<p> American students&rsquo; continued struggle with math proficiency has led to a body of research defining effective instructional principles for math. Those principles have been incorporated into interventions for students struggling with mathematical word problems. One such intervention utilizes a &ldquo;cognitive-metacognitive&rdquo; approach to solving any type of word problem. The &ldquo;cognitive-metacognitive&rdquo; approach teaches students to use a set of directive steps to work through a problem and to use a set of self-reflective steps to help the student understand, implement, and monitor each directive step. <i>Solve It!</i>, a commercially available cognitive-metacognitive intervention for word problem-solving, and variations of <i>Solve It!</i> have been found effective for students with various disabilities. Many of the populations that are subject to the existing body of research relating to <i>Solve It!</i> and variations of <i> Solve It!</i> display executive functioning deficits that are targeted by self-reflective steps included in the intervention. Students with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are one population that often display executive function deficits; however, no published research has examined the effectiveness of <i>Solve It!</i> or variations of <i>Solve It!</i> with this population. The present study builds on the existing research examining the effectiveness of <i>Solve It!</i> and variations of <i>Solve It!</i> by examining the effectiveness of a variation of <i>Solve It!</i> with three 4^th-grade students diagnosed with ADHD.</p><p>

<p> The purpose of the study was to explore how the use of technology can support parent/caregiver-teacher communications, thus allowing for parent/caregiver-teacher involvement through contemporary approaches. The study looked at how parent/caregivers and teachers define parent/caregiver involvement, what they see as barriers to parent/caregiver involvement, and how they believe technology can support the involvement experience.</p><p> The review of literature examines varying factors that influence parent/caregivers&rsquo; level of involvement in their children&rsquo;s schooling, as well as three major influences that have the greatest impact on student achievement: family, school, and community. It also identifies barriers to parent/caregiver involvement. Although challenges exist at the family, school, and community levels, the review of literature shows that the child receives maximum benefit when all parties collaborate.</p><p> Interviews and surveys reveal how parent/caregivers and teachers of third-graders feel about parent/caregiver involvement and how technology affects communications between parent/caregivers and teachers. Findings indicate that parent/caregivers and teachers believe the use of technology supports parent/caregiver-teacher communications, therefore fostering parent/caregiver involvement. They believe it eases communication processes and allows parent/caregivers to be involved despite busy schedules. Parent/caregivers and teachers communicated that they still desire personal conversations with one another to address topics of concern, but, overall, they feel technology cultivates and supports parent/caregiver involvement.</p><p>

<p> The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of Latino parental involvement on children&rsquo;s mathematical skills development and to increase family participation in and out of school with Take-Home Math Literacy Bags. The participants in the study were 13 preschoolers 3 to 5 years of age from a private urban bilingual child care program in northern New Jersey. The researcher conducted a 4-week bilingual (Spanish/English) family math program for Latino English Language Learner families. Data were collected through the use of pre/post student assessment interviews, family pre/post surveys, family experience surveys, researcher journal and anecdotes, and teacher interview and notes. Data analysis revealed improvement in the participants&rsquo; counting, shape recognition skills, and increased visits to the math center. Findings also indicated that Latino families enjoyed using the Take-Home Math Literacy Bags and that they helped them support their children&rsquo;s math skills at home. </p><p>

<p> Since the implementation of the New York State Common Core Standards, two primary problems have arisen for elementary instrumental music teachers. First, instrumental music teachers' time to work with students is diminishing. The demands of the rigorous curriculums developed to teach the Common Core Standards create a climate where English Language Arts and Math have precedence over all other subject areas. Music is a core subject in New York State but how it appears in the school day can vary from school district to school district. Second, students are assigned so much more homework causing parents to have reservations about engaging them in other activities but many still involve their children in music. These parents have a set of acquired dispositions of thought, behavior, and taste regarding music or a musical habitus (Bourdieu &amp; Wacquant, 1992; Rimmer, 2006).</p><p> This study identifies and explores the musical habitus of parents of students at a K-5 elementary school within a large economically diverse suburban school district in upstate New York. General music classes are part of each elementary school's master schedule and families have the option to participate in an elementary band or orchestra program. Specifically, the author seeks to understand the <i>musical habitus</i> of parents whose children are participating in the elementary orchestra.</p><p> The analytical and theoretical framework used by the author for this research is grounded in Bourdieu's (1986, 1992) theory of capital, with a focus on his notion of habitus and Epstein's (2010) theory of overlapping spheres of influence. Bourdieu's concept of habitus has been extended into the arts in general and to music in particular to examine the way in which people's individual histories, class origins, family backgrounds and educational opportunities interact to compose their ongoing relationship with the arts. Rimmer (2006) describes a <i>musical habitus</i> as an active, adaptive and generative action in sustaining musical meanings, and the structures in which they are embedded. Epstein's work focuses on one part of Bourdieu's concept of field by uniting home and school for the families involved. Understanding the level at which these three areas must interact will be a focus in the analysis of data. Together, they served as a lens to understand the musical habitus of the parents and why music is valued. This study challenges orchestra directors and administrators to understand why parents encourage and perpetuate their child's participation in instrumental music when balancing the daily schedules of their students.</p><p>

