Digital Commons Network^™

Top Of The C.L.A.S.S. Connecting Leadership And Student Success, Natasha N. Johnson, Thaddeus Johnson

CJC Publications

This chapter highlights the direct correlation between effective leadership and student achievement. The development – and execution – of a concrete leadership framework is necessary for organizational structure and serves as a standard of excellence that surpasses any potentially harmful influences (such as race, socioeconomic status, family structure, gender, culture, and disability, among others). The establishment of this agenda occurs as individuals continually strive for self-fulfillment. Through this process, one can effectively guide others while working towards their own personal and professional objectives. Ultimately, this distinguishes successful leaders from the rest and represents the goal to which leaders should aspire: …

Spotlighting The Need For More Minority Women In K-12 Education Leadership, Natasha N. Johnson

CJC Publications

Minority women encounter a myriad of challenges and disparities in their pursuit of leadership positions in K-12 education. While the number of women leading independent schools has increased, they are more likely to achieve headship in small and K-8 schools rather than in larger schools and secondary settings. Marginalizing policies and climates still exist within schools, but women leaders are working for change through activism and efforts intended to promote gender equity. Equitable leadership and social justice are essential concepts in addressing the needs of women and minoritized people in educational leadership. As such, increasing the number of women of …

Toward Cs1 Content Subscales: A Mixed-Methods Analysis Of An Introductory Computing Assessment, Miranda C. Parker, Matt J. Davidson, Yvonne S. Kao, Lauren Margulieux, Zachary Tidler, Jan Vahrenhold

Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

Background and Context. There is a constant, demonstrated need for valid and reliable assessments in computing education research. While there exist assessments at a course-based level (e.g., CS1, Data Structures, Discrete math, etc.), instructors and researchers would also like concept-based subscales that are more fine-grained. However, assessments designed and validated at the course level need additional work to determine whether they can reliably and validly measure individual concepts.

Objectives. In this paper, we explore the content and factor structure of an existing CS1 assessment, the Second CS1 (SCS1) assessment, which consists of nine CS1 concepts and three question types (definitional, …

Stabilizing And Empowering Women In Higher Education: Aligning, Centering, And Building, Natasha N. Johnson

CJC Publications

The importance of higher education in today’s world and workforce cannot be overstated. It is well-known that higher education leads to better jobs, higher salaries, and elevated social status. Unfortunately, women have been historically underrepresented in the realm of higher education. In recent years, however, numerous efforts have been made to stabilize and empower women in this arena. As such, this chapter aims to provide an in-depth analysis of these progressive efforts. Stabilizing and empowering women in higher education is essential in promoting gender equality and generational social progress. While substantial gains have been made in recent years, much remains …

Intersectionality In Leadership: Spotlighting The Experiences Of Black Women Dei Leaders In Historically White Academic Institutions, Natasha N. Johnson

CJC Publications

Due to their multiple identities, Black women navigate gendered and racialized pathways to leadership in the US education industry. The journey for Black women in and en route to positions of academic leadership is even more nuanced and multiplicative. Little, though, is known about the effects of their intersecting identities and the structural barriers they encounter in this sphere. To deepen our communal understanding of this phenomenon, this chapter highlights the existing theories and research on the race-gender dyad in the context of academic leadership. Examining the individual and layered effects of race and gender on the professional realities of …

The Relationship Between Health Literacy And Covid-19 Vaccination Prevalence During A Rapidly Evolving Pandemic And Infodemic, Iris Feinberg, Jane Yoon Scott, David P. Holland, Rodney S. Lyn, Lia Scott, Kevin M. Maloney, Richard Rothenberg

Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

The gap between how health information is communicated and what people understand and can use to make informed health decisions is called health literacy. This gap was exacerbated by the rapidly changing and excessive volume of information, misinformation, and disinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic. People with lower health literacy may not have understood the importance of COVID-19 vaccination for themselves or for their communities. Our aim was to understand health literacy levels within Fulton County, Georgia, and their relationship to vaccine prevalence. Fulton county residents ages 18 and over (n = 425) completed an on-line Health Literacy Questionnaire. Individual, …

Making Herstory: Admission Of Women To The Evening School Of Commerce, Laurel Bowen

Selections from the University Library Blog

No abstract provided.

