Secondary Education and Teaching Commons^™

Assessing Teachers’ Dispositions Towards Culturally Responsive Pedagogy In Northwest Arkansas High Schools, Rylie Ford

Curriculum and Instruction Undergraduate Honors Theses

Culturally responsive pedagogy (CRP) entails the use of cultural knowledge, prior experiences, and learning styles of ethnically and culturally diverse students to make instruction more relevant and effective for them. Furthermore, practices within this pedagogy are validating, inclusive, emancipatory, and ethical, and help diverse students succeed academically while maintaining their cultural identity. Numerous studies have indicated that using culturally responsive pedagogy increases student academic achievement, sense of self, and emotional well-being (Ladson, 1995; Gay, 2018). Considering the varying degrees of cultural and linguistic diversity in Northwest Arkansas (NWA) schools and the lack of reported professional development relating to CRP, this …

Creating A New Border Culture In The Midst Of The Climate Crisis: Activism And Pedagogy Strategies For Teacher Preparation, Puneet S. Gill

Northwest Journal of Teacher Education

This paper documents the efforts of an activist group that came to teach about activist efforts, climate change/climate justice/climate crisis issues, and to create leaders in one border community. The leaders of this three-day workshop are a part of an activist organization named SOMOS Sunrise, the Latine constituency of the Sunrise movement. In this paper, I will analyze the climate change workshop training days and components of the workshops. Secondly, this paper will document a climate cohort education group conducted with undergraduate students and pre-service teachers the following summer. This climate cohort helped articulate art activism and public speaking opportunities …

Culturally And Socially Responsive Teacher Professional Learning At The American Museum Of Natural History, Jessica Correa

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This capstone project consists of a series of professional learning sessions to support teachers in their implementation of Culturally Responsive-Sustaining Education (CR-SE) using the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) as a resource and case study. Through the lens of Historically Responsive Literacy, the series also seeks to reestablish social science as a critical element of natural history for teachers. This series can help teachers see the museum as not only a place to explore life and physical science, but also a place to explore identity, social/emotional development, cultural studies and American History. The project includes resources and directions for …

Pre-Service Training On Media Education For Teachers At Czech Universities, Karolína Mackenzie

Journal of Media Literacy Education

The study shows the content of future teachers’ education and their needs to teach media education in their future practice. The preparation of future teachers within the faculties of education varies considerably across Europe, as does the level of teaching in primary and secondary schools. In the Czech Republic, media education is a cross-cutting topic in primary and some types of secondary schools and is rather rarely found in the university training of future teachers. The research shows the areas in which future teachers were prepared in their teacher training, their sense of readiness to teach and their needs in …

Efficacy Meets Inquiry: Impact Of Lesson Study And Reflective Inquiry On The Development Of Novice Teacher Self-Efficacy, Taylor B. Hering

All Dissertations

Novice teachers often struggle to meet the demands of an expansive workload in their first years in the classroom. As reality sets in, district, school, parent, and communal needs often diminish the excitement of their first classroom, thus leading to low rates of teacher efficacy and early-career burnout. This is an educational dilemma because teacher vacancies are rising in schools such as Mockingbird High, a southeastern school with high poverty rates and varying racial demographics. This study aimed to determine if Lewis and Hurd’s (2011) lesson study model, an instructional intervention, influences novice teacher efficacy during the transitional period from …

The Purpose Of Education: Dewey And Maritain Re-Visited, Tony Shannon

International Journal for Business Education

This paper touches on the views of John Dewey and Jacques Maritain on the purpose of the process of formal education, particularly its social dimension in relation to the environment, which for Dewey means “those conditions that promote or hinder, stimulate or inhibit, the characteristic activities of a living being”. Dewey is concerned with communication and the conditions of growth of the child from every point of view. He was very opposed to those who see education as preparation for something else: he focused on what he saw as the existential needs of the student. Some of Dewey’s views are …

Indigenizing Education: Universal Design For Learning And Indigenous Leadership Frameworks, Jennifer Vasilez

Ed.D. Dissertations in Practice

Abstract

This study seeks to determine if Universal Design for Learning could serve as a culturally sustaining classroom framework for supporting Indigenous students in classroom settings. It also shares the perceived proficiency of Indigenous parents by those serving in a caregiver role for Indigenous youth, as well as the perceived potential of specific elements of Universal Design for Learning in supporting their students. As an Indigenous woman, I recognize the importance of asking Indigenous families if this strategy is worthy of further research, before conducting research into the efficacy of Universal Design for Learning in this way. This research project …

Secondary Teaching Thriving: Investigating Secondary Teacher Well-Being And Contributing Factors To Thriving, Ryan H. Nichols

