Scholarship & Research
Permanent URI for this communityhttps://scholarworks.montana.edu/handle/1/1
Browse
2 results
Search Results
Item Don't peek: the cost of looking at your cell phone in science class(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 2019) Etter, Eric; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Walter WoolbaughThe purpose of this study was to try to quantify the effects cell phones have on learning in the science classroom. It attempts to show the various ways cell phones affect both students and teachers by taking a closer look at the effectiveness of one specific cell phone policy. The implementation of the new cell phone policy asked students to either put their phone on the side of the classroom or keep it hidden in their backpacks. Data was collected from student test scores, student surveys, teacher notes, and a survey of middle school principals and teachers. This data was analyzed for trends and patterns in order to both quantitatively and descriptively show the effects cell phones have on the learning environment. In the end, this study suggests that students who are separated from their phones perform significantly better than students who keep their phones in their pockets and/or backpacks. However, the implemented policy proved to be an ineffective way of eliminating the cell phone distraction; especially for the students who chose to keep their phone. In addition, this study also showed that removing cell phones may not only improve student learning but also creates an atmosphere that promotes better student-teacher relationships. In conclusion, the research conducted in this study suggests that the proximity of the learner's cell phone as an inversely proportional effect on learning. As such, it is important to continue to find better ways to separate learners from their cell phones for the betterment of everyone in the classroom.Item The place-based classroom in transition(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 2012) Munro-Schuster, Maria Danelle; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Robert PetroneIn this exploration of place, place-based pedagogy and transition, the author confronts the meaning of place in education, questioning her own use and understanding of the places in which she teaches and the way in which traditional place-based pedagogy has been regarded. Calling attention to the lack of place-based pedagogy in the college classroom, using Robert Brooke's Guiding Principles of a Place Conscious Education (2003) as framework, she walks the reader through the design of such a course for a basic writing classroom. Taking a step back from the traditional usage of place, which places an emphasis on both naturalness and permanence, the author focuses the course on the unnatural and temporary environment of the University. Writings collected from the course allows the author to further contemplate her students' understanding of the University as a place, and who they perceive themselves to be in the place of the University. The author likens the experience of college to that of travel, suggesting college is a temporary place that provides a time of neutrality in which new identities can be explored, as Tourist Studies' White and White (2004) put forth of travel. This thinking lends her analysis of student writings collected during the course to a theoretical framework used in the analysis of place narratives in tourist studies, as well as William Bridges' work on life transitions (2004). She finds that students initially indicate they are located in an imaginary University in which they are working through the process of grieving. She also finds that the University becomes the backdrop for student performances which assist in the process of identity (re)construction. These analyses indicate the complex multi-functionality the place of the University serves for students and how it can be in opposition to how it is perceived and utilized by instructors. With self at the center of initial understandings of a new place, this research advises that students can be facilitated through grieving, with the assistance of writing, to a state of neutrality where awareness of new educational concepts and identity formation can transpire.