Curriculum and Social Inquiry Commons^™

The Impact Of Poverty Informed Faculty On Community College Student Success, Barbara J. Embacher

Department of Educational Administration: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Community college completion has been proven to be a ticket to a middle-class life. Moreover, we know that poverty causes educational barriers, including community college completion. Community colleges across the nation are identifying significant equity gaps between students from poor versus middle-class or affluent households. One solution to close equity gaps and increase student success rates for students experiencing poverty is to educate college faculty through professional development. This includes 1) information on the causes, myths, stereotypes, and other facts about poverty, 2) the impact poverty has on student achievement, and 3) instructional strategies that can help students experiencing poverty …

Preservice Elementary Teachers Conceptions And Self-Efficacy For Integrated Stem, Deepika Menon, Deef A. A. Shorman, Derek Cox, Amanda Thomas

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

Educational reform efforts have emphasized preparing highly competent and confident preservice teachers to deliver effective K-12 Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) instruction. Self-efficacy is a key variable that influences motivation and performance, and therefore it is necessary to support the development of preservice teachers’ integrated STEM teaching self-efficacy. This mixed-methods study investigates how preservice elementary teachers’ integrated STEM teaching self-efficacy is shaped during their participation in a newly redesigned STEM semester consisting of three concurrent methods courses (science and engineering, mathematics, and technology methods courses). The quantitative data sources included the Self-efficacy for Teaching Integrated STEM instrument administered as …

Accessibility And Usage Of School Library Materials And Facilities By Social Studies Teachers In Sapele Metropolis, Sunday Obro

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

The study examined the accessibility and usage of school library materials and facilities by Social Studies teachers in Sapele metropolis. One hundred and four (104) social studies teachers were the selected study sample using the purposive sampling method. Two (2) instruments were employed for the gathering of data. They are an observation checklist and a questionnaire. The data gathered were analysed using mean. The study revealed that most library materials and facilities were not accessible. In addition, it was discovered that non-print media were lacking. However, textbooks and print assets and materials were accessible. Also, the study exposed that poor …

European Spaces And The Roma: Denaturalizing The Naturalized In Online Reader Comments, Theresa Catalano, Grace E. Fielder

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

With the entry of several Eastern European nations into the European Union (EU), a “third” space has developed in the discourse for nations perceived as not fully integrated “inside” the EU system. This article investigates the construction of this “third space” in the resultant “moral panic” about undesired immigration from other EU countries and its potential drain on the social services of the United Kingdom and links it to Euroskeptic discourse in British media. The article uses construal operations from cognitive linguistics combined with critical discourse studies as a way of denaturalizing the discourse in online comments that focus on …

"Hear Us, See Us": Constructing Citizenship In The Margins, Tricia M. Hagen Gray

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The meatpacking industry has drawn an increasing number of immigrants to the Midwestern community of Washington River from Mexico and Central America, making it a New Latino Diaspora (NLD) receiving community. Demographic change amidst the sociopolitical landscape of neoliberalism, declining civic engagement, and polarized partisan politics has forced interaction between longstanding residents and newcomers who are socially, culturally, and linguistically different. Historically marginalized groups have sought to claim rights—especially since Donald Trump’s election in 2016—resulting in a deeper fissure of the social landscape.

Washington River High School provided a context in which to explore questions about how students construct citizen …

Historical Analysis: Tracking, Problematizing, And Reterritorializing Achievement And The Achievement Gap, Justin Olmanson, Zoe Falls, Guieswende Rouamba

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

For more than a century, state and federal governments and organizations have used different measures to determine if students and groups of students have achieved in a particular subject or grade level. While the construct of achievement is applied irrespective of student differences, this equal application turns out to be anything but equitable. In this chapter, we work to understand the way achievement plays out for Black students by deconstructing how the word achievement works. In doing so, we track the history of education, testing, and curriculum as it has been applied to Black youth and youth of color.

