Digital Commons Network^™

Asset Mindsets And Blended Learning Environments: A Career Educator’S Autoethnography, Elizabeth A. Buffington

Education Dissertations

This autoethnography explores a career educator's personal and professional journey transitioning from a deficit mindset to an asset based mindset. The author examines teaching practices through critical self-inquiry, reflecting on how technology, including Blended Learning Models (Clayton Christensen Institute, 2013), student-centered learning, and an asset mindset enhance educational experiences. The dissertation integrates key frameworks such as Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) (Mishra, 2019), Universal Design for Learning (UDL) CAST (2024), and the concept of Funds of Knowledge (FoK) (Gonzalez, Moll & Amanti, 2005) to demonstrate how educators can adapt instruction as reflexive practitioners Cunliffe, 2016) to support diverse learners. …

Centering The Needs Of Language Learners Within Educators’ Professional Learning And Development: An Investigation Of Teachers’ Perceptions And Experiences In Meeting The Needs Of Language Learners, Kimberly Tsukiyama

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

This qualitative study explores K-12 classroom teachers' perceptions and experiences in meeting the needs of language learners, specifically English language learners (ELLs) and dual-language learners (DLLs). Addressing two main research questions, it investigated how teachers' preservice learning and development prepared them for instructing language learners and identified preparatory experiences and professional learning considered beneficial and critical to their development in this area. Through surveys, teacher interviews, and classroom observations, the study highlighted challenges faced by teachers in settings with diverse language populations, including native Japanese, Spanish, and Arabic speakers, as well as native English speakers learning a second language. It …

Methodologizing Transnationality: Relational Writing As Collective Inquiry, Sun Young Lee, Minhye Son, Taeyeon Kim, Jin Kyeong Jung, Soo Bin Jang

Department of Educational Administration: Faculty Publications

How can we take transnationality as a space of in-betweenness to generate new possibilities, moving beyond geographically bounded spans between countries? This article presents five authors’ collective inquiry on transnational positionalities, which we practiced through the relational, transformative, and reflective writing of the self in a community space. We staged the collaborative writing into two processes: the emergent process of thematic writing and the relay writing. Interweaving “I” and “we” voices that cannot be captured through categorical thinking, our collaborative quest resists normative identity politics, proposing writing as a method of collective inquiry for the nuanced understanding of the transnationality …

Navigating Emotional Discomfort In Developing Equity-Driven School Leaders: A Conceptual-Pedagogical Framework, Taeyeon Kim, James Wright

Department of Educational Administration: Faculty Publications

Abstract

Background: Given that K–12 schools necessitate leaders who can advance equity and justice, preparation programs in higher education institutions have prioritized the development of eq-uity-oriented school leaders. However, there has been relatively limited exploration of peda-gogical approaches that equip educational leaders to navigate adverse emotional responses and utilize their discomforting emotions as a source of transformation toward equity-oriented principles. When negative emotions are suppressed and/or unexplored within leadership de-velopment programs, adult learners will likely miss crucial opportunities for personal growth and transformative change.

Purpose: This theoretical article aims to enhance and expand existing scholarship on the ped-agogies …

Supporting New Colleagues In Gifted Education: Finding Your Starting Point, David Wolff

Open Educational Resources - Teaching and Learning

Newly hired teachers and administrators often lack experience with gifted learners. The goal of this essay is to share four books to act as primers to introduce new teachers and administrators to gifted education and understanding gifted learners.

Exploring Etymology Assignment Description, David Wolff

Open Educational Resources - Teaching and Learning

The English language is a borrowed language, a blend of words from many languages from around the world. We see this in the various ways sounds are represented by letters and letter combinations. In transparent or shallow orthographies, there is high predictability and consistent letter-sound correspondence whereas in opaque or deep orthographies, there are many ways to spell the same sound as well as there are many sounds for the same spellings (Burkins & Yates, 2021; Moats, 2020). This assignment description is a guided inquiry for preservice teachers to explore the concept of etymology by watching and reflecting on six …

Home Of The Brave Book Study Assignment Description, David Wolff

Open Educational Resources - Teaching and Learning

Individuals lead storied lives, and everyone has a story to tell. Our stories can be shared orally and documented in print. Often, learners are exposed to stories through novels and other trade books. Teacher educators may benefit from using the stories in novels and trade books as case studies in preservice teacher preparation course. This assignment description outlines how to use the novel, Home of the Brave by Katherine Applegate, as a case study to contextualize and understand the lived story of an individual learning a second language and living in a new country. Through the novel, preservice teachers experience …

