Liberal Studies Commons^™

Some Observations On Scientific Epistemology With Applications To Conflict Resolution And Constructive Controversy, Judith Puncochar, Don Faust

Other Presentations

An overview, by Judy and Don (published in 2013 in the BULLETIN OF SYMBOLIC LOGIC):

Explorationism is a perspective wherein all of our knowledge is (so far) less than certain, and naturally would come equipped with a base logic entailing machinery for representing and processing evidential knowledge. One such base logic is Evidence Logic, which strives to deal with the phenomenon of the gradational presence of both confirmatory and refutatory evidence. From this perspective, we will address questions surrounding sociological problem areas that we see as deeply infused with substantial epistemological factors. By defining a framework as any theory, …

Spanning Boundaries To Identify Archival Literacy Competencies, Sharon A. Weiner, Sammie L. Morris, Lawrence J. Mykytiuk

Libraries Faculty and Staff Presentations

This paper is a report of a collaborative research project that identified the competencies undergraduate history majors should have related to finding and using archival materials. The boundary-spanning collaboration involved archivists, librarians, and history faculty.

Historians have long relied upon archives as essential source material, and recent studies confirmed the continued significance of archives to research in this field. However, there is no detailed listing of the archival research competencies that college history students should attain. Without a clearly defined list upon which history faculty, archivists, and library liaisons to history departments agree, teaching about archives research is difficult and …

Middle School Student Perceptions Of Homework In Mathematics, Camille M. Thomas

Honors Scholar Theses

Homework has been a source of debate in schools for the past several decades and will continue to be an important topic in the future. It is a traditional part of education but some debate its importance in the classroom. This study explored student perception of homework and their reported performance in middle school mathematics. The research questions focused on student attitudes about homework, the relationship of students’ self-efficacy and support resources to their homework completion, and the relationship of students’ general level of achievement in mathematics to their attitudes about homework. The study involved a survey of 230 middle …

The Invisible Composition Classroom: The Reciprocity Of Face, Identity, And Politeness, Pennie L. Gray

Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the role of face and identity as they arise in a first year composition classroom. Using the illuminating theoretical framework of linguistic politeness theory, new understandings of the social interactions in the composition classroom are unveiled. Specifically, through an analysis of the politeness strategies that students use during the peer review process, it becomes clear that students prefer to temper their critique of others' work rather than openly criticize that work. Additionally, students offer far more positive feedback than their peers' work perhaps merits, minimize the revision work they suggest, and downplay their own authority over each …

Fearless: Professor Hakim Williams, Hakim Mohandas Amani Williams

SURGE

With his consistently energetic and enthusiastic personality, his progressive teaching methods using discussion and debate in the classroom, and his desire for his students to develop more comprehensive understandings of the problems facing education in a global context, Dr. Hakim Williams fearlessly uses his passion for change and justice in education to enlighten his students, sharpen their critical thinking skills, and change their outlooks on the future. [excerpt]

An Empirical Analysis Of Factors Affecting Honors Program Completion Rates, Hallie Savage, Rod D. Raehsler, Joseph Fiedor

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

One of the most important issues in any educational environment is identifying factors that promote academic success. A plethora of research on such factors exists across most academic fields, involving a wide range of student demographics, and the definition of student success varies across the range of studies published. While much of the research is devoted to looking at student performance in particular courses and concentrates on examination scores and grades, many authors have directed their attention to student success in the context of an entire academic program; student success in this context usually centers on program completion or graduation …

Journal Of The National Collegiate Honors Council, Volume 15, Number 1, Spring/Summer 2014 (Complete Issue)

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Forum on Honors for Sale

Forum Articles

Gary Bell

Benjamin Moritz

Lisa Avery

Sam Schuman

Jeffrey A. Portnoy

Destenie Nock, Justice Plummer, Ashleigh R. Wilson, and Michael K. Cundall Jr.

Annmarie Guzy

Barbra Nightingale

Brian C. Etheridge

Research Essays

Ted M. Brimeyer, April M. Schueths, and William L. Smith

Gordon Shepherd and Gary Shepherd

Hallie Savage, Rod D. Raehsler, and Joseph Fiedor

Kate Wintrol

Journal Of The National Collegiate Honors Council, Volume 15, Number 2, Fall/Winter 2014 (Complete Issue)

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Forum on Rubrics, Templates, and Measurable Outcomes in Honors

Joan Digby

Annmarie Guzy

Beata M. Jones and Catherine M. Wehlburg

Giovanna Walters

Ce Rosenow

research essays

Kim Andersen and Gary Thorgaard

Heather C. Camp

Jay Trucker

Deborah Engelen-Eigles and Janice Levinsohn Milner

Liberal Education (An Overview), Daniel R. Denicola

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Book Summary: Education is a field sometimes beset by theories-of-the-day and with easy panaceas that overpromise the degree to which they can alleviate pressing educational problems. The two-volume Encyclopedia of Educational Theory and Philosophy introduces readers to theories that have stood the test of time and those that have provided the historical foundation for the best of contemporary educational theory and practice. Drawing together a team of international scholars, this invaluable reference examines the global landscape of all the key theories and the theorists behind them and presents them in the context needed to understand their strengths and weaknesses. In …

