<p> The purpose of this project was to locate a potential funding source and write a grant to enable children with physical disabilities to become more included in their education and with their peers. An extensive literature review was performed to investigate the best way to meet these needs through the usage of assistive technology (AT) devices and how such technology can be implemented into an educational curriculum. </p><p> The Inclusion Through Assistive Technology (ITAT) program has the following goals: (1) train children and teachers on the usage of AT devises, (2) reduce children's emotional difficulties, and (3) increased the involvement of children and parents in the educational process. </p><p> The Children's Charity Fund was selected as the program's potential funder, due to its focus on the educational needs of the target population. The actual submission of the proposal was not a requirement of the thesis project. </p>

<p> The purpose of this qualitative study was to investigate teachers' perceptions about the impact of the McREL Teacher Evaluation System on their professional growth. The sample comprised 15 teachers of students in Kindergarten to Grade 4 in a suburban New Jersey school district who participated in Year 1 implementation of a new standards-based teacher evaluation model. Participants were asked to explore the professional teaching standards in the McREL Teacher Evaluation System. The conceptual framework included adult learning, critical thinking, and reflective practice. The themes that emerged defined a new teacher-driven interpretation of leadership and a collective responsibility to a shared vision of student learning. The study highlighted the expectations of meeting the learning needs of a more diverse population of students; applying content knowledge, specifically the Common Core State Standards; facilitating learning through various instructional strategies and modalities that cultivated critical thinking with colleagues and contemporary students; and engaging in reflection of teacher practice as a significant catalyst for growth. The study also emphasized the need for strategic systems of strong organizational support as essential to a successful implementation process.</p>

<p> Monarch Academy is an Expeditionary Learning (EL) institution, which utilizes a non-traditional educational model that combines all subjects into semester-long projects known as expeditions. In order to properly track the progress of students and to ensure the school is meeting its educational goals, including alignment with Common Core, a process called curriculum mapping has been implemented informally; however, the process has not been centralized nor is it easily accessible by staff and administrators. Commercial curriculum mapping software was researched by administrators, but none met the unique requirements of EL. This study explores and defines a curriculum mapping solution that meets Monarch Academy's needs by providing a centralized, accessible, manageable, and user-centered framework.</p>

<p> The lack of educational achievement among children in foster care and kinship care is one of great concern. Children in foster care and kinship care are faced with the challenges that the child welfare system imposes on them as well as their mental health concerns. The purpose of this project was to develop a curriculum for foster parents and kinship caregivers aimed at helping them empower the children and youth in their care to achieve academic success. It is vital for social workers, foster parents and kinship caregivers to collaborate and advocate for these children, ultimately reducing barriers to learning and increasing their opportunities to achieve academic success. This curriculum includes three workshops that educate foster parents and kinship caregivers about the risk and protective factors that children in their care face when striving to complete their education, while providing strategies for successful outcomes. Submission of this curriculum was not required for this thesis project.</p>

<p> The current study examined the creation and implementation of a dramatic arts integrated curriculum in an early childhood classroom. The goals were to support ongoing development and growth in the children with whom I work, to explore the development of an enriching curriculum, and to improve my own teaching practice through reflection. I used an action research design over the course of seven weeks (six cycles of action research) in a preschool classroom in a laboratory school located in Northern California. Data consisted of video documentation, field notes, and my written reflections. The findings of this study supported previous research in the field and made visible the growth of the children who participated in the activities. In addition, I improved my ability to create curriculum and enhanced my own teaching practice. Based on this work, I hope to provide a curricular framework as a resource to share with professionals in the field who have an interest in including dramatic arts in their classroom.</p>

<p> Computing ethics is a complex area of study that is of significant importance to the computing community and global society. Such concerns as surveillance and automation underscore the need for increased ethical understanding and training in computing. However, education and research in computing ethics are difficult due to the diverse meanings of ethics. This content analysis study analyzed definitions of computer ethics, the subject matter of computer ethics, and the relationship between the definition and subject matter. The purpose of this study was to educe and present the meaning of computing ethics, resulting in a thematic definition of computing ethics for use in education and research. This analysis also provides a coherent concept of the subject matter of computing ethics in relation to the synthesized definition. This study discusses definition and subject matter themes that emerged such as interdisciplinarity, collaboration, scholars and professionals, contributions and costs, computing artifacts, global society, privacy, design and development, and use. The results of this study can assist computing ethicists with research, aid computing educators with curriculum development, and provide a theoretical frame for relating ethics to computing. This exploration demonstrates that groups within the computing community can find common ground, even on such a difficult and complex matter as ethics.</p>

