Place for video games : a theoretical and pedagogical framework for multiliteracies learning in English studies

Students are now involved in a vastly different textual landscape than many English scholars, one that relies on the “reading” and interpretation of multiple channels of simultaneous information. As a response to these new kinds of literate practices, my dissertation adds to the growing body of research on multimodal literacies, narratology in new media, and rhetoric through an examination of the place of video games in English teaching and research. I describe in this dissertation a hybridized theoretical basis for incorporating video games in English classrooms. This framework for textual analysis includes elements from narrative theory in literary study, rhetorical theory, and literacy theory, and when combined to account for the multiple modalities and complexities of gaming, can provide new insights about those theories and practices across all kinds of media, whether in written texts, films, or video games. In creating this framework, I hope to encourage students to view texts from a meta-level perspective, encompassing textual construction, use, and interpretation. In order to foster meta-level learning in an English course, I use specific theoretical frameworks from the fields of literary studies, narratology, film theory, aural theory, reader-response criticism, game studies, and multiliteracies theory to analyze a particular video game: World of Goo. These theoretical frameworks inform pedagogical practices used in the classroom for textual analysis of multiple media. Examining a video game from these perspectives, I use analytical methods from each, including close reading, explication, textual analysis, and individual elements of multiliteracies theory and pedagogy. In undertaking an in-depth analysis of World of Goo, I demonstrate the possibilities for classroom instruction with a complex blend of theories and pedagogies in English courses. This blend of theories and practices is meant to foster literacy learning across media, helping students develop metaknowledge of their own literate practices in multiple modes. Finally, I outline a design for a multiliteracies course that would allow English scholars to use video games along with other texts to interrogate texts as systems of information. In doing so, students can hopefully view and transform systems in their own lives as audiences, citizens, and workers.

An Experience-Driven Pedagogy for the Instruction of Software Testing in Computer Science

In the realm of computer programming, the experience of writing a program is used to reinforce concepts and evaluate ability. This research uses three case studies to evaluate the introduction of testing through Kolb's Experiential Learning Model (ELM). We then analyze the impact of those testing experiences to determine methods for improving future courses. The first testing experience that students encounter are unit test reports in their early courses. This course demonstrates that automating and improving feedback can provide more ELM iterations. The JUnit Generation (JUG) tool also provided a positive experience for the instructor by reducing the overall workload. Later, undergraduate and graduate students have the opportunity to work together in a multi-role Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) course. The interactions use usability analysis techniques with graduate students as usability experts and undergraduate students as design engineers. Students get experience testing the user experience of their product prototypes using methods varying from heuristic analysis to user testing. From this course, we learned the importance of the instructors role in the ELM. As more roles were added to the HCI course, a desire arose to provide more complete, quality assured software. This inspired the addition of unit testing experiences to the course. However, we learned that significant preparations must be made to apply the ELM when students are resistant. The research presented through these courses was driven by the recognition of a need for testing in a Computer Science curriculum. Our understanding of the ELM suggests the need for student experience when being introduced to testing concepts. We learned that experiential learning, when appropriately implemented, can provide benefits to the Computer Science classroom. When examined together, these course-based research projects provided insight into building strong testing practices into a curriculum.

Clean water in the classroom : understanding the importance of water quality

This study’s objective was to answer three research questions related to students’ knowledge and attitudes about water quality and availability issues. It is important to understand what knowledge students have about environmental problems such as these, because today’s students will become the problem solvers of the future. If environmental problems, such as those related to water quality, are ever going to be solved, students must be environmentally literate. Several methods of data collection were used. Surveys were given to both Bolivian and Jackson High School students in order to comparison their initial knowledge and attitudes about water quality issues. To study the effects of instruction, a unit of instruction about water quality issues was then taught to the Jackson High School students to see what impact it would have on their knowledge. In addition, the learning of two different groups of Jackson High School students was compared—one group of general education students and a second group of students that were learning in an inclusion classroom and included special education students and struggling learners form the general education population. Student and teacher journals, a unit test, and postsurvey responses were included in the data set. Results suggested that when comparing Bolivian students and Jackson High School students, Jackson High School students were more knowledgeable concerning clean water infrastructure and its importance, despite the fact that these issues were less relevant to their lives than for their Bolivian counterparts. Although overall, the data suggested that all the Jackson High students showed evidence that the instruction impacted their knowledge, the advanced Biology students appeared to show stronger gains than their peers in an inclusion classroom.

