Browsing by Subject "Teaching"
Now showing 1 - 20 of 34
- Results Per Page
- Sort Options
Item Annual Report 2005(MGT of America, 2005)Item Annual Report 2006(MGT of America, 2006)Item Annual Report 2007(MGT of America, 2007)Item Between Chaos and Order(University of Minnesota's Center for Teaching and Learning, 2004) James, PatriciaItem Can policy influence teacher preparation programs with regard to self-efficacy: a case study of Wisconsin PI34(2013-09) Schlesser Erwin, WandaABSTRACT This mixed methods study examined if state policy can influence pre-service teachers' sense of self-efficacy. Specifically, this study examined if teachers' sense of self-efficacy is associated with implementation of the Wisconsin Policy Initiative 34 (PI34). The University of Wisconsin-River Falls (UWRF) teacher preparation program served as a case study. Data were collected from identified elementary teacher candidates who completed their preparation program prior to and after implementation of PI34. Responding to a modified version of the Ohio State Teacher Efficacy Scale survey, participants provided information on their sense of self-efficacy. Questions were included to assess teacher perception on the influence of various support systems with regard to their sense of self-efficacy. Findings indicate that even after controlling for content knowledge, participants who graduated after PI34, reported higher self-efficacy scores than those who graduated before the law was enacted. All groups had similar perceptions regarding the influence of the support received from peers, principals and formal mentoring programs. However, those teachers who graduated after implementation of PI34, had lower ratings of their teacher preparation programs than those who graduated before the law. These findings suggest that policy can influence teachers' sense of self-efficacy. However, policy makers and practitioners need to identify specific programmatic changes that can affect that influence.Item Cultivating Educators of Color: The Role of School in Shaping Students of Color's Perceptions About Teaching(2024) Becquer, FrancesSeeking to enhance efforts toward diversity in the teaching profession, this study used a heuristic methodology to explore how the lived experiences of high school students of Color participating in an education pathways high school course shaped their perceptions of the teaching career. Critical race theory (CRT), critical whiteness studies, and culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP) and their interrelatedness provide an understanding of the role of race in K–12 education. There is an overlap that exists between CRP, CRT, and whiteness studies. CRT provides the lens to understand racism, and critical white studies unpack White privilege. Thus, CRT and critical whiteness studies contextualize CRP, enabling the means to examine how race has been used, institutionalized, and maintained in schools (Sleeter, 2017) and making them tools for isolating race and racism effects on education. The findings of this study reveal challenges and motivations shaping the aspirations of students of Color who are considering teaching careers. While students reported feeling excluded due to implicit biases and societal stigmas, they also found belonging through supportive teachers and diverse peers. Students expressed being driven by social justice to become teachers and were discouraged by the lack of support they experienced as students and the societal devaluation of the profession. Consequently, this study highlights the need for a diverse and supportive education system. Implementing culturally proficient practices, dismantling negative perceptions, and providing information about teaching careers can help students of Color change their perceptions of teaching as a career.Item Evaluation of Learning Outcomes: “Why Does She Stay?” Class Exercise(2016) Hurlburt, AllisonAttitudes of domestic abuse have been studied for many years. Now researchers look to see if there are ways to change those negative attitudes and have people understand the dynamics of abuse; having more empathy toward the situation and victim. Classroom exercises can be a useful tool to teach empathy. In this study I use the exercise, “Why Does She Stay?” to see if this can be done. In this study, after a pre test, class exercise, and posttest, I found that the class exercise increased the understanding of dynamics of domestic abuse. Females had a greater significant change in their understanding than males did. There was also an age group of 19, 20, and 21 years old had the greatest increase.Item Faculty Member Engagement in the Context of Internationalization at Home at the University of Iceland: A Collective Case Study(2018-05) Dinger, CaseyInternationalization at Home (IaH) has been promoted as means to increase international and intercultural education on the home campus. Considering Iceland’s recent increases in immigration, such education is crucial not only for students and members of the academic