For over a century, history teachers throughout the United States have selected textbooks as the primary instructional material for their classrooms, while textbook authors and publishers have continuously produced a unified nation-state narrative that presents United States history as a series of objective historical facts for student memorization. Some researchers have suggested that teachers abandon the textbook in favor of primary sources. Yet, due in part to institutional, societal, and political pressures, classroom teachers continue to use these traditional texts. This study, a qualitative investigation of the causal and coherences structures in a sample textbook, a teachers instructional explanation, and students related summaries, seeks to determine the influence of a textbook passage and teachers instructional explanation on students mental representations of history: What causal and coherence structures are present in a sample US History textbook? To what extent do the causal and coherence structures of the textbook passage influence a teachers mental representation of a historical event? To what extent do the causal and coherence structures of the textbook passage and the instructional explanation influence students mental representations of a historical event? Using Kintschs Construction-Integration Model and Hallidays Systemic Functional Linguistics, data from participants in a diverse setting east of Pittsburgh was analyzed, comparing the network chains and transitivity structures of the passage, the instructional explanation, and participants summaries. Among this studys findings, students include information common to both the textbook passage and the teachers instructional explanation in their summaries. Furthermore, the causal constructions identified in students summaries are similar to those found in either the textbook or the instructional explanation, not often both. These findings have implications for teaching with textbooks, disciplinary literacy instruction, and the implementation of critical, historical thinking in K-12 history classrooms.

Although researchers have begun to explore the implementation of dynamic assessment (DA) with foreign language learners, few of these studies have occurred in the language classroom. Whereas DA is typically implemented in dyads, promising research in the field of foreign language learning suggests that DA may promote development with groups of students as well. The present study explored the implementation of group DA in a combined fourth and fifth grade elementary Spanish classroom as students studied interrogative use and formation. After a pre-test determined no student could use and form interrogatives independently, a DA program was designed to provide mediation attuned the zone of proximal development of the group of students as a whole. During this ten day DA program, the development of nine focal students was tracked as they participated in large group and small group instruction. Drawing on sociocultural theory, mediation provided by the teacher and by peers was transcribed and analyzed, as well as students responses to that mediation. Development was further examined based on students scores on a post-test, near transcendence task and far transcendence task. Findings suggest that while some students moved from assisted to unassisted performance during large group DA, other students required peer mediation provided during small group work to develop interrogative use and formation. Those students who could perform independently during large group DA acted as mediators during small group work for those who still required mediation. Still other students were never able to use and form questions independently, indicating that interrogative use and formation was not within their zone of proximal development. It was concluded that DA can be integrated into the language curriculum of early language learning programs without the sacrifice of effective language pedagogy. To that end, small group work is an essential complement to large group DA in that it provides students with the opportunity to request mediation, verbalize their thoughts, and provide mediation to their peers.

This case study examined the integration of discipline specific literacy instruction as part of a comprehensive literacy program at the secondary level. Eight teachers were interviewed and observed to investigate their knowledge of and beliefs about discipline specific literacy instruction. Two literacy coaches and the schools principal were also interviewed and shadowed to understand how they supported teachers efforts to include disciplinary literacy instruction and how they influenced instructional decision making. Results from this study indicated that teachers believed they were responsible for developing students literacy skills in the discipline they taught. Teachers emphasized discipline specific literacy practices and strategies to improve students literacy skills as well as to enhance students content knowledge. Professional development was a key factor in the continuity and success of teachersliteracy instruction across the disciplines. Through professional development, teachers were developing a deep understanding of what it means to engage students in discipline specific literacy practices. The school principal and instructional coaches played an active role in developing teachers literacy knowledge and strategy instruction. Their primary role was to support teachersefforts to implement disciplinary literacy instruction through systematic professional development and instructional coaching.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the representation of other cultures in award-winning picture books from the United States, Australia, and Great Britain between 1960 and 2009. Not only was the cultural content of childrens literature over the past fifty years investigated, but the protocol created to evaluate the books was a newly devised instrument that focused on the educational application of the content in the books. The protocol included three levels of analysis of the award-winning picture books. The Level I Analysis determined which books depicted other cultures; that is, cultures that were different from the cultures in the country in which the book was originally published. The Level II Analysis investigated the type of cultural representation found in the books, including depictions of geographic location, social systems, economic systems, and/or political systems. The final analysis (Level III Analysis) identified the genres and themes found in the picture books. Of the 143 books read for this study, only 25 (17%) depicted information about cultures different from those in the country in which the book was originally published. Books from the 2000s had the least amount of cultural representation. Geographic location was the cultural element most often represented in the picture books. Political systems had the least amount of representations in the books. This study addresses the potential for using childrens literature as a medium for cross-cultural awareness and the importance of providing teachers with appropriate tools to critically analyze books with cultural content. Study results might be interpreted as an indication that there is a need for more picture books to be representative of all people and cultures.