Governmentality in higher education : a critical analysis of the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE)

In this dissertation, the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) serves as a nodal point through which to examine the power relations shaping the direction and practices of higher education in the twenty-first century. Theoretically, my analysis is informed by Foucault’s concept of governmentality, briefly defined as a technology of power that influences or shapes behavior from a distance. This form of governance operates through apparatuses of security, which include higher education. Foucault identified three essential characteristics of an apparatus—the market, the milieu, and the processes of normalization—through which administrative mechanisms and practices operate and govern populations. In this project, my primary focus is on the governance of faculty and administrators, as a population, at residential colleges and universities. I argue that the existing milieu of accountability is one dominated by the neoliberal assumption that all activity—including higher education—works best when governed by market forces alone, reducing higher education to a market-mediated private good. Under these conditions, what many in the academy believe is an essential purpose of higher education—to educate students broadly, to contribute knowledge for the public good, and to serve as society’s critic and social conscience (Washburn 227)—is being eroded. Although NSSE emerged as a form of resistance to commercial college rankings, it did not challenge the forces that empowered the rankings in the first place. Indeed, NSSE data are now being used to make institutions even more responsive to market forces. Furthermore, NSSE’s use has a normalizing effect that tends to homogenize classroom practices and erode the autonomy of faculty in the educational process. It also positions students as part of the system of surveillance. In the end, if aspects of higher education that are essential to maintaining a civil society are left to be defined solely in market terms, the result may be a less vibrant and, ultimately, a less just society.

Investigation of the effect of using data collection technology on students' attitudes to science instruction

The purpose of this project was to investigate the effect of using of data collection technology on student attitudes towards science instruction. The study was conducted over the course of two years at Madison High School in Adrian, Michigan, primarily in college preparatory physics classes, but also in one college preparatory chemistry class and one environmental science class. A preliminary study was conducted at a Lenawee County Intermediate Schools student summer environmental science day camp. The data collection technology used was a combination of Texas Instruments TI-84 Silver Plus graphing calculators and Vernier LabPro data collection sleds with various probeware attachments, including motion sensors, pH probes and accelerometers. Students were given written procedures for most laboratory activities and were provided with data tables and analysis questions to answer about the activities. The first year of the study included a pretest and posttest measuring student attitudes towards the class they were enrolled in. Pre-test and post-test data were analyzed to determine effect size, which was found to be very small (Coe, 2002). The second year of the study focused only on a physics class and used Keller’s ARCS model for measuring student motivation based on the four aspects of motivation: Attention, Relevance, Confidence and Satisfaction (Keller, 2010). According to this model, it was found that there were two distinct groups in the class, one of which was motivated to learn and the other that was not. The data suggest that the use of data collection technology in science classes should be started early in a student’s career, possibly in early middle school or late elementary. This would build familiarity with the equipment and allow for greater exploration by the student as they progress through high school and into upper level science courses.

International teachers in the American classroom : deposing the myth of monolingualism

An international graduate teaching assistant‘s way of speaking may pose a challenge for college students enrolled in STEM courses at American universities. Students commonly complain that unfamiliar accents interfere with their ability to comprehend the IGTA or that they have difficulty making sense of the IGTA‘s use of words or phrasing. These frustrations are echoed by parents who pay tuition bills. The issue has provoked state and national legislative debates over universities‘ use of IGTAs. However, potentially productive debates and interventions have been stalemated due to the failure to confront deeply embedded myths and cultural models that devalue otherness and privilege dominant peoples, processes, and knowledge. My research implements a method of inquiry designed to identify and challenge these cultural frameworks in order to create an ideological/cultural context that will facilitate rather than impede the valuable efforts that are already in place. Discourse theorist Paul Gee‘s concepts of master myth, cultural models, and meta-knowledge offer analytical tools that I have adapted in a unique research approach emphasizing triangulation of both analytic methods and data sites. I examine debates over IGTA‘s use of language in the classroom among policy-makers, parents of college students, and scholars and teachers. First, the article "Teach Impediment" provides a particularly lucid account of the public debate over IGTAs. My analysis evidences the cultural hold of the master myth of monolingualism in public policy-making. Second, Michigan Technological University‘s email listserve Parentnet is analyzed to identify cultural models supporting monolingualism implicit in everyday conversation. Third, a Chronicle of Higher Education colloquy forum is analyzed to explore whether scholars and teachers who draw on communication and linguistic research overcome the ideological biases identified in earlier chapters. My analysis indicates that a persistent ideological bias plays out in these data sites, despite explicit claims by invested speakers to the contrary. This bias is a key reason why monolingualism remains so tenaciously a part of educational practice. Because irrational expectations and derogatory assumptions have gone unchallenged, little progress has been made despite decades of earnest work and good intentions. Therefore, my recommendations focus on what we say not what we intend.

