Education Commons^™

Embracing Diversity In Higher Education: Teaching A Driven And Determined Approach, Melvin Jackson, Adriel Adon Hilton, Kevin Mcclain

Journal of Research Initiatives

Diversity and inclusivity are two must-teach components that the academy needs to incorporate into its curriculum to enrich student experiences. Due to globalization, technological advances, and norms, societies are becoming more homogenous. Institutions of higher learning should prioritize teaching diversity and inclusion with a driven and determined approach to prepare students better personally and professionally.

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 …

Triumph Through Tragedy, One Student At At Time, Chanel M. Schwenck

Kentucky Teacher Education Journal: The Journal of the Teacher Education Division of the Kentucky Council for Exceptional Children

The EF-4 tornado that struck Mayfield, Kentucky on the evening of December 10, 2021 caused tremendous destruction to the entire community of Mayfield. Two education professors at a neighboring university sought to help students in the Mayfield Independent School District and were able to do so via funding from a KEEP mini-grant. 81 of their college students were trained in Response to Intervention (RtI) practices and provided individual and small group instruction to students in Mayfield for 2 hours a week for 17 weeks during the 2022-2023 school year. Altogether, struggling students in Mayfield received 1,377 hours of RtI instruction …

Book Review Rural Education In America: What Works For Our Students, Teachers, And Communities, Sunshine L. Brosi, Marilyn M. Cuch, Spencer Spotted Elk, Julie Stevens, Gustavo A. Ovando-Montejo

Journal on Empowering Teaching Excellence

Access the online Pressbooks version of this article here.

Book review of Marietta, G. & S. Marietta. (2020). Rural Education in America, What works for our students, teachers, and communities, Harvard Education Press. Statewide faculty teaching in rural Utah review this book and focus on actions to meet the specific needs of their demographic of rural students in rural communities. The reviewer’s reflections on the book developed from a Spring 2022 Empowering Teaching Excellence Learning Circle led by the primary author.

Full Issue: Journal On Empowering Teaching Excellence, Volume 7, Issue 2, Fall 2023

Journal on Empowering Teaching Excellence

The full-length Fall 2023 issue (Volume 7, Issue 2) of the Journal on Empowering Teaching Excellence

Access the online Pressbooks version (with downloadable EPUB format) here.

The Fall 2023 issue presents research and guidance on topics related to educational adaptation. The first article by C. Farrell describes an adaptation of the interteaching method to the hybrid delivery method. The second article by C. C. Loose and R. Jagielo-Manion describes a study of modules on personalized learning to preservice teachers and its impact on their comfort level and preparation to implement personalized learning in their classrooms. The third article by B. …

A Look At Diversity Through The Lens Of Universal Design For Learning And Differentiated Instruction To Better Educate Learners, Mokysha Benford

The Journal of the Research Association of Minority Professors

In addition to the COrona VIrus Disease (COVID) gap, the teacher shortage, and increasing accountability, schools and classrooms continue to grow more and more diverse. This diversity presents its own set of challenges as teachers are expected to meet the needs of all learners. In addition to linguistic, religious, gender, sexual preference, race, socioeconomic status, and family structure diversity, students bring their varied culture and prior experiences to the classroom, and this impacts learning. This article presents a critical review of literature that examines Universal Design for Learning and Differentiated Instruction to address the instructional challenges diversity can create. It …

The Association Of Neighborhood Schools Assignment Plan With Economic, Racial And Academic Outcomes In One North Carolina District, Theodore Kaniuka

Journal of Research Initiatives

When unified status was granted to numerous school districts, school boards developed redistricting plans to implement neighborhood schools. Social justice advocates decried these plans as they reversed over 40 years of progress, as many of these efforts resulted in resegregating schools homogenously grouped by race and wealth. Using piecewise and Difference in Difference regression with publicly facing data, this study assessed the association between neighborhood school attendance plans, school racial and economic balance, and student reading achievement. The results indicate that in one North Carolina school district over 15 years, (a) schools became more racially segregated, and (b) the achievement …

Teaching Mathematics To All Learners By Tapping Into Indigenous Legends: A Pathway Towards Inclusive Education, Nahid Golafshani

Journal of Global Education and Research

This study explored the use of Indigenous storytelling in the planning and teaching of mathematical content. In collaboration with Indigenous and non-Indigenous educators, a culturally inclusive mathematical lesson was developed, implemented, and reviewed in an elementary school in Northern Ontario. This study used a culturally authentic approach to address the current educational issue of diversity within the Ontario curriculum and education system. The results of this study suggested that utilizing Indigenous storytelling for teaching mathematical curricular expectations could benefit both Indigenous and non-Indigenous students. Storytelling can allow students to relate abstract mathematical concepts to their own lived experiences, to be …