Central Office Leadership: The Importance Of Promoting Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, And Belonging In The Ivory Tower, Natasha N. Johnson Edd

CJC Publications

As a consequence of their multiple identities, underrepresented leaders often navigate both racialized and gendered pathways to leadership in the U.S. education industry. Nevertheless, relatively little is known about the impact of their intersecting identities and the structural barriers in this sector. To deepen our collective understanding of this phenomenon, the author reviews existing theories and research related to the intersection of race and gender within the educational leadership sphere. More specifically, the author highlights the individual and compounding effects of gender and race on the professional realities of current and aspiring leaders in education at the Central Office (i.e., …

Microaggressions: An Introduction, Natasha N. Johnson Edd, Thaddeus Johnson

CJC Publications

Microaggressions are brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral, or environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative slights and insults toward people who are not classified within the “normative” standard. Perpetrators of microaggressions are often unaware that they engage in such communications when they interact with people who differ from themselves. This review of microaggressions in its numerous forms seeks to address the current literature regarding aversive behavior and its impacts; this includes investigating the manifestation and influence of everyday “isms,” on the quality of life of those on the receiving end of these acts. Ensuing …

Finding Evidence Of Community Cultural Wealth In Georgia: Testimonios Of Latina Immigrants On Navigating Cultural, Social, And Economic Barriers, Michelle S. Yrigollen-Robbins

Educational Policy Studies Faculty Publications

The Latinx immigrant population in Georgia has hopes of settling in a community that provides economic stability for their families, and academic opportunities for their children. This study explores the journeys of five Mexican women, from their decisions to leave their home country to their settling in the United States. The findings are based on a qualitative study that reveals the testimonios of the participants’ navigational challenges of crossing borders, settling in Georgia, and raising bicultural children in the New South. The participants’ testimonios show evidence of Yosso’s community cultural wealth, and the findings counter the deficit narrative about Georgia’s …

“Bettering Data”: The Role Of Everyday Language And Visualization In Critical Novice Data Work, Benjamin R. Shapiro, Amanda Meng, Annabel Rothschild, Sierra Gilliam, Cicely Garrett, Carl Disalvo, Betsy Disalvo

Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

Informed by critical data literacy efforts to promote social justice, this paper uses qualitative methods and data collected during two years of workplace ethnography to characterize the notion of critical novice data work. Specifically, we analyze everyday language used by novice data workers at DataWorks, an organization that trains and employs historically excluded populations to work with community data sets. We also characterize challenges faced by these workers in both cleaning and being critical of data during a project focused on police-community relations. Finally, we highlight novel approaches to visualizing data the workers developed during this project, derived from data …

Scaffolding Problem Solving With Learners’ Own Self Explanations Of Subgoals, Lauren Margulieux, Richard Catrambone

Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

Procedural problem solving is an important skill in most technical domains, like programming, but many students reach problem solving impasses and flounder. In most formal learning environments, instructors help students to overcome problem solving impasses by scaffolding initial problem solving. Relying on this type of personalized interaction, however, limits the scale of formal instruction in technical domains, or it limits the efficacy of learning environments without it, like many scalable online learning environments. The present experimental study explored whether learners’ self-explanations of worked examples could be used to provide personalized but non-adaptive scaffolding during initial problem solving to improve later …

Balancing Race, Gender, And Responsibility: Conversations With Four Black Women In Educational Leadership In The United States Of America, Natasha Johnson

CJC Publications

This paper focuses on equitable leadership and its intersection with related, yet distinct concepts salient to social justice, pertinent to women and minorities in educational leadership. This piece is rooted and framed within the context of the United States of America, and the major concepts include identity, equity, and intersectionality – specific to the race-gender dyad – manifested within the realm of educational leadership. The objective is to examine theory and research in this area and to discuss the role they played in this study of the cultures of four Black women, all senior-level leaders within the realm of K-20 …

Artificial Intelligence In Educational Leadership: A Symbiotic Role Of Human-Artificial Intelligence Decision-Making, Yinying Wang

Educational Policy Studies Faculty Publications

Purpose. Artificial intelligence (AI) refers to a type of algorithms or computerized systems that resemble human mental processes of decision-making. This position paper looks beyond the sensational hyperbole of AI in teaching and learning. Instead, this paper aims to explore the role of AI in educational leadership.

Design/methodology/approach. To explore the role of AI in educational leadership, I synthesized the literature that intersects AI, decision-making, and educational leadership from multiple disciplines such as computer science, educational leadership, administrative science, judgment and decision-making and neuroscience. Grounded in the intellectual interrelationships between AI and educational leadership since the 1950s, this paper starts …

Effectively Managing Bias In Teacher Preparation, Natasha Johnson

CJC Publications

This is the call for teacher preparation programs to actively incorporate an emphasis on social justice education and the development of teachers committed to creating equitable schools. Education in today's multicultural, pluralistic society must be actively concentrated on and successful at creating more just and unbiased schools for underserved students. Similar to Ladson-Billings' argument for a redefining of ‘good teaching,' there must be a redefinition of that which constitutes social justice teaching. It is the role of today's teacher preparation programs to equip teachers with the essential skills necessary to develop students, manage bias, and create a culture of equity …

Exploring Approaches To Data Literacy Through A Critical Race Theory Perspective, Britney Johnson, Benjamin R. Shapiro, Betsy Disalvo, Annabel Rothschild, Carl Disalvo

Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

In this paper, we describe and analyze a workshop developed for a work training program called DataWorks. In this
workshop, data workers chose a topic of their interest, sourced and processed data on that topic, and used that data to create
presentations. Drawing from discourses of data literacy; epistemic agency and lived experience; and critical race theory, we analyze the workshops’ activities and outcomes. Through this analysis, three themes emerge: the tensions between epistemic agency and the context of work, encountering the ordinariness of racism through data work, and understanding the personal as communal and intersectional. Finally, critical race theory …

A Remote Instructor Like Me: Student-Teacher Congruence In Online, High School Courses, Jennifer Darling-Aduana

Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

Students belonging to marginalized groups experience positive impacts when taught by a teacher of the same race, ethnicity, and gender. The unique nature of standardized, asynchronous online course taking allows for greater separation of any possible educational benefits of student versus teacher-driven mechanisms contributing to these improved outcomes. Using a student-bycourse fixed effect strategy on data from a large urban school district, I examined associations between whether students experienced racial/ethnic or gender congruence with their remote instructor and both engagement and learning outcomes. Students who identified as Black demonstrated higher rates of engagement, although no difference in achievement, within lessons …

Writing As An Art Of Rebellion: Scholars Of Color Using Literacy To Find Spaces Of Identity And Belonging In Academia, Ethan Trinh, Luis Javier Pentón Herrera

Middle and Secondary Education Faculty Publications

In this dialogue, we explore the topics of identity, spaces, and writing from our own perspectives as members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) community, and as first-generation, immigrants, and work-ing-class scholars of colors in academia. In this piece, we propose writing as an art of rebellion against a system designed to silence the voices of margin-alized educators (Park, 2013; Van Galen, 2017). Within this space, we return to our true self and tell our stories in creative ways: sitting at the kitchen table and engaging in walking meditation. Furthermore, we write with the vision of working …

What Does Social Justice Look Like In The United States? Critical Reflections Of An English Language Classroom On A Field Trip, Ethan Trinh

Middle and Secondary Education Faculty Publications

This paper witness a field trip of a group of English learners and the instructor at a historical site in the United States of America. The purpose of this trip explores a question, What does “social justice” look like in the United States? Drawing from the nepantlerx concept, the author describes a conversation between the students and the teacher in a field trip and discusses how the field trip has changed their students and the teacher as a result of it.

Crossing The Split In Nepantla: (Un)Successful Attempts, Ethan Trinh

Middle and Secondary Education Faculty Publications

This paper neither plans to use the restorative agenda nor provides a sample of representation or voices of a teacher candidate or researcher who identifies themselves as queer. Instead, this paper looks into the researcher’s desires and imagining in analyzing a split self to think about how to problematize their thinking and actions, which should go beyond the limits of gender and sexuality or a coded term “L-G-B-T-Q,” to disrupt the existing binary of doing queer research. First, the author reviews what queer and after-queer mean in educational research and how the researchers have queered their work in the education …

I Am Not Only A Student-Athlete: Investigating Social Identity Complexity As A Stereotype Threat Mitigation Strategy To Reduce Barriers, Jacob Alan English, Ann Cale Kruger

Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

Collegiate athletes must contend with harmful stereotypes (e.g., intellectually lazy, unintelligent) during their academic careers (Comeaux, 2012). Research shows that student-athletes’ academic performance can be negatively impacted by stereotype threat (Riciputi & Erdal, 2017). Currently, there is no published evidence-based research on stereotype threat (ST) mitigation strategies targeted to student-athletes. Expanding the work of Gresky and colleagues (2005), this study explored a self-concept map activity, based on the social identity complexity theory, as one potential strategy for collegiate athletes. Seventy Division I athletes were randomly assigned to one of three experimental conditions (varying by the level of ST administered). ANOVA …

What Is The Role Of Emotions In Educational Leaders’ Decision Making? Proposing An Organizing Framework, Yinying Wang

Educational Policy Studies Faculty Publications

Purpose: Emotions have a pervasive, predictable, sometimes deleterious but other times instrumental effect on decision making. Yet the influence of emotions on educational leaders’ decision making has been largely underexplored. To optimize educational leaders’ decision making, this article builds on the prevailing data-driven decision-making approach, and proposes an organizing framework of educational leaders’ emotions in decision making by drawing on converging empirical evidence from multiple disciplines (e.g., administrative science, psychology, behavioral economics, cognitive neuroscience, and neuroeconomics) intersecting emotions, decision making, and organizational behavior. Proposed Framework: The proposed organizing framework of educational leaders’ emotions in decision making includes four core propositions: …

Philosophical Considerations Always Already Entangled In Mathematics Education Research, David W. Stinson

