Education Commons^™

A Study Of Kentucky School District Websites: They’Re Colorful And Informative….But Are They Ada Compliant?, John A. Huss, Shannon Eastep

Kentucky Teacher Education Journal: The Journal of the Teacher Education Division of the Kentucky Council for Exceptional Children

An often-overlooked component of a school district website is the necessity for that website to be accessible to those with disabilities, while following the guidelines of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Section 508 of the Workforce Rehabilitation Act. This study investigated the accessibility of school district websites in Kentucky by selecting a random sample of 50 school districts and analyzing their home pages using WAVE (Web Accessibility Versatile Evaluator), which reports accessibility violations by annotating a copy of the page that was evaluated and presenting embedded icons and indicators to disclose breaches with ADA. Out of 50 districts, …

The Efficacy Of Teacher Made Special Education Referrals In Appalachian And Non-Appalachian Schools Of Kentucky, John T. Elliott

Kentucky Teacher Education Journal: The Journal of the Teacher Education Division of the Kentucky Council for Exceptional Children

This quantitative study utilized a causal-comparative research design to determine the difference in efficacy between teacher made special education referrals in Appalachian and non-Appalachian schools of Kentucky. Data were provided from the 2014-2015 academic year. A total of 109 Kentucky schools provided data for the study. This study will help educators better understand multi-disciplinary referrals for special education as they relate to referral efficacy as based upon student qualification rates. This quantitative study determined the difference between special education qualification rates for teacher made referrals in Appalachian and non-Appalachian schools in the state of Kentucky.

Drawing On The Layers Of A Partnership To Prepare Middle Level Teachers, Margaret Rintamaa, Penny B. Howell

Middle Grades Review

The University of Midwest (UM) and the University of Metro Midwest (UMM) are located approximately 90 miles from each other in a central Midwestern state. They are the only two research-intensive institutions in the state, and both have middle level teacher education programs preparing candidates in school-embedded clinical sites. Both teacher preparation programs are guided by the requirements from accrediting bodies, AMLE Teacher Preparation Standards, (AMLE, 2012) and the missions of our institutions. In this essay, we will describe our collaborative partnership and how two teacher educators from two institutions utilize school-embedded clinical sites to connect and prepare middle level …

The Core Of Professional Growth In Work-Related Teacher Education, Leena Aarto-Pesonen, Päivi Tynjälä

The Qualitative Report

This paper presents a Glaserian grounded theory study of adult students’ holistic professional growth in a two-year tailored, work-related, teacher qualification program in physical education. The data consisted of reflective learning diaries, interviews and the written texts of 20 adult students. The data analysis followed the stages of Glaserian grounded theory analysis with substantive and theoretical coding processes carried out using the constant comparative method. The article presents the emotional core and its properties (criticality, ethicality and empowerment) of physical education teacher students’ professional growth. In addition, the article introduces a substantive theory of a process of adult students’ multifaceted …

Developing Multicultural Self-Awareness Through A Transformative Learning Experience, Cynthia Bezard, Sara A. Shaw

Journal of Research in Technical Careers

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore the ways that a change in perspective can create a better understanding of cultural identity. This study addressed: (1) How does a self-awareness transformative learning experience develop critical cultural competence in career and technical education instructors? (2) How does the practice of critical reflection construct career and technical education instructors’ ability to develop self-awareness of critical cultural competence? (3) How does involvement in critical discourse construct career and technical education instructors’ ability to develop self-awareness of critical cultural competence? A three-phase professional development experience rooted in multicultural education provided key …

A Look At Minimizing Student Loan Debt, While Maximizing Advanced Educational Opportunities, Karla Bradford

The Siegel Institute Journal of Applied Ethics

Poverty is a reality for many who obtain a degree of higher education and enter the workforce immediately after graduation. Funding an education for many may lead to student loan debt that is often virtually impossible to repay. This often leads many to believe that the debt incurred from obtaining a degree of higher education may not be worth the gain. The purpose of this paper is explore several articles that report on higher education as it relates to poverty, student loan debt, and salary pay scales for degrees and professional trade certifications. While investigating those related themes, this paper …

Science Theater As Steam: A Case Study Of "Save It Now", Christopher D. Davidson, Willard Simms

The STEAM Journal

What are the markers of a successful STEAM program? How and when can educators be reasonably sure that an interdisciplinary unit or project, rich in both the sciences and the arts, has delivered on its implicit promise – by adding value to a student’s education in ways that are beyond the scope of traditional discipline-specific learning? I attempt to address this question with a case study of Theatre of Will’s “Save It Now,” a pilot program for 4^th, 5^th and 6^th graders at eight Los Angeles public schools that integrates theater arts, music and the STEM …

