Secondary Education Commons^™

A Qualitative Study Of Iranian Efl Teachers’ Perceptions Of A Digital Diversified Education, Seyed Mohammad Reza Marvasti Zadeh, Azizollah Dabaghi Varnosfadrani Advarnosfadrani, Mohammad Amiryousefi

The Qualitative Report

Because Iran is a country of learners of diverse languages, socio-economic classes, genders, and ages, digital diversified education seems appropriate to address needs in English language education. However, there is a notable gap in research on teachers’ perceptions about this type of education. To fill this gap, this study aimed to investigate the perspectives of Iranian teachers of English as a foreign language (EFL) regarding a diverse digital education. Data were collected via an open-ended survey with 30 EFL teachers, both male and female, who were selected through convenience sampling. Analysis revealed several key themes, including the utilization of diverse …

"Don't Put Me Here To Meet A Quota": A Qualitative Descriptive Study Of Black Male Teacher Retention, Latresha Drummond

All Dissertations

The national teacher shortage has reached a fever pitch and can be accurately described as a crisis. Teacher vacancies in South Carolina (SC) have reached an all-time high since the Center for Educator Recruitment, Retention, and advancement began tracking the teacher shortage in 2001. Further, the phenomenon surrounding the exodus of Black teachers is understudied. Currently, no agency or organization tracks demographic turnover among the teacher workforce in South Carolina.

I utilized a qualitative descriptive design informed by an improvement science framework to identify motivating factors for teacher mobility among current and past Black male educators in SC public schools. …

Getting Out Of The Starting Blocks Well: Analyzing The Impact Of An At-Risk First-Year Mentoring Program At A Rural High School In The Southeastern United States Of America., Jeffrey Duncan

All Dissertations

As the US educational system recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic, school districts around the country search for ways to help students who have struggled to have academic success. Navigating the transition from middle to high school is critical for reaching on-time graduation for at-risk first-year high school students. A critical step in graduating is ensuring students feel that school is where they belong. Building relationships with a trusted adult on campus through weekly mentoring sessions is a strategy that can impact student academic outcomes. This dissertation uses the methodology of education improvement science through a Plan Do Study Act cycle …

Filtered Reality: Artificial Intelligence In Social Media & The Mental Health Of Adolescents, Maria Savva

Open Educational Resources

This instructional module was developed for teacher candidates preparing to teach in New York secondary schools, which include middle (6-8) and high schools (9-12). A three-pronged approach has been used to ensure teacher candidates develop a comprehensive and contemporary understanding of Artificial Intelligence (AI) as it relates both to their respective disciplines and its impact on the adolescents they will be teaching. Using a three-pronged approach, teacher candidates will: consider the rapidly changing landscape of their own discipline and how it has been impacted by developments in AI; examine the effects of AI, including through social media platforms, on the …

An Examination Of The International Baccalaureate’S Approaches To Learning As Humanizing, Leah Yates

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The development of 21st-century skill frameworks characterized as being universal, transferrable, and future-facing are ubiquitous among international educational organizations (Suto & Eccles, 2014). The International Baccalaureate (IB) incorporates a similarly articulated universal, transferrable, and future-facing set of skills called the Approaches to Learning (ATL) in its four programmes (International Baccalaureate, 2022b). However, critiques of the IB as being Eurocentric and solely concerned with the development of learners for Western educational experiences calls for a critical examination of the ATL as promoting monocultural skills which are not contextual, personalized, or humanizing (Refai, 2020). This multiple-case study and document review utilized the …

From Academic To Everyday: Utilizing Social-Emotional Learning In The Secondary English Classroom, Claire Collins

Senior Honors Theses

Social-emotional learning is an educational process that allows students to better understand themselves, their relationships, and their problems. While social-emotional learning is often emphasized at the elementary level, the concept continues to be important in secondary grade levels, and teachers have many opportunities to incorporate social-emotional learning within secondary English classrooms. Teachers can utilize diverse literature choices to intertwine life skills with instruction, as well as classroom activities. This integration starts at the planning level and moves into daily instruction, where there are numerous ways to engage students in meaningful discussion, promote reflection, and practice empathy and perspective. English educators …

