The purpose of this inquiry was to retell and represent the life that I have lived as I explore how I adapted my professional practice for students in an alternative program. This naturalistic inquiry is positioned as a self narrative. Retrospection and reflection enabled me to bring together my construction of self and my journey of teaching as I attempted to explain how I know what I know about working with at risk students and alternative programming. <p>The collection of data comes from my personal experience; thus I am observer, participant, and narrator. Threaded throughout this thesis are interwoven stories which create the fabric of my teaching experience. Each narrative represents justification of teacher knowledge and a refocusing of the lens through which I viewed at risk students and their marginalized position in our education system. As teachers we must first establish a relationship with our students and develop an empathetic understanding of the circumstances of the life experiences each one brings to the classroom. By understanding their past, we can make the school experience a positive influence in their lives and hopefully smooth out their way to a successful future.

It is important to identify students at-risk for school non-completion as early as possible. Research has demonstrated that data sources such as teacher nomination and individual demographic characteristics are less accurate identification methods of students who are at-risk for not graduating on-time. Instead, the use of early warning systems (EWS) based upon research validated indicators that reliably identify students who are Off-track, or at-risk for not graduating on-time, has been a promising approach. Questions remain though about the relationship of Off-track Status at an earlier time point to Off-track Status at a later time point as well as the relationship between a variety of individual and school-level predictors and Off-track Status. The purpose of this study was to examine student patterns of Off-track (for graduation) Status at two time points each year from sixth grade through the end of 10th grade as determined by a district-implemented EWS. In addition, this study examined factors that were hypothesized to contribute to students becoming off-track for high school graduation and the earliest time that those factors demonstrated influence on an Off-track Status. Individual (e.g., SES Level, Third-Grade Reading scores, etc.) and school-level predictors (e.g., School Rates of Discipline, School Promoting Power, etc.) of Off-track Status were collected through archival data on a cohort of 4,268 sixth-grade students across 15 middle schools and 13 high schools from the 2007/2008 school-year through the 2011/2012 school-year. Significant relationships between individual-level variables (SES Level, Hispanic racial/ethnic designation, Grade Point Average, Office Discipline Referrals and Previous Off-track Status) were found. Implications for research to practice include a focus on early intervention of Off-track Status students and the inclusion of additional variables in a middle and high school EWS. An additional implication for practice is the local customization of EWS through further analyses of predictor sensitivity and specificity as well as examination of specific school-level contributions to increased numbers of Off-track Status students which would allow for refinement of EWS specific to a given population and provide information on schools that may need additional resources to support students.

This study sought increase student understanding of nutrition with the use of technology. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of using technology, in the form of the legacy cycle, on student understanding of nutrition, with a particular interest in at risk students. Ninth grade students participated in either a legacy cycle lesson or a traditional classroom instruction that taught facts about genetically modified organisms (GMO’s) and the controversy that surrounds GMOs integration into the diet of the world. Analysis of pretest, posttest, and one-week retention test scores showed that there was no significant difference between the two teaching methods, although both were effective at teaching the concepts. This study showed that the legacy cycle could be incorporated in the academic classroom without detriment to student learning. / text

Thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree Magister of Education in the Faculty of Education at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology / The core problematique of this study is to establish a collaborative intervention strategy as a model that could facilitate the design and dissemination of appropriate formative feedback during essay-writing practices with at risk ECP and first-year students.

