Search Constraints
Filtering by:
Department
Education
Remove constraint Department: Education
Collection
Thesis
Remove constraint Collection: Thesis
Number of results to display per page
Search Results
- Creator:
- Lowery, Daniel
- Description:
- The purpose of this study was to investigate if certain early childhood behaviors are associated with a person being diagnosed with dyslexia. Only a slight proportion of articles published regarding dyslexia concern preschool children. This study attempted to determine whether some behaviors displayed before kindergarten or early primary school might indicate a connection to dyslexia. The survey study method was chosen for this study. It is important to recognize that ‘the survey approach is a research strategy, not a research method. As with any research approach, a choice of methods is available and the one most appropriate to the individual project should be used.” (Blaxter, 2010) This is not to say the surveys and statistical studies are mutually exclusive. This study analyzed 11 children and their parents who had been identified as dyslexic by medical doctors. One parent for each child was recruited making the total number of participants 22 in all. The participants came from The Dyslexia Institute of San Diego. The ages of these students ranged from 11 to 17 years old. The students were chosen by administrators at The Dyslexia Institute. Both students and children were asked questions concerning their early childhood. There were no prerequisites for students or parents to participate in the study other than having been diagnosed with dyslexia. The researcher did not take part in choosing either students or parents who enrolled where this study was performed. The researcher had the questionnaires given to the institute's members by their administrators at The Dyslexia Institute and at events they held both publicly and privately.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Marcos
- Department:
- Education
- Creator:
- Hampton, Kristin
- Description:
- The purpose of this study was to see if there was a positive impact on student achievement when specific parent communication with the school exists. There were low API scores and a lack of meaningful connections between parents, students, and teachers. The research question was, How does customized parent-teacher communication about student learning impact student achievement? Customized communication is a blending of Epstein’s (1995) Type 2 communicating and Type 4 learning at home. To improve student achievement via improving parent-teacher communication, customized communication took the form of a weekly newsletter. The study took place at one high school located in Southern California. Spanish 1 and 2 classes and their parents were part of the study. Before intervention, a chapter test served as a pretest to provide class test averages and revealed similarity among the control and experimental classes. Parents were surveyed to gather the type of desired communication they wanted in a newsletter. Intervention was given in the form of weekly newsletters to two experimental classes using customized communication about student learning. Finally, a chapter test served as a post-test to reveal any changes in class test score averages as a result of customized communication. A quantitative methodology was used. Data were collected and analyzed through student pretest averages, a parent survey, and student post-test averages. Through personal communication, parents expressed positive perceptions of the intervention. However, a t-Test to compare pre and post test averages, revealed that the null hypothesis must be rejected. There was no significant change in test averages as a result of the intervention. This study could be expanded with more time to see if more customized-communication would impact student achievement. It is a study that opens the door to continue communication that parents value.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Marcos
- Department:
- Education
1563. Mathematics Literacy: Investigating and Constructing Curricula to Revitalize Mathematics Instruction
- Creator:
- Wetmore, Laura
- Description:
- The mathematical achievement level of students is of extreme concern. This curriculum project seeks to reverse this trend by filling the need for increased mathematics literacy, improved self-efficacy and student motivation. These needs will be met through incorporating writing, real world activities and project based learning. Many activities build upon students’ backgrounds and interests to make content not only accessible, but engaging. The author focuses on teaching and assessing for understanding while designing the curriculum “backward” from those conclusions. Many students’ self-efficacy and view on mathematics were low and negative upon entering the mathematics course. Their confidence improved throughout the course while implementing the strategies. Success of this project relies on choosing meaningful writing prompts, real world activities and projects that pique student motivation and interest in mathematics. With proper implementation of the curriculum, these are effective strategies that support the learning of mathematics.
- Resource Type:
- Project
- Campus Tesim:
- San Marcos
- Department:
- Education
- Creator:
- Escalona, Benhair
- Description:
- Both language and culture are inseparable parts and yet culture seems absent from most Spanish language courses. The purpose of this research project is to address the lack of culture integration within a Spanish language course. The following two questions guided this research project: (1) how can integrating more language culture contribute to students learning Spanish? (2) How can integrating more language culture in the curriculum give students a positive attitude to continue learning the Spanish language in the future? Although multiple reasons exist for this research project, one of them is for students to gain an understanding and appreciation of the Spanish language culture and their own culture. This research project seeks to improve how Spanish language educators integrate culture in a Spanish language classroom and how culture can benefit students moving forward with Spanish language learning. The main focus for the author during this research project is in the classroom, course book, and teachers. The author created a handbook so that Spanish language educators can integrate without significantly altering their curriculum. Research in the past has focused on giving the reader an awareness for integrating culture and yet fail to give any tools. Through this process, the author learned that he, being a native speaker, was failing at integrating the culture into his classroom. By integrating the handbook with the current curriculum of the school, students had a positive attitude towards both language and culture and desired to continue learning the language because they wanted to, rather than just because it of was a requirement to graduate from high school. In conclusion, there is a need to integrate more culture within the confines of a Spanish language classroom. The research project can be integrated to most levels of Spanish, but there is still a need for more activities for the upper levels. This research project contributes to the field of education by creating a handbook that Spanish language educators can use to integrate in their curriculum.
