Browsing by Subject "Pedagogy"
Now showing 1 - 20 of 32
Results Per Page
Sort Options
Item 4-H Expressive Arts and Brain-Based Learning Research(1999) Shields, CarolMinnesota 4-H Expressive Arts programs have been an important part of 4-H youth development programming for more than two decades. Each year 20,000 to 30,000 young people, ages 8 to 19, are involved in programs offered through a variety of venues in every Minnesota county. Programs and activities include performance art, visual arts, technical theater, script development, writing, and clowning. New pedagogical approaches are continually developed to engage young people in informal, non-competitive learning experiences in the arts.Item An analysis of methods for teaching middle school band students to articulate.(2011-06) Budde, Paul JosephItem A Case Study of Radical Education: Gaining Vocational Clarity through the Collective(2021-07) Valesano, MichaelThis interpretive case study explores how adults within an intentional learning community make meaning of vocational calling (Dewey, 1966), collective learning (Kilgore, 1999), and a sense of place (Low & Altman, 1992) and the interactive and interrelated connections between these constructs. The context for this study was set at a retreat center in southern Minnesota that had been constructed with architectural intention to house and facilitate events designed for co-created learning and fostering community. The participants that took part in this study were part of a course that had been offered annually at the University of Minnesota for the past 17 years. This reoccurring intentional learning community looked to question or trouble what it meant to ‘live a good life’. Using situated learning theory (Lave & Wenger, 19991) as the main theoretical framework, I examine how both the physical and social context in which learning occurs, matters deeply. I document how the landscape and the geographic positioning of the study had profound influence over and mediated processes of learning and development. My analyses focus the stories and life narratives as offered by the community members engaged in this study. Stories, narratives, interviews, observations, and dialogue served as the primary sources of data. The implications of this study demonstrate the necessity to create, with intention, spaces of learning and development that acknowledge and find meaning in the stories that make up our lives. Further, this study acknowledges the connection between processes of learning and development and the place or physical geographic location in which they occur.Item Composition's Terms of Use: The Pedagogical Implications of Learning Management Systems(2023-05) Brenden, MarkThis dissertation is a critical study of the contemporary relationship between education and technology. It develops a philosophy on technology that both tries to make sense of the specific technologies our universities have chosen to embrace and imagines ways of making critical use of them. The intersection of this treatment of technology and education is Composition and Rhetoric, a pedagogical field. The application of this intersection, then, is a study of a particular, prominent technology of composition pedagogy, which is the Learning Management System. This pedagogical technology is explored in three main ways: narrative-based analysis of three case studies of student writing on the platform, rhetorical analysis of one LMS company’s public discourse, and content analysis of one LMS’s internal architecture. The dissertation finds that LMS companies rely on neoliberal rhetorical syllogisms which bypass public deliberation over enthymemes concerning the purposes of higher education, and thus join an assemblage of rhetorical projects that unite higher education with neoliberal interests. These enthymemes are the “terms of use” teachers and students accept. Finally, new terms of use are forwarded based on an updated method of critical literacy.Item Consulting based on who (I think) you are: Patterns of interaction in online writing center consultations based on perceived and documented identity(2023-01) Gyendina, MariyaRecently, writing centers have been expanding their services to include synchronous and asynchronous online consultations. This raises a range of questions about consultant training, consultant-student interactions, and experiences of different groups of students in the online environment. A small, but growing, body of scholarship is addressing these gaps (e.g., Severino, Swenson, & Zhu, 2009; Weirick, Davis, & Lawson, 2017), but many questions remain unexamined. As a methodologically rigorous examination of the writing center interactions rooted in a theoretical framework, this study is informed by language socialization (Schieffelin & Ochs, 1986; Ochs & Schieffelin, 2017) and scaffolding theories (Mackiewicz & Thompson, 2013) to analyze online interactions between consultants and students. These theoretical frameworks have been used to effectively examine strategies appearing in face-to-face writing consultations, but have not been applied to online contexts, thus giving this project an opportunity to extend the approach further and gain a deeper understanding of interactions in online writing center conversations. This study looks at perceived (multilingual/non-multilingual) and