Curriculum and Social Inquiry Commons^™

Degree Program Changes And Curricular Flexibility: Addressing Long Held Beliefs About Student Progression, George Dante Ricco

Open Access Dissertations

In higher education and in engineering education in particular, changing majors is generally considered a negative event - or at least an event with negative consequences. An emergent field of study within engineering education revolves around understanding the factors and processes driving student changes of major. Of key importance to further the field of change of major research is a grasp of large scale phenomena occurring throughout multiple systems, knowledge of previous attempts at describing such issues, and the adoption of metrics to probe them effectively. The problem posed is exacerbated by the drive in higher education institutions and among …

Asian American Studies Program: Community-Centered Commitments And Pathways In The Asamst Curriculum, Asian American Studies Program, University Of Massachusetts Boston

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

UMass Boston offers the most Asian American Studies courses, faculty, and community linkages of any university in New England. Through culturally-responsive instruction in the classroom and holistic practices of mentoring, community-building, service-learning, and advocacy, we address the social and academic needs of students as well as the critical capacity-building needs of local Asian American communities. Our alumni include teachers, social workers, health care providers, business entrepreneurs, and leaders of local Asian American community organizations where we sustain vital, long-term partnerships.

Are Your S'S In Effect? Ensuring Culturally Responsive Physical Education Environments, Brian Culp

Faculty Articles

Schools have rapidly becoming a kaleidoscope of ethnicities and cultures represented by demographic changes that have affected America’s schools. As educators in this era of change, a unique opportunity exists to ensure quality physical education for all students. Culturally responsive practices in the classroom can assist in minimizing students' alienation as they attempt to adjust to the different "worlds" often represented in school.

A Book Review Of Teaching About Hegemony: Race, Class, And Democracy In The 21st Century, Jennifer A. Tupper Dr.

Democracy & Education

A review of the book Teaching About Hegemony: Race, Class and Democracy in the 21st Century, by Paul Orlowski (Springer, 2011).

Feel Free To Change Your Mind. A Response To "The Potential For Deliberative Democratic Civic Education", Walter Parker

Democracy & Education

Walter Parker responds to Hanson and Howe's article, extending their argument to everyday classroom practice. He focuses on a popular learning activity called Structured Academic Controversy (SAC). SAC is pertinent not only to civic learning objectives but also to traditional academic-content objectives. SAC is at once a discourse structure, a participation structure, and an instructional procedure; and it centers on Hanson and Howe’s autonomy-building fulcrum—exchanging reasons. At a key moment in SAC, students are invited to step out of an assigned role and to form their “own” position on the issue. Parker argues that SAC is one way to mobilize …

A Case Study On Perspectives, Whitney Tallarico

Senior Honors Projects

The Rhode Island Training School becomes a home to juvenile offenders of the law.  Home, in so far as it is a place that they sleep, eat, and spend a lot of time in, as well as the atmosphere in which learning and growth occur during the adolescent phase of their lives.  There is a very high rate of released inmates who return to the facility for things like running away from group homes, not checking in with their parole officers, or other misdemeanors.  It is my belief that this is, at least in part, due to the fact that …

Loving The World And Our Children Enough--Nurturing Decidedly Different Scientifc Minds, By Design, Stephanie Pace Marshall

Publications & Research

Wise world-shaping and problem-solving requires that we and our children think in decidedly different, integral and wise ways. This transformation requires a fundamental shift in consciousness and the emergence of global minds that can creatively live into a new worldview of an interconnected planet and a sustainable and interdependent human family. "The fullness of our humanity and the sustainability of our planet rest with the nurturing of decidedly different minds."

Teaching For Social Justice With Students From Privileged Groups: Integrating Social Justice Into Middle School Curriculum, Bong Seok Jang

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation research focuses on the teaching for social justice with privileged middle school students. A need for this research was established based on the limited findings specific to teaching for social justice in mathematics.

This research was implemented with junior high level students in a public charter school. The socio-economic status and ethnic diversity of the class in which this study took place is primarily middle to upper middle class and ten percent nonwhite.

Qualitative research methods were used because this study focuses more on human interactions in the natural setting of a classroom. First, my observations of the …

The Implementation Of A Conceptually Coherent Curriculum Within A Constructivist Preschool Environment, Heather Jones, Sarah Post

Psychology and Child Development

Creating a learning environment that enchants children’s curiosity and sparks exploration, discovery, and thought does not require a great amount of financial resources. Rather, one must concentrate on observation and focus on building on children’s existing interests in the natural world. The research and theories of Swiss psychologist and philosopher, Jean Piaget, and Russian Psychologist, Lev Vygotsky provide a concrete look into a child’s cognitive and social development and can be informative in creating such environments. Using the developmental knowledge presented in these theories, programs such as the Reggio Emilia program, the Preschool Pathways to Science program (PrePS), and the …

Outrageous State, Sectarianized Citizens: Deconstructing The ‘Textbook Controversy’ In The Northern Areas, Pakistan, Nosheen Ali

Institute for Educational Development, Karachi

This paper examines the ‘textbook controversy’ (2000-2005) that arose when the Pakistan state introduced new, overtly Sunni textbooks in the Northern Areas, and the local Shia population began to agitate for a more balanced curriculum. The conflict reached an acute stage during 2004-2005, as violent confrontations took place between Shia and Sunni communities, and a constant curfew paralyzed daily life in Gilgit for eleven months. I argue that the Shia mobilization against textbook Islam was not just a form of “sectarian” outrage; rather, it symbolized a broader political claim to inclusion in a context of long-standing regional subordination and religious …