Stories That Matter: An Analysis Of Teacher Candidates’ Compositions About Social Justice Events In Their Lives, Kathleen A. Gormley, Peter Mcdermott

Excelsior: Leadership in Teaching and Learning

Abstract

This study generated from our interest in learning about social justice events in the lives of teacher candidates in our programs of study. In many schools of education, including our own, social justice is a concept that is integrated into the curriculums, yet there is wide variation as to how this is actually done. A unique aspect of this study was that more than half of the candidates were matriculated in an alternate teacher education program where the majority of candidates are people of color. Using narrative analysis, we examine 48 written narratives composed by teacher candidates about events …

World Language And Culture Intensive Summer Camp: Window To The World With Access The World, Dilnoza F. Khasilova Dr.

The Montana English Journal

The purpose of the article is to introduce readers to the summer World Language and Culture camp. The author of the article describes two-weeks camp activities that participants took part, and she concludes with participants’ feedback and resources used to create the World Language and Culture Program’s summer camp.

Creating Commons: Photovoice Philosophy In A Third Space, Jason M. Cox, Lynne Hamer

Journal of Social Theory in Art Education

Teach Toledo is a program that the authors co-coordinate using community assets to create a third space to confront systemic racism’s impact on teacher education programs and facilitate hybridity (Bhaba, 1994). Diverse student cohort members use their lived experience as the base for their individual and shared urban educational philosophies, coordinated in a first-year horizontally and vertically integrated curriculum including written compositions and a PhotoVoice project. “Creating commons” refers not only to provision of a third space as a common space where private experiences can be combined to create a hybrid, new understanding, but also to the creative act of …

How Do They See Me? Examining The Experiences Of Faculty In The Context Of Classroom Whiteness Factors, Papia Bawa, Diantha Watts Dr.

Journal of Research Initiatives

Today polarized attitudes and aptitudes have created a subtle but steady paradigm shift in the way equity, diversity, and inclusivity (EDI) issues are seen by stakeholders. As a result, focusing on critical aspects of equity relationships and the fallout from discriminatory attitudes towards marginalized groups has become ever more needed. While diversity issues exist in all societal, professional, and personal realms, its impact within educational institutions is perhaps the most deeply profound. This Hermeneutic Phenomenology study examines the experiences of six higher education faculty who teach predominantly white student classrooms to identify issues and recommendations with respect to their relationship …

Implicit Gender Bias In The Classroom: Memories From K-12 Education, Melissa J. Marks, Michelle L. Amodei

Journal of Research Initiatives

Implicit biases affect everyone in society, including within the K-12 education system. This study investigated what memories of implicit gender bias preservice teachers (PSTs) recalled from their K-12 education. These memories may be connected to the PSTs’ embedded implicit biases and indicate the long-term impact of teachers’ biases on students. A total of 141 undergraduate PSTs from two universities were surveyed regarding gender expectations and recognition of LGBTQ+ people. Results indicated an inconsistency between espoused beliefs and practices within the classrooms. Because schools often reflect society’s norms and perpetuate them through implicit bias, understanding what biases are currently accepted and …

Unmasking Microaggressions On The Homefront: Exploring Faculty And Staff Perceptions After Attending An Online Workshop On Microaggressions In Higher Education, Andrea N. Crenshaw, Natasha N. Ramsay-Jordan, Allyson Deskins

Georgia Educational Researcher

Microaggressions are brief and everyday slights, insults, indignities, and denigrating messages sent to people of color and/or marginalized groups (women, LGBTQ+, etc.) by well-intentioned [people] who are unaware of the hidden messages being communicated (Sue et al., 2007). Microaggressions are connected to broader conceptualizations of the impact of implicit bias and systems of inequity. Specifically, in K-12 and higher education, microaggressions impact the physical, social, and emotional well-being of those who experience them. Growing research posits the need for more discussions in education about racism, sexism, and other bias prevalent in the field of education (Bergerson, 2003). As such, some …

More Than Academic: Texts For Teens, Casey Belli, Rebecca Harper

South Carolina Association for Middle Level Education Journal

Middle and high school students are dealing with many heavy issues and topics daily – and we’re noticing the strain this is putting on their mental health -- yet there are several texts that can be used to help middle grades students develop decision making skills and coping strategies. Teaching reading and writing with books like these in classrooms can help students build a sense of empathy and compassion for others, along with offering them opportunities for contemplation and reflection. Plus, these experiences can also allow students a safe space to invite dialogue and discussion about topics that are part …

Call For Culturally Inclusive Texts In The English Classroom: Books As Mirrors And Windows, Annie Yon

