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No description available.

Thesis (M. Ed.)--University of Hong Kong, 2006. / Title proper from title frame. Also available in printed format.

This study explored the curriculum change experiences of five social studies teachers, from three high schools within one school district located in a western Montana city, integrating an economics curriculum in their eleventh grade U.S. history classrooms for the first time. A review of the related literature on this topic revealed several areas of consideration regarding teachers' curriculum change experiences which guided the data collection and analysis process: commitment, workload, capacity, collaboration, and perception of the teaching profession. This qualitative, within case study was designed to add to the body of quantitative research on curriculum change. Data collection sources include: pre and post interviews, observations, electronic journals, field notes, and document analysis. Five themes emerged from the data analysis of the participants' curriculum change experiences: support, time, motivation, adaptation, and student learning. A skyscraper depicts a visual model of the complex and inter-dependent relationship of themes in the curriculum change process as determined in this study. Each of the themes is presented in narrative format as a vignette giving voice to the teachers' curriculum change experiences. Overall, teachers are positive about curriculum change and look at it as an on-going process to improve curriculum in an effort to increase student learning. The conclusion offers several suggestions to ease the curriculum change process for teachers. Teachers need the support of the community, administrators, colleagues, and outside agencies for continued, successful curriculum change. Teachers need time and space for collaboration, planning, curriculum development, and knowledge building. Teachers need to be able to easily adapt curriculum materials to their own teaching styles and district curriculum guidelines. Teachers are motivated by what interests them and so are students. Curriculum developers and planners need to keep the interests of teachers and students in mind when creating curriculum materials and professional development. Students and teachers demand relevant, current, local examples to increase their understanding and reach the ultimate goal of curriculum change in the classroom: curriculum improvement and increased student learning.

This study examines the teacher, leader, and curriculum variables predictive of student achievement in Indian Education for All (IEFA). IEFA, a Montana educational mandate based on Montana constitutional law, was first funded in 2005, and little research had previously been conducted on the effectiveness of implementation efforts. While compulsory, implementation had been piecemeal and wrought with misunderstanding, differences in opinion, prejudice, and questions about its legitimacy. The challenges inherent in the implementation of an ambiguous educational reform with no state-adopted curriculum or benchmarks for student achievement have become evident. With the dearth of research, it was not known how well students were learning what was mandated, nor was it known which precise variables impact or measure this learning. To determine this, second through fifth grade elementary school teachers and school leaders located in Missoula County completed a survey questionnaire, and Missoula County fifth grade students completed a student assessment based on the Essential Understandings of Montana Indians and the Montana Standards for Social Studies. Descriptive data provided information on mean fifth grade student IEFA scores, teacher and leader demographics, professional development participation, and implementation needs, and frequency of use of materials provided to all schools by the Montana Office of Public Instruction. Multiple regression analysis was used to determine if relationships exist between the predictor variables (teacher, leader, and curriculum variables) and the outcome variable (student achievement). However, none of the independent variables was found to have significant predictive value. Educators, including the Montana Office of Public Instruction, may use these findings to determine strategies that might most successfully impact IEFA implementation and to direct the course of further research.

The purpose of this study was to understand what occurred when music was infused into a seventh grade poetry unit. Music was used as a co-text in this study, meaning that it was given equal time, energy, and respect as the poetry used in the unit. The unit was nineteen days long, during which, students learned about narrative, free verse, and lyrical poetry. The students also learned about author's intent, language use, mood, metaphor, interpretation, and the role of the audience. During this unit, the students completed two projects that allowed for students to choose to work with either poetry or lyrics. While the use of music caused no significant growth in content knowledge, there was no negative learning effect either. Students found the unit to be engaging and appreciated the amount of choice given to them. Teacher observations, along with student statements, conclude that the use of music raised interest levels in the poetry unit and made the unit fun. The students also noted that a variety of lesson structure played a positive role in the overall effectiveness of the unit. The issues that were raised in the implementation of this study pertain to the allowance of explicit lyrics, time constraints, and managing the duel roles as both teacher and researcher. Finally, the teacher gained new insights into her teaching and came up with several recommendations for future implementation.

This study investigated the relationship between college freshmen?s stage of reflective judgment and the patterns in their written arguments using a mixed-method design with two major and two secondary data collection strategies. The Reflective Judgment Interview (RJI) was conducted with 15 college freshmen enrolled in a composition course that focused on persuasive writing. Participants? essays were examined for patterns in position-taking, evidence-usage, treatment of objections, and rhetorical strategies. Essays were examined ?blind? to participants? reflective judgment scores, and then analyses were compared across reflective judgment groupings. Participants? qualitative interviews and self-recorded reflections on Paper 4 were used to supplement analyses of their essays, and to provide information about contextual factors. Based on assessments made by independent raters, four participants were described as using predominantly pre-reflective judgment, and eleven were described as using predominantly quasi-reflective judgment. Qualitative interviews revealed that participants in both groups had received instruction in persuasive writing in high school, had taken advanced English classes, and were familiar with their own writing processes. However, participants rated as using predominantly quasi-reflective judgment tended to adopt balanced positions, differentiate their views from an authority?s, acknowledge the ill-structured nature of the rhetorical dilemma, and respond to objections more frequently than their pre-reflective counterparts. At the same time, findings for both groups of students suggested that the writing context did not support participants? use of sophisticated assumptions about knowledge and justification, in that most essays written by participants in both groups included one-sided positions, an uncritical use of evidence, and superficial attention to the objections of a doubting audience. Based on these findings, the researcher made recommendations for more developmentally-sensitive instruction.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Oklahoma State University, 2006. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

The purpose of this study was to determine the status of composition as a teaching tool in the US and UK and to compare the findings of the two countries. In order to achieve this purpose, the following research questions were formulated: How common is the teaching of composition in US and UK schools? How does composition compare to other classroom activities in US and UK schools in terms of instructional time, variety, and emphasis? What kinds of compositional activities are used most frequently? What reasons do teachers cite for teaching or not teaching composition in their classrooms, and how do these reasons differ by country? How do teachers overcome challenges to composition and how do these practices differ by country? For each country, what combination of teacher characteristics best predict the use of composition as a classroom teaching technique? Data were collected using an online survey instrument developed by the researcher based on that used in a more localized study by Strand (2006). Findings were based on responses from three hundred and nine participants from the UK (n = 117) and the US (n = 192). Results indicate that composition teaching is far more prevalent in the UK, with a greater variety of activities, focus on experience and creativity, group work and integration with other curriculum areas. US composition teaching is characterized by notation-focused highly-prescriptive tasks, with the favored mode being individual composition. Needs identified include: a greater provision of technology in US music classrooms, more extensive training and support for UK general teachers who teach music and the further promotion of composition in the US, highlighting its integration with listening and performing in order to provide a more rounded curriculum.