A Study Of Home Emergent Literacy Experiences Of Young Latino English Learners, Guy Trainin, Stephanie Wessels, J. Ron Nelson, Patricia Vadasy

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

This empirical study explored the home environment literacy practices of young Latino English learners and their families. The participants were 217 incoming Kindergarten Latino EL students and parents. The data collection included a completed HLEQ by the parents. In addition, children were administered the PPVT, the pre- LAS, the PALS-K screening, the Woodcock Reading Mastery assessment, and the Wide Range Achievement test. All of the literacy assessments given to the children provided the researchers with comprehensive look at their literacy knowledge base. The results of this study indicate that there were two significant paths for students’ achievement: availability of books …

Cultivating A Learner’S Stance For Engagement In Teacher-Inquiry: An Aim For Writing Pedagogy Education, Jessica Rivera-Mueller

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This dissertation argues that writing teacher educators (WTEs) can more purposefully advance their commitment to sponsoring inquiry-oriented teacher development by helping pre-service and practicing writing teachers examine how they are developing as inquirers. Building from scholarship in Composition and English Education and the findings from a narrative-based qualitative study that included four secondary and post-secondary teachers of writing, I have named this attention to how teachers learn and grow their inquiry processes a learner’s stance for engagement in teacher-inquiry. This stance is a readiness to see and engage professional work with an eye toward growing one’s ability to engage …

Representing Teachers As Criminals In The News: A Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis Of The Atlanta Schools’ “Cheating Scandal”, Theresa Catalano, Lauren Gatti

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

On April 1, 2015, 11 Atlanta teachers accused of changing answers on their students’ standardized tests were convicted of racketeering and sentenced to 5–20 years in prison. Despite ample news coverage, few sources investigated teachers’ motivations for altering students’ responses or explored what the consequences would have been if student scores had not been changed to passing. Moreover, the fact that the teachers’ actions resulted from systemic problems associated with working within a high-stakes testing environment is glossed over and all but lost in the reporting of the “Cheating Scandal” events. The authors conduct a critical multimodal analysis of how …

Three Reading-Intervention Teachers’ Identity Positioning And Practices To Motivate And Engage Emergent Bilinguals In An Urban Middle School, Jung-In Kim, Kara Mitchell Viesca

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

This study investigated three urban middle-school teachers’ practices with respect to motivating and engaging emergent bilinguals in reading-intervention classrooms by exploring the teachers’ identity positioning. The three teachers’ sociocultural and sociopolitical positioning of their students (e.g. students as individuals, as monolithic learners, or as problems) was found to be related to their practices for motivating and engaging the students (e.g. hybrid, calibrated, or imposed practices). The teachers’ historical and current resources partially shaped how they positioned their students. The findings support that teachers should not only learn motivational practices but also reflect critically on positioning processes in the classroom.

Representations Of Power: A Critical Multimodal Analysis Of U.S. Ceos, The Italian Mafia And Government In The Media, Theresa Catalano, Linda R. Waugh

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

In September 2008, the collapse of the bank Lehman Brothers led to a financial crisis and the worst recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s, threatening the entire global financial system. Some of the effects of the crisis included evictions, foreclosures and high and prolonged unemployment. Despite the fact that bankers and corporate executives are widely known to bear much of the blame for the crisis (“The origins of the financial crisis,” 2013), very few have actually been convicted of any crime. In addition, recent investigations of the relationship between the New York Federal Reserve and banks such as …

Imagination: Active In Teaching And Learning, Christopher Cunningham

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This autoethnography tells the story of the author’s endeavor to examine my teaching during a sculpture lesson in three 2^nd grade art classes in a mid-western suburban Title I elementary school. I analyze my planning, teaching, reflecting through the lens of Stuart Richmond’s Characteristics of Imaginative Teaching as well as noted educational theorists’ conceptions of imagination and imaginative teaching and learning. These theorists include but are not limited to Maxine Greene, Kieran Egan, John Dewey, and The Lincoln Center Institute’s Capacities for Imaginative Learning. I conclude that imaginative teaching is an intentional act and that there is no …