documented (international/domestic) identity datasets, combining qualitative and statistical analyses to explore correlations between students’ linguistic identity and the interaction patterns. Findings show distinct patterns of providing feedback within both perceived and documented datasets, with statistically significant differences in the number of words per session, number of words used by consultant, total number of comments, use of cognitive scaffolding strategies, questions, content-based comments, genre analysis, rhetorical explanations, and rapport-building comments. The findings of this study support previous literature in demonstrating the multi-directional nature of language socialization processes within writing center consultations and go further by highlighting the connection between the language socialization process and patterns of engagement. This finding is reinforced in looking at the types of feedback provided to students, where I show that the use of cognitive scaffolding strategies is similarly a multi-directional process supporting the consultants, as well as the students.Item Current Practices in Stimulating the Moral Imagination through the Teaching of Literature(2013) Sutton, Wade R; Rauschenfels, DianeThe purpose of this study was to examine the current practices of moral inquiry in high school literature classrooms. While we have measured moral judgement (Kohlberg, 1984), moral behavior (CEP, 2009) and moral imagination (Yurtsever, 2006), we have not targeted these or developed practical ways for educators to measure development of the moral imagination in high school students. “One measure of the impoverishment of the moral imagination in the rising generation” according to Vigen Guroian (1996) at the University of Virginia “is their inability to recognize, make, or to use metaphors.” However, because the public school system has been defined by assessments and data-driven instruction, the value of the moral narrative remained under-developed. Even though it has been accepted that literature effects character development (Cain, 2005), the informed use of literature in developing moral judgment was problematic (Edgington, 2002; Narvaez, 2002; Glanzer, 2008) because there have been “no ‘Moral Aptitude Tests’” (Ryan, 1986). This study examined the practical methods and assessments that educators used overtly or covertly to strengthen the moral imagination in their students. Results indicated a lack of preparation in the educational programs for educators, resulting in a systematic lack of trust in our educators and revealing similarities in underdeveloped methods and assessments. A high value was found to be placed on the teaching of the moral imagination, while little or no effort could be dedicated to it.Item Digital Struggles: Fostering Student Interaction in Online Writing Courses(2013-07) Virtue, Andrew DavidOnline pedagogical environments present a new set of challenges to instructors who teach them. One of those challenges, often present in online writing courses, is the lack of interaction between students with each other, the instructor, and the course itself. Instead, there is often a certain sense of isolation in online writing courses to the point in which they can feel like modern day correspondence courses. This dissertation provides an overview of a computer mediated discourse analysis conducted during the fall of 2012 of a writing class that employed a combination of independent small groups and a rotating group moderator role. More specifically, each group of students (consisting of 4 members) was invisible to the rest of the class. The groups were used to increase the students&rsquo perceptions of visibility within their groups/course and to increase student agency through the group moderator role. My dissertation focuses on the results from a pre/post survey, three focus groups, and the textual analysis of class forums, peer reviews, and a group project. Using Vygotsky's concept of &ldquozone of proximal development&rdquo as theoretical foundation, I will attempt to answer two research questions: 1) How do small groups and group moderators affect student interaction in online writing courses and 2) What course design choices lead to positive student interaction in online writing courses? Although I cannot provide any general claims based on the small sample size of the participants in this situation, I can illustrate how an online writing course changes when it is configured using small groups and assigning group roles. Additionally, I hope to provide insight into how online writing courses can better facilitate course goals by configuring the online environment in certain ways including ideas on course scheduling, repurposing Web 2.0 technologies, and revising class assignments/activities.Item Embodying Empowerment: Gender, Schooling, Relationships and Life History in Tanzania(2016-05) Willemsen, LauraThis dissertation explores the interplay of education and empowerment as it is lived by seven young Tanzanian women and developed at a unique all-girls’ secondary school in Tanzania. Drawing on interviews and participant observation from eight trips over four years, this study offers a longitudinal, ethnographic exploration of the school, Sasema Secondary School for Girls, to explore the rationale