Teaching, Learning, Policy & Leadership Theses and Dissertations
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Item UNDERSTANDING THE DYNAMICS OF TEACHER ATTENTION: CASE STUDIES OF HOW HIGH SCHOOL PHYSICS AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE TEACHERS ATTEND TO STUDENT IDEAS(2010) Lau, Matty; Hammer, David M; Elby, Andrew; Curriculum and Instruction; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Attending to student ideas is critical for supporting students' science learning (Driver, Guesne, & Tiberghien, 1985; National Research Council, 1996). But, paying attention to student ideas in science class is difficult and does not happen often (Davis, 2001; Feldman, 2002; Levin, 2008; Levitt, 2001; Simmons, et al, 1999). Researchers have looked at how institutional expectations, curricular materials, and a teacher's cognition influence how that teacher picks up on and makes sense of student ideas (Ainley & Luntley, 2007; Levin, 2008; Rop, 2002; Tabak & Reiser, 1999; Wallach & Even, 2005). I argue that we do not yet have adequate ways of characterizing and understanding teachers' attention at the level of the interaction. I have evidence that suggests that when we look in such a fine-grained way, many of our current explanations for what teachers do and pay attention to are not sufficient. The aim of this dissertation is to build on the burgeoning body of work on teacher attention by looking at how to characterize a teacher's attention as that teacher interacts with students in the classroom and studying how a teacher's attention is situated in the teacher's framing of his or her interaction with students. In short, a person's frame or framing of the situation is his or her definition of what is going on in the interaction (Tannen, 1993). I discuss the implications for how we can support teachers' attention to student ideas and some areas for future research motivated by the findings of this study.Item FROM INTERACTION TO INTERACTION: EXPLORING SHARED RESOURCES CONSTRUCTED THROUGH AND MEDIATING CLASSROOM SCIENCE LEARNING(2010) Tang, Xiaowei; Coffey, Janet E; Curriculum and Instruction; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Recent reform documents and science education literature emphasize the importance of scientific argumentation as a discourse and practice of science that should be supported in school science learning. Much of this literature focuses on the structure of argument, whether for assessing the quality of argument or designing instructional scaffolds. This study challenges the narrowness of this research paradigm and argues for the necessity of examining students' argumentative practices as rooted in the complex, evolving system of the classroom. Employing a sociocultural-historical lens of activity theory (Engestrӧm, 1987, 1999), discourse analysis is employed to explore how a high school biology class continuously builds affordances and constraints for argumentation practices through interactions. The ways in which argumentation occurs, including the nature of teacher and student participation, are influenced by learning goals, classroom norms, teacher-student relationships and epistemological stances constructed through a class' interactive history. Based on such findings, science education should consider promoting classroom scientific argumentation as a long-term process, requiring supportive resources that develop through continuous classroom interactions. Moreover, in order to understand affordances that support disciplinary learning in classroom, we need to look beyond just disciplinary interactions. This work has implications for classroom research on argumentation and teacher education, specifically, the preparation of teachers for secondary science teaching.Item Can STEM Initiatives Be Social Justice Oriented: An Analysis of Urban School Reform Via Smaller Learning Communities(2010) Mete, Ryan Jared; MacDonald, Victoria-Maria; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)STEM is an acronym that stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. STEM academies are theme-based curricula that have gained considerable attention on the national level. The intended outcome of a STEM curriculum is to raise career awareness and increase college and graduate level enrollment in science and engineering in order to ultimately restore the United States' position as a worldwide leader in technological innovation. In 2008, a group of middle school teachers in Maryland designed a STEM academy to address the achievement gap between African American and white students at their school. The founding teachers used a combination of thematic curriculum and structural redesign via a process called "looping" to create a school-within-a-school model that focused on average-performing and at-risk students. This study explores the process these teachers underwent to implement a differentiated STEM program to a diverse student body in an urban middle school.Item Culturally Responsive Poetry: The Lived Experience of African American Adolescent Girl Poets(2009) Bacon, Jennifer Nicole; Hultgren, Francine; Wiseman, Donna; Curriculum and Instruction; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In this phenomenological study, I explore the lived experience of African American adolescent girl poets in an organized poetry group in their school. My research question unfolds, "What is the lived experience of writing poetry to uncover the power for African American adolescent girls to name who they really are?" My exploration calls upon the works of such phenomenologists as Edward Casey, John O'Donohue, Michael D. Levin and Martin Heidegger. My study is further augmented by Black feminists scholars and writers such as Patricia Hill Collins, Alice Walker and Zora Neale Hurston. Furthermore, Max van Manen provides a research guide pedagogically on this journey, alongside culturally responsive educators such as Gloria Ladson Billings and Jacqueline Jordan Irvine. The paths, thoughts, and meanings of phenomenology and poetry danced through, between and alongside one another. Poetic Eight is what the African American adolescent poets of my study have named themselves. The eight poets' names are brought forth by their external identities, lived experiences and cultural collective as African American adolescent girls. And while these identities and names offer some insight into who these girl poets are, the girls, themselves, reveal who they are through their writing and voices. Through the process of writing and weaving between concealing and revealing, individually and collectively, identities begin to unfold. As each participant begins to reveal her poetic identity (ies) and lived experiences, themes quickly emerge around grief, loss, naming as I Am, love and