<p> This thesis project consists of the development of an eighth-grade lesson sequence written for students on Catalina Island in Southern California. It is written as part of a project developed by the Catalina Island Conservancy to promote the ecological awareness of students living on the island. It encompasses the three dimensions of the Next Generation Science Standards, highlights an outdoor component, and uses a 5E lesson framework. The lesson was reviewed by the Catalina Island Conservancy and by teachers experienced with the Next Generation Science Standards. Revisions were made based on their feedback. The lesson sequence focuses on a local endemic subspecies of bird in order to explore natural selection. Students learn about the bird, investigate its local habitat, compete in a natural selection simulation, and then make predictions about the fate of the bird due to a climatic change, using evidence collected throughout the lesson.</p><p>

<p> The purpose of this study was to compare the traditional grading and feedback systems used in most classrooms to a competency-based grading and feedback system. The traditional system used the familiar grading system of A, B, C, D and F applied to assignments. The competency model was based on providing students formative and summative feedback regarding their achievement toward proficiency of specific skills and concepts. </p><p> This quasi-experimental action research study had a control group and an intervention group comprised of general education and special education sixth grade students in language arts classes. Quantitative data in the form of student achievement scores and student survey responses was analyzed. Qualitative data in the form of teacher interview responses was analyzed. </p><p> Overall there was no statistically significant change in the MAP reading scores between the control and intervention group. However, when the variables of time, group and gender from an ANOVA were analyzed, the males in the intervention group showed a statically significant increase in achievement. This achievement was regardless if the male was an IEP or non-IEP student. Overall, the results do not show that either the control or intervention group sees the feedback as effective. However, the results of the girls&rsquo; responses in the control group were statistically significant. The girls in the control group did see the provided feedback as effective. The teachers&rsquo; interview responses provided three main themes, which included students applied feedback more in the competency-based classroom than in the traditional classroom. Both teachers used the feedback to adjust curriculum and instruction. Additionally, the intervention teacher pointed out that more time is needed to help students apply the competency-based system. </p><p> Based on this study, the first recommendation is to implement competency-based grading and feedback processes. The second recommendation is that formative and summative feedback processes based on proficiencies be implemented to assists students in identifying their understanding of and performance on skills and concepts. Recommendations for future studies include having a larger sample size and continuing the study for a longer period of time.</p><p>

<p> The purpose of this research was to examine the potential relationship between students&rsquo; degree of familiarity with repertoire common to beginning band method books and aural-based music achievement after one year of study. Three research questions guided this study: (1) Which songs from the Familiar Repertoire Survey (FRS) are reported as being the most and least familiar to the sample? (2) For a familiar song, &ldquo;Lightly Row,&rdquo; can FRS scores predict (a) Familiar Music Achievement Singing Test (FMAST) scores, (b) Familiar Music Achievement Playing Test (FMAPT) scores, (c) Familiar Music Achievement Improvisation Singing Test (FMAIST) scores, and (d) Familiar Music Achievement Improvisation Playing Test (FMAIPT) scores? (3) For an unfamiliar song, &ldquo;Finish Line,&rdquo; can FRS scores predict (a) Unfamiliar Music Achievement Singing Test (UMAST) scores, (b) Unfamiliar Music Achievement Playing Test (UMAPT) scores, (c) Unfamiliar Music Achievement Improvisation Singing Test (UMAIST) scores, and (d) Unfamiliar Music Achievement Improvisation Playing Test (UMAIPT) scores? </p><p> Participants (<i>N</i> = 17) were fifth and sixth grade students enrolled in their second year of beginning band in a New Jersey elementary school. I created two measurement instruments: FRS, designed to gauge the breadth and depth of students&rsquo; familiarity with songs common to beginning band method books, and the Music Achievement Test (MAT) designed to measure aural-based music achievement in singing, playing by ear, and improvising on a familiar and unfamiliar song. </p><p> In the first session, participants completed FRS by listening to songs common to beginning band books and completing a Likert-type survey on their familiarity with each song. Later, participants watched MAT through an interactive video which prompted them to complete eight musical subtests. I recorded all performances. Judges rated each performance with two rating scales. </p><p> I analyzed the frequency of responses for each song and found &ldquo;Hot Cross Buns,&rdquo; &ldquo;Jingle Bells,&rdquo; &ldquo;Pierrot,&rdquo; &ldquo;Lightly Row,&rdquo; and &ldquo;London Bridge&rdquo; to be the most familiar songs. Through linear regressions, I analyzed the ability of FRS to predict MAT scores. I found a significant regression equation between FRS and its ability to predict FMAST scores and UMAIST scores. </p><p> The current exploratory study contained many limitations which restricts its generalizability to other beginning band populations; however, six conclusions can be made. Familiarity with common beginning band repertoire as represented by a selection of 24 songs common to beginning band method books does not predict students&rsquo; achievement (a) singing an unfamiliar song, (b) demonstrating through singing improvisation based on a familiar song, (c) playing by ear a familiar or unfamiliar song, and (d) improvising on an instrument, whether improvising within the context of a familiar or unfamiliar song. Familiarity with common beginning band repertoire does predict students&rsquo; achievement (a) singing a familiar song and (b) demonstrating through singing improvisation based on an unfamiliar song.</p><p>