Integrating Humanities Into Cybersecurity Education: Enhancing Ethical, Historical, And Sociopolitical Understanding In Technical Training, Joseph Frusci

Journal of Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

The increasing complexity of cybersecurity challenges necessitates a holistic educational approach that integrates both technical skills and humanistic perspectives. This article examines the importance of infusing humanities disciplines such as history, ethics, political science, sociology, law, and anthropology—into cybersecurity education. Through a pilot course developed for Staten Island Technical High School, aligned with the New York State K-12 Computer Science and Digital Fluency Standards, students were introduced to an interdisciplinary curriculum that combined technical cybersecurity training with historical analysis, ethical reasoning, and sociopolitical context. The results of pre- and post-course assessments demonstrated significant improvements in critical thinking, ethical decision-making, and …

The Power Of The Written Word: An Exploration Of Writing As Craft And Pedagogy, Kristen Charlesworth

Master of Arts in English Plan II Graduate Projects

This portfolio is an exploration of writing, both as a crafted process and a subject of pedagogy. It includes three pieces of vastly different genres, which have one overlapping theoretical notion: autonomy is a key ingredient to successful writing at any level. Student success, creative writing, and scholarly research are all enhanced when the writer is given opportunities to guide their own process. The selected works of this portfolio serve as examples of how student autonomy is not only possible in the classroom, but of the overwhelmingly positive effect it has on the writing process, student engagement, and ultimately, academic …

To The Middle School Talent Show Kids, Oona M. Abrams

New Jersey English Journal

This poem pays homage to the courage it takes to "show up, get up, and stay up," affirming middle schoolers' collective potential to dream audaciously and shape the world.

Prose Poem With A Timer Set, Oona M. Abrams

New Jersey English Journal

Exploring the tension between poetic idealism and daily obligations, this prose poem captures the fleeting moments of creative ambition in the midst of everyday life.

Joyful Learning: Station Rotation Activities In A High School English Class, Annie Yon

New Jersey English Journal

Alfie Kohn, an American author and lecturer in the areas of education and human behavior, asserts in his essay “Feel-Bad Education” that “joy has been in short supply in some classrooms because students tend to be regarded not as subjects but as objects, not as learners but as workers.” He explains that students are forced to sit through prefabricated lessons in a sterile classroom, whose purpose is not to promote thinking, much less the joy of discovery, but to raise test scores. In other words, richer thinking cannot come from monotonous multiple choice exams or never-ending worksheets but from “an …

Teaching Writing: Fostering Joy In Writing Through “Commentarying”, Ellin Kim

New Jersey English Journal

For over 15 years, the author taught at an after-school English Language Arts center. Initially emphasizing perfection, enthusiasm waned. A graduate course changed the author's views on writing, stressing personal reflections. Implementing this, students' perceptions shifted, using "commentarying" to foster understanding and engagement in discussions on topics such as racism.

Finding Joy Through Vulnerability In The English Classroom, Darlene Calderon, Kayla Sullivan, Emily R. Smith

New Jersey English Journal

Moments of joy in the English classroom feel tragically few and far between, often snuck in during pauses in the "real" curricula. This practitioner-oriented piece shares vignettes from our classrooms that illustrate ways in which we--as English teachers--have nurtured moments of joy in of our lessons by centering our and our students' vulnerability.

Things Fall(Ing) Apart: Deconstructing Humanism For History Teaching In A Posthumanist Society, Lou Ellis Brassington

Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies ETDs

Abstract

This study is a reflective analysis of the discursive construction of the social studies and the teaching of history from medieval scholasticism, through Enlightenment humanism, and into our posthumanist landscape. As an exploration of the foundations of Western thought, with an emphasis on humanism as it has historically affected construction of the social studies, this investigation focuses on theorists, praxis, curriculum development, and teacher identity. My research examined the pedagogical and curriculum choices for the teaching of history along with the intersection of the humanities and humanism from the Enlightenment through the criticalities of the 20th century, and into …

Building For Success? Ninth-Grade Course Failures And School Configurations, Sarah Ruth Morris, Sarah C. Mckenzie

