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Description
This action research study is the culmination of several action cycles investigating cognitive information processing and learning strategies based on students approach to learning theory and assessing students' meta-cognitive learning, motivation, and reflective development suggestive of deep learning. The study introduces a reading assignment as an integrative teaching method with the purpose of challenging students' assumptions and requiring them to think from multiple perspectives thus influencing deep learning. The hypothesis is that students who are required to critically reflect on their own perceptions will develop the deep learning skills needed in the 21st century. Pre and post surveys were used to assess for changes in students' preferred approach to learning and reflective practice styles. Qualitative data was collected in the form of student stories and student literature circle transcripts to further describe student perceptions of the experience. Results indicate stories that include examples of critical reflection may influence students to use more transformational types of reflective learning actions. Approximately fifty percent of the students in the course increased their preference for deep learning by the end of the course. Further research is needed to determine the effect of narratives on student preferences for deep learning.
ContributorsBradshaw, Vicki (Author) / Carlson, David L. (Thesis advisor) / Jordan, Michelle (Committee member) / Gagnon, Marie (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
This action research study examines what common perceptions and constructs currently exist in educating adult immigrants in Arizona and considers how might the integration of citizen science with the current English curriculum promote higher order thinking and educational equity in this population. A citizen science project called the Mastodon Matrix Project was introduced to a Level 2 ELAA (English Language Acquisition for Adults) classroom and aligned with the Arizona Adult Standards for ELAA education. Pre and post attitudinal surveys, level tests, and personal meaning maps were implemented to assess student attitudes towards science, views on technology, English skills, and knowledge gained as a result of doing citizen science over a period of 8 weeks.
ContributorsBasham, Melody (Author) / Carlson, David L. (Thesis advisor) / Jordan, Michelle (Committee member) / LePore, Paul (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
The purpose of this action research study was to examine the impact of cogenerative dialogues on instructor and student perceptions of rigor in a master's and certification program for alternatively certified teachers. Additionally, the study was designed to determine if these open dialogues would impact instructional decisions of college instructors in the program. The investigator used a mixed methods research model that included surveys, interviews, and video of the dialogues to measure the impact. The results of the study indicated that both sets of participants remained consistent in their identification and definition of the term rigor. The cogenerative dialogues did have an impact on instructor understanding of student definitions of rigor. Instructors began to change some instructional decisions as a result of the dialogues in small groups.
ContributorsDeSimone, Melissa (Author) / Carlson, David L. (Thesis advisor) / Jordan, Michelle (Committee member) / Cruz, Heather (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
ABSTRACT
It is critical for students to be provided with opportunities to learn in settings that foster their academic growth. It is equally important that schools endeavor to be a place where students’ social and emotional needs are met as well. However, due to lack of funding, over-testing, inappropriate evaluation measures, and other persistent policy pressures, our public schools have often resorted to a focus on raising standardized test scores through direct instruction with an increasingly narrowed curriculum. As a result, schools have often become places in which students, rather than being seen as valued future members of a productive society, are part of the bleak statistics that shine a spotlight on how our schools have failed to motivate and connect with the students of today. Consequently, many educators have come to believe they are not influential enough to make a significant difference, and have resigned themselves to accepting their current situation. The problem with this thinking is that it minimizes the purpose of the job we promised to do – to educate.
The innovation I implemented and describe in my dissertation can be characterized with one word – dialogue. Dialogue that occurs for the purpose of understanding and learning more about that which we do not know. In this innovation, I endeavored to demonstrate how social learning by way of dialogic discussion could not only support students’ academic growth, but their social and emotional growth as well. Results from the data collected and analyzed in this study suggest social learning had a highly positive impact both on how students learned and how they viewed themselves as learners.
Education is one of the cornerstones of our country. Educational opportunities that help meet the academic and social-emotional needs of students should not be seen as a privilege but rather as a fundamental right for all students. Equally, the right to express one’s thoughts, opinions and ideas is a foundational element in our democratic society. Failing to connect with our students and teach them how to exercise these rights in our classrooms is to fail ourselves as educators.
It is critical for students to be provided with opportunities to learn in settings that foster their academic growth. It is equally important that schools endeavor to be a place where students’ social and emotional needs are met as well. However, due to lack of funding, over-testing, inappropriate evaluation measures, and other persistent policy pressures, our public schools have often resorted to a focus on raising standardized test scores through direct instruction with an increasingly narrowed curriculum. As a result, schools have often become places in which students, rather than being seen as valued future members of a productive society, are part of the bleak statistics that shine a spotlight on how our schools have failed to motivate and connect with the students of today. Consequently, many educators have come to believe they are not influential enough to make a significant difference, and have resigned themselves to accepting their current situation. The problem with this thinking is that it minimizes the purpose of the job we promised to do – to educate.
