Educational Methods Commons^™

Ethics For Skeptics, W. Bradley Wendel

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

One of the themes of the 2002 annual meeting of the Association of American Law Schools ("AALS") has been that we, as teachers, must do better at engaging our students "where they're at." A number of speakers on various panels addressed the consumerist mentality among students, the desire of a population raised on MTV for multimedia lectures that resemble rapidly paced entertainment with high production values, and the suspicion of students toward claims of authority by teachers that are not backed up by respect and hard work. In addition, I would add a further observation as a teacher of ethics …

Integrating Academic And Non-Academic Instruction For Students With Emotional/Behavioral Disorders, Robert A. Gable, Jo M. Hendrickson, Stephen W. Tonelson, Richard Van Acker

Communication Disorders & Special Education Faculty Publications

Students with emotional/behavioral disorders exhibit a wide range of academic and behavioral problems. Not surprisingly, there is growing support for integrating instruction to address overlapping students' needs in both areas. In this article, we discuss instructional variables that contribute to a positive classroom climate and that serve as setting events for more focused group-individual instructional programs. We draw on the accumulated research to identify common non-academic challenges that should be incorporated into those programs. We examine issues that relate to the efficacy of instruction and also the cultural and chronological age differences among students and how they relate to planning …

Middle School Art And The Internet, John F. Bueltel

Graduate Research Papers

This graduate project focuses on the efforts of one middle school art teacher to integrate the Internet into the middle school art curriculum at one middle school in Iowa. Classrooms with Internet access increased to 63 percent in 2000 (National Center for Education Statistics, 2000) with similar numbers of school age children ( 65 percent) having Internet access in their homes (U.S. Census Bureau, 2001). Art teachers have been reluctant to embrace this technology (Matthews, 1997) even though many art education resources exist on the Internet. The Internet can provide a vast resource of artwork from web sites published by …

Evaluating The Effectiveness Of Team-Teaching Involving General And Special Education Teachers In Early Childhood Programs, Lesley Janelle Ehlers

Graduate Research Papers

This paper examined the effects of team teaching in early childhood programs. Variations of team teaching were described. Benefits, as well as problems, associated with team teaching were also discussed. Guidelines were presented for educators concerning the successful implementation of team teaching. Conclusions were drawn from the literature and recommendations were made for educators interested in team teaching.

The Constructivist-Based Approach : The Better Choice For Learning, Consuella Eugene

Graduate Research Papers

With the integration of technology in the classroom, the constructivist-based approach encourages students to utilize their minds in a scholastic and a creative manner. Students are encouraged to learn via creativity, experience, experimentation, and teamwork. Teachers are able to organize information around conceptual clusters of problems and questions as opposed to learning facts in isolation. This approach is based upon the idea that students construct their own knowledge, rather than reproducing someone else's knowledge.

The advantages of the constructivist-based approach will be clearly noted and described by this researcher exploring the learning environments for students, students learning, student involvement, evaluation …

Establishing Literature Circles In One Middle School Teacher's Classroom, Kristin M. Englert Gehrke

Graduate Research Papers

Literature circles are a popular method of reading instruction in middle school classrooms. Literature circles are when small groups of students choose one book to read and then meet to discuss it. Students are taught how to discuss a book and use response journals. Implementing literature circles into a reading curriculum requires a great deal of planning. A teacher must make decisions about structure, themes, response journals, discussion groups, assessment and final projects.

Literature circles are an evolving teaching method and will not always work the same way each time they are used. I found literature circles to be a …

Writing In The Contact Zone: Three Portraits Of Reflexivity And Transformation, Laurene L. Christensen

Dissertations and Theses

Culture is at the core of language teaching. Because classrooms are contact zones (Pratt 1991), teachers must have a well-developed sense of their own intercultural competence so that they may better facilitate the cross-cultural discovery inherent in language teaching. Teacher preparation programs need to provide opportunities for new teachers to increase their intercultural awareness. The purpose of this research was to qualitatively understand the experiences of pre-service teachers in a required culture-learning class at a large urban university. Specifically, the focus of this study was the completion of a mini-ethnography project designed to give the students a cross-cultural exchange. Since …

Referendums Education In The United States: Reform Or Assimilation?, Francisco Ramos

School of Education Faculty Works

The antibilingüe movement that is spreading across the United States has become one of the most controversial in the debate on the education of linguistic minorities issues. Ron Unz, the California millionaire who has managed to eliminate bilingual programs in California and Arizona and trying to do the same today in Colorado and Massachusetts, is a clear example of assimilationist movement, which argues that immigrants should give up their languages and vernacular cultures to integrate into American society. This article summarizes the history of bilingualism in the United States, focusing on decisions that have affected the education of minority students, …

The Impact Of A Dual Language Program On School Climate In A Large Urban District, Nancy Navarez-Lutzke

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

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The Impact Of A Block Schedule As Perceived By Teachers Of Various Academic Fields Within A Secondary School Setting, Brian A. Zychowski

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

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Predominant Nursing Students' Learning Profile And Nursing Faculty Teaching Styles As Related To Final Course Grade In A Baccalaureate Nursing Program In Puerto Rico, Lourdes Méndez Cruz

Dissertations

Problem. The purpose o f this study was to investigate the relationship between students’ predominant learning profile, faculty teaching preferences, and the final course grade in a 4-year nursing program at a private Christian university in Puerto Rico.

