Doctor of Philosophy / Curriculum and Instruction Programs / Paul R. Burden / Military-connected students are a highly mobile population who undergo a great deal of stress in their lives. These factors can overflow into life in the elementary classroom, causing challenges for teachers. This study looked at the percieved challenges elementary classroom teachers face when working with military-connected students in one public school district with schools located on a military base and other schools near it. A Likert-type survey of questions was created and administered to teachers using an online survey tool. The survey was sent to elementary teachers working in schools in one public school district in the Midwestern United States with a garnered response rate of 42.2% (n=68). The schools in the district were located in a city near and on a military base. The study used exploratory factor analysis, descriptive statistics, independent samples t-tests, an ANOVA, and step-wise regression analysis procedures to answer the research questions regarding the challenges teachers face when working with military-connected students. The results of the study indicated that the number of years a teacher has been teaching influences their perceptions of challenges regarding military-connected students. In addition, teachers indicated that helping students catch up academically, supporting them emotionally, and family/parent issues are the top challenges when working with elementary military-connected students.

Inaug. _ Diss.: Philosophische Fakultät: Zürich: 1976. _ Bibliogr. p. V.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Curriculum and Instruction / Gail Shroyer / Research regarding dispositions dates back seven decades; but because of challenges in measuring, identifying and monitoring dispositions, teacher education programs have only recently developed procedures to document and assess candidates’ dispositions (Albee, & Piveral, 2003). The question remains, are teacher educators prepared for this challenge? Dispositions can be difficult to identify and measure and teacher educators are not necessarily trained in the development of assessments. By using data gathered at an NCATE accredited teacher education institution, the researcher hoped to examine one institution’s approach to assessing dispositions as part of an overall system to assess successful teaching. The purpose of this study was to determine if there was a relationship between the results of disposition assessments completed by university supervisors at the end of Block 2 and the results of final student teacher assessments completed by university supervisors at the end of Block 3. Scores from the Block 2 Coordinator’s Evaluation of Intern form and the final University Supervisor Assessment of Student Teacher/Intern form were collected and correlated using the Spearman’s Rho. The resulting scores were analyzed to determine if there was a statistically significant relationship. It was concluded that there was no significant relationship between the Block 2 Coordinator’s Evaluation of Intern form score and the final University Supervisor Assessment of Student Teacher/Intern form score. This study underscores the difficulty of assessing dispositions, and shows that teacher education programs need to establish reliability and validity on forms used to assess candidates’ dispositions.

A total of 84 students from a lower economic area, aged 8 to 14, were interviewed about their understanding of decimal fractions. Results showed that most students could give a context in which they saw decimal fractions outside of school. The vast majority could draw a diagram of how a cake or field could be divided equally among 10 or 100 people. However, few students under 14 could give either decimal fraction symbols or common fraction symbols to represent these divisions. Less than half of the students at ages 10, 11 and 12 could visualize what might come between 0 and 1. About half of the students aged 11 and 12 could indicate what 0.1 or 0.01 meant. It was inferred that difficulty in relating these symbols to referents might be an important source of difficulty in understanding decimal fractions. Therefore, these interviews were followed by an intervention study that examined if working with contextualized decimal fractions aided understanding of these numbers when they were presented without context. Half of a group of 16 similar students, aged 11 and 12, were asked to solve problems in which numbers that incorporated decimal fractions were contextualized, and the other half were asked to solve similar problems given in purely numerical form. Students worked in pairs, on problems which incorporated common misconceptions. The group who worked on contextualized problems gained significantly more understanding than did the group that worked on purely numerical problems, as measured by the difference between pretest and posttest scores. Transcripts of the students' discussions were analysed for the effect of prior learning, aspects of peer collaboration that appeared to be beneficial to learning, and the effect of cognitive conflict. The students who gained most from collaboration were not too distant in initial expertise, showed a degree of social equity, and worked on contextualized problems. Much of students' learning appeared to result from needing to reconsider their views following a conflict between their expectations and the results of operating on a calculator or in writing, or hearing an alternative view. / Subscription resource available via Digital Dissertations only.