Honoring Diversity In An Online Classroom: Approaches Used By Instructors Engaging Through An Lms, Jacob Petersen

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This is an inquiry into how online instructors embrace the diversity of their student body while facing the inherent differences between a traditional face-to-face class and one that is taught online. Current research suggests that diversity in a traditional classroom is an asset if the instructor is sensitive to students’ backgrounds. This paper examines if such philosophies in traditional classrooms translate well into a distance education environment, where the student body may be even more diverse than a face-to-face class, but possibly unrecognizable because of the lack of physical cues. Research on the topic of multiculturalism in an online classroom …

Critical Pedagogy In Classroom Discourse, Loukia K. Sarroub, Sabrina Quadros

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

The classroom is a unique discursive space for the enactment of critical pedagogy. In some ways, all classroom discourse is critical because it is inherently political, and at the heart of critical pedagogy is an implicit understanding that power is negotiated daily by teachers and students. Historically, critical pedagogy is rooted in schools of thought that have emphasized the individual and the self in relation and in contrast to society, sociocultural and ideological forces, and economic factors and social progress. In addressing conceptualizations in Orthodox Marxism (with Karl Marx, Max Weber, and Emile Durkheim) in the mid-19th century and the …

Icontact: The Digital Feedback Process In A University Setting, Kathleen M. Wilson, Laurie A. Friedrich

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

This practitioner research in the form of a case study examined the digital feedback process related to teacher growth in learning and instruction. Graduate students fulfilled course requirements utilizing iPad applications to generate assignments, coach undergraduate preservice teachers, and tutor low performing readers. Course instructors provided online written feedback on all written assignments. An analysis of data through the perspective of the formative process allowed four themes to emerge: (a) teacher learning through iContact, (b) immediate digital feedback and enduring learning, (c) creating an affinity space, and (d) transfer with a ripple effect.

The Teacher-Artist's Creed: Teaching As A Human, Artistic, And Moral Act, Amanda Morales, Jory Samkoff

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

Historically, educators and philosophers have struggled to define the role and the value of formal curriculum and its impact on classroom praxis. As the current accountability movement dominates discussions in education, educators are pressured to implement increasingly standardized curricula. The authors of this chapter consider the tensions arising from this trend, situated first within contrasting theories on teaching and learning. They then explore the concept of phronesis through an interpretive biography of one teacher-artist, Frieda, whose praxis also demonstrates the aesthetic and artistic side of the teaching-learning process. This 90-year-old teacher-artist's experiences implementing her curriculums suggest that it is always …

Nice White Men Or Social Justice Allies?: Using Critical Race Theory To Examine How White Male Faculty And Administrators Engage In Ally Work, Lori D. Patton, Stephanie Bondi

Department of Educational Administration: Faculty Publications

Numerous scholars have offered definitions and perspectives for White people to be or become social justice allies. The purpose of this study was to examine the complicated realities that social justice allies in higher education face when working on campus. Using a critical interpretivist approach grounded in critical race theory, the authors interpret participants constructions of allies and ally work and draw larger implications for these constructions and their capacity to disrupt and uphold systems of oppression and injustice. In examining the experiences of White male faculty and administrators who shared how they constructed and made meaning of the complexities …

Racking Up Cultural Capital And Eliminating Labels: The Culture Of Teaching And Learning In The Juvenile Justice System, Sarah Clarke Staples-Farmer

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

How do we educate the student who is “bad ass” or “delinquent”--the youth who finds himself locked up with every aspect of his daily life now controlled? By law, every child, no matter his/her status, must attend school and be provided an education. Thus, education typically makes a point of ensuring accommodations are provided for each student. Yet, what accommodations are made and what attention is given to youth who have broken the law, repeatedly run away, been truant, or removed from their homes due to adverse circumstances? Addressing the particular needs of these youth is both a mystery and …

