Abstract/Notes: The purpose of this research was to optimize the development of the will, a level of self-regulation, and cognitive function of primary-aged children through the habitual use of designated meditative activities. Past research and studies relating to meditation, neuroscience, the sensory needs of children and human development have determined that age-appropriate meditation exercises with preschool children would foster the development of self-regulation (Schwatz, 2011; Semple, Lee & Rosa, Miller, 2009; Thompson & Raisor, 2013; Zelazo & Lyons 2011). This four week study integrated tangible meditation tools and outlets: a yoga mat, bolster, a booklet with pictures of four restorative yoga poses, a wood hand-massaging ball, noise-cancelling headphones and a meditation space with a floor cushion. It involved 28 children between the ages of three and six-years-old in a private Montessori school in Minnesota. Data collection included a daily observation chart, behavioral scale, tally and end of study parent feedback/observations. Results showed the meditative activities did not increase the children’s self-regulated behavior. However, it did indicate any "work" done with intention could be considered a meditative activity that does not necessarily consist of yoga or massage. Suggestions for further research include an extended study period that could expand to providing meditative opportunities for infants and toddlers and interviewing adults who were exposed to meditative activities as a primary-aged child, infant or toddler. Following up with adults who were provided the opportunity to engage in meditative activities as a child may solidify whether exposure to meditative activities at an early age would help individuals achieve an optimal development of self-regulation and will through habitual use of meditative activities.

Language: English

Published: St. Paul, Minnesota, 2016

Abstract/Notes: The purpose of this research was to find out if implementing technology that parallels the Montessori language sequence would increase student engagement with literacy work. Would an increase in student interest facilitate the potential for them to meet the expected goals for alphabetic knowledge? This study was conducted in a primary Montessori classroom consisting of four year-old students identified as being “at risk” for school readiness. Prior to beginning the project, observations of student work with the language materials was conducted to create a log of lessons completed by each student. An assessment of student knowledge of upper and lower case letter names and sounds was also completed. Daily activities to increase phonological awareness were implemented by utilizing the classroom Smart Board and iPad over a six week period. Post assessments revealed an increase in language lessons completed each day and an increase in knowledge of letter names and sounds by most students.

Language: English

Published: St. Paul, Minnesota, 2016

Abstract/Notes: This action research investigated letter name knowledge gain from integrating a selection of Orton-Gillingham methods into a private Montessori Primary classroom. The methods incorporated included letter name and sound drill, three-letter word practice, vowel game, and sand writing. Eight students, four and five years of age, were included in the study. Sources of data collection include student artifact, teacher assessment, student attitude inquiry, and teacher observational data. Students displayed an overall increase in attitude toward learning letter name and six out of eight students showed an increase in letter name knowledge for both uppercase and lowercase letters. Because of the students increase in enthusiasm for learning letter names and their knowledge gain, I will continue to use the Orton-Gillingham methods. I will also introduce the remaining methods to reach the students who did not show an increase in knowledge of letter names.

Language: English

Published: St. Paul, Minnesota, 2015

Abstract/Notes: Maria Montessori's work was initiated in 1898 as a result of her becoming acutely aware of deficient children's learning patterns, while working at the Psychiatric clinic of the University of Rome. The principles which dominate the system, however, did not spring in full panoply from Montessori. Indeed, her inspiration came largely from early and mid-nineteenth century writings of two French physicians, Itard and Seguin, who were Also involved in the teaching of deficient children. Extending on the ideas of these two educator-physicians, as well as the ideas of Froebel, Montessori innovatively brought the child's senses into contact with carefully selected didactic apparatus in a carefully structured and ordered environment. According to Montessori, the liberty of the child is a prerequisite for self-education and forms the first major pillar of her didactic theory, and thus becomes the focus of the first chapter dealing with her didactic approach (chapter three). Montessori believed that the function of education was to assist growth and if the individual child was given the liberty of movement within a prepared environment, a sense of competence would be achieved and the learning of the child would come about almost spontaneously. The principles of individuality and the training of the senses comprise the other two pillars, and form the basis for chapter four and five respectively. The principle of individuality is rooted in the belief that each child has a uniqueness which cannot be ignored without irretrievable damage to his personality. The current educational situation in South Africa, reveals a diversity of educational problems as a result of different ethnic and cultural groups all being thrust into a common educational system. The insidious pressures of conformity to a single standard of education must of necessity lead to a compromise of standards. The exposure of educational deficiencies inherent in such a move is characterised by learning impediments and deficiencies in the educational scenario. Research has therefore been undertaken in an attempt to extract those aspects that could provide meaningful pedagogic assistance to meet a present educational need.

Language: English

Published: Pretoria, South Africa, 1994

Abstract/Notes: This study explored how narrative was being used to foster meaning-making in Montessori, Steiner, Government and Catholic schools. In-depth interviews of twelve teachers from the four educational settings were used to collect the teachers' stories that comprised the data on narrative use. NUD*IST software was employed to organise data and to focus on emerging concepts through data analysis. A wide spectrum of narrative uses related to meaning making was revealed. These varied understandings support using narrative to foster insight on three levels relating to several theoretical views of narrative and its importance.