Creating Steam With Design Thinking: Beyond Stem And Arts Integration, Danah Henriksen

The STEAM Journal

This article suggests the value in a broad view of STEAM beyond arts-integration, as well as the potential of design thinking for STEAM. Despite much interest in STEAM it is often challenging for many teachers to integrate into their teaching of school subject matter. I suggest that as an interdisciplinary crossroads, design thinking provides a natural bridge between the arts, sciences, and other subjects. In this it can offer guiding flexible structure and in-road for teachers to design STEAM-based lessons, and to incorporate as an integrated aspect of students’ STEAM learning. I discuss an example of an elementary Spanish teacher, …

Using Steam To Increase Engagement And Literacy Across Disciplines, Robert L. Long Ii, Stephen S. Davis

The STEAM Journal

This paper explores STEAM as a solution to improving student engagement and helping students improve functional literacy across the curriculum. While STEM is a fairly established approach to curriculum, researchers and practitioners are continuing to develop and understand STEAM and its place in school curriculum. It is important that educators foster this holistic approach to education and strive to participate in active research associated with STEAM. It is also most advantageous for stakeholders to understand the importance of arts integration and its use to support collaboration, innovation, and creativity within students. Key strategies can be used to support arts integration …

A Brief History Of Stem And Steam From An Inadvertent Insider, Lisa G. Catterall

The STEAM Journal

This article traces a history of STEM and STEAM from the perspective of someone involved in arts integration research for the last 35 years, and proposes a vision for the next steps. It also provides an assessment of the risks inherent in current trends of STEAM roll-out in schools, from the lack of resources for professional development to the burgeoning market in STEAM kits and activity books that do not lead to the original learning goals of STEAM.

“Who You Callin’ Smartmouth?” Misunderstood Traumatization Of Black And Brown Girls, Danielle Walker, Cheryl E. Matias, Robin Brandehoff

Occasional Paper Series

The emotional rhetoric in education often sympathizes with white teachers while labeling Black and Brown female students as angry, defiant, and/or disinterested. This is done without considering: (a) how white emotions influence interpretations or (b) how Black and Brown girls feel. This essay interrogates how emotionalities of whiteness traumatize Black and Brown girls. Using critical race theory’s counterstorytelling, it begins with the story of a Black girl and her response to her teacher’s white emotions. Then, the paper demands that teachers, especially those who are white, stop emotionally projecting onto Black and Brown girls and instead begin an honest listening.

Under Surveillance: Interrogating Linguistic Policing In Black Girlhood, Pamela Jones

Occasional Paper Series

Abstract

The youngest of Black girls are scrutinized for their language choices and surveilled on the basis of their ability to shift out of their vernacular and into Standard English (SE). In this essay, I revisit my own Black girlhood (Brown, 2013) to interrogate how those in schooled contexts compelled me to deny the “skin that (I) speak” (Delpit, 2002, p. xvii). Using intersectionality as my theoretical frame (Collins, 2000), I arrive at new understandings about resisting multiple oppressions and consider possible interventions at the school level.

Keywords: Black girlhood, intersectionality, African-American Language (AAL), identity, code-meshing.

Teaching Students How To Make Their Dreams Come True: An Autoethnography Of Developing And Teaching The Dream Research Methods Course, E. James Baesler

The Qualitative Report

How to make students’ dreams come true is the central focus of this autoethnography that chronicles the story of the transformation of a traditional undergraduate communication research methods course into a new and creative dream research methods course. Pedagogical and institutional issues in teaching the traditional methods course join personal influences in my life story to birth the new dream research methods course. The content and format of the new course are described chronologically using personal stories, student perspectives, advice to teachers, and reflection questions. I encourage teachers, by experimenting with the ideas in the dream research methods course, to …

The Developmental-Interaction Approach To Education: Retrospect And Prospect, Nancy Nager, Edna K. Shapiro

Occasional Paper Series

This paper analyzes the past, present, and future of the developmental-interaction approach to education: human development and the interaction between thought and emotion as well as the interaction between learners and their environment. Shapiro and Nager review the history of the developmental-interaction approach, outlining its essential features and tracing Bank Street College's distinctive role in its evolution. They then reassess key assumptions, address criticisms of developmental theory and its place in education, and suggest possible new directions.

