Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 35-12, Section: A, page: 7616. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1974.

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 36-06, Section: A, page: 3374. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1975.

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 38-04, Section: A, page: 1862. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1977.

The purpose of this study was to examine the degree to which cooperative learning affects the active participation or engagement of students in the classroom. Previous research has found that students were more engaged during lecture and classroom discourse methods of instruction (anderson & Scott, 1978). This study attempted to determine whether the instructional strategy of cooperative learning affected this result.;The sample for this study was selected from the students of two English and two social studies teachers for each instructional method (cooperative learning, lecture, and classroom discourse). Videotapes were made of each teacher's class for analysis. Each class had five students whose engagement levels were studied. The participants were students at a suburban high school in southeast Virginia.;Percent of time engaged in the learning process was estimated by dividing the number of behaviors coded as task-relevant by the total number of behaviors coded. After the rate of engagement of each instructional strategy was determined, a one-factor between-subjects design with three levels of the dependent variable, engagement of students, was used. Planned comparisons using the multiple F test were used to analyze the engagement rates for each of the three instructional strategies (lecture, classroom discourse, and cooperative learning) for each instructional area (English and social studies) and for combined subject areas to determine whether the prediction that cooperative learning had the highest engagement level was verified. Alpha was set at 0.05.;The results showed that cooperative learning techniques resulted in statistically significantly (p {dollar}<{dollar}.05) higher levels of engagement of students in the secondary classrooms studied (English and social studies) than instructional strategies using lecture or classroom discourse. In addition, there was statistically significant higher levels of engagement when cooperative learning was used in each of the subject areas English and social studies than instructional strategies using lecture or classroom discourse.;Comparisons of engagement rates in each of the subject areas studied (English and social studies) showed no statistical difference between the instructional strategies of classroom discourse and lecture.;Further research is needed to determine the effect of cooperative learning techniques in secondary subject classes other than English and social studies, to determine the amount of time needed for cooperative learning techniques to be effective, to determine whether cooperative learning techniques ultimately result in higher achievement for secondary students, to determine if a teacher's preferred teaching method influences these results and to compare the rates of engagement for English and for social studies classes when teachers are using classroom discourse and lecture methods of instruction.

Historically, mathematics education has consisted of rote learning through workbooks and textbooks, leaving students with the thought that mathematics is dull, unimaginative, and inaccessible. Educators have looked for ways to change these views of students, one current suggestion being through the integration of children's literature in the mathematics curriculum. To further investigate this suggestion, the study "Integrating Children's Literature in an Elementary School Mathematics Classroom" was conducted in a 3rd grade Johnson City Classroom to determine how students reacted to the integration of literature in a mathematics classroom.

This study explored how the integration of science and literacy in an elementary school classroom impacted the conceptual learning and understanding of first grade students. This study was explored around two research questions 1) How do students respond to the weather activities after being exposed to scientific read-alouds? 2) How will the impact of center based science inquiry on students reading comprehension and conceptual understanding of science knowledge change when the teacher engages students in scientific inquiry through the use of centers? Data was collected over a three-day period when the teacher was conducting a weather unit. It was found that through the literacy integration process and use of centers, the students were able to gain a deeper conceptual understanding and procedural fluency of the science topic.

No description available.

The purpose of the study was to investigate the relationship between academic intrinsic motivation and positive teacher verbal feedback, negative teacher verbal feedback, and student aptitude for academic work. The research questions evolved from the Cognitive Evaluation Theory of Edward Deci (Deci & Ryan, 1985) in which intrinsic motivation develops out of a sense of competence and self-determination. In that teacher verbal feedback to students provide messages about academic competence, it was hypothesized that positive verbal feedback would enhance intrinsic motivation and negative verbal feedback would be detrimental to intrinsic motivation.;The subjects for the study were 368 fourth and fifth grade students. Student academic intrinsic motivation was measured by a questionnaire developed by Harter (1981). Aptitude was assessed with the Cognitive Abilities Test (Thorndike & Hagen, 1985). Negative and positive teacher verbal feedback reactions were determined by classroom observers who coded all teacher verbal feedback reactions to the students in accordance with the observation system developed by Brophy and Good (1969). Through factor analysis the positive feedback factor and the negative feedback factor were formed from the verbal feedback categories loading with those factors.;Results revealed that both aptitude and positive verbal feedback correlate positively with academic intrinsic motivation. Aptitude for school work, positive verbal feedback, and grade level contributed about 8% of the total variance of intrinsic motivation. Negative verbal feedback did not contribute to the prediction of the level of intrinsic motivation. Due to the low level of variance attributed to these factors, conclusions which could be drawn are limited. However, it was suggested that in addition to studying factors influencing the sense of competency, classroom factors which would contribute to a sense of autonomy need to be included in future studies.

No description available.

The number of students taking American Sign Language (ASL) at the post-secondary level continues to increase as more Deaf-related graduate programs and employment settings require fluent ASL skills. Western Oregon University (WOU) is one of the few existing programs in the United States that offers four years of ASL instruction; however, as a rural university it has limited access to a Deaf community. The problem of practice is that students often have little exposure to rich language models who are fluent in ASL, which impacts their legitimate peripheral participation (LPP) in the local Deaf communities of practice (CoPs) and reduces apprenticeship opportunities that might be beneficial for their language acquisition experiences. While research suggests that direct engagement with language models has a significant impact on language acquisition and fluency in general, there is scant literature in the field of ASL that addresses this connection. My dissertation research addressed this gap in the literature. To address my problem of practice, I used a qualitative research design with both descriptive and comparative research questions to complete three case studies. Using semi-structured interviews, this study explored participants' attitudes and beliefs about their experience in local Deaf CoPs. The three participants in my study were Western Oregon University students enrolled in ASL 8 course. Data analyses included inductive analysis of qualitative data, a within case analysis, and a cross-case analysis. Findings showed that participants were interested in moving past LPP in local Deaf CoPs, and were interested in identifying apprenticeship opportunities because they realized the importance of engaging with native language models.