On Being Transminded: Disabling Achievement, Enabling Exchange, Anne Dalke, Clare Mullaney

Literatures in English Faculty Research and Scholarship

We write collaboratively, as a recent graduate and long-time faculty member of a small women’s liberal arts college, about the mental health costs of adhering to a feminist narrative of achievement that insists upon independence and resiliency. As we explore the destabilizing potential of an alternative feminist project, one that invites different temporalities in which dis/ability emerges and may be addressed, we work with disability less as an identity than as a generative methodology, a form of relation and exchange. Mapping our own college as a specific, local site for the disabling tradition of “challenging women,” we move to larger …

Teachers' Perspectives About Infusing Music Into Language Arts Instruction, Demetria Lucille Thomas

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Reading and writing curricula in more than 50% of America's schools have not been successful in assisting students to meet mandated academic performances for a number of reasons, including lack of student motivation and self-esteem. Research studies indicated that music can influence student motivation and academic performance in subjects such as language arts and that a music-infused curriculum could generate the positive difference between academic failure and academic success. For this qualitative case study with a constructivist paradigm, the purpose was to observe, document, and analyze music-infused lessons used by 4 teachers from prekindergarten to 5th grade with the goal …

Kindergarteners' Concept Development In Science And Literacy Learning Through Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction (Cori), Char Adelia Moffit

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The notion that "real work" is somehow different from authentic and engaging discovery is troublesome. (Passman, 2001, p.196)

This qualitative case study examined science concept and literacy learning along with engagement of the students in a Kindergarten class in which science and literacy instruction was integrated through Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction (CORI). CORI is an instructional framework created to increase reading engagement by teaching reading comprehension strategies along with science concepts (Guthrie, et al., 1996). This study explored CORI at the Kindergarten level to examine how this curriculum framework engaged young learners in science concept and literacy learning. The study was …

Susan Bauer's 2003 Theory Of Well-Educated Mind: Could The Classical Approach To Teaching History Work In Southern California History K12 Classrooms?, Tomasz B. Stanek

LUX: A Journal of Transdisciplinary Writing and Research from Claremont Graduate University

The main purpose of this research evolved from the publication of S. W. Bauer Well-educated mind, a study of the significance of new methods of teaching history course. Bauer (2003) argues that the grammarian approach of simple recognition and memorization removes students from reading primary sources. This theory suggests a new methodology for the instructors and students through the three-stage process of grammar, dialectic, and rhetoric preparation with aid of primary sources or “great books list”. This paper supports Bauer’s thesis and provides evidence through extensive interviews that indeed this concept of pedagogy is present in Southern California schools.

Journal Of The National Collegiate Honors Council, Volume 14, Number 2, Fall/Winter 2013 (Complete Issue)

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Forum on Admissions and Retention in Honors

Forum Articles

Jerry Herron

Sean K. Kelly

Michael K. Cundall, Jr.

Scott Carnicom

Annmarie Guzy

Jeffrey A. Portnoy

Research Essays

Patricia Joanne Smith and John Thomas Vitus Zagurski

Robert R. Keller and Michael G. Lacy

Lynne Goodstein and Patricia Szarek

Timothy J. Nichols and Kuo-Liang “Matt” Chang

Emily Stark

In The Name Of The Spirit, Lynn Briggs, Fred Schunter, Ray Melvin

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

The authors argue that naming experiences "spiritual" is important to an expanded understanding of goals, struggles, and success in their writing center practice.

Impact Of Remedial Reading Interventions On A Secondary Student With Emotional Behavior Disorder: A Case Study, Lucinda Cooper

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Students who struggle with emotional behavior disorders (EBD) often enter high school with reading levels far below those of their peers. At the secondary level, these at-risk students must regularly read and write proficiently in order to demonstrate their literacy achievement and potential for success either in college or on the job. As a result, many EBD students choose to drop out of school instead of daily feeling that they do not measure up. This instrumental qualitative case study examined the impact of the five essential components of reading instruction, teacher modeling, repeated readings, and progress monitoring on the disruptive …

Decoding Skills Of Middle-School Students With Autism: An Evaluation Of The Nonverbal Reading Approach, Patrick Allen Leytham

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Students diagnosed with autism demonstrate a deficit in communication skills, which affects their literacy skills. Federal legislation mandates that students with disabilities receive a free appropriate public education, be taught how to read, and have access to the general education curriculum. Students with autism are being included more in the general education classroom. Prior literacy instruction for students with moderate to severe forms of disabilities has shown promising results. The whole language approach to teaching students with autism how to read has been researched extensively, particularly in the area of sight-word identification. One major limitation to this approach, however, is …

Word Calling In 3rd And 4th Graders: Exploring Student And Teacher Characteristics, Lindsay Starr Couzens