and production of curricula, pedagogies and practices that draw on global, national and local notions of empowerment and education. This study illuminates the tensions, vulnerabilities, feats and aspirations in young women’s lives through employing a life history approach focusing on three young women’s complete life histories. It examines the role that schooling has played, and has not played, in what these women describe as a contingent movement from vulnerability toward increasing security and well-being. This dissertation advances two main arguments: First, by exploring the practices and pedagogies at Sasema that young women have found to be valuable in their lives both at and beyond school, it demonstrates the significance of, and possibilities for, emotional and social learning through schooling while underscoring the importance of care in schools. As such, this research reinforces calls to conceptualize educational quality beyond the metrics of academic knowledge or vocational skills, traditionally thought of as schooling’s raison d’être, toward more holistic notions of education for the whole person. Second, this study complicates and adds nuance to accepted notions of empowerment through education by offering deeply contextualized portraits of young women’s lives as they understand them to be unfolding. Although empowerment is frequently analyzed in economic or political terms, this work reveals that, for these young women, empowerment is also profoundly psychosocial and even corporeal. Furthermore, additional forces, such as family, religion and community, are at play in their notions of processes that advance their well-being and the well-being of others. As such, this study reveals disjunctures between empowerment through education as it lived by young women in Tanzania and as discussed by scholars of international development, education and gender.Item An Exercise in Building a Meaningful Life: Game Design for Young Philosophers(2017) Beard, David; LaChance Adams, SarahItem First-generation Students’ Experiences of the Classroom Climate in a Redesigned Gateway Math Course: A Mixed Methods Case Study(2019-06) Diamond, Kate K.In U.S. higher education, there are large disparities in student persistence rates in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields along lines of race and ethnicity, gender, generation status, and class. Most underrepresented student attrition from STEM happens during the first year. Large, introductory science and math courses have been criticized for their unwelcoming and competitive classroom climates, and many scholars have argued that these courses act as gatekeepers for students with marginalized identities who wish to major in a STEM field. Many policymakers and researchers have called for these introductory courses to move away from a traditional lecturing model and towards active learning. In the STEM education literature, active learning is often presented as a panacea for closing disparities in STEM education outcomes. A critical approach to this topic challenges the assumption that the incorporation of active learning would transform these introductory courses into equitable spaces for students with marginalized identities. I conducted a mixed methods case study of a large, introductory math course taught at a public research university. The lead course instructor had redesigned the course in order to move toward an active learning model, with the goal of better preparing students to take subsequent math courses. Using the influence of pedagogy on the classroom climate as my conceptual framework, I sought to understand how first-generation students experienced the classroom climate of the redesigned class, how pedagogy influenced the climate, and how first-generation students’ experiences in the course affected their intentions to persist in STEM. My data collection methods were classroom observation, a student survey (N = 171), interviews with first-generation students (N = 13), interviews with the two course instructors, and a review of the syllabus and other course materials. I found that first-generation students described a classroom climate characterized by disengagement and collective confusion and frustration. Pedagogy negatively influenced the climate through a lack of structure, guidance, and communication at several levels; a test-based approach to assessment; and, in the case of one of the instructors, lecturing. The teaching assistants and one of the two instructors provided a high level of immediacy, which positively influenced the climate. Study participants varied in terms of whether the course had negatively or positively influenced their intention to persist in STEM, with about half of survey respondents saying the course had no impact. I approached the study of pedagogy through the lens of three teaching and learning paradigms: traditional pedagogy, active learning, and inclusive pedagogy. While the pedagogy utilized in the pre-calculus class mirrored the active learning paradigm in several ways, it also aligned with some aspects of traditional pedagogy and inclusive pedagogy. The dominant trend in introductory science and math course reform is to move from traditional pedagogy to active learning, and I was interested in exploring whether active learning is sufficient for creating