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.
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Item TEACHER RETENTION AS A PREDICTOR OF STUDENT PERCEPTIONS OF SCHOOL CLIMATE(2024) Miller, Julie Elizabeth; Brantlinger, Andrew; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation examines the relationship between teacher retention and student perceptions of school climate in an urban school district, both in individual school years and across multiple school years. This secondary analysis uses a school-level measure of teacher retention from New York City (NYC) public schools and measures of school climate constructed from the student version of the NYC School Surveys for 2014-2015 through 2018-2019. Specifically, I constructed an overall measure of school climate that was a school-level, unweighted mean and I used exploratory factor analysis which resulted in three factors (Teacher Support, Classroom Behavior, and School Safety). Using linear regression for individual school years, I found teacher retention rates collected in the fall were a significant, positive predictor of school-wide averages of student school climate survey scores collected in the spring. Using a fixed effects regression model of repeated measures I also found a significant, positive relationship between teacher retention and student perceptions of school climate over the five-year period. Teacher retention was a significant positive predictor of the Teacher Support factor in the fixed effects regression of repeated measures for 2015-2016 through 2018-2019 and also in three of the five individual school years. Teacher retention had a significant, positive relationship with the Classroom Behavior factor in each individual school year but was not significantly related in the multi-year model. Teacher retention was not significantly related to the School Safety factor in any individual school year nor in the multi-year model.Item This is the Remix: A Math Teacher's Reflective Journey Through Fine-Tuning Her Culturally Relevant Teaching(2023) Ivy, Kelly Kristina; Brantlinger, Andrew M.; Curriculum and Instruction; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)While many educational institutions have updated their strategic plans mandating culturally responsive teaching (CRT) or culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP), mathematics teachers are reluctant to embrace CRT/CRP, approaching the teaching and learning of mathematics from deficit paradigms that reflect the pedagogy of poverty. Culturally responsive mathematics teaching (CRMT) is necessary because it promises to promote meaningfulness for, accessibility to, and high levels of engagement with school mathematics for Black, Latinx, and other historically marginalized students. However, to date, there have been numerous theoretical arguments for, but few empirical examples of CRMT, and, as a result, many mathematics teachers are uncomfortable employing CRMT. This qualitative case study examines how an experienced and highly regarded Black urban middle school mathematics teacher (Ms. Collier) understands the theoretical and empirical literature on CRP and how she changes her teaching during and after implementing a CRP curriculum unit with her Black and Latinx students. In the context of this study, I offer Ms. Collier’s journey of embracing CRMT by “remixing” her mindset as a mathematics teacher by reading and discussing CRP and CRMT literature and then remixing her curriculum and instruction in response to her “remixed” understandings. In sum, using frameworks such as Culturally Relevant Pedagogy, Culturally Responsive Mathematics Teaching, and Teacher Change Theory, I explored Ms. Collier’s theory-to-practice applications of CRT. The dissertation results are organized into two parts corresponding with different study phases. Part 1 focused on Ms. Collier’s fine-tuned understanding of CRP, and Part 2 focused on Ms. Collier’s perspectives on her experiences implementing CRMT with her Black and Latinx students. Data were collected from four sources: conversations, semi-structured interviews, written reflections, and memos. Key findings indicate that Ms. Collier was, in fact, a Dreamkeeper, understanding Ladson-Billings’ foundational CRP tenets of Academic Achievement, Cultural Competence, and Critical Consciousness. Findings also crystallized two new tenets of CRP I advance that are present but not explicitly named in the literature: Classroom Domain and Teacher Mindset. In addition, salient themes demonstrating each domain of Teacher Change Theory emerged, with Ms. Collier experiencing a meaningful change in perspective: It's about the curriculum AND who the person is. With this study, I challenge the idea of reducing CRP to a set of practices. My stance is that CRP is more so a process of being for the teacher because this body of work studies the more significant issue of mathematics education for Black and Latinx students. As a mathematics teacher who understands the many stereotypes and stigmas that Black and Latinx students face in the learning and doing of mathematics, Ms. Collier expressed a clear awareness of the impact that culturally relevant instructional and relational practices could have on her Black and Latinx students.Item Creating Common Ground: Architecture For Tactical Learning and Creative Convergence(2015) Sherry, Valerie Lynn; Vandergoot, Jana; Architecture; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Certain environments can inhibit learning and stifle enthusiasm, while others enhance learning or stimulate curiosity. Furthermore, in a world where technological change is accelerating we could ask how might architecture connect resource abundant and resource scarce innovation environments? Innovation environments developed out of necessity within urban villages and those developed with high intention and expectation