community, but also for the populations in greater Iceland. This study examines faculty members’ engagement in the practices of IaH at the University of Iceland. Employing a collective case study methodology, this investigation includes multiple streams of data including interviews, documents, photographs and observation to understand the specific practices of IaH and subsequent development that stems from the participants’ engagement. A portrait of adult learning constructed from a variety of learning theories and concepts is used in interpreting growth from practices of IaH. Key findings indicate that participants understand IaH as a project of integrating cultural diversity in the campus community and that their role in IaH centers around fostering awareness of diversity through practices of teaching, research, building and maintaining networks and connecting with Icelandic society. Additionally, participants learn through this engagement, particularly through critical reflection, dialectical thinking and authenticity in teaching. This growth develops a more transformative internationalization for themselves and their institution. The findings are useful in understanding how IaH is enacted and has implications for supporting internationalization of faculty at the University of Iceland.Item Hoops & Hurdles: The Unlikely Story of How I learned How I Learn(University of Minnesota's Center for Teaching and Learning, 2004) Griffin, Edward M.Item An Imperishable Attitude(University of Minnesota's Center for Teaching and Learning, 2004) Simmons, SteveItem Informal Writing in Comprehensive History Survey Courses: An Experiment in the Use of Informal Writing Assignments in “Introduction to Western Civilization” at the University of Minnesota, 1989-1990(University of Minnesota, 2003) Currin, John; Tracy, JamesItem Inquiring into the Unknown: Reconstructing Classroom Contexts through Mediated Discourse Analysis(2018-07) Henning-Smith, JeffInquiry is often seen as a good thing, whose place in education both appears with increasing frequency and simultaneously seems elemental to learning (Anderson, 2002; Artigue & Blomhøj, 2013). The use of inquiry often involves, “thinking of a generalized image of inquiry...and assuming it will allow achieving multiple goals” (Abd-El-Khalick et al., 2004, p. , p. 415). According to Anderson (2002), “The research literature on inquiry, tends to lack precise definitions…[and]...inquiry teaching is defined differently by different researchers, or the researcher may choose to use a different term for an approach that others apparently would identify with the inquiry label” (p. 3). Overall, while research indicates a positive association between inquiry and learning, there is little clarity about how inquiry-based teaching and learning actually unfolds in the classroom. What happens to a concept like inquiry when it is taken up over and over again in school settings that are inherently full of contradictions between the theoretical and practical? This runs counter to what Dewey and Garrison have said about the role of inquiry in learning, where inquiry is seen as complicated, and involving, “feeling, reasoning, and environmental transaction[s] throughout the organic whole” (Garrison, 1997, p. , p. 99). There is a problem when schools see inquiry as a purely intellectual action, instead of seeing the benefits of creating a multi-dimensional approach to learning where “the child [is] not simply doing things, but getting also the idea of what he does; getting from the start some intellectual conception that enters into his practice and enriches it” (Dewey, 1900, p. , p. 76). The purpose of this study began with my desire to gain insight into the relational practices between teachers and students, around the concept of inquiry, through the use of Mediated Discourse Analysis (Scollon, 2001). It ended with an examination of the potential changes to classroom context as of a result of the intentional disorientation, examination, and utilization of informed instructional practices. I used Mediated Discourse Analysis, or MDA (Scollon 2001), in my attempts to highlight the connections between discourse and actions around the concept of inquiry. I located my observations specifically in moments of discursive interactions between teachers and students. According to Ron Scollon, understanding the role of context in the study of discourse is complicated, nuanced, and more about interpretation than “knowing.” Scollon and Scollon (2003) argue, “that there are multiple, partly overlapping, but nonetheless distinct discourses operating [interdiscursivity] within a semiotic aggregate [intersection of discourses and social actions]” for the purpose of making meaning (p. 185). Simply put, “all actions and all discourses are mediated” (Scollon, 2001, p.7). In this study I witnessed firsthand the relationship between how schools and individual experiences within schools affect educational processes, outcomes, and social change. It furthered my strong belief in