Digital Commons Network^™

Case Study Method To Increase Preservice Teachers' Experience With Ell Accommodations And Self-Efficacy, Kelly M. Torres, Samantha Tackett, Meagan C. Arrastía-Chisholm

Journal of Educational Research and Practice

The enrollment of English language learners (ELLs) in American public schools continues to increase each year. The substantial growth in this population of learners makes it imperative for future educators to understand how to effectively support ELLs’ acquisition of academic content and English language proficiency. In past studies, preservice teachers have reported lower levels of self-efficacy when supporting these learners. This investigation examines how case study approaches can be utilized with preservice teachers to understand how they recommend strategies/accommodations for ELLs and their levels of self-efficacy in implementing these instructional approaches. Findings from this research suggest case studies are effective …

Celebrating Multilingual Learners With Bilingual Children's Literature, Andrea Starr Karpf, Kathleen Hinman

Michigan Reading Journal

Research on bilingual books suggests that all children in a classroom benefit from the windows and mirrors that bilingual books provide. This article presents relevant research on the placement and use of bilingual books in classroom libraries, and offers an annotated bibliography of many high quality examples.

“Pool: A Social History Of Segregation Exhibition” Exploring Social Justice Through The Lens Of Water Safety Awareness And Art-Based Education, Angela K. Beale-Tawfeeq Ph.D., Mph, Tiffany Monique Quash Ph.D., Knolan Rawlins Ph.D., Victoria Prizzia, Miriam Lynch Ph.D.

International Journal of Aquatic Research and Education

Art exhibitions, with a focus on water safety and drowning prevention, are rarely seen as a medium to address social justice and public health, or water safety awareness and drowning prevention efforts in communities. Globally, data have shown drowning is considered a “neglected public health threat” (World Health Organization, 2021, CDC, 2023). Additionally, reports have shown that across the globe there are demographic groups of people impacted by drowning, historical traumas, and social determinants, also impacting some communities that are at greater risk (WHO 2021, CDC, 2023). Although there are national and international efforts to address the importance of water …

Peeling Away The Taken-For-Grantedness Of Research Subjectivities: Orienting To The Phenomenological, Melissa Freeman, E. Anthony Muhammad

Curriculum, Foundations & Reading: Faculty Publications

Qualitative research is a multidisciplinary field of practice that acknowledges and values the situatedness and subjectivities of the researcher. Therefore, reflexively accounting for one’s subjectivities is a crucial part of a research report. Less discussed is how subjective understandings are historically, culturally, and socially mediated, often challenging researchers’ abilities to orient themselves critically to this self-reflective undertaking. Phenomenology is a philosophical approach investigating how phenomena such as subjectivity are constituted in experience. This makes phenomenology an essential resource for understanding how complex subjective responses manifest differently depending on one’s orientation to the situation. This paper aims to familiarize qualitative research …

How Are Senior Citizens Capable To Cope With The World Of Digital Natives?, Hely Westerholm, Pirjo Takanen-Körperich

International Journal for Business Education

This study discusses the continuously growing threat to the senior citizens*), later called seniors, who can be isolated from the society if their digital competences and experiences are too poor in today’s digital world. It has been noted that to cope with one’s pursuits seniors need to actively construct and maintain their capabilities in ways that are flexible in the world of the digital devices, in response to the changing vicissitudes of life. Thus, the claim above illuminates the issue that the ability to learn from experiences is highly valued in the digital world.