within more institutionalized settings share a framework of opportunity for addressing change through learning and education. This thesis investigates formal and informal learning environments and how architecture can stimulate curiosity, enrich learning, create common ground, and expand access to education. The reason for this thesis exploration is to better understand how architects might design inclusive environments that bring people together to build sustainable infrastructure encouraging innovation and adaptation to change for years to come. The context of this thesis is largely based on Colin McFarlane’s theory that the “city is an assemblage for learning” The socio-spatial perspective in urbanism, considers how built infrastructure and society interact. Through the urban realm, inhabitants learn to negotiate people, space, politics, and resources affecting their daily lives. The city is therefore a dynamic field of emergent possibility. This thesis uses the city as a lens through which the boundaries between informal and formal logics as well as the public and private might be blurred. Through analytical processes I have examined the environmental devices and assemblage of factors that consistently provide conditions through which learning may thrive. These parameters that make a creative space significant can help suggest the design of common ground environments through which innovation is catalyzed.Item A CASE STUDY OF URBAN STUDENT AND TEACHER EXPERIENCES SURROUNDING AN OUTDOOR ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE FIELD TRIP(2009) Preusch, Peggy Louise; van Zee, Emily H; Curriculum and Instruction; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Field trips provide opportunities for students to experience many different contexts beyond the classroom, and are a popular choice of K-12 teachers in the US. Recent interest in learning that occurs at informal science education centers such as museums, zoos and aquariums has stimulated studies of the relationship between learning in and outside of schools. Although many studies focus on the teachers, the contexts, and/or the students during the field trip, only a few look at the entire process of learning by including the classroom setting before and after the field trip. This study was designed to develop understandings of the student process of learning during and surrounding an environmental science field trip to an outdoor setting. John Dewey's extensive writings on the relationship between experience and learning informed the analysis, creating a focus on active and passive elements of the experience, continuity within and across contexts, the interactive nature of the experience and the importance of subject matter. An exploration of environmental education (EE), environmental science (ES), and nature study as content revealed the complexities of the subject matter of the field trip that make its presentation problematic. An urban school was chosen to contribute to the research literature about urban student learning in outdoor environments. During the field trip, the students' active engagement with each other and the environment supported meaningful remembrances of the field trip experiences during interviews after the field trip. The students accurately described plants and animals they had observed in different habitats during the field trip. They also made connections with their home life and prior experiences in the outdoors as they discussed the field trip and drew pictures that represented their experiences. One student integrated his outdoor experience with a language arts assignment as he reflected deeply on the field trip. One implication of this study is that educational experiences in outdoor natural environments are complex in ways that contribute to lack of continuity between science lessons in an elementary classroom and environmental science field trip. Long term relationships between schools and informal settings that recognize the strengths of both contexts in terms of student learning processes surrounding field trip experiences are needed to strengthen the educative process for field trip participants.Item The Influence of a School District's Early Childhood Education Policy on Urban Students' Academic Achievement Towards Advanced Class Placement(2008-08-18) Bartley, Alice P.; Johnson, Martin L.; Curriculum and Instruction; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)ABSTRACT Title of Dissertation: THE INFLUENCE OF A SCHOOL DISTRICT'S EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION POLICY ON URBAN STUDENTS' ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT TOWARDS ADVANCED CLASS PLACEMENT Alice P. Bartley, Doctor of Philosophy, 2008 Dissertation Directed By: Professor Martin L. Johnson, College of Education, Department of Curriculum and Instruction Kindergarten is one of the most important years of schooling, as it builds the foundational skills needed for later learning. This study explored school district's early childhood education policy reform initiative specifically designed to accelerate the early learning of students in high-need Title I schools. The purpose of this study was to discover if the reform intervention influenced disadvantaged students' enrollment in advanced mathematics classes in grade six. Mathematics and reading assessment data at the second and fifth grades were examined to determine if the kindergarten intervention influenced students' achievement as they progressed through the elementary school years into middle school. This study focused on achievement gains, sustainability, reduction in special education placement, and increase in advanced mathematics classes. This longitudinal study included a sample of 9858 cases which were distributed among nine kindergarten cohort groups (three intervention cohorts and six comparison cohorts) for three consecutive