Education Commons^™

Vaccine Hesitancy - When Emotions Trump Reason, Lawrence C. Scharmann

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

Isn’t getting a vaccine a decision of choice or personal liberty? Yes, but only if personal choices don’t create health risks for other citizens. We no longer permit individuals to smoke in public spaces in which second-hand smoke can harm the health of others. In the case of COVID-19, at best, individuals whose choice it is not to be vaccinated slow progress toward herd immunity. At worst, if enough individuals choose not to vaccinate, this pandemic continues unabated, enabling variants of the original virus to emerge – variants that are often of increasing virulence. Fear of ingredients, however, is but …

Empowering Salieri - Extracting The Genius In Our Students, Zachary C. Schafer, Lawrence C. Scharmann

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

Aesthetic Based Alternative Assessment (ABAA) is a type of project-based learning that extends beyond science content and places students’ interests at the forefront of the learning environment. ABAA is consistent with a holistic approach to science teaching and learning long advocated by former NSTA President Hans O. Andersen (1989–1990), in which students’ interests serve as the departure to more intensive involvement with the subject.

Social Media, Populism, And Covid-19: Weibo Users’ Reactions To Anti-Chinese Discourse, Theresa Catalano, Peiwen Wang

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

US government communication about the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly the ‘Chinese virus’ discourse adopted by Donald Trump and his administration, has led to real-world violence and triggered heated discussions across social media sites, including Sina Weibo (aka Chinese Twitter). The current study explores the relationship between populism and social media by examining how Sina Weibo users respond to Trump’s communication on the virus. Employing multimodal critical discourse analysis, we examine both visual and verbal strategies used to build counter-discourses that challenge the use of terms such as ‘Chinese virus’. Findings demonstrate the potential of Weibo as a platform of resistance and …

Learner Ownership Of Learning, Aleidine J. Moeller

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

Developing learners’ ability to manage their own learning is integral to building language proficiency and requires that learners clearly understand what they are learning and why they are learning it (Little, Dam & Legenhausen, 2017). There is general agreement that autonomous learners accept responsibility and take ownership for their own learning, share in identifying learning goals, actively and positively engage in learning tasks, and reflect on and evaluate their own learning (Holec 1981, Little 1991). When learners are actively engaged in the learning process, motivation is ensured, and temporary challenges and setbacks in language learning can be overcome.

This issue …

Learner Ownership Of Learning, Aleidine J. Moeller

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

Developing learners’ ability to manage their own learning is integral to building language proficiency and requires that learners clearly understand what they are learning and why they are learning it (Little, Dam & Legenhausen, 2017). There is general agreement that autonomous learners accept responsibility and take ownership for their own learning, share in identifying learning goals, actively and positively engage in learning tasks, and reflect on and evaluate their own learning (Holec 1981, Little 1991). When learners are actively engaged in the learning process, motivation is ensured, and temporary challenges and setbacks in language learning can be overcome.

This issue …

Advice For Students Of Color And First-Generation College Students: Successful Transitions From High School Into And Within College/University, Amanda Morales

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

As you begin to read this pamphlet, you might ask, “Why should I listen to this person?” “What experiences has she had, or what expertise does she hold that makes her advice credible or worth my time and attention?” Well, given how busy we all are these days and knowing about all the advice out there about going to college, I see your point! However, I hope you find this piece a bit different from other resources. See, I approached the writing here in some ways as a consejo (a piece of advice) to my younger self. More specifically, I …

Advice For Educational Counselors, Advisors, Faculty, And Staff: Paving The Pathways To Post-Secondary Education: Removing Barriers And Creating Opportunities For Students Of Color (Soc) And First-Generation College Students (Fgcs) To Flourish, Amanda R. Morales, Edmund T. Hamann

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

The purpose of this Equity Tool is to guide education stakeholders with roles in various parts of high school students’ development, in developing shared understandings to discuss the transition from high school to higher education.

For supplemental guidance, please see the companion pamphlet for Students of Color and First Generation College Students: Advice for Students of Color and First-Generation Students: Successful Transitions from High School into and Within College/University

Disrupting Evasion Pedagogies, Kara Mitchell Viesca, Tricia Gray

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

As we have researched in schools and reflected on our own teaching, we have come to recognize the lie and our untruthfulness that permeates many of our cultural scripts (Gutierrez et al., 1995) and practices as teachers. It is within these cultural scripts and practices that inequity is perpetuated and humanizing learning evaded. Thus, what we term evasion pedagogies, serve to sustain the status quo and are powerful tools to maintain oppressive projects like white supremacy, heteronormativity, gender binaries, patriarchy, ableism, classism, and linguicism. In this piece, we examine the notion of evasion pedagogies as a powerful lie in practice …