divinity. Finally, I offer poetic and pedagogical insights into the lived experience of writing poetry for African American adolescent girl poets to uncover and maintain their power through naming. These insights and suggestions are concluded with my own poetic reflections. As an educator, igniting poetic voices for listeners and readers occurs through a process of unraveling and writing renderings with the intention of embodying the hope, joy, rage and love that the poets have spilled onto the pages, as they read in the group in earnestness and conviction.Item Starting Our Day the Room 119 Way: A Qualitative Study of an Elementary Classroom Community and its Alternative to Traditional Morning Work(2009) Domire, Aimee; Selden, Steven; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This study explores the experiences of multicultural, Title I second-grade students as they experience a daily "Soft Landing," the time and space set aside for the first thirty minutes each morning for students to make choices about what activities to engage in. The portraiture methodology as outlined by Lawrence-Lightfoot and Davis (1997) establishes the framework for this narrative inquiry. I address four questions: What is "Soft Landing;" How do students choose to use their "Soft Landing" time and how do these choices change over time; What does "Soft Landing" mean to students; What have I learned about myself as a teacher during "Soft Landing?" By observing and interviewing nine second-grade students over three months, I learn that when children are in charge of their own learning and thinking, they actually know how to structure their academic lives without waiting for someone else to do it for them.Item The Impact of Curriculum Focal Points on State Mathematics Standards(2009) Vennebush, George Patrick; Campbell, Patricia; Curriculum and Instruction; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)State mathematics standards from six states were analyzed to determine the impact of Curriculum Focal Points on recent revisions. The standards were analyzed to determine the alignment between the state documents and Curriculum Focal Points. In particular, a comparison of the framework used in each state standards document was compared to the framework used in Curriculum Focal Points, and the content within the state mathematics standards, as represented by the grade level expectations for Grade 5, was compared to the content within Curriculum Focal Points. The results were used to compare state standards for consistency between one another and to determine what changes, if any, had occurred from standards developed prior to the release of Curriculum Focal Points to standards developed after the release of Curriculum Focal Points.Item Virtualizing the Teacher: The Lived Experience of Teaching within Technology(2009) Whitesel, Cynthia Hoff; Hultgren, Francine H; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This research seeks to heighten pedagogical understanding of the lived experience of teachers who teach online using computer technology. Philosophically based and grounded in hermeneutic phenomenology, it explores the question: What is the lived experience of teaching with/in technology? Using van Manen's Researching Lived Experience (2003) as guide, the researcher seeks to discover existential themes revealed through hermeneutic methodology, a pedagogically grounded research approach to human science research and writing with a focus on lived experience. This research is rendered phenomenological through philosophical texts by Martin Heidegger, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Emmanuel Levinas, Gaston Bachelard, Edward Casey, and Don Ihde. For a period of eight months in the fall of 2006 and spring of 2007, six teachers from different continents engaged in multiple, in-depth conversations with the researcher about their experiences as online teachers in multiple online programs. The conversations were text-based and took place in an online forum characterized as a discussion board. The conversational text, additional personal reflections, related literature, and philosophic writings intertwine to create a textual interpretation of this experience. Using the metaphor of knots, the researcher explores themes of presence in distance, presence in text, interface presence, teaching identity, the virtual classroom as place, and the role of imagination and flow in unraveling some of the paradoxes of teaching online. The research makes recommendations for preparing teachers for online teaching and for the development of policies relating to course design, interface design, and teaching practices. Pedagogical insights include the effects of teaching with technology on several aspects of online teaching: marginalization of contingent online teachers, technical interests related to virtual curricula, online text, teaching memory, and signature and interface pedagogies. A phenomenological rendering of Moore's (2007) theory of transactional distance explores teacher presence in distance. The researcher offers suggestions for future phenomenological research to explore the meaning of the experiences of contingent teachers, the "best practices" approach to teacher preparation programs, standardized course development models, and media/mediated and non-media/non-mediated teaching identities.Item The Effects of Two Summarization Strategies Using Expository Text on the Reading Comprehension and Summary Writing of Fourth- and Fifth-Grade Students in an Urban, Title 1 School(2009) Braxton, Diane Marie; Dreher, Mariam J.; Curriculum and Instruction; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)ABSTRACT Title of Dissertation:THE EFFECTS OF TWO SUMMARIZATION STRATEGIES USING EXPOSITORY TEXT ON THE READING COMPREHENSION AND SUMMARY WRITING OF FOURTH- AND FIFTH-GRADE STUDENTS IN AN URBAN, TITLE 1 SCHOOL Diane M. Braxton, Doctor of Philosophy, 2009 Directed By: Dr. Mariam Jean Dreher Department of Curriculum and Instruction University of Maryland, College Park Using a quasi-experimental pretest/post test design, this study examined the effects of two summarization strategies on the reading comprehension and summary writing of fourth- and fifth- grade students in an urban, Title 1 school. The strategies, Generating Interactions between Schemata and Text (GIST) and Rule-based, were taught using authentic social studies materials that are part of the school system's curriculum. Four intact classes participated in fifteen 40 - 60 minute lessons. One fourth-grade (17 students) and one fifth-grade (13 students) received GIST instruction, and one fourth-grade (20 students) and one fifth-grade (14 students) received Rule-based instruction. The Qualitative Reading Inventory - 4 was used to determine the effects