<p> Military students are a population of learners who must move several times during their service member parent's careers. Adolescents may be more affected by these frequent moves, as the moves occur during a crucial time of physical and emotional development. Social capital theory best underpins this research study, as adolescents begin to value the social capital established among peers and then become affected by the breaks in social capital as they are forced to move. The purpose of this correlational study was to examine the degree of the relationship, if any, of military middle school students' standardized test scores and grade level turnover to determine if grade level turnover had an impact on the outcome of the students' annual standardized test scores. Enrollment and archived tests data were collected from 18 DoDEA schools that serve grades six through eight. The independent variable was military middle school classroom turnover, and the dependent variables were the students&rsquo; test scores on the TerraNova3. Nine bivariate correlations were conducted for each school year and by grade level to analyze the data. Five subject areas were tested per test, and the results of these 45 analyses indicate 5 weak correlations. Post-hoc Bonferroni and a familywise error correction were conducted to correct the insufficient power and inflated alpha values. The results of this research can be valuable to educators who are unfamiliar with a transient population of learners, more specifically the adolescent military student population and how it could be correlated with academic success. </p><p>

<p> The researcher investigated the corrective reading interventions implemented in an urban middle school&rsquo;s after-school program to determine if the interventions were helping students perform better in English Language Arts (ELA) classes and improved their overall achievement on the Northwest Evaluation Assessment (NWEA). The researcher also investigated teacher perceptions of professional development hours and student achievement in ELA. This study primarily focused on students in fifth-eighth grade, due to the low academic performance in ELA scores at the middle school. The purpose of this study was to determine if students in middle school would perform better if they received additional supports with reading interventions at the middle school during the after-school program between the hours of 3p.m. and 6 p.m. </p><p> A mixed methods study was conducted to determine if a relationship existed between teacher perception and student reading achievement for 73 middle school students in grades three through five. The researcher evaluated the teachers&rsquo; perception pre- and post-survey data and student pre- and post-NWEA data. The researcher also examined the number of hours that teachers participated in professional development, and if a relationship existed, the researcher could make a research-based recommendation to the district to continue to provide professional development to strengthen teachers&rsquo; instructional practices and improve student achievement. The researcher finally examined student pre- and post-NWEA data to determine if there was a difference. The study revealed that there was not a relationship; therefore, findings could possibly help the school district administrators make future decisions for professional development and interventions for students in the after-school program for grades five through eight.</p><p>

<p> The Positive Behavioral Intervention and Support, or PBIS, represented the new trend in dealing with problem behavior in educational settings. The concepts of Gender and Age intertwined with many social, ethnic, and cultural attributes, which affected students&rsquo; behaviors in group settings such as school. The resolve of this study resided in the investigation of the effects of gender and age (grade level) on the effectiveness of a PBIS program. In addition, the study reviewed the relative quality of validity among the components used in the PBIS program. The data used in this study originated from a PBIS program implemented at a Suburban Middle School located in the Midwest of the United States. The components of the PBIS program implemented included Safety, Openness to Diversity, Academic Achievement, and Respect (to Self and to Others). The study examined each component based on its activities. Each component involved specific activities, which promoted, encouraged, and sustained the success of its related component. The findings of the study included three categories. Among these categories gender effect on the components, age effect on the components, and differences in quality of validity among the components represented the targets of the investigation. </p><p> The findings of this study revealed no gender effect on Safety, openness to diversity, and respect (to self and to others). However, the study showed a gender effect on academic achievement for the seventh graders while revealing no gender effect academically for sixth and eighth graders. In addition, the study demonstrated no age effect on safety and respect (to self and to others). While the study revealed no age effect on openness to diversity among seventh and eighth graders, it showed an age effect on openness to diversity for the sixth graders. Furthermore, the study findings suggested an age effect on academic achievement among all grade levels. The investigation revealed that the safety and respect (to self and to others) represented poorly designed, developed, and implemented components of PBIS. In addition, it demonstrated that openness to diversity required community involvement and monitoring. Furthermore, the study suggested that administrators and teaching staff modeled and applied the principles and concept of Positive Behavior Support, in order to increase student academic achievement.</p><p>