Navigating A Social Justice Motivation And Praxis As Student Affairs Professionals, Nadeeka D. Karunaratne, Lauren M. Koppel, Chee Ia Yang

Journal of Critical Scholarship on Higher Education and Student Affairs

While diversity and social justice are espoused values of the field of student affairs, student affairs professionals are socialized to varying degrees in regard to the awareness, knowledge, and skills necessary to be social justice advocates. Through qualitative interviews with nine entry- and mid-level student affairs professionals, we explored the motivations and experiences of student affairs professionals who enact values of social justice in their praxis. Participants shared strategies to navigating the field and their advocacy, the influence of theirs and others’ identities on their work, techniques for implementing intentional social justice praxis, challenges faced in their advocacy, and how …

Response To “Seeking Democracy Inside And Outside Of Education”, Catherine Broom

Democracy and Education

This response considers the strengths of Carr and Thesee's paper and explores further areas of research related to education for democracy or citizenship education.

Democracy Dies In Dualisms. A Response To “Dewey And Democracy”, Dan Sarofian-Butin

Democracy and Education

This essay reviews Atkinson’s article “Dewey and Democracy” and argues that while Dewey and the social foundations classroom may indeed be important for teacher preparation, it is not in the way Atkinson suggests. Namely, I argue that Atkinson’s essay has three distinct (yet interrelated) issues: his problematic oversimplifications, what I term as “Dewey doesn’t do dualisms”; his misreading of Dewey, where I point out that “Dewey doesn’t do debate”; and his unexamined positionality, where I make clear that “Dewey doesn’t do Descartes.” I conclude this essay with a different perspective of a way forward with Dewey: that Dewey’s antifoundationalism serves …

The Rights Of The Learner: A Framework For Promoting Equity Through Formative Assessment In Mathematics Education, Crystal A. Kalinec-Craig

Democracy and Education

An elementary mathematics teacher once argued that she and her students held four Rights of the Learner in the classroom: (1) the right to be confused; (2) the right to claim a mistake; (3) the right to speak, listen and be heard; and (4) the right to write, do, and represent only what makes sense. Written as an emerging framework to promote equity in the mathematics classroom through divergent formative assessment, the RotL assumes that students can take more explicit ownership of their learning, both in writing and in oral communication. Foregrounded in the literature, this paper discusses how the …

Seeking Democracy Inside, And Outside, Of Education: Re-Conceptualizing Perceptions And Experiences Related To Democracy And Education, Paul R. Carr, Gina Thésée

Democracy and Education

This conceptual article underscores the importance of critical engagement in and through education with a view to enhancing education for democracy (EfD). As a centerpiece to illustrating this connection, we refer to our research project, which engages international actors through an analysis of the perceptions, experiences and perspectives of education students, educators and others in relation to EfD. The article presents the Thick-Thin Spectrum of EfD and a Spectrum for Critical Engagement for EfD to re(present) the problematic of political engagement and literacy on the part of teacher-education students. The findings of our study highlight a necessity for education to …

Cul-De-Sacs And Narrative Data Analysis – A Less Than Straightforward Journey, Gwyneth James

The Qualitative Report

This article focuses on the methodological journey I took as a novice narrative inquirer, particularly regarding data analysis, for my doctoral data; a journey characterised by floundering, meandering, wrong turns and cul-de-sacs. It explains the initially overwhelming process of moving from collecting “data” to constructing the narratives of five postgraduate international students, challenges faced as well as lessons learned. Despite its complexities, narrative data analysis enables colour and emotion to be added to research. This article continues to add to a somewhat meagre research literature about how to move from collecting “data” to constructing narratives.

Winter 2017, Transformations

Transformations

No abstract provided.

Writing Coaches Of Montana: Providing In-Class Support To Middle And High School Writers, Beverly Ann Chin Ph.D, Catherine Filardi Ph.D

The Montana English Journal

Teachers of writing know the importance of giving students feedback throughout the writing process. Teachers of writing also know the value of having students write for authentic audiences. However, classroom teachers often face challenges in these two areas. Writing Coaches of Montana (WCM) is a non-profit, independent, community-based organization that addresses these challenges. WCM’s mission is to help Montana students write competently, think critically and express themselves confidently. WCM supports teachers by recruiting, training and supervising community volunteers who work individually with students in middle and high school classrooms on writing assignments that require critical thinking and revision. The success …

Teachers’ Experiences Providing One-On-One Instruction To Struggling Readers, Meghan D. Liebfreund, Steven J. Amendum