<p> The number of students of community college students in need of remedial math courses continues to increase each year; however, the success and retention rate for student enrolled in remedial math courses remains extremely low. The purpose of this study was to examine factors students characterize as impeding their ability to successfully complete their remedial math courses. Using a mixed method analysis, individual interviews and surveys were utilized to investigate this issue. Eight semi-structured interviews were conducted with EOPS students who had attempted algebra (Math 020) more than once, but were not enrolled in an algebra (Math 020) course in spring 2013. Based on their perceptions, seven categories of barriers emerged. The seven categories were then used as a means for developing a survey instrument for phase Il of this study. The surveys were administered to 208 students who enrolled in algebra (Math 020) during the spring 2013 semester. The impetus behind the surveys was to examine if the general population of algebra (Math 020) students had the same perceptions of the factors that impede their ability to be successful in their remedial math classes. Data were examined to investigate if there were any correlations or significance among any of the perceived factors. Although interviewees and survey participants indicated they had similar beliefs in regards to factors they perceived impeded their ability to succeed in their remedial math sequences, no correlations or significance was found among any of the data examined.</p>

<p> The purpose of the study was to examine the effectiveness and feasibility of using tiered instruction to increase the frequency of conversational turn taking (CTT) among preschoolers with and without disabilities in an inclusive setting. Three CTT interventions (Universal Design for Learning, Peer Mediated Instruction, and Milieu Teaching) were organized on a hierarchy of intensity and implemented in an additive manner. Using an increasing intensity across participants with a reversal design, child progress was monitored over time and children were moved through tiers based on level of need. A functional relationship between tiered instruction and CTT was found for nine of 13 child participants and the strongest intervention effects were observed at tier one. All but one child participant showed an increase in conversational turn taking from baseline to reinstatement. Teacher fidelity of implementation was monitored at each tier. Her overall average was 90% with the highest percent occurring in tier one. Resulting contributions to the literature include a better understanding of the feasibility of tiered instruction for the inclusive early childhood classroom, the effectiveness of tiered instruction for increasing CTT, and practical considerations for implementation of tiered instruction across tiers and phase change decisions.</p>

<p> In higher education and in engineering education in particular, changing majors is generally considered a negative event - or at least an event with negative consequences. An emergent field of study within engineering education revolves around understanding the factors and processes driving student changes of major. Of key importance to further the field of change of major research is a grasp of large scale phenomena occurring throughout multiple systems, knowledge of previous attempts at describing such issues, and the adoption of metrics to probe them effectively. The problem posed is exacerbated by the drive in higher education institutions and among state legislatures to understand and reduce time-to-degree and student attrition. With these factors in mind, insights into large-scale processes that affect student progression are essential to evaluating the success or failure of programs. </p><p> The goals of this work include describing the current educational research on switchers, identifying core concepts and stumbling blocks in my treatment of switchers, and using the Multiple Institutional Database for Investigating Engineering Longitudinal Development (MIDFIELD) to explore how those who change majors perform as a function of large-scale academic pathways within and without the engineering context. To accomplish these goals, it was first necessary to delve into a recent history of the treatment of switchers within the literature and categorize their approach. While three categories of papers exist in the literature concerning change of major, all three may or may not be applicable to a given database of students or even a single institution. Furthermore, while the term has been coined in the literature, no portable metric for discussing large-scale navigational flexibility exists in engineering education. What such a metric would look like will be discussed as well as the delimitations involved. </p><p> The results and subsequent discussion will include a description of changes of major, how they may or may not have a deleterious effect on one's academic pathway, the special context of changes of major in the pathways of students within first-year engineering programs students labeled as undecided, an exploration of curricular flexibility by the construction of a novel metric, and proposed future work.</p>

<p> Most developmental community college students are not completing the composition sequence successfully. This mixed-methods study examined acceleration as a way to help developmental community college students complete the composition sequence more quickly and more successfully. Acceleration is a curricular redesign that includes challenging readings and assignments and reduces the number of required classes in the developmental composition sequence. Developmental students taking an accelerated composition class at the California community college studied were as successful as developmental students taking the traditional segmented basic skills course. Students who pass the accelerated course skip a developmental class and are eligible to take the college-level course, which saves them time and money. The students who were interviewed cited the main factors leading to their success: the academic support from faculty, academic support from fellow students, the personality/caring of the teacher, and an interest in the class theme. Data were from the first semester the college offered this class. Findings from the study indicate that the college studied should continue offering accelerated composition classes and should encourage attendance at professional development meetings so that all parts of the accelerated curriculum will be implemented in the future. Implementing all parts of the accelerated curriculum may increase the success rates. The college studied should also re-examine its traditional basic skills curriculum and the timed writing departmental final exam, which causes unnecessary stress and lowers expectations. More effort could be made to include readings from minority authors and to provide support, such as through learning communities.</p>