Educational Methods Commons^™

Searching For Meaning: A Personal And Historical Exploration Of Progressive Education, Molly M. Lippman

Graduate Student Independent Studies

In this study the author seeks to better understand the meaning of progressive education. This study does not attempt to answer the question What is progressive education?, but rather it seeks to bring the question to the forefront of the minds of fellow thoughtful, reflective, progressive educators who, like the author, struggle with the contradictions and discrepancies present among progressive educators, both historically and contemporarily. Utilizing Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot's style of portraiture (1997, with J. H. Davis), the author writes in the narrative style, sharing with the reader three conversations with progressive educators whose work has informed her own educational philosophy. …

Evaluation Of An Adult Education Technology Program, Iwasan D. Kejawa

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Theses and Other Student Research

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the adult education technology program at a chartered alternative adult education center in Florida. The adult education center had a low rate of students passing the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT). This study examined the impact of the use of computer technology in an effort to improve student learning in mathematics, reading, and science. Computers at the institution were used by all students for tutorials to prepare them for the FCAT and to obtain a high school diploma. The research questions for this study were as follows: 1. Is the education technology …

Teacher Perceptions Of Bullying Prevention: A Comparative Analysis Of Teacher Perceptions Of Bullying Prevention Programs, Diana Howell

Undergraduate Theses and Capstone Projects

School bullying has often been tacitly minimalized as a rite of passage—an unfortunate but common experience among children. In the past few years there has been an increasing awareness of school bullying as a catalyst of school violence. Parents, school boards, and administrators are understanding and taking more seriously the negative impact that bullying has on victimized students and are actively looking for ways to reduce incidents of such violence. This research provides a discussion of bullying behavior and an examination of teachers’ perceptions of the effectiveness of bullying prevention programs in their schools. If teachers do not feel that …

Making Sense: Reflections On Developing A Social Studies Curriculum For Five- And Six-Year-Olds, Anne Tobias

Graduate Student Independent Studies

This paper is a reflection on the writing of a social studies curriculum for five and six-year-olds-a study of a neighborhood construction site. It examines the way in which one teacher's commitment to offering children meaningful content evolved into the formulation of her educational philosophy, as influenced by such progressive educators as John Dewey, Lucy Sprague Mitchell, and Caroline Pratt.

Part One of the thesis is divided into three major sections. The first consists of a developmental overview of five- and six-year-olds. The second describes the connections between understandings of basic child development, understandings of a particular group of children, …

My Whiteness: A Teacher's Efforts To Explore The Roots Of Her Own Racial Identity, Abigail Johnson

Graduate Student Independent Studies

This Independent study is an attempt to explore the roots of my own racial identity in order to become a culturally sensitive teacher. It is preparation for teaching in a classroom where most of the children will be from a different background than my own.

Emergent Pedagogy: Learning To Enjoy The Uncontrollable—And Make It Productive, Anne Dalke, Kimberly Cassidy, Paul Grobstein, Doug Blank

Literatures in English Faculty Research and Scholarship

This essay reflects the shared experiences of four college faculty members (a biologist, a psychologist, a computer scientist, and a feminist literary scholar) working together with K-12 teachers to explore a new perspective on educational practice. It offers a novel rationale for independent thinking and learning, one that derives from rapidly developing interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary inquiries in the sciences and social sciences into what are known as “complex” or “emergent” systems. Using emergent systems as a model of teaching and learning makes at least three significant contributions to our thinking bout teaching, in three very different dimensions. It invites us …

“I Was Bitten By A Scorpion”: Reading In And Out Of School In A Refugee’S Life, Loukia K. Sarroub, Todd Pernicek, Tracy Sweeney

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

A refugee student’s literacy practices are examined. Discrepancies between his in-school and out-of-school literacies highlight the tension he and his teachers experience.

The purpose of this study is to examine a high school boy’s experiences in an ELL language acquisition program, at home, and in the work place. Within these contexts, we explore Hayder’s participation in literacy events in light of his identity as a Yezidi Kurdish refugee in and out of school.

Our study indicates that reading instruction works for students such as Hayder when certain support structures are in place. Teaching “styles” matter, as does the content of …

Jaepl, Vol. 13, Winter 2007-2008, Kristie S. Fleckenstein, Linda T. Calendrillo

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Essays

Bell Hooks. Writing for Reconciliation: A Musing

Devan Cook. The Value of Mutual Respect: What We Learn from Student Complaints .

This essay discusses the emotional labor of teaching and the ways writing programs can support that work.

Elizabeth Gardner, Patricia Calderwood, and Roben Toroysan. Dangerous Pedagogy

Using data primarily drawn from undergraduate psychology classes, we reflect upon what humane but "dangerous" pedagogy illustrates about our teaching and our students' learning.