Language: English

Published: Sydney, Australia, 2001

Abstract/Notes: This dissertation concerns the feminization of the Italian teaching profession between the introduction of pre-Unification schooling in 1859 and the nationalization of that system in 1911. By feminization, this dissertation refers both to the gradual assumption of the majority of elementary teaching positions by women and to a transformation in the nature of the position itself. Through an examination of educational periodicals, school records, government inquests, and accounts by teachers and pedagogical theorists, it argues that rather than the unintended consequence of economic constraints or shifting labor patterns, feminization was fundamentally connected to larger processes of centralization and modernization in the Italian school system. Following an introductory chapter outlining the major national, religious, and gender debates of the Unification era, the second chapter of the dissertation argues that the figure of the female elementary teacher became embroiled in the contest between local and national interests, furthering the drive toward centralization. The third chapter examines a subject generally ignored in most studies of Italian women's education: the impact of international and domestic pedagogy. The chapter shows that the development of an Italian pedagogy combining positivism and progressivism with a maternalist, child-centered methodology was both a result and a cause of the feminization of the teaching profession. The fourth chapter focuses on the divide between the secularizing nation and the entrenched Catholic Church, arguing that carefully trained female teachers were employed as agents of the encroaching State and examining the connection between religious education debates and women's rights movements. The fifth chapter is an institutional history of the teacher-training normal schools; an analysis of institutional and government records reveals that normal school feminization reflected the centralization, secularization, and pedagogical reformation of the school system in general.

Language: English

Published: Los Angeles, California, 2012

Abstract/Notes: In questo lavoro di tesi sono stati delineati i tratti salienti dell’approccio educativo montessoriano, evidenziandone da una parte la profonda complessità nonché attualità che lo caratterizzata e dall’altra le numerose conferme sia dalla didattica considerata innovativa, sia dalle scienze psicologiche. È stato inoltre presentato un percorso di ricerca volto a monitorare la recente sperimentazione dell'approccio pedagogico montessoriano in alcune scuole primarie della provincia di Trento. La ricerca é stata condotta utilizzando sia strumenti di natura qualitativa (come una check list osservativa prodotta ad hoc per la ricerca), sia questionari standardizzati, con l'intento di confrontare i dati raccolti con un campione rappresentativo di una più vasta realtà scolastica. [In this thesis work, the salient features of the Montessori educational approach have been outlined, highlighting on the one hand the profound complexity and relevance that characterizes it and on the other the numerous confirmations both from the teaching considered innovative and from the psychological sciences. A research path was also presented aimed at monitoring the recent experimentation of the Montessori pedagogical approach in some primary schools in the province of Trento. The research was conducted using both qualitative tools (such as an observational check list produced ad hoc for the research), and standardized questionnaires, with the aim of comparing the data collected with a representative sample of a wider school environment.]

Language: Italian

Published: Trento, Italy, 2019

Abstract/Notes: O diálogo entre arquitetura e pedagogia intensificou-se nota velmentenas últimas décadas, contudo, no âmbito italiano os exemplos de escolas que fogem aos rígidos modelos tradicionais representa mainda casos isolados. Esta dissertação pretende aprofundar o processo de desenho de projeto para uma Escola Primária pública situada em Itália, em Crespano del Grappa na região de Vêneto, enquadrada no Programa Nacional Scuole Innovative que, através do lançamento de um concursopara 51 novas escolas, representa uma tentativa de inovação no panorama escolar italiano. Apoiado na pedagogia Montessori, ou, mais especificamente, centrando-se na possibilidade de relação entre as suas pioneiras práticas educativas e o desenvolvimento de um ambiente de ensino que possa revelar-se realmente estimulante à aprendizagem, opresente projeto tenta conjugar todas estas preocupações, com osentido do lugar e da escola entendida como equipamento público de referência para a comunidade. [The dialogue between architecture and pedagogy has intensified considerably in the last decades; however, in the Italian context, examples of schools that try to flee the rigid traditional models still represent isolated instances. This dissertation intends to deepen the process of designing a Public Primary School located in Italy, in Crespano del Grappa, in the Veneto region, as part of the national program Scuole Innovative which, through the launch of a competition for the construction of 51 new schools, embodies an attempt to innovate in the Italian school scenery. Based on the Montessori pedagogy or, more specifically, focusing on the possible relationship between its pioneering educational practices and the development of an educational environment, that could be really stimulating to learning, the present project tries to combine all these concerns, with the sense of the place, the landscape and the school as a public reference equipment for the whole community.]

Language: Portuguese

Published: Porto, Portugal, 2018

Abstract/Notes: The purpose of this study was to add to the existing knowledge concerning interactions in preprimary settings, especially Montessori settings, based on gender. It investigated the play behaviors of boys and girls within the Montessori classroom and interactions among children and their playmates and adults during free play. This case study was based on quantitative and descriptive data. Time sampling was used to collect data on the interactions of boys and girls within the Montessori free play context. Note was made of the areas in which children played, the materials they used, and their play behaviors. Running records were used to gather information on the interactions between children and their playmates, and adults in the classroom. The gender groupings of children approached for play and behaviors with chosen playmates were noted. The number of interactions with adults, whether children or adults initiated those interactions and the behaviors of children during interactions with adults were recorded and analyzed. Findings of this study suggest that, within the Montessori classroom observed there were both similarities and differences in the free play behaviors of preprimary girls and boys. However, there were many individual differences among boys and among girls. As a result, it was sometimes impossible to make generalizations concerning the gender typing of behaviors.

Language: English

Published: Flagstaff, Arizona, 1999

Abstract/Notes: Includes reproduction of London Daily News (UK) article on The White Cross, Sept. 18, 1916.

Language: English

ISSN: 0519-0959