The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (1989) has identified problem solving as a major goal of school mathematics. Arithmetic word problem solving is difficult for children. The primary cause of this difficulty is not computational, as once believed, but representational. Children have difficulty understanding and representing the information in the problem. The purpose of this study is to design, implement, and evaluate a constructivist instructional approach to help children be successful arithmetic word problem solvers. It is a three week meaning-based approach to problem writing implemented by the teacher in a third grade classroom in a college laboratory school. The approach has children working collaboratively to author their own word problems. Children write math "stories" based on their everyday experiences. The children then write different types of math stories, along the lines of the typology similar to that proposed by Riley, Greeno, & Heller (1983). Children next explore how these math stories can be turned into problems by deriving the many questions that can be asked from any one story, making it into several problems. Subsequent instruction introduces the idea of multi-step, multi-type story problems. The instructional approach is guided by the important underpinnings in constructivist theory of the need for discourse, collaboration, and knowledge construction. This dissertation is an empirical study, qualitative and descriptive in nature. My field notes, videotapes, and audiotapes of each day's session, and the children's oral and written work provide the raw data for the study. The schematic knowledge necessary to understand arithmetic word problems and Riley, Greeno, and Heller's word problem typology (1983) serve as the theoretical frameworks for the analysis of the data. The data show that children construct the schematic knowledge necessary to understand word problem structure across problem types, knowledge they did not have at the outset of the study. The stories and problems the children create collaboratively and the questions and discussions the children and the teacher pursue together in the spirit of mathematical discourse demonstrate that this approach holds promise as a basis for robust, meaning-based instruction in arithmetic word problem solving.

Social perception has been identified as a significant contributor to how students know themselves and how they are known within the general classroom. These abilities can impact how successfully they negotiate their learning environment. This study addressed how students with learning disabilities (LD) and emotional handicaps (EH) compare on peer, teacher, and self assessments of social and academic domains of behavior. Subjects were 28 students classified as EH and 55 students classified as LD. This study was based on Kenney's Social Relations Model. A round-robin design was used to collect Likert ratings on 18 task and socio-emotional dimensions among peers. Subjects in grades 3 through 9 and their teachers completed an additional set of ratings on six classroom oriented dimensions. All ratings included a self and metaperception judgment. Results yielded consensus among peers on five task and socio-emotional oriented dimensions. Peer and self judgments and metaperceptions indicated that subjects rated themselves less similar to how they predicted their cohorts would rate them. A positive linear trend was found for the task but not for the socio-emotional construct across grade level predictions among the task consensus dimensions. Correlations between student and metaperception ratings of these traits were strong (r's ranging from.58 to .91). Findings are discussed in terms of how students with LD and EH view themselves and others both socially and academically as participants in the natural context of classrooms, and how the accuracy of these perceptions affect their ability to function within their educational environment.

This cross-sectional, mixed-methods study investigated the development of children's perceptions of interethnic and interracial friendships by employing the Perceptions of Intergroup Friendships Questionnaire , a measure designed for this study. A total of 103 children (53 Kindergarten and first graders and 50 fourth and fifth graders) attending one, ethnically/racially-diverse, urban, elementary school in a middle-sized Northeastern city, were interviewed employing the questionnaire. In addition, a sub sample of 17 children (7 Kindergarten and first graders and 10 fourth and fifth graders) were interviewed employing a lengthier semi-structured interview format. Results indicate that K/1st and 4 th/5th graders' differ significantly in their perceptions of intergroup friendships with younger children holding more positive perceptions than older children. African American children demonstrated more positive perceptions of intergroup friendships than European American children. Younger children and girls also held more positive perceptions of intragroup friendships than older children and boys. Children involved in intergroup friendships attributed lower levels of these relationships in the higher grades to prejudice and incidents of racist behavior in the school, along with fewer opportunities to interact with children of different ethnicities/race both within and outside of the school context. Children involved in exclusively intragroup relationships attributed lower levels of intergroup friendships to a normative developmental pattern through which children become increasingly more selective and include only "similar" peers in friendships circles. These differing perspectives are based in children's own racial attitudes and experiences of prejudice. Lastly, children shared their perspectives on how intergroup friendships could be better-supported in schools.

