Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston University / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / 2031-01-01

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Prosody encodes meanings (Levis & Wichmann, 2015) and significantly influences L2 English speakers' intelligibility and comprehensibility (Anderson-Hsieh, Johnson, & Koehler, 1992; Derwing, Munro, & Wiebe, 1998). However, L2 English speakers are deficient in using English prosody to realize pragmatic functions (Pickering, 2001; Wennerstrom, 1998), hindering effective communication between L1 English speakers and L2 English speakers. Furthermore, due to the complex and dynamic nature of prosody, English prosody teaching is particularly challenging for teachers. Reed and Michaud (2015) argue that metalinguistic awareness is an essential factor in effective prosody teaching. However, research studies providing empirical support for their claim are lacking. Furthermore, in recent years, an increasing number of research studies discovered similarities between Mandarin and English prosodic features and functions (Chen & Gussenhoven, 2008; Ouyang & Kaiser, 2015), suggesting the possibility to use crosslinguistic transfer to facilitate the teaching of English prosody. However, research studies investigating the efficacy of crosslinguistic based prosody pedagogy are also lacking. This study investigates the role of imitation, metalinguistic awareness, and L1 prosody in English prosody teaching by examining the efficacy of three prosody teaching methods: imitation-based prosody teaching (IT), monolingual metalinguistic awareness- based prosody teaching (mono-MAT) and crosslinguistic metalinguistic awareness-based prosody teaching (cross-MAT). 48 participants were randomized into four groups and received different kinds of intervention: (1) IT, (2) mono-MAT, (3) cross-MAT and (4) interview (control group). Participants' use of English prosody was elicited in a pretest, an immediate posttest, and a two-week delayed posttest by means of a read-aloud task and a picture narrative task eliciting participants' spontaneous speech. Participants' use of sentence stress was rated by six native English speakers based on 9-point Likert scales. The stressed constituents in participants' read-aloud speech were further analyzed regarding average pitch level, pitch range, duration, and intensity. Linear mixed-effects analysis was conducted to compare participants' use of sentence stress across groups and tests. The results suggest that metalinguistic awareness plays a critical role in prosody learning. The results also suggest the advantage of crosslinguistic prosody teaching. This study expands the breadth of pronunciation teaching by exploring the prosodic similarities across languages. This study increases the depth of pronunciation teaching by encouraging a paradigm shift from imitating the prosodic patterns to understanding the connection between the linguistic patterns and the pragmatic functions of prosodic features.

The purpose of this study is to develop an understanding of the ways in which educational experiences might differ between a regional vocational technical high school (RVTH) and short-term career-training programs. A particular regional vocational technical high school was selected for its outstanding academic records and placement rates, and a particular industry--healthcare--was chosen for its high demand and short supply of labor in the state. The study is a qualitative case study that primarily utilized in-depth, one-on-one interviews with semi-structured questions. The participants of this study fall into one of three groups: seniors in RVTH health services, students in the RVTH postsecondary practical nursing (PN) program, and certified nursing assistants (CNAs) who received CNA training from short-term career-training programs in Massachusetts. The researcher collected additional qualitative data through various sources such as classroom observation, field notes, program descriptions, lesson plans, syllabi, and class materials. The interview data were transcribed, segmented, and coded; any relevant qualitative data were later added to supplement the interview data. There were four consistent areas raised across participants that suggest salient components of their experiences. First, school choice was made by students themselves in the cases of RVTH seniors, which might have influenced the culture of togetherness and acceptance at RVTH. Second, shop instructors played an important role in creating a school culture where students helped each other and accepted everyone. In particular, the instructors’ emotional support seemed to differentiate the educational experiences of RVTH seniors from the students in other programs. Third, all RVTH seniors frequently identified soft skills such as communication and time-management skills when reflecting on their education experiences whereas participants in the short-term programs focused on technical skills. Lastly, RVTH seniors strongly believed they were career-ready. The findings of the current research on the workplace skills students acquired in the programs showed some congruencies with the existing inter-industry literature that described the importance of certain skills, such as communication and professionalism. Participants from alternative career-training programs did not identify the same types of elements in their educational experiences. The study ends with implications by contemplating what aspects of RVTH can be replicated in which settings.

Charter school replication has become an important topic in education in recent years. Through federal and state funding incentives, many one-off, “mom and pop” charter schools are choosing to grow into larger charter management organizations (CMOs). This ethnographic study looks at one Massachusetts’ charter school that grew into a CMO operating three schools within the same city. This study shares the experiences of this school in order to inform other school leaders about the balance between replication and innovation. / 2020-06-30T00:00:00Z

<p> The expansion of the AP program has placed demands on AP teachers to teach rigorous curricula and support academically diverse learners in high school. This study explores how the Advanced Placement Summer Institute (APSI), is meeting the instructional needs of AP teachers in light of AP program expansion. </p><p> Desimone (2009) posited that there were five features of professional development that changed teacher practice: content focus, active learning, coherence, duration, and collective participation. Desimone&rsquo;s framework served as a conceptual lens for this study, along with Yoon (2007), who argued that effective professional development can be linked to student achievement gains. An original survey with closed and open-ended questions was distributed to APSI teacher participants in the spring of the school year following the training, and teachers&rsquo; corresponding AP exam scores were gathered for discussion. </p><p> The researcher sought to determine whether teachers perceived APSI was beneficial, whether it improved perception of ability to support student achievement; what content, pedagogy, and strategies for diverse learners teachers learned and were using in their classrooms. Logistic regression models analyzed the likelihood that teachers would report an extremely beneficial training and perceive that the training supported their ability to improve student achievement, and whether content-rich or pedagogy-rich sessions predicted the outcomes. </p><p> Findings indicated that the strongest benefits of APSI were gains in teacher content knowledge, but also that pedagogy learned lead to improved teacher perception of ability to support student achievement. There was limited evidence that APSI developed teacher strategies for diverse learners. The College Board has increased access to AP courses through its Equity and Access Policy but this study indicated that APSI is not providing teachers with adequate support in reaching all learners in AP courses. This study contributes to the literature on professional development and provides information on how APSI supports AP teachers&rsquo; instructional needs while identifying strategies for diverse learners as an area of needed improvement.</p><p>

Thesis (Ed.D.)--Boston University.