How do learning environments influence the ways that middle school students use math to engage with and learn about robotics? Data from two observational studies suggest that existing formal (scripted inquiry) and informal (competitions) learning environments in this domain are limited in their support for connecting math with robotics. In light of the evaluation of these existing learning environments, two additional studies were conducted documenting the design, implementation, and redesign of a new learning environment intended to more effectively align learning and engagement with the connection between math and robots. Pre-post assessments and analyses of student work support the hypothesis that a model eliciting learning environment can facilitate learning while maintaining interest in both disciplines, and facilitate the development of a greater sense of the value of math in robotics. Two additional studies expanded on the previous work. The first study identified two contrasting approaches for connecting math with robots in the context of the model-eliciting learning environment from the previous studies. One approach used mathematics as a calculational resource for transforming input values into desired output values. The second approach used mathematics as a mechanistic resource for describing intuitive ideas about the physical quantities and their relationships. The second study manipulated instructional conditions across two groups of students that encouraged the students to take on one of these approaches or the other. Both groups engaged in high levels of productive mathematical engagement: designing, justifying, and evaluating valid strategies for controlling robot movements with connections to mathematics. But only the mechanistic group made significant learning gains and they were more likely to use their invented robot math strategies on a transfer competition task. All six studies taken together provide a rich description of the range of possibilities for connecting math with robots. Further, the results suggest that in addition to carefully crafting environments and associated tasks to align math and robots, that instructional designers ought to pay particular attention to helping students frame their approaches to using math productively as a tool for thinking about situations.

This descriptive study investigates what happens when an English Language Arts teacher implements multimodal instruction in his senior-level World Literature course. The study is grounded in theories of transmediation and New Literacy Studies and examines the following research questions: 1.) What does multimodal instruction enable students to do and how does it shape and support students engagement and interpretation with literary texts? 2.) What are the cognitive affordances of students participation in multimodal tasks? The research site was a private all male high school a few miles outside a medium-sized city in the Northeast. One twelfth-grade World Literature classroom was observed for a nine-week period as students read two literary texts and composed three multimodal representations in response to each text. Data included field notes, videotaped classroom sessions, student-produced multimodal representations, student reaction forms, students rationales for representation and debriefing sessions with the teacher. Findings of the study reveal there are multiple cognitive and learning strategies that take effect as a result of multimodal instruction and that this type of instruction can be a valuable method for teaching literary interpretation.

This study investigates the role of digital cognitive technologies in supporting students mathematical thinking while engaging with instructional tasks. Specifically, the study sought to better understand how the use of technology is related to the cognitive demand of tasks. Data were collected in four secondary mathematics classrooms via classroom observations, collection of student work, and post-lesson teacher interviews. Opportunities for high level thinking by students were evaluated using the Mathematical Tasks Framework (Stein, Smith, Henningsen, & Silver, 2009). Technology use was evaluated with respect to whether it served to amplify students thinking by making students work more efficient or accurate without changing the nature of the task, or whether it was used to reorganize students thinking by supporting a shift to something different or beyond what the technology was doing for them (Pea, 1985). Results indicate that the mere inclusion of technology in a task was not related to the cognitive demand during any of the three phases of implementation, as technology was used in both high and low level tasks. However, results suggested an association between the level of cognitive demand of a task and the way that technology was used. In general, when technology was used as an amplifier, it was not related to the thinking requirements of the task, while the use of technology as a reorganizer was central to the thinking requirements of the task. The decline of tasks set up at high level often corresponded to technology being used as an amplifier and reorganizer during set up, but as only an amplifier during implementation. Overall, the role of technology in the decline or maintenance of high level thinking during implementation seems to depend more on teachers classroom practice than any particular issues related to the use of technology. How prepared students were to engage in high level thinking tasks in general, how teachers anticipated students needs while using technology to engage with the task, and how teachers responded to student questions and difficulties were influential factors in the maintenance or decline of these tasks.

