Texts and Tasks in Elementary Project-Based Science

Standards-based reforms in K-12 literacy and disciplinary education call for engaging students in meaningful uses of literacy tools of reading, writing, and oral language in service of participating in disciplinary practices and building disciplinary knowledge. Despite calls for educational reform and the introduction of new academic standards, such as the Common Core State Standards (CCSSO, 2010) and the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS Lead States, 2013), too few K-12 classrooms have meaningfully taken up these ideas in curriculum and instruction. For example, literacy instruction has long been divorced from knowledge building. Further, limited instructional time for disciplinary instruction in elementary classrooms poses challenges to achieving the objectives outlined in rigorous standards-based reforms. One approach to addressing these problems is the thoughtful integration of literacy and science instruction in the elementary grades. In this dissertation study, I investigated the design and enactment of texts and tasks in an elementary project-based science curriculum. The following research questions guided this study: (1) How do texts and related tasks, designed for – and enacted in – project-based science instruction, support or constrain third-graders’ knowledge building and development of foundational and disciplinary literacies? (2) How might modifications to texts and tasks within the designed curriculum better support third-graders’ knowledge building and literacy development? This study took place in one third-grade classroom with 31 students and their teacher across a full year of project-based science instruction. The focal curriculum, Multiple Literacies in Project-based Learning (MLs), integrates science, English language arts, and mathematics, and addresses the three-dimensional learning goals of the NGSS and select CCSS. Within and across MLs units, students had multiple opportunities to read and interpret a variety of traditional print, multimodal, and digital texts. The teacher was an experienced elementary school teacher and a second-year participant in the MLs project. I used design-based research (Brown, 1992; Collins, 1992) and case study methods (Stake, 1995) to investigate the design, enactment, and improvement of focal texts and tasks. I used conjecture mapping (Sandoval, 2014) to identify salient and theoretically compelling features of the design of the instructional intervention, focused on literacy integration, and to map how features of the designed curriculum and the teacher’s enactment worked together to produce specific outcomes. Data sources for this study included field notes and videos of classroom observations, interviews with focal students and their teacher, artifacts, and the designed curriculum materials. Focal students were selected to represent a range of reading achievement and to reflect the demographics of the class. Findings indicated that: (a) the pairing of texts and tasks in the context of project-based science instruction created meaningful purposes for students to read and interpret multimodal informational texts; (b) the design and enactment of texts and tasks engaged students in using text in service of disciplinary knowledge-building and practice, creating opportunities for – and supporting – students’ science and literacy learning; and (c) texts served as tools for creating and sustaining coherence in PBL. I also identified missed opportunities within the design and enactment of the curriculum, which may have constrained students’ opportunities to learn in the context of project-based science instruction. These findings can inform revisions to the design of the MLs curriculum, and have implications for future curriculum design, the availability and use of informational text in elementary-grade classrooms, and educational policy.PHDEducational StudiesUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/144100/1/mfitzge_1.pd

Noise Induced Hearing Loss in Children: Preventing the Silent Epidemic

Noise-induced hearing loss and related tinnitus are often unrecognized problems, especially in non-occupational settings. Research indicates that increasing numbers of children and adolescents have or are acquiring noise induced hearing losses. Noise induced hearing loss can almost completely be prevented with simple precautionary measures. Educational programs rarely exist outside of those mandated in occupational settings. Health Communication theory can be applied to hearing health for developing effective loss prevention programs. Dangerous Decibels is one example of an effective multi-disciplinary effort to develop and disseminated prevention strategies

SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS’ SCIENTIST IMAGE: IS IT SENSATIONAL OR TRADITIONAL?

