Education Commons^™

Great Lakes Great Books: A New Season, Lynette Marten Suckow

Michigan Reading Journal

Five book reviews from the Great Lakes Great Books list for the 2022-2023 school year.

A Spark Of Light In The Darkness: A Framework Of Habits And Routines That Grow Literacy Identities, Andy Schoenborn

Michigan Reading Journal

Using familiar and flexible classroom routines, authentic literacy habits, and encouragement, his students moved from "I hate reading and writing" to self-identifying as readers and writers in a matter of eighteen weeks.

Using Crossover And Traditional Picturebooks To Discuss Emotions, William P. Bintz, Shabnam Moini Chaghervand

Michigan Reading Journal

This article describes how literature, particularly crossover picturebooks, can be used to provide teachers and their students with a helpful perspective on the complex nature of problems, especially human problems with physical and mental health. We begin with an example of a picturebook that provides a unique perspective on the value of problems; namely, problems as unexpected gifts that can promote understanding, the first step in wellness. Next, we introduce crossover literature as an innovative genre for better understanding complex and controversial problems. Then, we share specific examples of crossover picturebooks, along with research-based instructional strategies, that teachers can use …

Taking Up The Work: Snapshots Of Disciplinary Literacy Instruction, Part I, Laura Gabrion, Jenelle Williams

Michigan Reading Journal

This article is part of a series devoted to unpacking disciplinary literacy instructional practices for educators at all levels. Here, we explore the role of disciplinary literacy instruction at all levels, in light of recent changes to Michigan's teacher certification grade bands. This article provides suggestions for getting started with addressing disciplinary literacy in instruction, as well as practical examples of what this might look like within English Language Arts classrooms.

Nurturing The Learning Zone: Moving Toward Hope And Possibility While Coaching Through The Covid-19 Pandemic, Dana Vanderlugt, Kathy Levandoski, Erica R. Hamilton

Michigan Reading Journal

Effective instructional coaching is teacher-centered and responsive, aimed at supporting K-12 teachers’ and their students’ learning and development. Using Briceño’s (2016) challenge to shift humans from “performance zones” to “learning zones”, this article showcases the adjustments two instructional coaches made as they worked throughout the COVID-19 pandemic to support teachers’ learning zones. Their work included facilitating meaningful peer observations, creating space for purposeful dialogues centered on relevant research and practice, and intentionally meeting teachers where they were at. Based on their experiences and feedback, attending to teachers’ learning zones holds positive and long-term implications for instructional coaches seeking to find …

Virtual Literacy Coaching: A Response To Time, Space, And Resources, Kimberly Peters

Michigan Reading Journal

Athletes use video all the time to carefully breakdown their physical performance while also selecting areas to improve based on video footage. Why should teachers be any less engaged in their instructional performance? Applying these same principles in education has potential to create an awareness in a teacher’s literacy instructional performance. Virtual literacy coaching is a job embedded professional learning model and it was one rural educational district's answer to time, space, and resources.

The Magic Of The Morning Message: Literacy Strategies Used In Preschool Classrooms, Jill B. Claxton, Tomoko Wakabayashi, Katherine Homant, Beth Hardin, Shun Takai

Michigan Reading Journal

Monthly in-depth, dynamic, ethnographic video recordings of preschool teaching practices were gathered in state-funded preschool programs in Michigan. We identified and coded teaching practices used by lead teachers during three parts of the daily routine using the Essential Instructional Practices in Early Literacy - Prekindergarten (MAISA-GELN, 2016). Using a mixed methods approach, the findings indicate that morning message time may be one of the most literacy rich times of the day. Preschool teachers engaged in literacy promoting strategies more during morning message time than even during small group time or read alouds. Co-occurrences of literacy strategies were also found most …

Incorporating Student Physical Movement In The Elementary School Setting, Andrew Vanderwal

Masters Projects

With the increase in academic demands on elementary students, students are lacking opportunities for physical movement within the classroom which is adversely impacting student achievement. Research was conducted in order to determine the importance of physical movement for children and possible correlations between student physical movement and academic achievement. Jensen (2005) concluded that physical movement is an integral component in brain development for children that supports engagement and focus which positively impacts academic achievement. Rosenstreich et al. (2022), Wiebelhaus & Hanson (2016), and Reed et al. (2011) found positive correlations between groups of elementary-age students, who were provided frequent opportunities …

Teacher Retention: The Causes And An Administrator’S Role In Reducing Attrition, Kate Hedrick

