Copyright (c) 2012 Valparaiso University All rights reserved. http://scholar.valpo.edu Recent documents in ValpoScholar en-us Wed, 16 May 2012 04:58:34 PDT 3600 http://scholar.valpo.edu/sarp/20 http://scholar.valpo.edu/sarp/20 Wed, 09 May 2012 08:53:29 PDT My action research explores the most effective strategies for grammar instruction to middle school students, specifically at the sixth grade level. The purpose of this research is to help myself and other educators teach grammar in the most effective way. Data will consist of student work samples from differentiated lessons and surveys from students and teachers (sixth grade). The method of research is simple—every grammar lesson I teach will be differentiated and will implement a different strategy. Student work samples will be taken from these lessons for analysis. Student improvement and/or declination will decide the best teaching strategies. Student/ teacher survey answers will also be factors in the decision. Key findings from this research are still inconclusive, since my research is incomplete. The significance of this research is to educate and assist educators with the instruction of grammar and to ensure all students have the opportunity to reach success.

]]> Heather Zaharias http://scholar.valpo.edu/sarp/16 http://scholar.valpo.edu/sarp/16 Wed, 09 May 2012 08:50:38 PDT Chinese characters are considered by many people as one of the most difficult words to read. The purpose of this project is to exam if Total Physical Response (TPR) strategy improves non-native speakers’ memory of Chinese characters. The action research took place in a high school class which was composed by 4 girls and 5 boys. In the first two weeks, regular vocabulary teaching methods were offered and several vocabulary quizzes were taken by students. For the next two weeks, TPR strategy was added to the vocabulary teaching and students took a couple quizzes again. The comparisons between the two groups of data show the vocabulary learning with TPR strategy was more efficient than without it. The research project supports the belief that TPR strategy should be used for Chinese vocabulary teaching in Chinese classrooms.

]]> Shuyi Feng http://scholar.valpo.edu/sarp/19 http://scholar.valpo.edu/sarp/19 Wed, 09 May 2012 08:50:00 PDT These days, most high schools are usually on semester terms. However, there are still some that use trimester terms, three 12-week trimesters, compared to two 17-week semesters. This research takes a look at how students handle a transition or routine change in the middle of the trimester. The 2^nd trimester had their routine changed mid-trimester and observations were made on their behavior. A survey was also given to them questioning how their transition went from having the regular teacher and a student teacher. The 3^rd trimester classes were also observed and given a survey. It was a little different for the 3^rd trimester because they started off the trimester with the student teacher and were used to the rules and did not experience a transitional period.

]]> Amy Ketchum http://scholar.valpo.edu/sarp/18 http://scholar.valpo.edu/sarp/18 Wed, 09 May 2012 08:49:59 PDT Depending on the material covered on any particular day, students may end up with anywhere from 5 minutes to 35 minutes to do their homework in class. Unfortunately, students will only stay on task for so long before they get off task. This research project will investigate the effects of playing classical music during in-class work time on the work ethic and environment of the classroom.

]]> Phil Luster-Bartz http://scholar.valpo.edu/sarp/17 http://scholar.valpo.edu/sarp/17 Wed, 09 May 2012 08:49:58 PDT The names of the notes on the treble clef staff are not currently taught in the Indiana State Music Curriculum. This concept is essential to the understanding, reading, and writing of music. Therefore, it is important that research based curriculum is developed for this topic. Fourth grade students will complete a pre-test and series of lessons about learning the note names. These lessons will include direct instruction, activities, and homework assignments. A different method or unit plan will be used at each school. Upon the conclusion of each unit, the students will re-take the pre-test as a post-test. Scores from both schools will be compared to analyze which method seemed to produce higher test scores.

]]> Emily Prough http://scholar.valpo.edu/sarp/15 http://scholar.valpo.edu/sarp/15 Wed, 09 May 2012 08:37:28 PDT As a student teacher, I already have a fair idea of how classroom discussion works: some students participate but most sit quietly. If I use discussion to indicate student learning, what data do I have available to gauge the "quiet" students? My research will survey students about reasons they have for not participating and suggestions they have for involving everyone in discussion. Also, I will be surveying middle school teachers to compare their ideas of discussion. This research is knowledge I hope to take with me to my first teaching position to be implemented into my own classroom.