The seniors are obliged to closely …

Improving Second Language Learning Through Performance-Based Assessment Practices, Maria Granados

Dissertations

From the time of the No Child Left Behind Act (2001) to the present day, standardized testing has become the benchmark measure for student assessment and school accountability in the United States. Multilingual learners are a vulnerable population with more testing and accountability requirements than mainstream students. Not only are they required to learn a second language, but they are also assessed within the same standardized testing paradigms as their peers - native speakers of the English language. This study aimed to examine and evaluate the benefits of instructional practices and assessments that provide multilingual students and teachers prompt and …

Effect Of Collaborative Pre-Task Planning On The Writing Quality Of Intermediate Efl Learners Within The Task-Based Language Teaching Approach, Osama Naeem Alzoubi

Dissertations

This dissertation explores the collaborative pre-task planning taking place prior to writing within the Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT) framework. The primary aim of this dissertation is to examine how providing time for PTP, considered as a problemsolving activity, has the potential to more positively enhance L2 writers’ performance and motivation to write than writing tasks performed with no planning time. Through a mixed methods experimental design, intermediate school students were distributed into a control and experimental group and conducted a pre-test and post-test to enable the collection of both quantitative and qualitative data over a ten-week period. The actual writing …

French 203: Grammar & Conversation: A Faculty-Led Inquiry Into Reflective & Scholarly Teaching Benchmark Portfolio, Erica Schauer

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

The following Benchmark Portfolio is the product of a full reassessment of FRENCH 203: CONVERSATION & GRAMMAR, an intermediate-level grammar course that serves as a prerequisite for students pursuing a major or a minor in French at UNL. Previously, French 203 had been a review course that covered the essential grammar structures discussed in 101, 102, 201 and 202 and invited students to practice these structures orally with peers in class. This new iteration of the course, however, seeks to broaden the reach of student comprehension of French as a functional tool of communication by requiring students to understand and …

Focus On Form In Peer Collaborative Dialogues In An Omani Efl Context, Sheikha Ali Al-Buraiki

Dissertations

It is well established that classroom interaction and peer learning are essential aspects of the learning process. Thus, it is crucial to incorporate classroom peer interaction into second language learning situations. Drawing on sociocultural theory (SCT), the present study explored students’ focus on form while collaboratively completing pair/group activities and investigated the students’ and teacher’s perceptions of and attitudes towards focusing on the formal properties of the language during peer interaction in their regular English lessons. The research data were collected quantitatively and qualitatively using the following instruments: students’ recorded audio dialogues, a students’ survey, and a teacher’s interview. One …

The Impact Of The Wiki-Enhanced Tblt Approach On High School Students’ Writing Skill In A Boys’ Public School In Al Ain, Uae, Abdullah Mahmoud Taha

Dissertations

This study investigated the impact of the wiki-enhanced task-based language teaching (TBLT) approach on students’ writing skill in the context of English as a foreign language (EFL) in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). In addition, it explored the students’ and teacher’s views and perceptions toward the implementation of the wiki-enhanced TBLT approach. The study data were collected quantitatively and qualitatively from two classrooms in a public high school in the UAE, which consisted of 30 students. The quantitative data were collected via a pretest–posttest design from the two assigned groups of students: the control and experimental groups. The qualitative data …

Feeling Otherwise: Affective Enactments Of Teaching And Learning Among Youth Researchers And Early-Career Teachers In A Cross-Course University Collaboration, Karen Zaino

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study examines a cross-collaboration between early-career teachers enrolled in a graduate action research class and youth researchers taking part in a dual-enrollment youth participatory action research (YPAR) class at the same university. Grounded in critical youth studies, anti-colonial theories of the human, and queer-feminist studies in its approach to relationality, and drawing from transcripts of the combined class sessions and individual follow-up interviews, this critical narrative analysis seeks to understand how participants enact and experience the collaboration, with particular attention to how they understand and engage with one another. This study especially attends to the affective-discursive practices that participants …

Elements Of Context In Speech On The Youtube Channel Podcasts: Cyberpragmatics Perspective, Dewi Puji Lestari, Anang Santoso, Gatut Susanto

Jurnal Pendidikan: Teori, Penelitian, dan Pengembangan

The purpose of this study is to describe the elements of context in speech in a cyberpragmatics perspective. This research approach is qualitative with virtual ethnographic type research. The research data is in the form of snippets of dialogue/conversations in podcasts. Meanwhile, the data source is a transcribed video podcast. The data was collected using the free-to-talk method and tapping techniques. This study uses Miles and Huberman's theory of activity flow data analysis and uses Dell Hymes' SPEAKING theory. This study found eight elements of context in the speech data. The elements are setting and scene, participants, purpose, act sequence, …