Method. A non-experimental descriptive research design was used for this study. The Learning Profile Indicator was administered to all nursing students («=138) while the Teaching Style Inventory was given to all faculty («=9). Demographic sheets were also given to both students and faculty Students’ final course grades were obtained from the faculty. Descriptive (frequency, means and standard deviations) and inferential statistics …

A Study Of The Reported Long-Term Attitudinal And Behavioral Effects Of An Eighth-Grade Environmental Education Project And The Development Of An Innovation Configuration To Promote Environmental Education, Jean Lomino

Dissertations

Problem. Increasing scientific evidence reveals that this planet is in serious environmental jeopardy. Since 1977, when an international group of K-12 educators met in the USSR and established goals for teaching environmental education worldwide, many schools have endeavored to fulfill these goals through the use of various curricula and teaching strategies. Although some progress has been made, most K-12 public schools have not done enough to meet the demands of environmental problems. In 1996, my co-teacher and I designed and implemented an environmental project, called Mission Environment, that we hoped would help our students develop long-term positive environmental attitudes …

Using Authentic Learning To Teach Basic Technology Skills, Steven Burken

Graduate Research Papers

During the past decade, most school districts have been required to write technology plans that have included the goal that students will become technologically literate. Teachers and administrators have been challenged to teach technology skills that will help student solve problems in the work place. What has been commonplace is for schools to offer courses or units in which students acquire skills without applying them to real world problems. This paper takes a look at the literature and research surrounding the use of technology, and the learning of technology skills, in the framework of authentic learning.

Messages For Girls: Looking At The Representation Of Women's Short Fiction In American Literature High School Anthologies, Aurelia Ramage Tippett

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

The purpose of this qualitative study was to answer the question "What messages about the image of womanhood are available to adolescent females in female-authored short fiction that appears in a variety of American literature textbooks used since 1965, a few years preceding racial integration and widespread coverage of the women's movement in rural Georgia, through 2000?"

Five American literature anthologies that were used in the Laurens County Georgia School System for instruction in the required American literature course since 1965 were collected. Short fiction written by women was identified and then the researcher identified those women writers whose short …

Interactive Mathematics Learning System (Smartmath), Regina Tay Regina Tay

Student Works (2000-2009)

Interactive Mathematics Learning System (Smartmath) is a Web-based Multimedia Learning-teaching system for lower primary school level. Primary school students, teachers, and parents are the target users of this system. It can be used as a teaching tool or as a self-learning program. The strength of Smartmath is that it provides lessons to educate users about basic mathematics operations according to users age group. Lessons are provided for children aged 7 and 8 which can also be used by preschool children. There are interactive quizzes that test the student's understanding after each lesson. Games based on mathematic operations and numbers are …

Evaluation Of Education System Design Using The Socio-Constructivist And Software Heuristic Approaches, Sarinder Kaur Kashmir Singh

Student Works (2000-2009)

This thesis is focused on designing a usable educational system for tertiary level students in Selangor and Klang Valley. To achieve this, the author has come up with a set of questions for testing the usability of existing educational systems used in University of Malaya and in some of the colleges around Klang Valley and Selangor. The questions in the questionnaires are prepared based on the socio-constructivist way of learning in the social context of Malaysian students and also the software heuristics. The results of the survey was analyzed statistically and discussed to serve as requirements for the design of …

Developing Generic Skills For Tertiary Students In An Online Learning Environment, Joseph Luca

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Increasingly, higher education institutions are being asked by industry, government and funding bodies to produce graduates with versatile generic skills as well as subject knowledge and expertise. This is causing a major reappraisal of higher education institutions purpose, learning outcomes and research activities. Many institutions are experiencing problems in implementing effective teaching and learning strategies to promote the development of these skills. The study sought to investigate ways of developing students' generic skills through the design and implementation of a learning environment that incorporated three key learning principles - authenticity, self-regulation and reflection. These were integrated into a course design …

The Use Of Scaffolding To Improve Student Learning With Interactive Multimedia Programs In Chemistry, Brian T. Grimes

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

The process of balancing and interpreting chemical equations involves the consideration of an abstract, non-observable phenomenon coupled with multi-level representation. Students find it conceptually demanding to visualise the particulate level of matter and hence experience difficulty in balancing chemical equations with understanding. Interactive multimedia with dynamic computer graphics can provide students with accurate, concrete representations of the particulate nature of matter. Such tools, when coupled with appropriate implementation strategies, have the potential to improve learning about chemical reactions. The study investigated the use of scaffolding techniques to enhance and direct student learning when using an interactive multimedia software (IMM) program, …