Education Commons^™

Evans Committee Statement On Pioneer, Ramona Beltran, Richard Clemmer-Smith, Tamra Pearson D’Estrée, Alan Gilbert, Adam Rovner, Dean Saitta, Billy J. Stratton, Tink Tinker, Nancy D. Wadsworth, Viki Eagle, Julia Bramante, Amanda Williams, Sara Schwartzkopf

John Evans Study: Supporting Materials

Letter from University of Denver faculty and alumni on the university's use of the 'Pioneer' moniker.

Hathitrust Emergency Temporary Access Service: Reaping The Rewards Of Long-Term Collaboration, Natalie Fulkerson, Sandra Mcintyre, Melissa Stewart

Collaborative Librarianship

On March 31, 2020, HathiTrust launched the Emergency Temporary Access Service (ETAS). This new offering supports HathiTrust members’ research, teaching and learning mission by providing reading access to in-copyright works held in library print collections, on a temporary basis, during unplanned disruptions to normal operations. HathiTrust conceived, planned, and launched ETAS in less than four weeks by building on existing cooperative structures, including years-long investments in a shared digital collection, a member model that values strong engagement, and a collaborative staffing approach.

What Collaboration Means To Me: Centering Values To Foster A More Diverse, Inclusive, And Equitable Knowledge Ecosystem, Greg Eow

Collaborative Librarianship

No abstract provided.

Where Is The Community? A Qualitative Case Study Of A School Closure In An Urban School District, Anthony Mcwright

Educational Leadership and Policy Studies: Doctoral Research Projects

Family and community engagement are a proven strategy for strengthening schools. Across the United States, parents and community members have pressed school boards and district leadership for more transparency and broader participation in decisions about school turnaround. The purpose of this qualitative case study is to understand the decision-making process for the school closure of Rocky Mountain High School, a neighborhood school in an Urban School District in the Rocky Mountain West and the impact it had on the community. To better understand this dilemma, a case study method was used to identify real-life perspectives of community members associated with …

Faculty Spotlight—Dr. Seth Masket, Owen Mckessy, William Moody

DU Undergraduate Research Journal Archive

Interview with Dr. Seth Masket

Faculty Spotlight—Dr. Phil Danielson, Hannah Stanley, William Moody

DU Undergraduate Research Journal Archive

Interview with Dr. Phil Danielson

Embedding Information Literacy Support In A Peer Learning Program: An Exploratory Case Study, Jeffery Verbeem, Lynnette Harper

Collaborative Librarianship

The aim of this exploratory study was to investigate how librarians at a public university in Dubai could support the information literacy of student tutors through collaboration with a peer-to-peer learning assistance program. We sought to understand how peer tutors experience, develop and share their information literacy skills. We conducted workshops to help tutors become more aware of information literacy and to develop their fluency and confidence in applying these skills as students and as tutors. Data was gathered via a survey, a focus group and a quiz. Findings indicated that while there may have been some gains made in …

Working Across Disciplines And Library Units To Develop A Suite Of Systematic Review Services For Researchers, Nedelina Tchangalova, Eileen G. Harrington, Stephanie Ritchie, Sarah Over, Jodi Coalter

Collaborative Librarianship

Since their inception in the health sciences field, systematic reviews have expanded into many other subject disciplines. To address this growing need, subject librarians at the University of Maryland Libraries collaborated on a pilot program in three phases to introduce researchers to the process of conducting systematic and scoping reviews. This article describes the development of various collaborative efforts leading to the implementation of a systematic review service based on participant feedback. Assessment and evaluation techniques are shared to encourage further refinement of the systematic review service.

Leadership Lapse: Laundering Systemic Bias Through Student Evaluations, Debra S. Austin

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

This article discusses how law schools' use of student evaluation of teaching (SET) for high-stakes faculty employment decisions amounts to a lapse in leadership because using biased evaluations allows colleges and universities to discriminate against faculty whose identities deviate from white male heteronormativity.

