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Description
Effectively educating students with autism is a necessary element in providing all students with a free and appropriate public education, and as the number of students diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder continues to increase in both public and private educational settings, providing successful and satisfactory professional development opportunities in the area of autism is becoming increasingly essential. This study explored the experiences of twenty-three educators in a suburban southwest K-12 public school district, as they participated in a fifteen-hour professional development course in an online or face-to-face format, and collaboratively problem-solved their challenges in educating students with autism. Qualitative data was collected from participants' weekly written reflections and comments from a pre- and post-survey on attitudes, to determine quality of and satisfaction with collaboration in relation to course format. Results indicated that the online format produced higher-quality collaboration when it came to presenting one's own situation(s) to the group, finding group discussions helpful, having enough time to collaborate, providing feedback/suggestions to group members, and perceiving suggestions for one's own situation as helpful (as evidenced by the number of suggestions that participants said they would likely implement). The face-to-face format produced higher-quality collaboration when it came to in-depth problem-solving regarding a situation, implementing suggestions for one's own situation, and relating course content to collaborative activities. Participants' attitudes about using technology as a means of collaboration showed little change overall from pre- to post-survey. Though slight increases in positive attitudes concerning technology were found in various areas, many participants still thought highly of a face-to-face format for collaborative purposes, even after participating in the online professional development course. Findings may be of use to educational institutions developing online or face-to-face professional development opportunities in the area of autism.
ContributorsWozniak, Renee M (Author) / McCoy, Kathleen M. (Thesis advisor) / Puckett, Kathleen (Committee member) / Gehrke, Rebecca (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
Alfred de Musset (1810-1857) is one of the greatest playwrights of the Romantic era. The most attractive fact of his work is the diversity of topics, genres, tones, opinions and styles. Musset's theater was created in the romantic drama period, which was influenced by abroad. He sought freedom of creation and sometimes showed independence from writers taking his own initiatives to change and mix different writing styles. Throughout the different parts of this thesis, I analyzed in detail the dramatic work of Musset, especially through his two plays, Les Caprices de Marianne (1833) and On ne Badine pas avec l'Amour (1834), to study the artistic originality of such an exceptionally talented artist. He lived in the Romantic period but never forgot his predecessors to whom he paid tribute. He was influenced by them while preserving his work's originality. This thesis consists of two chapters, the first is devoted to the Romanticism and its influence on Musset's dramatic work, and the second is about the different literary doctrines that have left their mark on Musset's theater. By studying them, I show how Musset used his talent to mix and match these several types of doctrines to create a unique artwork that is still alive and interesting today.
ContributorsAlavi, Azadeh (Author) / Canovas, Frédéric (Thesis advisor) / Cruse, Markus (Committee member) / Gallais, Sylvain (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
This study examines the experiences of participants enrolled in an online community college jazz history course. I surveyed the participants before the course began and observed them in the online space through the duration of the course. Six students also participated in interviews during and after the course. Coded data from the interviews, surveys, and recorded discussion posts and journal entries provided evidence about the nature of interaction and engagement in learning in an online environment. I looked for evidence either supporting or detracting from a democratic online learning environment, concentrating on the categories of student engagement, freedom of expression, and accessibility. The data suggested that the participants' behaviors in and abilities to navigate the online class were influenced by their pre-existing native media habits. Participants' reasons for enrolling in the online course, which included convenience and schedule flexibility, informed their actions and behaviors in the class. Analysis revealed that perceived positive student engagement did not contribute to a democratic learning environment but rather to an easy, convenient experience in the online class. Finally, the data indicated that participants' behaviors in their future lives would not be affected by the online class in that their learning experiences were not potent enough to alter or inform their behavior in society. As online classes gain popularity, the ability of these classes to provide meaningful learning experiences must be questioned. Students in this online jazz history class presented, at times, a façade of participation and community building but demonstrated a lack of sincerity and interest in the course. The learning environment supported accessibility and freedom of expression to an extent, but students' engagement with their peers was limited. Overall, this study found a need for more research into the quality of online classes as learning platforms that support democracy, student-to-student interaction, and community building.
