Curriculum and Social Inquiry Commons^™

Narrowing The Digital Divide: Instructional Practices Promoting Growth Mindset To Address Students’ Digital Literacy Needs In A Secondary School Learning Environment, Alyssa A. Krisanda

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this explanatory sequential mixed methods study was: (1) to explore the ways in which high school teachers use instructional practices that promote a growth mindset among their students, (2) how those practices are used to improve digital literacy, and (3) how these practices evolved during the transition from face-to-face instruction to remote instruction. This study aimed to explore not only how teachers are using instructional strategies to promote growth mindset, but how those strategies are helping to address students‘ digital literacy needs with the intent to narrow the digital divide. For this study, the case-selection variant of …

Supporting Student Mental Health: Essentials For Teachers, Michael Hass, Amy Ardell

Education Faculty Books and Book Chapters

Supporting Student Mental Health is a guide to the basics of identifying and supporting students with mental health challenges. It’s no secret that your responsibilities as a teacher go beyond academic achievement. You cover key socioemotional competencies in your classrooms, too. This book is full of accessible and appropriate strategies for responding to students’ mental health needs, such as relationship-building, behavioral observation, questioning techniques, community resources, and more. The authors’ public health, prevention science, and restorative practice perspectives will leave you ready to run a classroom that meets the needs of the whole child while ensuring your own well-being on …

Pivoting Feminist Praxis: From Writing Collective To Pandemic Pedagogies, Sabine Lebel, Lauren Cruikshank, Casey Burkholder

Feminist Pedagogy

No abstract provided.

Reflections On Contemporary Challenges And Possibilities For Democracy And Education, Michael W. Apple, Gert Biesta, Henry A. Giroux, Amanda Heffernan, Peter Mclaren, Stewart Riddle, Anna Yeatman

Education Faculty Articles and Research

This paper is one of two which bring together leading educational researchers to consider some of the key challenges facing democracy and education during the twenty-first century, including rising social and economic inequality, political instability, and the existential threats of global pandemics and climate change. In this paper, key educational scholar–activists respond to the challenges and possibilities for democracy and education, with consideration of the importance of reimagining education as being for democracy. The questions asked in this paper have particular salience for educational leaders, who must be at the centre of any commitment to democratic education.

Open Education Faculty Panel, Jenny Ceciliano, Lindsey Wilkinson, Staci Martin, Norma Cardenas

Open Education Week 2022

Many faculty at PSU have been involved in the Open Education movement. This panel of PSU faculty members discusses how Open Education has affected their teaching practice and how Open Education relates to equity and inclusion.

Our panelists are:

• Jenny Ceciliano, Senior Instructor II of Spanish/Coordinator of First-year Spanish, World Languages and Literatures
• Lindsey Wilkinson, Associate Professor, Sociology
• Staci Martin, Assistant Professor of Practice, CYFS Practicum Coordinator Child, Youth, and Family Studies, School of Social Work
• Norma Cardenas, Assistant Professor of Practice Child, Youth, and Family Studies, School of Social Work

Book Review: Anti-Racism And Universal Design For Learning: Building Expressways To Success., Donna Fortune, Kenya Motley, Mason Engelhardt, Carey Stewart, Kia Powers

Virginia English Journal

No abstract provided.

Intervening In The School To Prison Pipeline For Students With Dis/Ability, Miruna Ouatu-Lascar

National Youth Advocacy & Resilience Conference

This workshop will explore the intersection of disability and ethnicity in order to assist workshop participants in analyzing the inequity present both within the construct of disability and race and how this intersectional inequity manifests within the special education system for students of color with disabilities and how such inequities contribute to the over representation of students of color with disabilities in the school to prison phenomenon. Furthermore, the workshop aims to give participants an understanding of Dis/Crit theory and how incorporating Dis/Crit pedagogy within the larger framework of Critical Pedagogy practice serves the needs of our most underserved students …

“I Kind Of Pushed Back”: Efficiency And Urgency In A No-Excuses Writing Curriculum, Katie Nagrotsky

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

Drawing on the concept of structuring contexts (Berchini, 2016) this article explores a white teacher’s understanding of teaching writing in a no-excuses charter management organization network. Through a deductive analysis, the author traces how the teacher’s beliefs about language were shaped by the CMO’s emphasis on efficiency, influencing how he acted on and adapted centralized curriculum and assessment practices. Documenting the ways that whiteness works within the writing curriculum and assessment practices despite stated broader organizational commitments to culturally relevant teaching, the author shows how the curriculum appropriated texts written by People of Color while the assessment practices prioritized correctness …

A Critical Analysis Of Cultura In Spanish World Language Textbooks, Amanda Holbrook

Education Doctorate Dissertations

This action-oriented multimodal discourse analysis explored how a high school Spanish world language textbook series construes Spanish speakers and cultures and invites students to engage with them through written texts and visual images. Through a lens of analysis based on systemic functional linguistics and influenced by critical discourse analysis and critical literacy pedagogy, this study found that the textbooks erase Spanish speakers as active creators of cultures, construe them as a standardized monolithic group when present, and construe cultures as tied to the interests of tourists and linked to place. Moreover, the textbook series invites students to engage with Spanish …

“Say Something” The Power Of Youth Protecting Themselves And Their Peers, Jim W. Wise, Carleen Wray, Annie Stephens, Erika Latines

National Youth Advocacy & Resilience Conference

Say Something from the Sandy Hook Promise Foundation program teaches students and staff a three step process to protect themselves, their classmates and schools from harmful acts. The steps are Recognize the Signs, Act Immediately, Take It Seriously and Say Something to a Trusted Adult or through an Anonymous Reporting System. When students are empowered to Say Something they help create safer and healthier schools and communities.

