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- Creator:
- Lv, Xuejing
- Description:
- Because China has become an important player in the global market and the connections are increasing between American and Chinese businesses, more American ecommerce personnel are learning the Chinese language. However, traditional Chinese language curriculum focuses on college life or children’s activities. In order to remedy this situation, the author developed this curriculum tailored to the needs of American ecommerce personnel learning the Chinese language. The purpose of this project was to design a systematic Chinese language curriculum for American e-commerce personnel. The significance of this project is that it provides three special features for American e-commerce personnel: computer Chinese, professional vocabulary, and business culture. These three items make this curriculum focus more on the working environment in the e-commerce field, which would facilitate the communication between American personnel and their Chinese co-workers. This project will focus on comprehension and expression of the Mandarin Chinese Language. The whole curriculum includes a detailed introduction section and six lessons. The introduction includes Hanyu Pinyin Structure, useful expressions, the Chinese writing system, and computer Chinese. The lessons have learning objectives, dialogues, vocabulary, language assessments, culture notes, and progress checklists. This whole curriculum will serve as teaching material for bilingual language teachers, who instruct American e-commerce personnel to learn the Chinese language. They can revise the content-related professional areas according to the situation of their students.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- Chico
- Department:
- Education
- Creator:
- James, Philip Lee
- Description:
- Reading comprehension is essential for student success both in and out of school. My philosophy in education involves preparing students for success in and out of school. It is my belief that students who are able to take control of their own learning will have a higher opportunity to achieve this success. Instruction in self-regulated reading strategies is a method for achieving both of these elements of education. Research regarding direct instruction of self-regulated practices suggest that proper implementation of these practices have cognitive benefits in increasing reading comprehension. Models of self-regulation indicate that development of self-regulation is a cyclic process that includes: 1) Self-evaluation and monitoring, 2) Goal Setting and Strategic Planning, 3) Strategy implementation and monitoring, and 4) Strategic outcome monitoring. I used this model to implement goal setting as the catalyst for instruction in self-regulated reading comprehension strategies to a group of second grade readers who were struggling with reading comprehension. My goal was twofold: 1) To provide students with a skill that could hopefully be beneficial for years to come 2) To potentially provide other educators with information documenting benefits for implementing these strategies into their own classrooms. I began by teaching students the reading comprehension strategies of asking questions about text, making predictions and asking clarifying questions while reading. After students had practice using these strategies, I used goal setting to introduce self-regulated reading comprehension strategies into my instruction. Students made goals and monitored their progress as well as their use of these strategies on a weekly basis. The results of the study indicated that there could be a positive correlation between students’ use of self-regulated reading strategies and an increase in reading performance. All students that participated in the study showed an increase in motivation and participation during reading instruction. Most students also showed significant gains in average reading comprehension scores, book level, comprehension quiz pass rate, and/or average words read per week; however, not all students’ improvement was able to be directly linked to use of these self-regulated strategies.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- Chico
- Department:
- Education
- Creator:
- Xiong, Lee
- Description:
- The Hmong language was identified as an oral tradition in which the older generations orally taught values, morals, and ritual rites to the younger generations for thousands of years dated back to 2,500 B.C. in China. About 6 decades ago, a group of French-American missionaries and a linguist developed a writing system for the Hmong in Laos in 1950. It was identified as the Romanized Popular Alphabet (RPA script). The RPA script became the literacy for the Hmong. For the Hmong language, the RPA script is divided into three groups: consonants, vowels, and tone markers. The consonants are further categorized into four groups such as 18 single consonants, 22 double consonants, 14 triple consonants, and 3 quadruple consonants. There are a total of 57 Hmong consonants, 13 vowels, 6 mono-vowels, and 7 bi-vowels. There are eight tone markers that indicated the high, middle, and low pitch in each word that is spoken. These are the important elements of the Hmong literacy. Once a student has mastered the pronunciation of these individual letters she or he would be able to paste the letters to make words. The words could be formed into sentences. This researcher noticed the alphabet to be a problem for the Hmong American students because English and Hmong rely on the same alphabets, but different a phonetic guide. It is frustrating for many beginning Hmong American students when they first attempt to learn the language.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- Chico
- Department:
- Education
- Creator:
- Vercruysse, Ryan
- Description:
- Service-learning projects for a small school can have a major impact on the social values and perceptions of the educational environment. Influencing students to lead and create positive change in their community is a process that can be achieved by implementing a service-learning program. Service learning is a tool to improve social outcomes for students. If the need for student leadership is required and a connection needs to be made between community and school, service learning is the key to open that door for success. The development of a positive social culture within a small school can be accomplished through the implementation of successful service-learning programs. The perception of low school spirit was observed among secondary students. To address these needs a service-learning project was established. This model program required the implementation of instructional, motivational, and leadership strategies. A student-led organization was created to provide activities that develop positive social outcomes within the educational community. The service learning program at Champion Christian School was modeled using a variety of researched methods. The methods for practice and application were modeled after researched standards and components for effective practice. The service learning project yielded many positive results, including the development of positive social outcomes among student participants. Using service learning in a small school requires time, hard work, and a caring heart to help make positive changes in society.
