Thesis (M.A.)--Wheaton College Graduate School, Wheaton, IL, 2003. / Abstract. Portions of appendices in Spanish. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 78-83).

Thesis (D. Min.)--Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University, 1978. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 198-199).

Thesis (M.A.)--Wheaton College Graduate School, Wheaton, IL, 2003. / Abstract. Portions of appendices in Spanish. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 78-83).

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The goal of this mixed methods study was to examine educator and student perceptions of the implementation of social-emotional learning (SEL) and the RULER (i.e., recognizing, understanding, labeling, expressing, and regulating) approach in a Catholic school. The study investigated the perceptions of teachers, staff, and students about the implementation of SEL and RULER across elementary and middle school grade levels. The RULER approach is a K–12 SEL initiative designed to build the emotional intelligence and social-emotional competencies of all members of a school community. Data were gathered over a 4-month period through interviews with teachers and students, an educator survey, document analysis, and classroom and campus walkthroughs. The study produced findings around SEL and RULER implementation. The findings suggested SEL and RULER was valued by educators but there are challenges to implementation that may be obviated if the implementation team has a thorough understanding of the process of implementation of an initiative. Recommendations are provided to public and Catholic elementary and middle school leaders and SEL and RULER developers.

This study explored the perspectives and lived experiences of urban youth in relation to Restorative Practices at a free public charter school in Los Angeles, California. This qualitative study used a series of semi-structured interviews with four high school students. This adaptable design allowed for the nature of questions to evolve and shift in accordance with emergent themes and patterns. After a detailed inductive analysis of the data, major themes emerged related to students’ aversion to punitive discipline, their preference for conversation-based Restorative Practices, and their desire to have more agency as school community members. Moreover, participants reported that they only felt trusting of a small handful of staff members, preventing consistent conflict-resolution practices and positive relationship building. This study’s findings indicate a need for changes to be made at the school, district, state, and federal level to halt the use of traditionally racist and punitive discipline practices and replace them with Restorative Practices and social-emotional education and support. Additionally, student voice needs to be included and acknowledged as an integral piece of meaningful decision-making in school settings.

Student mobility in the area of Higher Education (HE) is gaining more attention nowadays. It is one of the cornerstones of the Bologna Process being promoted at both national and international levels. However, currently there is no technical system that would support student mobility processes and assist users in authoring educational curricula involving student mobility. In this study, the problem of student mobility programmes generation based on existing modules and programmes is considered. A similar problem is being solved in an Intelligent Tutoring Systems field using Curriculum generation techniques, but the student mobility area has a set of characteristics limiting their application to the considered problem. One of main limiting factors is that mobility programmes should be developed in an environment with heterogeneous regulations. In this environment, various established routines and regulations are used to control different aspects of the educational process. These regulations can be different in different domains and are supported by different authors independently. In this thesis, a novel framework was developed for generation of student mobility programmes in an environment with heterogeneous regulations. Two core technologies that were coherently combined in the framework are hierarchical planning and policy-based management. The policy-based planner was designed as a central engine for the framework. It extends the functionality of existing planning technologies and provides the means to carry out planning in environments with heterogeneous regulations, specified as policies. The policy-based planner enforces the policies during the planning and guarantees that the resultant plan is conformant with all policies applicable to it. The policies can be supported by different authors independently. Using them, policy authors can specify additional constraints on the execution of planning actions and extend the pre-specified task networks. Policies are enforced during the planning in a coordinated manner: situations when a policy can be enforced are defined by its scope, and the outcomes of policy evaluation are processed according to the specially defined procedures. For solving the problem of student mobility programme generation using the policy-based planner, the planning environment describing the student mobility problem area was designed and this problem was formalised as a planning task. Educational processes valid throughout the HE environment were formalised using Hierarchical Task Network planning constructs. Different mobility schemas were encoded as decomposition methods that can be combined to construct complex mobility scenarios satisfying the user requirements. New mobility programmes are developed as detailed educational processes carried out when students study according to these programmes. This provides the means to model their execution in the planning environment and guarantee that all relevant requirements are checked. The postponed policy enforcement mechanism was developed as an extension of the policy-based planner in order to improve the planning performance. In this mechanism, future dead-ends can be detected earlier during the planning using partial policy requests. The partial policy requests and an algorithm for their evaluation were introduced to examine policies for planning actions that should be executed in the future course of planning. The postponed policy enforcement mechanism was applied to the mobility programme generation problem within the descending policy evaluation technique. This technique was designed to optimise the process of programme components selection. Using it, policies for different domains can be evaluated independently in a descending order, gradually limiting the scope for the required component selection. The prototype of student mobility programme generation solution was developed. Two case studies were used to examine the process of student mobility programmes development and to analyse the role of policies in this process. Additionally, four series of experiments were carried out to analyse performance gains of the descending policy evaluation technique in planning environments with different characteristics.

