Matching Items (6)
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- All Subjects: Education, Secondary
- Creators: Anderson, Kate
- Creators: Nilsen, Alleen
Description
ABSTRACT This study describes student interactions in the academic social network site Edmodo versus student interactions in Facebook. This qualitative case study relies upon four high school juniors enrolled in Advanced Placement Language and Composition who use Edmodo to complete assignments for their English class. Their experiences were gathered in an attempt to describe specific experiences in a complex system. Students were selected using an Internet Connectedness Index survey. Using a Virtual Community of Practice framework, students were asked about their experiences in Edmodo. This study concludes that Edmodo and Facebook can be compared in three categories: accessibility, functionality, and environment. Unlike Facebook, which students access regularly, students access Edmodo only to fulfill the teacher's participation expectations for the specific grade they wish to receive. Additionally, students appreciated the convenience of using Edmodo to complete assignments. The functionality of Edmodo is quite similar in layout and appearance to Facebook, yet students were unaware of the media sharing capability, wished for private messaging options, and desired the ability to tag peers for direct comment using the @ sign, all options that are available in Facebook. Students felt the environment in Edmodo could best be characterized as intellectual and academic, which some mentioned might best be used with honors or AP students. A surprising benefit of Edmodo is the lack of social cues enable students to feel free of judgment when composing writing. Some felt this allowed students to know their classmates better and share their true personae free from judgment of classmates. As a result of the case studies of four students, this study seeks to illustrate how students interact in Edmodo versus Facebook to provide a robust image of the academic social network site for teachers seeking to implement educational technology in their classes.
ContributorsCurran-Sejkora, Elizabeth (Author) / Blasingame, James (Thesis advisor) / Nilsen, Alleen (Committee member) / Rodrigo, Rochelle (Committee member) / Turchi, Laura (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
This study is a discourse analysis and deconstruction of public documents published electronically in connection with the evaluation of the Advanced Placement Language and Composition Examination, found on the educational website: apcentral.collegeboard.com. The subject of this dissertation is how the characteristic of writing identified as Voice functions covertly in the calibration of raters' evaluation of student writing in two sets of electronic commentaries: the Scoring Commentaries and the Student Performance Q&A;'s published between the years 2000-2010. The study is intended to contribute to both socio-linguistic and sociological research in education on the influence of inherited forms of cultural capital in educational attainment, with particular emphasis upon performance on high-stakes examinations. Modeled after Pierre Bourdieu's inquiry into the latent bias revealed in the "euphemized" language of teacher commentary found in The State Nobility, lists of recurrent descriptors and binary oppositions in the texts are deconstructed. The result of the deconstruction is the manifestation of latent class bias in the commentaries. Conclusions: discourse analysis reveals that a particular Voice, expressive of a preferred social class identity, which is initiated to and particularly deft in such academic performances, is rewarded by the test evaluators. Similarly, findings reveal that a low-scoring essay is negatively critiqued for being particularly unaccustomed to the form(s) of knowledge and style of writing required by the test situation. In summation, a high score on the AP Language Examination, rather than a certification of writerly competence, is actually a testament to the performance of cultural capital. Following an analysis of the language of classification and assessment in the electronic documents, the author provides several "tactics" (after de Certeau) or recommendations for writing the AP Language and Composition Examination, conducive to the stylistic performances privileged by the rating system.
ContributorsGraber, Stacy (Author) / Blasingame, James (Thesis advisor) / Tobin, Joseph (Committee member) / Nilsen, Alleen (Committee member) / Adams, Karen (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
This study examines ninth graders’ negotiation of meaning with one canonical work, Romeo and Juliet. The study’s sample was 88% Latino at a Title I high school. The study adopts a sociocultural view of literacy and learning. I employed ethnographic methods (participant observation, data collection, interviews, and focus groups) to investigate the teacher’s instructional approaches and the literacy practices used while teaching the canonical work. With a focus on students’ interpretations, I examined what they said and wrote about Romeo and Juliet. One finding was that the teacher employed instructional approaches that facilitated literacy practices that allowed students to draw on their cultural backgrounds, personal lived experiences, and values as they engaged with Romeo and Juliet. As instructional approaches and literacy practices became routine, students formed a community of learners. Because the teacher allowed students to discuss their ideas before, during, and after reading, students were provided with multiple perspectives to think about as they read and negotiated meaning. A second finding was that students drew on their personal lived experiences, backgrounds, and values as they made sense and negotiated the meaning of Romeo and Juliet’s plot and characters. Although the text’s meaning was not always obvious to students, in their work they showed their growing awareness that multiple interpretations were welcomed and important in the teacher’s classroom. Through the unit, students came to recognize that their own and their peers’ understandings, negotiations, and interpretations of the canonical work were informed by a variety of complex factors. Students came to find relevance in the text’s themes and characters to their experiences as adolescents. The study’s findings point to the importance of allowing students to draw from their cultural backgrounds and experiences as they negotiate meaning with texts, specifically canonical ones, and to welcome and encourage multiple meanings in the English classroom.
