Digital Commons Network^™

Transforming K-12 Classrooms: Ten Essential Strategies For Cultural Responsiveness, Sandra Johnson, Stephanie Johnson, Regina Reber

Journal of English Learner Education

Across the United States, in K-12 classrooms, diverse student populations continue to increase, challenging educators to meet student cultural, linguistic, and academic needs. The study examined the best practices related to culturally responsive teaching (CRT) strategies to better meet all students' needs. A qualitative approach was used to collect data from licensed K-12 educators in New Mexico and Colorado. The findings revealed three essential themes: culturally responsive pedagogy, the positive impact of CRT, and the creation of physical spaces to support inclusivity. The findings revealed the significance of building strong relational capacity, encouraging collaboration, supporting multilingualism, and creating effective physical …

Transforming Future Classrooms: Exploring Mainstream Candidates’ Self-Efficacy, Amanda Nelms

Journal of English Learner Education

The nationwide shortage of teachers is having a profound impact on schools across the country. In addition, many teacher candidates are entering the profession without adequate preparation to effectively work with MLs, potentially exacerbating challenges faced by this student population. One innovative approach to teacher preparation is the implementation of Grow Your Own (GYO) programs. This study contributes to the growing body of literature on GYO programs by focusing on the self-efficacy of secondary mainstream teacher candidates in teaching MLs. This mixed-methods study collected data throughout a course centered on research-based instructional practices for MLs. The Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test …

Why The “Whole Language Approach” To Reading Fails Ell Students & Instructional Strategies To Employ Instead, Caitlyn E. Petrus

Journal of English Learner Education

The research presented in this article demonstrates a qualitative view of the science of reading for phonemic awareness instruction, phonics instruction, vocabulary development, and reading comprehension strategies for English Language Learners (ELLs) in PK-12 schools. The research builds upon esteemed writers Dr. Sharon Vaughn and Dr. Sylvia Linan-Thompson’s work in their book Research-Based Methods of Reading Instruction for Learners, Grades K-4 and other reading experts such as Dr. Wiley Blevins and Dr. Lisa Moats to apply to the growing population for ELLs in PK-12 schools and how to shift from a “whole language classroom” to a classroom built on the …

The Use Of Phonics With Adult Ells At The Beginner Level, Jose V. Torres

Journal of English Learner Education

This study examines the work of Jose V. Torres, author of the Level 1 beginner adult ELL textbook I Want To Learn English, to evaluate the effectiveness of phonics instruction in literacy development for adult English Language Learners (ELLs). Drawing on data from two primary sources—(1) textbook-based assessments focused on students’ ability to distinguish between long and short vowels, and (2) CASAS outcome scores collected under controlled conditions at Baltimore Community College—this research addresses a significant gap in the literature on adult ELL literacy acquisition. Specifically, the study investigates the impact of explicitly integrating phonics instruction into a contextualized curriculum …

Promoting Critical Ai Literacy Through Online Video-Based Discussion, Mazid Ul Hasan, Janet Mannheimer Zydney

Teaching Online Pedagogical Repository

Video-based discussions can foster critical AI literacy by focusing on the potential benefits, challenges, and ethical considerations of using AI in education. The discussion may include video presentations with real-world examples about AI's advantages and pitfalls, synchronous discussions on video platforms, and asynchronous discussions that allow students to post answers through video. Prompts such as whether AI's benefits outweigh its costs or vice versa may bring in nuanced discourse, promoting a critical outlook toward AI among students.

Censorship Is Still A Drag: Lgbtq Materials And Programming Under Siege In Libraries, Jason D. Phillips, Jordan Ruud, Kestrel Ward, Amanda Melilli

Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

The presentation Censorship Is Still a Drag explores the escalating challenges facing libraries as they strive to uphold intellectual freedom amid rising censorship efforts targeting LGBTQ+ materials and programming. Drawing from the book Censorship Is a Drag: LGBTQ Materials and Programming Under Siege in Libraries, the presenters—Jason D. Phillips, Jordan Ruud, Kestrel Ward, and Amanda Melilli—offer a comprehensive overview of the legal, political, and institutional pressures threatening inclusive library practices. Through case studies and firsthand accounts, the presentation examines the impact of both external censorship and internal resistance within libraries, and introduces the concept of “queer battle fatigue” to …

Ucf Pegasus Plan - 5th Grade - Spilled Tea And Signed Freedoms, Sarah Gaudiosi, Milka Lucas-Dominguez, Maya Lopez, Natalie Ferguson, Destineebrittney Selby

Pegasus Plans: Social Studies Unit Plans for Florida Teachers

During this unit, students will explore the causes, key events, influential figures, and significant documents of the American Revolution through hands-on activities, interactive timelines, primary sources, and multimedia tools. Students will deepen their understanding of American Independence by examining the contributions of African Americans and women during the Revolutionary War, analyzing the terms and impact of the Treaty of Paris, and reflecting on how the Revolution continues to influence American government and society today.