New Jersey English Journal

The literary canon has long been revered in public education as representing the “‘depth and breadth of our national common experience,’ but the problem is that what was once defined as ‘common’—middle class, white, cisgender people—is no longer the reality in our country” (Anderson 1). The United States has a very diverse population, but there is a lack of diverse representation in books taught in the English classroom. In other words, American classics embedded in the curriculum hold merit, but they do not fully represent the stories of all ethnic and culturally diverse students with their own “American” experiences. Poor …

Developing Culturally Proficient Leaders Through Graduate Coursework: Examining Student Perspectives, Jean F. Ruffin, Marsha E. Simon

School Leadership Review

The racial and ethnic demographic shifts occurring in the United States had increased the need for educational leaders capable of obtaining the cultural proficiency needed to effectively lead diverse schools. Graduate coursework focused on developing cultural competence provides a unique opportunity for school leaders to explore issues related to identity, bias, and diversity in a scholarly setting. Course design, materials, and assignments should work together seamlessly to provide students a rich opportunity to explore diversity issues. The present study examines the perspectives of students enrolled in a doctoral diversity course in Spring 2021 and how the course contributed to the …

“Pockets Of Hope”: Changing Representations Of Diversity In Newbery Medal–Winning Titles, Kathleen A. Paciga, Melanie D. Koss

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

Newbery Medal–winning books provide cultural models for children’s developing cultural understandings of themselves and others. This article presents results of a critical content analysis that used sociocultural and historical lenses to examine representations of race/ethnicity, gender, and ability of main characters across the Newbery-winning corpus and how these representations have changed over the history of the award, 1922–2019. Findings present a lack of consistent diverse representation across all fields, with increased diverse representation in the most recent decades. The discussion contextualizes findings against historical events. Understanding the representations of diversity in these texts and the historical contexts within which such …

“Teaching In A War Zone”: A Collective Reflection On Learning From A Diversity Course In Contentious Times, Elena Aydarova, Jacob Kelley, Kristen Daugherty

Journal of Educational Controversy

Diversity courses in teacher education often become sites of conflict and contestation. Numerous proposals have been put forward on how to address these conflicts and contestations through pedagogical interventions and teaching innovations. However, such proposals rarely take into account the impact of broader sociopolitical forces on classroom interactions and learning. In this collective reflection, we document our experiences of navigating a diversity course in highly contentious times when anti-critical race theory campaigns resulted in widespread bans on the teaching of “divisive concepts.” We explore critical incidents and challenging situations to capture the erosion of civility and engagement with evidence. In …

Advocating For Adolescent Literature, Michelle Rasheed, Deborah Mcmurtrie

South Carolina Association for Middle Level Education Journal

We advocate building an extensive adolescent literature library to offer our pre-service teachers access to diverse texts, more text choices, and more opportunities for self-selected reading. In addition, we suggest using a faculty and student book club to model reading, write about literature, and discuss adolescent literature across disciplines.

High School Journalism Advisors And African American Students, Jerry Crawford Ii

Journal of Research Initiatives

This study examined whether African American participation in high school journalism is lower than the participation of other students in the State of Kansas. Past research has found that participation in high school newspapers and yearbook staff is often the pathway for students to consider careers in journalism. For the sake of this study, participation was defined as "any school-directed journalistic activity or program where students are allowed to produce content." This study used a questionnaire sent to 100 high school advisers and teachers, experimentally accessible in the state, administered over three years as the survey instrument. The response rate …

Listen To Your Doppelganger! Global Cultural Empathy For Educators: A Literature Review Based Conceptual Model, Papia Bawa Dr.

Journal of Research Initiatives

Our student populations' diversity now includes African Americans, Native Americans, and Latinos, as classrooms represent various cultural backgrounds. This shift in student population dynamics brings fresh challenges to educator's unpreparedness to identify with the unique cultural identities of international students. The cultural dissonance that international students face compounds this challenge since the cultural unawareness and misconceptions may be generated from both educators and student groups. The Doppelganger Inspired Change Effect model or DICE discussed in this article is inspired by an extensive literature review. It elucidates a process of fostering global cultural empathy and preparedness of educators by linking such …

Critical Awareness For Literacy Teachers And Educators In Troubling Times, Patriann Smith, S. Joel Warrican

Literacy Practice and Research

The field of literacy remains assailed by a persisting discrepancy between an increasing body of literacy research that honors the diversity in students’ practices juxtaposed against a persistent system of schooling and high-stakes assessment that has not been designed to draw from underrepresented students’ literate assets. This discrepancy has created a situation where teachers often receive well-intentioned instruction from literacy educators about how to address diverse literacy needs, but then, struggle to enact this instruction in the high-stakes testing environment of classrooms and schools where they have little autonomy. We argue in this essay that critical multilingual, critical multicultural and …