PhD in Education

The purpose of this study was to examine secondary teacher thriving using the PERMA well-being model. This non-experimental, quantitative survey aimed to discover secondary teachers’ well-being and how the dimensions of well-being are predictive of thriving among secondary teachers in the United States. Using a comprehensive researcher-created instrument assessing participants’ sense of thriving and PERMA well-being, the study resulted in statistically significant findings with 55 secondary teachers participating in the survey. Both sense of thriving and the dimensions of thriving were statistically significant in a one sample ttest. Demographics, such as school classifications, years of experience, and geographic locations, were …

Creating The Pause: A Theoretical Approach To Helping Students Achieve Creative Independence, Amanda J. Anderson

MSU Graduate Theses

This paper will detail how the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic revealed the need for a modification of our current educational best practices. This modification asks that teachers create an intentional Pause where students can spend time dwelling on content and making their own meaning before teachers intervene through scaffolding and front loading. It uses a combination of personal experience, review of best practices, and Covid-19 data to show that best practices did not transfer well during the pandemic. It will then provide evidence for the addition of the Pause as well as addressing anticipated counterarguments.

Assessing Asian American And Pacific Islander (Aapi) Teachers’ Workplace Wellness, Fiona Tang, Karen Park, Susan Macdermott, Deja Anderson

Fall 2022 Virtual OTD Capstone Symposium

Teachers have many instructional, behavioral and classroom management, and administrative responsibilities (Cormier et al., 2021; Hilger et al., 2021; Roeser et al., 2022). There is limited research on occupational therapy's role in teacher wellness. This study aimed to assess the challenges and barriers that Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) teachers face, the causes of burnout, and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on AAPI teachers' wellness. This study used a mixed methods research design, including an online survey and semi-structured interviews, focused on the challenges, barriers, strengths, and needs that AAPI teachers face in public, middle, and high schools …

Pause And Possibility: Pre-Service Teachers’ Perspectives On Creative Writing Clubs, Stephanie Altier

Honors Projects

Creative writing clubs can enrich the lives of writers and facilitators. These clubs provide many opportunities to enrich their members’ academic, social, and personal development (Clifton, 2022; Siskel & Jacobs, 2011; Lawton, 2021). This project uses a focus-group study of five pre-service Integrated Language Arts teachers to explore the teachers' perspectives on advising creative writing clubs. Their insight informs a web-based teacher resource, Creative Writing Club Hub. Major findings are that participants harbor low self-efficacy towards creative writing and that the most effective method for encouraging them to advise these clubs may be to create a creative writing community …

Educational Silver Linings In The Cloud Of A Global Pandemic: Our Students Are Grittier Than We Think!, Linda E. Feldstein, Gary Andersen

The Advocate

This qualitative study combines two methodological frameworks in an attempt to elucidate the best of what occurred in the teaching and learning practices during the massive school closures necessitated during the COVID-19 pandemic in the U. S. Using a phenomenological viewpoint informed by the practices of appreciative inquiry, interviews were conducted with education professionals to hear stories of unanticipated benefits in education - times where things went well, new insights were gained, new teaching techniques/frameworks explored, or significant student benefits noted. Participant voices, experiences, ‘aha’ moments, insights, and thoughts form an emergent picture of what has gone well during this …

Getting It Write: The Influence Of Growth Mindset On Secondary Students' Perceptions Of Their Writing Abilities, Megan Hertz

Masters of Education in Teaching and Learning

This study investigated the ways in which growth mindset activities influenced secondary students’ perceptions of their writing abilities and skills. The researcher introduced growth mindset strategies, language, and instruction into two class periods of a 10th–grade English classroom to improve students’ perceptions of their writing abilities and to develop students’ writing skills. Data were collected with pre– and post–intervention surveys, field notes, written artifacts, and individual interviews. The constant comparative method was used to analyze qualitative data to identify significant themes. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze quantitative data. The researcher found the participants expressed improved resilience in response to …

High School Career Guidance: From The View Of A Street-Level Bureaucrat, George Clair Thomas

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

High school counselors struggle to complete the tasks assigned to them. Often serving more than 500 students, counselors must address requirements specified by the American School Counselor Associationâ??s national model. They must also perform duties required by state and local policy, as well as campus-designated priorities. Empirical studies of school counselors have focused on identifying the duties that counselors perform, the effectiveness of training that counselors have received, and issues that occur from the standpoint of local control of counselor duties. I found no study that identified how counselors prioritize what they do or the level of discretion that counselors …

Music Is The Intervention: The Intersections Of Music As A Therapeutic Activity In At-Risk Youth, Gladys H. Gonzalez Landaverde

Senior Honors Theses

Across the United States, public schools face many discrepancies in the quality and caliber of education that a student can expect to receive. While schools try to address the vast needs of students, many children and adolescents are unfortunately faced with choosing between prioritizing their education and the circumstances faced outside of the school day. The discrepancies in schooling range from the quality in the commonly accepted core curriculum like English and mathematics to the opportunities offered outside of traditional academia like music. Unfortunately, at-risk students are unlikely to have access to music education in the same ease as their …

Seysl 701 Foundations Of Literacy, Carol Hacker

Open Educational Resources

Syllabus for secondary education teachers of literacy.

