<p> Issues of sexual assault have become pervasive across all social strata in American society. Citizens need to start having conversations regarding these issues. To combat the issue of sexual assault, children need to be educated regarding the multifaceted aspects of sex through sex education in order to understand consent and resources they have available to them. Utilizing grounded theory methodology, this thesis analyzes sex education literature provided to Palm Beach County Middle School students. Using Burke&rsquo;s theory of terministic screens and Foucauldian theories of power and control; an understanding of the ideological underpinnings of this literature and discourse were acquired. After analysis, suggestions for disclosure and sex education programs are provided.</p>

This study reports middle school astronomy classes that implemented photographs and classroom response systems (CRSs) in a discussion-oriented pedagogy with a curriculum unit for the topics of day-night and cause of seasons. In the new pedagogy, a teacher presented conceptual questions with photographs, her 6th grade students responded using the CRSs, and the teacher facilitated classroom discussion based on the student responses. I collected various data: classroom observation with field-note taking and videotaping, student pre- and post-conception tests, student attitude survey and classroom short surveys, and teacher interviews. Classroom video recordings and teacher interviews were transcribed verbatim and analyzed with the grounded theory approach. This approach was used to analyze the open responses of the student attitude survey as well. Pre- and post- conception tests consisted of open-ended questions and they were scored based upon rubrics. Numerical data were analyzed with descriptive statistics and simple t-tests. In this study, I answered three research questions: (1) student-teacher discourses and interaction patterns while learning and teaching with the photographs and CRSs in the new pedagogy; (2) 6th grade students' misconceptions about the concepts of day-night and cause of seasons, and their knowledge gains after they had the intervention; and (3) the students' and the teacher's attitude toward the new curriculum and the new pedagogy. Finally, I discuss the student-teacher interaction model and three important teacher-questionings in this pedagogy; levels of misconceptions; and the pedagogical roles of the photographs and CRSs.

<p>Recent attention to socio-scientific issues such as sustainable agriculture, environmental responsibility and nutritional health has spurred a resurgence of public interest in gardening and cooking. Seen as contexts for fostering scientific literacy?the knowledge domains, methodological approaches, habits of mind and discourse practices that reflect one?s understanding of the role of science in society, gardening and cooking are under-examined fields in science education, in part, because they are under-utilized pedagogies in school settings. Although learning gardens were used historically to foster many aspects of scientific literacy (e.g., cognitive knowledge, norms and methods of science, attitudes toward science and discourse of science), analysis of contemporary studies suggests that science learning in gardens focuses mainly on science knowledge alone. Using multiple conceptions of scientific literacy, I analyzed qualitative data to demonstrate how exploration, talk and text fostered scientific literacy in a school garden. Exploration prompted students to engage in scientific practices such as making observations and constructing explanations from evidence. Talk and text provided background knowledge and accurate information about agricultural, environmental and nutritional topics under study. Using a similar qualitative approach, I present a case study of a third grade teacher who explicitly taught food literacy through culinary arts instruction. Drawing on numerous contextual resources, this teacher created a classroom community of food practice through hands-on cooking lessons, guest chef demonstrations, and school-wide tasting events. As a result, she promoted six different types of knowledge (conceptual, procedural, dispositional, sensory, social, and communal) through leveraging contextual resources.This case study highlights how food literacy is largely contingent on often-overlooked mediators of food literacy: the relationships between participants, the activity, and the type of knowledge invoked. Scientific literacy in food education continues to be a topic of interest in the fields of public health and of sustainable agriculture, as well as to proponents of the local food movement. This dissertation begins to map a more cohesive and comprehensive approach to gardening and cooking implementation and research in school settings.

<p> Gender differences in middle school science were examined utilizing a mixed-methods approach. The intrinsic and extrinsic experiences of male and female non-gifted high-achieving students were investigated through the administration of the CAIMI, student interviews, teacher questionnaires, observations, and document examination.</p><p> Male and female students were selected from a rural Northeast Georgia school district based on their high performance and high growth during middle school science. Eighty-three percent of the student participants were white and 17% were Hispanic. Half of the male participants and one third of the female participants were eligible for free and reduced meals.</p><p> Findings revealed that male participants were highly motivated, whereas female participants exhibited varying levels of motivation in science. Both male and female students identified similar instructional strategies as external factors that were beneficial to their success. Due to their selection by both genders, these instructional strategies were considered to be gender-neutral and thereby useful for inclusion within coeducational middle school science classrooms.</p>

<p> This descriptive case study examined the meanings public elementary school teachers (N = 13) made of learning to enact citizen science projects in their schoolyards in partnership with a local Arboretum. Utilizing Engestr&ouml;m&rsquo;s (2001) framework of cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT), the Arboretum&rsquo;s outreach program for area Title 1 schools was viewed as an activity system composed of and acting in partnership with the teachers. The major finding was that teachers designed and mastered new ways of teaching (expansive learning) and transformed their citizen science activity to facilitate student engagement and learning. I highlight four important themes in teachers&rsquo; expansive learning: (a) discussion, (b) inclusion, (c) integration, and (d) collaboration. Teacher learning communities formed when colleagues shared responsibilities, formed mentor/mentee relationships, and included student teachers and interns in the activity. This program could serve as a model for elementary school citizen science education, as well as a model for professional development for teachers to learn to teach science and Environmental Education outdoors.</p>