Irish Environmental Humanities, Emily Reiff

James Joyce Literary Supplement

No abstract provided.

Detecting Physical Activity Using Wearable Sensor Data, Dipok Deb

Data Science and Data Mining

This study focuses on detecting physical activity using wearable sensor data, specifically distinguishing between walking and running. A dataset comprising accelerometer and gyroscope readings is used to train and evaluate various machine learning models, including logistic regression, random forest, k-nearest neighbors, naïve Bayes, and XGBoost. Extensive preprocessing, such as creating lag features and rolling statistics, is performed to enhance temporal data representation. The models are evaluated using metrics like accuracy, precision, recall, and F1 score. Incorporating lag and rolling features significantly improves model performance, with logistic regression achieving perfect scores across all metrics. These findings demonstrate the effectiveness of enhanced …

Public Health Simulation Infused Program (Pship) Toolkit, Desiree A. Díaz, Mindi Anderson, Francisco Guido-Sanz, Peggy Hill, Samantha Stephenson, Heather Peralta, Syretta Spears, Geraldine Luzincourt

Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Project Narrative

PURPOSE AND NEED

Purpose: Priorities set forth by the Health Resources & Services Administration (HRSA) are addressed in the proposed simulation program in an effort to meet curricular needs and foster care to the medically underserved in Florida, further exposing students to public healthcare needs. Interprofessional (nursing and social work) and intraprofessional (undergraduate nurse and Nurse Practitioner [NP]) instruction is essential in the simulation-based education (SBE) program, promoting important content on identifying risk factors and health assessment of the medically underserved community (MUC) (Education Priority 2, §831). Coordination of medical care is a vicarious learning opportunity for all …

Handwritten Digit Recognition Using Machine Learning, Dipok Deb

Data Science and Data Mining

Handwritten Digit Recognition (HDR) remains a fundamental benchmark in pattern recognition and machine learning due to its practical applications and inherent classification challenges posed by diverse handwriting styles. This study investigates and compares two classical statistical classifiers—Gaussian Naive Bayes (GNB) and Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA)—to recognize the digits from the MNIST dataset. Both models assume underlying normality in feature distributions and offer computational efficiency, making them suitable for high-dimensional input such as image pixels. Using 60,000 training and 10,000 test samples, we evaluate model performance through accuracy, precision, recall, F1 score, and confusion matrices. The results reveal that while GNB …

Using Generative Ai To Enrich Instructional Videos With Embedded Quizzes, Efren De La Mora Velasco, Shaurya Agarwal

Teaching Online Pedagogical Repository

This entry describes a strategy to enhance student engagement in asynchronous online courses by embedding AI-generated quizzes into instructional videos. Using ChatGPT and video transcripts, the instructor created targeted multiple-choice questions that aligned with key video topics and improved interactivity. Results from the CGN5341 course showed increased video view duration, higher engagement, and positive student feedback on the usefulness of short, segmented videos with embedded quizzes.

Incorporate Peer Review Feedback To Enhance Personal Reflection, Daniel W. Eadens

Teaching Online Pedagogical Repository

Peer review feedback is a utilitarian strategy and great practice in any course. Providing peer reviews has significant advantages including having to make judgements about peer submissions requiring a higher taxonomy of knowledge about the material, resulting in increased understanding. Additionally, this teaches students mistake avoidance, improving skills as well as increasing motivation. This entry provides details about an assignment which asks students to personally reflect and then offer supportive feedback to peers regarding their leadership development.

Win-Win Field Placement: Creating Research Innovations In Online Msw Programs, Christina Kuchman, Hsiu-Fen Lin

Teaching Online Pedagogical Repository

This win-win field placement project proposes an innovative research education for the online Master of Social Work (MSW) programs. Students usually have challenges in fulfilling the competency requirement on research and feel disconnected between research, practice, and policy (Betts et al., 2024). Through this innovation, we can unleash the potential of the student, the agency, and the university. More importantly, we believe that this approach can be applied to other majors that require a field education and a research methods course as part of their curriculum, such as education, public health, criminal justice, and environmental science.

Applying Universal Design For Learning Strategies To Increase Student Engagement With Your Course Syllabus, Amy Sugar, Amanda Groff

Teaching Online Pedagogical Repository

Apply Universal Design for Learning to syllabi design.

