The Effects of Different Musical Auditory Backgrounds on a High School Student’s Comprehension Performance

The Mozart Effect is a phenomenon where it is believed that students benefit from listening to classical music while studying or completing a class task. Studies released about the Mozart Effect have proven to not be the most reliable or replicable of studies. Similarly, very few studies have been released using music other than classical to see how all genres of music impact a students performance in the classroom. This research study began with a pre-assessment survey to determine characteristics of the population sample, 79 students varying from grades 10-12 in both Advanced Placement and College Prep English courses. The next part of the study included an experiment where students were to complete a portion of a released ACT reading excerpt. Students were to perform the task in silence, listening to a Mozart Sonata, or while listening to one of five pieces deemed to be the most popular of the year 2018. Upon completion, students were to complete a post-assessment survey in which they reviewed how they felt about the experience. Through an ANOVA, the scores from all students in the silent group, the classical group, and the popular group were compared in order to determine if any one treatment group performed significantly better or worse than others in terms of accuracy, as well as to see if different auditory factors were to blame. The results proved to be insignificant, showing how students do not perform better or worse on comprehension tasks when different auditory backgrounds are applied.

The Editor’s Note: Course corrections

A pair of reports from near the turn of the 20th century help make sense of current debates related to school curricula. The first, from the Committee of Ten, advocates a college-prep curriculum. The second, Cardinal Principles emphasizes vocational training. Kappan Editor in Chief Rafael Heller explain about questions about schools’ role in preparing for college and for careers have continued to the present day.

The Integration of Color and the Retention of Text

The following essay will present research that studies the interweaving of color and memory. The purpose of this research is to evaluate the effectiveness of different formats of color within a prose fiction text, and to show how color affects the retention of the information read. To perform the study, one passage made in three different formats – black and white throughout the text, colored font on random words, or highlighted text on random words – will be randomly assigned to Advanced Placement (AP) and College Prep (Regular) English class juniors, followed by a test based on accuracy. The results show that color has a more positive influence than normal black and white text in regards to retaining information. Moreover, women overall were seen to perform significantly better on the text with highlighted text compared to colored font, whereas men overall were seen to be more successful using colored font than highlight. One can conclude from this research that using color to study and remember information for a test or a job-related interview can improve one’s performance. Due to the positive influence of color, students should ask their teachers to promote a more color-coded study plan, present key parts in a slideshow using highlighting or colored font, or more, which could lead to higher student scores and steer attention towards the information being given.

The Relationship Between Tracking and School Violence

Tracking in the American education is where students are formally assigned/labeled college prep, general, or vocational. In some areas of the United States, tracking/labeling begins as early as kindergarten. IQ and early achievement tests designed to measure “ability” determine track/label placement in the elementary school years, thus setting in place an educational trajectory for the students' educational tenure. Social reaction or labeling theory holds that criminality is promoted by becoming negatively labeled by significant others. Labels such as “gifted,” “honors,” “average,” “remedial” give certification of overall ability or worth. These labels teach students that if the school does not identify them as capable in earlier grades, they should not expect to do well later. Such labels isolate kids from society and lock them into lives of antisocial behaviors. Labels create expectations that the labeled person will act in a certain way. Eventually these students begin to accept their labels as personal identities, locking them further into lives of crime and deviance.

Teaching High School Cultural Studies in the Age of Trump

In the fall of 2016, I began my third year teaching Cultural Studies Seminar at Chicago Bulls College Prep (CBCP), where I’d been working as a teacher since 2010. CBCP is a campus of the Noble Network of Charter Schools and is located on Chicago’s Near West Side. The school serves a population of students that is roughly 2/3 Latino and 1/3 African American, and about 90% of CBCP’s students receive free or reduced-price lunch. Every year, 100% of seniors are accepted to college. I had first devised the course in the fall of 2014, when my principal and assistant principal gave me permission to re-focus the 11th-grade literacy class I was teaching. I wanted to specifically study racism, classism, sexism, and heterosexism in America, with an eye toward how those systems operate and how they can be—and have been—resisted. We put our heads together and came up with the name “Cultural Studies Seminar.” The essay describes teaching the course during the semester of the 2016 U.S. Presidential election.

One English Language Arts Teacher’s Journey as a Secondary Teacher-Mentor: Life in the Hyphen

This article shares the results of a case study that explored Annie’s socially situated identity as a secondary English Language Arts teacher-mentor over 5 years at an urban school. Annie’s identities as a teacher-mentor occupied the space of the hyphen—sometimes a teacher, sometimes a mentor, sometimes both. Using discourse analysis, we describe how Annie positioned herself and was positioned as a mentor and a teacher. We explore Annie’s transformations informed by figured worlds associated with the Discourses of Mentor and Teacher at College Prep. Annie’s teacher-mentor identity shifted, evolved, and overlapped in this space as she interacted at College Prep and was influenced by institutional and societal Discourses, including students’ home Discourses. The study points to the need for more and perhaps different kinds of support for mentor-teacher/teacher-mentors who work in urban school environments to prepare them to negotiate potential conflicts in their identities.

Using Weebly to Create E-Portfolios

In an effort to engage in Computer Assisted Language Learning in the classroom, Katie McClintic and Summer Peixoto were inspired to use digital portfolios, or ePortfolios, while taking classes for TESOL certification in online teaching from TESOL, Inc. Katie went through the ePortfolio creation process for the online course and is now using the same principles with her KAUST class this semester as a culminating project for their college prep year experience at KU. Similarly, last year Summer created a blended learning online hybrid course centered on portfolio building for Kansai students to illustrate their learning experiences over the course of 2013. Throughout this six-week course, Melissa Stamer-Peterson’s role was to assist in the classroom and give feedback on student portfolios. As members of the LEO team, Summer, Melissa, and Katie are attempting to lead by example by incorporating technology into their courses and pursuing professional development opportunities that include the use of CALL in daily instruction and special programs.