This qualitative study of classroom processes focuses on the roles students play in two different environments, a regular classroom and an anonymous, collaborative, technological environment using GroupSystems. As students from an urban high school engaged in a brainstorming session about complex, ethical issues, they participated differently in each setting. The research questions that this study addresses are: Given a discussion of complex, ethical issues, what is the nature of classroom participation roles? In addition, in what ways are participation roles in a regular classroom structure different from a collaborative, technological environment? Furthermore, in each environment, how do ethnically diverse students participate in discussions of complex, ethical issues, as defined by their participation roles? Then to view gender issues in each environment, how do male and female students participate in discussions of complex, ethical issues, as defined by their participation roles? An analysis of these questions provides a deeper understanding of the roles students take in a classroom discussion. In addition, it provides similarities and differences between such discussions in a regular classroom versus an online setting. The insights provided in this study may contribute to a better understanding for teaching and teacher education in constructing activities and environments that support student voice, equity, and active participation in society as a whole.

Miscue analysis and eye movement analysis are used to explore the reading process of first-grade beginning readers as they use pictures and print in a picture book designed for instructional purposes. Eye Movement Miscue Analysis (EMMA) is also used as a tool to gain insights into the reading strategies of the beginning readers in this study. Miscue analysis provides a psycholinguistic analysis of' unexpected oral responses in the oral texts that readers produce. Eye movement analysis provides an analysis of the visual fixations of readers in pictures and the print. Both forms of analysis are used to examine the relationship between the oral and visual aspects of the reading process. This dissertation focuses on first-grade beginning readers' use of pictures and print as they read. Patterns of eye movements relative to picture use, print use and the relationship between the two media are described, analyzed and compared. Results of the analyses are discussed in relation to existing literature within the theoretical framework that informed the study. Major findings include that beginning readers are aware that reading is a complex process of making meaning from print and pictures; they exhibit many of the same reading strategies as older more experienced readers; and they sample pictures in ways that are purposeful and know where to look for useful information. Implications for authors, illustrators, publishers, educators and reading theorists are discussed and areas for further research are delineated.

The purpose of this study was twofold: to develop a computer-based piano performance trainer, and to study subjects' frequency of choices pertaining to different kinds of information feedback during self-directed practice while using a computer-based trainer. Additional concerns in the present study were: (1) the preferences of subjects regarding other practice options; (2) subjects' accuracy of performance, as measured by an investigator-designed test; (3) the relationship between subjects' accuracy of performance and their attributes of musical aptitude, reading ability, sightreading ability, and manual dexterity; and (4) the relationship between subjects' sightreading ability and the other three attributes. Data were collected from thirty-seven volunteers in piano class at Mesa Community College. In a natural setting, subjects practiced a fifteen-measure composition daily until the earlier of two events occurred: (1) students reached criterion level, or (2) two weeks elapsed. Results indicated that during self-directed practice as they were using a computer-based trainer, students most frequently chose: (a) to receive supplementary visual feedback--superimposed errors over the musical score, (b) to practice with a metronome and (c) to practice part of the composition with both hands. Across all subjects, the number of rhythm errors was significantly greater than the number of pitch errors; only two subjects reached criterion level during the two weeks. A correlation coefficent between performance accuracy scores and subject profile scores revealed a significant relationship between performance accuracy and sightreading, and a slight relationship between performance accuracy scores and reading. The findings indicated no significant relationship between performance accuracy and the other three attributes; also, there was no relationship between the same attributes and sightreading. Some of the writer's recommendations regarding future research in computer-based piano instruction were as follows: (1) Use courseware that "recognizes" student errors and makes incisive commentary or remediation as is necessary. (2) Select appropriately graded material for different skill levels. (3) Incorporate different styles of music. (4) Provide subjects with a supplementary IF mode that combines visual and aural feedback simultaneously. (5) Compare the performance accuracy of different groups of subjects with looser or tighter tolerances of the rhythm error for the beginning of each note.