Exploring The Role Of Graduate Teaching Assistants In Facilitating Adaptive Learning, Vanessa Tien Pham, Piyali Chakraborty, Rachid Ait Maalem Lahcen

Teaching Online Pedagogical Repository

This paper explores the growing role of Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs) in adaptive learning classrooms, where technology and instruction work together to support student success. As adaptive educational software becomes more common across many subjects, GTAs help bridge the gap between technology and students’ academic ability. Drawing from our experiences in College Algebra, Precalculus Algebra, Trigonometry, we show how GTAs use learning data to identify common struggles and provide focused, one-on-one support through tutoring and review sessions. These real-time interventions help personalize the learning experience beyond what the software provides.

Introduction To Prompt Engineering, Mary Rubin, Rachel Vacek

Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

This presentation explores the fundamentals of effective prompt engineering, which involves well-crafted instructions for AI models to generate meaningful responses. Effective prompts can be written using frameworks like CLEAR and TRACI. The CLEAR Framework focuses on conciseness, logical structure, explicitness, adaptability, and reflection, while TRACI emphasizes task, role, audience, creation, and intent.

Additionally, the presentation addresses ethical considerations and best practices in prompt engineering, including academic integrity, attribution and transparency, and the importance of evaluation and assessment. By mastering these techniques, users can optimize their interactions with AI models, ensuring accuracy, relevancy, and minimizing bias.

Evidence Synthesis And Graduate Researchers: Benefits And Barriers, Corinne Bishop, Sarah Norris, Jason D. Phillips

Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Detailed Description:

With the increased interest in evidence synthesis research in social sciences and fields outside of the health sciences, more librarians are actively involved in consulting and collaborating with researchers, with some also participating as co-authors on projects (Chapman, 2021; Kogut, Ramirez, & Foster, 2022). Based on individual requests, librarians may conduct comprehensives searches, document and report searches to ensure reproducibility, and/or assist with question refinement, protocol development, citation management tools, and evidence synthesis software.

To support evidence synthesis researchers, libraries are identifying support models and deciding on the scope of assistance they can provide. Within this process, …

Injury Prevention Research In Athletes, Maura Tangney

UN SDG Open Pedagogy Faculty Fellowship: Renewable Assignments

No abstract provided.

Building And Defending Lgbtq+ Collections, Jason D. Phillips, Jordan Ruud

Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

This chapter explores the critical role of collection development policies in libraries, particularly in supporting and defending LGBTQ+ collections. The authors argue that a robust, regularly updated, and transparent collection development policy is essential for ensuring equitable representation and resisting censorship. They emphasize that such policies must account for the needs of historically underserved communities, including LGBTQ+ populations, and serve as tools for advocacy and defense against internal and external challenges.

Using real-world examples, the chapter highlights the consequences of outdated or ineffective policies, including instances of hidden censorship and administrative interference in material acquisition. The authors advocate for retrospective …

At What Cost? The Personal Stakes Of Intellectual Freedom, Jason D. Phillips, Jordan Ruud

Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

This chapter explores the emotional, professional, and political costs faced by librarians advocating for LGBTQ+ inclusion and intellectual freedom within libraries. Through personal narrative and critical reflection, the authors introduce the concept of "queer battle fatigue"—a framework for understanding the cumulative psychological toll on LGBTQ+ individuals who are consistently placed in advocacy roles within predominantly cisheteronormative institutions. A case study of a drag storytime event at a university library illustrates the social backlash, institutional pressures, and moral injury experienced by organizers, demonstrating how well-intentioned programming can become flashpoints for political controversy. The authors highlight the intensifying hostility toward LGBTQ+ representation …

Enemies Within The Gates: Contending With Internal Censorship Challenges, Jason D. Phillips

Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

This chapter explores the rarely discussed but impactful issue of internal censorship within academic libraries, focusing on challenges to LGBTQ+ materials. Drawing on personal experiences at a regional public university in the American South, the author recounts multiple instances where library staff and leadership acted in ways that undermined the inclusion of LGBTQ+ resources. These incidents ranged from quietly removing or hiding books to resisting the addition of LGBTQ+ periodicals and graphic novels, and even denying purchase requests without explanation. The chapter underscores how fear of controversy, personal bias, and institutional conservatism can result in "soft censorship," despite the profession's …

How To Use Copilot And Chatgpt To Create Rubrics, Lina Eskew

Teaching Repository of AI-Infused Learning

This entry explores how AI can assist instructors in creating assignment rubrics that follow a transparency framework. By leveraging AI to generate clear and detailed criteria, instructors can eliminate ambiguity to ensure that students understand what is expected of them.