Masters Projects

As Ingersoll (2003) reported, between 40% and 50% of teachers will leave the field of education by their fifth year (as cited in Mee & Haverback, 2014). The numerous teachers leaving the profession is costly to a school and negatively affects student outcomes (Young, 2018). Administrators need to be knowledgeable in the most effective ways to keep their teachers the first five years and beyond. This project will train administrators on specific ways to avoid teacher turnover. It will focus on the role of a principal including opportunities for distributed leadership and professional development. The second section will focus on …

An Examination Of Chronic Absenteeism And The Impacts On Student Success, Rachel Pini

Masters Projects

Research shows that students who are chronically absent are less likely to graduate and have poorer academic achievement among other issues. Chronically absent students may struggle with attendance for a variety of reasons, and thus individualized interventions are the most effective when dealing with this issue. School counselors can provide school staff with resources to learn to deal with chronically absent students, to monitor attendance progress, and to form positive relationships with these students in order to improve the school’s climate. This project is a ready-to-use plan for school counselors to share with other educators in order to create a …

Examining How Early Career Teachers’ Experiences In Gvsu Schools Inform Future Plans, Kiel Mcqueen, Grand Valley State University

Charter School Research Reports

Studies have suggested that between 20 to 40 percent of teachers leave the profession in their first five years (Darling-Hammond & Sykes, 2003; Gray & Taie, 2015; Ingersoll 2003). Turnover tends to be higher in urban districts and schools serving students from historically marginalized communities. Increased teacher turnover is particularly problematic given the growing evidence that attrition harms schools, teachers, and students (Boyd, Lankford, Loeb, & Wyckoff, 2005; Ronfeldt, Loeb, and Wyckoff, 2013). The pandemic could intensify this problem given that the number of teachers reporting frequent job-related stress, symptoms of depression, and interest in careers outside of education have …

Enacting Disciplinary Literacy Instruction: Essential Practices In Action, Darin B. Stockdill, Stacie B. Woodward

Language Arts Journal of Michigan

In this paper, we will explore elements of the Essential Instructional Practices for Disciplinary Literacy: Grades 6-12 , a statewide initiative in Michigan designed to support exactly this kind of teaching. In particular, we will discuss key instructional implications of the Essential Practices for both social studies and ELA instruction and highlight important commonalities and distinctions across these two content areas. We provide concrete examples of these practices in action as we share activities and reflections from a curricular project we undertook with US History and ELA teachers called Equitable Futures. In this initiative, teachers engaged their students in inquiry-driven …

Literacy As A Civil Right In The Past, Present And Future: Disciplinary Literacies As An Act Of Advocacy, Liberation, And Community-Building, Rosalyn Shahid Ph.D, Melissa A. Brooks-Yip

Language Arts Journal of Michigan

The Essential Instructional Practices for Disciplinary Literacy in the Secondary Classroom were presented to the educational community in 2016; in this article, we look back at history and ahead to classroom instruction to present the evolution of the purpose and practices of disciplinary literacies. By examining literacy as a civil right throughout history and the creation of the Essential Instructional Practices for Disciplinary Literacy, a path is revealed for educators to collaborate, differentiate professional learning, and implement classroom practices to engage students with content knowledge to foster real and relevant literacies for life.

Journeying Toward Liberation: Creating Civic Utopias Through Restorative Literacies, Rae L. Oviatt, Megan Mcelwee, Owen Farney

Language Arts Journal of Michigan

In this article, we forward three narratives from educators whose lived experiences moving from underrepresented youth to queer educators support the necessity of furthering representation for historically marginalized youth across classroom spaces. We begin with situating our argument in response to current policies that would seek to silence historically marginalized voices, histories, literacies, and thereby inhibit a more just social and civic future. Our narratives provide three varied perspectives of lived experiences as youth moving toward our current status as queer educators. Finally, we seek to call in other educators to engage advocacy and resources to support this work in …

Teaching With The Genius In Mind: Enacting Literacy As A Civil Right, Katie Glupker, Pam Gower, Angela Knight

Language Arts Journal of Michigan

Because literacy is a civil right, educators are responsible for designing and implementing literacy education that is designed with the excellence of all students in mind. In order to learn about ways to ensure that literary practices are equitable for all students, the authors joined an educators’ book club to read Cultivating Genius: An Equity Framework for Culturally and Historically Responsive Literacy by Gholdy Muhammad. Muhammad describes the Black literary societies of the past and challenges educators of today to enhance classrooms by upholding equity and excellence through a five-layered framework: Identity, Skills, Intellect, Criticality, and Joy.

