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.
Browse
5 results
Search Results
Item EXPLORING THE POTENTIAL OF ART-BASED EDUCATION FOR ADOLESCENTS WITH LEARNING DISABILITIES: A CASE STUDY OF ENGAGEMENT IN LEARNING THROUGH THE ARTS(2010) Abedin, Golnar; Spreen, Carol Anne; Weible, Thomas; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The purpose of this study was to explore the benefits of arts-based education for adolescents with learning disabilities (LD) placed in an inclusion program. The goal was to examine the potential of arts education as an inclusive curricular component that enhances students' engagement in learning. The study is framed within the education policy context in which many LD adolescents are at risk of dropping out of school due to the large gap between their basic skills and the expectations of standards-based curriculum. A quality arts program at a public charter school was chosen as the site for this case study that involved investigating seven LD adolescents' engagement in their music and drama classes during an eight-week curriculum unit through qualitative research methods. Based on the application of the social-constructivist theoretical framework, students' individual learning profiles, as well as environmental aspects of learning in the arts such as teachers' pedagogical styles and the classroom context informed the findings of this study. Students' narrative accounts regarding their learning experiences in arts education classrooms served as the primary source of information for the themes in the findings. Interviews with parents, teachers, and the school director were used to gain a comprehensive understanding of students' strengths and weaknesses in learning and to gain insights into the place of the arts in their overall educational opportunities. Qualitative methods of analysis were used to derive three over-arching themes based on students' experiences learning in the arts. The themes included 1.) "It feels like you open up to yourself," (The Importance of Nonverbal, Embodied Engagement in Learning); 2.) "You get to create what's your own;" "it has some thought part of it centered near you," (Student Ownership of the Learning Process); 3.) "In arts there is no wrong answer;" "it's a safer social environment," (Social and Environmental Context of Learning). These themes showed the importance of successful learning experiences for adolescents with LD within a diverse school curriculum that offers them multiple modes of engagement and expression. Participation in arts education classes enhanced LD students' self-efficacy beliefs and motivation, providing them with inclusive and meaningful educational opportunities.Item DEVELOPMENT OF STUDENT MOTIVATION IN THE VISUAL ARTS USING HIP HOP CULTURE, AN ART SHOW, AND GRAFFITI(2009) Jenkins, Stephanie Conley; Hendricks, Susan; Curriculum and Instruction; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This participatory action research study explored the development of student motivation in the visual arts using hip hop culture. Six adolescent middle school students from a Washington, DC, public charter school were studied. They participated in an after-school art club centered on the National Portrait Gallery's "Recognize: Hip Hop and Contemporary Portraiture" special exhibition. The subjects were interviewed before and after visiting the museum and creating their own graffiti self-portraits. The self-portraits were displayed in an art exhibit at the school along with their artist statements. The interviews, statements and field notes were analyzed using the coding method. The results showed that feelings of competence, adequate support, autonomy, authentic purpose and personal connections to hip hop culture and musical artists all increased student motivation to participate in the visual arts. Motivation decreased when students attempted to create `real' looking graffiti, consistent with existing research.Item Art Criticism Through Storytelling(2006-05-12) Schappelle, Laura Scott; Hendricks, Susan; Curriculum and Instruction; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This Action Research study focused on the use of storytelling as a means of critically analyzing a work of art. The participants in this study were elementary students in the Fifth Grade. The participants wrote a story and verbally told a story in response to looking at a work of art. The researcher then compared the written and oral forms of communication to determine which yielded better results in terms of producing an effective art criticism. These responses will be compared to Feldman's Model, a popular approach of art criticism. The primary goal of the study was to see whether storytelling would prove to be an effective format for an art criticism. The secondary goal of this study was to analyze the difference between written and verbal forms of communication.Item Color Selection in Object Drawings of Young Children(2006-03-20) Drosinos, Karen Jesuit; Hendricks, Susan M; Curriculum and Instruction; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This action research study examined the selection of color used in six object drawings of young children. Study sample size consisted of eighteen Kindergarten students from a public elementary school in Prince George's County Public School System, Maryland. This study was organized into three phases. Each phase asked student participants to draw six familiar objects (tree, house, boy, dog, girl, car) while limiting the amount of color selection in each phase. The use of logical color and expressive color was investigated and scores were given to each drawing in order to compare logical color usage. Color trends were also documented to show possible color associations in young children's representation of everyday objects. The results found that there was an increase in the use of logical color as the selection of color in each phase was minimized. Strong color trends were shown in the representation of the tree and boy images.Item A Survey of the Unaccompanied Violin Repertoire, Centering on Works by J. S. Bach and Eugene Ysaÿe(2005-07-31) Wang, Yu-ChI; Fischbach, Gerald; Music; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Unaccompanied works provide a great challenge for violinists. The violin was originally designed to be performed with the support of other instruments. In addition, composers have developed various advanced techniques to enrich their solo violin compositions, for example to create polyphonic effects or to showcase the instrument's capabilities or a performer's virtuosity. Thereby, these works have become known for their technical challenges. A violinist thus faces unusual demands and stresses when performing solo violin works alone on the concert stage and may also use these pieces for musically gratifying and rigorous personal study. For this dissertation project, a selected series of unaccompanied violin works ranging from the Baroque period to the twentieth century have been performed in two recitals, recorded for archival purposes, and discussed in this written document. I have primarily chosen solo violin pieces written by the German composer J. S. Bach (1685-1750) and the Belgian composer Eugene Ysaÿe (1858-1931). I have also chosen to study works by Heinrich Biber (1644-1704) and Bright Sheng (b. 1955) as Biber exemplifies a predecessor of J. S. Bach's and Sheng serves as one of Eugene Ysaÿe's followers. The first recital, performed on May 8, 2002 in the Ulrich Recital Hall at the University of Maryland, College Park, included Passacaglia in G Minor (1676) by Heinrich Biber; Partita No. 3 in E Major (1720) by J.S. Bach; and Sonata no. 2, op. 27 (1923) by Eugene Ysaÿe. The second recital, performed on May 11, 2003 in the Main Chapel of the Memorial Chapel at the University of Maryland, College Park, included Sonata in G Minor (1720) by J.S. Bach; Sonata no. 4, op. 27 (1923) by Eugene Ysaÿe; and The Stream Flows (1990) by Bright Sheng. The written portion of this project presents a history of the solo violin genre, an overview of each composer's life, and a discussion of connections and influences among the composers and their works through time. I also suggest fingerings, bowings, technical solutions, and musical interpretations of these pieces based upon my experiences in their study and performance.