The innovation I implemented and describe in my dissertation can be characterized with one word – dialogue. Dialogue that occurs for the purpose of understanding and learning more about that which we do not know. In this innovation, I endeavored to demonstrate how social learning by way of dialogic discussion could not only support students’ academic growth, but their social and emotional growth as well. Results from the data collected and analyzed in this study suggest social learning had a highly positive impact both on how students learned and how they viewed themselves as learners.
Education is one of the cornerstones of our country. Educational opportunities that help meet the academic and social-emotional needs of students should not be seen as a privilege but rather as a fundamental right for all students. Equally, the right to express one’s thoughts, opinions and ideas is a foundational element in our democratic society. Failing to connect with our students and teach them how to exercise these rights in our classrooms is to fail ourselves as educators.
ContributorsOhanian, Jennifer Lyn (Author) / Hermanns, Carl (Thesis advisor) / Jordan, Michelle (Committee member) / Durden, Felicia (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
As interest in making and STEM learning through making and tinkering continue to rise, understanding the nature, process, and benefits of learning STEM through making have become important topics for research. In addition to understanding the basics of learning through making and tinkering, we need to understand these activities, examine their potential benefits, and find out ways to facilitate such learning experiences for all learners with resources that are readily available. This dissertation is a study of children’s learning while tinkering inspired by the Educational Maker Movement. It is motivated by the projects that children playfully create with broken toys, art and craft resources, and other found objects, and the connections of such activities to learning. Adopting a sociocultural lens this dissertation examines eight to twelve-year-olds’ learning while tinkering in collaboration with friends and family, as well as on their own.
Using a case study methodology and studying interactions and transactions between children, materials, tools, and designs this study involves children learning while tinkering over a week-long workshop as well as over the summer in the Southwest. The three hallmarks of this study are, first, an emphasis on sociocultural nature of the development of tinkering projects; second, an emphasis on meaning making while tinkering with materials, tools, and design, and problem-solving; and third, an examination of the continuation of tinkering using newly acquired tools and skills beyond the duration of the workshop. In doing so, this dissertation contributes to the ongoing discussion of children’s playful tinkering, how and why it counts as learning, and STEM learning associated with tinkering. Implications for future learning and the ways in which tinkering connects to children’s everyday fabric of activities are considered.
Using a case study methodology and studying interactions and transactions between children, materials, tools, and designs this study involves children learning while tinkering over a week-long workshop as well as over the summer in the Southwest. The three hallmarks of this study are, first, an emphasis on sociocultural nature of the development of tinkering projects; second, an emphasis on meaning making while tinkering with materials, tools, and design, and problem-solving; and third, an examination of the continuation of tinkering using newly acquired tools and skills beyond the duration of the workshop. In doing so, this dissertation contributes to the ongoing discussion of children’s playful tinkering, how and why it counts as learning, and STEM learning associated with tinkering. Implications for future learning and the ways in which tinkering connects to children’s everyday fabric of activities are considered.
ContributorsParekh, Priyanka (Author) / Gee, Elisabeth R (Thesis advisor) / Zuiker, Steven (Committee member) / Jordan, Michelle (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
To meet the increasing demands for more STEM graduates, United States (U.S.) higher education institutions need to support the retention of minoritized populations, such as first-generation Latinas studying engineering. The theories influencing this study included critical race theory, the theory of validation, and community cultural wealth. Current advising practices, when viewed through a critical race theory lens, reinforce deficit viewpoints about students and reinforce color-blind ideologies. As such, current practices will fail to support first-generation Latina student persistence in engineering. A 10-week long study was conducted on validating advising practices. The advisors for the study were purposefully selected while the students were selected via a stratified sampling approach. Validating advising practices were designed to elicit student stories and explored the ways in which advisors validated or invalidated the students. Qualitative data were collected from interviews and reflections. Thematic analysis was conducted to study the influence of the validating advising practices. Results indicate each advisor acted as a different type of validating “agent” executing her practices described along a continuum of validating to invalidating practices. The students described their advisors’ practices along a continuum of prescriptive to developmental to transformational advising. While advisors began the study expressing deficit viewpoints of first-generation Latinas, the students shared multiple forms of navigational, social, aspirational, and informational capital. Those advisors who employed developmental and transformational practices recognized and drew upon those assets during their deployment of validating advising practices, thus leading to validation within the advising interactions.
