Digital Commons Network^™

History Of Florence State Teachers College, Susan Kirkman Vaughn

Documents

The story of the History of State Teachers College in Florence, Alabama.

Writing As A Process Of Inquiry In Autoethnography For Meaning-Making: Reflections And Some Points For Consideration, Niroj Dahal

The Qualitative Report

This article explores writing as a process of inquiry and meaning-making in the autoethnographic tradition, offering reflections on the recursive, emergent, and dialogical/dialectical nature of writing, along with some points for consideration. Drawing on perspectives from qualitative research and narrative inquiry (Riessman, 2008), I argue that autoethnographic writing serves as a method of inquiry and/or discovery, generating ontological, epistemological, and axiological-driven cultural meaning that functions as a site of reflection, interrogation, and re-storying of lived experiences. This recursive, often messy, and reflexive act allows researchers to excavate, analyze, and interpret their lived experiences. Rather than viewing writing as a final-stage …

What Multiple Theories Can Illuminate In Qualitative Research, Sherry Marx, Rachel Billings, Taylor Dexter, Mark T. Lewis, Patrick Ocran, Douglas Weber

The Qualitative Report

Our aim in this paper is to help scholars better understand theory’s purpose in qualitative research, how it is employed in data analysis, and the strengths and limitations of the insights it can reveal. We do this by sharing our practice using multiple theories to make sense of a common data set in an advanced doctoral class focused on theory in qualitative research. For the class final project, students chose different theories to analyze one common data set: A brief historical article on the Los Angeles Zoot Suit Riots. Student-chosen theories included constructivism, actor-network theory, symbolic interactionism, critical race theory, …

Numeracy-Based Civic Education Model: Needs Analysis Through An Explanatory Sequential Design, Sulkipani Sulkipani, Kokom Komalasari, Sapriya Sapriya, Susan Fitriasari, Vina Amilia Suganda Makenun

Numeracy

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals emphasize numeracy as essential for quality education, and require its integration across the curriculum, including into civic education (CE). However, the integration of numeracy in CE in Indonesian universities has not yet been clearly mapped out. This study aims to analyze the need for numeracy integration in CE as a basis for developing a numeracy-based CE learning model. Using a mixed method with an explanatory sequential design, the study involved a convenience sample of 225 students and 10 lecturers from various universities through surveys, interviews, observations, and documentation studies. Quantitative findings show that numeracy …

History Of Lagrange College, Professor A. A. Mcgregor

Documents

This book is on the History of LaGrange College from 1829 until the Civil War. It was written by Professor A.A. McGregor. Was given to the library at Florence State Teachers College by The Sheffield Standard in Sheffield, Alabama April 12, 1935.

2026 - The Thirtieth Annual Symposium Of Student Scholars

Symposium of Student Scholars Program Books

The full program book from the 30th Annual Symposium of Student Scholars, held on April 22-24, 2026. Includes abstracts from the presentations and posters.

An Intersectional Analysis Of Multicultural Education Discourse: Neoliberalism, Racism, And Sexism In South Korea, Inui Kim, Younkyung Hong, Eunhye Cho, Myeong Ko

Teaching and Learning Faculty Publications

This study addresses the urgent need to approach multicultural education in South Korea through a social justice lens. It aims to tackle the unique structural and systemic oppressions and exclusions often overlooked in research. Using critical discourse analysis, we explore how the discourse on multicultural education intertwines with oppressive ideologies and perspectives in South Korea. The present study builds upon scholarship emphasizing the importance of considering the influence of neoliberalism and ethnocentric nationalism in the South Korean context when examining multicultural education. It addresses the unique structural and systemic oppressions and exclusions that have remained underaddressed by the current multicultural …

Building A Course-Specific Genai Chatbot: A Comprehensive Tutorial And Comparison, Elias Gil, David Han, Joseph Mendez

TxDLA Journal of Digital Learning

This practitioner article presents a step-by-step guide for designing and embedding a course-specific generative AI chatbot using the Botpress platform. Aimed at digital learning practitioners and instructional designers, the article demonstrates how curated knowledge bases, carefully crafted prompts, and seamless LMS integration can create AI-powered teaching assistants that support student engagement and learning. Drawing on recent scholarship, the work highlights opportunities and challenges in leveraging generative AI for higher education, including accuracy, trust, and ethical considerations. A comparative analysis of alternative platforms such as ChatGPT and Google Dialogflow, further contextualizes Botpress within the broader landscape of AI-enabled educational tools. By …

