Education Commons^™

Gaps In Teacher Professional Development For Technology-Supported Learning: Implications For School Leaders And Policymakers, Steven Bingham

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

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to develop an understanding of mobile technology integration in K-12 classrooms from the teacher’s perspective. This research was intended to help understand how mobile devices are being integrated into the classroom, including recommendations for teachers, school administrators, policymakers, and future researchers

K-12 Teachers Perspectives On Mobile Technology Integration: A Qualitative Study, Steven Justin Bingham

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

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to develop an understanding of mobile technology integration in K-12 classrooms from the perspective of classroom teachers during the 2022-2023 school year. The increase in mobile technologies being utilized in schools made it imperative to understand how mobile devices are being integrated into the classroom from the teacher’s perspective. The central research question was, how do teachers at K-12 schools in the Midwest describe their perception and usage of mobile technology integration in teaching and learning?

The data collection consisted of semi-structured interviews with fourteen participants from one school district in the …

Translanguaging In World Language Higher Education, Alessia Barbici Wagner

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Dissertations, Theses, and 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 …

Heart-Stopping Rollercoasters: Restorative Practices, Motivation, And The Formation Of A Science Identity, Zachary Schafer

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

This paper explores the crossroads between restorative practices and science education. In this crossroads, a case study between teacher and learner is explored to reveal the implications the tandem between restorative practices and education has for motivation and identity formation. The paper ends with practical suggestions for the teacher in the classroom.

Exploration Of The Lived Experiences Of Native American Science Teachers Of The Great Plains: A Narrative Inquiry, Uma Ganesan

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

The complicated history of the education of Native American children through U.S. government-sponsored practices has led to the elimination of the Native children’s sense of Indian identity, culture, and language (Noel, 2002). In addition, increased emphasis on standardization and high-stakes accountability under the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 has resulted in less culturally responsive educational efforts and more Indigenous students left behind in school systems (Castagno & Brayboy, 2008). This has led to Indigenous students being underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields where they account for only 3% of STEM workers (Fry, Kennedy, & Funk, …

A Guided Chatbot Learning Experience In The Science Classroom, Jennifer Davis

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

This dissertation describes a practitioner’s design-based development of a prototype chatbot to guide students in learning biological concepts of genetic mutations and protein synthesis. This chatbot’s architecture provides learning activities, feedback, and support throughout a series of short, connected lessons. The chatbot is designed to scaffold learners through a predict, observe, explain model of inquiry learning. It utilizes real-world phenomena to lead students through biology core ideas, science and engineering practices, and crosscutting concepts. Results of prototype testing include survey results in support of the proof of concept among both students and teachers, as well as accuracy measurements of chatbot …

Students' Definitions Of Academic Success, Brent Kelderman

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

Academic success has not been well defined consistently, and when definitions have been proposed (e.g. Kuh, Kinzie, Buckley, Bridges, & Hayek, 2006 ; York, Gibson, & Rankin, 2015), they are not always measured consistently. Is it good grades (Parker, Summerfeldt, Hogan, & Majeski, 2004), and if so, what constitutes a good grade and what should be graded? Is it understanding the material, and if so, is understanding shown by simply completing the academic tasks (Choi, 2005)? Is it perseverance and grit (Tang, Wang, Guo, & Salmela-Aro, 2019), and if so, why do many other definitions and views focus so much …

Using The Modern Classrooms Project Instructional Model To Address Post-Covid Challenges In The Classroom, Mary Clare Murray

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

The trauma and upheaval that students and families suffered due to the Covid pandemic will impact the classroom in the 2021-2022 school year in two significant ways: in the uncertain social-emotional health of students and in the dramatic disparities in their recent learning experiences. What is the most effective method for teachers to address these issues during instruction? The Modern Classrooms teaching method emphasizes self-paced, mastery-based, blended learning that could be a successful method to address post-Covid challenges in the classroom. This paper refers to studies that show the success of each of these instructional aspects: self-paced, mastery-based, and blended …

Struggling Student Teachers: Interventions For Support And Success, Sheree Moser

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

Teacher shortages in K-12 schools have created unique challenges for teacher preparation programs. University instructors face the task requirements of supporting candidates from a wide variety of backgrounds at the undergraduate and graduate level. While some of these candidates enter higher education programs skilled, eager, and committed, others are less prepared, requiring significant attention to make it through the program. Exams required by state departments of education and minimum grade point averages influence each candidate’s ability to move forward within the program, causing some students to experience additional struggles related to mental health and financial burdens.

The problem of practice …

Struggling Student Teachers: Interventions For Support And Success, Sheree Moser

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

Teacher shortages in K-12 schools have created unique challenges for teacher preparation programs. University instructors face the task requirements of supporting candidates from a wide variety of backgrounds at the undergraduate and graduate level. While some of these candidates enter higher education programs skilled, eager, and committed, others are less prepared, requiring significant attention to make it through the program. Exams required by state departments of education and minimum grade point averages influence each candidate’s ability to move forward within the program, causing some students to experience additional struggles related to mental health and financial burdens.