Middle and Secondary Education Faculty Publications

In this paper, I explore how mathematics education research is always already entangled with and in ontological, epistemological, and ethical considerations—that is, philosophical considerations—of the researcher (or research team) from beginning to end. The danger in too much of the existing mathematics education research, however, is limited acknowledgement of how philosophical considerations drive both knowledge production and knowledge dissemination in the field. Illustrating how the concepts ontology, epistemology, and ethics are made sense of across the research paradigm spectrum—predict, understand, emancipate, and deconstruct—sheds light on not only the possible divergences in approaches to research (mathematics education or otherwise) but also …

A Reflective Study Of Online Faculty Teaching Experiences In Higher Education, Chara H. Bohan, Katherine A. Perrotta

Educational Policy Studies Faculty Publications

Despite the popularity of online course and degree offerings in higher education, a lack of data persists on the unique challenges and opportunities online faculty face. Gaining insights about these experiences is important to ensure the quality of online teaching as colleges and universities continue expanding e-learning programs. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine the online teaching experiences of two faculty members through the implementation of reflective study methods. Major findings show that faculty access to professional development and mentoring, isolation and connectedness to the campus community, and academic freedom and curriculum control have significant implications for …

District Court: Cambridge Univ. Pr. Et Al., V. Becker, Et Al. Ruling On Remand (2020), Orinda Evans

Georgia State University Copyright Lawsuit

No abstract provided.

When Artificial Intelligence Meets Educational Leaders’ Data-Informed Decision-Making: A Cautionary Tale, Yinying Wang

Educational Policy Studies Faculty Publications

Artificial intelligence (AI) refers to a type of algorithms or computerized systems that resemble human mental processes of decision making. Drawing upon multidisciplinary literature that intersects AI, decision making, educational leadership, and policymaking, this position paper aims to examine promising applications and potential perils of AI in educational leaders’ data-informed decision making (DIDM). Endowed with ever-growing computational power and real-time data, highly scalable AI can increase efficiency and accuracy in leaders’ DIDM. However, misusing AI can have perilous effects on education stakeholders. Many lurking biases in current AI could be amplified. Of more concern, the moral values (e.g., fairness, equity, …

The Curious Case Of Loops, Briana Baker Morrison, Lauren Margulieux, Adrienne Decker

Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

Background and Context: Subgoal labeled worked examples are effective for teaching computing concepts, but the research to date has been reported in a piecemeal fashion. This paper aggregates data from three studies, including data that has not been previously reported upon, to examine more holistically the effect of subgoal labeled worked examples across three student populations and across different instructional designs.

Objective: By aggregating the data, we provide more statistical and explanatory power for somewhat surprising yet replicable results. We discuss which results generalize across populations, focusing on a stable effect size to be expected when using subgoal labels in …

Using Research On Neuroeconomics Games In School Leaders’ Decision-Making Training, Yinying Wang

Educational Policy Studies Faculty Publications

This article demonstrates how to use three neuroeconomics games adapted from game theory— the Ultimatum Game, the Trust Game, and the Public Goods Game—in school leaders’ decisionmaking training. These three games have been commonly used in the emerging field of neuroeconomics—an interdisciplinary field intersecting behavioral economics, psychology, and cognitive neuroscience. For each game, I first outline how to play it in the training of school leaders’ decision making, followed by the constructs relevant to leaders’ decision making, including fairness, justice, inequity aversion, reciprocity, emotions, social identity, trust, distrust, and altruistic punishment. These games, with a lighthearted touch, serve as part …

The Mint Julep Consensus: An Analysis Of Late 19th Century Southern And Northern Textbooks And Their Impact On The History Curriculum, Chara H. Bohan, Lauren Yarnell Bradshaw, Wade Hampton Morris

Educational Policy Studies Faculty Publications

In the decades after the Civil War, Southerners wrote and published their own history textbooks for secondary schools. These “mint julep textbooks,” as the Southern all-white editions were called by the 1960s, reinforced a Lost Cause narrative of the war for Southern audiences while competing with Northern versions of events. In this study, we employ both historical narrative and content analysis of six textbooks’ portrayals of John Brown, John Wilkes Booth, and Nathan Bedford Forrest. The textbooks that are compared– three Southern and three Northern – were written from the 1870s through the 1910s. While subtle but important differences emerge …

Understanding Congressional Coalitions: A Discourse Network Analysis Of Congressional Hearings For The Every Student Succeeds Act, Yinying Wang

Educational Policy Studies Faculty Publications

The purpose of this study is to investigate policy coalitions of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) at U.S. congressional hearings. This study is grounded in the advocacy coalition framework, which argues that advocacy coalitions are forged by policy actors who have similar policy preferences. To identify the coalitions, according to the policy claims articulated by policy actors, discourse network analysis was performed to examine 30 testimonies in the congressional hearings on ESSA since its passage in 2015. The policy actors fall into eight categories: (1) federal administrative and executive offices, (2) state administrative and executive offices, (3) teachers unions, …