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Description
In this dissertation I attempt to find elements of education and curricular perspective in the Qur'an. I argue that there is little research in the field of curriculum instruction that discusses the Qur'an's educational aspects and, as a result, much ignorance of the Qur'an's material that deals with education and curricular perspective in the Qur'an. Researchers may find many materials that deal with reading, memorizing, and reciting the Qur'an, along with references that deal with science and math in the Qur'an. Therefore, this dissertation answers the question: What curriculum exists within the Quran? This dissertation is divided into five chapters exploring various aspects of the curriculum. The word "curriculum" is used in one chapter to mean developing the person as a whole in all aspects of life whether spiritual, social, or mental while in the other chapter curriculum is used to refer to methods of instruction. I concluded that curriculum in the Qur'an uses different methods of instructions to develop the individual as a whole in all aspects of life while granting freedom of choice.
ContributorsRisha, Sarah (Author) / Margolis, Eric (Thesis advisor) / Fischman, Gustavo (Committee member) / Ali, Souad (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
In this study, the Arizona State University Mathematics and Science Teaching Fellows 2010 program was analyzed qualitatively from start to finish to determine the impact of the research experience on teachers in the classroom. The sample for the study was the 2010 cohort of eight high school science teachers. Erickson's (1986) interpretive, participant observational fieldwork method was used to report data by means of detailed descriptions of the research experience and classroom implementation. Data was collected from teacher documents, interviews, and observations. The findings revealed various factors that were responsible for an ineffective implementation of the research experience in the classroom such as research experience, curriculum support, availability of resources, and school curriculum. Implications and recommendations for future programs are discussed in the study.
ContributorsSen, Tapati (Author) / Baker, Dale (Thesis advisor) / Culbertson, Robert (Committee member) / Margolis, Eric (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
ABSTRACT This qualitative study examines how high school art teachers conceive of being a good art teacher. Motivated by my own experiences as an art teacher, I designed this study to add teachers' voices to the conversation surrounding quality in education. My research design included a narrative strand and an arts-based strand. In the narrative strand, I interviewed and observed 12 high school art educators from a major city in the southwest. I conducted an autoethnographic reflection exploring my connection to the research topic and research process. In the arts-based strand I used fiber-arts to further understand my topic. I wrote this dissertation using a narrative approach, blending the traditional research format, voices of participants, and my autoethnographic reflection. I included the results of my arts-based approach in the final chapter. Findings suggest that the teachers in this study conceptualize being a good art teacher as a process of identity construction. Each of the teachers understood what it meant to be a good art teacher in unique ways, connected to their personal experiences and backgrounds. As the teachers engaged in identity work to become the kind of art teacher they wanted to be, they engaged in a process of identity construction that consisted of four steps. I propose a model of identity construction in which the teachers chose teaching practices, evaluated those practices, identified challenges to their identities, and selected strategies to confirm, assert, or defend their desired identities. The findings have implications for teachers to become reflective practitioners; for teacher educators to prepare teachers to engage in reflective practices; and for administrators and policy makers to take into account the cyclical and personal nature of identity construction. This study also has implications for further research including the need to examine the dispositions of art teachers, teachers' evolving conceptions of what it means to be a good art teacher, and the effect labeling teachers' quality has on their identity construction.
ContributorsAndrelchik, Hillary (Author) / Erickson, Mary (Thesis advisor) / Young, Bernard (Committee member) / Margolis, Eric (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
This study focuses on the principles of caring and respect for persons, and how they are manifested in the preschool classroom. Caring and respect are core ethical principles. When applied, they inform our thinking and guide our behavior. Leading ethicists, including Immanuel Kant and Nel Noddings, have argued that caring and respect are vital elements in ethical human relationships. This dissertation is at the forefront of a new line of inquiry which is seeking to connect the philosophical with the empirical in ways that can be illuminating for both, and for education research and practice more generally. The study connects ethical theory with a qualitative analysis of how the principles of caring and respect do and do not manifest in pre-K classrooms. The empirical portion of this study is a secondary data analysis of classroom videos collected for a large-scale research project conducted by the National Center for Research on Early Childhood Education (NCRECE). Using maximum variation sampling, I identified six preschool classrooms to examine in regard to my research questions and identify observable behaviors associated with caring and respectful interactions. These video samples of teachers interactions with small and larger groups of children were then transcribed, described, analyzed, and discussed through the lens of the ethics of care and respect for persons. The study found that caring and respect for persons were either not demonstrated or were demonstrated in very limited ways in the observable behaviors of teachers in the samples of preschool classrooms under examination. These findings point to the importance of connecting ethics and practice in educational research and the professional development of early childhood educators.