- Resource Type:
- Graduate project
- Campus Tesim:
- Chico
- Department:
- Education
- Creator:
- Shelton, Miranda
- Description:
- As a teacher researcher, I examined the following question: “How does a mentoring program impact students’ engagement with school in a high needs, high poverty school context?” A supporting question to this action research included: “What are teachers’ perceptions of students from a high needs, high poverty school context?” These questions were examined by providing and implementing a mentor program at the school site for students ranging from third through sixth grade in a low income, high poverty school context. The supporting question was examined by interviewing seven teachers at the school site to gain an understanding of the teachers’ perceptions of the designated demographic. The qualitative data was collected and analyzed to gain information on the impact of a mentor program implemented into a high poverty school context. There were methods used to collect triangulated data that supported the research question and the supporting question. A pre and post school attitude survey, weekly journaling, and teacher perception interviews were all conducted to provide data to the action research questions. This action research intended to study the issue of poverty and how it affects the students in school, and what interventions can be used to help break the cycle of poverty and support the students and schools. Poverty affects one in four American children and using tools, such as a mentor program, as an early intervention can support the students in succeeding in school and building supportive and healthy relationships.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- Chico
- Department:
- Education
- Creator:
- Dossey, Ashley
- Description:
- School should be a productive learning environment where students gain knowledge and build on top of their background knowledge. In order to fully comprehend information, students must show interest in the subject matter. Due to the curriculum being tremendously controlled, students are limited when it comes to reflecting on their background knowledge or studying a subject that is appealing. This study investigated a variety of teaching strategies used to enhance the level of student engagement while using stated adopted curriculum materials. My mentor teacher and I explored different aspects of student engagement that involved: implementing different teaching strategies into the classroom, asking for student and parent feedback, analyzing student work samples, interviewing teachers, and maintaining anecdotal records on our lessons. We also looked for any attitude changes involving academics such as an increase in student engagement, active participation, and deeper understandings of the content. The methods and procedures used contributed to answering: How can I improve the student engagement in my second grade classroom using a variety of teaching strategies with state adopted curriculum materials? Anecdotal notes, pretests, posttests, feedback forms, interviews, and student work samples were the methods used to demonstrate that it is possible for students to be engaged while using a variety of teaching strategies with state adopted curriculum materials. The results of the methods used were consistent. Student engagement increased when visual learning, team tasks, and student choice were implemented into the curriculum when compared to teaching using state adopted curriculum materials only. In many cases, students became motivated to extend their own learning through independent research after exposure to engaging teaching strategies.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- Chico
- Department:
- Education
- Creator:
- DeForest, Hanna Elise
- Description:
- This thesis examines the impact that structured interactive homework activities have on attitudes toward homework. “Gator bags,” a form of literacy bags, were used as the structured interactive homework. Students took turns taking home a gator bag to experience with their families. The students had two opportunities each to take home a gator bag. The forms of data that were collected during this study include homework samples, student interviews, student attitude feedback, and additional feedback forms from both the parents and students. Each form of data collection was distributed twice during this project, once at the beginning of the year (prior to the initiation of the gator bag project), and once at the end, after students and families had experienced the gator bags. In each of the gator bags there were feedback forms for students and their families to fill out after they completed each gator bag. Grounded theory was used to analyze the data from which the conclusions of this research were drawn. The attitude of the students
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- Chico
- Department:
- Education
- Creator:
- Prakash, Jason
- Description:
- Since the introduction of No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), teachers have created different methods in preparation for state-wide testing. Through NCLB, the government has identified mathematics as one of the subjects in which students need to reach proficiency by 2014. However, the current state of student mathematical performance may make reaching this goal more difficult. For instance, students are accountable for knowing more concepts and are evaluated with higher standards than previous years. For students to reach proficiency, students in the elementary grades need to have a clear understanding of these concepts. The following action research study examined the question, “How does the use of reflective journaling impact fourth grade students' performance on weekly math assessments?” From this central question, an additional question was addressed, “How does reflective writing impact students understanding of academic language?” These questions were investigated by creating and implementing reflective journaling at one school site with one low-performing fourth grade math class. In the classroom, 11 students’ data were collected during the second and third trimester. The data were triangulated by collecting and analyzing the students’ assessments, homework, and reflective journals. In the second trimester, the students’ assessments and homework were collected and analyzed. The data were then compared to the data collected from the students’ third trimesters’ assessments, homework, and reflective journaling. Within each journal entry, an academic language component was also addressed. After the reflective journaling was implemented, the students’ assessment scores increased, and the students were also understanding and articulating the academic words used in each lesson.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- Chico
- Department:
- Education
- Creator:
- Porras, Christina
- Description:
- With the demands of the No Child Left Behind legislation in place, Program Improvement schools within the United States are under added pressure to make full use of daily classroom instructional minutes. Concerns have arisen as precious instructional minutes are persistently interrupted by behavioral issues within the classroom. My research explored the outcomes of behavioral issues surrounding the use of cooperative learning structures within the context of our third grade rural school classroom. In this study, cooperative learning approaches resulted in fewer classroom interruptions, increased opportunities for students to use academic content language, stronger peer relationships, promotion of self-esteem, and evidence that students liked to work cooperatively. Teachers willing to incorporate cooperative learning structures into their instruction are setting high standards for students by allowing them to work interdependently with their peers in a harmonious effort of completing learning tasks together. The skills learned in these structures are said to contribute to responsible future citizens.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- Chico
- Department:
- Education
- Creator:
- Nonaka, Andrea
- Description:
- High stakes testing and accountability in schools has forced teachers into a tight corner when it comes to instruction. Districts, in fear of low testing scores, adopt more teacher-centered approaches to all content areas where successful testing is imperative, including the English language arts and writing. Disengagement, low motivation, and students’ low self-efficacy are a result. This research sought to find a more student-centered form of formative assessment that could be used during the writing process. A learning segment was created using an instructional rubric in which student generate the criteria by which they were assessed using different levels of student work examples as models. Students were then explicitly taught how to assess their own writing using this criterion. The research showed that students would not only have a better understanding of what was expected of them, but were also given the skills to monitor and make adjustments to their own learning, making them more autonomous in their writing. This, in turn, created improved motivation and a greater sense of self-efficacy.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- Chico
- Department:
- Education