on the expository reading comprehension. For the fourth graders, there was no significant interaction between time and intervention. However, there was a significant main effect for time with a very large effect size. Additional analyses showed a significant time by intervention by gender interaction for implicit questions (but no effect for explicit questions). GIST group males outperformed the females, while Rule-based group females outperformed males. For the fifth graders, there was no significant interaction between time and intervention. However, there was a significant main effect for time with a very large effect size. For the quality of summaries, there was a significant interaction between time and intervention with a very large effect size for both grades, favoring the Rule-based group. Questionnaire responses showed the greatest change for students in both grades and interventions on concepts of summary writing. Ratings indicated an increase in knowledge about summary writing, paralleling the gained knowledge that was evident in students' post test summaries. These results suggest that both summarization methods can improve the expository reading comprehension and summary writing of urban, Title 1 students. These findings provide evidence to encourage the teaching of summarization strategies to promote reading achievement especially with students who are lagging behind their peers in the area of reading. This study extended summarization research by (a) using authentic expository text rather than research-generated material, and (b) instructing a student population that has had limited representation in past studies.Item Influence of Subject Matter Discipline and Science Content Knowledge on National Board Certified Science Teachers' Conceptions, Enactment, and Goals for Inquiry(2009) Breslyn, Wayne; McGinnis, J. Randy; Curriculum and Instruction; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The present study investigated differences in the continuing development of National Board Certified Science Teachers' (NBCSTs) conceptions of inquiry across the disciplines of biology, chemistry, earth science, and physics. The central research question of the study was, "How does a NBCST's science discipline (biology, chemistry, earth science, or physics) influence their conceptions, enactment, and goals for inquiry-based teaching and learning?" A mixed methods approach was used that included an analysis of the National Board portfolio entry, Active Scientific Inquiry, for participants (n=48) achieving certification in the 2007 cohort. The portfolio entry provided detailed documentation of teachers' goals and enactment of an inquiry lesson taught in their classroom. Based on the results from portfolio analysis, participant interviews were conducted with science teachers (n=12) from the 2008 NBCST cohort who represented the science disciplines of biology, chemistry, earth science, and physics. The interviews provided a broader range of contexts to explore teachers' conceptions, enactment, and goals of inquiry. Other factors studied were disciplinary differences in NBCSTs' views of the nature of science, the relation between their science content knowledge and use of inquiry, and changes in their conceptions of inquiry as result of the NB certification process. Findings, based on a situated cognitive framework, suggested that differences exist between biology, chemistry, and earth science teachers' conceptions, enactment, and goals for inquiry. Further, individuals teaching in more than one discipline often held different conceptions of inquiry depending on the discipline in which they were teaching. Implications for the research community include being aware of disciplinary differences in studies on inquiry and exercising caution in generalizing findings across disciplines. In addition, teachers who teach in more than one discipline can highlight the contextual and culturally based nature of teachers' conceptions of inquiry. For the education community, disciplinary differences should be considered in the development of curriculum and professional development. An understanding of disciplinary trends can allow for more targeted and relevant representations of inquiry.Item Communities of Practice for the Development of Adolescent Civic Engagement: An Empirical Study of their Correlates in Australia and the United States(2009) Homana, Gary; Croninger, Robert; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The relationships between a multidimensional model of school community and civic engagement were examined using survey data collected for the 1999 IEA Civic Education Study from large, nationally representative samples of adolescents in Australia and the United States. This study extends previous research by considering the extent to which multiple dimensions of communities of practice influence the development of various civic capacities, and by utilizing multilevel regression techniques. The investigation also examined the extent to which the various dimensions of communities of practice are related to more equitable civic outcomes, and how these associations vary in Australia compared to the United States. All schools have some form of social and cultural context that influences learning. This study examined the influence of three specific dimensions of communities of practice in school, the discourse community, the collaborative community, and the participatory community on three capacities for civic engagement (civic knowledge, norms of democracy, and expectations for informed voting). Other measures of school structure, including individual socioeconomic background and school size and composition were also used in the analyses. The results of the analyses suggest that important, yet subtle, distinctions exist between the association of the various dimensions of communities of practice and civic capacities in Australia and the United States. The findings from the fully conditional models, for example, indicate that both student level and school level perceptions of the communities of practice can help to shape adolescent civic capacities, although the patterns of relationships vary by dimension of communities of practice and measure of civic engagement. This study offers support for the role of communities of practice in the development of student civic outcomes. Individual student participation in and supportive school contexts for positive communities of practice influences the development of adolescent civic engagement. Learning more about communities of practice and its influence on a broader range of civic capacities, especially in terms of the quality and the extent that communities of practice exist in schools, will help educators and schools to strengthen these connections.