Theses and Dissertations from UMD
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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 give thesis/dissertation in DRUM
More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.
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Item 21st CENTURY AMERICAN TRUMPET SONATAS: THE PERFORMANCE PRACTICE AND PEDAGOGICAL INFLUENCES OF FOUR SONATAS(2024) Rudy, Brennan; Gekker, Paul C; Music; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Sonatas for trumpet and piano have played an impactful role in the development of the trumpet as a recital instrument. Thorvald Hansen’s 1903 sonata for cornet and piano was the earliest sonata for our instrument, later leading to the first two sonatas for the Bb trumpet and piano in 1939 by German composer Paul Hindemith and Soviet composer Boris Asafiev. The first American sonata for trumpet and piano was written by Harold Shapero in 1940 and was dedicated to his teacher, Aaron Copland. These early sonatas led to other prominent 20th Century trumpet sonatas that were written by American composers Kent Kennan, Halsey Stevens, and Eric Ewazen. As a modern solo instrument, performance and pedagogical practices for the trumpet are strongly based on compositions of the 20th Century or earlier. As we are now almost 25 years into the 21st Century, trumpet sonatas and their composers have continued to evolve and create a lasting impact on the use of the trumpet and its pedagogy. This dissertation will discuss the pedagogical impacts and musical developments of several 21st Century sonatas for trumpet and piano. Accompanying this dissertation are four recordings of some of the most recently published trumpet sonatas from 2015-2023, each by American composers of diverse backgrounds. The four recorded sonatas previously had very few or no professional recordings and exemplify modern developments on traits originally established by composers of early trumpet sonatas. Through this dissertation and accompanying recordings, I hope to encourage the use of modern trumpet sonatas for application in pedagogical instruction, performances, and college and university juries and entrance auditions.Item A Pedagogical Guide to Chinese Art Song: Diction, Style, and a Selected Survey(2023) Shi, Liangjun; Ziegler, Delores; Music; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)A unique hybrid of poetry and music, art song has been a constant art form attracting musicians to examine, study, and research as a serious genre. Since the 1920s, Chinese composers have been exploring this combination of Chinese poetry and music in various ways. This dissertation aims to provide a pedagogical guide for the study and performance of Chinese art song.The first chapter examines the vocal diction of Standard Chinese. The vowels and consonants in Standard Chinese are categorized into two major groups in 汉语拼音 (hànyǔ pīnyīn, Chinese Phonetic Alphabet): 声母 (shēngmǔ, initial) and 韵母 (yùnmǔ, final). At most, a syllable in Chinese can contain an initial, a medial, a main vowel, a final consonant, and a tone. This chapter presents a new diction alphabetic system based on traditional Chinese vocal practices and the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet, to achieve authentic pronunciation in vocal practices. Chapter Two is a survey of treatises on traditional Chinese voice pedagogy. It examines vocal aesthetics and practical concepts from these scholarships, providing pedagogical explanations and approaches. 字正腔圆 (zìzhèng qiāngyuán), the most important vocal principle, is achieved through the system of “head, belly, and tail” of a character. This chapter offers a detailed discussion on the pedagogy for each part of the articulation of a character and the practice of tones, supported by scholarship on these treatises. The important phenomenon 倒字 (dǎo zì) is illustrated with musical examples. Titled “From Poetry to Song”, Chapter Three traces the development of Chinese poetry and introduces the basic characteristics of each genre. With the exception of Shī-Poetry, which is to be chanted, most traditional poetic forms in Chinese literature are meant to be associated with singing and musical accompaniment, which may be considered a precursor to Chinese art song. This chapter traces the pioneers of Chinese art song and discusses their stylistic features through functional harmony, texture, compositional devices, linguistic inflection techniques, and other elements. It also examines the development of "authentic Chinese flavors" in the art song genre by discussing the tremor of the voice, traditional musical vocabulary, and the reformation of orchestral instrumentation. The final chapter focuses on performance practices and provides an example of the Lyric Diction Phonetic Alphabet System (LPA). It discusses vibrato choices, vowel color, glides, ornamentation, and the use of glottal sound. Additionally, the vocal practices for the pronunciation of certain characters are mentioned. Overall, this dissertation provides a scholarly and comprehensive guide for the study and performance of Chinese art song, encompassing aspects of vocal diction, pedagogy, poetry, musical style, and performance practices.Item Learning Together: The Lived Experience of Bridging in Scholars Studio(2023) Nardi, Lisa; Hultgren, Francine H; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This hermeneutic phenomenological investigation tends to the connections made in Scholars Studio—an interdisciplinary learning community for first-year students at a public Historically Black College and University (HBCU). In this study, I ask, What is the lived experience of bridging in Scholars Studio? I conceptualize bridging as a pedagogical orientation characterized by making connections across disciplines, between theory and praxis, across time and distance, and with one another. Bridging creates dynamic spaces that resist binary relationships, thus creating the potential for transformation. This study is