Student Engagement And Action In Classroom And Community: Place-Based Education And Social Action For The High-Achieving Student, Rachel M. Jank

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This paper briefly discusses the work done in a college-preparatory, Senior English class to combat the disengagement present in many educational institutions. This disconnect does not allow for learning retention and, therefore, does not allow for students to apply the moment of learning to life outside of the secondary classroom. The work I do is based off of Jessica Singer Early, Bruce Bigelow, Linda Christensen, and many other master teachers who work with the educational designs of Place Consciousness and Social Action within their respective classrooms. The theories of John Dewey and Paulo Freire suggest that a non-traditional style of …

Community College Pathways: A Narrative Inquiry With One Student, Philip Ross

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Developmental education is a field that has a long history in higher education in the United States. Some have called it remedial education, but the field promotes a pedagogy that addresses what it claims is broader in the development of the whole person, his or cognitive, social/behavioral, and vocational growth. This study, set in a Midwestern community college, acknowledges the absence of recognition of the role of developmental education in higher education and responds to a lack of qualitative research in this area. A six-month study using narrative inquiry results in the documentary Crossroads Community College: Flying Solo and following …

Pedagogía De Hablantes De Herencia: Implicaciones Para El Entrenamiento De Instructores Al Nivel Universitario, Lina M. Reznicek-Parrado

Department of Modern Languages and Literatures: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This study researches the differences in pedagogical needs between learners of Spanish as a Foreign Language (FL learners) and learners of Spanish as a Heritage Language (HL learners) at the university level. By using the UNL Modern Languages and Literatures Department as an illustrative case and based on an analysis of the Heritage Language student profile in the context of the United States, this study seeks to explore arguments in favor of providing training for university-level instructors of Spanish that responds to the specific pedagogical needs of Heritage Language Learners.

The relevancy of this study is not only based on …

Researching Pds Initiatives To Promote Social Justice Across The Educational System, Gail Shroyer, Amanda Morales, Sally Yahnke, Lisa A. Bietau

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

The examples and data shared in this chapter provide evidence that our comprehensive mission to understand and impact issues of social justice and equity within education is being achieved as the PDS Partnership continues to improve K-16 teaching and learning and enhance the teaching profession across all levels of education. The major implication of our findings is that systemic reform is achievable and the outcomes can be exceptionally rewarding. Of course, such initiatives require time, continuous effort, resources, broad-based participation of all stakeholders, and a sense of need for change. Developing human capital across the educational continuum requires a commitment …

Theory Guided Professional Development In Early Childhood Science Education, Soo-Young Hong, Julia C. Torquati, Victoria J. Molfese

Nebraska Center for Research on Children, Youth, Families, and Schools: Faculty Publications

The importance of early and developmentally appropriate science education is increasingly recognized. Consequently, creation of common guidelines and standards in early childhood science education has begun (National Research Council (NRC), 2012), and researchers, practitioners, and policy makers have shown great interest in aligning professional development with the new guidelines and standard. There are some important issues that need to be addressed in order to successfully implement guidelines and make progress toward accomplishing standards. Early childhood teachers have expressed a lack of confidence in teaching science and nature (Torquati, Cutler, Gilkerson, & Sarver, in press) and have limited science and pedagogical …

A Pilot Study: The Use Of A Survey To Assess The Food Knowledge Of Nutrition Students At Various Levels Of Nutrition Education, Chante Chambers

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

A working definition of a concept known as ‘food literacy’ encompasses using basic food preparation knowledge that has been learned, understood, and practiced to make better food decisions. To advance these skills for client service, a post-secondary nutrition program would need to include objectives that allow application of knowledge. For this reason, the purpose of this study was to determine the difference in knowledge and application among students in 100, 200 and 400 level college nutrition course(s). A survey was developed to measure the food knowledge of these college students as they prepare for careers as health care professionals. The …