K–8 Teachers' Perceptions Of The Barriers To Educating Chronically Absent Homeless Youth, Daniel James Pangrazio

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Abstract The problem that was addressed through this study is that kindergarten through eighth-grade homeless students experience higher rates of chronic absenteeism and lower educational outcomes than their housed peers in California. Grounded in Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory, the purpose of this study was to explore K–8 teachers’ perceptions of the barriers they face in educating chronically absent homeless youth. For this basic qualitative design, semistructured interviews were conducted with 10 K–8 teachers from one California school district. Creswell and Guetterman’s five-stage coding process was used for data analysis. Four themes emerged: Teachers discussed (a) barriers to addressing student academic …

Program And Proceedings, The Nebraska Academy Of Sciences 1880–2026: 146th Anniversary Year, One Hundred-Thirty-Sixth Annual Meeting

Nebraska Academy of Sciences: Programs and Proceedings

Program and abstracts of the proceedings for the Nebraska Academy of Sciences 136th annual meeting, 2025

Sessions

Aeronautics and Space Science

Anthropology

Biological and Medical Sciences

Earth Sciences

Ecology, Sustainability, and Environmental Science

Physics and Engineering

General Poster Session

2026 Maiben Lecture: Shifting Extremes: Understanding Nebraska’s Changing Climate and Preparing for What Lies Ahead, Deborah Bathke

2026 Friends of Science Awards: Julie Shaffer and Irina Filina

2026 C. Bertrand and Marian Othmer Schultz Colleaguate Schoalrship Award: Piper Ryschon and Bryce Reeson

In Memoriam: Paul Royster

Analysis Toolkit For Potential Lunar Landing Zones, Jacobo Matallana

Morehead State Theses and Dissertations

A thesis presented to the faculty of the College of Science and Engineering Morehead State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree Master of Science by Jacobo Matallana on April 24, 2026.

Unf Student Research Symposium Conference Program Spring 2026, Office Of Undergraduate Research, Graduate School, Digital Humanities Institute, Hicks Honors College

UNF Student Research Symposium

Formerly known as SOARS, ARISE and U-GLIDE, the Student Research Symposium is a multi-disciplinary conference series at the University of North Florida (UNF) in which undergraduate and graduate students showcase their research projects during the fall, spring and summer semesters. Research at UNF includes inquiry and investigation in all forms. Communication of knowledge produced through student research can be presented in poster format or as an oral presentation at the Student Research Symposium in a welcoming environment. This is an excellent opportunity for students to refine their presentation skills through interaction with peers and faculty as they explain their projects, …

April 24, 2026 Minutes, Swosu Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Minutes

No abstract provided.

Human Rights Education, Racism And Early Childhood Education In Brazil: A Systematic Review, Ana Tereza Ramos De Jesus Ferreira, Juliene Madureira Ferreira

International Journal of Human Rights Education

Brazil was the last country in South America to put an end to the 388-year slave trade. To justify the trade of people from Africa, a series of actions were taken to dehumanize the Black  population, namely racism. Thus, the culture, religion, clothes, and phenotypical characteristics of Black people were considered inferior to those of the White race, and this continues to impact the lives of the Black population, which suffers from social inequality, low-quality education, and low-paid jobs up to this day. Therefore, this review aims to investigate Brazilian literature on activities in early childhood education (ECE) to fight …

2026 Urs Abstract Booket, Undergraduate Research Center, Minnesota State University, Mankato

Undergraduate Research Symposium

Complete Schedule of Events for the 28th Annual Undergraduate Research Symposium at Minnesota State University, Mankato.

Factors That Affect African American Representation In Cybersecurity Academic Programs In The United States, Damon Walker

Dissertations

The U.S. cybersecurity workforce continues to experience a critical talent shortage alongside persistent inequities in racial representation, particularly at the faculty level within higher education. This mixed-methods dissertation examines African American representation among faculty in cybersecurity academic programs designated by the National Centers of Academic Excellence in Cybersecurity (NCAE-C) and investigates the factors that influence recruitment, retention, and advancement. Grounded in a transformative research framework, the study integrates quantitative analysis of national institutional data with qualitative interviews to illuminate structural patterns and lived experiences shaping representation.