grounded in the philosophy of Martin Heidegger, Mariana Ortega, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Edward Casey, and David Michael Levin, and follows the methodological structure set forth by Max van Manen. This research captures conversations that bridge the experience of twelve participants—including faculty, students, and staff—who partook in a learning community focused on Black men in education. Through these conversations, the participants affirm the importance of curricula grounded in African American and African history and culture. As participants cross the metaphorical bridge, they consider the “edges” they encounter that are both full of risk and possibility. These edges push them outside of their comfort zones in search of wholeness and create potential sites for improvisation. I end by opening new possibilities for Scholars Studio, including grounding the work in African principles and considering future directions.Item ACTIVATING TECHNOCAPITAL: A CASE STUDY OF MARGINALIZED MIDDLE SCHOOL YOUTHS’ EXPERIENCES WITH INFORMATION COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY.(2023) Crenshaw, Kenyatta Lynn; Elby, Andrew; Croninger, Robert; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This case study explores ways that socio-cultural and environmental factors influence the technological experiences of marginalized, underrepresented youth at an urban summer learning program, which supports Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) and environmental sustainability education. The study specifically explores the socio-cultural and environmental aspects of students’ experience with digital literacy/ information communication technology (computer based and mobile technologies), and the pedagogical practices applied by educators (teachers, family members, and peers) that influence the students’ experiences with digital learning over the period of eight weeks. The principal focus is on eight middle school students ranging from nine to twelve years of age who reside in an urban environment with their parents/caregivers. In efforts to better understand the experiences of the students, the focus is shared (but not centered) on the parents/caregivers, educators, and volunteer community members who contribute to the students’ perception and use of technology. A major finding of the study is that community-embedded resources, what have been referred to in the literature as funds of knowledge or community cultural wealth, can play a positive role in shaping students’ experiences with technology, especially when students, parents, and educators use those resources to create culturally relevant learning experiences that contribute to building technocapital. In general, the findings address beliefs and contextual ecological factors that contribute to the appearance and activation of social and cultural capital in the technological practices of marginalized youth. The accounts of youth and parent perspectives uniquely display the ways the funds of knowledge and community cultural wealth act as social and cultural capital. The participant stories present how the networks of the participants’ parents and community contribute to social connectivity and the awareness of civic participation in both the exosystem and mesosystem of their lives. Overall, the findings present an evidence-based contribution to further support the need to understand and advocate for funding and the development of policy to address: 1) racial/ethnic and socioeconomic differences in education; 2) the positive processes by which cultural resources in the communities of marginalized youth are converted into social and educational advantages; and 3) increasing knowledge and utility of the various forms of capital embedded in moderate-to-low income, non-majority communities that play a positive role in youths’ motivation to utilize ICT and develop digital literacy skills that increase productivity and achievement. Keywords: underrepresented youth, supplemental learning program, information communication technology, digital learning, social capital, cultural capital, funds of knowledge, community cultural wealth.Item "These Songs will Save our Language": Reclaiming Kiowa Language and Music through Kiowa Sound Resurgence(2023) Yamane, Maxwell Hiroshi; Rios, Fernando; Music; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation examines the intersection of Indigenous language reclamation and music, primarily among the Kiowa Tribe. Through multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork, interviews, music/language analysis, and participatory action research, I show how music plays a key role in the resurgence of Kiowa language and identity. I begin in Washington, D.C. by revealing how Kiowas (and other Indigenous Peoples) strategically use their own modes of storytelling and music making to resist the imposition of settler colonial narratives. Indigenous performers reclaim stories about their language initiatives and challenge problematic congressional language planning and policy. The dissertation then moves towards Oklahoma and examines the language efforts of a community-based institution: the Kiowa Language and Culture Revitalization Program (KLCRP). I show how KLCRP used Kiowa Christian hymns—which are performed in the Kiowa language and musical style— as a pedagogical approach to revive and strengthen forms of Kiowa sound and audibility, including speech, music making, storytelling, and listening. I frame the recovery of these practices as Kiowa sound resurgence. I explore the multiple ways in which Kiowas engaged in Kiowa sound resurgence through traditional and non-traditional pedagogies before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. This dissertation contributes to interdisciplinary dialogues in ethnomusicology, Native American and Indigenous studies, and linguistic anthropology on Indigenous language reclamation and music scholarship. The case study of Kiowa sound resurgence illuminates