]]> Elise Appold http://scholar.valpo.edu/sarp/14 http://scholar.valpo.edu/sarp/14 Wed, 09 May 2012 08:37:27 PDT Many times in a conflict there are three different accounts of what happened: person one’s side, person two’s side, and the truth. As often as this saying gets made and joked about, it does reveal truth about how perception and truth don’t always align. With this thought, I want to compare a student’s perceived participation in comparison with actual class participation. In many secondary and collegiate level classrooms, course grades are partially determined on class participation. Because of this, it would seem relevant to consider perceptions with reality so that students can better understand themselves. When a student has a good grasp on his or herself, then he or she is more likely to modify behavior for improvement. As for the actual measuring of data, a survey will be given out after one session of recording, then to also be followed by a second session. During each recording session, the primary principal/co-principal investigator will record how often each student raises their hand, how often each student is called on with and without their hand raised separately by tallies. The students will also turn in their assignment, not for a grade but for a completion of finished, half finished, or not finished as a score. Assignments will be tallied on two different situations: one prior to the survey and one after the survey. After all data has been collected and coded to protect identities, surveys will be compared to before and after survey recordings and then compared through mean, mode and median.

]]> Kristin Buch http://scholar.valpo.edu/ccls_fac_presentations/2 http://scholar.valpo.edu/ccls_fac_presentations/2 Mon, 07 May 2012 09:15:07 PDT This workshop discusses various ways to directly engage student patrons for outreach and programming purposes, while eliminating post-secondary administration red-tape that could hinder establishment of this programming. The presenters illustrate ways to delegate to certain students creation and promotion of library-related content for consumption by the rest of the campus community. The presenters show that engaging directly with this group of creative students, not only gives this student project experience and confidence, but frees the outreach and programming staff’s time commitment to explore additional ways to connect with the campus’ community. Going to the students directly and not relying on the academic administration to facilitate programming, can show the student body that the library staff is committed to their needs and is willing to have one-on-one interactions in relation to their library-related needs. This also allows the library staff to directly assess emerging student needs and personalize future initiatives to those needs. We specifically discuss embedded librarianship and non-curricular based initiatives for student affinity groups and library media projects undertaken at Valparaiso University in the past year.

]]> Rachael Muszkiewicz et al. http://scholar.valpo.edu/ccls_fac_presentations/1 http://scholar.valpo.edu/ccls_fac_presentations/1 Mon, 07 May 2012 09:15:06 PDT This is part 2 of 2 of the presentation, "Open Access: Resources of tomorrow or Resources of a lower-quality?" which was presented at the Indiana Library Federation (District 1) conference on May 1, 2012. In this presentation, I discuss current Open Access initiatives at Valparaiso University as well as the Valpo user experience in relation to Open Access resources. Part 1 of 2 was "Open Access: The Basics," presented by Joseph Coates, Reference Coordinator at Calumet College of St. Joseph.

]]> Jonathan Bull http://scholar.valpo.edu/sarp/13 http://scholar.valpo.edu/sarp/13 Mon, 07 May 2012 08:40:20 PDT My research is based on the student athletes in my classroom, who also are on the basketball team that I help coach. With my research, I plan to monitor my students’ grades while they are in season and interview them about the hard work they put into their sports and schoolwork. With this interview, I will be asking my students how much time they spend doing homework, how fatigued they are during school, how much time they spend playing their sport, and why they think their grades slip during season. Also, I plan on interviewing some of the girls on my basketball team to get their opinions on their motivation on schoolwork during their season.

]]> Katy Foster http://scholar.valpo.edu/sarp/12 http://scholar.valpo.edu/sarp/12 Mon, 07 May 2012 08:40:19 PDT As educators, it is our responsibility to help students in their journey to academic growth and discovery. Being such, many teachers find themselves struggling for that perfect balance between making students more comfortable and pushing them outside of their comfort zones. Many Language Arts teachers, if asked, would likely state that when they hold test preparation activities, the class is run in a relatively similar manner as it might be on any other given day. Yes, the reading material and subsequent questions might have been acquired from a test preparation booklet appropriate to the students’ grade level, but most other circumstances remain stable, unchanged. Students are often only expected to complete one reading and one coinciding set of questions with minimal limitations on where and from whom they might attain assistance when a problem occurs. The material is test preparation-worthy but the situation is not.