Karen Surman Paley. Applying "Men and Women for Others" to Writing about Archeology.

This essay explores one archeology professor's pedagogy of caring during a summer field study …

The Value Of Mutual Respect: What We Learn From Student Complaints, Devan Cook

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

This essay discusses the emotional labor of teaching and the ways writing programs can support that work.

Applying “Men And Women For Others” To Writing About Archeology, Karen Surman Paley

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

This essay explores one archeology professor's pedagogy of caring during a summer field study of a former state school and orphanage.

The “Not Trying” Of Writing, Rachel Forrester

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

A very spiritual "not trying," or non-work, is at the heart of composition.

Front Matter

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Editors' Message

Whitman writes in "Reconciliation":

For my enemy is dead, a man divine as myself is dead, I look where he lies, white-faced and still, in the coffin—I draw near, Bend down and touch lightly with my lips the white face in the coffin.

For Whitman, reconciliation is the "Word over all, beautiful as the sky," the deed that washes the world clean of the carnage of conflict. Without the act of reconciliation—the bringing together of that which …

Writing For Reconciliation: A Musing, Bell Hooks

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

This musing grew out of the AEPL Summer Conference in Berea, Kentucky, June 2006, at which bell hooks was the keynote speaker.

Connecting, Helen Walker, Steven Degeorge, Johanna Rodgers, Jeremiah Conway

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Helen Walker. Connecting.

Steven DeGeorge —The Things They Bring to School .

Johanna Rodgers —Translating Authority

Jeremiah Conway —Emily's Cave

Dangerous Pedagogy, Elizabeth B. Gardner, Patricia E. Calderwood, Roben Torosyan

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Using data primarily drawn from undergraduate psychology classes, we reflect upon what humane but "dangerous" pedagogy illustrates about our teaching and our students' learning.

Reading Othello In Kentucky, Elizabeth Oakes, Heather Adkins, Maggie Brown, Carrie Carman, Gary Crump, Cle'shea Crain, Amanda Hayes, Tara Koger, Mike Sobiech, Chuck Williamson

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Members of a graduate Shakespeare class at Western Kentucky University discuss Otherness in the context of Othello and national perceptions of Kentucky.

The Other End Of The Kaleidoscope: Configuring Circles Of Teaching And Learning, Eudora Watson, Jennifer Mitchell, Victoria Levitt

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

To reflect on and participate in reconsideration of convention in academic discourse, this essay presents three voices in three genres.

Back Matter

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

No abstract provided.

Synecdoche And Surprise: Transdisciplinary Knowledge Production, Anne Dalke, Elizabeth Mccormack

Literatures in English Faculty Research and Scholarship

Using contemporary insights from feminist critical theory and the literary device of synecdoche, we argue that transdisciplinary knowledge is productive because it maximizes serendipity. We draw on student learning experiences in a course on “Gender and Science” to illustrate how the dichotomous frameworks and part-whole correspondences that are predominant in much disciplinary discourse must be dismantled for innovative intellectual work to take place. In such a process, disciplinary presumptions interrogate and unsettle one another to produce novel questions and answers.

Once Upon A Time: A Model Literature Based Approach To Teaching Social Studies In Early Childhood, Kristi Louisa Martone

All Graduate Projects

The purpose of this project was to design an early childhood social studies curriculum that integrated the use of children's literature, to be used in early childhood classrooms. Listening to and reading stories about social studies topics helps students to see the importance of various social studies issues and will allow them to connect personally with the theme by completing a wide range of related activities. National and state standards require students to understand many social studies concepts and using children's literature as a vehicle for learning the required standards can help students see the idea that social studies relates …

Reviews, Kabi Hartman, Caleb Corkery, Joel Kline, Terri Pullen Guezzar

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Reviews

Kabi Hartman. Writing With, Through and Beyond the Text: An Ecology of Language. (Rebecca Luce-Kapler, 2004)

Caleb Corkery. African American Literacies Unleashed: Vernacular English and the Composition Classroom. (Arnetha F. Ball and Ted Lardner, 2005)

Joel Kline . Race, Rhetoric, and Technology: Searching for Higher Ground. (Adam J. Banks, 2006)

Terri Pullen Guezzar. Why Is Corporate America Bashing Our Public Schools? (Kathy Emery and Susan Ohanian, 2004)

Understanding Multiple Intelligences: Best Practice: Effective Programs Meet The Needs Of People With Diverse Intelligences, Sky Mcclain, Allison Brody

Education about the Environment

Have you ever wondered why someone who is very smart has trouble using a map? Why one person can follow a map, but is confused by written instructions? Howard Gardner devised an explanation with the theory of multiple intelligences, presented in his 1983 book Frames of Mind.

