Thesis (D.A.)--Illinois State University, 1994. / Title from title page screen, viewed March 28, 2006. Dissertation Committee: David D. Ramsey, Michael A. Nelson (co-chairs), Ram D. Singh. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 293-301) and abstract. Also available in print.

<p> Preschool teachers must overcome the pressure to become more academic in lieu of a whole child development curriculum approach in order to preserve developmentally appropriate practices and shape well-adjusted future citizens of society. In order to achieve this, it is important to give a voice to preschool teachers to better understand their struggle and to find effective resolutions. This is only possible through a qualitative case study that employs observations, interviews, and a focus group with an inductive analysis approach to the data. The development of the whole child will only be attainable through national policies that are supported by sound research and ongoing teacher training that is aligned with that research. When theory and practice are aligned, it provides more opportunities for teachers, parents, and the rest of the community to advocate for the same goals, which ultimately benefits children.</p>

<p>The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore how educators describe their lived experiences with regard to addressing social skills challenges for children with ASD and what meaning can be derived from the experiences of those educators. Digitally recorded semistructured interviews were conducted with twelve educators working in school settings in Southern California. The participants held a variety of titles and all participants had at least six years of experience teaching social skills to children with ASD. Findings from this study resulted in five major thematic groups: (a) defining social skills; (b) how social skills are assessed; (c) program characteristics; (d) instructional and standardization challenges; and (e) critical factors. Study findings primarily indicated a need for a more structured approach to research due to the diversity within the ASD diagnosis and the complexity and broad nature of social skills. Two major recommendations for future research evolved from this study. First, future research should systematically explore the varying characteristics within the ASD population and how intervention strategies or intervention types impact the subpopulations within the ASD diagnosis. Finally, research should explore social motivation as a possible pivotal characteristic for successful social skills development and whether it is possible to cultivate motivation. </p>

<p> Embodied practices are central to the cultivation of nursing presence, but are rarely taught in nursing programs. This study proposed the use of brief embodied learning practices embedded in a nursing course. It quantitatively and qualitatively examined the impact of such a program experienced by 22 first-semester students in a registered nursing program. Embodied meditation (e.g., sensing and shifting attention to the body) and inquiry exercises (e.g., interacting with others while remaining fully present in oneself) were introduced in theory and skill lab classes during an 8-week Foundations of Nursing course taught in the spring semester of 2017. Fourteen students completed the embodied learning program as well as pretest and posttest questionnaires. Eighty-six percent of participants reported increased scores on embodied presence as measured by the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ). Their posttest score on the FFMQ was greater than their pretest score with a moderate to high effect size (<i>p</i> &lt; .05, <i>d</i> = .75). A majority of participants reported positive changes in their wellbeing, learning ability, learning outcomes, relationships with patients, and satisfaction with the instruction of embodied learning, as measured by an Impact Questionnaire. Participants&rsquo; satisfaction with embodied learning was greater than their satisfaction with conventional instruction (<i>p</i> &lt; .05). The study found a positive correlation between increases in participants&rsquo; FFMQ scores and their overall exam scores in the course (<i>p</i> &lt; .01). Qualitative data from a focus group aligned with the quantitative findings. The results suggest practice guidelines for teaching embodiment within the context of content learning in nursing courses.</p><p>

<p> The world today needs citizens that value and behave in response to an ever-accelerating ecological crisis. Place-based environmental education delivered in an expeditionary framework can facilitate the development of students' conservation ethic and action. This thesis seeks to apply research on conservation psychology and environmental education in the design of a comprehensive, semester-long, field-based expeditionary curriculum focused on landscape studies of the Colorado Plateau taught at Prescott College. The research and curriculum design explore the question: <i>What are the critical elements of an expeditionary, place-based semester curriculum that instill a conservation ethic and action within students?</i> This question was explored through curriculum design and implementation informed by textual research and theory and in utilizing the application of heuristic research methodologies. As a result, the research grounds and integrates the awareness to action continuum into an expeditionary field semester curriculum to present the critical elements of fostering a conservation ethic in students, using a creative applied thesis format.</p><p>

<p> The achievement gap and educational equity have been major concerns in the United States for many years. While many groups are impacted by educational inequities, one population of growing concern is Long-Term English Learners (LTEL). LTELs continue to be &ldquo;stuck&rdquo; at the intermediate level of English proficiency limiting their access to rigorous curriculum. One program developed to specifically address the linguistic and academic needs of middle school LTEL students is AVID Excel. </p><p> This qualitative case study explored the ways in which the implementation of AVID Excel at the middle school level, in a single district, sought to provide linguistic, academic and cultural supports for LTEL students. The study approaches this issue from an implementation perspective, based on the practices and perspectives of the adults who are enacting the program. Utilizing multiple data sources, the results included four key findings: intrinsic motivation, parental support and Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills are strengths the adult participants perceived LTEL students have that help them succeed in school; academic language, navigating American schooling expectations and redesignation are perceived challenges keeping LTEL students from achieving academic success; a combination of specific AVID Excel strategies and external ELD strategies were used to address language acquisition; despite citing parental support as a strength, participants identified family-connections and American school cultural development as LTEL students&rsquo; needs. </p><p> There are implications as to the importance of providing continued explicit focus on English Language Development skills as well as academic language. In addition, ? Implications for further research, policy and practice should focus on the role of culture and promoting teacher&rsquo;s cultural competencies in supporting LTEL students&rsquo; academic success. As well as supporting teachers in implementing the cultural <i>funds of knowledge</i> students (and parents) bring from their homes in order to bridge students&rsquo; <i> culture</i> with the American schooling context and focused language development found in programs like AVID Excel.</p><p>