ContributorsCoronella, Tamara (Author) / Liou, Daniel D (Thesis advisor) / Bertrand, Melanie (Committee member) / Ganesh, Tirupalavanam G. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
Much research has been conducted regarding the current state of public education within the United States. Very little of that research bodes well for the system’s current circumstances or for the direction our system is headed. The debate stems around two opposing ideologies. One believes that there needs to be more accountability via high-stakes testing and the continuum of the status quo that the country has maintained for centuries, regardless of the effect it may be having on the students’ well-being. While the opposing view sees high-stakes testing as a contributing factor to the seemingly unproductive, chaotic, and even harmful conundrum of bias and hegemony that shows a positive correlation of deleterious effects to student well-being. Although this paper references the research of highly esteemed scholars, it asserts that the voices of those that are most relegated to that of undervalued and ignored are precisely the voices that need to be gleaned most relevant. This paper’s purpose is to hear what the ‘experts’ in the field of education, the students themselves, have to say.
ContributorsKhaleesi, Casey (Author) / Swadener, Elizabeth (Thesis advisor) / Bertrand, Melanie (Committee member) / Broberg, Gregory (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
The college years are crucial to formation and integration of lifelong psychosocial, personal and cognitive identities, and the identity development needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ+ or gender and/or sexual minority) students are unique, particularly in the context of student development and support. How universities meet these needs can critically impact success and retention of these students. However, studies indicate when the academic and co-curricular environment does not foster development of healthy LGBTQ+ identities, these students experience myriad challenges compounded by identity discord and minority stress. Cumulatively, these factors contribute to non-persistence of over 30% of LGBTQ+ university students. This research study examines the ways positive LGBTQ+ identity development, cultural capital accrual and community engagement through a structured mentoring program fosters resilience and buffers the experience of minority stress and associated negative outcomes for these students. In doing so, the study addresses the following research questions: what does the process of LGBTQ+ identity construction look like for gender- and sexual-minority students, including students from non-dominant cultural backgrounds for whom LGBTQ+ identity is one of multiple competing identities, and how does mentorship affect the perceived identities of these students? How does participation in an LGBTQ+ mentoring program affect participants’ perceptions of development of resilience-building capacity?
ContributorsReeves-Blurton, Zachary Andrew (Author) / Puckett, Kathleen (Thesis advisor) / Jordan, Michelle (Committee member) / Sumner, Carol (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
Description
For this project the main goal was to create a curriculum aimed at fourth grade students. This curriculum was intended to introduce them to different forms of communication, and teach them the skills, attitudes, behavior, and knowledge that would enable them to be able to communicate and interact better with a wide range of people with different types of communication styles. American Sign Language was used for this curriculum as an example of an alternative communication method. The project included developing teaching materials and lessons which made up the curriculum, after that this curriculum was implemented with 11 fourth grade students.
ContributorsStosz, Julia Taylor (Author) / Jordan, Michelle (Thesis director) / Howard, Pamela (Committee member) / Boxwell, Pamela (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Speech and Hearing Science (Contributor)
Created2014-05
Description
The present study was conducted in order to investigate the implementation of the self-regulated learning component of goal-setting in the elementary education classroom. Essential questions posed addressed the reasoning behind why classrooms may not implement goal-setting despite the proven benefits. Also studied was the application of goal-setting within the classroom and what that may look like for educators. Finally, student preferences were observed and taken into consideration during implementation in order to help the study benefit them as much as possible. Participants included 29 fourth grade students at Rover Elementary School. The study was conducted over a six-week period by a student teacher that was completing their Senior Residency in this particular classroom. During study implementation, students were introduced to the concept of goal-setting. Using a series of goal-setting documents, students practiced goal-setting in, first, a Reader's Workshop period then, secondly, in a Writing Block. It was concluded that goal-setting may not be implemented in the classroom due to the amount of time necessary to complete the practice as well as the possibility that educators may not have the knowledge needed to properly make use of the practice. The application of the practice brings to light the need for students to include the setting of process goals in addition to product goals. Through the use of an exit survey, student preferences revealed that initially, they would rather have pre-written process goals to aim towards achieving rather than having to develop their own. In the future, it is suggested to conduct this study over a longer period of time in order to evaluate if students can develop their own goal-setting strategies.
ContributorsPavlovich, Kaitlyn Marie (Author) / Jordan, Michelle (Thesis director) / Barrus, Angela (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Division of Teacher Preparation (Contributor) / T. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics (Contributor)
Created2014-05