how Kiowas creatively reclaim, revive, and resurge sound through Kiowa ways of knowing, doing, and being. The findings of this dissertation have relevance to both academia and Indigenous communities who are actively engaging in efforts of cultural reclamation and resurgence.Item MAINTENANCE ART FOR OTHER POSSIBLE WORLDS: Rehearsing a Pedagogy of Care(2023) Peskin, Eva; Lothian, Alexis; Women's Studies; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)MAINTENANCE ART FOR OTHER POSSIBLE WORLDS: Rehearsing a Pedagogy of Care brings together stories, moves and activations for approaching access and difference as preconditions for belonging. Both a text and an enactment, the project offers a framework for interdependent creative practice and care-oriented collaboration, doing multiple things at once: it demonstrates an ethic and technique of play-based learning, offers a story about maintenance as the work it takes to keep caring together, and embraces lunacy as a method for creative resistance. Drawing on Mierle Laderman Ukeles’ premise that attention to maintenance can pause the perpetual motion machine of capitalist consumption/production and Ruth Wilson Gilmore's insistence that freedom is a place we make together in the present, the dissertation stages a confrontation of the multiple trainings that have formed my ethical, aesthetic, and relational processes of learning – both within and beyond the academy, both amateurish and professional – in order to lean into the fissures and ruptures one might ignore that the other can see. This inquiry takes shape in a spiral geography of four repeating moves, a conceptual fractal which gives rise to the action of the work: Unsettling, Dwell, Meanwhile, Sensuousness. The project rehearses this repertoire of moves as a means to center consent, access, self-determination, deep listening, and joy – necessities for the creativity required to undo/step away from/dismantle the many intersecting projects of empire which conspire unendingly against life itself, and to collectively transform into a culture of care.Item “I FEEL LIKE I’M TEACHING IN A GLADIATOR RING”: BARRIERS AND BENEFITS OF LIVE CODING(2023) Berger, Caroline Palma; Elmqvist, Niklas; Library & Information Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Live coding—synchronously writing software in front of students for the purpose of teaching—can be an effective method for engaging students and instilling practical programming skills. However, not all live coding sessions are effective and not all instructors are successful in this challenging task. We present results from an interview study involving university instructors,teaching assistants, and students identifying both barriers and benefits of live coding. We also designed and collected participant feedback on a prototype live coding tool to better facilitate learner engagement with the live coding pedagogical practice. Finally, we use this feedback to propose guidelines for how to design tools to support effective live coding in the classroom. This work advances our understanding of the benefits and challenges of live coding in university computer science instruction and highlights potential future work on the design of tools to better support this productive instructional practice.Item EXAMINING ENGLISH-AS-A-FOREIGN-LANGUAGE TEACHERS’ AND STUDENTS’ LANGUAGE PRACTICES AND LANGUAGE ATTITUDES THROUGH THE LENS OF TRANSLANGUAGING AND HUMANIZING PEDAGOGY – A QUALITATIVE STUDY ON AN INTERNATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL IN CHINA(2023) Zong, Jiaxuan; MacSwan, Jeff; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Research on translanguaging and humanizing pedagogy has primarily focused on English-as-a-second-language (ESL) contexts, while little attention has been given to the examination and these practices in English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) settings. This qualitative case study aims to address this gap by employing empirical evidence from various sources, including classroom observations, student surveys, student and teacher interviews, and quantitative data analysis of student surveys. The study examines teachers’ understanding of and practices with translanguaging and humanizing pedagogy, as well as students’ perceptions and experiences with these pedagogical movements. In light of humanizing pedagogy studies involving pedagogical codeswitching and translanguaging practices, this research is informed and guided by the combined theoretical framework of translanguaging and humanizing pedagogy, derived from the literature review. The research design consists of four main phases: pilot studies and purposeful sampling, QUALITATIVE data collection and analysis, quantitative data collection and analysis, and qualitative data analysis and triangulation. Through thematic analysis, this study reveals three major findings: (1) teachers’ and students’ strong needs and teachers’ self-debate of translanguaging practices, (2) the enactment of humanizing pedagogy through translanguaging practices by teachers, and (3) the enhancement of multilingual and multicultural awareness through translanguaging and humanizing pedagogy practices. Also, the study identifies two additional findings of importance, including the lack of a healthy professional development community for teachers and the entrenched privileges associated with native speakerism and the native speaker fallacy. These findings demonstrate the importance of language teachers being cognizant of the benefits of using students’ first language while acknowledging the criticality of balance in its use. Furthermore, the adherence to an English-only policy may lead to ineffective English language educational experiences, as demonstrated in one of the cases in this study. In addition, the incorporation of students’ first language by educators promotes the implementation of humanizing pedagogy practices, such as drawing on students’ background knowledge, making class content