an equitable classroom climate or if inclusive pedagogy is needed. Inclusive pedagogy calls for instructors to contextualize math within its social and cultural context and to tie course content to students’ experiences and goals. Conversely, the pre-calculus course presented math in a decontextualized manner. While inclusive pedagogues would argue that this decontextualization harms marginalized students, the class aligned with the first-generation interview participants’ expectations that a math course would avoid issues of identity, inequity, and discrimination. The study leads to several implications. A lack of structure was a main driver of the negative classroom climate. Under any pedagogical approach, a clear course structure should serve as a foundation on which to build a positive and inclusive classroom climate. Given that first-generation students benefited from the validation they received from the teaching assistants and one of the instructors, individuals who have a teaching role in introductory science and math courses should prioritize their position as someone who can provide validation to underrepresented students. I also discuss recommendations for institutional leaders and researchers who seek to bring about greater equity in science and math introductory courses and STEM education in general.Item Identity in the Classroom: Teaching Voices from the Gaps(Voices from the Gaps, 2004) Schmid, ChristinaItem Maybe also colony: and yet another critique of the assessment community(2014-07) Harms, Keith LawrenceThis dissertation first uses Jarratt's feminist sophistic historiography as a method to read the influence of the Scottish Enlightenment on linguistic theories that carry through in current literacy education and composition classroom practice. It then traces the influence of American Imperialism at the turn of the 20th Century on the continuation of these same theories into current assessment practice. Additionally, a pilot study is conducted surveying students about their perception of assessment practices and reads these survey responses through a postcolonial lens in order to shed light on the ways that we use assessments to sort and track incoming college students based on imperialist notions of language use and development.Item Moving First-Year Writing Online: Applying Social Cognitive Theory to an Applying Social Cognitive Theory to an Exploration of Student Study Habits and Interactions. Two Case Studies(2010-06) Rendahl, Merry A.This dissertation explores study habits and interactions of students in an online first-year writing course. Much research has been conducted about online learning, but little has focused specifically on first-year writing students. First-year writing presents some unique challenges because of the age and preparedness level of traditional first-year students and because of the historic role that first-year writing courses have had in introducing these students to university writing and thinking. Educational technologies may be changing some of our expectations and our assumptions about first-year writing classes. Using instrumental case study methodology, I studied two sections of an online first-year writing course. My inquiry was guided by the central question, "What do students in an online first-year writing course perceive as good study habits?" I gathered data via surveys, course management statistics, students' interactions, and interviews.Social constructivist theories, which guide a lot of thinking about online learning and guided the development of the observed courses, emphasize online interaction among students and instructors as a way to engage students and foster the construction of knowledge. Observations from these two case studies reveal that students did not seem to value peer interactions as central to their learning. The social cognitive theory of Albert Bandura is explored as a way to develop a more complex understanding of students in online first-year writing courses. Bandura's concept of triadic reciprocality encourages a view of online learning that de-emphasizes the importance of the medium or technology and balances that with the influences of students' personal characteristics and cognitive choices. Individual profiles of four students are presented to show the complex attitudes and experiences students bring to online first-year writing classes.Item Moving to the Public: Weblogs in the Writing Classroom(University of Minnesota, 2004) Lowe, Charles; Williams, TerraItem Multimodality, Makerspaces, and the Making of a Maker Pedagogy for Technical Communication and Rhetoric(2019-05) Tham, JasonThis dissertation investigates how students create multimodal solutions to address complex problems via technology-enhanced maker practices informed by design thinking. It contributes to the ongoing scholarly conversations around multimodality and multimodal composition by understanding the new material affordances of rapid prototyping technology and dedicated spaces for collaborative invention, fondly known as makerspaces. By investigating how students compose and create multimodal artifacts through making and design thinking, this project identifies useful pedagogical intersections between the Maker Movement proper and technical and professional communication (TPC). To do so, I studied