the idea that schools are complex life forms, embedded with certain characteristics, stagnant and dynamic individuals and ideas, needs and desires, opportunities for growth, development, and, unfortunately, also places for hurt, alienation, and missed opportunities. Emerging from thus study was a robust and multi-faceted set of mediated actions around inquiry that demonstrated inquiry’s practical and potential effects on teachers’ instructional practices.Item Metamorphosis(University of Minnesota's Center for Teaching and Learning, 2004-05) Perry, James A.Item My Magnificent Seven: A Memoir of Students Who Have Shaped My Teaching(University of Minnesota's Center for Teaching and Learning, 2007) O'Donovan, KathleenItem Participant Publications and Conference Presentations(Bush Foundation and University of Minnesota, 2006) Center for Teaching and LearningItem Pedogenesis of a Teacher(University of Minnesota's Center for Teaching and Learning, 2004-01-12) Cooper, TerryItem Pedogenesis of a Teacher(University of Minnesota's Center for Teaching and Learning, 2004-01-12) Cooper, TerryItem Pragmatic Approaches to Learning Objectives: A Survey of Writing Instructors(2017-04-25) Bollig, Nathan WThis exploratory project seeks to understand the practical ways that teachers incorporate instructional documents and frameworks, like learning objectives, into their pedagogies and classroom practices. Specifically, this researcher conducts a survey that asks: How do instructors approach learning objectives in praxis?Item The relationship between faculty teaching preparation and student ratings of teaching(2011-10) Fitzgerald-Sisk, MargaretStudents in higher education complain regularly that their classes are boring and their instructors seem not to know how to teach. If, in fact, those instructors do not know how to teach, there are likely many reasons for this. There is also a great deal of literature, which this paper reviews, about helping those instructors to do a better job. What seems to be missing from the mix is understanding whether learning to teach before getting the instructional position actually helps faculty members (broadly defined) be more effective at teaching. Logic would claim that a positive relationship exists between these two factors. However, there is no quantitative data proving this claim, which results in a gap in the research. This paper serves, at least in part, to fill that gap. The question under consideration is whether there is a relationship between a faculty member's preparation for teaching and his or her scores on the student ratings of teaching (SRT) for classes he or she has taught. This study reviews one institution of higher education and uses a teaching preparation survey with a random sample of instructors from the Fall 2010 semester. The results of the survey were used as an entry point to that institution's database of SRT scores. Multiple regression analysis of the SRT scores combined with different elements of preparation showed a weak but positive relationship between preparation and SRT scores.Item Studies in Sustainable Polymers: Strategies for Feedstock Incorporation and Enhanced Polymer Si–O Bond Cleavage(2022-09) Gormong, EthanThe development of sustainable polymers is a significant undertaking and is best accomplished using a wide variety of complimentary techniques and chemical approaches. The body of work put forth by the NSF Center for Sustainable Polymers embodies this style of collaborative research, aspects of which will be summarized in Chapter 1. A promising avenue toward sustainable polymers is the development of new monomers derived from renewable carbohydrate resources (Chapter 2). The isohexides, including isosorbide, isomannide, and isoidide, can be readily converted into their corresponding bis-propargyl ethers, which can be polymerized using Cu(I) and Ni(II) catalysts. The resulting diyne polymers can be readily converted to their saturated polyether analogs by catalytic hydrogenation. Sustainable polymers are an excellent avenue to excite the next generation of scientists through chemistry laboratory curriculum. Dibutyl itaconate and -myrcene were copolymerized using two different reaction conditions to produce two polymeric materials with vastly different physical properties, suitable for student analysis (Chapter 3). The introduction of degradable linkages into commercial but environmentally persistent polymers, such as silicones, could be an important step toward sustainability. Though usually robust, the Si–O bonds in the polymer backbone can be activated toward cleavage by the introduction of tethered basic functional groups such as dimethyl amides and amines. The effect of tether length of the cleavage of the alkoxydisiloxanes was studied experimentally by 1H NMR analysis of small-molecule analogs and by computation (Chapter 4). These small-molecule findings are currently being applied to other classes of Si–O bonds (carbodisiloxanes) and to macromolecular systems in ongoing research efforts (Chapter 5).