The Circle of Play: A Cross-Cultural-Study of Teachers’ Views of Play Before and After Observing a Community Adventure Play Experience

This thesis looks at how teachers from Tanzania, Malawi, Zimbabwe, and the United States viewed play before and after observing children participating in a Community Adventure Play Experience (CAPE). A CAPE is a play experience that utilizes “loose parts” (materials that can be played with and used to create, but are not traditional toys, i.e. tires, sticks, boxes, etc.) instead of manufactured toys and play equipment. In many schools, children are being allowed fewer and fewer opportunities to play as teachers try to cram more and more academic material into the school day. However, all of the literature suggests that play plays a key role in learning and development. With CAPEs, we were able to show teachers of young children the essence of that point of view. We interviewed teachers before and after observing a CAPE so that we could document their thoughts about the experience, and whether it changed their view of play. This thesis focuses on the memories that teachers had of their own play experience as children, their thoughts on whether or not play had changed, and how it had changed since they were children. This led to an analysis of the assumption that increased access to manufactured toys and electronics has encouraged a change in children’s play. We found that many teachers remembered engaging in loose-part, CAPE-like play as children. Before the CAPE, they felt that play had changed, in large part because of increased access to manufactured toys and electronics, particularly in the US. After the CAPE, they felt that play, at its core, was the same

Play on: Gamification as Differentiation

https://remix.berklee.edu/able-assembly-conference/1093/thumbnail.jp

How We Are Complicit: Challenging the School Discourse of Adolescent Reading

The call for submissions for this edition of the journal is titled, “Challenging the Deficit Model and the Pathologizing of Children: Envisioning Alternative Models.” In the following essay I will make clear, I hope, how alive and well is the practice of viewing readers, in this case, adolescent readers, through an extremely narrow and inaccurate lens of deficit, explore the why behind the narrow measure and close with some suggestions for expanding our lens for understanding adolescent readers and providing some specific examples of classroom practices that encourage and support such an expanded view

The Bender Visual Motor Gestalt Test as a group screening instrument for social maturity

This study investigated the use of the Bender Visual Motor Gestalt Test (BVMGT) as a measure of social maturity. A group BVMGT was administered to 80 second grade children and scored using the Koppitz Developmental Scoring System. The Social Domain of the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scale (VABS) served as the measure of social maturity. It was hypothesized that there is a significant positive relationship between VABS performance and BVMGT performance, also that there is a significant positive relationship between BVMGT performance and gender. The hypotheses were not supported. The VABS, variability within the subjects, age, halo effect, and scoring system were suggested factors accounting for this study\u27s outcome

Investigating the Role of Long Distance Dispersal in the Response of Stream Fishes to Urbanization

I conducted a 7-month mark-recapture study in two watersheds differing in urban impact in order to assess the role that long distance dispersal plays in the response of tolerant stream fishes to urbanization. Our two stream sites included a heavily impacted urban stream (watershed impervious surface cover ~30%) and a mildly impacted rural stream (watershed impervious surface cover ~6%). Species of interest were marked with 12mm HPT PIT tags and included a specialist, Campostoma oligolepis (n=189 urban site, 200 rural site) and a generalist, Lepomis auritus (n=136 urban site, 182 rural site). Three resampling instances for each site were conducted between September of 2016 and February 2017 with a portable PIT antenna. Movement data was analyzed with R package Mclust to estimate the proportion of mobile and stationary components for each population as well as parameter estimates (mean, variance) for each component. L. auritus in the urban site exhibited a greater proportion of long distance dispersal than in the rural site, and the rural population did not fit a heterogeneous model better than a homogeneous model. C. oligolepis had a greater proportion of long distance dispersal in the rural site, but both the mobile and stationary components had a significantly greater mean movement distance in the urban site (mobile component mean=217m urban, 131m rural; stationary component mean=51m urban, 21m rural). Tolerant generalists may increase long distance dispersal but not home range movement in urban streams while specialists may increase movement distances for both home range and long distance dispersal

(Un)Stable Space(s): An Ethnography of a (Sometimes) Gay Bar

Using ethnography, I studied the ways in which space was created at a nightclub with a once a week Drag Night. The history of the space (each night building on the night before for years and years) created stability for the nightclub that remained regardless of the individuals within it. Drag Night, however, did not reap the benefits of that stability. Despite site - specific (read theme - night specific) normative performances in the space, the social space was altered through individual performances as well as rules associated with the club

Master of Science

thesisFood security is dependent on ecological conditions and alterations to local environments, including impacts from climate change. Myanmar is experiencing the second highest rate of extreme weather events in the world and a high level of food insecurity, which threatens the nutritional supply for its population, especially children. The primary purpose of this study is to understand environmental risk factors and develop a visualization tool that captures the spatial distribution of childhood undernutrition within the Dry Zone of Myanmar. Of particular interest is the first 1,000 days of development. This study uses geographic and spatial statistics methods to examine the association of child undernutrition and environmental risk factors in the study area. Results suggest a decrease in stunting and underweight with increased precipitation and increased cultivated land

Decision-Making in Ryan White Care Act Planning Bodies: An Analysis of the Decision-Making Process of the Joint Committee of the Jacksonville HIV/AIDS Planning Council and Consortium

The purpose of this study was to determine which factors and the degree to which these factors influenced the Joint Committee when deciding how much money should be allocated to the different services funded by the Ryan White CARE Act. This study focused on the possible explicit and implicit factors influencing the decision-making process and interactions of the members of the HIV/AIDS Joint Prioritization & Allocation Committee in the decisions that were being made on behalf of the people who are infected and affected by this disease. The methodology included a combination of quantitative and qualitative data, utilizing surveys, coding of communicative behavior, one-on-one interviews and researcher observations. The surveys and interviews were the primary sources of data. The findings indicated that both explicit and implicit factors influenced decisions. A significant difference was found to exist between clients and committee members for the priority ranking of services. A significant difference also existed between the committee\u27s perception and staffs perception of which factors were most important. The influence that the committee members may have had with one another during discussions was not enough to cause any significant changes in the way they weighed the importance of the factors. The majority of the committee members reported that they relied on recorded data sources such as the needs assessment, epidemiological data, and client utilization of services, rather than their personal experience or HIV status, however this was not totally substantiated by the interviews. Persons living with HIV admitted that their HIV status was a strong factor influencing their decisions. Most participants reported feeling respected and empowered in the surveys, however during the interviews some felt that they were not being listened to adequately. This finding was supported by the interaction analysis. The results indicated that there is a need for more training and mentoring, particularly for those who are new to the process. Some participants reported there is a need to conduct more business on a joint basis to reduce redundancy and duplication of effort. There is also a need to recognize the importance of the influence of the staff members who provide the committee with the information that is used to make the decisions