Research suggests that the first five years of life are critical for building the foundation for children’s success throughout their schooling and life. Throughout these first years of life there are a number of essential windows of opportunity during which certain kinds of stimuli are needed to help the brain develop and maintain critical connections necessary for learning. This project is a unification of a Child Development Center and a therapeutic center. This center includes children who suffer from bereavement; a broken home, death of a parent or child abuse. These children are provided with therapy by a specialist, and also given an opportunity to interact with other children as a form of therapy. This thesis therefore explores the following questions. How can design create a place that enhances learning, healing and play through interaction and movement? How can design create a space for the special needs of children without having to bind them in a classroom? How to create movement in a building that itself is static in nature?

The aim of this master thesis is to describe specifics of social relationships in schools with multi-age classrooms and to discover differences from schools with single grade classrooms. In particular to understand the enviroment, the relationships among pupils, the functioning, the history of multi-age classroom and its advantages and disadvantages.

In Sweden and in many places around the world there is a great discussion about using L1 or not in teaching. The fact that 43% of the pupils having a parent speaking another language do not qualify for upper secondary studies in Sweden is worrying. The aim of the thesis was to collect a classroom teacher's experiences and how the teacher perceived the pupils' participation and the perspectives of the mother tongue teacher over three lessons. The research was carried out in a multilingual grade 3, consisting of 19 pupils. The focus was the experience of the classroom teacher and mother tongue teachers. The result was positive for pupils in many ways but the organisation of how to use L1 is an issue to solve. The data collection was carried out through observations from three lessons and interviews with teacher and mother tongue teachers. Recommendations for further studies include to get a better point of view concerning the organisation round mother tongue tuition and how the pupils develop their knowledge. / <p>Educational work/ English</p><p>Pedagogiskt arbete/ Engelska</p>

An increasing amount of people play games in their spare time, especially children and teenagers. Several studies have shown a positive correlation between gaming and ESL grades. It is therefore important to examine how teacher perceive and use games and extramural gaming in their classrooms, which is the aim of this thesis. In order to fulfil this aim, the research questions "how and to what extent are games used in the classroom", "how and to what extent is gaming as an extramural activity used in the classroom" and "what attitudes do teachers have towards using games or extramural gaming in the classroom" were used. Data was gathered using a mixed-methods design with a questionnaire and interviews. The questionnaire was distributed to 53 Swedish ESL teachers (47 of which completed the entire questionnaire), and three Swedish ESL teachers were then interviewed to provide further information. The results showed that games are not used in these teachers’ Swedish EFL classrooms, and students’ interest in games as an extramural activity is only used to a very small extent in their classrooms. The participating teachers’ attitudes were mildly positive to the possibility of students learning from games, and positive to the possibility of student becoming more interested if games were used or referenced in education. However, teachers could generally not see themselves using gaming to their advantage, and many claimed not to know how they would use games or their student’s extramural gaming in the classroom. This suggests a lack of knowledge among the teachers, and a need for further education on the subject so that the full potential of this increasingly popular extramural activity can be taken advantage of in the classroom.

We will share examples of hands-on investigations combining the 5Es and the CER Framework with supporting literacy activities to help upper elementary students demonstrate learning.

In the decades following the Stonewall riots in New York, there has been an increasingly public acceptance and normalization of LGBTQ identities. In some spaces, however, like public schools, LGBTQ identities continue to be contested and positioned as problematic, creating challenges for teachers who seek to create safe and affirming spaces within the classroom and the curriculum. This study using a narrative inquiry methodology, examines the stories of seven teachers of foreign languages at the high school level as they seek to make sense of their work as it relates to LGBTQ identities. This research study using narrative inquiry methods describes the experiences of seven teachers of foreign language as they make sense of and negotiate LGBTQ identities in the context of their work as foreign language teachers. The teachers describe how and when LGBTQ identities manifest in their instruction, their knowledge base of LGBTQ identities, ways in which they address sex and gender normative practices and behaviors in their classrooms, and supports and barriers available to them as they work to create curriculum and classroom spaces that are inclusive of LGBTQ identities. The findings of this study address the unique ways in which foreign language teaching presents a unique site of study of the target language and culture, including LGBTQ identities that are present within those target languages and cultures and within the classroom environment. Teachers described barriers, like language proficiency, administration, perceived surveillance, and lack of materials as challenges to enacting LGBTQ inclusive teaching practices. They cited supports like colleagues, professional learning communities and opportunities to engage with one another on challenging topics, as well as the nature of foreign language teaching as beneficial in their work.