Zoom ‘N Gloom: Performativity And Inclusivity During The Pandemic And Beyond, Sarah V. Seeley

Academic Labor: Research and Artistry (2017-2022 archives)

The pandemic has variously amplified, eliminated, and otherwise transformed the experiences and meanings of work across sectors and nation states. In the context of higher education, this transformation has taken many shapes, which have been molded by pre-existing, if not predictable, inequalities. If we set up all the well-documented pandemic-induced obstacles to work alongside the performative nature of academic work, there is a notable uneasiness. Insofar as the nature of work is changing— becoming more challenging, in general—there must be further implications for work that is “on display.” Within this context, the article focuses on the experiences of teaching and …

Justice For All: Social Justice Curriculum For The Young Adult Centered English Classroom, Genevieve Hawkins

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

This project is a curriculum-based approach to exploring the integration of social-justice texts, topics, and themes into the secondary English classroom. Discussion of such topics will take place in the context of teaching the contemporary novels The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas and The Black Kids by Christina Hammonds Reed, two young-adult novels that discuss how the teenage experience is impacted by instances of racism and police brutality. This examination of race in modern society will be accompanied by supplemental texts, included but not limited to Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine and NPR’s podcast “On the Shoulders …

From What Is Toward What If Through Intersectionality Problematizing Ableist Erasures And Coloniality In Racially Just Research.Pdf, Phillip Boda, Emily Nusbaum, Saili Kulkarni

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

No abstract provided.

Amplifying Rural Voices: Defining, Reading, And Writing Rural Stories, Chea L. Parton

The Montana English Journal

This pedagogical piece introduces teachers to Literacy In Place - a resource that supports the readingand teaching of rural young adult literature. It also outlines an example unit to highlight how secondary ELA teachers could use Literacy in Place to support students' reading of Nora Shalaway Carpenter's (2020) Rural Voices anthology.

Responding To Diversity With More Than Simple Lip-Service, Donna L. Miller

The Montana English Journal

Using contentious topics like those addressed in Joe Limer’s poem “White Hollywood” as catalysts for sparking conversations on complex social issues has potential to raise social consciousness and to support collaborative conversation. Miller’s GREEN APPLE acronym guides teachers and learners in honoring diversity and nurturing social justice. In critical race theory fashion, GREEN APPLE questions enable students of all races and ethnicities to have informed, productive conversations about the forces that have shaped, and continue to shape, the society in which they live.

Book Review Symposium: Walter Omar Kohan (2021) Paulo Freire: A Philosophical Biography [Translated By Jason Wozniak And Samuel D. Rocha]. Bloomsbury Academic Publishing. Isbn 978-1-3501-9598-1, Alpesh Maisuria, Inny Accioly, James D. Kirylo, Peter Mayo, Peter Mclaren

Education Faculty Articles and Research

"This book review symposium brings together leading Critical Pedagogues globally well-known for using and developing Paulo Freire’s work. They skilfully capture the zeitgeist of the book."

Chronic Absenteeism: Exploring Challenges And Obstacles That Impact Students’ Attendance In Northern Maine Rural Schools, Leland Caron

All Theses And Dissertations

Educational success relies heavily upon consistent school attendance (Rogers & Feller, 2018). In Maine, a student is identified as chronically absent when 10% or more of the days enrolled in school are missed due to excused or unexcused absences (Maine Department of Education, 2019). Chronic absenteeism impacts millions of students across America each year. National data identified that approximately five to seven and a half million school-aged students miss a month or more of school each year (Chang & Davis, 2015). This qualitative interpretative phenological study (IPA) was designed to fill some of the gaps in the literature on chronic …

How Female Stem Undergraduate Students Form Their Science Identity, Todd Martin Medovich

All Theses And Dissertations

This qualitative case study describes how female science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) students choose their undergraduate major, the obstacles they faced when making that choice, and how they overcome gender-based obstacles. These descriptions illuminate the manner in which they form their science identity.

There is a gender gap in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines (Viadero, 2009). This has been attributed to both biological and sociocultural causes. The biological basis for this disparity includes evidence of physiological differences between females and males, as well as the microaggressions and sexual harassment stemming from these differences (Bottia et al., 2015). …

Undergraduate College Student Perceptions Of Empathy Cultivation In The Humanities Classroom: A Qualitative Narrative Inquiry, D. E. Fulford

All Theses And Dissertations

Empathy—the human attribute of possessing concern for other humans in a way that others’ emotions are mirrored—is both an inborn characteristic, and one that can be taught in various settings throughout one’s life. This qualitative narrative inquiry study explored perceptions from undergraduate college students regarding empathy cultivation in the college humanities classroom setting using the theory of mind—the perspective-taking ability to infer other people’s intentions. Through Zoom-based, semi-structured interviews, data was collected from five undergraduate students at the university research site. Using thematic analysis to examine the data, four prominent themes emerged: (a) empathy cultivation in the classroom, (b) empathy …

Book Review: Reckonings: Numerals, Cognition, And History By Stephen Chrisomalis, Milton Rosa, Daniel Clark Orey

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

This review of Reckonings shares our thoughts on the diverse insights presented by Stephen Chrisomalis’s version of the history of numerical notation. Chrisomalis suggests that members of distinct cultural groups write numbers as an active choice in accordance with their own sociocultural contexts, which reflect the influences of historical, cognitive, social, economic, political, environmental, and cultural factors. This book integrates comparative, cognitive, and evolutionary understandings on numerical cognition with historical and linguistic evidence on the use and transformation of numeral systems through the historical advancement of numeracy. Chrisomalis offers an interesting historical perspective on numbers that builds upon three main …