Scholarly Works, School of Education

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https://hdl.handle.net/10919/23745
Research articles, presentations, and other scholarship

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Browsing Scholarly Works, School of Education by Subject "1302 Curriculum and Pedagogy"

Now showing 1 - 7 of 7
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    Adapting Pink Time to promote self-regulated learning across course and student types
    Baird, Timothy D.; Kniola, David J.; Hartter, Joel; Carlson, Kimberly; Rogers, Sarah; Russell, Don; Tise, Joseph (2020)
    To explore new opportunities to promote self-regulated learning (SRL) across a variety of contexts, this study applies a novel assignment called Pink Time in seven different courses at two universities. The assignment asks students to “skip class, do anything you want, and give yourself a grade.” In each case, instructors adapted Pink Time to fit the needs of their course. Altogether, 165 students completed 270 self-directed projects and self-assessments targeting five component behaviors of SRL. Findings show that: (1) students were more likely to perceive success in certain behaviors of SRL than in others; (2) students’ perceptions across courses were similar for some behaviors but not others; and (3) subsequent iterations of the assignment supported higher perceived measures of some SRL behaviors but not others. Together these findings illustrate the value and flexibility of this progressive assignment as well as persistent challenges in supporting students’ SRL.
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    Agriscience Teacher Professional Development Focused on Teaching STEM Principles in the Floriculture Curriculum
    Ferand, Natalie K.; DiBenedetto, Catherine A.; Thoron, Andrew C.; Myers, Brian E. (2020)
    Agriscience teachers help support the mission of the American Floral Endowment to inspire people to pursue careers working with plants by providing curricula related to ornamental horticulture. Nevertheless, an overall understanding of how the horticulture industry is connected to the studies of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) has left a shortage of skilled professionals. A professional development program was designed to provide agriscience teachers with experiences focused on STEM concepts taught in horticulture and floriculture curricula. The Science Teaching Efficacy Belief (STEB) instrument was used before and after the three days of content specific inquiry-based instruction to determine participants’ perceptions of their performance pre, post, and post-post. While teachers showed growth in their mean scores for the Science Teaching Outcome Expectancy (STOE) and Personal Science Teaching Efficacy Beliefs (PSTEB) constructs of the STEB between all three testing periods, no significant difference was found across the period-of-time. It is recommended that teacher educators consider how to create professional development experiences for agriscience teachers that target content to positively impact teacher self-efficacy. Further, it is recommended that professional development opportunities contain follow-up communication to determine whether teachers utilize curricular resources and ascertain how the teacher’s new knowledge is transferred to inform instructional change. The final recommendation is to measure student learning outcomes as a result of content-specific teacher professional development.
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    Examining Preservice Teachers' Performance During a 14-Week Student Teaching Experience: A Longitudinal Study
    Coleman, Bradley M.; Ferand, Natalie K.; Bunch, J. C.; Israel, Glenn D. (2021)
    The student teaching experience is one of the most impactful and formative experiences of any preservice teachers' career. Student teaching provides preservice teachers with the professional knowledge and skills needed to be successful teachers through concrete experiences, which formalize professional behaviors. This longitudinal linear mixed model study aimed to examine the change of preservice teachers' performance over time during the student teaching experience. Preservice teacher performance was measured with a modified instrument, and instrument reliability was tested and confirmed as part of this study. As such, it was found that a positive and significant linear trend over the 14-week placement existed and a clear pattern of growth among preservice teachers in the constructs of instructional design, instructional practice, student-centered teaching, teacher professionalism, and reflective and autonomous practitioner. It is evident that the student teaching experience is a valuable macro-level experience that provides a plethora of beneficial micro-level experiences. It is recommended that teacher educators continue to provide preservice teachers with the opportunity to participate in the immersive student teacher experience for a prolonged period. Recommendations for conducting evaluations and delivering feedback to student teachers were also made. As demonstrated in this study, time spent in the student teaching experience is a key attribute to preservice teachers' growth and development as professional educators.
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    Measuring how the degree of content knowledge determines performance outcomes in an engineering design-based simulation environment for middle school students
    Bowen, Bradley D.; DeLuca, V. William; Franzen, Marissa Marie S. (Pergamon-Elsevier, 2016-01-01)
    Many secondary schools offer STEM-based technology and engineering courses that use simulation modeling to teach engineering design. However, the performance of the final design is usually dependent upon the student's ability for knowledge application. When a student reaches the limit of this content knowledge, they may resort to other problem solving processes, such as a trial and error approach, to improve their design. This study measures the outcomes of students with varying levels of content knowledge to determine how the level of knowledge determines their performance within a virtual design simulation. The results show that students with a greater content knowledge initially have significantly better performance outcomes. However, if given enough opportunities to engage in the simulation activity, students with less content knowledge perform equally well.
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    The Relationship of Prior FFA Membership on Perceived Ability to Manage an FFA Chapter
    Ferand, Natalie K.; Thoron, Andrew C.; Myers, Brian E. (American Association for Agricultural Education, 2020)
    In order to fill the need in the agriscience teacher shortage, preservice agriscience teacher education needs to seek preservice teachers who may not have had a traditional school-based agriculture background. The influx of new teachers without a school-based agricultural education background brings both opportunities and challenges. Gaps in needs between those teachers who had and those teachers who did not have school-based agricultural education and FFA membership have different teacher professional development needs. This study investigated the professional development need areas based on a needs assessment that investigated knowledge, relevance, and mean weighted discrepancy scores of agriscience teachers who were or were not FFA members. Participants across both groups indicated professional development needs for FFA chapter management. Teachers who were not previously FFA members identified stronger needs across 11 of 13 items. There was a significant difference found between the two groups for four of the 13 chapter management items. Recommendations for future research and programmatic development consisted of the consideration of specific sessions of a basic FFA knowledge with a second session that focuses on technical skill attainment.
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    Teacher preparedness: A comparison of alternatively and traditionally certified technology and engineering education teachers
    Bowen, Bradley D.; Williams, Thomas O. Jr.; Napoleon, L.; Marx, A. (Virginia Tech Libraries, 2019-03-01)
    There is a national conversation about a secondary teacher shortage and the lack of qualified teachers in the classroom. Over recent years, there has been a rise in the number of alternatively certified teachers to fill these positions. This is particularly true in the field of career and technical education. However, there is a debate on whether an alternatively certified teacher is as effective as a traditionally certified teacher. The level of preparedness has been identified as a critical factor in teacher effectiveness. This study looks at the differences in perceived preparedness of early career technology and engineering education teachers to determine if there is a difference between alternatively and traditionally certified teachers. The Schools and Staffing Survey Teacher Questionnaire was used as a generalizable national dataset. The results show that there is no statistically significant difference in the level of perceived preparedness of early career alternatively and traditionally certified technology and engineering education teachers. One construct within preparedness, behavior management, was statistically significant for traditionally certified teachers. By better understanding the nature of teachers in regard to preparedness and certification type, further research can be conducted to better prepare teachers in the field of technology and engineering education.