Mid-Western Educational Researcher

This research study investigates the influence of school building configurations on the likelihood of ninth-grade student course failure. We analyze data from the 2017-18 and 2018-19 school years in Arkansas, and we categorize buildings as “Non-transitional,” “Focus,” or “Traditional.” Employing logistic regression models and interaction terms, our research finds that ninth-grade students are less likely to fail in “Focus” building configurations compared to “Non-transitional” and “Traditional” building configurations. Moreover, we find economically disadvantaged ninth-grade students are less likely to fail when they attend “Focus” buildings than “Non-transitional” or “Traditional” buildings. Our findings emphasize the importance of interventions and policy adjustments …

Examining Adolescence And Agency In The Midst Of International Crisis: Pandemics, Pandemonium, And Zombie Young Adult Literature, T. Hunter Strickland

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

The COVID-19 pandemic of 2020-22 brought an abundance of changes to secondary education as students transitioned across the country to virtual and hybrid learning contexts. Teachers flexed quickly and frequently to support the learning that students acquired in these new, digital spaces even as school, district, and state demands on teaching increased. The English/Language Arts classroom pivoted along with others as teachers sought out digital reading and writing resources for students to engage in. In the midst of a national crisis, a metaphorical monster that sought to destroy, much like Beowulf ’s dragon did, adolescent readers, despite the discourses of …

“It’S Not My Immediate Instinct”: Perceptions Of Preservice Teachers On The Integration Of Popular Culture, Melinda S. Butler, Eva S. Arbor, Nadine Bravo

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

Popular culture curricula integration provides educational benefits for students (Morrell, 2002; Petrone, 2013); bridging students’ out-of-school popular culture knowledge with their in-school literacies promotes learning, engages students, and values students’ background knowledge (Dyson, 1993, 2021; Marsh, 2006; Morrell, 2002; Petrone, 2013). Therefore, teacher educators may consider the addition of popular culture education into preservice teacher’s preparation for teaching (Petrone, 2013). In this qualitative study, researchers were interested in asking the following questions: What popular culture texts did preservice teachers consume as children and adults? and How does preservice teachers’ previous popular culture text consumption factor into decisions to include or …

First-Person Adolescent Storytellers And Virginia Tufte’S Artful Sentences: Syntax As Style, Kristin Leonard

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

In Artful Sentences: Syntax as Style, Virginia Tuft illustrates how grammar, word choice, and syntax strategies help to generate the perfect juxtaposition of words and punctuation that will make each sentence pop (Clark). Tufte’s handbook includes examples from a variety of texts; for example, John Keats, Andy Warhol, Ernest Hemingway, Julia Child’s The Joy of Cooking, and more. However, there is a noticeable lack of adolescent narrators in Tufte’s smorgasbord of literature examples. This lack is significant, due to the popularity of firstperson narrators in adolescent literature. Therefore, in order to analyze whether Tufte’s syntax strategies can …

Girls, Guns, And Zombies: Five Dimensions Of Teaching And Learning In The Walking Dead, Anthony Neely

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

Rooted in sociocultural theory, this article utilizes a conceptual framework derived from Alexander, Schallert, and Reynolds’ four topographical dimensions of learning: who of learning, what of learning, where of learning, and when of learning. Situated learning (Lave and Wenger) is presented as a fifth dimension to address how learning occurs in communities of practice absent of formal schooling. Content analysis (Elo and Kyngass) is used to analyze a teaching and learning event from an episode of The Walking Dead based on the five topographical dimensions of learning listed above. Findings provide insights for pedagogical application for …

Unraveling The Impact Of Cognitive Test Anxiety On Academic Performance Among Adolescents: The Case Of Minority And Majority Communities, Zulfiqar Ullah Siddiqui, Wael M. F. Abuhassan

An-Najah University Journal for Research - B (Humanities)

Background: Within the Indian society and its many communities, adolescents exhibit a wide range of individual differences, including cognitive abilities, learning styles, and personality traits. These differences can influence how students perceive and cope with test anxiety and related stress. Objective: The primary goal of this research study was to investigate the influence of cognitive test anxiety on academic performance in adolescents from both minority (Muslims) and majority (Hindus) communities in India. Method: Based on descriptive-inferential research design, a sample of 450 students was selected, with 223 students representing the majority community and the remaining 227 students representing the minority …