Fish In A Tree Book Study Assignment Description, David Wolff

Open Educational Resources - Teaching and Learning

Individuals lead storied lives, and everyone has a story to tell. Our stories can be shared orally and documented in print. Often, learners are exposed to stories through novels and other trade books. Teacher educators may benefit from using the stories in novels and trade books as case studies in preservice teacher preparation course. This assignment description outlines how to use the novel, Fish in a Tree by Lynda Mullaly Hunt, as a case study to contextualize and understand the lived story of an individual living and learning with dyslexia. Through the novel, preservice teachers experience the dilemmas faced and …

Language Learning Simulation Using Duolingo Assignment Description, David Wolff

Open Educational Resources - Teaching and Learning

It is likely that preservice teachers will work with students learning English as their second (third, fourth, etc.) language. For preservice teachers to better understand the language learning process, Duolingo was used to simulate the learning experience. The assignment description outlines how preservice teachers can reflection pre-simulation and post-simulation about what they learned about language learning.

Exploring The Experiences Of Refugee Youth In Public Schools: An Ethical Phenomenological Inquiry, Hilary T. Stim

Theses and Dissertations

The study outlined in this dissertation focuses on the intersection between refugee youth between the ages of 13-18 and the United States public school, specifically the manner in which refugee youth experience institutionalized education. It utilizes ethical phenomenology as a means to amplify the voices of refugee students and to centralize the students' experiences, thoughts, and ideas related to education The study was framed by one research question that is addressed to the participants: “What is it like being a student in a public school?” Seven students took part in the study. Collaborative dialogues took place with the participants across …

Student Perceptions Of Inclusive And Culturally Responsive Teaching In The Elementary Classroom, Emma Larson

Masters Theses

The purpose of this research is to explore student perspectives, as it relates to inclusive and culturally responsive teaching practices. In order to uplift student voices in the elementary classroom, observations and interviews were conducted to collect data on student perceptions. This study found that students believe the teacher’s job is to help everyone, students want a sense of belonging, and students love when their teacher celebrates them. As this research followed students in a bilingual kindergarten classroom, further research is needed in order to grasp a deeper understanding of students, their view, and perception of inclusive and culturally responsive …

Methodological Challenges In Conducting Cross-Cultural/Language Research With Spanish Speakers: The Role Of The Researcher/Translator, Catherine Flores Ph.D.

The Qualitative Report

With the increase in global research, it is common for researchers to investigate topics in intercultural settings, both in their own home countries and abroad. Although findings from this research are prolific, rarely are detailed examples given or practical suggestions offered, particularly in relation to the role of the translator/researcher. The significant and often undervalued role of the translator/researcher in cross cultural/language qualitative research warrants methodological considerations at the onset and throughout the research. Nonetheless, few qualitative studies transparently report the process of how the translation findings were developed. This paper addresses this gap by examining a Latinx postgraduate student’s …

Visualize Whole-Self Model - An Instructional Design For Occupational Therapy Education, Mark White, Mary Smith, Adebimpe Obembe, Kristin Haas

Journal of Occupational Therapy Education

Innovative teaching approaches are changing traditional approaches by using a variety of teaching and learning methods to allow learners to succeed. This paper describes a new instructional model for healthcare education based on the science of learning, educational theories, and best practices in lesson design. The Visualize Whole-Self (VW) Model was designed to provide a learning structure for faculty as they guide the instruction of students in health professions. From the beginning of the program, students visualize themselves as professionals while working with faculty to learn content. The Visualize Whole-Self Model requires students to continually assess their strengths and weaknesses …

Paschal Space Of Healing And Community: An Affinity Group For Catholic School Teachers Of Color, John L. Beltramo, Lisa Archuleta

Journal of Catholic Education

As Catholic schools seek to recruit and retain more ethnoracially diverse faculties, we examine one site of potential support for Catholic school teachers of color – a racial affinity group. Using critical research methodology with qualitative data collection, we studied five teachers of color who engaged in weekly affinity group meetings, which were structured as Freirian culture circles and ran over a period of five months. Using a Catholic, critical framework on teacher education, we analyzed the data (culture circle recordings, written reflections, baseline and comparative interviews, along with classroom observations and debriefs) to examine how teachers’ participation impacted their …

Australian Pre-Service Teachers’ Beliefs About Educational Disadvantage And Socially Just Teaching: Beyond A Neoliberal Imaginary?, Claire E. Charles, Lynette Longaretti, Matthew K.E Thomas

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

Neoliberal education reforms have altered the way social justice is imagined in relation to schooling. These reforms reframe social justice as ‘equity’ through conceptions of standards, evidence and teacher quality, while detracting attention from the moral and political dispositions required for socially-just teaching. Knowing more about how this context may be shaping the beliefs of pre-service teachers (PSTs) is important. This paper reports on beliefs about educational disadvantage of a group of PSTs about to embark on a specialised program in Australia designed to promote socially just schooling outcomes. 24 PSTs across two cohorts completed a survey prior to entering …