ContributorsHunter, Robert W. (Author) / Stauffer, Sandra L (Thesis advisor) / Tobias, Evan (Thesis advisor) / Bush, Jeffrey (Committee member) / Kocour, Michael (Committee member) / Pilafian, Sam (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
This dissertation reports on an action research study that sought to discover how a new WiFi, tablet computing device, the Apple iPad, affected, enhanced, and impacted student engagement in an English Honors course at Scottsdale Community College. The researcher was also the instructor in the two semester, first-year, college composition sequence (English 101/102) in which all 18 students were provided the new Apple iPad tablet computing device. The researcher described how students adapted the Apple iPads to their academic lives, assessed iPad compatibility with current instructional technology systems, and interviewed participating students to document their beliefs about whether iPad activities enhanced the course. At the conclusion of the college composition sequence, 13 students agreed to participate in focus groups to describe how they made use of the iPad and to report on how the iPad influenced their engagement. Among other findings, students reported that there were compatibility problems with current SCC instructional technology systems, that the iPad increased their efficiency in completing informal educational tasks, but that the iPad was not useful for doing word processing and research. Recommendations for future use of the iPad in this course include reducing the number of iPads accessing the WiFi network at the same time, piloting the use of iPad word processing applications, researching more "mobile-friendly" web sites and documents, and developing innovative assignments that take advantage of iPad capabilities.
ContributorsTualla, Larry Tech (Author) / Clark, Christopher M. (Thesis advisor) / De Los Santos Jr., Alfredo G (Thesis advisor) / Young, Lisa C. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
Accounts in the media often demonize teachers and misrepresent what is happening in schools. Meanwhile, teachers' voices are largely absent from the national and international debates on school reform. This dissertation privileges the voices of nine participating Kindergarten through second grade teachers from a variety of public schools, including affluent schools and schools receiving full and partial Title I funding. Through observations and interviews teachers shared their narratives of classroom joys and challenges while also describing how policy has affected these experiences. A preliminary discourse analysis of these narratives was performed, identifying narratives related to nodes of the activity system of schooling. Further discourse analysis of these identified narratives revealed how these teachers' classroom experiences position them within an activity system strongly influenced by tensions between maternal relationships and the patriarchal project of schooling. A critical feminist theoretical perspective is utilized to respond to these tensions and to describe possibilities for future studies in education and the future of education in general.
ContributorsGaches, Sonya (Author) / Swadener, Elizabeth B (Thesis advisor) / Sandlin, Jennifer (Committee member) / Gee, James (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
In 2005, the Navajo Sovereignty in Education Act was signed into law by the Navajo Nation. Like the No Child Left Behind Act, this Navajo Nation legislation was as much a policy statement as it was a law. It marked the first time that the Navajo Nation linked sovereignty with education by expressing its intent to control all education within its exterior boundaries. The objective of the law was to create a department of education that would resemble the states of Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah in which the Navajo Nation resides. Through their department of education, the Navajo Nation would operate the educational functions for its populace. This study looked at the implications and impact that perspectives of this law would have on public schools within Arizona from the perspective of five superintendents in Arizona public schools within the Navajo Nation were gained through open-ended interviews. It examined the legal, fiscal, and curricular issues through the prism of sovereignty. Through the process of interviews utilizing a set of guided questions in a semi-structured format, five superintendents in Arizona public schools within the Navajo Nation shared their perspectives. Analysis of the five interviews revealed curriculum, funding, jurisdictional, and fear or mistrust as problems the Navajo Nation will need to overcome if it is to begin full control of all aspects of education within its boundaries. There is a strong need for the Department of Dine' Education to educate public schools with regards to the Navajo Nation Sovereignty in Education Act of 2005. Administrators need more training in tribal governments. Like the constitution, the Navajo Sovereignty in Education Act will be interpreted differently by different people. But, without action, it will be ignored. Within the Act's pages are the hopes of the Navajo Nation and the dreams for our young Navajo students.
