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Description
A reform movement in the United States has focused on STEM education and 21st century soft skills such as critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity. This spotlight on STEM instruction provided an opportunity to explore how K-14 STEM teacher participants perceived a Design Thinking Instructional Problems (DTIP) approach to

A reform movement in the United States has focused on STEM education and 21st century soft skills such as critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity. This spotlight on STEM instruction provided an opportunity to explore how K-14 STEM teacher participants perceived a Design Thinking Instructional Problems (DTIP) approach to developing instructional lessons. The study used a convergent parallel mixed-methods design with a survey instrument and a multiple case study focused on K-14 in-service STEM teachers. Data were collected from teacher participants during two five-week summer Research Experience for Teachers (RET) programs as part of two separate National Science Foundation (NSF) funded Engineering Research Centers (ERC) located at a large southwestern university in the United States (n=16). The study was conducted over three phases. During Phase I and II, teacher participants experienced a Design Thinking Overview workshop and weekly DTIP professional development sessions to facilitate the development of an RET instructional lesson. Pre- and post-program DTIP surveys and background interviews were conducted with all teacher participants (n=16). From this original group, teacher participants were selected as cases. Implementation observations and post-implementation interviews were conducted with these case-teachers (n=10). The study included frequency analysis and descriptive statistics of survey data. Qualitative data were analyzed using direct interpretation, thematic analysis, and open coding with the constant comparative method. A variety of arrays, summaries, and matrices were used to visualize patterns across and within individual case-teacher results. All 16 teacher participants viewed themselves as designers solving complex instructional problems. All 16 teacher participants found the DTIP professional development sessions to have somewhat to very much provided additional value during their RET summer programs. Six of the 10 case-teachers perceived the DTIP model graphic as mostly to completely corresponding to the way in which they developed their RET instructional lesson. Lastly, eight of the 10 case-teachers chose to embed a Design Thinking student learning strategy into the RET instructional lesson they developed.
ContributorsElwood, Kristin (Author) / Savenye, Wilhelmina (Thesis advisor) / Jordan, Michelle E (Committee member) / Henriksen, Danah (Committee member) / Mishra, Punya (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
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Description
Preservice teachers are faced with many challenges as they enter their first year of teaching. This is particularly true when dealing with future-ready skills, such as technology integration in K-12 classrooms, an area where many higher education or teaching faculty may not feel comfortable or fluent enough to support

Preservice teachers are faced with many challenges as they enter their first year of teaching. This is particularly true when dealing with future-ready skills, such as technology integration in K-12 classrooms, an area where many higher education or teaching faculty may not feel comfortable or fluent enough to support preservice teachers or to model in their own instruction.

This action research study aimed to understand how faculty develop Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) in ways that will help them to enhance their instruction and model technology integration for preservice teachers. An online community was created that allowed teacher educators to interact synchronously or asynchronously to collaborate, learn, and practice new technological skills. This community served as a place for teacher educators to play with new technology and to share their ideas and practices with their peers—ideally to begin the process of developing the knowledge and fluency with technology that would allow them to better support teacher education students.

Both qualitative and quantitative data were used to explore faculty’s development of TPACK. A pre-survey, retrospective pre-survey, and post-survey were administered and analyzed. Also, interviews of participants and observations of the online community were used to collect qualitative data.

The results of the study showed an increase in participants’ confidence for selecting technologies to enhance their instruction after they participated in the online community. Also, the participants felt more confident using strategies that combine content, technologies, and teaching approaches in their classrooms or other learning environments.

In Chapter 5, a discussion of the findings was presented, in which several main implications are shared for researchers who might be engaged in similar work. Also, the lessons learned from this action research are explained, as well as the limitations experienced in this study.
ContributorsScott, Lynda (Author) / Henriksen, Danah (Thesis advisor) / Mishra, Punya (Committee member) / Wolf, Leigh (Committee member) / Leahy, Sean (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
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Description
To address national technology standards for PK-12 educators and accreditation requirements, Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College has developed an approach to preparing its teacher candidates by infusing technological learning experiences in its preparation programs. Faculty members have been expected to teach with technology, model various levels of technology integration, and