<p> Although a great deal of research exists regarding various components of the Writing-Based Practice along with best practice of writing instruction, the research that does exist only examines how writing instruction impacts writing. This research study, however, examined whether there is a potential connection between a writing immersion program, the WBP, and growth in both social and emotional awareness. Specifically, the purpose of this Mixed Methods Triangulation Design-Convergence Model (Denzin, 1970; Creswell, Plano Clark, et al., 2003) was to investigate the potential relationship that may exist between the Writing-Based Practice and social and emotional awareness in adolescents.</p><p> The study consisted of the following method of data collection for two-hundred and forty-one eighth-grade students: questionnaires and six case studies which involved interviews, observations, and collecting artifacts. This study was conducted at a suburban middle school in southeastern Pennsylvania. All the parents of the eighth-graders were asked to sign a consent form to allow their child to participate. I surveyed only those students whose parents gave permission. Case study participants were selected based on PSSA 2014/2015 results. Data analysis employed the SPSS software to help analyze the quantitative portion of the study while coding. All qualitative data analysis was conducted by the researcher using conventional and summative content analysis. I trained a second coder for each child in the case studies reliability.</p><p> Results indicated there was sufficient evidence indicating statistically significant positive change for group interaction, risk-taking, and self-perception when exposed to the WBP over the course of the school year. Additionally, there was sufficient evidence to conclude positive change on both creative and analytical writing style when exposed to the WBP over the course of the school year.</p><p> For students to be successful in college and career, social and emotional skills are essential. This research fills a gap in the literature because there is nothing that addresses this problem. If, in fact, the WBP infrastructure does promote social and emotional growth, while also improving writing skills, it is relevant because not only will the students be better prepared for college, career and beyond, they will also grow through self-reflection.</p><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.

What are the behaviors and actions of selected discipline problems among the colored children of the intermediate grades in the elementary school, and what methods and techniques are used by the staff of the elementary school in meeting and attempting to solve the problems? The purpose of this study was: (1) To make a study of discipline cases over a stated period of time.; (2) To describe the development of counseling methods as related to the behavior patterns of the pupils studied.; (3) To attempt to discover what are both the immediate and underlying causes of the behavior problems of the pupils studied.; (4) To show in what ways the various school and community agencies are employed to give assistance with problem cases.; (5) To record the various school-pupil, pupil-pupil, pupil-home and intra-school relationships that occur in the handling of the pupils studied.; (6) To present suggested methods in the collecting and recording of data concerned with the pupils who were studied.; (7) To provide a basis for further guidance and counseling planning by the teachers and administrators of the Roosevelt School, Stockton, California.

This study examines the effectiveness of the author's implementation of a unit on poetry in a class of 12th grade Advanced Placement (AP) Literature and Composition. Situated in the educational dilemmas of assessment and accountability in the teaching of English Literature within the context of a student teaching experience, the study employs analysis of student learning gains through pre- and posttests, as well as other student work. A narrative of the author's experience and growth as a teacher is examined and suggestions are offered for teachers of AP Literature classes. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of Middle and Secondary Education in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science. / Summer Semester, 2004. / June 11, 2004. / Action research in education, Secondary education, Poetry instruction, Teacher self-evaluation, Advanced placement programs (education), Field study (education), Internships (education), Student teacher training / Includes bibliographical references. / Susan Nelson Wood, Professor Directing Thesis; Pamela Carroll, Committee Member; Joseph McElrath, Committee Member.