A total of 84 students from a lower economic area, aged 8 to 14, were interviewed about their understanding of decimal fractions. Results showed that most students could give a context in which they saw decimal fractions outside of school. The vast majority could draw a diagram of how a cake or field could be divided equally among 10 or 100 people. However, few students under 14 could give either decimal fraction symbols or common fraction symbols to represent these divisions. Less than half of the students at ages 10, 11 and 12 could visualize what might come between 0 and 1. About half of the students aged 11 and 12 could indicate what 0.1 or 0.01 meant. It was inferred that difficulty in relating these symbols to referents might be an important source of difficulty in understanding decimal fractions. Therefore, these interviews were followed by an intervention study that examined if working with contextualized decimal fractions aided understanding of these numbers when they were presented without context. Half of a group of 16 similar students, aged 11 and 12, were asked to solve problems in which numbers that incorporated decimal fractions were contextualized, and the other half were asked to solve similar problems given in purely numerical form. Students worked in pairs, on problems which incorporated common misconceptions. The group who worked on contextualized problems gained significantly more understanding than did the group that worked on purely numerical problems, as measured by the difference between pretest and posttest scores. Transcripts of the students' discussions were analysed for the effect of prior learning, aspects of peer collaboration that appeared to be beneficial to learning, and the effect of cognitive conflict. The students who gained most from collaboration were not too distant in initial expertise, showed a degree of social equity, and worked on contextualized problems. Much of students' learning appeared to result from needing to reconsider their views following a conflict between their expectations and the results of operating on a calculator or in writing, or hearing an alternative view. / Subscription resource available via Digital Dissertations only.

A total of 84 students from a lower economic area, aged 8 to 14, were interviewed about their understanding of decimal fractions. Results showed that most students could give a context in which they saw decimal fractions outside of school. The vast majority could draw a diagram of how a cake or field could be divided equally among 10 or 100 people. However, few students under 14 could give either decimal fraction symbols or common fraction symbols to represent these divisions. Less than half of the students at ages 10, 11 and 12 could visualize what might come between 0 and 1. About half of the students aged 11 and 12 could indicate what 0.1 or 0.01 meant. It was inferred that difficulty in relating these symbols to referents might be an important source of difficulty in understanding decimal fractions. Therefore, these interviews were followed by an intervention study that examined if working with contextualized decimal fractions aided understanding of these numbers when they were presented without context. Half of a group of 16 similar students, aged 11 and 12, were asked to solve problems in which numbers that incorporated decimal fractions were contextualized, and the other half were asked to solve similar problems given in purely numerical form. Students worked in pairs, on problems which incorporated common misconceptions. The group who worked on contextualized problems gained significantly more understanding than did the group that worked on purely numerical problems, as measured by the difference between pretest and posttest scores. Transcripts of the students' discussions were analysed for the effect of prior learning, aspects of peer collaboration that appeared to be beneficial to learning, and the effect of cognitive conflict. The students who gained most from collaboration were not too distant in initial expertise, showed a degree of social equity, and worked on contextualized problems. Much of students' learning appeared to result from needing to reconsider their views following a conflict between their expectations and the results of operating on a calculator or in writing, or hearing an alternative view. / Subscription resource available via Digital Dissertations only.

A total of 84 students from a lower economic area, aged 8 to 14, were interviewed about their understanding of decimal fractions. Results showed that most students could give a context in which they saw decimal fractions outside of school. The vast majority could draw a diagram of how a cake or field could be divided equally among 10 or 100 people. However, few students under 14 could give either decimal fraction symbols or common fraction symbols to represent these divisions. Less than half of the students at ages 10, 11 and 12 could visualize what might come between 0 and 1. About half of the students aged 11 and 12 could indicate what 0.1 or 0.01 meant. It was inferred that difficulty in relating these symbols to referents might be an important source of difficulty in understanding decimal fractions. Therefore, these interviews were followed by an intervention study that examined if working with contextualized decimal fractions aided understanding of these numbers when they were presented without context. Half of a group of 16 similar students, aged 11 and 12, were asked to solve problems in which numbers that incorporated decimal fractions were contextualized, and the other half were asked to solve similar problems given in purely numerical form. Students worked in pairs, on problems which incorporated common misconceptions. The group who worked on contextualized problems gained significantly more understanding than did the group that worked on purely numerical problems, as measured by the difference between pretest and posttest scores. Transcripts of the students' discussions were analysed for the effect of prior learning, aspects of peer collaboration that appeared to be beneficial to learning, and the effect of cognitive conflict. The students who gained most from collaboration were not too distant in initial expertise, showed a degree of social equity, and worked on contextualized problems. Much of students' learning appeared to result from needing to reconsider their views following a conflict between their expectations and the results of operating on a calculator or in writing, or hearing an alternative view. / Subscription resource available via Digital Dissertations only.

While researchers in the developed world have focused on the benefits of incorporating engaging forms of ICT (such as games) into education, comparatively little research has been done on the impact of ICT in no-access regions. This thesis is an attempt to fill that research void. It does so by proposing an engaging ICT model that was developed for, and tested in, a low-access region of Mexico.

While researchers in the developed world have focused on the benefits of incorporating engaging forms of ICT (such as games) into education, comparatively little research has been done on the impact of ICT in no-access regions. This thesis is an attempt to fill that research void. It does so by proposing an engaging ICT model that was developed for, and tested in, a low-access region of Mexico.

Habilitationsschrift--Philosophische Fakultät--Erlangen-Nürnberg, 1974. / Bibliogr. p. 417-427. Index.