The problem of practice …

“I Don't Read No Books” : How Teachers Can Use Students' Literacy Stories To Change Literacy Lives., Stephanie J. Malone

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

Practitioner knowledge, as the center for change in teacher education, is the heart of The Carnegie Project of the Educational Doctorate (CPED) program. Margaret Lata and Susan Wunder explain a key principle of CPED is to grow practitioners as change agents, through the development of a Problem of Practice. In their article, Investing in the Formative Nature of Professional Learning: Redirecting, Mediating, and Generating Education Practice-as-Policy (2012), they discuss how the capstone product that evolves from this Problem of Practice should impact the professional field by producing knowledge that informs and changes professional practice.

This Dissertation in Practice, “I …

Getting To The Why: Exploring Early Career Physical Science Teachers' Discourse And Assessment Practices., Aaron Alfred Musson

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

Formative assessment, or assessment for learning, is an essential component of the interactions between teachers and learners. Teachers elicit statements of understandings to decide their next instructional steps. Similarly, students communicate what they know, and apply teachers’ responses. Formative assessment is as much assessment as discourse; teachers use both to determine and respond to student needs. When teachers use formative assessments effectively, they can guide student understanding, extend discussions, probe for deeper meanings, and provide feedback. Formative assessment provides an understanding of how students are growing (or struggling), which teachers can use to adjust instruction. Frequent formative assessment is strongly …

"Hear Us, See Us": Constructing Citizenship In The Margins, Tricia M. Hagen Gray

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

The meatpacking industry has drawn an increasing number of immigrants to the Midwestern community of Washington River from Mexico and Central America, making it a New Latino Diaspora (NLD) receiving community. Demographic change amidst the sociopolitical landscape of neoliberalism, declining civic engagement, and polarized partisan politics has forced interaction between longstanding residents and newcomers who are socially, culturally, and linguistically different. Historically marginalized groups have sought to claim rights—especially since Donald Trump’s election in 2016—resulting in a deeper fissure of the social landscape.

Washington River High School provided a context in which to explore questions about how students construct citizen …

The Relationship Of Formative Assessment To The Professional Development And Perspective Transformation Of Teachers, Kimberly K. Snyder

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

This study uses practitioner research to explore teacher perspectives about formative assessment. The researcher engaged in a four-month-long series of professional development sessions with one middle school and two high school English-Language Arts teachers from the Capital View School District. Understanding formative assessment as a process to monitor student learning and then customizing instruction based on the data gathered from the formative assessment is a complex skill in which teachers need practice and even coaching to become adroit. The sessions were intended to help early-career teachers better understand formative assessment and incorporate it as a strategy in their teaching praxis. …

Preservice Teacher Understanding And Implementation Of Caring Teaching-Learning Student Relationships, Daniel J. Shafer

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

This study was motivated by the interactions I have had with preservice teachers over the past 15 years as a science teacher who builds relationships with students to impact their motivation and success in school. The research focuses on the use of specific research-based relationship building strategies used with high school biology students. The purpose of this single case study was to explore the natural phenomenon that occur in a biology classroom when a cooperating teacher models these strategies for a preservice teacher during their student teaching experience. This study was supported with high school student perception data, as well …

Imagination: Active In Teaching And Learning, Christopher Cunningham

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

This autoethnography tells the story of the author’s endeavor to examine my teaching during a sculpture lesson in three 2^nd grade art classes in a mid-western suburban Title I elementary school. I analyze my planning, teaching, reflecting through the lens of Stuart Richmond’s Characteristics of Imaginative Teaching as well as noted educational theorists’ conceptions of imagination and imaginative teaching and learning. These theorists include but are not limited to Maxine Greene, Kieran Egan, John Dewey, and The Lincoln Center Institute’s Capacities for Imaginative Learning. I conclude that imaginative teaching is an intentional act and that there is no …

Honoring Diversity In An Online Classroom: Approaches Used By Instructors Engaging Through An Lms, Jacob Petersen

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

This is an inquiry into how online instructors embrace the diversity of their student body while facing the inherent differences between a traditional face-to-face class and one that is taught online. Current research suggests that diversity in a traditional classroom is an asset if the instructor is sensitive to students’ backgrounds. This paper examines if such philosophies in traditional classrooms translate well into a distance education environment, where the student body may be even more diverse than a face-to-face class, but possibly unrecognizable because of the lack of physical cues. Research on the topic of multiculturalism in an online classroom …

Addressing The Literacy Needs Of Marshallese Adolescents, Ingrid L. Naumann

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

Based on personal experience teaching literacy skills to Marshallese adolescents in the Republic of Palau, I explore literacy challenges and needs particular to these students. The historical and sociocultural context of language use in the Micronesian Islands reveals the imbalance of current biliteracy efforts. Challenges in teaching literacy to adolescents is well documented, as are challenges in teaching literacy through a second or third language, but these students, and many others like them, also face these challenges without the same traditional cultural value in print literacy that they see in school. The literature suggests potential improvement through approaches that demonstrate …

