Interest in the elementary education major by underrepresented minority (URM) students at a public four-year institution (Queens College) increased from 36% of declared majors in 2012 to 51% in 2017. However, a disproportionate number of URM students drop out of the educator pipeline, leaving the average percentage of URMs who complete the elementary education major at 22%. While there has been a great deal of research on the preparation of preservice teachers, the bulk of the scholarly literature is focused on the final student teaching practicum and preservice teachers’ experiences at the end of their academic programs. Little research has been done on beginning teacher education students and how their educational experiences, both past and present, influence the way they see themselves as learners and future teachers. Guided by a sociocultural lens, this qualitative study examines teacher education students’ educational experiences and how those experiences influence and shape their paths into the teaching profession. The study was conducted using an interpretive inquiry approach to enable the exploration of participants’ lived educational experiences (Connelly & Clandinin, 1990), using data collected from semi-structured interviews, critical incident reports, and a focus group. Analyses informed by narrative inquiry and grounded theory methodologies were used to look across data collected from participants to paint a rich chronicle of the participants’ stories. Findings highlight the pedagogy of care in conversation with notions of identity, belonging, and community, in order to note its significance for the more oft- studied aspects of teaching. This study contributes to research on teacher education and teaching and learning in higher education, and considers a different perspective on long-standing ideas about communities of practice.

Although the majority of scientists agree that we are facing unprecedented climate crises, higher education’s engagement with environmental and sustainability problems is lacking. While the role of human behavior on climate change has been well established by science, these insights have yet to be adequately applied by citizens, thus exacerbating the consequent economic and social problems (like inequity and poverty). In response to the imminent danger of climate change, calls have come for citizens to be mindful of their actions to reverse the deteriorating trajectory of environmental and sustainability decline. In particular, policymakers have deemed higher education classrooms a promising site for equipping future generations of citizens to engage with sustainability. Formal teaching and learning surrounding sustainability-related subject matter, or Education for Sustainability (EfS), is the process of developing students’ knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors toward sustainability. However, EfS is not being incorporated into the higher education curriculum with either the quantity or quality necessary to steer society toward social change. Therefore, the purpose of this dissertation study was to explore the amount of, and the effectiveness of, EfS in an institution of higher education, and to analyze whether EfS was related to students’ sustainability learning outcomes. Data collection took place at Michigan State University, a public, large-size, four-year institution. Students were surveyed at both the beginning and end of the fall 2017 semester to measure changes over one academic semester. Guided by the frameworks of opportunity to learn, cognitively responsive teaching, teaching for sustainability, and transformative sustainability learning outcomes, data were analyzed with logistic and ordinary least squares regression, and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). Results found that approximately two-thirds of participants reported that they had the opportunity to learn about sustainability. On average, neither cognitively responsive teaching, nor teaching for sustainability, pedagogical approaches were employed to teach sustainability. Interestingly, though, when instructors surfaced students’ prior knowledge about sustainability while teaching the subject, students’ sustainability behaviors increased over the course of the semester. As such, this study illustrated the importance of the pedagogical technique of utilizing students’ prior knowledge when teaching them about sustainability in higher education.

This study explores the role and meaning of general education in Chinese higher education in the face of ongoing social changes in China, using Fudan University (FU) as a case study. General education has been heatedly discussed and greatly promoted in Chinese higher education since the last decade of the 20th century. Since existing theories and conceptions of general education mainly focus on Western, especially American, higher education, there has been little exploration of the meaning and role of general education in China, which has very different sociopolitical and cultural traditions from those of many Western nations, especially in the context of economic globalization. Therefore, an exploration of the meaning and role of general education in Chinese higher education could help to provide either challenges or supplements to existing theories and conceptions of general education. This study adopted the qualitative case study with FU as the case to explore the research problem. It used three data collection methods – document collection and review, interviews and observation – to gain an in-depth understanding of the development and tasks of general education at FU during periods of social transformation of China from 1905 to 2004, and during the latest reforms to general education at FU, between 2005 and 2012. Data collected from historical documents identified that general education at FU had mainly assumed two persistent tasks during periods of social transformation of China between 1905 and 2004. The first task was to facilitate the transmission of core cultural values, as defined mainly by the leaders of the state in different periods, to help the state to preserve its national identity. The second task was to equip students with knowledge, capacities and values, mainly Western in origin, to facilitate the state’s economic modernization. Further analysis of documentary, interview and observation data also identified continuities in and changes to the sociopolitical/cultural and economic tasks of general education at FU between 2005 and 2012; specifically, that general education still transmitted state-promoted core cultural values and still equipped students with a wider range of knowledge and capacities, but the contents of those values and the nature of those knowledge and capacities had changed due to the further development of China’s market economy and the effects of economic globalization. Based on these findings, this study proposed a concept to understand the meaning and role of general education at FU in the context of ongoing social changes in China. This thesis argues that, at FU, general education can be interpreted as a curricular instrument for nation-building that helps China promote its sociopolitical/cultural and economic tasks by facilitating (a) the inheritance of selected Chinese and non-Chinese cultural values, and (b) the equipment of students with a broader range of knowledge and capacities to cope with China’s changing economy. This study identified that, to facilitate China’s nation building ambitions, general education transmitted to students (a) Chinese and non-Chinese (particularly Western) cultural values, and (b) both traditional cultural values and contemporary cultural values prescribed by different national leaders (and/or scholars) in different historical periods. Further, this study identified two tensions in general education for nation-building: (a) the tension between traditional and contemporary Chinese cultures, and (b) the tension between selected Chinese and non-Chinese cultures. This study shows the ebb and flow of traditional Chinese cultural values in the sociopolitical/cultural task of general education, and how it has been shaped by China’s nation building since the early 20th century under the economic and military challenges of foreign nations. The concept of general education proposed by this study helps to explain the persistence of the economic and the sociopolitical/cultural task of general education at FU during the periods of social changes of China from 1905 to 2012. The study also identified that the economic task of general education mandated the import of elements of Western culture and values and therefore created tension with the Chinese cultural values transmitted in general education’s sociopolitical/cultural task. The concept of general education proposed by this study has implications for existed theories and conceptions of general education (mainly Western in context) which do not show (a) the coexistence of and the tensions between traditional and contemporary national cultures in the tasks of general education, and (b) the coexistence of and tensions between the economic and sociopolitical/cultural tasks of general education. Further research is suggested into the complex relationships among and tensions between different cultures as general education facilitates nation-building. / published_or_final_version / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

