Session 1A ( 10:00 – 11:00 ) Room 417 - Self, Identity, and Power“We wanted to do something for our children”: Factors that motivate Black families to home educate - Meca Williams This project was designed to develop an understanding of the motivational factors that leads some Black parents to choosing home education. Through inductive analysis I found that various experiences involving race, identity development, and quality education are core issues parents describe as their reason for exiting public schools. The analysis suggests how Black home education parents perceive schools hastily label their children and incite a negative sense of self. In addition, the participants describe their approach to aggressively and independently taking control of their children's educational experiences. Social Categories behind Perception of Race from Speech: Qualitative sociolinguistic methods at work - Kate Anderson Using membership categorization analysis, I examine ten female interviewee's talk around perceptions of speech in order to examine the types of social categories these women use to discuss race. Through my focus not just on what is said, but how it is said, what language is used, and what is clearly not said, I investigate how talk about speech can reveal language ideologies and beliefs listeners hold that ground their assessments of speaker race. This study marks a methodological break with most sociolinguistic research on speech perception, which largely examines perception and language from a post-positivistic, laboratory perspective. I argue that introducing another methodology—a constructionist approach to speech perception as meaning making—has implications for linguistic profiling, educational research, and linguistics overall. Studying language within its social context increases the scope of linguistic investigation and the interdisciplinary audience to which sociolinguistic research is relevant. Understanding Professional Teacher Identity of Student Teachers in Early Childhood Certification Option Program through Boalian Theater - Foram Bhukhanwala The purpose of this qualitative research is to understand the preservice teachers' professional identity through Boalian Theater. Boal's work is based on a critical stance and involves engaging one's body through a variety of interactive and improvisational experiences through which participants may gain empathy, deeper understanding of social issues related to power, identity, insight into multiple constructions of knowledge, and impetus for feeling an agency. I choose to use this pedagogy to understand professional identity in preservice teachers in an Early Childhood Certification program in a research one university in southeast United States . My broad research question is, “What happens when student teachers participate in Pedagogy and Theater of the Oppressed to learn about their professional identities?” I propose to plan and implement experiential workshop followed by using arts-based reflective techniques (for example, creative writing, metaphors, drawings) and conversational interviews and observations to collect data. The data will be analyzed using methods suggested by Glasser and Strauss (1990). [Return] Session 1B ( 10:00 – 11:00 ) Room 418 - Adult Learning A Study of Korean People's Lifelong Learning--Postmodern Content Analysis - Dae Joong Kang The purpose of this study is to understand the influence of the socio-cultural-historical context on learning as it contributes to the construction of people's lives. In particular, this study will examine how 20th century Korean socio-cultural-historical context and the lifelong learning of Korean people co-construct one another. The study analyzed the Korean People's Oral History Series published by the Deep-Rooted Publishing House in South Korea . I use a postmodern content analysis to look at the data that contains life narratives of 20 Korean people who were born between 1898 and 1926. This paper report a preliminary finding from the analysis of an onggi potter Na-sop Park's life and learning in terms of figuration of “escaping.” The finding suggests that subject position on learning activities in different life situations at different times have a significant effect on the construction of learner's life. Comic Books in the Classroom: Insights from Adult Readers - Stergios Botzakis Using texts in classroom contexts can greatly affect how people interact with and use those texts. Comic books are a popular culture text that are being used in efforts to engage reluctant or struggling readers, although sometimes their playful, engaging aspects are subsumed by standardized, rote activities. Drawing on research examining the literacy practices of adults and comparing them to those that happen in schools, the author interviewed three adult comic book readers about their own reading practices. Using Bakhtinian language theories to explore the links between utterances, the author considers how reading comic books has affected their learning experiences and how their experiences might be incorporated into classroom practices. The use of comic books seems particularly well suited for producing a culture of reading, examining text structures and grammars, and exposing readers to diverse cultural features. From development work to successful aging: A review on related studies - Li-Kuang Chen The fast aging of the world's population is a challenging fact in the 21st century. According to the United Nations (2002) , Asia and the Pacific will become home to the largest proportion of older persons aged 65 and above in the next 30 years. Besides reducing risks of diseases and disability, successful aging also means better development and adaptation to old age. Recently, successful aging has become a significant need and expectation, for both individuals and society as a whole. However, the theories of adult development successful aging have mainly based on the western contexts and participants, especially men. Main research on successful aging also dominantly stresses the maintenance of health. The influence of learning in late