Gardner questioned the idea that intelligence is a single entity and that it can be measured simply using IQ tests. Rather, he argued that each of us perceives and processes information in multiple ways. And our learning styles reflect these multiple intelligences, with some of us learning more easily by seeing, others by …

Domestic Life In Dutch New Amsterdam A Social Studies Curriculum For Third And Fourth Grade Children, Michael W. Parrish

Graduate Student Independent Studies

This thesis presents a social studies curriculum for third and fourth grade students on the domestic life of New Amsterdam. Beginning with the geography of the region, the study focuses on the role that the environment has on meeting basic human needs of shelter, food and clothing. Based on a framework of objectives and ideas, the study is divided into three major units: shelter, food and clothing. Meeting each basic need required of New Amsterdam residents a vast amount of time and dedication. As children experience this curriculum, they can begin to understand the effort and many layered processes the …

In Our Own Backyard: Critical Theory And The Development Of The San Jacinto Center For Environmental Education, Susanna Hamilton, Darleen Stoner, Randall Wright

Journal of Critical Issues in Educational Practice

This research addresses the topic of nature centers from a critical theory perspective. This research assumed in part, the question: what are the characteristics of a functional and successful nature center that includes environmental education goals and programs? Nature center administrators from across the United States were surveyed and asked to share their opinions on this topic. Six overall characteristics pertaining to management and vision were identified through an exploratory mixed‑method design. Other components of these characteristics were discovered during the analysis of the data, and include factors such as approaches to education. Recommendations for improving nature centers and their …

Jaepl, Vol. 12, Winter 2006-2007, Kristie S. Fleckenstein, Linda T. Calendrillo

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Essays

Lynn Z. Bloom and Carla Hill. High Stakes Gambling in the Master Class

High Stakes Gambling in the Master Class explores some of the unarticulated intangibles in a relationship between Master Teacher and Honors Student (who collaborated in writing this essay), calculated to produce a distinguished honors thesis, sometimes out of thin air, gambling, playing the hunches that will allow a gleam in the eye to metamorphose into gold on the page.

Judith Beth Cohen. The Missing Body—Yoga and Higher Education.

Using her own yoga practice as a basis, this author argues for more bodily involvement in learning …

Writing Aphrodite: Imagining A Rhetoric Of Desire For A Feminist Writing Course, Hildy Miller

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Reaching back to the post-Jungian goddess feminism of decades past, this essay shows how the mythical figure Aphrodite can serve as an image for an alternative rhetoric of desire in a contemporary feminist writing class.

Mcluhan’S Warning, Frye’S Strategy, Emerson’S Dream, Rich Murphy

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

McLuhan's Warning, Frye's Strategy, Emerson's Dream argues the vital function of literary writing in the academy. The essay maps a road from the warnings of catastrophe by Marshall McLuhan to Emerson's dream of all American citizens being poets through the writing strategies of Northrop Frye. It is argued that what one learns through literary writing is especially important during the crises that are ongoing in the West.

Reviews, Mary Pettice, Kerrie R. H. Farkas, Edward Sullivan, Brad Lucas

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Reviews

Mary Pettice. Writing New Media: Theory and Applications for Expanding the Teaching of Composition. (Ed. Anne Frances Wysocki, Johndan Johnson-Eilola, Cynthia L. Selfe, and Geoffrey Sirc, 2004).

Kerrie R. H. Farkas. Writing at the End of the World . (Richard Miller, 2005).

Edward Sullivan. Field Notes on the Compassionate Life: A Search for the Soul of Kindness. (Marc Ian Barasch, 2005).

Brad Lucas. (Re)Writing Craft: Composition, Creative Writing, and the Future of English Studies. (Tim Mayers, 2005).

Connecting, Helen Walker, Darina Garcia, Ryan Skinnell, Lee Roecher, Louise Morgan

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Helen Walker. Connecting.

Danina Garcia —Message from a Student Writer.

Libby Falk Jones—Anger in the Teaching Life

Ryan Skinnell —Connections of a First-Year Teacher

Lee Roecher —Guiding the Passion.

Louise Morgan —Emails to Blow Off Steam

High Stakes Gambling In The Master Class, Lynn Z. Bloom, Carla Hill

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

High Stakes Gambling in the Master Class explores some of the unarticulated intangibles in a relationship between Master Teacher and Honors Student (who collaborated in writing this essay), calculated to produce a distinguished honors thesis, sometimes out of thin air, gambling, playing the hunches that will allow a gleam in the eye to metamorphose into gold on the page.