Master\u27s Thesis and Field Study Abstracts, July 1998-June 2000

This publication, the fifteenth in a series which began in 1957, contains the abstracts of Master\u27s Theses and Field Studies completed by graduate students of St. Cloud State University. The bulletin contains those theses and field studies completed during the period from July of 1998 through June of 2000. A bound copy of each thesis or field study is on file in the James W. Miller Learning Resources Center, which houses the library on this campus. The library copy of each thesis and field study is available for use on an interlibrary loan basis. Copies of this bulletin may be obtained from the Office of Graduate Studies, 121 Administrative Services, St. Cloud State University, 720 S. Fourth Avenue, St. Cloud, Minnesota, 56301-4498

Instructional Scaffolding in STEM Education: Strategies and Efficacy Evidence

science education; educational technology; learning and instructio

Multi-Agent Systems

A multi-agent system (MAS) is a system composed of multiple interacting intelligent agents. Multi-agent systems can be used to solve problems which are difficult or impossible for an individual agent or monolithic system to solve. Agent systems are open and extensible systems that allow for the deployment of autonomous and proactive software components. Multi-agent systems have been brought up and used in several application domains

Challenges Teaching Emergent Bilingual Students in Rural Schools

K-3 teachers face challenges in meeting the learning needs of their emergent bilingual (EB) students in rural southeastern schools in the United States. The purpose of this basic qualitative study was to explore K-3 teacher perspectives on challenges to meet the English language learning needs of their EB students and to identify what K-3 teachers believe they need to meet their students’ learning needs. Two research questions addressed teacher perspectives on the challenges they face to meet the learning needs of EB students in rural schools and what teachers believe they needed to successfully address EB students’ learning needs. The conceptual framework combined the teachers of English to speakers of other languages (ESOL) framework and the integration of language and content teaching (ILCT) model. Open-ended interviews were conducted with 12 K-3 teachers of EB students in rural schools in the southeastern United States. Data analysis involved transcribing, coding, and establishing themes. Findings suggested that ESOL teachers of EB students address challenges by relying on technology and engaging in peer mentoring and co-teaching practices. ESOL teachers of EB students said they need support for developmentally, linguistically, and culturally relevant curriculum, training in inclusive strategies, and time to collaborate with all teachers of EB students. Positive social change may occur if the findings of this study are used by stakeholders in rural southeastern schools in the United States to value and support teacher practices that foster student bilingualism and provide all teachers with professional development on ESOL strategies with the resources needed to promote EB student success and allow all teachers who teach EB students time to collaborate and mentor each other

Sequencing of learning activities oriented towards reuse and auto-organization for intelligent tutoring systems

Three have been the main contributions of this thesis. First, a platform for the deployment of Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS) with a modular architecture has been designed. This platform, called SIT, focuses on the adaptation of the sequencing of learning content, not adaptation of the content itself. This separation permits specialization of pedagogical experts and encourages reuse of learning resources. Second, a tool for the adaptation of the sequencing of learning units has been presented: Sequencing Graphs. It is a specialization of the finite automata paradigm, adapted for the specific needs of learning. Sequencing graphs focus on reuse, both of learning units and of adaptive sequencings definitions. They are hierarchical to prevent scalability problems. Two ITS have developed using sequencing graphs for SIT. Experimental results support the hypothesis that sequencing adaptation has a good influence on learning and that Sequencing Graphs are a useful tool to achieve this objective. Finally, the thesis analyzes the current initiatives in the emerging field of swarm intelligence techniques in education. Apart of the theoretical overview, three results are presented: an experimental study performed on the Paraschool system, a system of pedagogical alarms based on learning pheromones on the same system, and a swarm paths information module for SIT. This module synthesizes the best results from swarm-based adaptation sequencing and collaborative filtering for providing an additional level of adaptation to the content sequencing in SI

2008-2009 Graduate Catalog

Academic catalog for Armstrong Atlantic State University