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

This study examined the experiences of 12 kindergarten, first-, and second-grade classroom teachers who provided one-on-one intervention instruction for struggling readers within the general classroom context. Teachers were interviewed at the end of the project. Interview statements clustered into four themes: Managing One-on-One Intervention, Observing Student Growth, Acquiring Knowledge about Teaching Reading, and Discovering Specific Characteristics of Good Teaching. Results indicated that positioning the classroom teacher at the center of a reading intervention with support may be a beneficial form of professional development. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Professional Development For Educators To Promote Literacy Development Of English Learners: Valuing Home Connections, Leslie Grant, Angela B. Bell, Monica Yoo, Christina Jimenez, Barbara Frye

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

While families play a vital role in the early literacy skills of young English Learners, their educators often do not share the same backgrounds or cultures, and may not know how to connect with parents who are linguistically and culturally different. As part of a year-long grant funded professional development project, the authors led teams of educators from two districts through a series of workshops which included ways teachers could increase home-school connections to support the children’s literacy. Data from participant surveys with Likert-scale and open-ended questions provided evidence that the professional development experiences resulted in an increase in the …

Emdin's "For White Folks Who Teach In The Hood ... And The Rest Of Y'All Too: Reality Pedagogy And Urban Education" (Book Review), Cathie Chatmon

The Christian Librarian

No abstract provided.

Intention, Questions, And Creative Expression: An Antidiscriminatory Diversity Statement, Hannah S. Bright

Scholarship and Engagement in Education

Supporting education that reflects diversity involves maintaining awareness of one’s personal positionality, creating safe and inclusive learning communities, and using creativity and choice to empower and honor student voice and individual development. When working in educational settings, teachers may involve students in selecting relevant materials, and follow their lead in creating critical dialogue about salient factors of identity.

Fifth Graders’ Creativity In Inventions With And Without Creative Articulation Instruction, Darcie K. Kress, Audrey C. Rule

Journal of STEM Arts, Crafts, and Constructions

Industry and authors of 21^st Century Skill Frameworks are calling for student proficiency in creativity, problem-solving, innovation, collaboration, and communication skills. This project involved 13 fifth grade gifted students in inventing products for a specified audience with a set of given materials, time limit, and topic constraints. The complex, challenging project supports Next Generation Science Engineering Process Standard 3-5-ETS1-2 and applies concepts of plant and animal adaptations. The study had a counterbalanced, repeated measures design in which student made an initial invention during the pretest, then participated in two trials with one in the control condition and the other …

Challenging Elementary Learners With Programmable Robots During Free Play And Direct Instruction, Kimberly S. Mccoy-Parker, Lindsey N. Paull, Audrey C. Rule, Sarah E. Montgomery

Journal of STEM Arts, Crafts, and Constructions

Computer programming skills are important to many current careers; teaching robot coding to elementary students can start a positive foundation for technological careers, develop problem-solving skills, and growth mindsets. This study, through a repeated measures design involving students in two classrooms at two widelyseparated grade levels (first graders aged 6-7 years and fifth graders aged 10-11 years), determined if allowing students to challenge themselves with coding exercises in the experimental condition resulted in greater learning and more positive attitudes than a more structured set of exercises provided by the teacher in the control condition. Background instruction in coding and using …

Reading Nonfiction Science Literature With And Without Arts Integration Activities, Elizabeth Mccartney, Catherine Mochal, Victoria Boyd, Audrey C. Rule, Sarah E. Montgomery

Journal of STEM Arts, Crafts, and Constructions

This study explores the integration of the arts into the teaching of science nonfiction texts during literacy instruction. Sixty-one elementary students (15 second graders, 25 third graders, and 21 fifth graders) attending schools of differing socio-economic levels participated in this study. The study examined the effects of artsintegration on student content knowledge, engagement level, and attitudes toward learning regarding science nonfiction texts. Throughout the eight-week study, students experienced both the traditional no-arts control condition and the experimental arts-integration condition in two-week segments for different science topics. Both conditions employed literacy strategies to teach comprehension of science nonfiction texts. The resulting …

Examining Natural Selection By Sketching And Making Models Of The Finches Of The Galapagos Islands, Phoebe J. Z. Pittman, Jolene K. Teske

Journal of STEM Arts, Crafts, and Constructions

This practical lesson describes how students in six eighth grade science classes participated in a lesson combining the National Core Arts Standards with the Next Generation Science Standards. The goal of the lesson was to provide visual representations of finch beak form and function so students could better understand genetic variation and how environmental pressures influence natural selection. Students sketched a finch with a large, medium, or small beak, corresponding to an experiment they had conducted with picking up different sizes of seeds with different sizes of binder clips. Using modeling with a variety of media, students created bird beaks …