ContributorsBaez, Felipe J., Jr (Author) / Warriner, Doris (Thesis advisor) / Anderson, Kate (Committee member) / Early, Jessica (Committee member) / Gee, Elisabeth (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
In this study, I investigate how secondary reclassified ELLs use the Learning Management System Schoology in three secondary English classrooms. Particularly, I focus on the digital literacy practices reclassified ELLs use as they navigate Schoology to complete a multi-page research paper. In examining the digital literacy practices of secondary reclassified ELLs who have recently exited the language development program, I add to research in the fields of New Literacies and Multiliteracies, sociocultural approaches to learning, and identity studies.
In this qualitative study, I employed ethnographic techniques (i.e., data collection, participant observation, interviewing, and collection of archived material and digital artifacts stored in Schoology). I drew from communities of practice and identity frameworks to examine focal participants' literacy practices when participating in the online space of Schoology and provided screenshots to showcase this participation. I examined email exchanges that were co-created by teacher and student that demonstrated their reliance on a digital tool to continue the teaching and learning processes. I exhibit screenshots of focal participants' engagement with the revision process as they used Schoology’s and Microsoft Word's digital editing tools. Finally, I examined focal participants' participation in Schoology's online discussion forum to highlight how they revealed aspects of their identities and performed these identities in a mainstream-learning environment as well.
My analysis establishes that focal participants' access to an LMS like Schoology and other digital spaces (e.g., email) supports the language learning and literacy practices of reclassified ELLs. In addition, my analysis of focal participants' digital and communication practices shows that they contributed to their agency, positioned themselves as empowered and knowledgeable learners, and performed the role of "peer as mentor" when providing feedback to their peers. Finally, in my analysis of focal participants' inventories of digital literacy practices, I discovered that their engagement in Schoology for the purposes of learning and communication reinforced their language learning, both traditional and digital literacies, and overall academic achievement. Findings of this study emphasizes the importance of technology integration at the secondary level so that all students have equal access to digital and multimodal ways of learning in today's digital age.
In this qualitative study, I employed ethnographic techniques (i.e., data collection, participant observation, interviewing, and collection of archived material and digital artifacts stored in Schoology). I drew from communities of practice and identity frameworks to examine focal participants' literacy practices when participating in the online space of Schoology and provided screenshots to showcase this participation. I examined email exchanges that were co-created by teacher and student that demonstrated their reliance on a digital tool to continue the teaching and learning processes. I exhibit screenshots of focal participants' engagement with the revision process as they used Schoology’s and Microsoft Word's digital editing tools. Finally, I examined focal participants' participation in Schoology's online discussion forum to highlight how they revealed aspects of their identities and performed these identities in a mainstream-learning environment as well.
My analysis establishes that focal participants' access to an LMS like Schoology and other digital spaces (e.g., email) supports the language learning and literacy practices of reclassified ELLs. In addition, my analysis of focal participants' digital and communication practices shows that they contributed to their agency, positioned themselves as empowered and knowledgeable learners, and performed the role of "peer as mentor" when providing feedback to their peers. Finally, in my analysis of focal participants' inventories of digital literacy practices, I discovered that their engagement in Schoology for the purposes of learning and communication reinforced their language learning, both traditional and digital literacies, and overall academic achievement. Findings of this study emphasizes the importance of technology integration at the secondary level so that all students have equal access to digital and multimodal ways of learning in today's digital age.