adulthood has been rarely explored. Few studies focus on how elderly women or seniors from eastern culture define successful aging. In this article, I will review theories of development in late adulthood and related studies and definitions of successful aging to address the gap of knowledge body in current studies of successful aging. [Return] Session 2A ( 11:15 – 12:35 ) Room 417 - Understanding Educators The Process and impact of implementing standard-based mathematics curriculum - Samuel Obara Implementation of any new curriculum cannot succeed without the consented efforts of those involved. Curriculum change is difficult thing to do more so when working with teachers who have used traditional curriculum for sometime. A synthesis of the literature on implementation of curriculum, in the context of accountability system is presented. Professional literature, which will play a significant role in this study, is organized in the following sections: (1) Teacher change. Literature focuses on how teachers change as they adopt and implement the curriculum. (2) Teacher collaboration. (3) Professional development. (4) The role of curriculum materials in reform (5) Accountability system. Examining professional development's influence on elementary teachers' practices - Drew Polly This presentation will share the preliminary findings and issues from a naturalistic case study. The study includes two participants and has been designed to examine how elementary mathematics teachers enact the instructional practices that are emphasized in a leaner-centered professional development program. Being an Online Faculty Member: Challenges and Opportunities - Ernise Singleton The number of educational institutions offering online courses has increased at a rapid rate during the past ten years. This increase has created several challenges for institutions, faculty and students. Many faculty have been challenged with the numerous adjustments needed for teaching in an online environment. Some of the issues include pedagogical shifts, mixed motivational factors, lack of explicit incentives, and challenges with time management. Despite these issues, many faculty continue to view teaching online as an opportunity. The purpose of this paper is to explore the challenges and opportunities faculty face when choosing to teach online. Suggestions for future practice and research are discussed. A review of the literature on mathematics teacher knowledge - Judith Reed I will review the literature on the knowledge needed for teaching mathematics. While the studies in this genre are concentrated on teacher knowledge about mathematics, mathematics teaching, and mathematics learning, I will discuss how the field needs to explore other knowledge packages including those that impact the ability of mathematics teachers to teach to diverse student populations. [Return] Session 2B ( 11:15 – 12:35 ) Room 418 Parental Involvement and Women's Labor: A literature review of research on mothers living in the hidden spaces of youth sports - Jene' Baclawski Although the role that many mothers have in facilitating their children's athletic participation is critical, as a site of academic inquiry there is much left to learn about their experiences. For many women, the amount of time and energy they spend so that their child can play sports has a considerable impact on their everyday lives; however, discussions about their experiences, involvement, and an analysis of how they construct their subjectivities within the larger institution of sport have largely remained invisible. As a piece to a larger dissertation study, the purpose of this project is to review literature related to women's sporting labor. However, since this study intends to fill an existing gap in sport studies, composing this review requires a discussion of research deriving from quite different epistemological perspectives. This presentation will review the literature on how preservice teachers a) develop knowledge of practice and b) utilize formative evaluation to address issues of practice. In addition, a framework for utilizing an evidence-based methodology and tool, Evidence-Based Inquiry and the Video Analysis Tool, respectively, will be introduced as a mechanism for supporting preservice teachers assessment of their own teaching practices. For decades, socialization has been the reason provided for women's higher level of religiosity (Miller & Stark, 2002) and church attendance (Bunte, 2005). Few studies, however, have examined how this socialization occurs, particularly within the context of adult learning. Situated cognition can provide a framework for examining women's socialization into a religious organization. Situated cognition makes explicit the importance of communities in the process of reality making, particularly in terms of learning and context. The design of this literature review involved selecting empirical studies that informed situated cognition and religion, specifically Christian fundamentalist, evangelical, and conservative churches. Because few religious studies use situated cognition as a theoretical frame, this literature review draws on ethnographies, action research, and critiques as a way of showing how situated cognition can provide a more holistic framework for understanding how women become core members of highly authoritarian, patriarchal churches. [Return] Session 3A ( 2:30 – 3:30 ) Room 417 - Web-based Learning Sources of Student Success in Web-based Learning - Michael Barbour The Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador has utilized distance education for over a decade to provide equal opportunities for rural students. In recent years, students in the current web-based program has consistently performed as well as or better than their classroom counterparts in final course scores and standardized exams, opposing a more well-documented trend in the literature for distance education programs. Given the fact the performance results of these distance education students run counter to what is found in the literature, discovering what factors account for these results