No description available.

Intrigued by the English language and its far-reaching applications worldwide as a standard means of communication, I begin my disquisition with a focus on the meaning and derivation of grammar and its place in the trivium of ancient and modern study. I stress the need to reemphasize college-level instruction in grammar and mechanics as a complement to rhetoric and logic by studying and teaching editing, which involves semantics, syntax, phonology, morphology, conventions, mechanics (spelling, punctuation and format), in writing centers and classrooms. Noting growing nationwide illiteracy, I research the pedagogies and writing of experts in the field of rhetoric and composition to develop and share a balanced philosophy of learning and teaching the art, science, and mathematics of writing with a focusing on conscientiously creating sentences with an Isocratean sense of perfection. Continually learning methods to reintroduce grammar in a novel way, I present antidotal information, statistics, and expert opinions and interpretations of pedagogists and rhetoricians of both sides of the Grammar Debate, a polemic over the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of teaching grammar. From my experience as a composition teacher at the University of South Florida and Hillsborough Community College in Florida, I present suggestions from students, who through their questions and overwhelming documented requests for grammar help and attention to sentence-level concerns, helped me rediscover myself through the reflective and recursive aspects of writing. Teaching students Standard English for academic discourse and for writing with computers across the curriculum, I share the power of words and explain the negative effects of errors and how to eliminate the serious ones. Graphs and tables of data collected from conference information forms and questionnaires filled out by students in writing centers or classrooms reveal the objectives and viewpoints of students, those whom institutions and teachers serve. Having developed a "polypedagogy," I share the knowledge I have gathered from others with innovative and creative ideas for teaching the historically boring or abstract subject of grammar.

For most of the twentieth and all the twenty-first century, there has been a great debate over educational reform for teaching mathematics. From these debates have come a critical look at how to properly instruct students so they can actively learn in the classroom, yet still retain the information for use in their later life. These questions are rooted in the larger debate between philosophical and psychological dimensions of human growth and development. Some educators, therefore, believe structuring their instruction around some philosophies such as idealism, realism, pragmatism, or existentialism was the key to success for their students. Others took the psychological approach and featured behaviorist or cognitive ideas in their teaching. Most feel that the approaches to psychology reflect these philosophical and psychological theories. These positions have resulted in the emergence of specific suggested teaching strategies that each proponent believes provide the solutions to the dilemma of how to best educate today’s students. This study examines what effect two different instructional strategies have on student acquisition of mathematical concepts and procedures.

Current research suggests that time spent in nature benefits all aspects of children’s development. However, children are spending little time outdoors. Additionally, there are few preschool programs that recognize the outdoors as an extension of the traditional classroom and even fewer college courses and training programs that specifically address outdoor education. The purpose of this project was to educate early childhood teachers about nature’s benefits and provide them with the knowledge necessary to implement their own outdoor classrooms. The trainings focused on seven topics related to the importance and development of an outdoor classroom: introduction to the outdoor classroom, benefits of nature and the consequences of its removal, developmental theories related to children’s learning outdoors, outdoor curriculum and activities, teacher engagement, outdoor assessment, and implementing an outdoor classroom. Pre- and post‑training assessments indicated that the training increased teachers’ perceived knowledge about outdoor classrooms, their likelihood of engaging in positive teaching behaviors outdoors, and their confidence regarding the implementation of an outdoor classroom. Overall, the trainings accomplished the desired effect of educating teachers on the importance of an outdoor classroom. However, few of the teachers who initially signed up for the training completed the four sessions. Future trainings might consider offering larger incentives, condensing the number of sessions and information provided, and/or including center directors and administrators as participants in order to recruit more participants and increase the likelihood that outdoor classrooms will be implemented at more centers.