Evolutionary Theory: Establishing Positive Learning Environments, Lawrence C. Scharmann

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

A simple but effective technique for self-assessing readiness to teach a particular topic is to explicitly reflect on the student questions, ‘Why do I need toknow this stuff?’ and ‘What’s in it for me?’ Faced with these questions, real or implied, instructional decisions should be made to better address and reflect the needs of target learners. If the teacher’s response does not have sufficient perceived relevance to the target learner, students find it quite easy to dismiss the ‘stuff’ as unimportant – something to be memorised for a test and forgotten. Preparation to teach evolution often carries with it an …

Setting Empirically Informed Policy Benchmarks For Physical Science Teaching, Elizabeth B. Lewis, Ana Rivero, Lyrica L. Lucas, Aaron Musson, Brandon Helding

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

In the United States, research on beginning science teachers provides little guidance regarding empirical minimum levels of discipline-specific science coursework for sufficient subject matter knowledge to teach science. Accordingly, in this study we analyzed secondary physical science teachers' science coursework for subject matter knowledge (SMK) and resulting misconceptions of chemistry and physics concepts. Findings were compared with state-level science teacher certification policies. Participants had either: (a) completed a master's level teacher preparation program with an undergraduate degree in science, (b) completed an undergraduate teacher preparation program with a minor degree or more in science, or (c) were undergraduate students enrolled …

The Interplay Of Emotion, Cognition, And Learning In The Language Classroom, Aleidine J. Moeller

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

Challenge Statement Emotions are inextricably linked to our actions, behaviors, and dispositions. To promote deeper learning, emotion and cognition must be in sync to maximize learning. How can we connect our learners’ emotions in ways that fully capitalize on the interplay with cognition and engages them in the language learning process?

Abstract This article seeks to broaden the discourse on world language teaching to take a more holistic view of learning and teaching that supports and promotes the integration of feeling and thinking. A summary of the research on the role of emotions in learning is documented and classroom examples …

Evolutionary Theory: Coping With A Pandemic., Lawrence C. Scharmann

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

Early in 2020, nations across the globe were warned about the potential for a pandemic arising from a novel virus that originated in Wuhan, China. The virus began an inevitable steady march of infection locally, regionally, nationally, and eventually internationally. Questions posed by infectious disease specialists were:

• Is the infectious disease one that is already known? Answer: no.

• Does the infectious disease (at the very least) closely resemble other known diseases? Answer – other than the virus possessing a distinguishing corona or halo when viewed under electron microscopy – no.

Thus, other than identifying the morphological shape of …

Introduction To Doing Fieldwork At Home: The Ethnography Of Education In Familiar Contexts: In The Field At Home; Onward, & Bibliography, Loukia K. Sarroub, Claire Nicholas

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

In this volume, we attempt to better understand ethnographic research on education in local contexts wherein the researcher has regular contact and social relationships with the intended research participants. Recent disciplinary trends find ethnographers increasingly engaged in research in settings familiar to them, such as their own workplaces, leisure spaces, neighborhoods, and communities. The study of such practices illuminates interconnected methodological, ethical, and analytical dilemmas. It also offers opportunities for methodological innovation, explicates and challenges the effects of educational policies and practices, and interrogates and develops theories about educational structures, policies, and experiences. Our aim is to highlight the agency …

“You Pulled The Chair From Right Under Me!”: How A Black Young Man Disappears From A High School Reading Class, Loukia K. Sarroub

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

Relational identities in the classroom shape teachers and their students as well as the researchers who study them for the long term. Researchers whose fieldwork is located at “home” simultaneously embody with research participants the past, present, and future interactions on a shared continuum of experience. The collaborative enterprise of fieldwork is relived, retold, remade, and it is always present.

In this chapter, the shared, embodied experience that infused the ethnographic space in situ transformed one’s understanding of young people, their teacher, and the researcher. The study was focused on better understanding students’ experiences with literacy in high school. Within …

Translanguaging For Biliteracy: Book Reading Practices In A Chinese Bilingual Family, Shuling Yang, Lydiah Kananu Kiramba, Stephanie Wessels

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

This is a qualitative case study that explores conversational interactions during book-reading practices in a Mandarin-speaking Chinese American family between the mother and her two young children. The study employs a sociocultural lens and the concept of translanguaging to describe the characteristics of interactional practices during book readings in a bilingual family with young children. Through discourse analysis of the book reading interactions, we found that translanguaging acted as a bridge to comprehension and served as a window to mental imagery that allowed participants to refine their understanding of the texts. We draw implications for teachers working with emergent bilingual …

Designing An Integrated Stem Semester For Pre-Service Elementary Teachers, Amanda Thomas, Matt Flores, Michael Hart, Elizabeth Hasseler, Tammera Mittelstet, Danae Peterson, Amy Sokoll Bauer

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

Teacher educators in an undergraduate elementary teacher certification program at a large university in the United States redesigned the traditional program to integrate STEM learning across multiple courses. During this Integrated STEM Semester, typically taken during the fifth semester of the undergraduate program, pre-service teachers (PSTs) enroll in mathematics content, mathematics methods, science methods, instructional technology, and practicum courses.

