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Incorporating Student Choice in Second Grade Writing
Full text linkThis thesis investigates the integration of instructional choice into elementary writing instruction, focusing on its impact on second-grade special education students. The study addresses two primary research questions: 1) How does integrating student choice in elementary writing instruction impact second-grade special education students' writing quality? and 2) How are the motivation and engagement of students impacted while utilizing student choice in writing instruction? Findings indicate that instructional choice positively influences student engagement and motivation, aligning with previous research. Moreover, students demonstrated a mean writing quality improvement of 13.4%, emphasizing the potential of autonomy to enhance writing skills. This study highlights the importance of recognizing and respecting individual student differences in their responses to instructional choice. Aligned with Constructivist Learning Theory and Self-Determination Theory, this research highlights the active role of students in decision-making processes and the positive impact of autonomy on motivation. Recommendations include exploring long-term effects on larger study sizes, extending the study to other subjects, and providing a gradual introduction with ongoing support. This study contributes insights into student-centered education, offering practical implications for educators to create inclusive and empowering learning environments in elementary writing instruction for special education students
As Long As I Can Laugh About It: Examining the Relationship Between Humor Style and Coping Humor Efficacy
Full text linkAssessment of coping has largely viewed the role of humor as both adaptive and effective. However, depending on an individual’s humor style, there is the potential for humor production to lead to cognitive appraisals deleterious to psychological well-being. The present study examined how emotion-focused coping efficacy and appraisals vary by humor style in a sample of 232 undergraduate students. Participants underwent a false-feedback paradigm designed to induce stress before completing either a cartoon caption-writing task or a control condition, which involved writing descriptions of the same cartoon vignettes. Anxiety was assessed before and after each caption-writing task. Finally, participants reported on their humor styles and emotion-focused coping appraisals. It was hypothesized that the humor production group would experience a greater reduction in state anxiety following a caption-writing task than the control group. Additionally, a negative relation of self-defeating humor and anxiety reduction and coping efficacy following the caption writing task was hypothesized. On the other hand, the use of self-enhancing humor was predicted to have a positive relation with anxiety reduction and coping efficacy following the caption writing task. Findings revealed that producing humorous content was not related to changes in anxiety anxiety. However, humor styles predicted both anxiety relief and emotion-focused coping appraisal. Anxiety relief was positively related to affiliative humor and inversely related to self-defeating humor, while emotion-focused coping appraisal was positively related to self-enhancing humor and inversely related to both self-defeating humor and aggressive humor. These findings support previous literature that suggests self-defeating humor is unambiguously maladaptive and highlight the importance of both public and clinician awareness of how humor is used in treatment
The Effects of Supplemental Phonemic Awareness and Phonics Instruction on Kindergarten Students’ Writing Performance
Full text linkThe 2021 U.S. National Assessment of Educational Progress for Writing reveals that up to 75% of students struggle to write at a basic level (Dunn, 2021). This deficiency in writing ability may be linked to a disconnect between phonemic awareness and phonics instruction in primary classrooms. (Cuffari, 2015). Many classrooms focus on teaching these skills for decoding words in reading, neglecting the crucial connection to writing. Balanced literacy, incorporating phonics instruction, is fundamental in primary classrooms to establish a robust foundation for reading and writing skills (Sohn, 2020). Transferring knowledge gained in phonemic awareness and phonics instruction to subsequent reading and writing sessions is crucial. In kindergarten, where students use invented spelling, phonemic awareness and phonics skills become essential for successfully spelling words phonetically in their writing endeavors.The purpose of this study was to determine how supplemental phonemic awareness and phonics instruction in small groups can impact kindergarten struggling writers’ writing performance and examine how struggling writers’ knowledge of phonemes and graphemes connects to their writing performance. Data collection and analysis resulted in the following conclusions: (1) Supplemental phonemic awareness and phonics instruction leads to an increase in students’ grapheme and phoneme knowledge. (2) Supplemental phonemic awareness and phonics instruction improves struggling writers’ encoding skills. (3) Supplemental phonemic awareness and phonics instruction improves students’ writing
Freezing of Gait and Balance in a Person with Parkinson’s After 6 Weeks of Virtual Reality
Full text linkThis case study investigated whether reminiscence therapy (RT) could potentially mitigate freezing of gait (FOG) in an older person with Parkinson’s Disease (PD). RT and VR separately have been shown to help with anxiety and depression, potentially impacting movement issues tied to mental state. During this study, one person engaged in a 6-week program, spending 30 minutes navigating a virtual map of New York City from the 1950s. Before and after the intervention, the participant's walking patterns were evaluated using the Gait and Falls Questionnaire (GFQ), the Dynamic Parkinson Gait Scale (DPGS), video recordings, and the notes from the participant’s Occupational Therapist’s observation to assess whether the therapy effectively reduced the occurrence of FOG. Improvements were observed in various aspects related to FOG, such as the duration of FOG episodes, start hesitation, turning hesitation, destination hesitation, tight quarters hesitation, stress-induced freezing, and the feeling of being rooted to the ground. The participant also reported increased festinating gait and an additional fall during the study, possibly associated with basal ganglia dysfunction. Post-test scores on the GFQ were 14 points lower than the pre-test, and the DPGS scores showed a 3-point improvement. The Functional Reach Test, performed by the Occupational Therapist, also showed a 2-inch improvement. Video analysis demonstrated improved walking patterns characterized by more controlled steps and reduced forward lean. Results indicate a reduction in FOG in a participant with PD, showing that the combination of VR and RT may possibly help with reducing FOG symptoms
Urban Modulation: An Investigation into the Effects of Urban Renewal on Chicago’s South Side Jazz Community
Full text linkThis study looks at the effects of housing related urban renewal policies on Chicago’s South Side jazz communities from 1940 to 1970. During this period, Black migration patterns reshaped neighborhood demographics throughout the city, specifically on the South Side. A rapid expansion of the South Side jazz community occurred, followed by a sharp and sudden decline towards the end of the period. Using a mixed-method approach that combines case study, historical analysis, and urban geography, this study provides both general and detailed analysis of the effects of urban policy decisions on the South Side jazz scene in Chicago. Interviews were conducted with seven participants to add to data collected from historical documents. Each participant was chosen based off their long-term status as a member of the South Side jazz community or their long-term status as a South Side resident, and in most cases, participants fulfilled both qualifications. Findings illuminate the extreme measures initiated by policy makers such as the Illinois Redevelopment Act of 1947, Relocation Act of 1947, and the Urban Community Conservation Act of 1953 that funded the destruction of residential and commercial spaces to curtail Black migration to predominately White South Side neighborhoods, and how these and similar measures directly and indirectly eliminated jazz venues and performance spaces within Chicago’s South Side
A Press of One's Own: Hosted versus Outsourced Pressbooks
Full text linkA New Jersey Library Association NJLA-ACRLNJ 2023 Conference PresentationOpen Educational Resources (OER) support is increasingly common among college libraries. Pressbooks is an open source content management system for creating and publishing digital books. The software is available in two basic ways: (a) self-hosted on your own servers (pressbooks.org), or (b) as an externally hosted subscription (PressbooksEDU). Both approaches provide solutions for OER textbook production and other zero-cost materials. This session compares self-hosted and outsourced Pressbooks services to help inform your evaluation process