Perceptions Towards Integrating A Gender Perspective Into Education: A Study Of Muslim Preservice Teachers In The Philippines, Veronico N. Tarrayo, Ma. Annie Susaya, Delma A. Yuarata

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

: To date, studies exploring Muslim preservice teachers’ views on gender matters in education remain scant. We conducted a qualitative-quantitative survey with 45 Filipino Muslim preservice teachers, ten of whom participated in follow-up email interviews, to explore their perceptions towards integrating a gender perspective into education. The results indicate the participants’ progressive views on fluid gender norms, although they also share conflicting perspectives on gender roles that tend to reinforce gender stereotypes. The preservice teachers also report positive perceptions concerning their institutions’ commitment to gender sensitivity and gender mainstreaming in teacher-education curricula. However, they seem to have unrealistic views on …

An Organic Inquiry Into Teacher Experiences Of Self-Healing, Alison Davis

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This dissertation engages the spiritually-inspired methodology of organic inquiry to investigate how teachers practice self-healing in order to become available to students. Self-healing is a vital part of freeing up the teacher’s perceptive capacities to more deeply and fully attend to the needs of students. Self-healing work includes a variety of practices and modalities, including spiritual ones, in order to work through trauma, adversity, dis-ease, stress, and one-sidedness. Research shows that self-healing, especially in regards to mindfulness and meditation, equips teachers to confront compassion fatigue, secondary trauma, burnout, illness, and more. There is also ample evidence that training one’s attention …

Summer Vacation Activity Manual, Aisha Naz Ansari, Sadia Muzaffar Bhutta, Zarfin Saleem, Sohail Ahmad

Institute for Educational Development Pakistan (IED-PK) Archives

A guidebook with a compilation of activities to help parents/caregivers boost the holistic development of children during summer vacations.

Equipping Middle School Teachers With Culturally Responsive Pedagogy In Teaching Computer Science Through Professional Learning: A Longitudinal Case Study, Xintong Bausch

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

Culturally responsive pedagogy (CRP) is an effective way to foster equitable and meaningful computer science (CS) learning experience for historically marginalized students. This dissertation study employed longitudinal data to investigate five middle school teachers’ development of CRP understandings and enactments over many years participating in the CS Pathways Research Practitioner Partnership (RPP) project. Grounded in conceptual change theory (knowledge-in-pieces perspective), the study explored the five teachers’ CRP conceptual change trajectories as indicated by their definitions and enactments of the pedagogy over time. From the epistemological perspective, the findings presented how teachers reflected, refined, and revised their naïve knowledge of CRP …

Encouraging Equity Through Rural Elementary Professional Learning, Jana K. Stone

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This study employed design-based research to explore the efficacy of professional learning materials and approaches in developing social justice advocacy with rural elementary teachers in Appalachia. Bronfenbrenner’s (2005) bioecological theory and Boler’s (1999) pedagogy of discomfort formed the theoretical framework for the design, implementation, and analysis. Mid-way through the study, Allport’s (1954) contact hypothesis was included to inform the revision of intervention approaches. Four elementary teachers attended seven in-person informational discussion meetings over five months. During this time, these teachers also read two books and completed journal responses and surveys. The qualitative data was analyzed using Braun and Clark’s (2006) …

Ready Oer Not: Engaging Teachers With Student Identity Through Open Pedagogy, Emily Helton

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This research project centers on in-service K-12 teachers’ experiences of a continuing education course about open education resources (OER) and how to use them in ways that support students’ ability to use identity resources while engaging with disciplinary learning experiences. Using a qualitative design-based research approach, I sought to both improve the course and examine how teachers took up the ideas from the course in their planning and teaching. While OER are valuable resources for K-12 teachers in and of themselves because they are free and often available in easily adapted formats, their licensing typically allows edited versions to be …

Deconstructing Whiteness In Teacher Education, Allison Karcher

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

This study sets out to understand how five teacher educators deconstruct whiteness in their courses and how their institutions support or hinder their work. Undergirding the study is the silence of whiteness residing in education and the urgency to notice, name, and disrupt it (Kohli et. al, 2021; Sleeter, 2017). The racial demographics in K-12 is 80% White for educators, and 54% students of color (National Center for Education Statistics, 2021). Therefore, most educators are teaching from experiences or identities that differ than their students. Since teaching is a personal endeavor, bringing our identities and experiences into the classroom, (Ahmed, …

A Science Teacher’S Experiences When Fostering Intercultural Competence Among Students In Multilingual Classrooms: A Narrative Study, Uma Ganesan, Amanda R. Morales

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

Increased globalization of the world economy, growth in human migration, and rapid devel-opments in science and technology have required people to develop intercultural commu-nication skills. Teachers play a crucial role in developing intercultural competence among students in our globalized, multilingual classrooms. The need for fostering collaborative discourse among students with diverse cultural and linguistic repertoires and building in-tercultural competence among students is a common blind spot in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics teacher praxis. This can inhibit efforts to cultivate safe and supportive learning environments for all students and can ultimately threaten multilingual student success. As part of a larger …

