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- Member of: Barrett, The Honors College Thesis/Creative Project Collection
Description
For the past few decades, the education system in the United States has failed many students because of its inability to increase student achievement. While there are many layers to this problem that cannot be solved with one simple solution, a curriculum change that provides students with more engaging and hands on learning opportunities along with teaching them to be advocates for their own education and community betterment offers a great start to the momentum for change. Service-learning is an ideal way to accomplish this because it incorporates civic engagement and community service into lesson plans that directly align with academic standards. Through service-learning, students are given the opportunity to apply their knowledge in direct and hands on ways meanwhile witnessing the difference that they can make in their community with their knowledge and abilities. Service-learning is a type of instruction typically employed in high school or junior high grades because it requires the course content to coincide with a service project of some kind. In this essay, we look into the research behind service-learning as well as several issues within the community that could be addressed with this kind of curriculum. The aim of this research is to adapt the models of service-learning intended for more advanced grades to align with the standards of a first grade curriculum and also consider the critical thinking skills, self-examination abilities, and social awareness of students at this age when making these adaptations. We believe that service-learning can benefit young students just as much, if not more than older students because it can help them to see the value in their education from early on and demonstrates real life uses for what they are learning. The curriculum created from this research is intended for use at schools within low-income communities in order to empower the students to actively fight against the challenges they face that prevent them from succeeding. However, this curriculum can easily be used in any school setting and adapted to various different age levels.
ContributorsBayer, Kendall Rose (Author) / Oliver, Jill (Thesis director) / White-Taylor, Janel (Committee member) / Division of Teacher Preparation (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
This thesis explores my experience in teaching a high school music class through composition. I detail pedagogical approaches that helped to shape my lesson planning including constructivism, informal learning, and project based learning. The music education theory is put into action in a real high school setting and I explain what happened: what worked, what didn't, and what can we learn from this?
ContributorsWhelihan, Brian Peter (Author) / Tobias, Evan (Thesis director) / Schildkret, David (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Music (Contributor)
Created2014-05
Description
There is still a major underrepresentation of females in STEM fields, with many girls beginning to lose interest as early as middle school. This is due to a variety of factors including lack of role models, stereotypes, ineffective teaching methods, and peer influence. A popular way to increase female interest is through day camps and other programs where girls complete a variety of activities related to science and engineering. These activities are usually designed around problem-based learning, a student-lead approach to teaching that requires students to work collaboratively and use background knowledge to solve some sort of given problem. In this project, a day camp for middle school girls was created and implemented to increase student interest in STEM through three problem-based learning activities. By analyzing survey data, it was concluded that the camp was successful in increasing interest and changing participants' attitudes towards science. This approach to learning could be applied to other subject areas, including mathematics, to increase the interest of both male and female students at the secondary level.
ContributorsVitale, Nathalie Maria (Author) / Walters, Molina (Thesis director) / Oliver, Jill (Committee member) / Division of Teacher Preparation (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
E-Strings Academy (www.estringsacademy.wordpress.com) is a resource website intended for the beginning violinist, violist, cellist, and bassist. The mission of the website is to extend musical learning opportunities to students outside of the physical string classroom and to engage first-year string students in musical activities at home that supplement the instruction they receive in a school setting. The current website features five different areas for students to explore: lesson videos, tunes, listening activities, games, and resources. In each area, students have the opportunity to learn and reinforce musical concepts and skill sets that they will need in order to be successful in music, both in their first year of playing and beyond. I created E-Strings Academy with the intention that I use it with my own string students in my future teaching career. It is a flexible website that I will continue to revise, adapt, and enhance to best serve the needs of my students and enrich their musical learning outside of the classroom.
ContributorsCook, Christa Marie (Author) / Schmidt, Margaret (Thesis director) / Tobias, Evan (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Music (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
Jamaican folk music is categorized into three large genres, which may be broken down into smaller more specific subgenres. Work and Social Music (which includes Work Songs, Mento Music, and Social Music), Recreational Music, and Ritual and Ceremonial Music. Rastafarianism, although it is a manifestation of ritual music, is given its own section due to the large amount of information available on the subject. Included here are historical analysis of the genres, as well as musical examples. Eight folk songs are included, and four drum patterns. This paper is intended as a resource for music educators, and therefore each song includes a Quick Reference Page, which lists solfege, rhythmic motives, genre of song, and if applicable drum rhythms which may be used to accompany the song. In addition, each song includes specific information regarding appropriate performance practice and suggestions for use in the classroom.