ContributorsRoessel, Karina A (Author) / Appleton, Nicholas (Thesis advisor) / Spencer, Dee Ann (Thesis advisor) / Wauneka, Jacquelyne (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
Geology and its tangential studies, collectively known and referred to in this thesis as geosciences, have been paramount to the transformation and advancement of society, fundamentally changing the way we view, interact and live with the surrounding natural and built environment. It is important to recognize the value and importance of this interdisciplinary scientific field while reconciling its ties to imperial and colonizing extractive systems which have led to harmful and invasive endeavors. This intersection among geosciences, (environmental) justice studies, and decolonization is intended to promote inclusive pedagogical models through just and equitable methodologies and frameworks as to prevent further injustices and promote recognition and healing of old wounds. By utilizing decolonial frameworks and highlighting the voices of peoples from colonized and exploited landscapes, this annotated syllabus tackles the issues previously described while proposing solutions involving place-based education and the recentering of land within geoscience pedagogical models. (abstract)
ContributorsReed, Cameron E (Author) / Richter, Jennifer (Thesis director) / Semken, Steven (Committee member) / School of Earth and Space Exploration (Contributor, Contributor) / School of Sustainability (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2021-05
Description
Self-awareness and liberation often start with an analysis of the relationship between individual and society, a relationship based on the delicate balance of personal desire and responsibility to others. While societal structures, such as family, tradition, religion, and community, may be repressive to individuals, they also provide direction, identity and meaning to an individual's life. In Kate Chopin's The Awakening and André Gide's L'Immoraliste the protagonists are faced with such a dilemma. Often informed by gender roles and socio-economic class, the container or filter that society offers to shape and mediate human experience is portrayed in both novels as a fictitious self donned for society's benefit --can seem repressive or inadequate. Yet far from being one-dimensional stories of individuals who eschew the bonds of a restrictive society, both novels show that liberation can lead to entrapment. Once society's limits are transgressed, the characters face the infinitude and insatiety of their liberated desires and the danger of self-absorption. Chopin and Gide explore these issues of desire, body, and social authority in order to portray Edna's and Michel's search for an authentic self. The characters' search for authenticity allows for the loosening of restriction and embrace of desire and the body, phenomena that appear to liberate them from the dominant bourgeois society. Yet, for both Edna and Michel, an embrace of the body and individual desire threatens to unsettle the balance between individual and society. As Edna and Michel break away from society's prescribed path, both struggle to find themselves. Edna and Michel become aware of themselves in a variety of different ways: speaking and interacting with others, observing the social mores of those around them and engaging in creative activity, such as, for Edna, painting and planning a dinner party, or for Michel, teaching and writing. Chopin's 1899 novel The Awakening and André Gide's 1902 novel L'Immoraliste explore the consequences of individual liberation from the constricting bonds of religion, society, and the family. In depicting these conflicts, the authors examine the relationship between individual and society, freedom and restraint, and what an individual's relationship to his or her community should be.
ContributorsMcCulla, Jessica (Author) / Canovas, Frédéric (Committee member) / Cruse, Markus (Committee member) / Losse, Deborah (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
This study utilized ecological theory and social exchange theory to examine how father involvement effects the human capital accumulation of young mothers. This study used data from a sub-sample of young mothers taken from the Healthy Families Arizona longitudinal evaluation (N = 84). The participants in the sub-sample were between 13 and 21 years of age. Using a random effects regression model, it was found that father involvement negatively affects a young mother's school attendance over time. The probability of a mother attending school when the father is involved decreases by 12%. It was also found that for the average age mother (19 years of age), the probability of attending school decreases by 59% every additional year. Furthermore, for a mother with an average number of children (one child), every additional child she has decreases the probability of attending school by 24%. In addition it was found that for the average age mother (19 years of age) every additional year, the likelihood of being employed increases 2.9 times, and for a mother with an average number of children (one child) every additional child decreases the likelihood of employment by .88 times.
ContributorsRojas, Rose (Author) / Krysik, Judy (Thesis advisor) / Shapiro, Alyson (Committee member) / Lecroy, Craig (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
ABSTRACT As a writer and a journalist, I have always been interested in narrative. When I moved to the small town of Wickenburg, Arizona in 2003, and began to get acquainted, a friend said to me, "The only way you leave Wickenburg is in a box." The town of Wickenburg places much importance on its history, a focus that led me to explore its related literature of the U.S. West, moving from there to think about evocative objects, collections, and to Material Culture Theory. This thesis considers three objects as springboards for exploring identity, sense of place, memory, and the narrative threads that bring these together. Two of these objects are specific to local history. The first is one of the leather badges worn by the women of Las Damas, a Wickenburg horse riding association. The second is a bronze sculpture, "Fatal Dismount," created by local rancher Mary Cooper Hamill, in which the artist depicts a moment, highly significant to her family, that also speaks to and from local history. The third object is a gold bead heirloom necklace that was handed down to me, the fifth-generation recipient. I conclude with a discussion of how evocative objects, handed down across generations, shape two memoirs by Isabel Allende, Paula, and My Invented Country. In the case of each object, the study of material culture provides a framework for understanding how women have created spaces for themselves, both now and in the past by interacting with objects, articulating identities, making meaning and re-creating history through memories and storytelling.
ContributorsNeu, Lora (Author) / Horan, Elizabeth R (Thesis advisor) / Tobin, Mary E (Committee member) / Morris, Paul (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011