<p> As a result of the changing educational expectations and regulatory environment, there is a need for elementary school teachers to consider carefully curriculum development. The purpose of this research is to identify key transformational leadership strategies for curriculum development in elementary schools. Other than the requirements of credentials, teacher&rsquo;s deal with state- required policies and standardized testing. Study methods included interviews of retired elementary school teachers in California to discover transformational leadership strategies implemented in developing curriculum. A qualitative approach was selected to identify strategies implemented within the school setting and used within daily curriculum (Creswell, 2003). Validity was established through an expert panel and the data analysis included interrater reliability. </p><p> This study resulted in 6 common strategies (a) attending to students&rsquo; needs, (b) safe and comfortable, (c) listen, (d) showing you care, (e) group work, and (f) connection. These key transformational leadership strategies are relative for curriculum development in elementary schools through the theoretical framework of this research study: idealized influence, individualized consideration, inspirational motivation, and intellectual stimulation. </p><p> The findings of this study provide information to educational scholars who study curriculum development. The results of this study also assist elementary school teachers and elementary school administrators when creating curriculum. </p><p> This study was conducted in one state, thus further research with teachers in other states may add to the findings in this study. Additionally, a quantitative approach utilizing surveys comparing teachers from public schools and private schools may yield additional data.</p><p>

<p> This applied dissertation was designed to provide insight into aligning secondary benchmarks in a high school curriculum across content areas to prevent students from failing reading in a South Florida high school. Few studies have investigated the effects of the alignment of secondary benchmarks across content areas. The study focuses on a case study design for data collection to reveal its analysis. The researcher utilizes content analyses and a panel of experts in the field of education to review the protocol and review the assessments, using open-ended interview protocol procedures on more than 13 teachers. The teachers&rsquo; positions can be found within the administration, reading department, and content areas teachers of instruction in mathematics, science, English/language arts, physical education, and business education to investigate changes in instructional alignment with secondary standards. The data analysis revealed nine themes that enhanced the researcher&rsquo;s understanding of specific details that will ensure methods to improve students&rsquo; needs.</p><p> This qualitative research study provided an awareness to adequately support useful provision to educate students on different levels of reading. This increases their knowledge acquisition, which brings awareness to their utilization of secondary benchmark standards. The research concluded that teacher training included, professional development day among participants that were congruent with the themes revealed within the data analysis. The instructional alignment between reading teachers and content area teachers indicates that alignment in Grades 9 to 12 will increase if the alignment of standards is supported and if the implications for developing a better curriculum design is discussed.</p><p>

The awareness of sustainable development has been increasing significantly in the Thai manufacturing industry since the financial crisis in 1997. The government has launched several initiatives to promote the development of sustainable products as the concept has a potential to stimulate the national economy and address the sustainability issues. Although the progress has been reflected through the launch of numerous products in the market, most of the products available were only claimed to be sustainable or environmentally friendly. Education is a prerequisite to achieve the integration of sustainable design as it equips stakeholders with knowledge and skills required to be the future decision makers. In other words, it enables designers to create products that contribute to sustainable development. However, the researcher found a lack of sustainable design learning in Thai industrial/product design courses. This situation has motivated the researcher to carry out this PhD research with an aim to support the implementation of education for sustainable development (ESD) into Thai higher education institutions (HEIs). The literature review emphasised the need to tailor the theoretical framework for Thai lecturers due to the lack of ESD training and appropriate materials. It also indicated the lack of publications related to the Thai context and the requirements to identify barriers and needs of the target users. The shortfall was addressed through a series of interviews; experts from three different disciplines (government, business and education sectors) were invited to participate in the interview sessions and reveal the status of sustainable design and ESD in Thailand. The findings were then used to construct the ESD framework that is specific to Thai industrial/product design courses. The SustainAble web-tool was developed to make it more effective in enabling the framework to comply with the needs of Thai design lecturers. Usability testing was employed to test the framework that was presented through the web-tool. The framework evaluation demonstrated the success of the framework development and underlined the need for the web-tool. The tool can fulfill the framework and allow it to be practically applied in the context of Thai design education.

<p> This research study involved examination of the quality of globalized character-based education in Missouri and the reasons secondary public schools have been slow to adopt globalized educational programs such as the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (IBDP). This established programme has been the standard-bearer across the globe during the last 40 years and continues to promote the evolution of new globalized educational programs (IBO, 2017c). The International Baccalaureate (IB) Programme is now in 3,662 schools worldwide with 1,465 schools located in the United States (International Baccalaureate Organization [IBO], 2015b), but only 11 of the 573 Missouri public secondary schools have instituted a working IBDP (IBO, 2017c). A quantitative research study was conducted using a survey based on global characteristics as established by the IB Learner Profile. Data were collected from four specific groups within Missouri: 103 students currently enrolled in an IB Diploma School, 10 IB coordinators, 16 admissions directors of post-secondary institutions that offer IB credit, and 86 human resources directors at Missouri-based globalized businesses. These groups were chosen because of their relationship with the IB Learner Profile characteristics as demonstrated by IB Diploma candidates and the hiring process of employees in the 21st-century workplace. The further a student progresses educationally, the less often evaluators see the criteria of globalized learners being followed. The weaknesses revealed through this study can help drive the evolution and possible expansion of more globalized character-based programs in secondary schools in Missouri.</p><p>