ContributorsVillarreal, Alicia Raquel (Author) / Stauffer, Sandra (Thesis director) / Schmidt, Margaret (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Music (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
The specific focus of the curriculum guide is to encourage inquiry and exploration of sustainability with middle school students. Children need to be explicitly taught how to analyze findings, how to work together, and teachers need to begin to lay the foundation of finding ideal solutions that best serve all people. The sooner that we introduce our students to these concepts in conjunction with science concepts the better prepared they will be to face the upcoming challenges and the better developed their scientific literacy.
ContributorsSibley, Amanda Marie (Author) / Walters, Molina (Thesis director) / Oliver, Jill (Committee member) / Kurz, Terri (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Division of Teacher Preparation (Contributor)
Created2014-05
Description
Experiential learning is the process of gaining new information by participating in some sort of experience. One way this can occur inside the classroom, as in the inquiry model or problem-based learning. It can also occur outside of the classroom, as in outdoor education or field trips. Recently, virtual experiential learning opportunities have surfaced, including virtual field trips, experiments, and manipulatives. This project aims to define experiential learning, including examples in every context. Then, it describes current elementary school teachers' perceptions of experiential learning via survey results. The final product also includes an Appendix which is made up of experiential learning lesson plans for each context.
ContributorsMccoy, Maddilyn (Author) / Walters, Molina (Thesis director) / Oliver, Jill (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Division of Teacher Preparation (Contributor)
Created2013-12
Description
Crescendo, an after school program that was created to fulfill the Thesis/Creative Project requirement for Barrett, the Honors College, linked musical excellence with academic excellence in pursuit of social change for sixty of Tempe's underprivileged students in Thew Elementary School. This program focused on five main objectives: musical excellence through refined music education, academic excellence through tutorship, promotion of a positive self-image through community performances, development of strong communication skills through ensemble experience, and accessibility to students by providing the program free of cost. Students enrolled in this program were involved in musical rehearsal, college readiness sessions, a field trip to the Musical Instrument Museum, a music performance for the community, and academic assistance. Results of the overall effectiveness of the program were measured through a pre/post survey that was administered to the students and through dialogue with the teachers and parents of the participating students. The literary component of this project discusses the need for the integrations of outside arts organizations, like Crescendo, into schools, outlines the startup tasks of an arts education program (i.e. acquiring funding, designating volunteers, receiving permission, pinpointing a group of participants, etc.), offers before/after snapshot of the progress of the student participants, and provides a comparison to other programs of its type.
ContributorsGamboa, Stephen Allen (Author) / Smith, J.B. (Thesis director) / Creviston, Hannah (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Music (Contributor)
Created2014-05
DescriptionThis project largely focuses on the Latino population and how Hispanic parents should become more involved with their student's education in order to have them prosper in today's society.
ContributorsSanchez Ruiz, Dorian Nazaret (Author) / Walters, Molina (Thesis director) / Oliver, Jill (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor)
Created2014-05
Description
In modern music and theater education, there is a lack of basic understanding for the "rhythm" aspect in artistic performance. Through my upbringing in musical theater and the a cappella music world in my community, I realized there was an opportunity to fill the gap with teaching beatboxing. By applying vocal percussion to a theater or music curriculum, it would provide a new, creative outlet for young artists by allowing them to explore their capabilities in artistic performance as well as help them flex new muscles for diction and expression training. I created a vocal percussion "language", a basic notation system that would help students learn and retain their beatboxing training through an extra layer of communication and memorization. I conducted a two day Vocal Percussion Seminar where artists could come and learn about the history and origins of beatboxing, the basic sounds in beatboxing, proper warm-ups for building an individual's skills, how to write and practice vocal percussion notation, and practice vocal percussion performance with beatboxing technology. I created two worksheets as visual aids the workshop: A "Sounds of Beatboxing" worksheet identifying where certain beatboxing sounds occur in the mouth and a "Vocal Percussion Notation" worksheet that can be used as a visual aid for crafting and practicing beatboxing according to the notation guidelines. The intention of this seminar is to be a "Phase One", a version that can be updated and changed for future evolution in education styles and beatboxing knowledge. Despite challenges in attendance and circumstances, "Phase One" of the seminar was a success. In my final paper, I discuss my inspiration for the seminar, the rise of beatboxing's presence in theater, the trends of language and rhythm in artistic performance, the tools behind beatboxing, the application of the International Phonetic Alphabet and Knight-Thompson Speechwork, the workshop's development process, the results of the first phase of the seminar, my plan of action for the seminar's future. Everyone has the tools to generate a powerful and impactful performance, but it is how you use the tools to craft your final product.
ContributorsRhiner, Jennie Lynn (Author) / Yatso, Toby (Thesis director) / Espinosa, Micha (Committee member) / School of Music (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-05