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Implementing Nature-Based Play In Academically Focused Early Childhood Settings
Get PDFResearch shows that both play and time spent in nature is critical to childhood development. Over the last fifty years, children’s access to extended play in outdoor spaces has decreased substantially. What are early childhood educators in formal academic settings to do with this information? The professional development series created for this project aims to provide early childhood educators with tools and resources to incorporate nature-based play practices into their classrooms. In the series, participants will examine the history of outdoor education in America, the effects of nature on the human body, standardized testing and current educational practices in early learning environments, and play’s role in child development. Information from each of these sections will provide background information and research that will help educators to incorporate nature-based play practices in holistic, culturally responsible ways. Each in-person workshop will be followed by take-home assignments for deeper understanding and personal application. The goal of this project is to increase awareness surrounding the positive effects of nature-based practices in early childhood education programs by equipping teachers with research and tools to do in their own classroom
When You Look Into The Mirror And See Nothing: Psychic Disequilibrium And Its Relationship With Impostor Phenomenon In Hmong Women Leaders In The United States
Get PDFXiong-Chan, M. (2023). When You Look into the Mirror and See Nothing: Psychic Disequilibrium and its relationship with Impostor Phenomenon in Hmong Women Leaders in the United States.
Hmong have made considerable educational and socio-economic strides in the United States, post immigration after the Vietnam War. This has been achieved through significant challenges such as language, culture, discrimination, poverty and racism. This phenomenological study focuses specifically on Hmong women leaders in the United States and, through qualitative research, examines how psychic disequilibrium and impostor phenomenon have impacted their journeys. Using thematic analysis this study focused on the following research questions: How does psychic disequilibrium contribute to impostor phenomenon in Hmong American women’s professional ambitions? Secondary questions for this research include: What is the relationship between culture and identity within psychic disequilibrium among Hmong women and their leadership experiences in the United States? Data collection methods included an online in-take form to find participants and semi-structured interviews. There were six participants in the interview process who were geographically located in the Midwest and the Western United States. Findings suggest that cultural identity and gender play a significant role in how Hmong women experience feelings of belonging, failure and success and that Hmong women are better served as leaders by considering psychic disequilibrium to address these feelings than impostor phenomenon alone. Areas for future research include a study on the Hmong partners and husbands of these women, examining how culture and gender impact their lives as partners of professional Hmong women and expanding the study to include a larger sample of all female identifying Hmong women. (236 words
Using Cooperative Groups to Enhance Student Learning in a High School Math Class
Get PDFThere are many ways that teachers can use cooperative learning in their classroom. The literature review found in this capstone dives into the research surrounding cooperative learning, starting with the four theoretical perspectives on cooperative learning identified by Slavin (1995, as cited by Slavin, 2011) and how they work together to enhance learning. Also discussed is a 2003 study by Kramarski and Mevarech which demonstrates the need to expose students to metacognitive training. Liljedahl et al.’s (2021) research on how to group students can also be found in this capstone. The research from this literature review, along with the author’s personal experiences, sparked the idea for this capstone project. This project consists of materials to be used alongside cooperative learning curriculum. Included is a master list of collaborative learning statements to aid in discussion, a visual of Polya’s (1973) problem-solving process to be used throughout the lessons, four lesson plans to teach and model the behaviors that will be expected of students, and two unit plans to demonstrate how Polya’s (1973) method and other cooperative strategies can be used. The goal is that these materials can be used by other teachers to increase the effectiveness of cooperative learning in their classrooms
Impact of Targeted Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Initiatives on the Retention and Graduation Rates of Students of Color at Community Colleges
Get PDFIn the United States of America, students of color (SOCs) encounter significant barriers when they seek higher education. As a result, many institutions of higher learning pursue diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives to enhance these students’ chances at social and academic attainment. For community colleges across the nation, because they enroll a disproportionately large number of SOCs due to their combination of open enrollment policies, low tuition and geographic proximity, targeted DEI initiatives are a strategy of choice in dealing with their abysmal retention and graduation rates among this student demographic. This dissertation, anchored in sociological-based theoretical frameworks—specifically William G. Spady’s Undergraduate Dropout Process Model and Vincent Tinto’s Institutional Departure Model, explores the relationship between targeted diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives at two Minnesota Community Colleges and their SOCs propensity to reenroll in school and to graduate from their academic programs in prescribed time.