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Reading difficulties in elementary school-aged children may occur when two components of reading- word identification, comprehension, or both of these skills- are weak or underdeveloped (Gough, 1972; Hoover & Gough, 1990; Joshi & Aaron, 2000; Savage, 2001). One type of reading difficulty that is frequently identified by teachers is known as "word calling." Previous research (Hamilton & Shinn, 2003; Hendricks, Reynolds & Sinatra, 2003, Meisinger, Bradley, Schwanenflugel, Kuhn, & Morris, 2009) found that teachers were not accurate in their identification of word callers (word callers). They tended to over-identify these students in their classrooms, confusing them with typical struggling readers. …

Journal Of The National Collegiate Honors Council, Volume 14, Number 1, Spring/Summer 2013 (Complete Issue)

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Forum on “Nontraditional Honors Students”

Forum Articles

Janice Rye Kinghorn and Whitney Womack Smith

Nancy Reichert

Angela M. Salas

Mimi Killinger, Rachel Binder-Hathaway, Paige Mitchell, and Emily Patrick

Kimberly Aramburo and Suketu Bhavsar

2012 NCHC Portz Scholar’s Essay

Jeffrey Cisneros

Research Essays

Melissa L. Johnson

John S. MacLean and Brian J. White

Accelerated Reader And Its Effects On Fifth-Grade Students' Reading Comprehension, Jan Nichols

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Schools in the United States have been using the Accelerated Reader (AR) program since the mid-1980s. A search of the literature related to the effectiveness of the AR program revealed that many of the studies were conducted more than a decade ago, and a large number of those studies failed to utilize a control group to provide comparative data. Researchers and educators have examined the use of the AR program, whose parent company is Renaissance Learning, for more than 20 years, yet there is still little definitive data on whether the system positively affects student reading comprehension and motivation to …

Implementing A Culturally And Linguistically Responsive Phonics Curriculum That Incorporates Music To Meet The Needs Of English Language Learners In The Response To Intervention Process, Danielle Miller

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of the Sing, Spell, Read, Write (SSRW) phonics curriculum that uses explicit and systematic methods and incorporates music to teach literacy skills implemented as a tier-two reading intervention in the Response to Intervention process to meet the cultural and linguistic needs of English Language Learners. A sequential explanatory mixed methods design will be used to explore the research questions. Using a quantitative quasi-experimental comparison method, the researcher gathered archived data relating to ELLs reading achievement using the reading portion of the Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests and the STAR Reading assessment. The …

More Than Just A Good Book: Employing U.S. Department Of Education Guidelines To Teach Character Education Using Literature, Suzy Besson-Martilotta

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this research study, which was conducted as a qualitative content analysis, was to discover to what extent children's literature from a popular anthology could be used to teach the tenets of character education according to U.S. Department of Education (2005) guidelines in a pre-Kindergarten through second grade setting. A team of participant-coders, which consisted of experienced early childhood educators, evaluated and analyzed each of the 44 complete books contained in the 320 page anthology, The 20th Century Children's Book Treasury: Celebrated Picture Books and Stories to Read Aloud (Schulman, 2005), in order to investigate opportunities to explore …

A Case Study On The Impact Of The Read 180 Reading Intervention Program On Affective And Cognitive Reading Skills For At-Risk Secondary Level Students, Jeffrey Vogel

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to investigate the impact of the READ 180 reading intervention program upon the affective and cognitive reading skills of 21 struggling ninth grade at-risk students at a Title I high school in Southern California. There was minimal qualitative analysis of the READ 180 program at the secondary level and nominal research in general on affective learning regarding motivation to read for at-risk high school students. This study was designed to explore what changes, if any, may occur in the reading attitudes (affective skills) and comprehension levels (cognitive skills) of participants in the …

"Lighting The Way" With Differentiation In Reading, Leonard W. Parker

Faculty Publications and Presentations

No abstract provided.

Using Careless Speech For Careful, Well-Crafted Writing— Whatever Its Style, Peter Elbow

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Bringing the resources of speech to writing enables writers to understand and attain written eloquence.

The Power Of The Poetic Lens: Why Teachers Need To Read Poems Together, Amy L. Eva, Carrie A. Bemis, Marie F. Quist, Bill Hollands

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Poetry reading circles can become the means for new (and experienced) teachers to reflect on their professional growth.

Front Matter

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Editor's message.

Sheep In Wolves’ Clothing: How Composition’S Social Construction Reinstates Expressivist Solipsism (And Even Current-Traditional Conservatism), Keith Rhodes, Monica M. Robinson

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Reframing the theory of social construction from Romantic/ Classic perspectives yields surprising insights about writing studies.

A Teacher’S Terminal Illness In The Secondary Classroom: The Effects Of Disclosure, Sarah Hochstetler

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

How does it affect learning when cancer becomes the prevailing metaphor through which students see their teacher?

Learning And Teaching In Other Ways, Ilene Dawn Alexander

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

A teaching and learning consultant suggests that “oscillating narratives” are the means for helping unconventional students become critically aware.