accessible to all students, and enhancing critical consciousness towards different languages and cultures. Moreover, engaging in translanguaging practices fosters a safe and dynamic space for both multilingual students and their teachers to co-construct their understanding of language and its role in conceptual development. By using multiple languages as mediational instruments, these practices enhance metalinguistic awareness and encourage critical reflection on linguistic and cultural differences. Finally, the study offers potential implications and recommendations relevant to teacher preparation programs and language educators.Item The HLL-Turned-Language-Teacher: Exploring the Relationship Between Heritage-Language Maintenance and Pedagogical Content Knowledge(2022) García, Andrés A.; Martin-Beltran, Melinda; Curriculum and Instruction; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)For over four decades now, fields like applied linguistics and world-language education, have investigated heritage languages, the “nonsocietal or nonmajority languages” (Valdés, 2005, p. 411) typically used in the homes and communities of immigrants and their descendants. While still growing and diversifying, heritage language (HL) research has often focused on how users of these languages—also known as heritage language learners (HLLs)—are different from other language learners, and how teachers can best adapt their instruction to their needs. With so much literature focusing on either HLLs as learners or their teachers, this study aims to bring together these topics in a novel way. Specifically, this multiple-case study centers around three adult HLLs who currently work as teachers of language-related subjects, and it aims to explore whether there is a relationship between their life experiences with HL maintenance and their pedagogical content knowledge. The research questions explored in this study are: 1. How do the focal HLL-turned-language-teachers in this study describe their experiences with HL maintenance and development?2. What kinds of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) are evident in the practice of these HLLs-turned-language-teachers? 3. How do these HLL-turned-language-teachers’ experiences with HL maintenance and development relate to their PCK as L2 teachers? Data collection included teaching observations, interviews with the focal teachers and some of their colleagues who know their teaching directly, and the gathering of relevant teaching artifacts and documents. Data analysis, meanwhile, occurred in a two-tiered approach: within-case and cross-case. That is, each focal case was analyzed individually first, and then patterns were sought across cases during the second phase of data analysis. Findings from this study support the idea that the HL maintenance experiences of HLLs-turned-language-teachers affect their PCK. Moreover, there is remarkable consistency across cases; for not only did they all report the influence of similar factors in their HL maintenance (e.g., supportive families and communities, constant exposure to their HLs through written and spoken media), but they also embraced similar pedagogical techniques and behaviors as part of their PCKs (e.g., translanguaging and native-language supports, building strong bonds with their students). Furthermore, in rationalizing many of these moves by alluding to learning experiences they did not have growing up, or to their own struggles with HL grammar rules, these teachers also show consistency in the potential connections between their life experiences as HLLs and their pedagogy and PCK. Implications from this study, then, are pertinent to heritage-language studies as well as language teacher education, and they include calls to expand the notion of PCK to account for the influence of experiences with language maintenance and loss. Regarding practitioners, this study underscores the relevance of biographical reflection to pedagogical decision-making, and it encourages teachers who wish to make the most of this sort of reflection to expand their notion of “pedagogy” to include student-teacher relationship-building—if it does not do so already.Item A PEDAGOGICAL STUDY OF MODERN SLIDE TECHNIQUE AND COMMON DEFICIENCIES OR HINDERANCES IN THE NOVICE TROMBONIST(2022) Hanson, Leanne Rae; Gekker, Paul Chris; Music; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation aims to: 1) define the standard for modern slide technique, and 2) develop a new curriculum tested on novice trombonists with the goal of aiding private and classroom instruction of the instrument. Resources surveyed on the topic include dissertations, scholarly articles, websites, pedagogical devices and aids, instrument specific methods, and beginner band methods. The gaps ascertained in the literature and resource review inform the creation of the new curriculum method. The purpose of the curriculum is to teach proper playing position, slide technique, and determine how those skillsets impact tone quality and intonation. The study comprises five lesson plans tested on six trombonists who had fewer than three years of classroom band experience. Students performed an identical assessment at the beginning and conclusion of the study to determine understanding and growth in the areas of proper playing position, slide technique, tone quality, and intonation. Analysis of the assessments determined that students could effectively learn and implement proper playing position and slide technique, and it had an impact on tone quality improvement. Improvement in intonation, however, was inconclusive with half of the students showing improvement and the remaining showing regression. The results indicate that novice trombonists benefit from instrument-specific instruction, and the pedagogy is not too advanced for the novice student to understand and implement. Further research is needed to identify other ways instrument-specific instruction could impact a student’s overall intonation mastery.