is an important undertaking. The purpose of this case study is to examine the nature of web-based learning with secondary students, seeking to explore the factors that may affect performance. Interviews, focus groups, journal entries, and participant observation will be used to gather data from distance education students throughout the province. Results will be analyzed using an inductive analysis approach, which involves scanning the data for categories and relationships within individual transcripts and between transcripts. Conclusions will focused on developing a better foundation for designing more effective web-based learning opportunities for all students. Online Inquiry-Based Learning: A study of I-Search Projects - Jing Lin The proposed empirical study will investigate students' online inquiry-based learning strategies, as well as identify conditions that can best support students' online inquiry-based learning. Two research questions are: How do students use different strategies to conduct their online inquiry-based learning projects to foster their learning? How do students use different I-Search strategies and other instructional supports in the online course to facilitate their inquiry-based learning process? Literature of theoretical and empirical research on inquiry-based learning is reviewed, and a critique of the literature is also provided. Methodology and implication of this study is described in detail in this proposal. Middle School Students' Problem Solving in Web-Enhanced Learning Environments: A Qualitative Case Study - Minchi C. Kim Despite the proliferation of the Web-based tools and technology-related guidelines for teaching and learning, issues regarding how to support students' problem-solving and higher-order thinking skills with computers remain unresolved. The purpose of this study was to examine how middle school students solve scientific problems in Web-enhanced learning environments (WELEs) and what factors influence their problem-solving, inquiry processes in the WELEs. Data were collected from individual interviews with 19 sixth graders, electronic artifacts (journal, note, online brochure), researchers' field notes, and videotapes. Preliminary findings revealed that students employ diverse problem-solving processes and strategies, and that multiple factors interact during students' problem-solving, inquiry processes: prior knowledge and interest, problem-solving skills, and the nature of the curriculum. This study indicates that it is critical to provide students with authentic problems and scaffolded tools along with teacher assistance to facilitate problem solving in technology-enhanced, inquiry classes. [Return] Session 3B ( 2:30 – 3:30 ) Room 418 - Learning Outside of Education The Other Side of Media Literacy: The Impact of Power Relations and Interests in the Production of Television News - Kim Carlyle One of the most common ways that people use the media to learn about the world is by watching television news. This research plan seeks to inform a study whose purpose is to understand how power relationships and interests influence the decision-making process in the production of television news. An understanding of the production process will help news consumers and students of media literacy to understand how certain interests and ideas become embedded in the media text. The study is a qualitative case study of the production of an evening news broadcast at a local television station. The researcher will use observation, interviews and documentary evidence to analyze the local television news production process and draw conclusions. The Informal Workplace Learning Experiences of Virtual Team Workers: A Look at the Role of Collaborative Technologies - Frankie S. Jones Technology's impact on work is especially powerful for virtual work teams, a growing segment of the work population, who depend substantially more on collaborative technologies than co-located teams. Virtual teams use technology not only to work but also to learn — learn as they adapt to virtual team processes and routines, learn as they construct individual and shared knowledge, and learn as they adapt to technologies designed to enable learning and collaborative processes. In 1997, the Educational Development Center found that seventy percent of job skills are learned informally from coworkers. In this presentation, I will review literature related to how collaborative technologies influence the informal learning experiences of virtual team members. Specific questions that I will address are: What are the inputs, processes, and events that trigger, support, and impede virtual informal workplace learning? What role does technology play in facilitating informal workplace learning among virtual team members? Walking Outside the Box: Experiences of K-12 Educators in a Cross Cultural Immersion Program to Costa Rica - Christa S. Hofacre The United States Latino population is rapidly growing; currently an estimated 39.9 million Latinos reside in the U.S. (U.S. Census Bureau, 2004). This rapid population growth has resulted in a severe gap in services provided to the Latino community by state agencies and community organizations. Cultural and language barriers are primary limitations to effective service delivery. The result is an underserved population in critical areas (i.e., education, social services, and healthcare. Teachers currently lack adequate expertise and preparation to understand and serve the rapidly changing U.S. demographic composition. To serve this changing population, educators must learn effective strategies, as well as possess the worldview and vision necessary to understand the “so what” necessitating these changes. One method currently utilized to accomplish this is cross-cultural training programs, however, little empirical data is available on their effectiveness. Utilizing the adult learning theory, experiential learning, this case study analyses participant learning of participants of a cross-cultural immersion program for K-12 personnel. [Return]
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