Curriculum and Social Inquiry Commons^™

Understanding Social And Cognitive Influences In Medical Students' Learning Processes For Step 1: An Interpretivist Case Study., Ashley Elaine Triplett

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative interpretivist case study explores, at a singular institution, medical students’ perspectives on the social and cognitive factors influencing the learning process as students prepare for the Step 1 examination. While prior research regarding medical students Step 1 preparation have focused primarily on wellness, stress, and career outcomes, limited studies have examined medical students' lived experiences to navigate what occurs during the learning process while they prepare for this critical exam. Utilizing a qualitative case study approach, this dissertation draws on fourteen student interviews, seven that passed Step 1 on their first attempt, and seven that failed. Findings reveal …

Making Lab Manuals For Optimizing Student Engagement And Learning, Carlos Perez, Andrea Bautista Rocha

College of Engineering Summer Undergraduate Research Program

Through the Engineering Possibilities in College (EPIC) program, high school students explore various engineering majors offered at Cal Poly. Survey reports filled out by students reflect areas of growth for the program and the engineering labs that they participate in. We expanded on this feedback by creating an effective lab manual based on the student feedback, aiming to optimize student engagement and learning.

Developing Problem-Solvers: Cultivating A Scientific Way Of Thinking In Early Learners, Sarah Oeltjenbruns, Matthew J. Weyers, Maya Fogarty, Bryan Matera

Essays in Education

Adopting a science mindset in the early education years is critical for supporting critical thinking, curiosity, and systematic inquiry in students, setting a foundation for lifelong learning and problem-solving. This mindset, which values continuous learning and persistence, enables students to approach challenges across disciplines with a scientist’s curiosity. Through approaches like the Socratic method, problem-based learning, and hands-on activities, educators can enhance students' critical thinking and collaborative skills. By creating opportunities for inquiry-based learning, such as entry events, the See Feel Think Wonder protocol, and the Question Formulation Technique, teachers cultivate curiosity and guide students toward self-directed exploration. For example, …

Reflections On Building A Popular Writing Course, Emily Howson, Chris Massenburg, Cecilia Shelton

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

Composition pedagogy has typically employed traditional academic texts in the instruction of first-year writing courses. In this article, three first-year writing instructors reflect on their experiences employing popular culture artifacts in lieu of more traditional academic texts in writing classrooms at a small, private, historically black institution (HBCU). By retrospectively analyzing the intersections between theory and practice, the instructors’ autoethnographic reflections explore the utility of popular culture artifacts as tools for teaching and learning writing, with an emphasis on rhetorical knowledge and transfer. Though preliminary, their conclusions point to the potential of popular culture for integration into traditional best practices …

(Re)Learning About Learning: Using Cases From Popular Media To Extend And Complicate Our Understandings Of What It Means To Learn And Teach, Kelli Bippert, Dennis Davis, Margaret Rose Hilburn, Jennifer D. Hooper, Deepti Kharod, Cinthia Rodriguez, Rebecca Stortz

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

This article utilizes sociocultural and socio-constructivist learning theories to analyze incidents of learning, and by extension teaching, in six different popular media selections. The authors describe their shared theoretical framework and the nature of the original analyses, which were completed as part of a doctoral course assignment. Each of the six excerpts is then described and discussed employing unique theoretical perspectives. The use of popular culture as the context for examining learning and teaching provides a space untethered from traditional notions of schooling through which typically accepted assumptions about pedagogy are revealed, re-examined, and reframed.

Being Curious With Secrecy, Clare Stevens, Elspeth Van Veeren, Brian Rappert, Owen D. Thomas

Secrecy and Society

This article contributes to ongoing attempts to broaden out theorizations of secrecy from an intentional and willful act of concealment to a cultural and structural process. We do so by fostering a conversation between secrecy and curiosity. This conversation is enabled through a review of central themes in secrecy studies and curiosity studies, but also through an examination of a collaboration between the science center “We the Curious” and a network of academic researchers. In doing so, this article makes a case for the benefits of paying more attention to curiosity as a means of facilitating a multifaceted understanding of …

Vr Let My Creativity Out: Youth Creating With Immersive Learning Technologies, Paula Macdowell Dr.