Growing Effective Cld Teachers For Today’S Classrooms Of Cld Children, Gayla Lohfink, Amanda Morales, Gail Shroyer, Sally Yahnke

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

Using a case study design, this investigation examined the effective teaching characteristics of nontraditional, culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) student teachers placed in rural, elementary schools with high populations of Latino/a students. Data collected reflected high percentages of effective teaching characteristics in multiple domains with specific indicators reflective of consistent teaching over time. A discussion of these findings considered aspects within the distance-delivery model that facilitated the CLD participants’ development of effective teaching and noted (1) consistent leadership, (2) explicit teacher instruction within CLD school settings, and (3) the strong cohesive nature of the CLD participants’ cohort as positively affecting …

The Status Of Students With Special Needs In The Instrumental Musical Ensemble And The Effect Of Selected Educator And Institutional Variables On Rates Of Inclusion, Edward C. Hoffman Iii

Glenn Korff School of Music: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Creative Work, and Performance

The purpose of this study was to describe the current status of students with special needs in the instrumental musical ensemble and to examine the effect of selected educator and institutional variables on rates of inclusion. An online survey was designed by the researcher and distributed electronically to 600 practicing K-12 instrumental music educators in the states of Idaho, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, and Rhode Island. While 13.6% of the total school-aged population nationwide received special education services, demographic data provided by respondents revealed that students with special needs accounted for 6.8% of all students participating in bands, orchestras, …

Schooling And The Everyday Ruptures Transnational Children Encounter In The United States And Mexico, Edmund T. Hamann, Víctor Zúñiga

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

Using examples of students in Mexico who used to attend US schools and examples from Georgia of students who used to and might again attend Mexican schools, this chapter considers how an unremarkable, quotidian activity—the act of attending school—can become means for transnationally mobile children to experience shock, disconnection, and a reiterated sense of dislocation if schools are incompletely responsive to learners' biographies.

A Mixed Methods Study Of How The Transition Process Impacts The Autonomy Of Pre-Service Secondary Mathematics Teachers, Linda Kasal Fusco

Department of Educational Administration: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This mixed methods study sought to identify the impact that transition into the practice of teaching had on the autonomy of pre-service secondary teachers of Mathematics. It was based on the belief that a Mathematics teacher’s autonomy depended on: beliefs about Mathematics and how it was learned, reflections on the teaching practice, and social constraints of a secondary school culture. Data was collected between January 2009 and March 2010. In Phase I (Quantitative) the participants (N = 30), selected from ten State University of New York teacher preparation colleges and universities, completed five instruments to quantify the three factors of …

Educators' Attitudes Toward Outdoor Classrooms And The Cognitive Benefits In Children, Carlie Speedlin

Department of Environmental Studies: Undergraduate Student Theses

A case study was organized at a K-5 elementary school in Lincoln, Nebraksa. This school is Saratoga Elementary School and is a United States Title I Distinguished School1 under No Child Left Behind. It has a population of 266 students, with 47% being minority, 1% gifted, and 28% special education (LPS School Profile Brochure). 80% of the student population is eligible for free/reduced meals, implying that it’s a school with a lower socioeconomic status. At this school a garden space was constructed and an after school garden club was implemented for this case study. The club had been running since …

“I Was Bitten By A Scorpion”: Reading In And Out Of School In A Refugee’S Life, Loukia K. Sarroub, Todd Pernicek, Tracy Sweeney

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

A refugee student’s literacy practices are examined. Discrepancies between his in-school and out-of-school literacies highlight the tension he and his teachers experience.

The purpose of this study is to examine a high school boy’s experiences in an ELL language acquisition program, at home, and in the work place. Within these contexts, we explore Hayder’s participation in literacy events in light of his identity as a Yezidi Kurdish refugee in and out of school.

Our study indicates that reading instruction works for students such as Hayder when certain support structures are in place. Teaching “styles” matter, as does the content of …