integration of technology in education and students are prompted to become digitally literate.

The aim of this exploratory …

Characteristics Of High Quality Teachers: A Qualitative Phenomenological Study, Kelli Barnett

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A qualitative investigation was conducted to explore the characteristics of high quality teachers. This study used a phenomenological methodology, enabling the researcher to gather information from a purposeful selection of people directly identified as high quality teachers by their principals. This study employed processes of data collection commonly used in observational analysis and included the use of interviews found in qualitative design.

The researcher was able to extract meaning using the coding process and the constant comparative method. Information was sorted into themes that supported and aligned with the research questions leading to a deeper understanding of the phenomenon. This …

Curriculum Change: A Study On Teacher Perceptions Of Curriculum Change On Content Standards, Tiffany Kessler-Hopek

Theses and Dissertations

In the United States, curriculum has encountered frequent changes throughout years. The main initiative of educational change has three main components, and they are to increase the quality and rigor of the curriculum, have a common curriculum, and prepare students for secondary education. The standards in the state of Georgia have changed from Georgia Performance Standards and Common Core State Standards to the more recent Georgia Standards of Excellence. By the school year 2018-2019, the Georgia Standards of Excellence should be fully adopted. An explanatory sequential mixed methods study was conducted to examine the perceptions of teachers on curriculum change …

The Role Of Technology In Bilingual Education: Developing A Culture Of Excellence, Belinda Gomez

Theses and Dissertations

According to the PEW Research Center (2014), Texas' Hispanic population comprises 39% of its overall population, twice the U. S. Hispanic population. Texas Education Agency (TEA) predicts a 14% increase in the next seven years, with a surge of about 40% in its English Language Learners (ELLs) population. Already, it reports Texas experienced a 20% student enrollment growth in the last ten years within the predominately Mexican-Americans in South Texas border. With a perpetual ELL student population increase, bilingual education programs need to consider emerging best practices. This qualitative case study explored the role of technology in bilingual education, focusing …

Comparing Experiences, Perceptions, And Achievement Of Students In Fully Online And Web-Enhanced Courses To Assess Differences In Course Quality, Jose A. Banda

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of the study was to compare students' achievements, perceptions and evaluations of fully online and web-enhanced courses taken at a technical college in South Texas in order to determine if students achievement, perceptions, and evaluations of course design was better in one modality over the other. The study collected information on students regarding learning experiences in 21 fully online and 12 web-enhanced face-to-face core courses common to all programs of study. These courses were taught in both delivery modes, meaning that the same instructor taught the same course, with identical resources and assignments in both online and the …

Teachers' Attitudes And Perceptions On Bring Your Own Device Programs In The Secondary Classroom, Michelle Marie Cavazos

Theses and Dissertations

Cavazos, Michelle M., Teachers' Attitudes and Perceptions on Bring Your Own Device Programs in the Secondary Classroom. Doctor of Education (Ed.D.), March 2019, 105 pp., 3 tables, 4 figures. The purpose of this research is to investigate teacher attitudes and perceptions of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) on learning in the secondary classroom. The study was completed as a qualitative narrative inquiry. The study took place in a high school that has had BYOD policies in place since the beginning of the establishment of the campus. The manuscript brings forward the themes and reflections that represent teacher attitudes and perceptions …

The Effects Of Student Learning When Subtitles Are Added To Videos, George T. Taylor

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This project investigated whether adding subtitles to educational videos increases learning among middle school students. A convenience sample (N=387) of Technology and Engineering middle school students were separated into two groups during the third term of both the 2018 and 2019 school years, where one group of students viewed videos with subtitles and the other group viewed the identical videos without subtitles. After viewing the videos, students immediately took a multiple-choice test. The test scores were used to analyze the variance between the two different groups. The results reveal that students who viewed videos with subtitles had slightly …

Writing Workshops’ Impact On Third-Grade Students’ Writing Achievements And English Teachers’ Perceptions About Using Writing Workshops To Teach Writing In An Elementary Public School, Safeya Othman Abdulla Bin Mahri Alkatheeri

Theses

The present study examines the impact of writing workshops on third-grade students’ writing achievements and English teachers’ perceptions about the use of writing workshops to teach writing in an elementary public school in Al Ain, UAE. This study also addresses the challenges that English teachers encounter when implementing writing workshops in writing classes. A mixed-method design was employed to answer the three main research questions of the study. Initially, the quantitative data were collected through the pre-post writing test which was administered to third-grade students (N=83). Subsequently, the qualitative data in the form of the semi-structured interviews were collected from …

Exploring Emirati Ninth Grade Students’ Use Of Edmodo In Learning English: A Mixed-Method Study, Amna Hamad Al Nuami