International Journal of Emerging and Disruptive Innovation in Education : VISIONARIUM

With a greater demand for ingenuity and innovation in today’s creative economy, educators need to be creative practitioners inasmuch as students must be, learn, and grow creatively. This qualitative study explores the affordances and constraints of youth creating with immersive learning technologies at a Youth VR Research Camp. A class of 28 students in grade 8, ages 13 and 14, were invited to participate as the co-researchers. The data collection methods included artifact analysis, student-led pair interviews, sharing circles, surveys, and observation. The process of research-creation involved MultibrushVR and FrameVR design challenges focussed on pro-social and environmental change. Findings …

Learning The Legislative Process With A Board Game, Michael Posadny

Honors Projects

Standard methods of teaching classroom material can generally work effectively for educating the majority of a class’s students, but some students may still struggle to find the information to be comprehensive, enjoyable to learn, or even necessary. Alternative methods of instruction can be used to educate students in different ways, and this study looks into the educational merit that a board game can provide to learning new material. Previous research has shown the effectiveness of board games on various elements of education, and this project addresses the findings of previous works to predict the effects that a game will have …

My First Time Ungrading: Approach Used And Reflections, Heather Leslie

Feminist Pedagogy

A few months ago, I began devouring information about ungrading with a fervent appetite. I started with the book Ungrading: Why Rating Students Undermines Learning (and What To Do Instead) edited by Susan Blum and listened to just about every podcast where she was interviewed about this topic. I then read other books she recommended like Wad-Ja-Get: The Grading Game in American Education by Howard Kirschenbaum and Punished By Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A’s, and Praise by Alfie Kohn. Recently, I have become much more dialed into the ungrading movement by reading articles from Teachers Going …

Book Review: Anti-Racism And Universal Design For Learning: Building Expressways To Success., Donna Fortune, Kenya Motley, Mason Engelhardt, Carey Stewart, Kia Powers

Virginia English Journal

No abstract provided.

Do Teachers Know This?, David L. Pike

Artizein: Arts and Teaching Journal

A Communication Arts instructor in a Calgary Technical Institute discovers an opportunity to enlarge his vocation when a student asks him a simple four-word question. Methods of thinking and learning are soon integrated into the communications curriculum, and students, together with their instructors, are invited to develop more and better “TLC” capabilities as they study and practice their chosen disciplines. The article closes by suggesting, given the challenges we’re facing in working, learning, and living well together now, that we ask leaders in our communities and beyond the same question; and to encourage them to expand their leadership roles and …

The Playground: An Online Summer Camp For Deaf And Hard Of Hearing Children, Emma Monson, Krista Schumacher, Annmarie Thomas

Journal of Science Education for Students with Disabilities

The PLAYground summer camp was developed by the Playful Learning Lab (PLL) at the University of St. Thomas, an undergraduate research group with a focus on learning through play. Through a partnership with a local school serving deaf and hard of hearing students, the PLAYground was designed to provide content to the deaf and hard of hearing community. Over the course of 8 weeks, 84 students were provided with materials that correspond with activities on the website. Each activity is accompanied with a lesson plan and video, both of which are available in English, American Sign Language, Spanish, and Arabic. …

Acting With Inscriptions: Expanding Perspectives Of Writing, Learning, And Becoming, Kevin R. Roozen

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

This article argues for increased attention to people’s engagements with inscriptions and inscriptional practices and the long-term implications they have for the ongoing production of persons, practices, and social worlds across heterogeneous times, places, and activities. Based on a multi-year case study, this analysis examines one microbiology major’s production and use of inscriptions at the intersections of his participation in both disciplinary science and religious worship and traces the long-term consequences those uses have for his becoming as a scientist of faith. If, as Paul Prior asserts, “ literate activity is not located in acts of reading and writing but …

Educating For Global Competence: Co-Constructing Outcomes In The Field: An Action Research Project, Kristina A. Van Winkle

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Capacity building for globally competent educators is a 21st Century imperative to address contemporary complex and constantly changing challenges. This action research project is grounded in positive psychology, positive organizational scholarship, relational cultural theory, and relational leadership practices. It sought to identify adaptive challenges educators face as they try to integrate globally competent teaching practices into their curricula, demonstrate learning and growth experienced by the educators in this project, and provide guidance and solutions to the challenges globally competent educators face. Six educators participated in this three-phase project, which included focus groups, reflective journal entries, and an exit interview. Data …

Volume 25 Of The Journal Of The Assembly For Expanded Perspectives On Learning, Wendy Ryden, Peter H. Khost

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

The Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning (AEPL), an official assembly of the National Council of Teachers of English, is open to all those interested in extending the frontiers of teaching and learning beyond the traditional disciplines and methodologies. JAEPL is especially interested in helping those teachers who experiment with new strategies for learning to share their practices and confirm their validity through publication in professional journals.