Uzbek Students’ Perception Of Classroom Experience In Emi Courses, Praveen Malla

Essays in Education

Knowledge acquisition of university students is influenced by many factors including program quality, teacher quality and support, classroom environment, medium of instruction, peer ecosystem, infrastructure availability and other non-academic enablers. This study aims to examine Uzbek classroom experience in internationalization (EMI) programs led by both foreign and local faculty within both the public and private university settings. 280 responses were received, 42 of them from students studying in public universities and 238 from those studying in private universities. The study triangulates the survey responses with a focus group study and fleshes out several interesting insights. We observe significant effect of …

The Effects Of Rti And Computer-Based Programs On Addressing Literacy Acquisition Skills, Amanda Page Mccall

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this quantitative quasi-experimental, pretest-posttest, control group design study was to investigate the effects of Response to Intervention (RtI) and computer-based programs on addressing literacy acquisition skills. This study is important because there is an inordinate number of students who are designated as requiring special education services due to a lack of reading achievement. This study is significant because the success of student achievement, and promotion from one grade to the next, hinges on students’ reading ability. This study sample was drawn from 55 first and 55 second-grade students from a Title One school in the upper state …

Audacious Corazón: A Nuanced Art Of Care, Dianne Bermudez Torres

Dissertations

Historically, the concept of care in higher education has focused on academic achievements, neglecting the significance of building meaningful relationships between faculty and students that engage both affective and cognitive dimensions (Noddings, 1994). Teaching with the heart, or corazón, embodies care in teaching. Employed in this study was a mixed-methods, exploratory case study approach that explored the intricate art of care and how faculty foster bilingual authorization credential teacher candidates to evolve into culturally responsive educators. Pearson et al.’s (2021) cariño pedagogy serves as a model that empowers faculty’s humanizing agency. Additionally, the study also reflected on the concept of …

People, Not Headlines: Teaching English To Ukrainian Refugees, Katherine Gardiner

Master's Projects and Capstones

Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24th, 2022, thousands of Ukrainians have fled their home country, many resettling in English-speaking countries. Ukrainian refugees bring with them many strengths; however, the challenges of surviving in another country on top of the language barrier and the trauma they may carry must be carefully considered and given special attention by instructors of refugees. The purpose of this project is to address the lack of English teaching material for the increasingly growing population of Ukrainian refugees in North America. The handbook is informed by current pedagogy on community building, promoting self-efficacy and …

Translanguaging In World Language Higher Education, Alessia Barbici Wagner

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

Increased global migration and a myriad of other social and political factors has made today’s universities more diverse than ever. As a result, teachers in higher education regularly find multilingual learners from a variety of different linguistic and cultural backgrounds in their classrooms and must consider this diversity in their teaching. One of the ways that teaching can better serve today’s multilingual and multicultural student population is through translanguaging. The objective of this dissertation is to investigate the intentional and unintentional use of translanguaging by multilingual language learners and world language instructors in higher education. Additionally, this qualitative case study …

When Culturally Responsive Practices Meet Social-Emotional Learning: A Guide For Educators, Sharon Ju-Ting Cheng

Master's Projects and Capstones

Many educators hope to give their students quality and well-rounded education while balancing all the contents they need to learn. Social-emotional learning (SEL) and culturally responsive teaching, however, are two areas that teachers seem to struggle with (Stark et al., 2021). Teachers have encountered situations where it was difficult for them to support their students due to the cultural differences between the teacher and student (Heineke & Vera, 2021). This lack of professional development in the culturally responsive aspect is concerning.