It can be said that the positive perception that the students will develop against science and the scientist from childhood is so effective that it can direct their perception in their future lives. Therefore, determination of students’ perceptions of science and the scientist is very important for educators. Thus, the purpose of the current study is to determine secondary school students’ images of the scientist. Moreover, the study also looked at the classroom factors affecting students’ images of the scientist. The study was carried out with the participation of 240 secondary school students in a city located in the western part of Turkey in the fall term of the 2017-2018 school year. In the study, the DAST scale adapted by Farland (2003) was administered to the secondary school students. Within the context of the current study, the secondary school students’ images of the scientist were explored in terms of the appearance, working area and works of the scientist.   Article visualizations

Evaluating Technical Adequacy Features of Sentence Verification Technique as a General Outcome Measure of Content Knowledge

Once students have mastered the mechanics of reading, they are expected to learn new material by reading. This new material, however, becomes increasingly more complex as students enter upper elementary and especially middle and high school. If students fail to comprehend what they read, they risk failure in content courses such as science and social studies. Early assessment of risk and appropriate response to that risk is a goal of effective education. One problem with the risk reduction sequence is that there are limited formative assessments that have been validated as technically adequate for assessing content knowledge. The present study examined an established reading comprehension assessment called sentence verification technique (SVT) as a formative measure of science content knowledge. SVT probes were administered to 130 fourth, fifth, and sixth grade students at 2 PK-6 schools for 5 months, as well as the abbreviated Stanford Achievement Test, 10th Edition, as a criterion measure. Monthly SVT probes were analyzed for internal scores consistency reliability, as well as for predictive and criterion validity. Multilevel modeling was used to determine if SVT was a significant predictor of student growth. Item types were examined to determine if there were significant differences in scores based on race or gender. Results indicated that SVT probes had internal consistency reliability estimates that ranged from .45 to .84, and criterion validity estimates ranged from .33 to .53. Sentence verification technique was found to have predictive validity for fifth and sixth grade, accounting for 24% to 40% of the variability in the criterion measure. Estimates for fourth and fifth grade showed that SVT was a significant indicator of growth. Finally, item analysis showed that there were marginally significant differences for gender and highly significant differences for race on items by type. SVT shows potential for use as a general outcome measure of content. While it has been shown to demonstrate internal reliability, predictive and criterion validity, and growth measurement capacity, more research is needed. Findings to date suggest that given the more complex nature of instruction in content, SVT may work best in combination with other validated general outcome measures, including those with academic language indicators such as vocabulary matching or critical content monitoring

Verbal analogy problem sets: An inventory of testing materials.

Analogical reasoning is an active topic of investigation across education, artificial intelligence (AI), cognitive psychology, and related fields. In all fields of inquiry, explicit analogy problems provide useful tools for investigating the mechanisms underlying analogical reasoning. Such sets have been developed by researchers working in the fields of educational testing, AI, and cognitive psychology. However, these analogy tests have not been systematically made accessible across all the relevant fields. The present paper aims to remedy this situation by presenting a working inventory of verbal analogy problem sets, intended to capture and organize sets from diverse sources

Effectiveness of Reading Intervention Program Types in Increasing Comprehension for Intermediate School Students

A quasi-experimental design investigated the effectiveness of three reading intervention types in increasing reading comprehension, both explicit and implicit, using a sample of 78 students, approximately 17% of the population of third through fifth grades at a single-school, rural, K-12, Central Texas school district with an enrollment of approximately 450. Data was gathered using the Development Reading Assessment (DRA2) and the Qualitative Reading Inventory (QRI-5), conducted during the first semester of the 2017-2018 school year. Reading intervention types included pull-out in a small group using part-to-whole language strategies, a computer-based reading intervention type, and an integrated reading intervention type using whole-to-part language strategies. Most students had a two-year growth in reading levels and an average of a 60% increase in reading comprehension implicitly, explicitly, or both. The strongest factor influencing outcomes was differentiation of reading intervention with a human element. Another strong factor was reinforcement of strategies integrating content and focusing on reading level of the student. Results of this study reinforce the need to intervene on an individualized level of the student, with relevant and meaningful content, and deliverable in a manner befitting learning style and preference. A framework for effective reading intervention program types is presented and supported by the results of this study. This study was unique because it investigated two types of reading comprehension, implicit and explicit, separately to determine the most statistically significant reading intervention type for intermediate students, grades third through fifth

