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Full-Text Articles in Education

Critical Analysis Of Research On The Impact Of Visual Literacy For Learning: Strengths, Weaknesses And Recommendations For Improvement, Daibao Guo, Wendi Zimmer, Sharon D. Matthews, Erin M. Mctigue Sep 2019

Critical Analysis Of Research On The Impact Of Visual Literacy For Learning: Strengths, Weaknesses And Recommendations For Improvement, Daibao Guo, Wendi Zimmer, Sharon D. Matthews, Erin M. Mctigue

Literacy, Language, and Culture Faculty Publications and Presentations

The current systematic review aimed to investigate in what ways the incorporation of visual display tasks benefits K-12 students’ content-area learning. After screening 1693 articles at abstract level and a systematic evaluation of methodological quality, we synthesized 44 articles for this review. The qualitative synthesis of the studies is organized by categories of interaction with visual displays (ViDis), instructional support, and types of knowledge and learning. Overall findings indicate the simple inclusion of visual displays does not guarantee a positive learning effect. More detailed findings distinguish three categories of ViDis: author-provided, student-filled-in, and student-created visual displays. Furthermore, we discuss …


“Opening The Window To A World Wider Than Our Little Classroom”: The Importance Of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy, Hannah Carter, Melissa Bradford Sep 2019

“Opening The Window To A World Wider Than Our Little Classroom”: The Importance Of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy, Hannah Carter, Melissa Bradford

Literacy, Language, and Culture Faculty Publications and Presentations

Diversity in today’s classrooms must be considered and valued to create effective learning environments. Through surveys (N=83) and interviews (N=10), this mixed methods study examined in-service elementary teachers’ beliefs about culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP) – more specifically, self-efficacy and outcome expectancy, as related to CRP. Results showed that teachers not only have highly positive outcome expectations for CRP quantitatively, they also explain specific benefits of CRP – relationship building, student achievement, and learning beyond the curriculum. Teachers were efficacious implementing CRP related to general good teaching practices, such as developing relationships and building trust with students. However, they were less …


Developing And Examining Validity Evidence For The Writing Rubric To Inform Teacher Educators (Write), Tracey S. Hodges, Katherine Landau Wright, Stefanie A. Wind, Sharon D. Matthews, Wendi K. Zimmer, Erin Mctigue Apr 2019

Developing And Examining Validity Evidence For The Writing Rubric To Inform Teacher Educators (Write), Tracey S. Hodges, Katherine Landau Wright, Stefanie A. Wind, Sharon D. Matthews, Wendi K. Zimmer, Erin Mctigue

Literacy, Language, and Culture Faculty Publications and Presentations

Assessment is an under-researched challenge of writing development, instruction, and teacher preparation. One reason for the lack of research on writing assessment in teacher preparation is that writing achievement is multi-faceted and difficult to measure consistently. Additionally, research has reported that teacher educators and preservice teaches may have limited assessment literacy knowledge. In previous studies, researchers have struggled to provide strong evidence of validity, reliability, and fairness across raters, writing samples, and rubric items. In the present study, we fill several gaps in the research literature by developing a rubric, the Writing Rubric to Inform Teacher Educators (WRITE), which utilizes …


A Validation Program For The Self-Beliefs, Writing-Beliefs, And Attitude Survey: A Measure Of Adolescents' Motivation Toward Writing, Katherine Landau Wright, Tracey S. Hodges, Erin M. Mctigue Jan 2019

A Validation Program For The Self-Beliefs, Writing-Beliefs, And Attitude Survey: A Measure Of Adolescents' Motivation Toward Writing, Katherine Landau Wright, Tracey S. Hodges, Erin M. Mctigue

Literacy, Language, and Culture Faculty Publications and Presentations

Recent findings reveal clear evidence that students’ low performance on writing tasks is often related to problems with motivation. Writing curriculum and interventions produce varying effects on adolescents’ writing outcomes, and such variations may be mediated by motivation. However, without a valid tool for measuring students’ motivation towards writing, these effects cannot be quantified. In this study we present the results of our multi-study validation program for the Self-Beliefs, Writing-Beliefs, and Attitude Survey (SWAS). This measure is designed for monitoring students' motivation towards writing, as well as identifying variables that mediate student achievement. We first addressed substantive validation through a …