ContributorsPaxton, Kate (Author) / Margolis, Eric (Thesis advisor) / Swadener, Beth (Thesis advisor) / Fischman, Gustavo (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
Black Rock City is a temporary city existing for one week in the harsh desert of northern Nevada. It plays host to the Burning Man festival with over 300 large-scale art installations and is considered to be the largest interactive art festival in the world. Besides the main burn, smaller local regional events have developed. These regional events encompass many of the same tenets as Burning Man including the presentation of large-scale art. Burn2 is the regional event held on the virtual world, Second Life. In 2013, both events used the theme of Cargo Cult as a stepping off point for the artists. Through the lens of spectacle, I used art criticism as a way to gain understanding of the artworks.
Art criticism is a means of interpreting and appreciating artwork and is often used in the art classroom. Edmund Feldman's method promotes a deeper understanding of art and consists of four steps: description, formal analysis, interpretation and judgment. Using Feldman's method, I analyzed three artworks from the 2013 Burning Man festival and three works from Burn2. From interviews, photographs, and personal observations I analyzed the artworks. I used external analysis to compare the literature on similar festivals and the artworks with other events held in the real life and virtual world.
I found in both events very similar concepts and themes. Artists had specific subject matter in mind when designing their installations. Artists used the theme as a stepping off point for rationalizing their content. Art made to be displayed at Burning Man was expensive; funding was a concern for all the artists. Burn2 artists were free from funding concerns even though there were expenses to making art in Second Life. Emerging themes were use of building materials and color, use of electronics and computer technology, art installations in festivals, spectacle, collaboration, and interactivity. Further implications included teaching about the engineering of structures, critical thinking about festival themes and the individual art installations, visual culture, and art making with these emerging art forms.
Art criticism is a means of interpreting and appreciating artwork and is often used in the art classroom. Edmund Feldman's method promotes a deeper understanding of art and consists of four steps: description, formal analysis, interpretation and judgment. Using Feldman's method, I analyzed three artworks from the 2013 Burning Man festival and three works from Burn2. From interviews, photographs, and personal observations I analyzed the artworks. I used external analysis to compare the literature on similar festivals and the artworks with other events held in the real life and virtual world.
I found in both events very similar concepts and themes. Artists had specific subject matter in mind when designing their installations. Artists used the theme as a stepping off point for rationalizing their content. Art made to be displayed at Burning Man was expensive; funding was a concern for all the artists. Burn2 artists were free from funding concerns even though there were expenses to making art in Second Life. Emerging themes were use of building materials and color, use of electronics and computer technology, art installations in festivals, spectacle, collaboration, and interactivity. Further implications included teaching about the engineering of structures, critical thinking about festival themes and the individual art installations, visual culture, and art making with these emerging art forms.
ContributorsKrecker, Linda Susan (Author) / Stokrocki, Mary (Thesis advisor) / Young, Bernard (Committee member) / Margolis, Eric (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
Michael Apple's scholarship on curriculum, educational ideology, and official knowledge continues to be influential to the study of schooling. Drawing on the sociological insights of Pierre Bourdieu and the cultural studies approaches of Raymond Williams, Apple articulates a theory of schooling that pays particular attention to how official knowledge is incorporated into the processes of schooling, including textbooks. In an effort to contribute to Apple's scholarship on textbooks, this study analyzed high school American history textbooks from the 1960s through the 2000s with specific attention to the urban riots of the late-1960s, sixties counterculture, and the women's movement utilizing Julia Kristeva's psychoanalytic concept of abjection to augment Apple's theory of knowledge incorporation. This combination reveals not only how select knowledge is incorporated as official knowledge, but also how knowledge is treated as abject, as unfit for the curricular body of official knowledge and the selective tradition of American history. To bridge the theoretical frameworks of incorporation and abjection Raymond Williams' theory of structures of feeling and Slavoj iek's theory of ideological quilting are employed to show how feelings and emotional investments maintain ideologies. The theoretical framework developed and the interpretive analyses undertaken demonstrate how textbook depictions of these historical events structure students' present educational experiences with race, class, and gender.