]]> Katie Genereux http://scholar.valpo.edu/sarp/11 http://scholar.valpo.edu/sarp/11 Mon, 07 May 2012 08:40:18 PDT The premise of this research project was to attempt to finds solutions to eradicate the problem of disengagement in the classroom when conducting group work and employing the use of group assignments in order to assess student learning. I wanted to propose a way teachers can strive to ensure all students within the group contribute to the groups’ success and learning without having some students disengage from the situation and rely on others to do the work of the group. The problem with group projects is too often the division of work becomes unfair, and only some members of the group are actually engaged in learning. The accountability for learning and progress forward shifts from the individual to the group, and this too often results in only part of the group making any learning contributions while the other part of the group has checked out and become disengaged from the learning.

]]> Samantha Glasgow http://scholar.valpo.edu/sarp/10 http://scholar.valpo.edu/sarp/10 Mon, 07 May 2012 08:40:17 PDT Through differentiation of physics curriculum, teachers are able to meet various students’ learning styles. Educators are able to differentiate the curriculum so that it builds on students’ strengths and addresses their weaknesses. An inventory can be administered to assess the students’ abilities with certain concepts, and this inventory could be compiled from various assessment questions. Once teachers assess areas of weakness, they are able to make adjustments to curriculum and lesson plans to address these issues. Teaching techniques found in Just-in-time Teaching: Blending Active Learning with Web Technology will be used in the lesson planning and instruction of the course taught in this research. After the curriculum and lesson plans have been implemented and completed by students, educators can then administer to their students the inventory again, now post instruction, to assess the effectiveness of their teaching techniques.

]]> Gavin Grillo http://scholar.valpo.edu/sarp/9 http://scholar.valpo.edu/sarp/9 Mon, 07 May 2012 08:40:16 PDT "The purpose of the study was to investigate how the time of day affects the ability of students to focus and remain attentive in the math classroom and the level of engagement during the class period. The math classes that were included in this study included Honors Algebra 2, Precalculus, and Algebra 1. These classes had students from grades 9 through 12. The study took place over the course of three months. Students were asked to fill out a survey about how the time of day affects their own attention level and their own sense of engagement and observations of the teacher were recorded daily. The research showed that students and teachers feel as if the time of day greatly affects students' ability to concentrate and the 'Time to Learn' seems to be in the mid-morning.'

]]> Caleb Grim http://scholar.valpo.edu/sarp/8 http://scholar.valpo.edu/sarp/8 Mon, 07 May 2012 08:40:15 PDT In order for teachers to most effectively help their students retain knowledge, instructors must be aware of the achievement students are attaining from their homework assignments. Assignments are used as tools by teachers to guide students on their learning paths. If the assignments are not structured properly or if students do not turn them in, the gain of students towards academic achievement is lessened. This research looks at the effect that assignment completion can have on academic success in the middle school classroom. Completion percentages and test scores will be looked at on a unit basis for two separate health units. The literature reviewed revolves around student work in relation to overall achievement in school. Overall, the results correlated positively between student assignment completion percentage and high achievement tests.

]]> Chris Hovan http://scholar.valpo.edu/sarp/7 http://scholar.valpo.edu/sarp/7 Mon, 07 May 2012 08:40:13 PDT What effect does a reward system have on first grade student behavior? Is there any way to have students behave better than they are currently? There is plenty of research conducted on different types of distracting behavior as well as different types of systems and programs that try to influence behavior. Three first grade classes were selected, observed, and data were recorded on any disruptive or unwanted behavior for three consecutive weeks. Post the first three weeks, a reward system was implanted for each class. Each class was given the opportunity to earn a “free day” in physical education class by decreasing their disruptive behavior during class. Only two of the classes were able to earn their free day.

]]> Nicholas Strzelecki http://scholar.valpo.edu/law_fac_pubs/36 http://scholar.valpo.edu/law_fac_pubs/36 Fri, 04 May 2012 07:12:12 PDT "This article defines animal law and discusses some of the areas of practice that deal with animal law issues."

]]> Rebecca J. Huss http://scholar.valpo.edu/vfr/vol1/iss2/9 http://scholar.valpo.edu/vfr/vol1/iss2/9 Mon, 30 Apr 2012 22:34:16 PDT Joe Ponepinto http://scholar.valpo.edu/vfr/vol1/iss2/8 http://scholar.valpo.edu/vfr/vol1/iss2/8 Mon, 30 Apr 2012 22:34:13 PDT Amie Whittemore http://scholar.valpo.edu/vfr/vol1/iss2/7 http://scholar.valpo.edu/vfr/vol1/iss2/7 Mon, 30 Apr 2012 22:34:10 PDT Corey Mertes