Finding Our Place In The Third Space: The Authority Of Not Knowing As Becoming In School-University Partnership Work, Hannah Carter, Jennifer Snow, Sara Digrazia, Sherry Dismuke Jan 2019

Finding Our Place In The Third Space: The Authority Of Not Knowing As Becoming In School-University Partnership Work, Hannah Carter, Jennifer Snow, Sara Digrazia, Sherry Dismuke

Literacy, Language, and Culture Faculty Publications and Presentations

School-university partnerships have been a space for simultaneous renewal and teacher development for decades (Darling-Hammond, 1994; Goodlad, 1994; Teitel, 2003). As a case in point, this article takes a deeper look at how school- and university-based teacher educators experience professional growth and negotiation of partnership contexts, roles, and responsibilities. Recognizing the complexity of teacher development across the professional lifespan, and the tensions of school-university partnership work, we explore the diverse roles and positions from which we come to the work of clinical supervision and school partnership work. To highlight the varied levels of development and professional growth in these hybrid …


What Do Middle Grades Preservice Teachers Believe About Writing And Writing Instruction?, Tracey S. Hodges, Katherine Landau Wright, Erin Mctigue Jan 2019

What Do Middle Grades Preservice Teachers Believe About Writing And Writing Instruction?, Tracey S. Hodges, Katherine Landau Wright, Erin Mctigue

Literacy, Language, and Culture Faculty Publications and Presentations

After third grade, students’ motivation and enjoyment of writing begins to wane, and this trend continues through most of their education. Middle grade students especially need high-quality writing instruction; however, many teachers report feeling inadequately prepared to teach writing. To combat these issues, teacher preparation programs should understand how their preservice teachers feel about writing and teaching writing. The present study surveyed 150 middle grade preservice teachers to determine their self-efficacy beliefs about writing and writing instruction. Results indicate that preservice teachers valued writing, but did not feel confident with many specific aspects of writing instruction.


Searching For Spellcheckers: What Kids Want, What Kids Need, Brody Downs, Tyler French, Katherine Landau Wright, Maria Soledad Pera, Casey Kennington, Jerry Alan Fails Jan 2019

Searching For Spellcheckers: What Kids Want, What Kids Need, Brody Downs, Tyler French, Katherine Landau Wright, Maria Soledad Pera, Casey Kennington, Jerry Alan Fails

Literacy, Language, and Culture Faculty Publications and Presentations

Misspellings in queries used to initiate online searches is an everyday occurrence. When this happens, users either rely on the search engine’s ability to understand their query or they turn to spellcheckers. Spellcheckers are usually based on popular dictionaries or past query logs, leading to spelling suggestions that often better resonate with adult users because that data is more readily available. Based on an educational perspective, previous research reports, and initial analyses of sample search logs, we hypothesize that existing spellcheckers are not suitable for young users who frequently encounter spelling challenges when searching for information online. We present early …


Writing-To-Learn In Secondary Science Classes: For Whom Is It Effective?, Katherine Landau Wright, Tracey S. Hodges, Wendy K. Zimmer, Erin Mctigue Jan 2019

Writing-To-Learn In Secondary Science Classes: For Whom Is It Effective?, Katherine Landau Wright, Tracey S. Hodges, Wendy K. Zimmer, Erin Mctigue

Literacy, Language, and Culture Faculty Publications and Presentations

Although many agree that writing can make a unique contribution to learning, harnessing that contribution is difficult, particularly in the middle grades. The purpose of this study was to measure the efficacy of a feasible writing-to-learn intervention in Grade 6–11 science classes. We focused on middle school students because this group has been least responsive to writing interventions in previous research. We conducted an 8-week intervention in which students completed short metacognitive and longer argumentative writing tasks. Our results indicated that overall students’ ability to engage in scientific rhetoric improved, and we identified minimal difference in the growth of middle …