ContributorsKearl, Benjamin (Author) / Margolis, Eric (Thesis advisor) / Blumenfeld-Jones, Donald (Committee member) / Sandlin, Jennifer (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
This study gathers the expertise of three reputable art teachers, through analysis of qualitative data collected during in-person interviews and classroom observations, as they share their experiences and insights regarding successful methods of motivating and engaging students in their beginning-level art classes. Various works of literature regarding educational motivation are reviewed, and this study begins to address the need for additional research involving this issue, as it applies to teachers of art. Commonalities between the motivational tactics of the participating teachers are discussed, as well as comparison of findings to existing literature. This may be useful to art teachers who are new to the field or who are seeking information regarding successful methods of encouraging motivation and engagement in their beginning -level art classes.
ContributorsClark, Erica (Author) / Young, Bernard (Thesis advisor) / Erickson, Mary (Committee member) / Stokrocki, Mary (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
This visually rich qualitative teacher-action research focuses on the personal learning experience a classroom of first grade students had as they grew in understanding of difference through daily interactions with young friends who have severe disabilities. Each first grader spent 30 minutes, one day a week, visiting the special education classroom down the hall, which was home to their friends who needed total care and spent a majority of their day in a wheelchair.
During these visits, the first graders enjoyed interacting with their friends using a variety of manipulatives, music, movement, games, books, and art. This experience was loosely supervised by the special education teacher after students were given instructions on stations and activities available that day. Upon returning to their classroom, the students reflected on the experience. Reflection for the first few weeks was through oral discussion to build a community feel and common language. Written reflections were later kept in student-created journals.
Though this experience began in the fall, data for this exploration was collected during the Spring semester of the 2013-2014 school year. The following questions guided the design and implementation of this study: 1) How do children make sense of their interactions with children who have severe disabilities, and what do their words reveal regarding their understandings about and across difference?
2) What do interactions between students “look like,” and what can “doing” reveal about human interactions?
Data collection and analysis were informed through a critical, ethnographic-like lens with a participant perspective from the teacher-researcher. Photos and video documentation focused on the hands and feet of the participants to ensure privacy rights. Interviews, journal entries, photo elicitation, and a focus group discussion provided the remainder of the data set after parental permission and participant assent.
Findings are shared visually with an invitation to enter a child’s lifeworld via their voice, both written and verbal. Readers are asked to ponder the evidence through the shared voice and visions and consider the impact of the affective realm on learning and understanding and its significance in all of human interactions—all the selves and all the others.
During these visits, the first graders enjoyed interacting with their friends using a variety of manipulatives, music, movement, games, books, and art. This experience was loosely supervised by the special education teacher after students were given instructions on stations and activities available that day. Upon returning to their classroom, the students reflected on the experience. Reflection for the first few weeks was through oral discussion to build a community feel and common language. Written reflections were later kept in student-created journals.
Though this experience began in the fall, data for this exploration was collected during the Spring semester of the 2013-2014 school year. The following questions guided the design and implementation of this study: 1) How do children make sense of their interactions with children who have severe disabilities, and what do their words reveal regarding their understandings about and across difference?
2) What do interactions between students “look like,” and what can “doing” reveal about human interactions?
Data collection and analysis were informed through a critical, ethnographic-like lens with a participant perspective from the teacher-researcher. Photos and video documentation focused on the hands and feet of the participants to ensure privacy rights. Interviews, journal entries, photo elicitation, and a focus group discussion provided the remainder of the data set after parental permission and participant assent.
Findings are shared visually with an invitation to enter a child’s lifeworld via their voice, both written and verbal. Readers are asked to ponder the evidence through the shared voice and visions and consider the impact of the affective realm on learning and understanding and its significance in all of human interactions—all the selves and all the others.