Quantitative findings revealed pronounced underrepresentation: African American faculty comprise 2.57% (130 of 5,051) of …

Teacher Reflections On Media And Information Literacy In Vietnamese K-12 Schools: Current Practices, Challenges, And Pathways For Improvement, Tinh T.T Le, Minh Tran, Anh Dương, Huong T. Pham, Vy Tran, Daniel Jackson

Journal of Media Literacy Education

Media and Information Literacy (MIL) education is widely recognized as essential, yet its adoption in Vietnamese K-12 schools is still at the early stages. This study examines the current state of MIL education in Vietnam from the perspective of teachers. Drawing on insights from a trial online MIL teacher training program, which includes teachers’ learning journals, lesson plans, and an open survey using SWOT forms, we explore the approaches they use, the challenges they face, and the opportunities in promoting MIL education in their school setting. Additionally, the findings highlight specific professional development needs to enhance teachers’ MIL instruction quality. …

Don’T Tell Me How To Fact-Check; Show Me, And Let Me Try! A Media Literacy Intervention With Sixth-Graders, Thomas Nygren, Carl-Anton Werner Axelsson

Journal of Media Literacy Education

This study examines how different educational approaches related to "Fria Ordets Dag" (Free Speech Day), a media literacy program by the Swedish public service, affect the ability of 859 sixth-graders to evaluate news and misinformation. Findings indicate that verbal instructions from a professional fact-checker and animations to model online fact-checking were less effective than demonstrative, authentic video tutorials. Feedback and practice were also important. The intervention yielded mixed outcomes on students’ attitudes towards credible news sources, pointing to the necessity for educational designs that bolster fact-checking and source trust. The research emphasizes how large-scale school interventions to promote students’ navigation …

Hqcm And Strengthened Physics Content Curriculum: Effects On Preservice Teachers And Partnership Schools, Elizabeth Hallock, Veronica Stowe

Education Student Scholarship

In responding to Rhode Island’s 2019 legislative call for High Quality Curriculum Materials (HQCM), this study examines how the integration of HQCM and physics content- strengthened curriculum in a teacher preparation program helps develop preservice teachers’ Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) and elementary students’ understandings of physics ideas. This project investigates a new practicum model in which preservice teachers first learn a mini-unit on electrical energy to deepen their content knowledge and then to adapt state-suggested HQCM and select appropriate pedagogies to design and implement science lessons that meet the high expectations. This study collects data to measure changes in preservice …

Equity And Participation In Careers Education: Insights From Australian Year 10 Students, Kylie Hillman, Ben Edwards, Daniel Edwards, Ali Radloff, Jessica Arnup

Vocational, adult and professional education research

Navigating pathways into education, training, and the workforce has always been challenging for young people. With the growing complexity of the world of work and varied post-secondary education pathways, providing support and guidance is crucial. In Australia, national policies such as the Australian Blueprint for Career Development, National Career Development Strategy, and the National Career Education Strategy aim to support young people's career readiness. Despite the acknowledged importance of careers education, there is limited national reporting on its current state in Australian secondary schools. This article explores the experiences of over 15,000 Year 10 students in Australian schools, using data …

Explicit Instruction First Vs. Exploration First: Which Order Is More Beneficial In Science Teaching?, Haley Gould, Hanna Szyller

Education Student Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Student Perspectives On Grading In Higher Education Stem Courses, Christopher Sean Burns, Daniela D.S. Digiacomo, Jennifer Pusateri, Katherine Ritchie, Christine Wusylko

Information Science Faculty Publications

Purpose

Despite a growing awareness of instructional practices that support student learning and well-being, higher education classrooms tend to still be dominated by the use of rigid approaches to assessment and course design. This study aims to understand the experiences of students in courses that implement a universal design for learning (UDL) pedagogical approach and an ungrading assessment approach. Design/methodology/approach

Leveraging a qualitative methodological approach, authors interviewed 13 graduate students in two library and information science technology courses and 11 undergraduate students in a computer science course in discrete mathematics about their experiences with ungrading within the context of UDL-designed …

Reflective Refinement Through Iterative Model Building, Idris Solola, Hillary Swanson, Sarah Schwartz, Rida Munir, Jared B. Arnell, Ravi Sinha

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Student Research

While research has emphasized the role of classroom discourse, hands-on demonstrations, and carefully crafted prompts in eliciting and responding to students’ ideas, there’s a need to investigate how the systematic design of modeling instruction can serve as the structure that naturally supports responsive teaching. Drawing on the knowledge in pieces (KiP) epistemology and the concept of responsive teaching, we present an instructional approach called guided reflective refinement (GRR), which guides students to articulate and examine their thinking through building and evaluating models. We analyzed middle school students’ model drafts over a 7-day unit on conservation of energy to understand the …

Cv: Erica Dávila (Educational Leadership), Erica Dávila

Education Department Faculty Curricula Vitae

No abstract provided.

