Parent Involvement in Pre-Kindergarten and the Effects on Student Achievement

An ever-present achievement gap has been found among students and their peers. Educational research and literature have found that the growing gap is due in part to a lack of parent involvement in their students’ education and academic performance. The purpose of this study was to investigate how parent involvement affects student achievement and academic success in Pre-Kindergarten. It was hypothesized that parents who display higher levels of involvement will have children who perform better academically. The participants in this study included 26 preschool children and their parents. The researcher utilized a curriculum-based measurement, AIMSweb, and IGDI’s (Indicators of Individual Growth and Development for Infants and Toddlers), a pre-k assessment measure used to monitor and assess early literacy development in preschool children. A modified version of the Parent Involvement Project Questionnaire (PIPQ) was also used to determine if there is a positive correlation between parent involvement and student achievement. Results of the study indicate that invitation from school was statistically correlated with role construction and parent self efficacy but that student achievement was not statistically correlated with any of the scales from the parental involvement survey. Because the results were based on self-report and included a relatively small sample size, the outcomes of the study may not align with the majority of published studies pertaining to parent involvement and student achievement, due to its subjective nature. Or, perhaps for some students, there may be other factors that are more influential than parent involvement. Implications and further research are discussed

Pre-service and Novice Teacher Self-Efficacy: A Tool to Understand and Further Develop Confidence for Impacting Change

Teacher efficacy measures a teacher’s perception of his or her capacity as a teacher and impacts teacher behavior in a number of different ways. This study examined teacher efficacy as well as pedagogical beliefs/practices in pre-service and novice in-service teachers to determine the nature of the relationship between the two. Results indicated that the novice in-service teachers demonstrated statistically significant higher scores on the efficacy measure. In regards to the relationship between pedagogy and efficacy, there was no statistically significant relation among the pre-service teachers but with the novice in-service teachers, efficacy was statistically significantly correlated with general instructional pedagogy

Word consciousness and individual application of academic vocabulary through written, oral, and visual response to historical fiction and nonfiction literature in fifth-grade social studies.

Doctor of PhilosophyCurriculum and Instruction ProgramsLotta C. LarsonThe purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore and identify the word consciousness and individual application of academic vocabulary through the use of vocabulary reader response journals, authentic discussions, and multigenre response projects from a thematic social studies unit using historical fiction and nonfiction literature that was integrated in the fifth-grade curriculum. This qualitative research study took place in a third-fifth grade school in a Midwest setting with 23 fifth-grade students over the course of 14 weeks. Data were analyzed from eight of the 23 students. Multiple data sources for each literature selection were analyzed to reveal how fifth-grade students’ written, oral, and visual response to historical fiction and nonfiction literature demonstrate word consciousness and individual application of academic vocabulary. Conclusions indicate that student participants prefer the opportunity to create a visual image or write a statement to confirm the meaning of an academic vocabulary word in their vocabulary reader response journals. While orally discussing the academic words, the participants chose the evaluation approach. This authentic discussion response option allowed the students the opportunity to share their personal understanding, opinion, or inference for each word. Written and visual response was also afforded through the multigenre response projects. These projects revealed the individual application through conventional and nonconventional usage of the academic terms from each literature selection

PD with Distance-Based Instructional Coaching to Improve Elementary Teacher’ Self-Efficacy in Teaching Science

Elementary students’ interest in science and careers in STEM are typically associated with their curiosity along with engagement in science activities and whether they find these activities to be fun, exciting, and enjoyable. Thus, early exposure of elementary students to STEM lessons must be engaging and enjoyable, which in turn increases the students’ awareness and interests in these fields. Elementary school teachers are typically a major influence on their students’ attitudes toward STEM. However, many elementary teachers have negative or unfavorable attitudes toward STEM areas. Consequently, many elementary students receive science instruction only a few days a week or only during some weeks of the year. This study aimed to enhance elementary teachers’ interest, knowledge, and self-efficacy in teaching science that, in turn, will effectively build their students’ interest in STEM areas. To accomplish this goal, we developed a PD program that consists of practice-based interventions with inquiry-based science curricula and instructional models. Then, we examined the effects of the interventions within the PD program, a practice-based summer workshop, and distance-based instructional coaching. We also investigated the effects of the instructional coaching delivered by two different types of coaches, peer elementary teacher vs. high-school science teacher, on the elementary teachers’ inquiry-based instructional practices

Complete robotic repair of a renal artery aneurysm

Although the majority of renal artery aneurysms require only observation, those that require treatment have been addressed primarily surgically or endovascularly. We report a case of surgical resection of a large, symptomatic renal artery aneurysm from an entirely robotic approach