Implementation Of Generic Skills In The Curriculum, Sulaiman Yassin, Fauziah Abu Hasan, Wan Amin, Nur Amiruddin

EDU-COM International Conference

In many cultures and countries including Malaysia, the issue of incorporating generic skills into the curriculum taught to students in higher learning institutions has gained momentum in recent years. The raison d'être to inculcate generic skills among students is to enable the country to meet human resource requirements which will be more competitive in the advent of a borderless world. Growing concerns of the employability of graduates and the expansion in the size and diversity of student populations also form the basis to implement the generic skills program in universities. All undergraduate programs offered in public higher learning institutions in …

Teaching Bodies: Curriculum And Corporeality, Julie Garlen Maudlin

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

I began thinking about the topic of this dissertation at first in 2003 when I found myself expecting a third child while teaching full-time and pursuing a doctoral degree, and in earnest later that year at Bergamo, where I began to see a connection between my own interest in desires and bodies as they relate to education and the work of several of my colleagues. I began to think about the role of the body in the curriculum. Every day that we enter the classroom we bring our bodies and our desires along with us. We educate and learn from …

Animation Studies, Disciplinarity And Discursivity, Paul Ward

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

Addressing how knowledge grows, develops and fits together is arguably one of the most testing tasks facing scholars. In a world where knowledge is increasingly viewed as a commodity -- and the teaching of that knowledge is often done in an instrumentalist fashion -- we need to come to a fuller understanding of how knowledge areas inter-relate. Such a mapping needs to move beyond simplistic models of disciplinarity (and its bolted-together variants, such as interdisciplinarity, multidisciplinarity, and the like) and explore the ways that a wide range of people in an equally diverse set of contexts might constitute …

Challenging The Norms: Democracy, Empowering Education, And Negotiating The Curriculum, Joshua Sean Thomases

All Faculty and Staff Papers and Presentations

Discusses the principles of a democratic classroom, and how implementing these principles can create a powerful environment where extensive and in-depth learning truly happens.

Project High Hopes Summer Institute: Curriculum For Developing Talent In Students With Special Needs, Marcia Gentry, Terry W. Neu

Education Faculty Publications

This article examines a summer institute curriculum that was developed for and used with handicapped students who were identified as gifted in the area(s) of visual arts, performing arts, engineering, or life sciences. The students and the summer institute were part of a federally funded Javits program, Project High Hopes. The curriculum was real world, multi-disciplinary and problem based in that it used a decaying water feature on the school grounds as its focus. Using a creative problem solving process, students identified problems with the water feature, developed solutions, created presentations, and presented their solutions to the school board. Student …

Teachers' Life Histories As Curriculum Context, Rebekah D. Kelleher

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations (1964–2006)

This qualitative study focuses on the teacher as curriculum enactor. Using life history methodology, the study explores how ordinary teachers' life experiences impact their present classroom decisions. The purpose of the study is three-fold: to give voice to the classroom teacher as curriculum expert; to encourage reflective practice; and to contribute to curriculum knowledge by focusing on the enacted curriculum. Three female middle school teachers participated in structured and unstructured interviews in which they shared their life stories and reflected on the origin of their teacher knowledge and behavior. The researcher reviewed transcripts of interviews and notes from observations of …

A Comparative Study Of Academic Achievement Of Students From Phased-Elective Social Studies Curriculum With Students From A Traditional Social Studies Curriculum, Dennis Minnix

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

In this study, the academic achievement of two groups of University students was compared. The control group consisted of 15 students who had attended a traditional high school. The experimental group consisted of 25 students who had attended a high school which utilized a phased-elective curriculum design.

The students were observed at three points in their schooling. First, students were compared at the end of the eighth grade to determine if any significant difference existed prior to their exposure to the two high school programs. Next, students were observed at the end of their high school education by comparing scores …

Power Politics In The Baltic, Harold E. Barto, Reginald M. Shaw

All Faculty Scholarship for the College of Education and Professional Studies

A year ago the attention of the world was focused upon central Europe. Then for a brief moment Poland flashed, and today the Baltic Sea region is in the spotlight. After a lapse of some two centuries, this sudden re-appearance of the Baltic to assume a major role in European affairs calls for comment. Touching upon these Baltic waters are six small democracies (Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Esthonia, Liatvia, Lithuania) and two powerful totalitarian states ( Germany and Russia.) In view of recent and current developments, two questions arise : ( 1) will one or both of the totalitarian states control …

Backgrounds Of German-Polish Relations, Harold E. Barto

All Faculty Scholarship for the College of Education and Professional Studies

Poland's leading role in Europe's most recent crisis which has developed into the Second World War has given new emphasis to her position in world affairs. Due perhaps to the varied course of events that have attended Polish destinies for her 1000 years of history, press dispatches relative to her past are sometimes wholly inadequate and not infrequently confusing. It is with the hope of giving the average reader a fuller background of Polish affairs that this article has been written. The writer has endeavored to deal with the events briefly and as objectively as is humanly possible.

Making History Human, Herbert C. Fish

History Faculty Scholarship

This article describes several basic tenets of teaching history in an interesting and engaging manner.