Technology has become a major focal point in the modern learning environment. Web 2.0 is being increasingly widely employed in university education and has the potential to improve the quality of education. For optimum benefit to students' learning practices, web 2.0 technology needs to actively foster regulation skills among students. Self-regulated learning skills (SRL skills) potentially offer a shift from traditional teacher-centred to learner-centred approaches. Wiki technology, as a form of web 2.0 technology, has the potential in education to foster such an approach to learning. The thesis investigates how a wiki can be utilised to enhance self-regulated learning among a cohort of female students attending higher education in Saudi Arabia. The study was primarily motivated by the lack of studies investigating SRL skill enhancement in wiki-assisted learning in higher education, in Saudi Arabia, where the education system largely relies upon teacher-centred learning. This study, therefore, was an effort to potentially improve SRL skills among students attending Princess Nora University (PNU) in Saudi Arabia, with a view to the results being applicable to teaching and learning in similar contexts. The first two objectives of this study were to explore the potential of a wiki as an enhancer of executive function and evaluation skills and to explore students' attitude towards using wiki as a learning environment. The third objective was to explore students' perceptions of wiki learning and its contribution to the enhancement of SRL skills. A single case study was administered before and after use of a purpose-designed wiki for an Education Technology module taken by a cohort of female students at PNU. Quantitative data was collected by a questionnaire triangulated with qualitative data gathered in interviews. The findings revealed that after using wiki, students felt that six of the eight SRL sub-skills listed under executive function and evaluation skills had, on the whole, improved significantly. Students generally reported extremely positive attitudes towards learning with wiki technology. They perceived that the reflective nature and the design of the wiki tasks, together with the pages and guidance given by the tutor, may have supported the development of SRL skills, increased their overall motivation to learn and improved their independent learning processes. Overall, this study sought to discover information on a relatively new area to Saudi higher education and acts as a stepping stone to further research into students' perceptions of wiki technology and its effect on SRL skill enhancement. There is, of course, an opportunity in the future to measure actual SRL skill levels to corroborate the promising results which may, given the reader's discretion, be viewed as transferable to similar cultural and study contexts.

This thesis explores issues of educational provision for people regarded by some as stateless, specifically the Bidoun in Kuwait, and how the Kuwaiti Government and others view this. The main research question is what can be learned from the situation in Kuwait about the interpretation of Human Rights Conventions regarding the provision of education for the children of Bidoun (stateless people)? The principal research methods applied in this study are a comprehensive literature review on statelessness and related issues and interviews with informed personnel in Kuwait. The findings are divided into two parts: the first illustrates a lack of knowledge among Kuwaiti officials concerning the International Conventions on rights for free education for every child. It considers how this lack of knowledge is intertwined with support for the primacy of domestic law and for the Government's educational policies in respect to the Bidoun, even when these violated these Conventions. Activists demonstrate more knowledge about these conventions and promote a policy of tolerance in respect to educating this group, specifically in state schools. The second part focuses on lessons for Kuwait from similar situations in comparable countries. Economic concerns lie behind marginalising this group since granting them citizenship would increase financial costs, especially in a Rentier state like Kuwait, Saudi Arabia or the UAE. Xenophobia may belie the unwillingness to grant stateless people citizenship, especially if they originate from a minority religious denomination or a hostile country.

One of the ways in which universities relate to the world in the context of internationalisation is through partnership. However, many university partnerships either do not reflect institutional strategic planning, or do not make good use of the individual contingent networking. Higher education institutions across the world engage enthusiastically in developing inter-institutional partnerships but reluctantly invest in nurturing inter-personal relationships, which are central to sustainable relationship building. This thesis attempts to explore what constitutes sustainable international partnership in higher education, and sets its focus on England and China, given the strong belief in internationalisation to achieve particular national agendas in both countries. In order to explore what is perceived to be desirable and worth attaining in sustainable partnership for a given set of participants, the concept of the imaginary is incorporated in this research to connect what-is with what-might-be. Two strands of data were collected from each case university (one in England and one in China) relating to the policy constructions and the staff perceptions. The university strategic policy discourse indicated how institutions project constructions of sustainable partnership in each institution. The 35 semi-structured interviews with staff at either the institutional level or the disciplinary level from both countries demonstrated how individuals respond to policy constructions and also 'imagine' alternatives. The thesis presents a shared imaginary across two institutions in England and China, within which, sustainable partnership is constituted by either strategic planning or contingent networking, and this seems to create an illusion of sustainability for both institutions and individuals. Furthermore, the findings from this study suggest sustainable partnership is constituted by the coordination between strategic planning and contingent networking. The key is to embed partnership emerging in the contingent networking and then situate strategic planning in the context of partnership, nurturing and flourishing interpersonal relationships, and, not vice versa. This thesis not only contributes to a holistic imagining of what might constitute sustainable partnership, but also creates an imaginative space from which sustainable partnership might be attainable between universities even with divergent strategic agendas.