Impact of Golf Video Games on Teaching Golf in Physical Education

Although technology has become an integral part of many classrooms across the country, the incorporation of technology through the use of video games in physical education is also becoming a mainstay in multiple school districts. In West Virginia public schools, Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) has entered the physical education classrooms as a way to help curb obesity (“Study Shows Video,” 2008). Schools in Arkansas, Missouri and Hawaii have also followed suit by adding DDR to the physical education curriculum (Gallaway & Lauson, 2006). Even though the incorporation of video games into educational programs is becoming more prevalent, there is a limited amount of research in this area and a lack of empirical studies to date that show outcomes of video games in physical education programs (Papastergiou, 2009; Hayes & Silberman, 2007; Trout & Christie, 2007). The purpose of this study was to determine if golf video games like Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08 made for the Nintendo Wii can assist physical educators in teaching elementary school aged students how to play golf. Specifically, this study tested which mode of instruction would be best for teaching golf in physical education: golf instructor only, golf instructor and video game, or video game only. Data was gathered on distance, accuracy, and knowledge. The Benson Golf Test (1963) was used in order to measure the changes in distance and accuracy while the 20-question Modified Golf Knowledge Test was used to test for golf knowledge. Both tests were used for pre and posttesting as part of the quasi-experimental design to test the treatment of five 45-minute physical education classes covering golf. Participants in this study included 46 students attending an elementary school in north central Florida. In order to test for differences in distance gains of golf shots hit, an analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) showed there was no statistically significant difference in distance gains between the three modes of instructions; the video game only group, the half and half group, and the group that learned face-to-face, F(2,38) = .014, p = .986, η2 = .001. In testing for differences in accuracy of golf shots hit, the ANCOVA showed there was no statistically significant difference in the accuracy scores between the three modes of instruction; the video game only group, the half and half group, and the face-to-face group, F (2,38) =1.029, p = .367, η2 = .051. When testing for improvement in golf knowledge, the ANCOVA showed there was no statistically significant difference in the golf knowledge scores between the three modes of instruction; the video game only group, the half and half group, and the face-to-face group, F (2,40) = 2.27, p = .116, η2=.102

Developing a Written Language Inventory for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Students: A Systemic Functional Grammar Approach

Deaf and hard of hearing (d/hh) students are extremely diverse in language development due to vast differences in residual hearing, response to hearing technologies, and exposure to American Sign Language. Writing is a struggle for these students who have delayed and limited access to English. Studies have found that d/hh students continue to lag behind their hearing peers in syntactic development. Unfortunately, current methods of writing assessment do not provide teachers with sufficient information regarding the syntactic development of d/hh students. This dissertation responds to the need for an assessment that is able to provide this information that is necessary for setting sentence-level objectives and planning developmentally-appropriate instruction. This project began when I conducted a small pilot study to determine how Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG) analysis could impact teachers ability to set instructional objectives. I conducted a SFG analysis to identify the syntactic structures used by a small group (N=26) of d/hh and hearing 3rd-5th graders. The students were divided into low, mid, and high language proficiency groups and a hearing peer group (N=9) was added. I used the findings of the analysis to construct syntactic structure progression charts to guide teachers in SFG analysis, and four teachers field-tested these charts. The study findings indicated that while SFG analysis can provide teachers with insight into their students’ present level of syntactic development and assist them in setting individual objectives, the time requirements associated with SFG analysis make it an unlikely choice for written language assessment. The purpose of the current study was to construct a written language inventory that could allow teachers to benefit from the advantages of SFG analysis, without requiring extensive time for training and analysis of samples. Using the pilot study findings, I constructed a draft of the written language inventory. The draft was field tested by 8 teachers of d/hh students in a variety of settings, and a second SFG analysis was conducted to examine the syntactic structures used by a larger, more diverse group of students (N=98). Findings were used to make revisions to the structure and content of the written language inventory