Choir Teacher Agency And Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy, Kaitlyn Schramm

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Culturally sustaining pedagogy (CSP) (Paris, 2012) is an educational framework that nurtures and sustains students’ cultural competencies and identities. Scholars have recognized the need for practices that sustain and nurture cultural identities and ways of knowing music in the music classroom (Abril, 2009; Bond, 2014; Good Perkins, 2018; Salvador & Culp, 2022; Shaw, 2016). Culturally sustaining teachers reimagine curriculum entirely and place students' cultural assets at the center “as targets of learning to be sustained” (Lee, 2017, p. 262), explored, honored, extended, and critically problematized (Lee, 2017; Paris, 2012; Samy Alim et al., 2020). In choral classrooms, this often involves …

Listen Up: Perceptions Of Audiobooks By Teachers, Librarians, And Parents, Megan Bright

Murray State Theses and Dissertations

Reading is a critical component of education. From learning to read, to eventually reading to learn, students and teachers rely upon texts to help make sense of the world around them. Methods and tools vary, but teachers, librarians, and parents can all agree that reading is a fundamental skill their students need. However, students are sometimes told to limit their use of audiobooks in favor of reading with their eyes. These limitations may prevent students from finding the books they love and also limit students’ opportunities to use books to learn about the world around them. This study sought to …

The Effect Of Asynchronous Pre-Service Training On Aac Strategy Use, Cheri Dodge Chin

Murray State Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation investigates the impact of a one-time online, asynchronous training program on graduate students' use of communication partner strategies for Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) users. The study examines the training effect on the overall correct usage of naturalistic communication partner strategies, the implementation immediacy, the influence of feedback, and the training's benefits and drawbacks. Using an A-B single case research design with qualitative feedback, the study included pre-service university students studying speech pathology or education. Participants engaged in storybook reading activities with communication devices at a university clinic to establish baseline measures. Following this, they completed a one-hour …

Application Of Multicultural Literature In The Early Childhood Classroom, Deborah Wheeler, Jennifer Hill

Journal of English Learner Education

Culture equates to identity; therefore, the implementation of multicultural literature in the early childhood curriculum is an essential method for securing children’s concept of self and cultural identity. This qualitative study explored the implementation of multicultural literature in early childhood classrooms, and the research included questions pertaining to multicultural literature training, instructional methods, and barriers encountered. The purpose of the study was to answer questions regarding teachers use of multicultural literature in the classroom, how often teachers read multicultural literature and how teachers integrated multicultural literature into instruction. An additional question inquired about what multicultural books titles were teachers reading …

Best Practices For English Learners With Disabilities In Us Schools – A Systematic Review, Samiratu Bashiru, Jennifer E. Smith

Journal of English Learner Education

This systematic review investigated best practices for enhancing academic achievement among English Learners with Disabilities (ELDs) in US schools. By examining 17 peer-reviewed articles and comparing them to the CEC 2014 Quality Indicators, the study identifies significant practices, including culturally responsive methods, technology integration, evidence-based strategies, addressing service delivery challenges, and improving assessment tools. This review has limitations related to inconsistent terminology and highlights the need for standardized language and continued research. It recommends integrating culturally responsive practices, leveraging technology, and refining inclusive assessment tools. This review provides educators, policymakers, and researchers insights, emphasizing ongoing teacher development and policy alignment …

"Our Students Vs. Their Students:" Perceptions Of Teachers In English Language Learning, Leah Day

Journal of English Learner Education

The purpose of the study was to understand the perceptions of teachers on English Language Learners and how this shapes the educational paths of students. Data was collected in the form of interviews with the participants. The interviews were guided by a set of questions that were designed to interrogate perceptions and experiences with regard to language learning in the context of one student. Interviews were recorded and transcribed and the data was coded inductively. This study does not seek to generalize beyond this context but can provide insight into similar experiences and perceptions of the English Language Learning process. …

Alex Shevrin Venet’S Equity-Centered Trauma-Informed Education–A Book Review, Kimberly A. Mahovsky, Anne O. Davidson

Journal of Educational Research and Innovation

This review provides an overview of Alex Venet’s Equity-Centered Trauma-Informed Education and a critical analysis by teacher educators charged to include equity-centered trauma-informed practices in all education courses. This book serves as a catalyst for conversations around equity-centered and trauma-informed education as many states push for all educators in K-12 schools to recognize the prevalence of adversity and create professional development for their instructors to incorporate these practices in their classrooms. The review will evaluate the author’s organization of the book and the five shifts Venet suggests for movement toward educational equity.