UMD Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/3
New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a given thesis/dissertation in DRUM.
More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.
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Item Using Discourse to Improve the Quality of Student Talk and Historical Argumentative Writing(2024) Otarola, Josue; De La Paz, Susan; Special Education; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Frameworks that connect to the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy in Social Studies, such as the College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies States Standards, highlight the need to engage in inquiry-based instruction (NCSS, 2013). Participation in such inquiry requires students to engage in disciplinary thinking and to articulate that thinking to others, both verbally and in writing. However, such disciplinary thinking does not come natural to students (Wineburg, 1991). Thus, students require instruction in disciplinary thinking to learn its complexities and nuances. Once students can engage in disciplinary thinking, they can communicate it and participate in valuable discourse. Therefore, the current dissertation was conducted to explore how students use discourse to engage in argumentation and historical thinking. Chapter 2 of the dissertation is a research synthesis of studies that use discourse to improve learning outcomes in primary and secondary science and social studies classrooms. The purpose of the synthesis was to determine the impact of argumentative discourse on students’ learning outcomes and to understand the instructional components teachers use when holding discourse. Asterhan & Schwarz’s (2016) Argumentation for Learning (AFL) framework guided the research synthesis and the subsequent multiple-case study. Results indicate that discourse can be improved by using multiple instructional groupings, incorporating explicit instruction, modeling, graphic organizers and technology, and engaging students in deliberation. Chapter 3 offers findings from a multiple-case study that was designed to explore how argumentation inhibitors and enablers moderate dialogue characteristics and learning outcomes and to provide a rich description of discourse in ninth-grade US History classrooms with academically diverse students. More specifically, the study captured how students engaged in argumentative discourse and historical thinking using two different discourse structures. The study used a cross-case analysis (Yin, 2018) to compare the discourse across three cases. Each case included a teacher and four students. The first case occurred in a co-taught class, the second case included the same teacher in an honors class, and the third case included a different teacher in an honors class. The first and second case used a modified structured academic controversy (SAC), while the third case used Johnson and Johnson’s (1988) approach to SAC. The multiple-case study and the research synthesis informed the practitioner manuscript provided in Chapter 4. The manuscript details how teachers can use structure and supports to improve student participation and historical thinking in classroom discourse, especially for students with disabilities (SWD) and other struggling learners. The current dissertation provides several important findings. First, my synthesis indicated that students achieve higher learning outcomes when teachers use multiple instructional groupings, students engage in deliberative discourse, and teachers provide students with explicit instruction, modeling, and graphic organizers. Second, the findings from the multiple-case study offered insight into how students of differing academic abilities engage in argumentative discourse and historical thinking. Students of all academic abilities participated at high levels and engaged in deliberative argumentation, though there were differences in the quality of historical thinking skills. The instructional approach used in the multiple-case study is further expanded in the practitioner manuscript. Areas for future research are discussed in the dissertation.Item An Exploration of Motivation, Transfer, and Implementation During Self-Regulated Instruction and Cognitive Apprenticeships in Secondary Science and Social Studies Classrooms(2021) Butler, Cameron; De La Paz, Susan; Special Education; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The Next Generation Science Standards and the Common Core State Standards for Social Studies emphasize the importance of disciplinary literacy in helping students to think and interact with texts like experts (NCSS, 2013; NRC, 2013). Developing these skills, however, is difficult and students do not naturally display disciplinary thinking and literacy skills (Hogan & Maglienti, 2001; Wineburg, 1991). Researchers have determined several effective practices for addressing these cognitively demanding skills including the cognitive apprenticeship model with embedded self-regulated instruction (SRI; see De La Paz et al., 2017; Levin et al., 2021). In this dissertation, I discuss a range of topics that focus broadly on supporting students and teachers while they learn and teach cognitively demanding disciplinary literacy skills. I begin by examining SRI and its effects on motivation for students with or at risk for learning disabilities (LD). Next, I analyze the impact of a cognitive apprenticeship model that incorporates SRI on students’ literacy skills in science. Finally, I analyze the implementation of a similar cognitive apprenticeship model in history by observing fidelity, chronicling teacher curricular adaptations, and documenting the important factors that influence teachers’ instructional decisions. The first study identified that SRI has a positive impact on student motivation in addition to its positive impact on academics (see Antononiou & Souvignier, 2007; Graham & Harris 1989a; Schunk & Cox, 1986). The second study corroborates research on the cognitive apprenticeship model in science (Lee et al., 2021a; Levin et al., 2021) by demonstrating that the model can support the development of literacy skills in science inquiry settings. This study also shows how the model helps students to transfer learning to functionally different scenarios. The final study details the implementation of a cognitive apprenticeship intervention that supported the use of historical literacy skills during historical inquiries. This study establishes that with online professional development (PD) and continued coaching, teachers showed high degrees of fidelity and made adaptations that adhered to the tenants of the model and supported their specific students. Additionally, this study demonstrated how important factors such as teachers’ beliefs and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) affect teacher implementation.