Learning At Scale As Infrastructure: Lms Platforms, Data Pipelines, And Language-Based Evidence For Educational Measurement, Danielle S. Mcnamara, Michelle Banawan, Renu Balyan, Rod D. Roscoe, Tracy Arner

Chinese/English Journal of Educational Measurement and Evaluation | 教育测量与评估双语期刊

The increasing scale of digital learning environments has transformed the data available for educational measurement, learning analytics, and the learning sciences. However, learning at scale is often treated as a matter of sample size or novel analytic methods rather than as the outcome of institutional infrastructure that governs how learning data are generated, curated, transformed, and accessed. This paper offers an infrastructure-centered description of learning at scale, focusing on learning management systems (LMSs), platform-integrated tools, and data pipelines that produce research-ready educational data. As an illustrative exemplar, we draw on the design and operation of the Arizona State University Learning@Scale …

International Measures Of Student Growth In Mathematics And Science Achievement: The Timss 2023 Longitudinal International Database, Bethany Fishbein, Ummugul Bezirhan, Matthias Von Davier

Chinese/English Journal of Educational Measurement and Evaluation | 教育测量与评估双语期刊

The TIMSS 2023 Longitudinal International Database represents a major advancement in international large-scale assessment by providing the first student-level longitudinal extension of TIMSS. By linking achievement and contextual data from TIMSS 2023 with a follow-up data collection in 2024, the database enables direct measurement of student growth in mathematics and science over one year of schooling. The study follows cohorts from Grades 4 to 5 and Grades 8 to 9 across participating education systems. Rich contextual, curriculum, and process data support investigations into how instructional practices, system-level policies, student attitudes, and test-taking behaviors relate to learning trajectories. As a freely …

The Item Response Warehouse: What It Is, How To Use It, And Targets For Potential Improvements, Savira D. Nadela, Hansol Lee, Nishka Jain, Ayaan Gupta, Xingyi Zhang, Benjamin W. Domingue

Chinese/English Journal of Educational Measurement and Evaluation | 教育测量与评估双语期刊

The Item Response Warehouse (IRW) is a repository of harmonized item response datasets designed to support secondary analysis and methodological research in psychological and educational measurement. This paper serves as a practical guide for researchers interested in using the IRW. We describe the structure of IRW datasets and the quantitative and qualitative metadata available for dataset selection, and we demonstrate how researchers can navigate the IRW website to explore and compare available tables. We further show how the IRW R and Python packages can be used to filter datasets programmatically, download response-level data, and generate standardized citations for reproducible research …

2026 Undergraduate Research Symposium Program, Coastal Carolina University

Undergraduate Research Symposium Programs

17th Annual Undergraduate Research Symposium, April 21-22, 2026.

The 2026 CCU Undergraduate Research Symposium included 72 oral presentations, 127 poster presentations, and 22 team pitch presentations comprising 50 students who participated in the Wall College’s Chant’s Tank Pitch Competition.

Presentations at the Undergraduate Research Symposium were judged by almost 90 faculty and staff, and prizes were awarded in three categories: Best Oral Presentation, Best Poster Presentation, and Best Chant’s Tank Pitch Presentation. Here are the following award winners and their mentors in their respective categories:

Best Oral Presentation:

• 1st Place: Ryan Ryan Avallone, Applied Mathematics. Faculty Mentor: Bong Jeong (Management …

Students' Preferred Teaching Methods, Hannah Lancaster

Honors Theses

This paper focuses on students’ preferences for teaching and instructional methods in the social studies classroom. From previous literature, it became apparent that students have a variety of unique needs within each classroom, and individual students require different methods to best support effective learning. This study was conducted within an urban high school in Southwest Michigan. Students completed a cross-sectional survey that encouraged them to express their desired teaching and instructional methods within the classroom. Data revealed a shift from standard teacher-focused learning to more student-focused learning to better accommodate students’ learning styles. With survey data focusing on a limited …

Early Childhood Educators’ Experiences Teaching Literacy Acquisition Skills, Dena Renee Crews

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The problem investigated through this study was that early childhood educators struggle to help students with literacy acquisition skills in a Title 1 elementary school. The purpose of this qualitative study was to investigate early childhood educators’ experiences with the challenges of teaching literacy acquisition skills and their suggestions for improving resources and training for teaching literacy acquisition skills. The study was grounded in Clay’s emergent literacy theory and Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory. For this basic qualitative design, semistructured interviews with 14 participants were conducted with the following themes emerging: Early childhood educators were challenged due to (a) students’ background …