The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine and describe complex academic tasks undertaken by adolescents and the classroom conditions supporting them. The setting for this study was one southwestern university's Summer Institute for Writing and Thinking Across the Curriculum. With students and teachers working in collaboration, the Institute intended to provide high school students with opportunities to utilize the writing process as a tool for thinking and as a means to increase their writing proficiency. Teaching writing in classroom settings has been found to be particularly challenging, and further, sometimes the complexity of writing tasks have been sacrificed for the sake of maintaining classroom order. The Institute seemed a likely environment for engaging in complex cognitive processing and thus for examining complex tasks and noting the conditions that supported them. Participant observation and interviews were the data collection methods employed. Results of the study indicated that students engaged in complex cognitive processing, gained more control over their writing and thinking processes, and produced a variety of complex individual and group products. The Institute assessment, consisting of writing samples obtained on the first and last days of the three-week Institute, demonstrated growth in writing proficiency for 74% of the students. The features that supported the successful accomplishment of complex academic work included (a) well-designed, open-ended assignments that were scaffolded within and across tasks, (b) collaboration of students and teachers in small writing groups, (c) establishment and nurturance of writing communities, (d) the sharing of leadership, (e) availability of multiple resources, (f) instructional strategies that protected a non-threatening, non-judgmental environment, and (g) instructional strategies that fostered complex thinking and problem solving. The writing community played a key role in fostering complex cognitive processing, maintaining order, and connecting students to their academic work.

This study examines language and education policy in colonial as well as independent Mozambique. Mozambican people struggled for 500 years to free themselves from the grip of Portuguese colonialism. Independence came in 1975. A decade of intense and determined Struggle for Liberation stopped the Portuguese from further destroying the country. The review of the literature provides key concepts and principles in language planning and policy. Then the study examines language and education in selected Sub-Saharan African countries. The ideas and opinions of African writers are brought into the discussion. The main study starts by looking at language and education in colonial Mozambique starting in 1940. This period is important in the educational history of Mozambique. It was during this time that the Missionary Statute, an agreement between the Government of Portugal and the Catholic church, came into being. This agreement entrusted Portuguese Catholic missionaries with education in the colonies. Missionary education viewed Mozambican languages, culture and all things African as deficits. Missionary schools were places of unlearning all things that instilled pride in the Mozambican people. When the War of Liberation broke out in 1964, Mozambicans established their own schools in the areas liberated from the Portuguese. These schools instilled in the students the much needed Mozambican character, and personality. They became the model for independent Mozambique's New System of Education. Mozambique is a nation of many languages. During the colonial period the Portuguese proscribed the use of these languages in education. Consequently, many languages in Mozambique today have not been studied academically. This study uses historical research methods to gather and analyze data, and records the struggles of the Mozambican people as they work toward reconstructing their beautiful country. The study concludes that communities and government be involved in promoting all Mozambican languages. While this study is critical of Portuguese colonialism, it is not an attack on the Portuguese language. The paradox is that while Portuguese is the colonial language, it is also the language of liberation for Mozambicans. It is in this sense that the Portuguese language was declared the language of unity, instruction, and government.

In this study I examined my thinking and professional growth through the use of reflective journals. The study documents my understanding and use of reflective journals as a tool for learning and thinking over time. I examined my sixteen reflective journals in an effort to make sense out of what it means to be a teacher. In this study I was guided by the question: What are the ways in which I reflect and think about myself as a teacher and my teaching, as evidenced through my journals. Analysis focused in four areas. The first was on the content of the journals. This included my topics, issues, and questions which I wrote about. A second analysis examined how I used my journals to think and reflect. A third component explored how I reflected on my beliefs and practices. The fourth area identified what supported and interfered with my thinking and reflecting. Through this study I examined my learning process and the ways that I use journals to support my thinking and professional development. My findings inform other teachers to consider reflective practice and supports the use of narrative for research. This study provides implications for teacher educators and professional developers to consider participants' prior knowledge and current beliefs when implementing professional programs. Participants need to be recognized as part of the process when involved in professional development.