ContributorsStruble, Gwen J (Author) / Swadener, Beth Blue (Thesis advisor) / Sandlin, Jennifer (Thesis advisor) / Margolis, Eric (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
Abstract
On a daily basis I am bombarded with images in every walk of life. I encounter images crossing my path constantly through media such as the internet, television, magazines, radio, social media, even in the grocery store line on screens intended to capture our attention. As I drive down the roadways, I am invaded by images that at times can be distracting with their dazzling displays, attempting to get our attention and get us to consume their product or service or understand a historical meaning. In this dissertation I intend on looking at murals and two social studies textbooks to focus types of media; then construct an argument about how these media impact social studies curricula in the communities in which they are located taking into consideration race, social class, language, location, and culture. The intent is to critically analyze traditional curricula and curricula found in public pedagogy in communities located on the borderlands. I also asked local high school-aged students, teachers, artists, and activists from both sides of the border analyze the images through photo elicitation and traditional interviews. Students were interviewed with a focus on interpreted meanings of images presented. Teachers and artists were interviewed to discover their intended meanings as displayed through their production and circulation of intended meanings via lessons and the images they select or create. Activists were interviewed to discover local history, images, and history of the educational space where the artwork and schools are located. I used these data to create an argument as to how these forms of media impacts school curricula in the areas on both sides of the United States/Mexico border. The study was conducted in border cities El Paso, Texas and Juarez, Chihuahua. The ultimate goal was to look at how academics and curricula developers can use this information to decolonize curricula in the field of curricula studies. Moreover, this information can be used to create decolonized ideologies in curricula that can be used at the school sites to promote diversity and social justice for students in their schooling experience.
On a daily basis I am bombarded with images in every walk of life. I encounter images crossing my path constantly through media such as the internet, television, magazines, radio, social media, even in the grocery store line on screens intended to capture our attention. As I drive down the roadways, I am invaded by images that at times can be distracting with their dazzling displays, attempting to get our attention and get us to consume their product or service or understand a historical meaning. In this dissertation I intend on looking at murals and two social studies textbooks to focus types of media; then construct an argument about how these media impact social studies curricula in the communities in which they are located taking into consideration race, social class, language, location, and culture. The intent is to critically analyze traditional curricula and curricula found in public pedagogy in communities located on the borderlands. I also asked local high school-aged students, teachers, artists, and activists from both sides of the border analyze the images through photo elicitation and traditional interviews. Students were interviewed with a focus on interpreted meanings of images presented. Teachers and artists were interviewed to discover their intended meanings as displayed through their production and circulation of intended meanings via lessons and the images they select or create. Activists were interviewed to discover local history, images, and history of the educational space where the artwork and schools are located. I used these data to create an argument as to how these forms of media impacts school curricula in the areas on both sides of the United States/Mexico border. The study was conducted in border cities El Paso, Texas and Juarez, Chihuahua. The ultimate goal was to look at how academics and curricula developers can use this information to decolonize curricula in the field of curricula studies. Moreover, this information can be used to create decolonized ideologies in curricula that can be used at the school sites to promote diversity and social justice for students in their schooling experience.
ContributorsGonzales, Darlene M (Author) / Margolis, Eric (Thesis advisor) / Ovando, Carlos (Committee member) / Malewski, Erik (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
This qualitative research study was about art teachers’ perceptions and practices of cultural diversity and its implications for the U.S. The purpose of the study was to provide a rationale for the need for learning institutions to recognize the changing demographics and to respond to the potential educational implications of the new demographics as they prepare their art teachers to educate diverse student populations. The study involved six art teachers who teach in schools with students from diverse cultural backgrounds. To collect data, interviews with participants were transcribed and analyzed. Analysis of teacher interviews showed the importance of helping art teachers to obtain the skills, attitudes, dispositions and knowledge to work effectively with students from diverse cultural backgrounds. The richness of the descriptions obtained from the interviews provides insight into multicultural art education in schools. The results of this study might help art educators and policy makers understand the need for more awareness of multicultural education and its impact on teachers, parents, administrators and students. This study concludes with suggestions on art education, including the need to develop curriculum that are inclusive to multicultural students, especially Islamic from cultures. Art education programs in universities should produce teachers who are prepared for the cultural diversity in their classrooms. It is essential that teachers accept and implement changes in their communities, in their schools, and in their teaching in order to better serve students of culturally diverse backgrounds.
ContributorsMasrya, Mawadah (Author) / Young, Bernard (Thesis advisor) / Stokrocki, Mary (Committee member) / Erickson, Mary (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016