- Resource Type:
- Project
- Campus Tesim:
- San Marcos
- Department:
- Education
- Creator:
- Sjostrom, Soha
- Description:
- Reading improvement in early years of schooling is a goal that teachers, parents and administrators have for all students. Reading growth influences all academic areas as it is foundational to all subject matters. Administrators and teachers are always looking for ways to extend student reading time, and to have parents partner with them in achieving this goal. Districts and schools use various tools to measure students’ reading growth upon implementation of strategies and different curriculum. This research examines the use of reading fluency homework logs among first and second graders at an elementary school in California. The logs are sent home weekly and require parents to monitor their child’s reading, and elicit a signature before being turned in to teachers at the end of the week. To examine the benefits of these logs, this research correlated the proportion of signed reading logs in the two grades, to growth in DIBELS reading assessment test, a test given three times yearly to measure students’ growth in reading.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Marcos
- Department:
- Education
- Creator:
- Sisti, Mary
- Description:
- Students with moderate to severe disabilities benefit most when transdisciplinary teams collaborate to deliver individualized instruction and services together in the classroom. This research seeks to capture a description of Education Specialists’ current experiences during collaboration with their special education transdisciplinary teams composed of SLPs, OTs, APEs, Psychological services and Nurses. Due to a paucity of research from the teacher’s perspective, the central question of this study asks K-12 Education Specialists–Moderate/Severe to describe how they collaborate with their teams in the four domains of assessment, curriculum development, instruction, and progress monitoring. A descriptive mixed methods approach employs a quantitative survey and qualitative interviews to provided additional detail on survey questions. Overall, teachers report that teams collaborate most frequently in the areas of assessment and IEP goal development. Findings indicate that teams respectfully share resources, knowledge of students and disciplinary expertise, but lack consistency and a shared systematic approach towards collaboration, especially in the areas of instruction and progress monitoring. Participants describe how teams collaborate best, and what practices will improve or block collaboration. Due to the importance, but limited practice of transdisciplinary collaboration, this researcher recommends pre-service teacher preparation and graduate programs embed teaming into their foundational curricula.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Marcos
- Department:
- Education
- Creator:
- Hall, Stephanie
- Description:
- Difficulty in comprehending and deriving meaning from text can make reading, at the very least, frustrating. For school-aged students, comprehension is vital to accessing the core curriculum and progressing toward completing the mandatory high school A-G content requirements for earning a diploma. Students with ASD often display significant deficits in reading comprehension, having difficulty making meaning of or retaining what they read. The product of this project, the Resource Guide to Reading Comprehension for Students with Autism, is a reading comprehension resource guide for parents and teachers to help students with ASD to develop critical components of literacy competence. Keywords: Autism Spectrum Disorder, reading comprehension, Reciprocal Teaching, predicting, questioning, clarifying, summarizing, visualizing, reading interventions
- Resource Type:
- Project
- Campus Tesim:
- San Marcos
- Department:
- Education
- Creator:
- Rossiter, Ashley
- Description:
- This study investigates the impact of professional development (PD) and professional learning (PL) on the implementation of new standards, specifically looking at elementary school teachers and the implementation of the Common Core State Standards and the Next Generation Science Standards. For this study, one school district’s PD and PL activities were studied. Four surveys were administered to teachers in this district. The results were analyzed using percentages, mean comparisons, and t tests. Three models of PD: the Traditional In-Service, Teachers Training Teachers, and Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) were compared. The results of this study show that PLCs are a more effective model of PD than both other models in terms of effectiveness.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Marcos
- Department:
- Education
- Creator:
- Sánchez, Alma
- Description:
- Dual language programs reveal benefits for both English Language Learners and Native English speakers in achieving high proficiency levels of biliteracy. However, there are students who can struggle academically in dual language programs. Educators are then challenged with meeting students’ needs and finding resources beyond the classroom setting, including parent involvement as a rich and potential form of resource. This study explores the questions: 1) How does parent involvement at home using reading intervention strategies impact the reading fluency of struggling readers? 2) Is there a difference in scores between Spanish/English reading progression after intervention at home? 3) Will results for reading intervention be different between families of English learners and English Speakers? This study follows a mixed methods research design by triangulating data sources from parent surveys, parent interviews, and two reading assessments using (Developmental Reading Assessment and running records). The primary participant population consisted of five parents who were invited to participate in an at home reading intervention program based on their children’s baseline reading assessments. Results suggest positive impact with parent involvement intervention strategies, including literacy and reading progression with all five struggling readers. The significance of the study, can impact how dual language educators collaborate with parents to target struggling readers in dual language education.
- Resource Type:
- Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- San Marcos
- Department:
- Education
- Creator:
- Hannahs, Justin
- Description:
- Existing curricula typically eschew minority students’ culture in favor of a more Eurocentric focus. This curriculum project seeks to reverse this trend, which has contributed to a race-based achievement gap wherein Latinos fall far short of their White peers in achievement tests. The project uses the culture that students bring with them to the classroom, including their language, to make content not only accessible, but engaging. Culturally relevant pedagogy has the potential to narrow the achievement gap by increasing achievement for Latino students. Thus, the curriculum centers on Mexican immigration during the 20th Century and the Civil Rights Movement, and includes cultural content relevant to students of the borderlands. Through this curriculum, White students develop cultural competence and a critical consciousness to question existing social structures. Finally, the project seeks to narrow the achievement gap of English learners and especially long-term English learners by providing necessary language supports to give them equal access to the curriculum, and to give all students an equitable education.
- Resource Type:
- Project
- Campus Tesim:
- San Marcos
- Department:
- Education