The purpose of this study is to examine the beliefs of teachers in the process of developing a whole language philosophy. It is a descriptive interpretive study of seven teachers interacting with their instructor as they come to know whole language theory and apply it in their classrooms during a graduate education course, "Whole Language: Learning and Teaching." The study focuses on the use of dialogue journal/learning logs as an interactive tool to help the teachers examine their own beliefs about children, learning, and teaching; consider relevant theory and research; and change their teaching practice. Answers were sought to two questions: What demonstrations of perceiving, ideating, and presenting are evident in the dialogue journal/learning logs as these teachers come to know whole language, and how does the instructor utilize these journals to facilitate the ways in which she collaborates with the teachers in their efforts to become whole language teachers? The topics introduced and recycled by the teachers and instructor became the primary units of discourse analysis that revealed how the individual teachers and the instructor interpreted the events and experiences of the course. The analysis revealed that the instructor's use of mutuality building discourse and use of statements that build bridges between the perceptions expressed by the teachers and her own understanding of whole language contributed to the unique learning experience of each of the informants. Those teachers who responded to the instructor's request for reflection in their journals were the teachers who changed the most. They expressed personal concerns about their teaching or their students, posed pertinent questions and initiated personal inquiry to find solutions to those concerns. When they wrote reflectively they expressed their own thinking or ideating most freely. As they expressed their "wonderful ideas," they gained confidence to try them out with their students in their classrooms. The study concludes with strategies for engaging all teachers in reflection on their classroom practice and for intentionally building mutuality and seeking to build more conceptual bridges with each of them. These strategies would enhance the use of dialogue journal/learning logs for supporting change in teaching practice.

A context-based functional assessment was conducted to identify variables that influenced the problem behaviors of four preschool age children in a childcare center, and the effects of intervention programs which were developed based on the assessment results were evaluated. Generality to non-targeted situations and children was also investigated. In addition, treatment acceptability was assessed to determine the acceptability of the intervention procedures. Structured interviews and observations were employed to develop hypotheses about relevant variables. The hypotheses were tested using a combination of reversal and multielement designs. Antecedent variables (preference, task length, availability of centers, and social skills) and a consequent variable (attention) were manipulated to determine their effects on problem and appropriate behaviors during preacademic and table activities. Preference was a common variable that influenced the problem behaviors of all of the participating children. However, for one child, a complex interaction among variables (preference, social skills, and attention) was demonstrated. A combination of multiple-baseline and multielement designs was used during the intervention phase to evaluate the intervention effects across children and teachers and to compare the two stages of intervention. The assessment-based interventions reduced the problem behaviors of the children and the negative interactions of teachers, and increased positive teacher interaction. In addition, generality was demonstrated to non-targeted activities and children. The results also demonstrated that the intervention procedures could successfully be applied by multiple teachers with multiple children. Finally, the acceptability of the intervention procedures was high across teachers and children.

This case study investigates how one primary teacher of a multi-age classroom describes the knowledge she has of children and how they learn. The study presents the perspective that the research literature on teacher knowledge rarely includes knowledge of children. Recent investigations into teacher knowledge consider what the substance of teacher knowledge is; this study proposes that what teachers know about children must be included in future research. Researchers within the academic community have determined the direction of the research on teacher knowledge, but studies published in the 1990s suggest that teachers need to be more involved in these studies. Through my research, I learned that knowledge of children and how they learn structured one teacher's classroom. What she knew influenced her relationship with the children, and this knowledge also determined how she taught. Time and talk were the major factors which made this knowledge accessible. Attention to teachers' roles in generating descriptions of knowledge will provide a place for knowledge of children in teacher knowledge research literature, and it might also serve to bridge the gap between researchers and teachers.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the early childhood program at the Tucson Jewish Community Center in order to discover the program's role in reproducing or restructuring the social order existing in the wider society. The study examined events in which issues of race, gender, class, and physical or mental disabilities arose in centers, during teacher guided group activities, at lunch, on the playground, and during other special activities among the groups of three and four year old children in the Center's preschool. The research then reviewed how young children develop social cognition and how they construct an understanding of their identity while developing expectations about individual and group behavior. It went on to investigate the manner in which race, gender, class, and disabilities issues were expressed and lived out by the children and staff. The data indicated that all four topics had meaning for the children, but issues involving race and gender arose more frequently than issues involving class and disabilities. The main source of information for this study were vignettes recorded in the three and four year old classrooms. The vignettes revealed the extent of the anti-bias perspective guiding the actions of both the staff and children and provided the data to evaluate the effect of the anti-bias curriculum presently in use at the preschool. The findings indicated that while an anti-bias perspective guided the resolution of many issues, it was not pervasive among all the children and staff. The findings also illustrated when an anti-bias perspective was guiding the formal curriculum. The major focus of the research questions was to determine the need for further staff training in order to develop a pervasive anti-bias perspective among the staff and children. The data indicated that additional staff training would be beneficial. Additional staff training should address the anti- bias perspective of the participants and the children. It should also explore ways to expand this perspective within the formal curriculum so that the curriculum stresses a democratic multicultural perspective.