Browsing GSE Theses and Dissertations by Issue Date
Now showing items 1-20 of 328
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Children’s Internalizing Symptoms in Anticipation of the Transition to Middle School: Causal Inferences in the Context of a Natural Experiment
(2014-10-22)The middle-school transition has long been linked with poor social-emotional and academic outcomes for children. However to date, research on the middle-school transition has been predominantly observational, not experimental, ... -
School-Based Data Teams Ask the Darnedest Questions About Statistics: Three Essays in the Epistemology of Statistical Consulting and Teaching
(2014-10-22)The essays in this thesis attempt to answer the most difficult questions that I have faced as a teacher and consultant for school-based data teams. When we report statistics to our fellow educators, what do we say and what ... -
Effects of Socio-Cognitive Conflicts on Group Cognition and Group Performance
(2014-10-22)Socio-cognitive conflict is a mechanism that drives cognitive development/learning in collaborative learning. Such conflicts occur when individuals have different perspectives on the same problem. To adequately solve ... -
Teach Gwinnett: A Case Study
(2014-10-22)Attempting to drive change through federal policy is a complicated business. On the one hand, legislation that is too prescriptive may result in unintended consequences. On the other hand, federal policy lacking substance ... -
Trends in the Salience of Data Collected in a Multi User Virtual Environment: an Exploratory Study
(2014-10-22)In this study, by exploring patterns in the degree of physical salience of the data the students collected, I investigated the relationship between the level of students’ tendency to frame explanations in terms of complex ... -
The Practical or the Purposeful: A Study of Academic Decision-Making Among College Students in an Elite Institutional Context
(2014-10-22)In this dissertation, I investigate how thirty-nine undergraduates at Harvard College make one of their first consequential, academic decisions in the context of a powerful cultural narrative about the economic purpose of ... -
Girls Doing Science: A Case Study of Science Literacy in All-Female Middle Grade Classrooms
(2014-10-22)In the face of low adolescent literacy rates (NCES, 2012), concerns about the nation’s prospects of remaining competitive in science and technology (Hill, Corbett, & St. Rose, 2010), a persistent gender gap in science ... -
Tipping the Scales: Social Justice and Educational Measurement
(2014-10-22)In this work I address foundational concerns at the interface of educational measurement and social justice. Following John Rawls’s philosophical methods, I build and justify an ethical framework for guiding practices ... -
Learning to Teach to the Common Core State Standards: Examining the Role of Teachers’ Collaboration, Principals’ Leadership, and Professional Development
(2015-02-18)Recent research on the relationship between standards and teachers’ practice suggests that teachers are unlikely to make changes to practice without extensive opportunities for learning about standards with colleagues. My ... -
Examining the Role of Parent Involvement in College Access for Low-Income Students: A Mixed Methods Study of the FUEL Program
(2015-02-18)In this dissertation, I examine how one college access program, Families United in Educational Leadership (FUEL), utilizes parents as a strategy to encourage college preparation among low-income students. FUEL serves 500 ... -
Serving the Poor Differently: The Effects of Private and Public Schools on Children’s Academic Achievement in Basic Education in Mexico
(2015-02-19)Private elementary schools in Mexico are usually seen by wealthy and middle-class families as an alternative to public education. However, private schools have not been seen until very recently as an academic alternative ... -
Moving the Discussion Forward Through Surprises and Dilemmas: Teacher Learning in Academic Discussion
(2015-02-19)Academic discussion deepens learning when students share multiple perspectives, challenge propositions, and build on each other’s ideas to develop their own understanding (Michaels, O’Connor, & Resnick, 2008; Cazden, 1988). ... -
Implicit Learning: Development, Individual Differences, and Educational Implications
(2015-03-10)This dissertation attempts to link models from cognitive neuroscience with problems and models from education research as well as to advance our understanding of implicit learning. In addition to a review of the current ... -
Creating Value for Teachers: Product Development at the Intersection of Education and Technology
(2015-05-04)Between 2011 and 2014, investment funding for education technology companies increased by an average of 40% per year (Catalano, 2015). With an expanding footprint and funding stream, education technology companies have ... -
Spanning Boundaries in Changing Self, Site and Sector: Cross-Departmental Community Engagement in Denver Public Schools
(2015-05-04)My capstone is an exploration into stages of boundary spanning and the challenges that result from attempting to work at the intersection of a critical power relationship: the school district and the community it serves. ... -
The State Education Agency: The Chief Learning Organization - Lessons From the Rhode Island Department of Education
(2015-05-04)In a post Race to the Top and No Child Left Behind environment, state education agencies (SEA’s) play an increasing role in influencing the policy and practices of schools and districts. Yet, the challenges of SEA’s are ... -
Organizing for Improvement in an Urban School District: Shifting From a Culture of Compliance to a Culture of Collective Responsibility
(2015-05-04)There is high demand for understanding the ways in which a central office can best support school improvement and student growth. This Capstone examines how a cross-functional senior leadership team collaborated to design ... -
Using Student and Teacher Survey Data to Improve Schools
(2015-05-04)Amid a growing debate over the use of standardized test scores, states and districts across the country have begun using alternative measures of school quality, including surveys of students and teachers. As a result, many ... -
The Shifting Role of State Education Agencies: Lessons Learned From Strategic Planning With the Delaware Department of Education
(2015-05-04)Through this capstone, I explore the unique dynamics I encountered in the Delaware Department of Education during the department’s final year as a federal Race to the Top grant recipient. This document describes my intended ... -
Shifting From a Plan to a Process: School Improvement Plans in the Cambridge Public Schools
(2015-05-04)Although school improvement plans (SIPs) are common in American school systems, they are widely viewed as compliance documents that have little connection to the daily work of improving teaching and learning. In this ...