The purpose of this study was to explore at-risk (Native Taiwanese) children's habits of mind, applying Vygotsky's ZPD theory in learning habits of mind in math. Workshops were used to teach pairs of siblings' habits of mind. The study was conducted with 62 subjects and 62 siblings or older peers in two elementary schools. Each pair was randomly assigned into either the experimental or the control group. Siblings who were in the experimental group participated in the workshops to receive training that could help the experimental subjects to learn habits of mind. A pretest and a posttest were given to assess their habits of mind in math. Analysis of data revealed no significant differences between experimental group and control group in the pretest. In the posttest, there were significant differences between experimental group and control group in the areas of patterning, describing, and visualizing, but there was no significant difference in the “experimenting” condition. In summary, the data shows that patterning is easy to learn, visualizing comes next, describing is more difficult, and experimenting is the most difficult. All of these habits of mind can be learned through applying Vygotsky's ZPD theory and using sibling workshop, but there is a need for the students and siblings to have extensive time to practice.

Researchers say that what really differentiates mature age students is not age as much as it is life experiences. How and in what ways does that influence the preparation of pre-service teachers? What happens in the classroom is more related to the teacher than any other variable. All, and especially older student teachers, bring rich experiences and images into the classroom that affect their attitudes, approach, and decision-making. The overall purpose of this research was to learn how life experiences of mature age student teachers influence their learning to teach children in an elementary classroom. Participants are five students between the ages of 38 and 45, who did their student teaching practicum within a traditional teacher preparation program. Data was gathered from three in-depth interviews, three classroom observations with field notes and video tapes, and from selected documents. The Rainbow of Life Roles (Super, 1980) was used to supplement interviews about the life experiences of each participant. Stimulated Recall (Bloom, 1953 and others) was used to discover what past experiences influenced decision making and problem solving. Interview questions focused on participants' interpretation of their life experiences, their perspectives of themselves as learners, workers, and parents, and their ideas about teaching. Based on the data, the following conclusions were reached. (1) Life experiences, from activities such as other jobs, parenting, travel, reading, coaching, and community work were embedded in the perspectives of the emerging teacher serving as a lens or filter through which decisions were made in the classroom. (2) Life experiences provided connections to build upon or barriers to be reconstructed. Examination of prior experiences and beliefs will help to reconstruct these experiences into meaningful ideas about teaching that will be more than an overlay experience that may be washed out in the early rigors of learning to teach. Implications for teacher education include the need for promotion of the examination of prior life experiences to integrate self-knowledge with theory and practice and to remove possible barriers to the development of solid teaching practices.

This qualitative study evaluated the effects of implementing a peer coaching process with ten graduate interns during their student teaching experiences in an alternative, elementary education program. A peer coaching model was provided in combination with an existing and more traditional model of supervision from cooperating teachers and university supervisors. This study explored the ways in which a peer coaching process affected the preservice teachers' reflective and instructional practices, and how it impacted their acquisition and development of collaboration skills. The study also examined difficulties that were encountered and how the process might be adjusted to make it more successful for future use. The findings of this study suggest that a peer coaching process can provide a valuable component to a teacher education program. Having the opportunity to interact with peers provided immense affective support for the interns as well as opportunities for reflective interactions, some of which were centered on inquiry into the craft of teaching. The interns in this study also used the peer observation process to increase their teaching effectiveness by adding to and refining their pedagogical skills. The peer coaching experience offered additional support than that provided by the mentor teacher and resource person, with the interns suggesting that what they learned from peers was different but complementary from what they learned from their mentor teachers and resource staff. While the majority of the interns' perceptions of the peer coaching experience were positive, they were able to offer specific suggestions for improving the process, including the need for additional guidance on facilitating reflection conferences in order to provide more critical and honest feedback to peers. The following four factors appeared to contribute to the successful implementation of a peer coaching process within this teacher education program: (1) Overall opportunities for collaboration were an integral component of the teacher education program. (2) Cohorts of interns were placed in only two sites, one of which was an urban setting. (3) Structured preparation was provided in the peer coaching process. and (4) The peer coaching process was a required program component.