We studied Muhammad’s …

It’S Not Autism. It’S Your Parenting. An Autoethnographic Exploration Of The Relationships Between Professionals And Parents Of An Autistic Child In The Uk, Barbara Mitra Dr

Ought: The Journal of Autistic Culture

This paper is based on my own child who was diagnosed with Autism (aged 7 years and Autism and PDA aged 11). Using autoethnography, drawing on my own diaries, records and journals that I kept throughout this process, I document how our parenting was continually questioned and considered to be ineffective. This was the case even when our child had received his first diagnosis of autism. The extra stress and trauma that such continual questioning had impacted not only on us as parents, but also on our child with worsening behaviour. It seems that professionals continually questioned parenting styles, rather …

The Impact Of Learner & Instructor Expectations On L2 Online Motivation, Sara Kate Simon

Masters Theses

Post-pandemic L2 learning is a landscape of new challenges and opportunities for language learning. One of these challenges is maintaining learner motivation in an online environment. Motivation plays a crucial role in L2 learning success, which requires educators to better understand how to support learner motivation, a focus that had not yet been widely researched for the online environment. This study begins to address this gap in research by examining the relationship between learner and instructor perspectives in online L2 classrooms and learner motivation. Using a survey instrument to measure learner perceptions of four variables; class design, teacher presence, and …

Book Review Letting Go Of Literary Whiteness: Antiracist Literature Instruction For White Students, Jeremy Hyler

Michigan Reading Journal

Race, racism, and literary whiteness are at the forefront of many conversations in education today. In Letting Go of Literary Whiteness: Antiracist Literature Instruction for White Students, authors Carlin Borsheim-Black and Sophia Tatiana Sarigianides highlight what should be addressed in our classroom today to address race and racism.

Great Lakes Great Books Go Graphic, Lynette Marten Suckow

Michigan Reading Journal

Reviews of grade level graphic novels and illustrated books that rely on the use of picture and text together for effective storytelling.

Teacher Of Literature And Literacy: Rethinking Secondary English Language Arts, Jenelle Williams, Laura Gabrion

Michigan Reading Journal

This article aims to explore the complexity of instruction in secondary English Language Arts (ELA) classes, addressing the role of teacher identity, educator preparation programs, equity and access, and the role of the Essential Instructional Practices for Disciplinary Literacy in the Secondary Classroom. We suggest that there is a possibility to attend to both teaching literature and literacy within middle- and high-school ELA classrooms and provide a vision for working toward this balance.

Power Of Yet: The Integration Of The Culturally Responsive Literature With The Productive Struggle In Mathematics, Kathleen Crawford-Mckinney, Asli Ozgun-Koca, Kristy Rebar

Michigan Reading Journal

We used a children's book with three groups of students (ages 6-9) to foster mathematical engagement through read alouds. We will share lessons learned from this experience as we integrate children’s literature with mathematics through the lens of Power of Yet.

Free To Read: Growing Elementary Students' Literacy In The Summer, Allison M. Nieboer

Michigan Reading Journal

This article describes the implementation of “Free to Read”, a summer reading program with three key components: free student-selected books, Little Free Libraries and one-minute parent videos. The author explains how these three components come together to form a summer reading program that provides access and choice to a community of readers. Recommendations on creating such a program are shared at the end of the article.

Writing As A Vessel For Thinking: Incorporating Self-Regulation, Metacognition, And Formative Assessment In The Middle School Ela Classroom, Alyssha N. Ginzel

Michigan Reading Journal

This article examines three approaches to teaching writing: self-regulated instruction (Graham, 2018; Graham, 2020; Graham & Perin, 2007), metacognitive strategies (Hacker, 2018; Madison et al., 2019), and formative assessment (Black & Wiliam, 1998; Fleischer, 2013; Madison et al., 2019). Implementing these approaches, secondary ELA teachers can strike a balance between order and chaos while empowering adolescents to recognize, develop, and take ownership of their thinking and writing. Writing can and should be about grappling with big ideas that ultimately help us come to deeper, fuller understandings of ourselves and the world. This article explores how secondary ELA teachers can help …

The Stance, The Text, And The Talk: Three Components Of A Critical Race-Oriented Interactive Read Aloud, Rebecca Witte