The main aim of this study is to examine participants&rsquo / satisfaction with online Information Technologies Certificate Program (ITCP) which is based on synchronous and asynchronous communication methods over Internet offered by cooperation of Computer Engineering Department and Continuing Education Center at Middle East Technical University. There are three main purposes under the main aim. These purposes are to describe the strength and direction of relationship between participants&rsquo / perceptions of online technologies self-efficacy, online learning readiness, locus of control, prior knowledge, and participants&rsquo / satisfaction / to analyze contributing factors of participants&rsquo / satisfaction based on semester 1, 2, 3 and 4 in the online ITCP / and to investigate instructors&rsquo / and participants&rsquo / views about satisfaction in online ITCP. The sample includes 62 participants who enrolled and 8 instructors who offered courses in this online program in 2004-2005. A combination of quantitative and qualitative data collection methods are used in this study. The results of the study demonstrate that participants&rsquo / initial perception of online learning readiness is only a variable that correlate statistically significant with participants&rsquo / satisfaction. Although participants&rsquo / overall satisfaction is generally positive, it decreases over the semesters of the program. Participants are satisfied with learner-instructor interaction and institutional support in the program. However, participants&rsquo / satisfaction level is low for interaction among participants. Also, participants&rsquo / satisfaction about course structure and flexibility decrease over the semesters in the program. Moreover, the findings of semi-structured interviews with participants and instructors and chat session and discussion list transcripts reveal complementary results to the statistical analyses.

Thesis (M.I.T.)--The Evergreen State College, 2009. / Title from title screen (viewed 7/29/2009). Includes bibliographical references (leaves 145--152).

The main aim of this study is to examine participants&rsquo / satisfaction with online Information Technologies Certificate Program (ITCP) which is based on synchronous and asynchronous communication methods over Internet offered by cooperation of Computer Engineering Department and Continuing Education Center at Middle East Technical University. There are three main purposes under the main aim. These purposes are to describe the strength and direction of relationship between participants&rsquo / perceptions of online technologies self-efficacy, online learning readiness, locus of control, prior knowledge, and participants&rsquo / satisfaction / to analyze contributing factors of participants&rsquo / satisfaction based on semester 1, 2, 3 and 4 in the online ITCP / and to investigate instructors&rsquo / and participants&rsquo / views about satisfaction in online ITCP. The sample includes 62 participants who enrolled and 8 instructors who offered courses in this online program in 2004-2005. A combination of quantitative and qualitative data collection methods are used in this study. The results of the study demonstrate that participants&rsquo / initial perception of online learning readiness is only a variable that correlate statistically significant with participants&rsquo / satisfaction. Although participants&rsquo / overall satisfaction is generally positive, it decreases over the semesters of the program. Participants are satisfied with learner-instructor interaction and institutional support in the program. However, participants&rsquo / satisfaction level is low for interaction among participants. Also, participants&rsquo / satisfaction about course structure and flexibility decrease over the semesters in the program. Moreover, the findings of semi-structured interviews with participants and instructors and chat session and discussion list transcripts reveal complementary results to the statistical analyses.