To address national technology standards for PK-12 educators and accreditation requirements, Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College has developed an approach to preparing its teacher candidates by infusing technological learning experiences in its preparation programs. Faculty members have been expected to teach with technology, model various levels of technology integration, and provide their students with appropriate learning to develop their digital pedagogy skills. Part-time faculty members have been responsible for teaching courses with these requirements but often lacked access to professional development opportunities and support. The lead technology strategist in the college determined these part-time instructors needed improved strategies for knowledge development, support, and networking. Thus, an online community of practice was created as a potential solution to this problem of practice. This mixed methods study examined how part-time instructors participated in an online community of practice (OCoP) housed in two digital platforms, Canvas and Slack. Elements of the OCoP included learning sessions and resources based upon the Teacher Educator Technology Competencies (TETCs), the Technological Pedagogical Content (TPACK) framework, and elements integral to communities of practice. The investigation included measuring the influence of the OCoP on participants’ technology knowledge, technology skills, technology use, and technological self-efficacy. Participants were part-time faculty members responsible for teaching courses in various teacher preparation programs in the college. Data from the study included survey data, Canvas and Slack analytics describing use, lesson analyses and observational notes, and interviews. Results suggested the OCoP was an effective intervention for the purpose of providing digital connections for part-time faculty to develop professionally with respect to teaching with technology. Participants displayed an increase in TPACK, TETC, and self-efficacy construct scores and demonstrated development in technology knowledge, technology skills, technology use, and technological self-efficacy. The discussion focused on describing the complementarity of the quantitative and qualitative data, explaining the findings in relation to the literature, and presenting limitations, implications for practice and research, lessons learned, and conclusions.
ContributorsDonner, Jodie (Author) / Buss, Ray R (Thesis advisor) / Henriksen, Danah (Committee member) / Lindsey, LeeAnn (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021
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Description
This action research is about empowering teachers to communicate positively in discourses with parents at Individual Education Plan (IEP) meetings. It builds on the premise that giving teachers communications tools will increase their motivation to communicate more effectively and to be aware of their dialogue behavior. Taking a case study

This action research is about empowering teachers to communicate positively in discourses with parents at Individual Education Plan (IEP) meetings. It builds on the premise that giving teachers communications tools will increase their motivation to communicate more effectively and to be aware of their dialogue behavior. Taking a case study approach, I investigated how to encourage five special education teachers to communicate and involve parents. Parent reluctance to advocate for their student provided impetus to implement a teacher training program aimed at improving teacher ability to communicate with parents and engage their collaboration in IEP meeting processes. The methodology involved teacher interviews, IEP simulation group reflection training sessions, and IEP meeting observations. The study gave teachers an opportunity to self and group-reflect around issues of collaboration and effective communication with parents. The three-session virtual professional development (PD) covering sequential portions of an IEP meeting gave the teachers a sense of the communication flow of a meeting. Application of critical reflection to the joint community actions of role playing and discussions during the PD helped the teachers raise their communication awareness skills and carry over to their post-innovation IEP meetings.
ContributorsShapiro, Helene (Author) / Henriksen, Danah (Thesis advisor) / Rotheram-Fuller, Erin (Committee member) / Puckett, Kathleen (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021
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Description
Academic integrity among college students continues to be a problem at colleges and universities. This is particularly important for journalism students where ethical issues in the profession are critical, especially in an era of “fake news” and distrust in the media. While most journalism students study professional ethics, they do

Academic integrity among college students continues to be a problem at colleges and universities. This is particularly important for journalism students where ethical issues in the profession are critical, especially in an era of “fake news” and distrust in the media. While most journalism students study professional ethics, they do not necessarily make the connection between their future careers and their academic career. In fact, at Western Washington University (Western) a recent exploration into academic dishonesty revealed that violations were increasing, and that journalism was one of the top three majors where violations occurred (based on percent of majors). To address this problem of practice, an online academic integrity resource – specific to journalism – was developed to see whether it could increase students’ knowledge as it relates to academic integrity and decrease violations. The mixed methods action research (MMAR) study took place during summer and fall quarter at Western Washington University, a state university located in Bellingham, Washington. Participants included students who were pre-majors, majors, and minors in the three tracks of journalism: news-editorial, public relations, and visual journalism. They were given multiple opportunities to self-enroll in the Resource for Ethical Academic Development (READ) Canvas course for academic integrity. Self-efficacy theory and social learning theory provided a framework for the study. Data was collected through pre- and post-innovation surveys as well as qualitative interviews. Quantitative results suggest that there is work yet to do in order to educate students about academic integrity and potential consequences of behavior. Qualitative results suggest that one avenue may be through an online resource that provides concise and comprehensive information, models behavior relevant to the student’s own discipline, and is easily accessible. It also suggests that a culture change from a systemic emphasis on grades to a focus on growth and individual learning may be beneficial.
ContributorsKeller, Jennifer Margaret (Author) / Henriksen, Danah (Thesis advisor) / Silcock, Bill (Committee member) / VanderStaay, Steven (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021