This dissertation presents novel tools to help instructors measure students linking of content knowledge and the actions students perform for studying in the context of post-secondary General Chemistry. The first tool described in this work is Creative Exercises (CEs), an open-ended assessment that has the potential to promote students making connections across the content covered in General Chemistry. Students are given a simple prompt that describes a chemistry situation, and asked to write as many statements as they can that are correct, distinct and relevant to the prompt and the course content. The written responses to CEs from both in-class exams and homework assignments are examined for evidence of linking chemistry concepts. The findings indicate that students are able to use a wide range of topics to answer CEs based on the prompts. Also, from student responses to CEs, students’ misunderstandings of chemistry models are uncovered. To determine the prevalence of links and facilitate implementation in large classes, the second tool termed Measure of Linked Concepts (MLCs) is developed and implemented in General Chemistry. MLCs provide similar prompts as CEs and also a series of statements developed from prior student responses to CEs. Students are asked to evaluate the legitimacy of these statements. Students’ performance on MLCs is examined and the results show that the majority of students show proficiency in prior knowledge. However, a sizeable proportion of students can’t recognize the situation where a chemistry model is misused. Student responses to the above two assessments (CEs and MLCs) provide evidence for linking chemistry concepts of students in General Chemistry, both correctly and incorrectly. They also serve as tools for showing the relevance of prior topics and subsequent topics throughout the course and communicating with students for learning chemistry as a theme instead of separated facts. Finally, text message inquires are used to explore student study habits in General Chemistry. Study habits are defined as the frequency and type of actions taken toward studying outside the classroom in this work. The evidence for the feasibility of using text message inquiries as a data collection tool and the validity of the collected data is presented. Students in General Chemistry are characterized as three clusters based on their study habits. The cluster of students who reported studying in addition to the required course material outperform the other two clusters of students, who knowingly do not study and who reported studying only required course materials. By tracking study habits of a common group of students, we observe the signs of adapting. In addition, study habits of students at-risk of failing the course based on incoming SAT scores are explored in this work. The results indicate both frequency and quality play a role in students’ academic performance, and quality may be more important than frequency. These results provide a path for at-risk students to improve success rates in General Chemistry.

The aim of this qualitative study was to look at social capital formation among at-risk students in an alternative education program. Social capital has been applied to a broad range of fields to highlight the benefits that individuals, organizations and communities accrue from supportive relationships and networks. However, to date no research has looked specifically at social capital formation among at-risk students in a Canadian alternative high school. For this reason the author decided to examine the lived experiences of twelve Canadian at-risk students currently attending Sunnyside Alternative High School, with the aim of describing how social capital was fostered. The mainstream school and alternative school experiences of the students were compared based on the research questions and a conceptual framework of social capital formation. The findings of the research confirmed the importance of affective bonding social capital, as well as an inclusive learning environment at the alternative school.

No description available.

At Mississippi State University (MSU), students who do not meet full admission requirements may enroll in the Summer Developmental Program (SDP). During this ten-week summer program, students take four developmental courses to prepare them for college-level courses. MA 0003 Developmental Mathematics is the course designed to prepare these students for MA 1313 College Algebra. In addition, the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at MSU offers MA 0103 Intermediate Algebra to prepare students for MA 1313 College Algebra. The purpose of this study was to determine (a) whether there were correlations between student grades in MA 0003, MA 0103, and MA 1313, (b) whether students? grades in MA 0003 and MA 0103 would predict their grades in MA 1313, and (c) whether their grades in MA 0003 would predict their grades in MA 0103. A Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient was performed on the data. The results showed that there were statistically significant correlations between grades in MA 0003 and MA 0103, between grades in MA 0003 and MA 1313, as well as between grades in MA 0103 and MA 1313 ( ). Linear regression was used to find the equations to predict students? grades in MA 1313 from their grades in MA 0003 and MA 0103 and predict grades in MA 0103 from grades in MA 0003. An analysis of the results revealed that the higher the grade a student received in the lower-level mathematics courses, MA 0003 and MA 0103, the higher the grade the student received in the college-level mathematics course, MA 1313. Based on this study, further research was recommended to investigate the success of the SDP students in courses above the level of MA 1313 and their success in graduating from MSU. Because the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at MSU has made changes in the college algebra course, MA 1313, since this study, further research should be conducted to investigate the performance of the SDP students in the ?new? college algebra.

No description available.

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact that the creation of programs or instructional strategies that were devised and designed solely for the purpose of improving academic achievement among at-risk students has on the at-risk middle school student. In this case study, educational success from school redesign programs was qualitatively measured based upon an oriental inquiry-based qualitative research design. The data obtained for this study were derived from interviews, observations, and archival documents. The data collected for this study were intended to address the following questions: (a) How do redesign programs support teachers? (b) How does the redesign program benefit middle school, at-risk students? (d) What challenges, at the school level, do teachers face in regard to redesign programs? The observations in this study revealed that the students‘ perceptions of the program were positive. The teacher inquiries in this study revealed that the vast majority of the students (after being in the program for at least a semester) stated that they would like to remain in the program and they also stressed concerns about whether they would have access to a similar program once they were promoted to high school.