Service-Learning In The Covid19 Era: Learning In The Midst Of Crisis, Lauren Grenier, Elizabeth Robinson, Debra A. Harkins

Pedagogy and the Human Sciences

No abstract provided.

Supporting The Arts As Disciplines Of Learning. A Book Review Of The Role Of The Arts In Learning: Cultivating Landscapes Of Democracy, Karen Mcgarry

Democracy & Education

Learning through and in partnership with the arts has the potential to expand experiences beyond what can be measured on any standardized test assessment. The arts may offer sites of reflexive contemplation and engagement, extending learning outward, away from disciplinary silos and toward transdisciplinary action learning—a heuristic device enabling multiple modes or processes of multitextual knowing and becoming. In The Role of the Arts in Learning: Cultivating Landscapes of Democracy, the editors nurture a space of consideration toward democratic learning. By harnessing the historical and pragmatic theories and philosophies of John Dewey and Maxine Greene, in concert with additional …

Changing The Habitat At Academic Conferences: Using A Learning Ecosystem With Active Learning During A Panel Presentation, Gail Morton, Lee Olson, Stephanie Miranda, Adam Griggs, Kristen Bailey, Christian Pham, Kathryn Wright

Georgia Library Quarterly

Abstract

In order to assess the effectiveness and feasibility of an active learning event during a panel presentation at an academic conference, Mercer University librarians presenting at the Georgia Libraries Conference switched the traditional way panel presentations are modeled. Instead of the question and answer session following a brief overview of the presentation, we moved our physical position in the room, closer to the participants in order to have a more intimate conversation with attendees. Using two active learning techniques, discussion and brainstorming, the presenters started a conversation with attendees about project ideas involving teaching faculty members, librarians, and students …

A Guide To How Your Child Learns: Understanding The Brain From Infancy To Young Adulthood, By D. P. Sortino, Jessica Platt

LWLC Faculty Research

In the first of three books in his Brain Smart series, David P. Sortino emphasizes the importance of honoring “miraculous differences in abilities and learning styles” (p. xvii). He illustrates his point with an example of a fifth grade science teacher who brought a live bat to school in order to teach a lesson on species. Introducing a live mammal instead of instructing students to group animals based on their similarities on paper, the teacher stimulated students’ limbic system (hippocampus), which resulted in a higher level of cognition for students in her class. This example captures the essence of A …

The Exertion Of A Choice: An Ecofeminist Vision ~ Aesthetic, Embodied, And Connected Learning, Sharon M. Eswine

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

In this dissertation, I build upon Darwin’s (1859/1964) metaphor of the complex biological tangle of a river bank - plants, birds, insects, and earth - to paint a picture of transformative learning as aesthetic (Dewey, 1934/2005; Eisner, 1998, 2002b; Greene, 1995, 2001; Liston, 2001), and embodied (Dewey, 1958; Johnson, 2007; Shusterman, 2006), and thereby connected to the learner’s life experience, including his/her/their ecological, cultural, and historic situatedness. I call this complication of Darwin’s metaphor the ecofeminist tangled bank. For my purposes, an ecofeminist theoretical framework provides a means of analyzing oppressive conceptual frameworks that perpetuate hierarchy and domination, and which …

Teaching Students How To Make Their Dreams Come True: An Autoethnography Of Developing And Teaching The Dream Research Methods Course, E. James Baesler

The Qualitative Report

How to make students’ dreams come true is the central focus of this autoethnography that chronicles the story of the transformation of a traditional undergraduate communication research methods course into a new and creative dream research methods course. Pedagogical and institutional issues in teaching the traditional methods course join personal influences in my life story to birth the new dream research methods course. The content and format of the new course are described chronologically using personal stories, student perspectives, advice to teachers, and reflection questions. I encourage teachers, by experimenting with the ideas in the dream research methods course, to …