the use and operation of three academic makerspaces in the U.S. at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Case Western Reserve University, and the University of Minnesota. I then conducted a case study of a maker framework based on the findings from the makerspace ethnography. The deployment of the framework––tentatively known as maker pedagogy––occurred in a TPC course. Combining the results from my makerspace ethnography and the pedagogical case study, I discuss the implications of a maker pedagogy for TPC, including the cultivation of a maker mindset, disruption to conventional ideologies, and an exploration of the material dimension of writing. I also discuss ways in which making and design thinking can be assessed in the context of TPC pedagogy.Item Negotiating Boundaries in Research on Native American Authors(Voices from the Gaps, 2004) Steeves, CarolynItem Neuroscience knowledge enriches pedagogical choices(Elsevier, 2019-04-19) Schwartz, Mark S; Hinesley, Vicki; Chang, Zhengsi; Dubinsky, Janet MTeachers face a daunting challenge in balancing the demands of employing student-centered pedagogies in contexts where mandated testing and district teaching expectations can easily constrain or compromise their pedagogy. In this pilot study, we investigated how professional development based on the “neuroscience of learning” impacted non-science teacher understanding of basic neuroscience; and, in turn, how that knowledge impacted their reflections on pedagogy. In a pre/post design, teacher understanding of neuroscience improved significantly after the 36-h course based upon a set of educational neuroscience concepts. Furthermore, teacher revisions of their lesson plans after the course revealed the integration of more student-centered pedagogies.Item "Not Just Junk on the Web": How On-line Writing Assignments May Benefit Student Writing(Voices from the Gaps, 2004)Item Pedagogical praxis surrounding the integration of photography, visual literacy, digital literacy, and educational technology into business education classrooms : A focus group study(2010-05) Schlosser, Peter AllenAbstract: This paper reports on an investigation into how Marketing and Business Education Teachers utilize and integrate educational technology into curriculum through the use of photography. The ontology of this visual, technological, and language interface is explored with an eye toward visual literacy, digital literacy, and pedagogical praxis, focusing on the technological change that has occurred in photography. It investigates how the teachers are adapting to the changes, how they are incorporating photography and educational technology into the classroom, and how photography is changing the way they teach.Item Pedagogies of Abolition: A Phenomenological Exploration of Radical Study in Black Trans Communities(2022-06) Alexander, QuiEducation is often positioned as a solution to incarceration while simultaneously using police (or commonly named School Resource Officers) to enforce discipline; or metal detectors and cameras for surveillance within school buildings as a measure of “safety” (Meiners, 2011). Sojoyner (2016) argues that both schools and prisons function as enclosures of Black life. Carceral progressivism positions education as a solution to societal oppression by “emancipating” students from enclosures, rather than actually abolishing the conditions that create said enclosures (Shange 2019). This is an example of how traditional education-based modes of study (Meyerhoff, 2019) enforce the carceral logics this work seeks to resist. This study is a phenomenological exploration of how pedagogies of abolition manifests in the everyday lives of Black trans folks. I define the phenomenon pedagogies of abolition as the process of teaching/learning an abolitionist praxis (Q. Alexander, 2022; Dyke et al., 2018; Love, 2019; Meiners, 2011; Rodriguez, 2019). Abolitionist praxis serves as a Black radical mode of study (Meyerhoff, 2019) working to transform our reliance on carceral state power and the logic that perpetuates it. This study specifically asks: how do pedagogies of abolition manifest in the everyday lives of Black trans folks? and how do those manifestations teach us how to study in abolitionist ways? Taking up a Black radical mode of study, this study uses a study group to create a fugitive network (Harney & Moten, 2013) of Black trans folks committed to abolition. The researcher studies with and alongside the group to articulate where and how these pedagogical moments manifest and work to shape our abolitionist world-making practices. This study explores three specific manifestations of pedagogies of abolition: relational ethic, embodied knowledge and holding change, both within the study group itself and in the lives of the participants. The three manifestations explored in this study illuminate the ways in which (modes of) study that center relationality, embodied ways of knowing and intentional building of collective spaces, create methods to enact an abolitionist praxis in our everyday lives. Grounded in the researcher’s experiences as a Black trans community educator, this research explores Black trans life as inherently pedagogical, teaching new ways of being and knowing that do not rely on carcerality, anti-Blackness, and gender based violence.