Thesis (Ph. D.)--Catholic University of America. / Vita. Bibliography: p. 61-65.

Thesis (MA)--University of Chicago. / Includes bibliography.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Columbia University, 1911. / Life. Pub. also as Teachers College, Columbia University. Contributions to education, no. 45. Bibliography: p. 161-166.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2005. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Syracuse University, 2005. / "Publication number AAT 3193859."

<p> The development of student voice is included under the social and emotional learning (SEL) umbrella and is the focus of this practitioner action research study with a youth cooperative co-inquiry component. The research was designed to develop a thorough understanding of student and faculty perceptions of the prioritization of student voice for the creation and implementation of advising curriculum that is relevant and useful to students, and the supports for and inhibitors to the development and practice of student voice through the school&rsquo;s advising program. </p><p> In this study, student voice is defined as the articulation (through words and behaviors) of one&rsquo;s sense of self (which includes one&rsquo;s identity, one&rsquo;s truth&mdash;including ideas, perspectives, and beliefs&mdash;and one&rsquo;s values). Student focus groups, faculty interviews, fieldnote journal entries, and archival data were collected and analyzed. Findings include the need for (1) a clear, shared vision that includes student and faculty voices, (2) strong and authentic mentor-mentee relationships, (3) distributed leadership, (4) ongoing faculty training and support, and (5) a dependable structure for regular and ongoing feedback. The implications of these findings for practice and research involve the relationship between a strong, distributed leadership model and the creation of authentic spaces for student voice.</p><p>

<p> This dissertation is a qualitative practitioner research study in which I explore how my students and I engage in critical literacy using sociopolitical Articles of the Week (AoWs). Critical literacy is the ability to read, write, and speak about texts in a reflective manner to better understand power, inequality, and injustice that prevails in the world. The two major questions that drove this study were: (1) How are eleventh-grade students&rsquo; perspectives evident in their discussions and reflective papers? (2) How do my students and I take up the opportunity to pursue a social action project in response to Articles of the Week? The twenty-two research participants for this study were students in one of my three eleventh-grade English classes. While I used AoWs in all three eleventh-grade sections, I conducted my research in only one of these sections. This class differed from the other two sections only in that these students planned and implemented their social action projects in groups in lieu of individual presentations of their research paper in the other two classes. </p><p> I collected six kinds of data: (1) scanned copies of students&rsquo; eight reflective papers based on AoWs; (2) transcriptions of eight video-recorded AoW discussions; (3) teacher journal; (4) students&rsquo; post AoW surveys; (5) scanned copies and/or photographs of students&rsquo; social action projects; and (6) transcription of a post social-action whole class video recorded discussion. I collected these data in four phases from October 2015 to June 2016. Every week, over eight weeks (October-December), students read an AoW. After, and as homework, they wrote a reflective paper and brought it to class at the end of the week (Friday), when we had a whole-class discussion. After reading eight AoWs, students chose and researched a social action, researching daily for six weeks. This six-week research project resulted in a research paper that satisfied the research requirement of the eleventh-grade English class. Finally, two days per week for five weeks, students implemented their group social action projects on these topics: (a) Gun control laws, (b) Syrian Refugees, and (3) School Start Later. </p><p> Using the constructivist grounded theory technique (Charmaz, 2000, 2006) and the two methodological frameworks&mdash;practitioner research and inquiry as stance (Cochran-Smith &amp; Lytle, 2009)&mdash;as well as the four dimensions of critical literacy (Lewison, Flint &amp; Sluys, 2002) to analyze and interpret my data, the following findings emerged: Findings to research question 1&mdash;most students appreciated considering multiple perspectives, both in writing and discussion. Students&rsquo; discussions demonstrated strong knowledge building in the following areas: incidental knowledge building; knowledge building with immediate effects; knowledge building by geography; and knowledge building as deliberation and debate. Findings to research question 2&mdash;social action projects involved two major activities: procedural activities and negotiating power. The procedural activities involved choosing a social action project, researching, and working in groups to implement the social action projects. The power analysis in this study revealed that examining multiple perspectives and including them in social action projects can work positively for students&mdash;social networks opened for students who provided a balanced perspective on topics. For students taking a one-sided perspective, social networks shut down. The results of this study have the potential to inform future practitioner researchers and critical pedagogues to develop new ways of building a critically reflective classroom that allows for robust social transformations that could influence educational policies because <i>teachers&rsquo; voices do matter</i>. </p><p>

<p> Urban high school educators continue to struggle with providing quality educational experiences that meet students&rsquo; varying needs. Socio-economic status plays a powerful role in the educational opportunities afforded to students in the United States. Low socio-economic status can have an impact on the types of educational experiences students encounter, which, in turn, influences student performance. Howard suggested the residuals of poverty, limited access to medical care, low-income status, and homelessness affect a student&rsquo;s performance in school. Moreover, Gorski contended that low-income status students are likely to attend schools with inadequate resources and poorly trained teachers dealing with higher class sizes. </p><p> Using Purkey&rsquo;s invitational education and the Teacher Expectation Student Achievement (TESA) conceptual framework as lenses for analysis, this mixed-methods study sought to examine the effects of teacher expectations and eleventh grade student perceptions on student engagement. Through teacher interviews, this study evaluated the causal factors that have developed teacher perceptions in one urban high school. It describes possible misconceptions, deficit views, and biases that influence expectations and their impact on student performance outcomes. Through student surveys, this study also explored the relationship between student perceptions of their learning experiences in school, teachers, and themselves and their impact on student engagement in the classroom. </p><p> Teacher interviews and student survey results provided deep insight into the overall culture of their school. Interviews provided a forum where teachers shared their stories and expressed experiences that they believed shaped their expectations of the students they teach. Student responses about their school, teachers, and themselves provided the researcher with a deeper understanding of the influences that may help or hinder student engagement. </p><p>

<p> This investigation examined how former members of the Wilderness Adventures Club at Bolsa Grande High School described the impacts of their outdoor experiences on their Interpersonal Connections, Outdoor Perspectives, Personal Growth and Well-Being, Agency, and Learning and Knowing. The data suggest that participants benefitted from participation in wilderness-based activities through the subsequent development of close friendships, connectedness to the natural world, 21st century skills like communication, feelings of well-being and agency, and increased knowledge. Administrative and district concerns about the perceived risks involved in outdoor extracurricular trips often become obstacles for educators who want to engage students in informal, wilderness-based learning opportunities. The results of this thesis may provide evidence of the benefits of these kinds of outings to argue for support for outdoor trips for students.</p><p>

<p> Research has shown that both educators and prospective employers agreed that students needed more than just &lsquo;hard skills.&rsquo; Instead of focusing only on students meeting the academic requirements needed to graduate with a diploma, students also needed to work toward mastering social and emotional skills such as &lsquo;soft skills.&rsquo; This study consists of five parts; (i) seeking information from employers associated with the target school; (ii) seeking information from parents of students in the target school; (iii) the researcher crafted intervention for students based on the literature on soft skills, (iv) the researcher completed intervention in two area churches, and (v) assessment of the outcome of the intervention in terms of greater student awareness of the importance of soft-skills and ability with soft-skills in their interactions. </p><p> This qualitative study inquired: (1) What soft skills are sought by the employers associated with the target school in their new hires? (2) What soft skills are being consciously supported in the home of the students? (3) What evidence is there that the intervention devised was successful at developing useful soft skills in the student engaged in the intervention? </p><p>