Faculty Spotlight—Dr. William Phillpot, Will Moody

DU Undergraduate Research Journal Archive

William (Bill) Philpott Interview

Faculty Spotlight—Dr. Robert Dores, Anit Tyagi, William Moody

DU Undergraduate Research Journal Archive

Robert Dores Interview

Edited by Will Moody

Student Cultural Diversity And How It Is Defined, Perceived, And Managed: A Review Of Empirical Studies Across 3 Levels Of Analysis, Walid Hedidar, Abdeljalil Akkari

DU Undergraduate Research Journal Archive

Education systems across the world are not only experiencing cultural diversification differently, but are also engaging with it using differing terms, concepts, and practices. Thus, understanding the varying dynamics underlying this global phenomenon of educational diversification is necessary. Through analyzing a group of 35 published empirical studies, this review reveals the key themes that guide how education systems across the world define, perceive, and manage student cultural diversity as it relates to students, teachers, and the curricula.

Inclusive Schools For Students Served By Special Education: How Central Office Supports Principals, Lynn Reynolds Saltzgaver

Educational Leadership and Policy Studies: Doctoral Research Projects

Principals shape school culture and the teaching practices that students experience and engage with every day. Today’s leaders need regular access to learning and support that will influence their ability to lead schools for social justice for students identified with disabilities.

District leaders have a responsibility to develop and support principals to provide equitable and high-quality learning experiences for students who have been identified with disabilities. The purpose of this study was to analyze the Mountain Meadow School District’s role in supporting the development of leaders for social justice for students identified with a disability. This qualitative case study examined …

Do You Hear Us? Amplifying Alternative Pathways For High School Pushouts Through Youth Participatory Action Research, Rob A. Duren

Educational Leadership and Policy Studies: Doctoral Research Projects

The school-to-prison pipeline (STPP) metaphor encapsulates and describes a set of legislative policies and educational practices that systematically funnel African American, Indigenous, and Latinx students from the classroom into the juvenile and criminal justice system at disparate rates. An emerging solution to address high school pushout and the STPP has been to develop Alternative Education Campuses (AECs). However, there is a current gap in the research that amplifies the counter narratives of students currently enrolled at an AEC, through their own words, using Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR). Studies conducted with students who have been labeled “high-risk” are especially lacking. …

White Racial Framing In The Principalship: Implications For Culturally Responsive School Leadership, Guerin Gray

Educational Leadership and Policy Studies: Doctoral Research Projects

The history of the American educational system is rife with examples of racism and denial of equal access and opportunity to students of color. Despite efforts to close the opportunity gap, inequity remains. In this action research study, I explored my own leadership, utilizing surveys of stakeholders and focus group conversations to gain perspective on how my leadership impacts the school community. I compared these experiences with the tenets of culturally responsive school leadership that is a path toward greater equity. Concurrently, I reflected deeply upon my leadership, enlisting critical colleagues to help uncover ways in which my leadership toward …

How Parents, Teachers, Psychologists, And Educational Environments Influence Developmental Transitions Of Preadolescent Twice-Exceptional Students, Karen B. Arnstein

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this collective case study was to examine the perceived developmental transitions of preadolescent, twice-exceptional students to understand both the supports and barriers from the perspective of parents, teachers, and psychologists. The case for this study, located in a western U.S. state, was a private school educating twice-exceptional students. The research questions guiding the study included the following: How do parents perceive growth in both academic and psychosocial development? How do educators perceive growth in both academic and psychosocial development? What are the supports that promote successful developmental transitions? What are the barriers that inhibit successful developmental transitions? …

Impacted Youth: Why School Psychologists Need To Consider Diverse Approaches Of Support, L. Morgan Beidleman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This paper examines trends among youth who are highly impacted by multiple adverse experiences. It outlines potential patterns of risk and protective factors often experienced by this population and encourages school psychologists to recognize, consider, and advocate for the needs of these youth. It goes on to describe and interpret the cultural practices of Leadership Coffeehouse, a Denver-based social enterprise that seeks to support disconnected youth through professional development and hands-on learning. Finally, because of the unique training school psychologists receive, considerations for expanding the role into non-traditional educational settings are proposed.