This descriptive study investigates the ways that students in an Ancient History class make meaning of past events by relating them to their present lives and experiences. The study is grounded in theories of historical thinking, particularly focusing on the concepts of presentism and its usefulness for examining classroom teaching. The following two research questions guided the study: 1) How do students make connections between the past and present? 2) When given the opportunity in writing and discussion, in what ways are students engaging with distant events in the past? The research site was a middle school in a medium-sized city located in the Midwest. Data was collected in the Fall of 2010 over the course of eight weeks during two units of study (Ancient Civilizations Review and Ancient Greece). The following data sources were collected: five audio-recorded classroom discussions and other instruction, twelve interviews with students and student assignments and journal entries. The analysis revealed two categories of the students thinking about the relevance of past events: (1) conflating the past with the present and the challenge of presentism, and (2) translating and adapting the past to the present. The data showed that some students viewed history from a presentist perspective that did not distinguish sufficiently between time periods. However, many students also applied lessons from the past to their own lives by associating historical ideas and themes to their individual experiences, which was especially evident in the discussions. Students tended to make sense of history by assigning meaning to the concepts they were studying in a personal manner and by finding similarities between the past and present.

Children with special school healthcare needs (CSSHN) are entering early education environments with increasing frequency. Advances in medical technology and interest in providing early education in least restrictive environments are cited as the reasons for the phenomenon. Most often, full-time nurses are not available in such settings to care for the needs of children with medical complexities. And yet, case law dictates that the delivery of nursing services is indeed the responsibility of the local education agency and, furthermore, that such nursing services do not need to be related to a special education program in order to be provided (Diaz, 2000). This case law, coupled with a current overall shortage of school nurses, results in a certain conundrum for early educators (Barrett, 2000). Literature is reviewed about the attitudes of teachers and other personnel, the delegation of nursing duties to unlicensed assistive personnel (UAP), and the needs of school entities and staff members in serving this population of children. Taken together, the studies indicate that the body of knowledge is growing about how to best serve children with such needs and that further study is needed to keep pace with medical advances that enable increasing numbers of children to access least restrictive environments. Via this research, policies and procedures were gathered from early intervention service providers across the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania revealing the extent to which agencies have formalized planning for supports and services to CSSHN. The text from the policies and procedures was coded and analyzed to reveal the elements of service delivery to Children with Special School Health Needs (CSSHN) receiving early childhood special education (ECSE). The study concludes with a suggested framework for practice in serving CSSHN.

The purpose of the study is to explore women's experiences as they negotiate collaborative group projects in a college course. This qualitative study extends the existing literature by providing depth to the research on women's learning through observation of women in group activities, surveys about college students' attitudes toward collaborative learning, and in-depth interviews with university women. The study isolates four ways women negotiate collaborative learning in a college course. (1) Women take group work seriously and consider it to be very important. (2) Women are often leaders in group work. Sixty-four percent of the women and only two percent of the men said they are usually the leader in collaborative learning situations. (3) Women end up doing more than their share of the work, although they may have won the leadership roles. (4) Earning good grades is very important to the women studied, and they are willing to work harder than anyone else in a group to earn them. The theories of how women learn include the debate over whether women are relational or task-oriented. The conclusion of this study is that in the university classes studied, women are both. However, textbooks on collaborative learning may contain passages that indicate that in mixed-sex groups males will emerge as leaders. In addition, some textbooks suggest that women might lead when groups are primarily dealing with relationship issues, and men will lead when groups are primarily task-oriented or where a democratic rather than a participatory style is preferred. Discussions of collaborative learning often include the goal of helping counterweigh the hidden curriculum that diminishes women. Although collaborative learning can be an important classroom technique, this study points out that it is important that collaborative learning and feminist pedagogy not be conflated. Some collaborative learning groups are a site of discrimination and power difference for women.