Theses

This mixed-method study is aimed at exploring the use of EDMODO by Emirati ninth grade female students (n = 97) who are studying English as a second language. In the first phase of the study, quantitative data were collected by using a questionnaire. Additionally, from the original pool, a subset of students (n = 11) were interviewed with regards to EDMODO usage in the classroom. The findings from this study revealed that ninth-grade students found EDMODO to be first and foremost an interesting and joyful learning experience; Second, they also reported it is an efficient platform for …

Using Social-Emotional Learning To Help Behavioral Problems, Hannah Taylor Byrd

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

This Capstone Project focused on Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) to help manage behavioral problems that students may face. A class of 25 fourth-grade students attending a public K-5 school participated in this Capstone Project. SEL teachings were condensed into a four-week lesson plan which focused on various skills, catered to help this class’ specific deficits. To match the students’ needs, the lessons were designed to promote positive participation and raise self-esteem so students feel comfortable sharing out during discussions. The students learned what perseverance and encouragement meant to them and participated in activities relating to these skills. By the end of …

Increasing Awareness Of Romantic Behaviors In Former Foster Youth, Kimberly Beardshear

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

Because of their inexperience, emerging adults often have a difficult time navigating healthy romantic relationships. For many, the skills necessary for quality relationships are usually learned through parents, friends, or mentors. Foster youth, in particular, may struggle more in developing and sustaining romantic relationships due to the lack of or inconsistent parental guidance or mentoring. To address this, I have created a two-hour lesson for emerging adult foster youth attending Hartnell College in Salinas, California. The content will be comprised of the characteristics of a healthy relationship, role-play scenarios, identifying unhealthy relationship behaviors, and how to use healthy relationship behaviors.

Mathematical Perceptions: Changing Mindsets In Elementary School Classrooms, Marissa M. Bartelt

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

In classrooms throughout the country, you can hear students moan about the difficulty in learning mathematics. This senior capstone examines the students’ mindsets about mathematics in Monterey County through the use of literature review, classroom observations, and interview with teachers. The findings reveal that students’ mindsets can be changed over time if teachers have the right tools and appropriate training to help students.

Casa Youth Resource Guide, Jessica Ramos

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

C.A.S.A, Court Appointed Special Advocates, of Monterey County is a local nonprofit whose mission is “to train and support community volunteers who advocate for abused or neglected children placed in foster care, upholding the children's rights while pursuing a safe and permanent home” (CASA of Monterey County, n.d.). Foster youth in Monterey County do not have enough online resources that provide information on education, employment, and housing. Through this project, CASA added resources to their website to help foster youth succeed, and overtime the success of how useful the resources were for foster youth and CASA team members will be …

Higher Education For At-Risk Youth In Santa Cruz County, Abbye Bohon

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

Friday Night Live, County of Santa Cruz is an adult-youth led partnership that advocates for the communities’ aids and needs. At-risk youth undergo higher chances of violence, disruption, demeanor, and staying in trouble due to the minimal amount of exposure when it comes to general education. Too many at-risk youths do not pursue higher education in the county of Santa Cruz due to the lack of exposure of higher education in this particular community. The purpose of this project is to raise awareness of what higher education looks like to this population through an 8-weekly session implementation and evaluation process …

An Evaluation Of Student Perceptions Of Learning Environments Across Fully On-Line Versus Blended Course Delivery Formats., Pamela Bates Larkin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The primary focus of this evaluation study was to describe students' perceptions of their course experiences within two distinct groups of students who participated in either a fully online or a hybrid/blended version of an introductory course. The groups differed in course format (hybrid versus online group) and measures used included primarily the seven scale scores on the Distance Education Learning Environments Survey (DELES) (Walker & Fraser, 2005). Additionally students were asked to respond to one open-ended question designed to assess perceptions of the course delivery format specifically. Although findings must be interpreted with great caution, due primarily to low …

An Assessment Of Sustainability In Jefferson County Public Schools (Kentucky)., Elizabeth Ann Ruhe

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Schools play a vital role in preparing the next generation of citizens to be active, engaged, creative thinkers and problem-solvers. Schools are also large institutions in their communities, employing many people and spending large sums of money. What happens in schools has an impact on their surrounding communities. Human behaviors are having a significant impact on our planet and changes in our society are affecting the sense of safety and security of our citizens. These are aspects of sustainability that schools need to begin addressing. This research looks at sustainability practices in a large urban school district to document current …

The Effects Of A Systematic Tier 2 Intervention On Kindergartners' Dibels Benchmarks, Richard Kyle Abernathy

