Theses and Dissertations from UMD
Permanent URI for this communityhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2
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 "You Can't See Me By Looking at Me": Black Girls' Arts-based Practices as Mechanisms for Identity Construction and Resistance(2021) Kaler-Jones, Cierra; Galindo, Claudia; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation explored how eight adolescent Black girls (co-researchers) used arts-based practices in a virtual summer program as mechanisms for identity construction and resistance. Theoretically grounded in Black Feminist Thought, Black Girlhood, and Black Performance Theory, I designed and implemented a virtual summer art program aimed at co-creating a healing-centered space to engage in critical explorations of history, storytelling, and social justice with Black girls. The co-research team participated in the 5-week Black Girls S.O.A.R. (Scholarship, Organizing, Arts, Resistance) program as part of the study. At the end of the program, co-researchers took themes from the sessions and created artwork to present a Community Arts Showcase to their loved ones. I combined performance ethnography (Denzin, 2008; Soyini Madison, 2006) and integrated aspects of youth participatory action research to answer the following research questions: 1) How, if at all, do Black girls use arts-based practices as mechanisms for resistance and identity construction? and 2) What specific attributes of Black girls’ involvement in arts-based programs foster identity construction and acts of resistance? This study employed “two-tiered” (Brown, 2010) qualitative data collection. For the first component, co-researchers and I collected our conversation transcripts from the sessions to create a collaborative artistic production. The second component included my concurrent collection of session observations, field notes, pre-and-post interviews, and artwork to document the co-researchers’ experiences in the program. The data showed that Black girls used arts-based practices to 1) rewrite singular historical narratives of Black history in the standard curriculum; 2) share counter-narratives; 3) heal in and build community out; and 4) dream a better world into existence. Additionally, Black girls named 1) showcasing their work to loved ones; 2) being supported by other Black girls; 3) learning about self and communal care; and 4) reexamining history by centering Black women’s resistance as specific attributes of their involvement in the program that contributed to their identity construction and resistance. This study offers much-needed data on the power and potential of culturally-sustaining, arts-based pedagogy in virtual educational spaces, as well as contributes to the growing body of literature that centers Black girls’ epistemologies in education research.Item Learning to Elicit, Interpret, and Respond to Students’ Historical Thinking: A Case Study of Four Teacher Candidates(2015) Neel, Michael Alan; Imig, David G.; Valli, Linda R.; Curriculum and Instruction; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Teacher education researchers have argued that teacher candidates must learn to attend to students’ disciplinary thinking if they are to improve student learning. In history education, such attention must focus on student thinking about evidence because interpretation of evidence is at the heart of historical discourse. This study explores how four teacher candidates who had learned to attend to students’ historical thinking in a social studies methods course engaged in the practice of eliciting, interpreting, and responding to that thinking during their internships. Data collected over a nine-month period included observations of candidates in their methods courses, a pretest administered before the methods course, observation of at least four lessons per candidate in the internship, interviews with teachers after each observed lesson, and analysis of methods coursework. Case study analyses indicated that two of the candidates elicited, interpreted and responded to students’ historical thinking while another did not, and a fourth did so only under certain conditions. The cross-case analysis showed that although all of the candidates used methods course tools in the internship, some were unable to use these tools to elicit students’ historical thinking. While three of the four candidates noticed historical thinking and considered that thinking in determining an instructional response, what candidates noticed was limited to the scope of their instructional objectives. Only one candidate consistently responded to student thinking in evaluative ways, and all four struggled to deliver responses that maintained a focus on student reasoning. Instead, candidates preferred to demonstrate their own reasoning, either by building on a student idea or simply as a means to make a point not directly related to a student idea. This study highlights the interconnected nature of eliciting, interpreting, and responding to student thinking and offers insight into how teacher educators can facilitate attention to student historical thinking. It also points to factors that are important for the development of this ability including candidate disciplinary knowledge and the social contexts of learning. Furthermore, this study provides a framework and analytical tools that can enable future researchers to examine this phenomenon more deeply.Item Historians' role in teacher preparation: Personal and institutional factors that lead to their engagement in preparing future teachers(2012) Watts, Eric Christopher; Imig, David; Monte-Sano, Chauncey; Curriculum and Instruction; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Since the early 20th century, there has been a push to strengthen the connections between schools, colleges, and departments of education and the rest of the university, specifically the faculty from the arts and sciences (A&S). Due to various institutional and organizational barriers, the call for strong collaboration between A&S departments and schools of education has been unrealized; however, circumstances particular to certain colleges and universities have enabled partnerships to form and strong collaboration to exist. The involvement of faculty from the academic fields in preparing future teachers is essential; the academic fields provide both the general education that undergirds the preparation of teachers and the subject matter specialization which the candidate will use in teaching children and youth. As noted in Teacher Education for A Free People a half century ago, the academic fields also provide future teachers with "essential instructional