Uncovering Acoustic Biomarkers To Classify Parkinson Disease Through Machine Learning, Felix Yeboah

Data Science and Data Mining

The early detection of diseases profoundly influences treatment efficacy, and accurate classification methodologies are essential for effective disease identification. In this project, we examined fve different classifers—Logistic Regression, Gaussian Naive Bayes, K Nearest Neighbor (KNN), Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost), and Support Vector Machines—and evaluated their performance in detecting Parkinson’s disease (PD) based on voice features. The study aims to identify the best classifier for detecting PD. XGBoost performed the best, with an accuracy of 91% on the full dataset. After variable selection, KNN had the best performance with an accuracy of 91%. These findings suggest that Machine learning algorithms(classifiers) can …

Ucf Pegasus Plan - 1st Grade - Maps & Globes, Cecilia Nuss, Mackenzie Luley, Jessenia Diaz, Alyssa Arnott, Miranda Howley

Pegasus Plans: Social Studies Unit Plans for Florida Teachers

During this unit, students will explore and create various maps and globes through multimedia resources, Hands-on activities, and assessments. The daily lessons cover topics such as a compass rose, cardinal directions, map titles, and physical features on maps and globes. By the end of this unit, students will be able to identify key elements and locate physical features of maps and globes. Through the use of songs, hands-on activities, games, books, and class discussions, students will be engaged throughout the unit.

Case Report: Adult Patient With Acquired Apraxia Of Speech Secondary To A Stroke In Broca's Area, Richard Zraick

UCF Created OER Artifacts

This open educational resource (OER) is a case report about an adult patient with acquired apraxia of speech secondary to stroke in Broca's area. This case report was originally developed for SPA 6236: Motor Speech Disorders, School of Communication Sciences & Disorders, University of Central Florida, by Richard Zraick, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, F-ASHA. The content was based on output from ChatGPT and generated with the prompt: “Create a fictional case report for an adult patient with acquired apraxia of speech secondary to cerebrovascular accident in Broca’s area.” Others are free to reuse this OER to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon …

Strategies For Identifying Collaborators: ​Writing & Presenting Collaboratively​, Rachel E. Vacek, Sarah A. Norris

Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

A presentation for the University of Central Florida library faculty meeting that highlighted best practices and strategies for effectively collaborating with colleagues on scholarly activities, such as writing journal articles and other publications and presentations.

Change Through Social Media: Sparking Wildlife Conservation One Click At A Time, Bryce J. Fable, Lauren Fitzsimmons, Noshi Kapoor, Anne Reichle, Sara Wise, Robin O'Meallie, Greg Zboch

High Impact Practices Student Showcase Fall 2025

As the natural world faces unprecedented threats, conservation efforts depend not only on research and policy but also on public awareness and engagement. This project partnered with the Zoo Miami Foundation to promote awareness through social media initiatives and interactive educational events at the University of Central Florida.

The authors began by studying Zoo Miami’s ongoing conservation projects and the specific environmental pressures faced by endangered species and habitats. To align with Zoo Miami’s exceptional standard of credibility, the team conducted in-depth research that extended beyond the foundation’s website to create material that served to both inform the general public …

Little Learners, Big Impact: Inspiring Ocean Awareness In Young Minds, Carly Chard, Kate Frawley, Eduardo Sanchez

High Impact Practices Student Showcase Fall 2025

Marine pollution is one of the most urgent environmental crises of our time, threatening the health of our oceans, the survival of marine life, and the well-being of human societies that rely on them. Our educational presentation introduced 3rd-grade students to the issue of marine pollution through creative, hands-on learning. Students built recycled fish crafts using everyday materials, played an interactive cleanup game that demonstrated the importance of removing trash and rescuing marine animals tangled in fishing lines, and helped design a classroom mural to serve as a lasting reminder of their efforts. This service-learning project not only helped us …

Generations United: Empowering Seniors Through Service, Joseph C. Neddo, Samantha A. Renda, Eli J. Richard, Adam M. Lease, Athan L. Huskey, Connor J. Buttitta

High Impact Practices Student Showcase Fall 2025

As part of my service-learning experience, I partnered with Legacy Pointe at UCF, a senior living community dedicated to lifelong enrichment. Alongside my team, I helped design and implement resident-centered programs that focused on healthcare transitions, wellness, and emotional support. We hosted Healthcare Talks to educate residents on moving between independent living, assisted living, memory support, and skilled nursing. We also organized Flu Shot Clinics in collaboration with CFP Comprehensive Primary Care to promote preventative care, and facilitated mental wellness activities like memory games and a resident-led outdoor golf tournament.

Working with Legacy Pointe staff, Dr. Burrows’ practice, and faculty …