How do we teach usability? An Investigation of Usability Instruction in Technical Communication

This dissertation investigates the curricular implementation of usability instruction in technical communication. Though there are a plethora of publications and studies on usability in technical communication, little discussion focuses on usability instruction in the classroom or its implementation in the curriculum. Thus, this exploratory qualitative research seeks to contribute to a better understanding about technical communication students' and instructors' knowledge of and experiences with usability practices in the classroom, the challenges that impacted their usability efforts, and their recommendations on how their efforts could be improved. The study results demonstrate the need for more productive discussion on this issue and for developing more effective strategies for implementing usability in the classroom.

HIGH PERFORMANCE, LOW COST SUBSPACE DECOMPOSITION AND POLYNOMIAL ROOTING FOR REAL TIME DIRECTION OF ARRIVAL ESTIMATION: ANALYSIS AND IMPLEMENTATION

This thesis develops high performance real-time signal processing modules for direction of arrival (DOA) estimation for localization systems. It proposes highly parallel algorithms for performing subspace decomposition and polynomial rooting, which are otherwise traditionally implemented using sequential algorithms. The proposed algorithms address the emerging need for real-time localization for a wide range of applications. As the antenna array size increases, the complexity of signal processing algorithms increases, making it increasingly difficult to satisfy the real-time constraints. This thesis addresses real-time implementation by proposing parallel algorithms, that maintain considerable improvement over traditional algorithms, especially for systems with larger number of antenna array elements. Singular value decomposition (SVD) and polynomial rooting are two computationally complex steps and act as the bottleneck to achieving real-time performance. The proposed algorithms are suitable for implementation on field programmable gated arrays (FPGAs), single instruction multiple data (SIMD) hardware or application specific integrated chips (ASICs), which offer large number of processing elements that can be exploited for parallel processing. The designs proposed in this thesis are modular, easily expandable and easy to implement. Firstly, this thesis proposes a fast converging SVD algorithm. The proposed method reduces the number of iterations it takes to converge to correct singular values, thus achieving closer to real-time performance. A general algorithm and a modular system design are provided making it easy for designers to replicate and extend the design to larger matrix sizes. Moreover, the method is highly parallel, which can be exploited in various hardware platforms mentioned earlier. A fixed point implementation of proposed SVD algorithm is presented. The FPGA design is pipelined to the maximum extent to increase the maximum achievable frequency of operation. The system was developed with the objective of achieving high throughput. Various modern cores available in FPGAs were used to maximize the performance and details of these modules are presented in detail. Finally, a parallel polynomial rooting technique based on Newton’s method applicable exclusively to root-MUSIC polynomials is proposed. Unique characteristics of root-MUSIC polynomial’s complex dynamics were exploited to derive this polynomial rooting method. The technique exhibits parallelism and converges to the desired root within fixed number of iterations, making this suitable for polynomial rooting of large degree polynomials. We believe this is the first time that complex dynamics of root-MUSIC polynomial were analyzed to propose an algorithm. In all, the thesis addresses two major bottlenecks in a direction of arrival estimation system, by providing simple, high throughput, parallel algorithms.

THE EFFECTS OF WEB-BASED TECHNOLOGICAL RESOURCES IN A RURAL SCIENCE CLASSROOM

Today’s technology is evolving at an exponential rate. Everyday technology is finding more inroads into our education system. This study seeks to determine if having access to technology, including iPad tablets and a teacher's physical science webpage resources (videos, PowerPoint® presentations, and audio podcasts), assists ninth grade high school students in attaining greater comprehension and improved scientific literacy. Comprehension of the science concepts was measured by comparing current student pretest and post test scores on a teacher-written assessment. The current student post test scores were compared with prior classes’ (2010-2011 and 2009-2010) to determine if there was a difference in outcomes between the technology interventions and traditional instruction. Students entered responses to a technology survey that measured intervention usage and their perception of helpfulness of each intervention. The current year class’ mean composite scores, between the pretest and post test increased by 6.9 points (32.5%). Student composite scores also demonstrated that the interventions were successful in helping a majority of students (64.7%) attain the curriculum goals. The interventions were also successful in increasing student scientific literacy by meeting all of Bloom's cognitive levels that were assessed. When compared with prior 2010-2011 and 2009-2010 classes, the current class received a higher mean post test score indicating a positive effect of the use of technological interventions. The survey showed a majority of students utilized at least some of the technology interventions and perceived them as helpful, especially the videos and PowerPoint® presentations.