content" and "an understanding of teaching as a concept " (Stratemeyer, 1958). Faculty who teach liberal studies - literature, science, the arts, mathematics, philosophy, history and the other social sciences - make major contributions to the education of teachers and, therefore, need to be engaged in all aspects of the teacher education program. This study identified three teacher education programs that exemplify high-levels of A&S faculty member involvement in teacher education, specifically the involvement of historians. Operating under the premise that historians are essential to preparing effective history teachers, historians at each of the three institutions that are engaged in preparing teachers were identified with the intent of understanding the personal and institutional factors that lead to their involvement. A multiple case study design was used to find common themes among each historian's experiences. Documents were collected and interviews and observations were conducted at each of the three institutions. Case reports were created for each of the three universities and a cross-case analysis was conducted. Findings reveal that a commitment to collaboration from the colleges of education, support from university and departmental leadership, and a commitment to improving public schools from the historians are significant factors that supported historian engagement in teacher preparation.Item Teaching Historical Thinking: The Challenge of Implementing Reform-Minded Practices for Three First Year Teachers(2010) Cochran, Melissa Marie; Monte-Sano, Chauncey; Curriculum and Instruction; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Researchers in history education have argued the importance of closing the gap between how history is practiced in the discipline and how history is taught in schools. This study explores how three teachers who had learned to teach historical thinking in their teacher education program then implemented these practices in their first year of teaching. Data collected over a two-year period included observations of teachers in their methods courses and field placements; a pre-test and post-test administered before and after the completion of the teacher education program; observations of two units of instruction per teacher during their first year teaching; interviews with teachers during their teacher education program and first year of teaching; and analysis of documents collected over the two year period. Case studies revealed that one of the three teachers routinely taught historical thinking while the other two teachers implemented discipline-based practices less frequently. Cross-case analysis showed that each teacher's development and enactment of research-based practices varied. While the teachers' learning and working contexts, including teacher education and the school and district contexts, influenced if and how teachers taught historical thinking, a number of other factors contributed to teachers' decision making. These included teachers' understandings of the discipline, knowledge of how to make these thinking strategies accessible to students, vision and beliefs about teaching history, available tools and resources, and individual dispositions. This study highlights the intricate nature of how teachers learn and develop and offers insight into how researchers and practitioners can support new teacher learning. This includes continuing to improve teacher education to enhance life-long learning; better aligning the goals of local schools and districts with those of research-based teacher education programs; and providing ongoing supports, such as induction programs sponsored by the University, once teacher candidates graduate. This study also suggests the need for communities of practitioners who share reform-minded goals and collaborate regularly to inquire about and improve practice.Item STUDYING EPISTEMIC COGNITION IN THE HISTORY CLASSROOM: CASES OF TEACHING AND LEARNING TO THINK HISTORICALLY(2010) Maggioni, Liliana; Alexander, Patricia A; VanSledright, Bruce; Human Development; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Building on the literature on epistemic cognition, epistemic beliefs, and historical thinking, three class-level case studies were conducted to investigate features of historical thinking and history-specific epistemic beliefs of high-school students and their teachers. These cases also considered teachers' pedagogical practices and the potential effects of those practices on students' historical thinking and epistemic beliefs. Two junior honors and one freshman US History classes were selected from a school system that fostered the preparation of students for AP History courses by encouraging the use of a variety of primary sources and analysis of documents in teaching history. Preliminary visits indicated that these classes' teachers used different pedagogical practices. Class observations spanned one semester of instruction. History-specific epistemic beliefs were explored using interviews structured around the items of the Beliefs about History Questionnaire (BHQ) and historical thinking was assessed through analysis of think-alouds collected while student informants (4 from each class) and their teachers read a set of 6 documents and responded to a constructed response task (CRT). Specifically, student data were collected at the middle and end of the semester, while teachers were interviewed only once, at the end of the semester. In one of the junior classes, 27 additional juniors responded in writing to the BHQ and to the CRTs. Additional questionnaires and interviews explored teachers' goals, rationales for their practice, and interest in history. In regard to history-specific epistemic beliefs, results indicated that students and teachers manifested ideas indicative of different developmental levels, suggesting that their epistemic beliefs are a complex system, not necessarily characterized by a high level of integration. Differences across students tended to be greater in regard to epistemic beliefs than to historical thinking. In addition, comparison of initial and follow-up data suggested different trajectories of change in regard to students' epistemic beliefs while changes in historical thinking were modest and not consistently suggesting progression in competence. These trends were confirmed by the analysis of students' written responses to the BHQ and the CRTs. The study identified a set of ideas and behaviors that tended to produce cognitive impasse and hindered the development of historical thinking and a series of pedagogical practices, mostly aligned with teachers' goals and beliefs, which might have fostered such outcomes.