The shortfall of training leads to failure to apply these practices into schools. For newcomer students, who are usually …

Servant Leadership: A Powerful Paradigm For Effective Leadership In Africa, Franklin Ezeorah

Journal of Vincentian Social Action

Lack of good leadership is the greatest undoing of African progress. Unfortunately, good leadership for Africans is not just mirroring the western leadership system but adapting to a style of leadership that is attractive to African people’s way of life and effective for African people’s development and wellbeing. Because leadership is a crucial determining factor for the success of all economic, political, and organizational structures, determining an essential leadership style for a nation-state largely depends on how suitable the style can fit into the complex challenges facing such a nation-state. Considering the viability and profitability of the servant leadership style …

Navigating Context Collapse: A Strengths-Based Approach To Building Youth Civic Empowerment. A Response To “Blended Spaces: Reimagining Civic Education In A Digital Era”, Ellen Middaugh, Mariah Kornbluh, Mark Felton

Democracy & Education

In the article “Blended Spaces: Reimagining Civic Education in a Digital Era,” the authors joined a new area of research on "civic media literacy," or the capacity to use media with civic intentionality. Building on previous scholarship that examined how to support youth capacity for effective civic inquiry, dialogue, expression, and action in the digital age, the authors contributed to this literature by usefully elaborating on the phenomenon of “context collapse” and the challenges this blurring of the boundaries between public and private spheres may present, particularly in the liminal spaces where the shifting boundaries most clearly depart from the …

Learning From Literature And Legality: Supreme Court Cases And Young Adult Literature In A Social Foundations Of Education Course, Cody Miller

Democracy & Education

In this article, I detail how I revised a social foundations of education course to center major Supreme Court cases relating to K–12 public schools. Scholars in social foundations of education have articulated a vision for the field that fosters and promotes democracy and democratic dispositions. Focusing on the Supreme Court in a social foundations of education course is the result of two factors. First is the Supreme Court’s storied role in shaping K–12 public education. Second is the Supreme Court’s increasingly steep lurch toward antidemocratic jurisprudence, which many legal scholars and journalists covering the judicial branch are raising alarm …

Put Down That Book! Producing Poetry To Center Students As Organic Intellectuals, Jacqueline E. Boland

Master's Projects and Capstones

Schools are often sites of hegemony, where certain knowledge and voices are prioritized over others. This hierarchy frequently discounts students as producers of their own knowledge, ignoring the wisdom gleaned from their lived experiences, diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds, and cultural communities. While the study of literature inside a high school English classroom can be fruitful for students to acquire empathy and perspective, it is only effective when it is equitable. Educators must implement diverse representation in narratives, characters, authors and texts to represent students whose identities exist at the margins. Positioning work by Women of Color in the classroom …

Book Review Of Beyond Provincialism: Promoting Global Competencies In Teacher And Educator Preparation, David Sandles

Journal of Multicultural Affairs

With an increased emphasis on intercultural and global competence, teacher preparation programs around the world are stridently searching for growth opportunities for students in these areas. An important resource to this discussion is Beyond Provincialism: Promoting Global Competencies in Teacher and Educator Preparation, which supplies readers with scholarly, pragmatic approaches to developing students’ knowledge quotients with salient ideas that revolve around food insecurity, school improvement, communities of practice, mathematics education, internationalization of the curriculum, place-based education, and distance learning. Expertly linking these global issues to the United Nation’s Sustainable Developmental Goals (SDGs), the authors seek to educate educator preparation …

Staar Preparation: How It Affects The Perceptions Of Third-Grade Students, Taylor Whitworth

Masters of Education in Teaching and Learning

Test preparation is a hot button topic in education today. Many studies have looked at students’ and teachers’ perceptions after the administration of the STAAR test. This study investigated third-grade students’ perceptions of the STAAR before and after previous-form test preparation interventions. The researcher used observations, surveys, and interviews to collect data. The data was analyzed using the constant comparative method and descriptive statistics. The author found five major themes that answered the two original research questions. Most students had negative perceptions of the STAAR test prior to intervention, and these often stemmed from information from family members. Overall, the …

Building Relationships With Our Island Home: Three Stories From Kindergarten In HawaiʻI, Donna Reid-Hayes

