Faculty of Education - Theses

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End date: 2021 × Type: Masters Research thesis × Subject: Attitudes × Subject: Learning ×

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    Interpreting thinking routines : identifying and encouraging thoughtful action
    Nugent, Paul Edward ( 2008)
    This research explains how thinking routines encourage thoughtful actions in middle school students. Thinking routines involve doing significant things with knowledge. The regular use of thinking routines assists students individually and collectively, to experience patterns of inquiry. Using these routines in the classroom invites students to explore and manage their thoughtful actions. The method of this study used action research to extend knowledge of dispositions found in the literature. Dispositions are acquired patterns of behavior. Therefore, being strategic in your thinking is under one's control, as opposed to being automatically activated. Dispositions were renamed learning attitudes. Attitude is closely associated with behavior and control over what one does. A learning attitude is more easily identifiable within a student's. personal lexicon. An iterative sequence was then used to analyze and report on key words which represented learning attitudes found in student work. Distinctive features were interpreted by the researcher to emerge from this sequence grounded in work samples. Understanding these distinctive features empowers teachers to make constructive judgements. Without good judgement it is difficult to encourage thoughtful and reflective actions. Reflective thinking enables us to act in a deliberate and intentional manner. Deliberate actions provide power of control over knowledge.
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    The role of creativity in the education of underachieving secondary students: a study of the theoretical bases and practical applications of creativity to motivate underachieving students to learn
    Lane, Rosalinde Suzanne ( 1994)
    Underachievement is a difficult and imprecise concept to measure and complex reasons and experiences trigger disengagement from the process of schooling. Those students that do not gain the opportunity to develop a feeling of success and achievement ultimately become alienated, and thus fail to realise their potential. Success in schooling comes when students are engaged in the learning process, and stimulated in ways that allow them to gain a sense of achievement and self worth. A critical but creative examination of existing school resources can result in student turn-around and generally improve both the learning environment for the student and the working environment for the teacher. The study found that the participants desired changes to the school with adjustments to both the organisation and the basic aims of the staff. This places a responsibility on curriculum planners to be aware of the possibilities which could be generated by more innovative programing and a closer liaison with the creative arts and special needs personnel. Ideal practice would be for all students to have the opportunity to think and be creative across the whole curriculum and that those teachers involved in creative programing can sustain the effort over time.