years (one pre-intervention year and two intervention years). One-way analysis of variance, hierarchical regression, and logistic regression were used to analyze the dataset. The major findings of the study indicate the intervention cohorts of students demonstrated mean score gains in mathematics and reading when compared to the cohort group from the same population prior to the intervention. Mean score gains were also found when comparing the intervention cohorts to the six more economically advantaged comparison cohorts. The findings also indicate a reduction in special education enrollment and an increase in enrollment in advanced mathematics at the sixth grade level for the high-need Title I intervention cohorts. The findings of this study contribute to the very limited body of literature on accelerated early learning and later advanced class placement.Item No Child Left Behind's Supplemental Educational Services: A Case Study of Participant Experiences in an Urban Afterschool Program in the District of Columbia(2007-11-26) Stewart, Nichole Helene; Parham, Carol S.; Lynn, Marvin; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The enactment of No Child Left Behind's (NCLB) Supplemental Educational Services (SES) provision shifted new attention to the ability of afterschool programs to increase students' achievement levels and help close the pervasive achievement gap between Students of Color and their white counterparts. Though studies of supplemental education programs in general have shown their potential to successfully augment traditional classroom instruction, reports thus far on indicate that states, districts, providers, and families have faced numerous challenges in the execution of the SES model. The scant research that exists on SES primarily has focused on national, state, and district-level investigations of implementation. With the upcoming reauthorization of NCLB, information in needed on the ground-level implementation of SES, and the lived experiences of participants within SES Provider organizations, particularly those in urban areas that face significant social and economic challenges. This purpose of this study was to include the voices of SES program participants in the dialogue surrounding the provision's redesign and to understand their individual perceptions of the opportunities and challenges of involvement within one SES Provider program in the District of Columbia. Participant stories revealed that, despite some challenges, the program of study was beneficial and fostered the academic, social, and personal development of student participants, including increases in grades, test scores, and attendance, as well as in self-esteem and confidence. Tutors and staff reported experiencing personal growth and development. Participant narratives also uncovered a number of challenges that exist in the implementation of SES policy within the District of Columbia Public School System (DCPS), including issues with timing, communication, and district expectations. Participant experiences within the DCPS and subsequent policy recommendations may help to inform SES policy moving forward to aid in the development of policy that truly works to the benefit of the individuals it was intended to serve.Item EXCELLENT TEACHING OF LITERACY IN AN URBAN SCHOOL: INCLUDING NEW LITERACIES AND YOUTH DEVELOPMENT(2007-08-20) Oliver-O'Gilvie, Heidi P; Lynn, Marvin; Turner, Jennifer D.; Curriculum and Instruction; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This is a single case study of an excellent teacher of literacy in an urban school. The study examines and exposes the practices and pedagogy this teacher possesses in order to assist students as they become literate thinkers and processors of information. I conducted this study using qualitative inquiry methods in an effort to explore the life experiences, instructional style, and content knowledge of my case study subject. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to investigate the pedagogy and processes an excellent teacher of literacy employed in order to design literacy instruction that increased student achievement in literacy. Through data collection, from daily literacy lessons, materials analyses, and formal and informal interviews, several themes emerged. These interrelated themes are (a) including new literacies, (b) inclusion of safe competition, and (c) youth development and empowerment. I developed three research questions to guide my study. 1. How do effective urban literacy instructors define good teaching? a. What personal experiences have shaped those beliefs? b. Do they believe that their teaching methods are shaped by the particular context they teach in? If so, how? 2. What kinds of practices do effective urban literacy educators employ? a. What professional development opportunities have influenced their instruction? b. How does the school/community context (neighborhood, leadership, colleagues) shape their teaching? 3. How does this instruction impact learners? What do teachers believe has been the impact on the urban learners? a. Do they believe that their practices have affected urban learners in particular ways? b. How have they measured and defined their effectiveness with urban learners? Data collected included interviews, fieldnotes, audio recordings, artifacts, and standardized assessment scores. Authentic data, such as discourse analysis and interviews, provided a detailed outline for student academic development and teacher choice. Results from data analysis revealed that students developed and advanced using this teacher's mixed methods approach to literacy teaching and learning. These findings suggest that components found within his literacy instruction provide students with opportunities to develop a range of skills needed to become more literate and expand their ways of thinking and knowing.