The major area of inquiry is the psychological, sociological, cognitive, and linguistic bases of literacy.

Teacher Self-Efficacy: The Missing Piece To Trauma-Informed Classroom Interventions, Sarah Lancaster

The Advocate

Once a child enters kindergarten they spend the majority of their waking hours in school. Therefore, school-based interventions that are trauma informed are crucial for promoting social-emotional learning and development. While there are some promising studies, professional development programs for educators have not systematically incorporated psychoeducation on childhood trauma and the impact it has on behavior and learning, or classroom-based strategies to enhance learning and development among children with a trauma history (McConnico, Boynton-Jarrett, Bailey, & Nandi, 2016). Furthermore, educators’ perceptions on how comfortable they are dealing with the trauma of students has not been widely explored (Crosby, Day, Baroni, …

Using Scrum To Teach Standards-Based K-12 Computer Science: A Prosepectus For A Master’S Level Methods Class At Buffalo State, Noah M. Pierce

Career & Technical Education Theses

Computer Science has been increasingly prevalent in K-12 education in recent decades. Most Americans believe that Computer Science is as important as other skills taught in school; further, parents are putting pressure on districts to offer Computer Science programs (1.1). To meet this demand, many teacher preparation programs are adding Computer Science Education to their offering of degrees. This thesis investigates Agile and Scrum product development as a potential method of Computer Science instruction, explores the standards relevant to a Computer Science teacher, and offers a prospectus for a new Graduate Level Methods class to prepare Computer Science teachers to …

To Read Or Not To Read: Navigating Young Adult Literature In The Classroom In The Age Of Trigger Warnings And Banned Books, Ashley Sell

Honors Projects

Most public school libraries or English classrooms celebrate Banned Books Week during the school year, featuring dozens of Young Adult novels that have been challenged or banned in public schools across the country. However, books aimed towards young readers are typically not optimized for educational use in the classroom. In this project, I will explore the benefits of using Young Adult literature in the classroom, while also investigating the obstacles that one might face in order to do so, i.e. censorship, sensitive subject matter. I also want to summarize and respond to an argument for the retainment of classic literature …

Connection, Involvement, And Modeling: Co-Constructing A Story Of Resilience Despite Early Parental Loss, Erin E. Silcox

The Qualitative Report

The use of oral history and narrative inquiry to investigate factors of resilience in the face of parental death is absent from the literature. Also, researchers have not linked factors that support resilience against trauma and that lead to positive change in residential treatment with the role of educators. In this study, my father-in-law, Norman, and I answered the research question: What factors in Norman’s adolescent life supported his resilience in the face of an early parental loss? I analyzed Norman’s oral history using narrative analysis methods. Findings include factors that led to Norman’s resilience including his connection to a …

Ethnography: Building A Thriving Classroom Community In The Face Of A Pandemic, Joshua Timothy Jackson

Claremont Graduate University School of Education Teacher Education

A dive into the ride of a first-year teacher, which was also taught an entire year virtually. An extremely intensive look into the skills needed to grow as a secondary school teacher, in a situation that has never been experienced before. This paper also explores the foundations and scaffolds a teacher needs in order to become both a critical and socially just educator for all students within their classroom. The aspect of community is felt heavily throughout this journey, and the idea that communities are the very keystone of every single classroom; student-to-teacher community, student-to-student community, and classroom-to-household community are …

Research On Global Citizenship Education In Asia: Conceptions, Perceptions, And Practice, Theresa Alviar, Mark C. Baildon

Faculty Bookshelf

This edited book provides new research highlighting philosophical traditions, emerging perceptions, and the situated practice of global citizenship education (GCE) in Asian societies. The book includes chapters that provide: 1) conceptions and frameworks of GCE in Asian societies; 2) analyses of contexts, policies, and curricula that influence GCE reform efforts in Asia; and 3) studies of students’ and teachers’ experiences of GCE in schools in different Asian contexts. While much citizenship education has focused on constructions and enactments of GCE in Western societies, this volume re-centers investigations of GCE amid Asian contexts, identities, and practices. In doing so, the contributors …

Struggling Student Teachers: Interventions For Support And Success, Sheree Moser

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

Teacher shortages in K-12 schools have created unique challenges for teacher preparation programs. University instructors face the task requirements of supporting candidates from a wide variety of backgrounds at the undergraduate and graduate level. While some of these candidates enter higher education programs skilled, eager, and committed, others are less prepared, requiring significant attention to make it through the program. Exams required by state departments of education and minimum grade point averages influence each candidate’s ability to move forward within the program, causing some students to experience additional struggles related to mental health and financial burdens.

