Teaching, Learning, Policy & Leadership Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2759
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Item SOUTH KOREAN FAMILIES’ CONCEPTUALIZATIONS OF MUSEUM-BASED SCIENCE LEARNING(2020) Jeong, Hannoori; Elby, Andrew; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This exploratory research study examined how three South Korean families in theU.S. conceptualize museum-based science learning by exploring varied contexts in which they are embedded. In applying a sociocultural perspective, I investigated the families’ backgrounds, views of school and museum learning, in conjunction with their virtual museum tours to address my overarching research question: How do South Korean families in the U.S. conceptualize museum-based science learning? The purpose of this study is to understand how, or by what means, South Korean families’ conceptualizations about museum-based science learning are socially and culturally situated. In adhering to the guidelines of Yin’s (2018) suggestions to conduct multiple case research, I collected individual interviews prior to and following the families’ self-guided virtual museum tours, observations, self-reflections, and self-generated photographic images that captured their views of museum learning. Guided by the Contextual Model of Learning framework (Falk & Dierking, 2000), I used three analytic lenses to explore and analyze the data: personal context, sociocultural context, and physical context of learning. Through the use of narrative analysis, I reported within-case and cross-case findings across the three cases of families. In doing so, I first synthesized each family’s background setting, views of school and museum learning, and museum-based learning interactions to seek insights into how they shaped the family’s conceptualizations about museum-based science learning. Findings showed that the interweaving of each family’s varied contexts, namely personal, sociocultural, and physical, appeared to shape how they conceptualized museum-based science learning. Aspects of the families’ personal context—such as individual goals and beliefs—appeared to motivate their learning experience during the virtual museum tours mediated by sociocultural and physical contexts—such as within- group interactions and orientations to the physical space, respectively—that reinforced or shaped their conceptualizations of museum learning. Thus, in connection with prior literature, the families’ views of learning and authoring their sense of self that manifest their unique contexts may have spurred their conceptualizations of museum-based science learning. Broad implications of the study for museum education research, virtual museum learning, and future research related to informal science education are also discussed.Item A Cultural Balancing Act: The Learning, Beliefs and Practices of Novice Indonesian Teachers of English(2019) Kidwell, Tabitha; Peercy, Megan M; Curriculum and Instruction; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)English teachers must be prepared to attend to the intercultural aspects of language learning. In Indonesia, this challenge is compounded by education policies that also require teachers to sustain Indonesian cultural values. Without explicit preparation or guidance, these two expectations could be quite challenging to novice teachers. The objective of this study was to better understand how novice Indonesian teachers of English balance those demands, by examining their learning, beliefs, practices regarding teaching about culture. This study was a qualitative ethnographic case study of English teacher preparation practices at a Muslim university in Central Java, complemented by embedded case studies (Yin, 2009) of 14 recent graduates during their early years of teaching. Data sources included: course syllabi; 97 class observations: interviews with 20 university faculty members, 21 current students and 20 recently graduated novice teachers: six professional learning community sessions with novice teachers; and journal entries by novice teacher participants. Data were analyzed using the constant comparison method (Corbin & Strauss, 2014) and a cross-case analysis. Findings showed that Indonesian English teachers had many opportunities to learn about culture, both within and outside of coursework, but they rarely learned methods to teach their future students about culture. Consequently, many did not include unfamiliar cultural content in their lessons. Concerning novice teachers’ beliefs and practices, this study identifies participants as primarily locally-oriented or globally-oriented, differentiated by their access to and investment in cultural learning opportunities. Globally-oriented teachers, who had had intercultural experiences themselves, were more likely to teach about unfamiliar cultures, despite contextual factors and limited preparation. This work highlights the need for language teacher education programs to help novice teachers learn to teach about culture, as well as the importance of offering intercultural experiences to novice teachers before and during their early careers. The distinction between locally-oriented teachers and globally-oriented teachers may allow language teacher educators to more purposefully prepare language teachers to address cultural content and develop their future students’ intercultural competence. In the future, more focused preparation efforts regarding teaching about culture would allow novice teachers to more effectively prepare their students to meaningfully engage across cultural differences.