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This study investigated the effects of teaching prescriptive and teacher-guided decoding lessons to kindergarten students in need of Tier 2 interventions in the Georgia Response to Intervention protocol based on DIBELS curriculum-based measurements. A causal-comparative design was used to examine spring 2018 DIBELS benchmarks scores of kindergarten students in a large rural school district in northwest Georgia. Students in the treatment group received Tier 2 intervention following a newer curricula termed Differentiated Reading Instruction (DRI) from the manual How to Plan Differentiated Reading Instruction (2017). Students in the control group received a similar commercially-based intervention. The curriculum-based measurement, DIBELS, served …

Russian University Efl Students’ Perceptions Of A Two-Week Online Academic Writing Course, Nataliia Borozdina

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This case study analyzes Russian university EFL students’ perceptions of a two-week online academic writing course. The researcher investigated 13 students’ attitudes towards an online academic English writing class offered at Kursk State University, Kursk’s oldest higher education institution, founded in 1934. In 1994 it was transformed into Kursk State Pedagogical University, and in 2003 it became Kursk State University. Along with the two-week online course assignments, the students completed pre- and post-questionnaires, reflections about the course, and participated in individual and group interviews. The findings of the study indicate that all of the participants had positive perceptions about the …

A Comparison Of The Curricula Of The Top-Ranked Prelicensure Baccalaureate Nursing Programs In The United States, Silvia Imanda

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

What constitutes an ideal prelicensure nursing curriculum is not well understood. Specifically, what are the strategic curricular sequencing and curricular themes or focus might be included to contribute to producing high quality graduates? The purpose of this qualitative multiple case study investigation was to look at successful programs and identify effective curricular sequencing and curricular themes or focus that might be inferred to have contributed to producing high quality graduates. Seven top-ranked prelicensure baccalaureate nursing programs were selected based on three national college rankings services. Based on data from interviews and publicly accessible documents, seven case studies were compared and …

An Investigation Of Preservice Teachers’ Knowledge Of Diversity And Multicultural Literature At One University, Rebecca Yeager

Curriculum and Instruction Undergraduate Honors Theses

The research study surveyed students classified as Juniors at the University of Arkansas currently enrolled in the Children’s Literature course, a required class for both Elementary Education and Childhood Education degree program students attending the University of Arkansas. The survey that was administered is the Cultural Diversity Awareness Inventory (CDAI). Additional data collected consisted of observations and interviews of students enrolled in the course. The research lasted one semester and consisted of multiple components. Through the study, the data suggests students grew in their knowledge of multicultural concepts and multicultural literature, but their growth was better measured through interviews, not …

The Effects Of A Literacy-Based Mentoring Program On Empowering Preadolescent Girls In Their Development Of Confidence, Self-Concept, And Leadership Skillset, Sophia Vincent

Curriculum and Instruction Undergraduate Honors Theses

This study focuses on empowering preadolescent girls to develop confidence and move from a fixed to growth mindset, take responsibility for their actions, turn failures into learning opportunities, and cultivate a love for self. GIRLS: Leaders on the Rise is a literacy-based mentoring program for preadolescent girls designed to improve confidence, positive self-concept, and develop a leadership skillset through five targeted aspects of leadership: growth mindset, integrity, resilience, love and loyalty, and strengths. Adolescence is a time when students are discovering who they are and shaping their identities. Girls decline in their self-confidence during adolescence due to fear of failure, …

Differences In Kaplan Integrated Exam Scores Based On Institutional Factors, Lee Ann Danner

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Registered Nurses constitute the largest health care occupation in the United States. Current entry-level education for the profession of nursing is either an Associate Degree in Nursing (ADN) or Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) (Altman, 2011). After successful completion of a nursing program, all nursing graduates must apply to take the National Council Licensure Examination (NCLEX-RN). The pass rate for first time United States educated NCLEX-RN exam test takers in 2017 was 87.11% leaving 12.89% unsuccessful (NCSBN, 2018). A nursing programs quality and recruitment are often influenced by a students’ ability to pass the NCLEX-RN on the first attempt. …

Positioning Of English Language Learners And Its Power On Classroom Learning Opportunities And Interactions, Hawraa Nafea Hameed Alzouwain

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this qualitative study, the researcher investigated four aspects of positioning used by teacher and ESL students in a mid-south state of the United States. This study was based on the Positioning Theory of Davies and Harré (1990). The study aimed to explore various types of positioning used by the participants and how they impacted social interactions among the students and between them and their teacher. The researcher used four questions to outline the scope of the research, focused on: 1) how ELLs’ different positioning in the ESL classroom promoted or limited their learning opportunities; 2) how the ELL teacher …