Occasional Paper Series

As early childhood educators, we seek to create authentic and meaningful experiences for the children we learn alongside. We must remember that at its core, “education, in its highest form, liberates human potential through transformational teaching and learning experiences” (Meyer, Maeshiro, & Sumida, 2018, p. 17). As a Native Hawaiian early childhood educator in Hawaiʻi, I feel compelled to nurture the children’s emerging sense of place and self to empower them with a strong sense of connection and identity. Although not all the children in my care are Native Hawaiian by blood, they are being raised within a place and …

2023 Great Expectations Spring Faculty Conference: Education For Humanity, Academic Affairs

Spring Great Expectation Faculty Conference

The 2023 Great Expectations Spring Faculty Conference featured a speech by keynote speaker, Tamara Bilous, Professor of English, Rivne State University, Ukraine.

Professor Tamara Bilous is Educator in Residence at Otterbein University for spring semester (2023). While affiliated with Otterbein, she has engaged in professional development opportunities in the areas of multicultural education and ESL instruction with support from Professor Diane Ross and Erin Johnson.

She joins Otterbein while continuing her teaching and research responsibilities as a Professor of English at Rivne State University of the Humanities, in Rivne, Ukraine. Dr. Bilous is fluent in English, Ukrainian, and Russian, and …

Curriculum, Instruction, And Leadership As A Practice Of Reflexivity In World Language Education: A Systematic Review Of Literature, Jerry L. Parker

Journal of Educational Leadership in Action

This article presents the findings of a systemic review of research published by Robert C. Lafayette. Lafayette was a French teacher and teacher educator who worked to revolutionize the teaching of world languages through his articles, books, textbooks, grants, conference presentations, and other scholarly work. To uncover the value of his work in today’s language schooling, this study examined 17 of his articles and book chapters. Using content analysis methodology, the findings of this study concluded that his work contributed mainly to our understanding of curriculum, instruction, and leadership in world language education. His scholarship also provides world language teachers, …

Where Does The Buck Stop? A Framework Analysis Of Systematic Barriers And Supports To Effective Literacy Instructional Practices, Jennifer Barrett-Tatum, Courtney Shimek, Jennifer Manak, Chelsey M. Bahlmann Bollinger, Debra K. Wellman

Journal of Educational Leadership in Action

Many claim that elementary school teachers fail to teach children to adequately read, but few ask teachers why this problem persists. This study illuminates the voices of the teachers as they shared their perceptions of which factors supported or hindered their best practices in literacy instruction. Forty-four elementary school teachers across the United States responded to an open-ended questionnaire detailing the people, structures, political, and fiscal supports and barriers to what they perceived as a comprehensive approach to literacy instruction. Using diagnostic and prognostic frames to structure teachers' responses, findings from this study provide direct implications for administration at the …

Culturally Responsive Strategies To Support Multilingual Learners, Liz Shanks, Mackenzie Weakland

James Madison Undergraduate Research Journal (JMURJ)

Teachers must develop pedagogical practices to meet the needs of the growing number of multilingual learners in K-12 classrooms. Our inquiry- based research study analyzed ways that teachers can implement pedagogical strategies that are culturally responsive to multilingual learners. Thematic analysis of recent academic studies, class observations, and an interview with a language specialist affirm a set of culturally responsive instructional practices in the classroom that lead to the academic success of multilingual learners. These practices included teacher attitudes, translanguaging, and thinking routines to assist in English language acquisition. K-12 teachers, administrators, and community leaders working with multilingual learners can …

Sound, Senses, Semantics: A Music And Movement Curriculum For Children With Asd In A Therapeutic Nursery School Setting, Nathan J. P. Saignes

Graduate Student Independent Studies

This Integrative Master’s Project (IMP) uses a literature review of strength-based, child-centric, and behavioral to devise a 12-unit music and movement curriculum for a therapeutic nursery school setting, with children diagnosed with ASD or emotional regulation disabilities. Within those specifics, this curriculum also aims to center children’s culture and lived experience, with the goals of anti-bias education and the developmental-interaction approach in mind.