The problem of practice …

Struggling Student Teachers: Interventions For Support And Success, Sheree Moser

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

Teacher shortages in K-12 schools have created unique challenges for teacher preparation programs. University instructors face the task requirements of supporting candidates from a wide variety of backgrounds at the undergraduate and graduate level. While some of these candidates enter higher education programs skilled, eager, and committed, others are less prepared, requiring significant attention to make it through the program. Exams required by state departments of education and minimum grade point averages influence each candidate’s ability to move forward within the program, causing some students to experience additional struggles related to mental health and financial burdens.

The problem of practice …

“I Missed A Lot Of Childhood Memories”: Trauma And Its Impact On Learning For Formerly Incarcerated Adolescents In The Age Of Zero Tolerance Policies, Alberto Guerrero

Doctoral Dissertations

The literature makes abundantly clear that trauma has a detrimental impact on students’ academic and behavioral efforts. It also challenges the notion of zero tolerance disciplinary practices being effective in redirecting student behaviors, making schools safer, and creating an environment that is conducive to learning. Yet, our current school climate consists of educators who have not been exposed to trauma-informed learning, while also incorporating disciplinary practices that are both draconian in nature and push students out of their learning spaces. This unfortunate reality is felt even more harshly by students who return to schools following an incarceration. This phenomenological study …

Black Males Matter, The Educational Marathon Continues: The Relative Impact Of Student-, Family-, And School-Level Domains On The Educational Outcomes Of Black Males, Shawn F. Brown

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The educational outcomes of Black males within the United States are problematic. In far too many areas of life (health, education, employment, income, and mortality), this population is overrepresented in the lowest quartile. This dissertation seeks to understand that phenomenon by systematically considering conduits and barriers to these outcomes. More specifically, by employing the High School Longitudinal Study (HSLS) data set, ecological systems theory, and critical race theory, and hierarchical regression modeling, this dissertation explores the relative impact of student-level, family-level, and school-level domains on the educational outcomes of a national sample of Black males. Given the findings, recommendations are …

The Value Of Conflict And Disagreement In Democratic Teacher Education, Kiel F. Harell

Democracy and Education

Deliberative democracy surfaces disagreements so that people holding conflicting stances understand each other’s reasons for the purpose of decision-making. Democratic education approaches should provide students with the opportunity to learn and practice how to address conflict in the collective decision-making process. In this paper, I examine the Foxfire Course for Teachers, a professional development retreat in which teachers learn to practice democratic teaching by themselves experiencing democratic decision-making. In particular, a series of disagreements among course participants is analyzed in detail to understand the learning that resulted and the conditions that supported that learning. As a result of this experiential …

An Investigation Of The Experiences Of New Teachers And Their Reasons To Stay In The Classroom, Jessa N. Mcentire

Honors Theses

New teacher attrition rates have increased over the years. Twenty percent of new teachers will leave the profession after three years. That number increases to forty-four percent after five years of teaching. For those just entering the profession, these numbers can be daunting. The purpose of this study was to determine the reasons for this departure and what actions schools employ to help lessen this attrition rate. After screening four teachers to gain a general insight into their experiences, eight teachers with a similar educational background were selected for additional interviews. This study was intended to determine how much of …

Teacher Passion: A Student Perspective, Rebecca Stetler

WRIT: Journal of First-Year Writing

Existing research explores teacher passion and its effects in student outcomes using teachers as participants. This paper examines teacher passion and student outcomes from the perspective of recent high school graduates. This broadens the scope of pedagogy regarding teacher passion and student outcomes. This study reveals some agreements as well as some discrepancies concerning teacher passion between the two perspectives.

Teaching Cybersecurity To Students With Visual Impairments And Blindness, Jesse R. Hairston, Tania Williams, Derrick W. Smith Ed.D., Coms, William T. Sabados Ph.D., Steven Forney

Journal of Science Education for Students with Disabilities

This work showcases specific adaptations used to make cybersecurity accessible to high school students with visual impairments and blindness (VIB). The rapidly growing field of cybersecurity demands a diverse workforce; however, barriers exist which can deter students with disabilities from studying cybersecurity, let alone pursuing a career in the field. To help overcome this challenge, we launched the first GenCyber camp specifically developed and instructed for high school students with VIB in summer 2019. We created a unique learning environment by combining interactive instructional aids, accessible development environments, and innovative instructional strategies. With intent to show cybersecurity as a viable …