Big Book in a Small Pond: An Investigation of Preschool Teachers’ Use of Emergent Literacy Strategies When Reading Big and Typical-Sized Picture Books Aloud

The purpose of this study was to investigate the frequency with which preschool teachers use a variety of instructional strategies to promote students’ emergent literacy skills during group read-aloud time. These strategies included print-referencing, dialogic reading techniques, and Shared Book Experience practices. More specifically, the researcher compared the teachers’ use of these strategies when reading typical-sized books versus big books. A total of eight preschool teachers participated in this study. The researcher filmed each participant reading two children’s books aloud—one big and one typical-sized, and the videos were transcribed and coded for read- aloud behaviors. The teachers’ use of emergent literacy reading strategies did not differ as a function of book size. Additionally, the teachers’ use of read-aloud strategies was infrequent in general. These findings suggest that big books are not inherently helpful in improving teachers’ use of these strategies, and that further read-aloud training may be necessary in order to elicit a higher frequency of these behaviors in teachers

Sense of Place in the Anthropocene: A students-teaching-students course

Contemporary environmental education is tasked with the acknowledgement of the Anthropocene - an informal but ubiquitous term for the current geological epoch which arose from anthropogenic changes to the Earth system - and its accompanying socio-ecological implications. Sense of Place can be a hybridized tool of personal agency and global awareness for this task. Through the creation, execution and reflection of a 14-student students-teaching-students (STS) course at the University of Vermont in the Spring of 2019, Giannina Gaspero-Beckstrom and Ella Mighell aimed to facilitate a peer-to-peer learning environment that addressed sense of place, social justice and community engagement. The students-teaching-students framework is an alternative educational approach that supports the values and practices of the University of Vermont’s Environmental Program, as well as an intentional breakdown of the hierarchical knowledge paradigm. Using alternative pedagogies (predominately critical and place-based), we attempted to facilitate meaningful learning through creative expression, experiential education, community dialogue and personal reflection. Our intention with this was to encourage awareness and action

Lutheran Higher Education in a Secular Age: Religious Identity and Mission at ELCA Colleges and Universities

This exploratory mixed methods case study examined the relationship between espoused and perceived religious identity and mission at five colleges and universities of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America through the lenses of secularization theory, missional leadership, ecclesiology, Trinitarian theology, adaptive leadership, and challenges in the higher education market. Results indicated that humanism is the primary means of describing religious identity and mission at ELCA schools and there are widely varying assumptions about what it means to be a college or university of the church. Advocates and skeptics of the institution’s religious identity and mission interpret reality through the lens of secularization despite the fact that it has been called into question. This leads to an unproductive tug of war between groups who believe that either acquiescence or resistance to secularism is the proper response

“A Chilling Effect for Sexual Assault Survivors”: An Examination of Campus-Based Advocacy and the Proposals to Title IX Under the Trump Administration

Students attending colleges and universities across the United States are overwhelmingly affected by campus sexual violence. Research finds that between one in four and one in five female students will at some time during their college career experience campus sexual assault (Muehlenhard et al., 2017; Krebs et al., 2016; Cantor et al., 2015; The White House 2014). Although the sexual assault itself is traumatizing, students may also experience psychological responses such as PTSD, depression, anxiety, fear and guilt, mood disorders, and more (Deisinger, 2017). In addition to such responses, students are further impacted by social factors such as victim blaming in which places the blame and responsibility of the assault on victims and survivors themselves. For this reason, the position of campus-based advocates plays a crucial role in addressing the aftermath of experiencing campus sexual assault. Campus-based advocates have the ability to empower and support students who have experienced campus sexual assault while also providing them with resources and options for reporting (Brubaker, 2019). In addition to providing advocacy, campus-based advocates also have the unique opportunity to educate and bring further awareness of campus sexual assault to the wider campus community. The purpose of this thesis is to determine the perception and need for campus-based advocates on university campuses as evidenced by campus-based advocates themselves. This study will seek to assess the value of campus-based advocates from the perspective of a feminist lens intent upon supporting the awareness and experiences of student victims and survivors of sexual violence. Furthermore, several frameworks will be examined in order to situate the value of campus-based advocates such as the Trump administration’s proposals to Title IX, barriers experienced and the absence of advocates on college campuses. Qualitative research is utilized in order to interview campus-based advocates through semi-structured processes with the aim of providing this unique perspective

Carmen Learns English

The Student will be able to identify and describe the main story elements in Carmen Learns English. ● The Student will be able to identify and explain the moral of Carmen Learns English. ● The Student will be able to present information orally using complete sentences and appropriate volume

Effect of Salt Concentration on the Composition of Elastin-Like Polypeptides in the Condensed Coacervate Phase

Elastin-Like Polypeptides (ELPs) are thermo-responsive polymers which could potentially be used as vehicles for drug delivery. The nanoparticle vehicles are called micelles and the basic structure is made of ELP-foldon. This ELP-foldon has a head group (foldon) that is hydrophilic and three tails (ELP) that are hydrophobic. Above a certain temperature, the transition temperature (Tt), the hydrophobic tails aggregate together to form spheres with the hydrophilic headgroups on the outside. Inside the micelles, linear ELP and drugs can be captured. Although micelles can form without linear ELP, they are bigger when it is present. At lower temperatures the ELPs are fully soluble and exist as one solution phase, but at higher temperatures there exists two liquid phases. Even though they are both liquids, one is more viscous than the other. The less viscous phase is mostly water and the more viscous one is a condensed phase called a coacervate. Coacervate consists of a high concentration of protein, but still contains a significant amount of water. It appears as glue-like substance with a slight yellow tinge. The concentration of linear ELP may depend on the concentration of salt in solution and since the body naturally contains salt, knowing this relationship would be useful in designing micelles for drug delivery. We varied the concentration of salt in linear ELP to see its effect on the volume of the condensed coacervate at different temperatures.https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/u_poster_2016/1046/thumbnail.jp