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published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

The problem of the study was to determine the status of patient education courses offered by undergraduate and graduate health education programs in the United States, and what was being taught in these courses.Two original data collection instruments were created. The first was a demographic tool used to collect data from colleges and universities (n = 120) during May/June 2004, and the second was a 59-item checklist used to conduct the content analysis of patient education course syllabi. It was found that only 9.2% of institutions that responded offered patient education courses, none of the syllabi included all 59 checklist items, there does not appear to be a statistically significant relationship between program accreditation/approval and the offering of a patient education course, and there does not appear to be a statistically significant relationship between programs that prepare students for the CHES examination and the offering of a patient education course. / Department of Physiology and Health Science

The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to document the perceptions that faculty hold regarding changes made to their curricular, pedagogical, and personal practices in an introduction to education course during the implementation of a one-to-one laptop initiative at a medium-sized Midwestern university teacher’s college. Technology transforms the work of faculty in higher education. Faculty face changes that are revolutionizing their personal and professional teaching lives because of choices that universities have to make in order to meet the demands of the current student body as well as state and national standards. Institutional support including faculty driven, content-specific professional development, on-demand help, hands-on practice time, and individualized attention are paramount for faculty learning and continuing to engage in technology integration to meet the learning needs of today’s technology-savvy students. / Access to thesis and accompanying PDF permanently restricted to Ball State community only / Department of Educational Studies

M.Cur. / The effective application of learning opportunities for health care necessitates attention for practice. A conceptual guideline has been compiled according to a literature study in order to determine the practice of health education. In this research into learning opportunities for the presentation of the module, mother and child health services in community health nursing, the method adopted was the following: the student nurse was actively involved in the teaching process by way of group discussion, thereby acquiring greater cognitive skill s, through practical guidance the student nurse is given an opportunity to master interpersonal skills, The results have shown that student nurses ought to be exposed to various teaching methods as early in their trainfng as possible in order to exercise in practfce, the mastering of interpersonal skill s, In order to demonstrate the effect of group activity and role play to the student nurse, certain recommendations have been made. The most important include the following: It would appear that' traditional lecture methods .alone are not sufficient for the training of student nurses in the field of rendering health counselling. The student nurse should therefore be actively involved through teaching methods such as group discussions and role play. As early in the student nurse's training as possible the importance of establishing and maintaining sound interpersonal skills for effective health counselling should be emphasized.

D.Ed. / The aim of this study was to investigate: the causes, problems and justification of the increase in part-perspectives in faculties of education; the reasons for the apparent disappearance of borders between part-perspectives in Education; and possible criteria for the justification of existing and new part-perspectives and modules. The study showed that the increase in part-perspectives led to various problems in Education, such as: considering the own part-perspective to be more important than other partperspectives; overlapping between part-perspectives; and overemphasising the subdivisions of Education in stead of emphasising the educational phenomenon as the object of investigation. There were not only historical reasons for the diversifying of Education. The difficulties experienced in the structuring of Education were the result of the complex reality of education in a rapid changing society. Contemporary and future trends were therefore taken into account by the researcher because the effectiveness of faculties of education is determined by the manner in which they respond to changes in society. The present stance of the part-perspectives in Education was evaluated in this study in order to find criteria for the justification of existing and new part-perspectives. These criteria can be used as a basis for the possible restructuring of Education. The following criteria were amongst others identified: an educational perspective; demarcation; a clear problem; theoretical accountability; scientific justification; expertise; and a sound curriculum. This study demonstrated the necessity of knowledge of the nature of an educational perspective to enable educationists to evaluate the focus of their part-perspectives from an authentic educational point of view.