Youth With Juvenile Justice Contact: Special Considerations In Measurement, Anne Elizabeth Biehl

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Students who have contact with the juvenile justice system are a particularly vulnerable and unique school-aged population. The risk factors that plague the likelihood of justice-involvement are numerous and inter-connected. Early experiences of trauma and adversity, limited familial and financial capital, and challenges with mental health all contribute to increased likelihood of youth contact with juvenile justice systems. Despite said risk factors effects on young people overall, youth of color are particularly susceptible to become justice-involved. School and community discipline statistics are grossly, racially disproportionate.

Pathways from schools to the justice system have been widely investigate in the literature. There …

Social Support Among Undergraduate Students: Measure Development And Validation, Heather M. Blizzard

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Being born into circumstances of low-income, having a racial minority status, and/or non-college educated families dwindle the opportunities for many students to obtain a college degree (Cox, 2016; Engle & Tinto, 2008; Jenkins et al., 2013). While many institutions of higher education have diligently worked to develop programs geared towards attending the educational inequalities among diverse student populations, there is still a great need for programs centered on the inequalities surrounding social support (Cox, 2016; Ward et al., 2012; Soria & Stebleton, 2012).

The purpose of this study was to develop and assess a measure to examine perceived social support …

Creating Life-Long Relationships With The Arts: A Caring Philosophical Approach, Jennifer Sparkman Bartee

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

It is important to understand how performing and visual arts teachers make their classes personally relevant for students. This study examines what the intentions of elementary performing and visual arts teachers who chose to teach with additional affective content. Four research questions were addressed in this study: 1) What are the instructional intentions of care-oriented elementary arts teachers? 2) What are the affective intentions of care-oriented elementary arts teachers? 3) How are these intentions actualized (or not actualized) within elementary arts classrooms? 4) What is the significance of these findings for elementary schools throughout the country?

To respond to these …

School Facet Through Surrounding Factors: A Geospatial Analysis Of Community Social Capital Impacting Elementary Schools, Sajjid Budhwani

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

School performance rating is an important factor which not only provides a quick snapshot of how the students are performing on various measurement indicators but also decides a school’s future course of actions, strategies, resources, and its existence. Despite its significant importance, the school performance framework does not consider where the schools are geographically located and the surrounding factors within which they operate. The researcher of this study presented a landscape of the surrounding factors and its impact on the elementary schools within Denver Public Schools district. In this study, the surrounding factors are geospatially analyzed to determine the extent …

Empathy And Understanding: The Impact Of Gifted Adults In The Field Of Gifted Education, Laura N. Boroughf

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the perceptions of gifted adults, who are educators, in order to understand the empathy and advocacy that comes with a shared childhood experience. This is a qualitative study that used narratives to voice the experience of the gifted child through the memory of eight gifted adult educators. These memories, and reflections on identification, were told through interviews. Themes emerged related to empathy, advocacy, and cognitive dissonance, as well as imposter syndrome, career readiness, gifted minorities and the positives of gifted programming. Ultimately, it was found that gifted programming is overwhelmingly a positive experience and mirrors the statement …

English Language Proficiency And General Intellectual Ability: Is There A Relationship?, Emily Kathleen Coggin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study examined the persistent problem of practice that ELLs are not identified for gifted programs at the same rate as their native English-speaking peers. The purpose of this research study was to investigate the relationship among English language proficiency levels and general intellectual ability of English language learners for gifted identification. In this study English language proficiency and general intellectual ability were defined as the performance on the ACCESS for ELLs language proficiency test and the performance on the NNAT Nonverbal Ability Test respectively. A Pearson product moment correlation was used to examine the strength and direction of the …

Pivotal Perceptions: A Phenomenological Exploration Of Trauma-Informed Practices In An Urban School, Marni Choice-Hermosillo