Michigan Reading Journal

The flexible structure of an interactive read aloud (IRA) provides a platform to address issues of race for those educators who have the desire, but may not know how or where to start. Using a visual of a three circle diagram, the paper illustrates the importance of aligning a critical racial stance, the text, and the talk together to maximize student learning. One text, Can I Touch Your Hair? (Latham & Waters, 2019) is highlighted as a model to show the possible convergence of the three components. In addition, the author notes the importance of reflexivity and provides suggestions on …

Socially Just Literacy Teaching Within Virtual Spaces: Using Woods’ Model For Evaluating Practice, Elizabeth Isidro, Laura Teichert

Michigan Reading Journal

This study inquires into pre-service teachers’ teaching experiences within a virtual tutoring practicum in a literacy methods course. Using Woods’ (2018) model of Socially Just Literacy Pedagogy, we approach the research question: What are undergraduate pre-service teachers’ experiences in virtual tutoring that align with socially just literacy teaching? Drawing from interviews, we engaged in Narrative Inquiry as a way to highlight participants’ experiences while providing us rich contextual, temporal, and social understandings of their experiences that move towards socially just literacy teaching. Our findings suggest socially just literacy teaching practices along the dimensions of knowledge and skills in literacy pedagogy, …

Engaging Identity And Positionality In Designing Library Subject Guides: The Landscape Of Sovereign Tribal Nations And Lgbtq+ Peoples, Kim L. Ranger

Presentations

We can engage tribal nations and LGBTQ+ peoples while acknowledging that we cannot speak to their experience. We’ll discuss teaching the knowledge of diverse peoples and providing resources without appropriating their cultures, along with the boundaries between respecting unique perspectives and heritage versus appropriation.

We will engage the question of how identity and positionality influence the ways we design asynchronous instructional materials. We’ll discuss the characteristics of positive design principles regarding diverse groups.

“Where Do We Fit In?”: Exploring A Sense Of Belonging Among Fat College Students, Kyle Loyd Holcomb

Masters Theses

Fat college students are an understudied demographic of students in student affairs research. This qualitative study interviews student affairs professionals about their experiences as fat undergraduate students to help student affairs professionals better understand specific challenges and experiences fat students face concerning finding a sense of belonging at their university and to further expand the literature where fat students' voices are at the center of the research. Five participants shared their experiences with co-curricular and academic engagement on campus. These participants were successful in social incorporation, however unique challenges faced this population of students. Participants expressed finding academic settings uncomfortable …

Feedback To Feed Forward: Creating Formative Feedback To Improve Student Writing, Adam R. Huttenga

Masters Projects

Feedback to students has been highlighted in the literature as an area where improvements are needed. Students need high quality, specific, usable, and timely feedback. They also need guidance and tools to help them engage with, reflect on, and learn from that feedback in order to close the gap between their writing and the expected standards. In order to help students improve their writing, teachers must develop written feedback that is formative and feeds forward into future writing assignments. This project explores how effective formative feedback can be achieved within a social constructivist theoretical approach to learning, in which an …

Resiliency In The Shadows Of The Ivory Tower: Examining The Strategies Utilized By Undocumented Students To Succeed In Higher Education, Estefany Paniagua-Pardo M.Ed

Masters Theses

Undocumented students experience uniquely distinctive barriers in their pursuit of postsecondary education. The purpose of this study was to explore the ways in which undocumented students make meaning of their lived experiences by examining the various dimensions of their educational journey outside of the broader legal and political context. The study specifically highlighted undocumented student stories to investigate the strategies used by individuals to survive, persevere, and navigate institutions of higher education. Rooted in Yosso’s (2005) Community Cultural Wealth Model, this qualitative study used semi-structured interview methodology to unveil the ways in which undocumented students utilize numerous and intersecting forms …

Institutions Implementation Of Trauma-Informed Care Practices For Sexual Assault Survivors, Calli Ackels

Masters Projects

The purpose of this research is to understand the importance of trauma-informed care practices on college campuses for sexual assault survivors. The empirical research surrounding institutions implementation of trauma-informed care practices for sexual assault survivors discusses the prevalence of individuals who have experienced trauma, the importance of trauma-informed care education, and the need to utilize community resources. These findings determine the need for trauma-informed care practices as well as important tools for implementation. In order to improve institutions implementation of trauma-informed care practices for sexual assault survivors, much of the research suggests increased professional development dedicated to becoming informed on …