<p> This study examined the impact of dialogue-based group instruction on student learning and engagement in community college meteorology education. A quasi-experimental design was used to compare lecture-based instruction with dialogue-based group instruction during two class sessions at one community college in southern California. Pre- and post-tests were used to measure learning and interest, while surveys were conducted two days after the learning events to assess engagement, perceived learning, and application of content. The results indicated that the dialogue-based group instruction was more successful in helping students learn than the lecture-based instruction. Each question that assessed learning had a higher score for the dialogue group that was statistically significant (alpha &lt; 0.05) compared to the lecture group. The survey questions about perceived learning and application of content also exhibited higher scores that were statistically significant for the dialogue group. The qualitative portion of these survey questions supported the quantitative results and showed that the dialogue students were able to remember more concepts and apply these concepts to their lives. </p><p> Dialogue students were also more engaged, as three out of the five engagement-related survey questions revealed statistically significantly higher scores for them. The qualitative data also supported increased engagement for the dialogue students. Interest in specific meteorological topics did not change significantly for either group of students; however, interest in learning about severe weather was higher for the dialogue group. Neither group found the learning events markedly meaningful, although more students from the dialogue group found pronounced meaning centered on applying severe weather knowledge to their lives. Active engagement in the dialogue approach kept these students from becoming distracted and allowed them to become absorbed in the learning event. This higher engagement most likely contributed to the resulting higher learning. Together, these results indicate that dialogue education, especially compared to lecture methods, has a great potential for helping students learn meteorology. Dialogue education can also help students engage in weather-related concepts and potentially develop better-informed citizens in a world with a changing climate.</p><p>

<p> To effectively meet students&rsquo; needs, educational reform in science calls for adaptive instruction based on students&rsquo; thinking. To gain an understanding of what students know, a teacher needs to attend to, probe, and analyze student thinking to provide information to base curricular decisions, upon. These three components make up the skill of noticing. Learning to notice is not easy for any teacher, but is especially difficult for preservice teachers, who lack the experience these skills require. Additionally they lack the professional knowledge needed to inform responses. </p><p> The purpose of this study was to discover how a combination of scaffolds: video-based reflection on practice, a professional learning community, and a content specific moderator as a guide can be embedded into a methods course to support preservice teachers&rsquo; learning to professionally notice elementary students&rsquo; scientific thinking in order to provide a responsive curriculum. The study was designed on the premise that the skill of professional noticing is critical for preservice teachers to acquire the knowledge and ability to develop their personal PCK and topic specific professional knowledge. </p><p> It was situated in a methods course as this is the structure provided within teacher education programs to tie theory to practice. This qualitative case study, studied one section of an elementary science methods course during teaching of their science unit. In general participants&rsquo; skills progressed from noticing the class as a whole to attending to specific students&rsquo; thinking and from a focus on evaluation to interpretation. By the end they were connecting teaching strategies to student thinking. How participants&rsquo; responded to what they had noticed progressed as well, moving from frontloading information to creating additional constructivist based learning experiences when encountering student confusion demonstrating growth in their professional knowledge as well as their noticing skills. </p><p> They attributed certain aspects of their growth to different parts the intervention, for instance learning to probe thinking to video, learning to construct learning experiences to the content specific moderator, and learning to decide next steps to the professional learning community. </p><p> This study points to the efficacy of employing these scaffolds, found useful in other contexts, within science education.</p>

<p> The purpose of this study is to explore the factors that influence student engagement in science. Increases in student engagement positively correlate to improved student achievement. This study targeted the lack of clarity regarding the relationships between the complexity of instructional objectives, teacher self-efficacy, past achievement, student grade level, and student engagement. This correlational design method uses a quantitative approach that includes observations of student engagement levels and a student self-report survey of engagement, as indicators of student engagement levels. A multiple regression analysis of each measure of student engagement instruments determine the influence of each variable to student engagement. Influencing student engagement would be a valuable tool for educators in designing student intervention and improving student achievement.</p>

<p> Science teachers in the United States are not prepared to teach the students in their classrooms. Teachers are most often White females, while the children in their classrooms are from diverse backgrounds. Multicultural pedagogies exist, but teachers must be educated during their teacher preparation courses to understand their own relationship with race before they can enact such pedagogies in their classrooms. This qualitative study sought to examine the lived experiences of eight science education doctoral students in a course called Critical Voices in Teacher Education, through the qualitative method approach of transcendental phenomenology. The participants&rsquo; experiences were examined through three theoretical frameworks: transformative learning theory, White racial identity, and racial literacy. Interviews, field notes, and student reflections were used to collect data for this phenomenological study. The findings showed that through the process of critical reflection and group discussion, participants had a transformative experience in which their racial identities developed, and perceptions of students and curriculum shifted to include multicultural pedagogical approaches. The findings from this study supported the idea that teacher education programs must use racial identity development and multicultural curriculum as a foundation for all education programs.</p><p>

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