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This phenomenological study sought to examine the experiences of teachers in an urban K-8 school after a system-wide whole school implementation of trauma-informed practices. The practices teachers implemented in their classrooms that aligned with their personal perceptions of trauma-informed practices and its efficacy were explored. Additionally, the personal and professional barriers to implementation were also investigated. Identified practical strategies at both the elementary and middle school levels included establishing and maintaining relational trust and classroom community, actively teaching emotional regulation skills, and teaching and reinforcing rituals, routines and expectations throughout the school year. Lack of confidence and previous personal assumptions …

Educational Achievement, Engagement, And Persistence In Choctaw Nation: A Study Of The Success Through Academic Recognition Program, Suzanne Delap

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma has developed a unique initiative to support academic achievement within their tribal territory. The Success Through Academic Recognition (STAR) program is an example of an Indigenously-developed approach to supporting students from grades 2-12, with the hope of promoting achievement, persistence, and engagement. To study the STAR program, a mixed-methods approach was employed to first analyze quantitative demographic and performance data collected from a cohort of high school students from 2014 to 2018. Next, phenomenological interviews were conducted within the same cohort, to describe the lived experiences of STAR students within the Choctaw community. The database …

Student Outcomes In Online And Face-To-Face Classes At A Hispanic-Serving Institution (Hsi), Rebecca S. Cottrell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

As online course enrollments are increasing in higher education in the United States, it is increasingly important to understand student course outcomes in these classes, particularly at Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSI), where there has been limited previous research. This current study examines online course outcomes in the form of student course grades and student withdrawal rates as compared to outcomes in face-to-face courses. The setting for the study is Russell University, a public university in the Rocky Mountain west, and an HSI. Data used in this study came from a large, deidentified data set of all enrollments in any course offered …

Supporting The Affective Needs Of Gifted Readers: An Educational Criticism And Connoisseurship Study, Kimberly G. Freed

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this Educational Criticism and Connoisseurship Study was to analyze the perceptions of parents and teachers of reading supports and barriers on the affective development of gifted readers. The research questions that guided this study were: What do parents and teachers perceive as the most effective reading supports that promote the affective development of young gifted readers? What do parents and teachers perceive as the major barriers that hinder the affective development of elementary gifted readers? How can children’s literature be used to support or hinder the affective development of gifted readers? Participants of this study were parents …

Portraits Of Professional Collaboration: Faculty-Librarian Teaching Partnerships, Carrie L. Forbes

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Many regional accrediting organizations for higher education have embraced information literacy as a key component for both student success and student learning outcomes. Through embedded librarianship practices, librarians are now taking a leading role in developing and promoting users’ information literacy skills and in adopting an active classroom teaching approach. Faculty-librarian team teaching is a best practice for integrating information literacy into the higher education curricula, but the extant research has largely focused on the barriers to collaboration. Using Walsh and Kahn’s (2010) model of “collaborative working” as a conceptual framework, this dissertation explores the qualities and characteristics of four …

Gifted Identification In Young, Historically Underrepresented Populations: A Phenomenological Study, Meryl A. Faulkner

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to examine the implications of the low numbers of identified gifted young, historically underrepresented students. The research questions that guided this study were: what are educators’ experiences of the gifted identification process of young, historically underrepresented students? What are parents’ experiences of the gifted identification process for their young, historically underrepresented child?

Participants were parents of a student from an underrepresented population (American Indian or Alaskan Native, Latinx, Black or African American, and Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander) identified gifted in second grade or younger or educators who were involved in the …

Living The Dream: Building Self-Determination To Improve Postsecondary Outcomes, Pete Gladstone

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Despite recent federal legislation outlined in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) reauthorization of 2004 that mandates effective postsecondary transition planning for all students with Individualized Education Programs (IEPs), students with intellectual disability (ID) continue to experience inequitable postsecondary outcomes, particularly in the areas of postsecondary education (PSE), employment, and independent living (Lipscomb et al., 2017). It has been established that one effective method for improving those outcomes is to develop students’ self-determination abilities, and there is near unanimous agreement within the education community that doing so should be a primary objective during the transition process (Izzo & Lamb, …