Uncommon And Non-Traditional Urban Relationship Strategies: From Relationship Loss To Relationship Recovery, Lasonya L. Moore

Journal of English Learner Education

With increasing student diversity across our nation, there is a growing need to scale up educational innovations related to building holistic relationships. Many students in K-12 public schools enter educational settings with uncommon and nontraditional ways of building and developing longitudinal relationships that allow students to thrive and not just survive. Specifically, teachers/educators feel ill-equipped and ill-trained to adequately support the increasing number of English learners(ELs) and Exceptional education students (specifically Students of Color (SOC) with emotional and behavioral disorders) identified in inclusive classrooms. Thus, there remains an urgent need to share uncommon and non-traditional strategies to develop and build …

Lesson Study: A Proposed Intervention For Professional Development Of Diversity, Equity, And Inclusion Instruction In A Multicultural Classroom, Michael L. Hixon

Journal of Sustainable Social Change

This paper responds to the proposed implementation of lesson study as a professional development intervention for multicultural instruction in the United States. It includes an investigation of the literature in relation to the use of higher-order thinking skills, Banks’s four approaches for integrating multicultural instruction, and lesson study as a proposed professional development intervention in multicultural instruction. The conclusion provides a discussion of insights into K–12 educators’ needs for professional development opportunities to ensure that they provide diverse, equitable, and inclusive learning environments for all of their students. Creating diverse, equitable, and inclusive learning opportunities for students would be meaningful …

The Exclusive White World Of Preservice Teachers’ Book Selection For The Classroom: Influences And Implications For Practice, Helen Adam, Anne-Maree Hays, Yvonne Urquhart

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

This paper reports on a study of the children’s book preferences of 82 Preservice teachers (PSTs) at one Western Australian University. The study found PSTs preferred older books published during their own childhood or earlier. Further, representation of people of colour was limited to only 8 of 177 titles listed by PSTs. Key influences on their preferences were their personal favourite books and those used by mentor teachers during practicum experience. The outcomes of this study have implications for curriculum development and implementation of Initial Teacher Education courses, and in turn, for equitable outcomes of the future students of PSTs.

Assisting Students And Families During The Covid-19 Crisis: Diversity & Equity In Action Through A Educator-Family-Community Health Worker Intersection, Eric J. López, Oscar J. Muñoz, Eva Menchaca-López

Northwest Journal of Teacher Education

The current COVID-19 crisis has exposed new and existing issues related to access and equity for our students and families. The following article discusses a model for interconnecting educators, families, and community health workers (CHW) that can integrate diversity and equity for practitioners and educator preparation programs. Integrating CHWs provides a unique opportunity to utilize their cultural responsive skills and knowledge. Implications for practitioners and educator preparation programs are discussed.

Disruptive Teaching: Centering Equity And Diversity In Literacy Pedagogical Practices, Anne Swenson Ticknor, Mikkaka Overstreet, Christy M. Howard

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

Teacher educators must prepare preservice teachers (PSTs) to become equitable practitioners who honor the voices and experiences of their future students. In this article, we advocate for centering equitable teaching in literacy education courses and making explicit how to disrupt traditional perspectives of teaching diverse students. This qualitative study investigated PSTs’ perceptions and attitudes about teaching diverse students after a series of modeled lessons. Analysis revealed that over the course of the semester PSTs either continued to focus on barriers related to equitable teaching, began to discuss new possibilities for teaching, or were ready to enact the practices they had …

Working 'Failure' Into Your Learning Design, Nilanjana Saxena Ms.

The Emerging Learning Design Journal

The world is grappling with education failing to meet industry demands for skills. We’re constantly striving to design for learning that is able to meet with the emerging societal and Industrial needs. Against this background what should the learning design strategy be?

Of particular relevance is Productive Failure (PF) a deeper learning design strategy, which runs counter to a traditional Direct Instruction methodology and demonstrates the affordances of experiencing and learning from failure. This brief elaborates on PF, select use cases and applications as well as key design features in operationalising PF.

Politicizing Early Childhood Education And Care In Ontario: Race, Identity And Belonging, Zuhra E. Abawi, Rachel Berman Dr.

Journal of Curriculum, Teaching, Learning and Leadership in Education

The Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) landscape, much like the K-12 education system in Ontario, is largely encompassed by bias-free, neutral and colourblind narratives of identity and social location (Author 1, 2018). These discursive practices portray young children and early learning settings as raceless and equal spaces that engage children in interactions and discussions of race and identity are inappropriate. Education in Ontario and Canada as an entity is marked by myth of the Canadian nation-state (Thobani, 2007) through celebratory, themed, recognition-based initiatives that mark differences, while leaving the status quo of whiteness unchallenged and intact (DiAngelo, 2018). The …