The Disabled Teacher: A Memoir Of An Interrupted Pedagogical Career, A Life With A Chronic Illness, And An Encounter With Real Barriers To Inclusive Education, Dorothy M. Bossman

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

This dissertation is a narrative exploration of multiple themes relevant to education research: the relationship between the university and school, epistemology, teacher identity, disability studies, researcher subjectivity, and the retention of quality educators. This work of “autoethnography” (Ellis, Bochner, & Adams, 2011) approaches these topics through the tellings of a teaching career, the awakening of an education scholar, and the development of a chronic illness. While the focus of this inquiry often returns to the researcher’s pedagogical identity, the three storylines interact in myriad ways that relate to the larger field. Removal of one of these narrative threads would, metaphorically, …

Supporting Representation-Rich Problem-Solving In High School Physics, Lyrica L. Lucas

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

The literature on physics education research (PER) promotes the use of multiple representations (such as pictures, diagrams, written explanations, and mathematical expressions) to enhance the problem-solving ability of students through instruction. The purpose of this study was to explore the use of a scaffolding strategy that involved the use of multiple representation tasks in problem-solving in a modeling physics class in high school. Another class with similar background was selected as a comparison group. In 12 in-depth problem-solving interviews of students drawn from the two classes, I investigated in detail how the students responded to the multiple representations tasks and …

Secondary Mathematics Teachers’ Literacy Professional Learning: An Amalgamation Of Adolescent Literacy, Mathematics Teaching, And Adult Learning, Janet L. Larson

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

This study uses practitioner research to examine secondary mathematics teachers’ learning of literacy integration practices in the context of a district-wide literacy professional development series. The author, a secondary mathematics curriculum and instruction facilitator in a large, Midwestern suburban district, engaged in a two-year partnership with seventeen Mathematics Teacher Facilitators (MTFs) who taught literacy practices to their colleagues via a train-the-trainer model. This study provides an explicit rendering of professional development practices and ongoing, job-embedded learning vignettes of six MTF’s experiences in (a) teaching literacy practices to their colleagues and (b) how they learned and enacted these practices in their …

Effective Coaching Strategies For Increased Use Of Research-Based Instructional Strategies For Linguistically Diverse Classrooms, Cindy S. West

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

This thesis explores effective coaching strategies that support the classroom teacher in implementing research-based instructional strategies designed to assist English language learners (ELLs) in language acquisition and content learning. Through individual interviews, ELL instructional coaches assisted in the identification of coaching strategies they perceived to be most supportive as classroom teachers learned and implemented instructional strategies for supporting ELL students.

The data gathered from the interviews is organized under four main themes: Developing Partnerships, Identifying Student and Teacher Needs, Practical Applications, and The Role of Professional Development. The data indicated participants strongly endorsed instructional coaching as an effective form of …

Challenges Native Chinese Teachers Face In Teaching Chinese As A Foreign Language To Non-Native Chinese Students In U.S. Classrooms, Hui Xu

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

This qualitative case study targeted the perceptions of Chinese teachers (n= 7) who had teaching experiences in China or Taiwan and the challenges they faced in transitioning to teach non-native Chinese students in U.S. classrooms, specifically about their teaching beliefs, styles, pedagogy, classroom management strategies which may be different from that of American education system. Results showed that Chinese teacher participants encountered numerous challenges including language barriers and culture shock, different perceptions and expectations of the roles of the teacher and students, communication with parents, different teaching pedagogies and styles, classroom management, and inclusion of students with special needs. The …

Changing Perceptions Of Science In Undergraduate Students: A Mixed Methods Case Study, Cindy S. Larson-Miller

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

The purpose of this bounded single-case study was to explore the understanding of the nature and process of science for undergraduate students at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL). The study investigated one professor’s methodology to explicitly teach undergraduate students about the nature and process of science, and documented their understanding and perception of science, both pre- and post-course.

Using a mixed method approach, data were collected to provide a better understanding of teaching the nature and process of science. Three main types of data were analyzed: the process of science (TPOS) assessment; survey questions, and the module curriculum.

Participating students …

Extensiveness And Perceptions Of Lecture Demonstrations In The High School Chemistry Classroom, Daniel S. Price

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

While lecture demonstrations have been conducted in chemistry classrooms for hundreds of years, little research exists to document the frequency with which such demonstrations are employed or their effect on learners’ motivation and performance. A mixed-methods research study was performed, using quantitative and qualitative survey data, along with qualitative data from follow-up interviews and structured correspondence, to determine the extent to which lecture demonstrations are used in high school chemistry instruction, and the perceived effects of viewing such demonstrations on students’ performance on course assignments and on motivation to excel in current and future chemistry courses. Fifty-two randomly selected chemistry …