ContributorsHurtado, Fernando (Author) / Warriner, Doris (Thesis advisor) / Gee, Elisabeth (Committee member) / Anderson, Kate (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
Description
In this study, I examined how African American students in a church youth group constructed ethnic and spiritual identities as they engaged with community literacy practices. Arizona's small, scattered population of African Americans is reflected within participants' multi-ethnic schools where they describe feelings of being almost invisible to school agents and peers. Listening to students, I came to deeply understand how they struggled with cultural isolation and racial discrimination. The growing tensions with state immigration reform only magnified those feelings as participants perceived the ban on ethnic studies to be another attempt to exclude them from school curriculums. By using utilizing four identity types, I gained greater insights into participants' negotiation of ethnicity and spirituality. Drawing from critical race theory, I utilized counter-storytelling to not only recapture participants' experiences with social injustice, but also to illustrate how the youth group empowers the students to become activists. Resisting the paralyzing effects of racial stereotypes, participants emerged as essayists, artists, orators, and spoken word poets.
ContributorsNicholson, Cynthia Salley (Author) / Paris, Django (Thesis advisor) / Nilsen, Alleen (Committee member) / Stanfield, John H. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
Over the past 20 years in the United States (U.S.), teachers have seen a marked
shift in how teacher evaluation policies govern the evaluation of their performance.
Spurred by federal mandates, teachers have been increasingly held accountable for their
students’ academic achievement, most notably through the use of value-added models
(VAMs)—a statistically complex tool that aims to isolate and then quantify the effect of
teachers on their students’ achievement. This increased focus on accountability ultimately
resulted in numerous lawsuits across the U.S. where teachers protested what they felt
were unfair evaluations informed by invalid, unreliable, and biased measures—most
notably VAMs.
While New Mexico’s teacher evaluation system was labeled as a “gold standard”
due to its purported ability to objectively and accurately differentiate between effective
and ineffective teachers, in 2015, teachers filed suit contesting the fairness and accuracy
of their evaluations. Amrein-Beardsley and Geiger’s (revise and resubmit) initial analyses
of the state’s teacher evaluation data revealed that the four individual measures
comprising teachers’ overall evaluation scores showed evidence of bias, and specifically,
teachers who taught in schools with different student body compositions (e.g., special
education students, poorer students, gifted students) had significantly different scores
than their peers. The purpose of this study was to expand upon these prior analyses by
investigating whether those conclusions still held true when controlling for a variety of
confounding factors at the school, class, and teacher levels, as such covariates were not
included in prior analyses.
Results from multiple linear regression analyses indicated that, overall, the
measures used to inform New Mexico teachers’ overall evaluation scores still showed
evidence of bias by school-level student demographic factors, with VAMs potentially
being the most susceptible and classroom observations being the least. This study is
especially unique given the juxtaposition of such a highly touted evaluation system also
being one where teachers contested its constitutionality. Study findings are important for
all education stakeholders to consider, especially as teacher evaluation systems and
related policies continue to be transformed.
shift in how teacher evaluation policies govern the evaluation of their performance.
Spurred by federal mandates, teachers have been increasingly held accountable for their
students’ academic achievement, most notably through the use of value-added models
(VAMs)—a statistically complex tool that aims to isolate and then quantify the effect of
teachers on their students’ achievement. This increased focus on accountability ultimately
resulted in numerous lawsuits across the U.S. where teachers protested what they felt
were unfair evaluations informed by invalid, unreliable, and biased measures—most
notably VAMs.
While New Mexico’s teacher evaluation system was labeled as a “gold standard”
due to its purported ability to objectively and accurately differentiate between effective
and ineffective teachers, in 2015, teachers filed suit contesting the fairness and accuracy
of their evaluations. Amrein-Beardsley and Geiger’s (revise and resubmit) initial analyses
of the state’s teacher evaluation data revealed that the four individual measures
comprising teachers’ overall evaluation scores showed evidence of bias, and specifically,
teachers who taught in schools with different student body compositions (e.g., special
education students, poorer students, gifted students) had significantly different scores
than their peers. The purpose of this study was to expand upon these prior analyses by
investigating whether those conclusions still held true when controlling for a variety of
confounding factors at the school, class, and teacher levels, as such covariates were not
included in prior analyses.
Results from multiple linear regression analyses indicated that, overall, the
measures used to inform New Mexico teachers’ overall evaluation scores still showed
evidence of bias by school-level student demographic factors, with VAMs potentially
being the most susceptible and classroom observations being the least. This study is
especially unique given the juxtaposition of such a highly touted evaluation system also
being one where teachers contested its constitutionality. Study findings are important for
all education stakeholders to consider, especially as teacher evaluation systems and
related policies continue to be transformed.
ContributorsGeiger, Tray (Author) / Amrein-Beardsley, Audrey (Thesis advisor) / Anderson, Kate (Committee member) / McGuire, Keon (Committee member) / Holloway, Jessica (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020