Shaping The Teaching And Learning Of Intercultural Communication Through Virtual Mobility, Theresa Catalano, Andrea Muñoz Barriga

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

The globally mobile reality of today’s world has made the field of intercultural communication increasingly relevant as people more often find themselves in intercultural situations. As a result, language teachers must be more prepared to work in intercultural contexts, and to teach their own students how to communicate across differences in intercultural situations both physically and virtually. The present paper examines this special issue’s topic of physical and virtual mobility and intercultural competence through the lens of teacher education. Using narrative inquiry, two teacher educators in very different geographic and socio-economic contexts (US and Colombia) explore their own attempts at …

What Educators In Mexico And In The United States Need To Know And Acknowledge To Attend To The Educational Needs Of Transnational Students, Edmund T. Hamann, Víctor Zúñiga

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

This chapter from the edited volume "The Students We Share" explains to both US and Mexican audiences that a persistent number and proportion of K-12 students continue to circulate between both countries and thus that it is a challenge for both countries' education systems—including teacher preparation, curriculum, assessment, etc.—to see how students' knowledge and experience from the other system is both salient to their new schooling in a new country and valuable for how it will contribute to their future means for negotiating adulthood.

Dance As Dialog: A Metaphor Analysis On The Development Of Interculturality Through Arts And Community-Based Learning With Preservice Teachers And A Local Refugee Community, Theresa Catalano, Uma Ganesan, Alessia Barbici Wagner, Jenelle Reeves, Alison E. Leonard, Stephanie Wessels

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

This paper explores the use of arts and community-based (ACB) approaches to intercultural teacher education. Twenty-four preservice teachers and five adult Yazidi refugees/community members participated in this study which involved a two-week arts-based workshop in Fall 2019 at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Data for the study included pre- and post-group discussion recordings as well as oral and written reflections one week after the workshop. Using metaphor analysis, the authors examine the way project participants talk about their experiences in the workshop. Findings showed how ACB approaches hold promise as a vehicle for developing interculturality in teacher education.

Picturing Dual Language And Gentrification: An Analysis Of Visual Media And Their Connection To Language Policy, Edmund T. Hamann, Theresa Catalano

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

Dual language (DL) programs propose to be vehicles of social justice and transformation by valuing an additional language other than the dominant one in a society and thereby contesting language hierarchies and the subordination of those who speak/use a non-dominant language (Flores, Flores, Educational Policy 30:13–38, 2016; Menken and García, Menken, K., & García, O. (2021). Constructing translanguaging school policies and practices. In: CUNY-New York State Initiative on Emergent Bilinguals (Eds.) Translanguaging and transformative teaching for emergent bilingual students. Project. Routledge, New York.). However, Palmer (Henderson, K. I., & Palmer, D. K. (2020). Dual Language Bilingual Education: Teacher Cases and …

Teaching And Learning News Media In Politically Unsettled Times, H. James Garrett, Mardi Schmeichel, Joseph Mcanulty, Sonia Janis

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

Our research explores and elaborates the ways preservice teachers come to know and begin conceptualizing ways of teaching about news media. We report on what we interpret as their understandings and, perhaps more importantly, their misunderstandings of media literacy as they relate to their emerging ideas about what it means to teach others about crucial social and political issues of our time. The students with whom the authors worked demonstrated problematic misperceptions and misunderstandings about important media concepts and topics. These preservice teachers misunderstood the ways in which news media is different from other media genres. Additionally, they often indicated …

Preservice Elementary Teachers’ Identity Development In Learning To Teach Science: A Multi-Site Case Study, Deepika Menon, Saiqa Azam

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

The purpose of this qualitative study was to investigate preservice elementary teachers’ science teacher identity development during their participation in the field-based science methods course and a year after. Grounded within the Feiman-Nemser’s thematic framework of learning to teach, this study utilized a case study approach aimed to examine the experiences that contributed to formation of science teacher identities of two participants uniquely positioned in the teacher education programs at the two sites, USA and Canada. Data collected over a year included science autobiographies, reflective journals, interviews, classroom observations, and artifacts. The analysis of the data revealed that experiences and …

Influence Of Science Experiences On Preservice Elementary Teachers’ Beliefs, Saiqa Azam, Deepika Menon