Cultural Competence: Issues And Benefits In Healthcare Delivery, Tetiana Soloviova, Amina Shahbaz, Fahaneda Hassan, Zoya Vinokur

Publications and Research

The extreme growth of New York State population causes to bring more challenges and opportunities for healthcare organization to provide culturally competent service to meet the need of diverse population. According to data from the US Census Bureau, minority groups are projected to make up nearly 50% of the population by the year 2050 compared with 30% in 2000. Outside of ethnicity, there are also many cultural and social groups with which people identify that may affect how they view or receive healthcare. It is very difficult to provide quality service for a diverse population due to language barriers, health …

Works In Process - Scholar Edition, Pablo Galindo Aragon, George Garrastegui Jr.

Publications and Research

The creative field revolves around many professions. Creatives share a lot of common themes that are part of their process. It is with these themes that we establish a more impact way to listen to a podcast. Reviewing and breaking episodes up into chapters can effectively guide a student, aka a Scholar, in their path to establishing a creative career.Some of the most powerful ways to get ahead in the creative field is by networking, and obtaining valuable knowledge from other creatives. Gathering this information and making these connections can be quite the task. Not all young creatives are aware …

Elementary, My Dear Watson: An Undergraduate Comic Books Course Using Enterprise Ai And Tei, Steven W. Holloway, Brian Flota

Digital Initiatives Symposium

Two librarians taught an Honors course at James Madison University titled “Comic Books, Analysis, and Digital Scholarship.” This non-coding-requirement course introduced students to the critical study of comic books by way of DH and online tools like IBM Watson. JMU Libraries has a growing collection of comic books (more than 10,000 single issues) and a commitment to foster DH research, hence rationale for the course. Students were introduced to online annotation platforms and comic-book-extended TEI (Text Encoding Initiative), using spreadsheet entry to code a Golden Age comic book in the public domain. In addition, the students used enterprise AI (IBM-Watson) …

Integrative Approaches To The Undergraduate Public Health Major Curriculum: Strengths, Challenges, And Examples, Marc T. Kiviniemi, Sarahmona M. Przybyla

Health, Behavior & Society Faculty Publications

Many “first generation” undergraduate public health degree programs were designed based on “siloed” course structures centered around subunits in the discipline (e.g., Introduction to Epidemiology, Introduction to Environmental Health) that may be meaningful primarily to experts in the field. An alternative to the siloed approach is an integrative curricular design, in which courses are designed around meaningful thematic units (e.g., explaining public health problems, asking and answering scientific questions in public health), with an emphasis on drawing connections between knowledge from different but complementary disciplinary areas as a means to improve student learning and retention. The integrative approach shifts the …

Teaching Students With Language-Based Learning Differences (Lbld) To Write: Examination Of The Explicit Approach Versus Embedding Authentic Writing Into The Curricula, Jane Moskowitz

Graduate Student Independent Studies

Writing is, arguably, the most difficult skill for students to master and is particularly challenging for children who have language-based learning variations. There are different schools of thought about effective writing instruction; some, like Judy Hochman, believe that writing should be taught in a systematic and explicit manner, with heavy focus on the sentence-level and building on mastery of sentence skills to move students to paragraph and compositions writing. There are others, like Ralph Fletcher, who lean more heavily on mentor texts, student choice, and embedding rich literature into the curricula, as a means to cultivate authentic writers in the …

Culturally Responsive Training For Secondary English Language Teachers, Tina Mccorkle

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this quantitative study, I investigated the effectiveness of a training intervention program to positively impact secondary teacher attitudes and perceptions of culturally responsive teaching (CRT). The study is relevant in Alvin Independent School District given the demographic shift resulting in an increase in Hispanic students and students learning English as a second language. The purpose of the study was to investigate teacher attitudes and perceptions of CRT to determine if there was a statistically significant difference according to pre- and post-survey data in order to evaluate the effectiveness of the CRT program intervention. The CRT research from Ladson-Billings (1992) …

The Importance Of Collaboration Within Project-Based Learning In A Kindergarten Teacher Classroom, Moriah Weber

Masters Theses/Capstone Projects

The purpose of this research to is examine the impacts teaching collaboration tools within Project-based learning, in a Kindergarten classroom.  Data collection was taken by video recording two PBL projects, observing and reflecting on field notes, and recording students reflection how they collaborated during each project. This data collection compared two different half day Kindergarten classes with similar demographics. The AM class was taught collaboration by using different collaboration tools while the PM class was not.  Both classes did the same PBL projects with small groups and the data was collected on collaboration in comparison between the two groups. The …