Matching Items (4)
Filtering by
- All Subjects: Education, Secondary
- Creators: Gee, Elisabeth
- Creators: Warriner, Doris
Description
Unschooling is a child-centered educational philosophy that eschews teachers,
schools, curricula, grades and tests. Unschool practitioners have complete freedom to choose what they want to learn, when, to what level, and for how long. Unschooling families use the World Wide Web to provide a bespoke academic experience at home. This study compares qualitative data collected from questionnaires and semi-structured interviews conducted with 10 unschooling families with quantitative data collected from 5 children within these families using a tracking and monitoring software. The software captured the duration of use, keystrokes, mouseclicks, and screenshots for all programs and websites for 14 days. Children stated they used technology less than 6 hours a day, and parents stated children used them less than 8 hours a day. Quantitative data shows the children use technology at least 10 hours a day, suggesting usage self-reports may not be reliable. The study revealed hardware form factor was the number one determinate of application use. Almost exclusively social media was used on smartphones, internet browsing on tablets, and creative endeavors such as modding, hacking, fan fiction writing, and video game level building all took place exclusively on laptops and desktops. Concurrent use of differing hardware form factors was the norm observed. Participants stated YouTube, Wikipedia and Khan Academy were the websites most used for knowledge gathering. The tracking software verified YouTube and Wikipedia were the most used websites, however when accessed on the PC, those sites were used almost exclusively for video game related purposes. Over 90% of the total PC use was spent on video games. More traditional educational activities were done primarily on tablets and on parent smartphones with parental engagement. Khan Academy was not used by the
participants in the 14 day monitoring period. 90 day web browser logs indicated Khan Academy was used by individuals no more than 3 times in a 90 day period,
demonstrating the inherent risks in relying upon internet usage self-reports without
quantitative software for verification. Unschooling children spent between 30 and 60 hours a week using technology.
schools, curricula, grades and tests. Unschool practitioners have complete freedom to choose what they want to learn, when, to what level, and for how long. Unschooling families use the World Wide Web to provide a bespoke academic experience at home. This study compares qualitative data collected from questionnaires and semi-structured interviews conducted with 10 unschooling families with quantitative data collected from 5 children within these families using a tracking and monitoring software. The software captured the duration of use, keystrokes, mouseclicks, and screenshots for all programs and websites for 14 days. Children stated they used technology less than 6 hours a day, and parents stated children used them less than 8 hours a day. Quantitative data shows the children use technology at least 10 hours a day, suggesting usage self-reports may not be reliable. The study revealed hardware form factor was the number one determinate of application use. Almost exclusively social media was used on smartphones, internet browsing on tablets, and creative endeavors such as modding, hacking, fan fiction writing, and video game level building all took place exclusively on laptops and desktops. Concurrent use of differing hardware form factors was the norm observed. Participants stated YouTube, Wikipedia and Khan Academy were the websites most used for knowledge gathering. The tracking software verified YouTube and Wikipedia were the most used websites, however when accessed on the PC, those sites were used almost exclusively for video game related purposes. Over 90% of the total PC use was spent on video games. More traditional educational activities were done primarily on tablets and on parent smartphones with parental engagement. Khan Academy was not used by the
participants in the 14 day monitoring period. 90 day web browser logs indicated Khan Academy was used by individuals no more than 3 times in a 90 day period,
demonstrating the inherent risks in relying upon internet usage self-reports without
quantitative software for verification. Unschooling children spent between 30 and 60 hours a week using technology.
ContributorsCurtice, Brian (Author) / Gee, James (Thesis advisor) / Gee, Elisabeth (Committee member) / Savenye, Wilhelmina (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
This project draws on sociocognitive rhetoric to ask, How, in complex situations not of our making, do we determine what needs to be done and how to leverage available means for the health of our communities and institutions? The project pulls together rhetorical concepts of the stochastic arts (those that demand the most precise, careful planning in the least predictable places) and techne (problem-solving tools that transform limits and barriers into possibilities) to forward a stochastic techne that grounds contemplative social action at the intersection of invention and intervention and mastery and failure in real time, under constraints we can't control and outcomes we can't predict. Based on 18 months of fieldwork with the Sudanese refugee diaspora in Phoenix, I offer a method for engaging in postmodern phronesis with community partners in four ways: 1) Explanations and examples of public listening and situational mapping 2) Narratives that elucidate the stochastic techne, a heuristic for determining and testing wise rhetorical action 3) Principles for constructing mutually collaborative, mutually beneficial community-university/ community-school partnerships for jointly addressing real-world issues that matter in the places where we live 4) Descriptions and explanations that ground the hard rhetorical work of inventing new paths and destinations as some of the Sudanese women construct hybridized identities and models of social entrepreneurship that resist aid-to-Africa discourse based on American paternalism and humanitarianism and re-cast themselves as micro-financers of innovative work here and in Southern Sudan. Finally, the project pulls back from the Sudanese to consider implications for re-figuring secondary English education around phronesis. Here, I offer a framework for teachers to engage in the real work of problem-posing that aims - as Django Paris calls us - to get something done by confronting the issues that confront our communities. Grounded in classroom instruction, the chapter provides tools for scaffolding public listening, multi-voiced inquiries, and phronesis with and for local publics. I conclude by calling for English education to abandon all pretense of being a predictive science and to instead embrace productive knowledge-making and the rhetorical work of phronesis as the heart of secondary English studies.
ContributorsClifton, Jennifer (Author) / Long, Elenore (Thesis advisor) / Gee, James Paul (Committee member) / Paris, Django (Committee member) / Warriner, Doris (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
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