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

teachers’ science teaching beliefs and explain how these beliefs influence the way these teachers interpret their science teaching and learning experiences. Supported by the theoretical underpinnings of teacher beliefs and drawings as a tool to investigate teacher beliefs, this research utilized qualitative (written science autobiographies and reflections) and quantitative (Draw-a-Science-Teacher-Test-Checklist as a pre and post measure) data collection techniques. A total of 55 preservice elementary teachers participated from two public universities located in the United States and Canada. Quantitative analysis revealed positive shifts in science teaching beliefs of preservice elementary teachers largely in two ways: A small shift representing small …

Cultural And Linguistic Experiences Of Immigrant Youth: Voices Of African Immigrant Youth In United States Urban Schools, Lydiah Kananu Kiramba, Alex Kumi-Yeboah, Patriann Smith, Anthony Mawuli Sallard

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

This study explores experiences of 50 culturally and linguistically diverse African immigrant students attending public urban middle and high schools in the US. Drawing on in-depth interviews, and through constant comparison analysis, emerging findings highlight pedagogical, linguistic, and curricular variation struggles in the classroom; transitional contextual challenges; cultural mismatch; miscommunication, and stereotypes. In light of these experiences, African immigrant urban youth draw on familial, navigational and aspirational capital to resist stereotypical assumptions and to develop resilient skills necessary to navigate the inherent challenges. Findings underscore the importance of appreciating ways of knowing that deviate from the host country knowledges as …

Invited Dialogue: Mapping The Intersections Of Religion, Literacy, And Public Schooling For Displaced, Immigrant, And Refugee Children: A Conversation With Loukia K. Sarroub, Jennifer D. Turner, Loukia K. Sarroub

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

Drawing on her award-winning research, Dr. Loukia K. Sarroub explains how teachers can help displaced, immigrant, and refugee youth navigate literacy, religion, and success in public schools.

This column features Dr. Loukia K. Sarroub and her award-winning research on how Arab Muslim refugee and immigrant youth navigate religion, gender, and literacy in school. Dr. Sarroub is a professor of literacy studies, education, and linguistics, and she serves as the graduate programs chair in the Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She was the recipient of the LRA Edward B. Fry Book Award for All …

Factors Associated With Novice General Education Teachers’ Preparedness To Work With Multilingual Learners: A Multilevel Study, Qizhen Deng Ph.D., Lydiah Kananu Kiramba, Kara Mitchell Viesca

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

This study examined factors linked to novice general education teachers’ perception of their preparedness to work with multilingual learners in the classroom. Using a multilevel modeling approach, we examined factors at the teacher and school levels using two AY 2015 to 2016 datasets: The National Teacher and Principal Survey from the National Center for Education Statistics and the Civil Rights Data Collection from the Office of Civil Rights. The results show that teacher perception of preparedness was positively associated with teacher education courses on working with multilingual learners, supports received during the first-year teaching, and the number of multilingual learners …

Investigating Preservice Teachers’ Science Teaching Self-Efficacy: An Analysis Of Reflective Practices, Deepika Menon, Saiqa Azam

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

The purpose of this mixed methods research was to investigate the development of 55 preservice elementary teachers’ science teaching self-efficacy beliefs through analysis of their reflective practices in a science method course. This year-long study was conducted at two public universities located in the USA and Canada. Within the theoretical frameworks of science teaching self-efficacy and reflective practice, we examined how and in what ways preservice teachers’ reflections on their past science experiences and current science teaching practices contributed to their self-efficacy beliefs. Data were collected from pre- and post-course administrations of the Science Teaching Efficacy Belief Instrument-B (STEBI-B), written …

Immigrant Background Students’ Names And Identities In U.S. Schools: Voices From The Underground, Lydiah Kananu Kiramba

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

This poem is a recreation of conversational interviews with five immigrant background adolescent African girls (Pendo, Furaha, Amani, Faraja, and Neema), all names are pseudonyms. In those interviews, the girls continuously shared how important their names are for them and the challenges they encountered with teachers and peers mispronouncing their names. One student mentioned taking time to teach her teachers, but was often told, “It’s just a name.” Weird gazes on her teachers’ faces are the best pronunciation she had received. This free verse poem speaks to the relationship between students’ individual names and identities, biases—which are often based on …

To Teach As We Are Known: The ‘Heart And Soul’ Labor Of Teacher Educators Of Color Working In Pwis, Amanda R. Morales, John Raible

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

In this chapter, the authors outline the ongoing dialogues, thought processes, and pedagogical moves we make as two seasoned colleagues of color attempting to enhance the cultural competence of students through a critical multicultural education course offered at a public university-based teacher education program. We document how we address many enduring moral, ethical, and epistemological questions through our practice that are unique to educators of color working at predominantly white institutions (PWIs). We frame our work within the literature on diversity and social justice pedagogy and link our own work to the broader well-documented challenges faced by many educators of …