Play It Forward: Cooperative Learning & Structured Play During Recess, Tyler Elwin, Mary Rossi

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

Cooperative learning and structured play (CLASP) are two things that have gone unappreciated in the modern educational setting. This is an important issue for many local low-income schools as the dropout rate is so high. CLASP ideals come with a wide array of positive outcomes that look to brighten the futures of affected youth. CLASP provides an incredible number of scholarly benefits: increased school involvement, higher GPA, improved interpersonal relationships, increased ability to work as a team, etc. This capstone identifies these critical benefits and addresses the best way to properly utilize CLASP within the school setting. The three primary …

Emphasis On Test Scores In Education, Lindsay Olson

Empowering Research for Educators

This article discusses how too much emphasis on standardized testing can affect student learning as well as teaching in the classroom. It includes a personal interview with a high school teacher as well as an article from the Washington Post regarding a study that was completed involving testing students.

2017 Mlk Keynote Emory Douglas Educational Foldout, Center For Social Equity & Inclusion, Emory Douglas

Martin Luther King, Jr. Series

Educational foldout for the 2017 MLK Keynote Address: Emory Douglas. An artist, educator and human rights activist, Emory Douglas served as the Minister of Culture for the Black Panther Party from 1967-80. Best known for his political drawings and cartoons in the Black Panther Newspaper, he articulated the injustices experienced by African Americans living in the inner city, the growing militancy and organization among urban black youth in the face of police violence and the need for community-based social programs. 2017 MLK Keynote, Emory Douglas discusses the process, meaning and impact of his artwork then and now.

2017 Mlk Keynote Emory Douglas Program, Center For Social Equity & Inclusion, Emory Douglas

Martin Luther King, Jr. Series

Program for the 2017 MLK Keynote Address: Emory Douglas. An artist, educator and human rights activist, Emory Douglas served as the Minister of Culture for the Black Panther Party from 1967-80. Best known for his political drawings and cartoons in the Black Panther Newspaper, he articulated the injustices experienced by African Americans living in the inner city, the growing militancy and organization among urban black youth in the face of police violence and the need for community-based social programs. 2017 MLK Keynote, Emory Douglas discusses the process, meaning and impact of his artwork then and now.

Beyond Child-Centered Constructivism: A Call For Culturally Sustaining Progressive Pedagogy, Alisa Algava

Occasional Paper Series

Algava argues that twentieth-century constructivist pedagogies are not sufficient to fulfill progressive education's inherently political, activist and democratic potential. She calls for a culturally sustaining progressive pedagogy that critically engages questions of power with both children and teachers.

When Meaningful Writing Reflects Vincentian Values, Michele Eodice, Anne Ellen Geller, Neal Lerner

Journal of Vincentian Social Action

In The Meaningful Writing Project – our study of over 700 seniors at three universities – students describe how education values are embodied in writing projects in and out of school. In brief, our results show that students find meaning when they are invited to tap into the power of personal connection, see what they are writing as applicable and relevant to the real world, imagine their future selves, immerse themselves in what they are thinking and writing about, and experience research for learning. In many cases, the experiences students reported are aligned with Vincentian values for higher education, namely …

The Nature Of Teacher Learning In Collaborative Data Teams, Robert Michaud

The Qualitative Report

As data teams have grown in popularity in recent years, they have been increasingly looked to by educational researchers because of the tantalizing prospect of combining teachers’ on the job professional development with increased and effective data use to drive instruction. Data teams have been increasingly implemented within schools by educational leaders attempting to take advantage of what teachers learn from each other in the context of a data team. Many conceptual models of data team function have been proposed, but few empirical studies have examined how teachers learn from collaborating with each other in a data team. This paper …

Must Schools Hinder Education?, Lorraine Monroe

Thought and Practice: (1987-1991) the Journal of the Graduate School of Bank Street College of Education

A brief essay which explores the differences between schooling and education.

Front Matter

Thought and Practice: (1987-1991) the Journal of the Graduate School of Bank Street College of Education

No abstract provided.