The dissertation utilizes the mixed methods approach to collect, analyze, and interpret qualitative and quantitative data. Qualitative data describing how educational personnel at ARCC and at NHCC are engaged in deliberate, targeted DEI initiatives to improve retention and graduation rates of SOCs were collected through interviews conducted to a purposively selected sample of students of color at both colleges. In addition, quantitative data was collected via a 25-Item, 5-point Likert Scale Survey administered to study participants at the two focal institutions. Additional retention and graduation rate data for SOCs were pulled from the study’s focal institutions, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), and Minnesota State Performance Metrics (MnSPM) system. Pearson r Correlation tests and multiple regression analysis were performed to ascertain correlations between community colleges’ targeted DEI initiatives and the propensity for their SOCs to reenroll and to graduate from their academic programs on time
Educating Paramedics on the Importance of Postpartum Maternal Health and Related Emergencies
Get PDFThe rate of maternal mortality has been increasing in the United States for the past 20 years, and we are currently ranked the worst among high-income countries in the world. Several issues facing the high maternal mortality rate are preventable and should not lead to maternal death. Providing research-based education to paramedics will help to create an awareness of the issues around maternal mortality, and they can help identify people who may be experiencing a medical emergency related to postpartum. The planning for this project used Understanding by Design (Tigh to help reverse engineer the education outcomes and create a presentation that can be provided to current and new providers. Research provided a roadmap of points of education that can significantly help reduce maternal mortality
Supporting Dual-Identified Learners’ English Expressive Language Development
Get PDFThis project seeks to answer the questions: How can educators support ELL and dual-identified learners’ English language development in the modalities of writing and speaking? What is the intersectionality between language acquisition and SLD issues? This project was born out of the author’s own experience in supporting dual-identified learners as well as from a desire to better support expressive language production in her class, with the goal of helping students exit the EL program. The author consulted research that offered information on the diverse identities and various labels of ELL learners, the issues in identifying SLD in ELLs, various perspectives towards ELLs in the educational system. Using this, the author created a 5-6 week long curriculum unit designed to engage and support middle school learners’ expressive language production in the modalities of writing and speaking. The writing is done in response to the popular Young Adult. novel Alone by Megan E. Freeman
Metaphor Matters: Teaching Metaphoric Competence
Get PDFResearch shows that metaphoric competence is necessary for communicative competence and this paper suggests Cognitive Metaphor Theory (CMT) may be useful in teaching metaphoric competence at all levels of English. Even though causality is difficult to establish, research underscores the link between metaphoric competence and overall language proficiency. This, and the pervasiveness of metaphor in everyday and specialized English, strongly suggests a pedagogical shift towards recognizing and engaging deeply with metaphoric language. This means making room for metaphoric competence training in the ESL and legal English classroom. The project models the analyses of two diverse texts: an intermediate-level newspaper article from the Voice of America, and the U.S. Supreme Court Dobbs decision. The analyses illuminate and organize the use of figurative language grounded in metaphor, thereby emphasizing the importance of metaphoric competence for both ESL and legal English students. The first goal of the project is to demonstrate how intermediate ESL students can learn to identify and analyze everyday English for metaphor, through an analysis of a Voice of America news article. The project also uses an adapted version of Smith’s (2007) metaphor levels in legal text framework and applies it to excerpts from the majority opinion in the U.S. Supreme Court Dobbs decision. The second goal of the project is to demonstrate the use of this framework for identifying metaphorically grounded language in legal text. Both of the analyses use authentic sources and require critical thinking as well as develop cultural knowledge. The project advances a holistic language learning approach, emphasizing the importance of metaphoric competence in everyday and specialized English language
Effectiveness of Integrating Technology for Improving the Post-Secondary Skills of Students with a Graphic Novel Based Curriculum
Get PDFThe research question addressed in this study was: how can high school teachers design a unit plan, centered around a graphic novel that effectively integrates the teaching of technology skills which students can apply in their post-secondary experiences? Topics explored in the literature review include what student burnout is, in addition to student attention spans. Alongside those, it looks into the best practices of utilizing technology, teaching technology as a skill, and teaching graphic novels. The curriculum designed for this project focuses on the Understanding by Design (Ubd) framework from Wiggins and McTighe (2011) and uses backward design to craft a unit plan. The unit plan was centered around using a graphic novel to guide the further development of students’ technology skills. Inside this unit, students were being taught transferable technology skills that they can use later in their lives. The curriculum will primarily be used in a traditional classroom setting, for high school students in an English Language Arts class. With that being said, this curriculum can be easily adapted for other grade levels, as well as swapping out the texts used in the curriculum. The goal of the project is to have students walking away feeling as though they successfully learned new or deepened their repertoire of technology skills to take into their post-secondary experiences
Templates for Planning Engaging Secondary Science Class Periods Within a Seven Period Daily Schedule
Get PDFSecondary teachers in Minnesota are expected to plan for one hundred and sixty five days of school. With many secondary teachers responsible for teaching more than one unique course each day as part of a seven period class schedule, that is over three hundred individual class periods that need to be prepared. Additionally, student attention span is decreasing, and it is harder to keep students engaged in the material than it has been in the past. In order to combat these challenges, I have identified the different categories of science class periods and developed research based planning templates for each type of class period. These templates are designed to keep students more engaged on the individual portions of class based on research on attention span and best practices for student engagement. By having access to these planning templates, teachers will reduce the amount of time they spend on planning each class period, which will allow more time to be dedicated to their other responsibilities. This capstone uses research and data collected on students and attention span to answer the question: What are the most effective ways to structure the different types of secondary science class periods within a seven period class schedule? In conclusion, this project demonstrates that secondary science classes can be planned in a way that is beneficial both to the students and to the teacher