Five Education students presented their Honors projects at the 2024 Stevenson Scholars Fall Symposium on December 12.
Senior Lauren Banks presented a poster, “Exploring Philosophies of Education: A Comparative Analysis of Educational Approaches.” This project was conducted for PHIL 420: Philosophy of Education, and the findings were shared with students in both sections of the course to summarize the perspectives learned in the course and help them prepare their own Design a School project as a culminating assignment. Her faculty mentor was Dr. David Nicholson.
Senior Justice Simpson conducted two round-table discussions. One entitled, “The International Apple Core: A Comparative Analysis of the Educational Practices of the United States and Sierra Leone” emerged from direct observations, interviews, and participation at the International Apex Academy in Sierra Leone this summer. Justice presented his findings in PHIL 420: Philosophy of Education. His faculty mentor was Dr. David Nicholson. The second, “The Talk on Number Talks,” explored strategies for incorporating number talks (or math talks) into elementary math instruction to help solve mathematical problems. The project was conducted for ED 318: Methods of Teaching Elementary Mathematics, the faculty mentor was Dr. Beth Kobett.
Junior Gabby Green conducted a project for Dr. Valerie Valdez in ED 331: Instruction Reading Literacy, working with partner senior nursing major Kyle Maloney to create a children’s book based on healthy hygiene habits. Gabby also created a cognitive content dictionary for vocabulary words found in the book, comprehension questions related to the reading literacy course, and a science experiment to use in the classroom. The final copy of the book, Hygiene Heroes, was published on Kindle Direct Publishing and is currently being sold on Amazon.
Junior Early Childhood majors Zaria Smith and Stephanie Henry presented “Early Childhood Math Fluency Kit.” For a kindergarten and a second grade classroom, Zaria and Stephanie created kits to encourage family collaboration, develop number sense, and improve math fluency. Each kit contained all the materials and, with the help of Kerlyn Campos, included directions in English and Spanish. Their faculty mentor was Dr. Beth Kobett, professor of ED 318: Methods of Teaching Early Childhood Mathematics.
