Education Commons^™

Unlocking The Organizational Roles For Effective Teacher Leadership, Diane E. Johnson, Shelly Allen, Frances Perez

School Leadership Review

Teacher leader (TL) retention has emerged as a critical concern as educators increasingly exit leadership roles due to policy pressures, inadequate compensation, limited administrative support, and diminished professional recognition. Although schools rely on teacher leaders to support instructional improvement and professional collaboration, many leadership structures fail to provide sustainable pathways for teacher leadership development. Guided by a Distributed Transformational Leadership Framework, which integrates transformational and distributed leadership theories, this qualitative study examined how teacher leaders perceive leadership opportunities, organizational barriers, and potential leadership structures within K–12 school systems. Data were drawn from archived capstone reflections of 39 teacher leadership master’s …

The Impact Of The Space Science Steam Enrichment Program On Grade 11 And 12 Gifted Students' Content Knowledge, Design Thinking, And Problem-Solving Skills In The United Arab Emirates, Nada Ali Mubarak Obaid

Thesis/ Dissertation Defenses

This study examines the impact of a Space Science Enrichment Program grounded in Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics (STEAM) education and designed for gifted secondary students in the Elite and Advanced Science Streams of UAE government schools. Informed by problem-based learning, project-based learning, and design thinking frameworks, the program aimed to enhance students' content knowledge, academic achievement, and design thinking and problem-solving skills. Over a two-month period, students participated in blended online and face-to-face theoretical and practical sessions introducing space science topics such as satellite missions and applications, CubeSats, rocket motion, thermal and vibration simulations, 3D modelling, and additive …

Protecting Free Speech And Promoting Civility: The Dueling Responsibilities Of American Colleges And Universities, Tara N. Parsons

International Journal on Responsibility

Freedom House estimates that 75% of the world’s population lives in countries that experienced a democratic decline in 2020. Even in long established democracies, liberal democratic values have been shaken. As democracy requires an enlightened citizenry cultivated by a college education, many American universities and colleges adopt civic instruction and engagement as a core responsibility and mission. However, growing anti-intellectualism has drawn increased scrutiny and suspicion towards the programming, curriculum, and core values of universities. Powerful political figures regularly accuse universities of stifling conservative voices and discouraging free speech. The tension between free speech and civic dialogue requires a reframing …

Attention To Their Uniqueness: Differentiation In A University Classroom, Robin Gingerich

MITESOL Journal: An Online Publication of MITESOL

University students come to campus with unique gifts and individual challenges. To meet the needs of diverse learners, one solution is differentiation. Differentiation involves deliberately planning lessons that address the unique learning styles of diverse learners by offering pedagogy informed not only by content, but also by the students themselves. While differentiation in elementary and secondary classrooms is considered best practice, professors in higher education face unique challenges when it comes to implementing differentiation. This paper examines definitions of differentiation, research on differentiation in universities, and, from the author’s personal experience, offers suggestions for university writing instructors.

Moving Forward And Looking Back, Cinde Wollenberg

Virginia English Journal

No abstract provided.

What Else, Carol Parris Krauss

Virginia English Journal

This poem candidly explores the experience of a veteran educator confronting self-doubt and Imposter Syndrome as she prepares to attend a prestigious fellowship, ultimately expressing her late-blooming passion for learning and her desire for authenticity in both teaching and self-understanding.

At The Door, Kaya L. Klein

Virginia English Journal

At the Door is about that pause before stepping into the classroom the moment when my worries and doubts wait quietly behind me. It’s about leaving all of that behind so I can be fully present for my students, who come in with curiosity, excitement, and open hearts. Their energy and joy lighten the weight I carry and remind me why I teach. This poem is a celebration of those small, powerful moments when teaching feels meaningful, when students’ laughter and questions make every fear seem smaller, and when I remember why I show up every single day.

A Unique 21st Century Relevant Analysis Of Carter G. Woodson’S The Mis-Education Of The Negro And Teacher Occupational Resilience, Nadrian D. Antoine

Virginia English Journal

This article offers a contemporary analysis of Carter G. Woodson’s The Mis-Education of the Negro (1933), emphasizing its enduring relevance to 21st-century educational challenges and the emerging framework of Teacher Occupational Resilience (TOR). Woodson’s central argument that American schooling functions as a system of psychological conditioning that marginalizes Black identity, history, and agency remains strikingly applicable in modern debates on culturally relevant pedagogy, systemic inequity, and digital‑age misinformation. The article explores Woodson’s critique of leadership, the omission of curriculum, and the reproduction of miseducation by credentialed yet culturally detached Black professionals. It then connects these insights to TOR theory, which …

Using Ai To Build Background Knowledge, Bruce Powers, Keisha Motley

Virginia English Journal

The new technology of AI can be used to address an old need: the building of student background knowledge in order to improve comprehension and maximize ability to make inferences. Examples are shared and discussed.

Teachers Writing Together To Restore Hope And Resist Burnout, Beth M. Lehman

Virginia English Journal

This article invites teachers to consider how the practice of writing, especially in facilitated writing groups designed for teachers, can be an effective activity for processing stress and restoring hope. Attention on teacher writing often focuses on how writing helps teachers to improve their teaching. Here the attention is on the value of writing for teachers themselves. Practices of Amherst Writers and Artists (AWA) strengths-based writing groups are described with a focus on Teachers Flourishing through Writing, an online workshop series that the author helped to create. Through analyzing workshop methods and self-reflecting on workshop experiences, the author asserts that …

Using Perspective Taking To Reimagine Jim In Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn, Jean S. Filetti

Virginia English Journal

Critics and classroom teachers frequently read Jim in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as a stock character, the comic stereotype of the superstitious and loyal slave. However, using perspective-taking strategies, such as asking open-ended questions and using paired texts to invite students to interrogate Jim's ruses and his assumption of a mask of servility, can be used to challenge reductive readings of Jim that have led to censorship of the novel.

Beyond Trends: The Potential Influence Of The Ela Teachers Of Tiktok, Heather Lynn Wright, Lauren May

Virginia English Journal

This paper describes a study on content from secondary English Language Arts (ELA) teachers of TikTok and their potential influence on future teachers. There were two research questions: (1) What information is being dispersed through TikTok specifically for secondary ELA teachers?; (2) What connotations about secondary ELA teaching are implied implicitly or explicitly through the tone of the TikTok creator? TikToks were examined through a three-part framework, considering the constructs of performances (Goffman, 1956), stickiness (Zott et al., 2000), and affinity spaces (Gee, 2004). Using a systematic approach, 50 secondary ELA TikTok accounts were identified and the top 20 …

Apprenticing Towards Deeper Learning In The Ela Classroom: Using Young Adult Literature To Support Students’ Mastery, Identity, And Creativity, Julianna Kershen, Kacy M. Price, Nynke Wimp, Evie Jackson, Kaitlin Rogers

Virginia English Journal

This practitioner focused article highlights the perspectives of pre-service teachers and undergraduate researchers investigating the kinds of learning interactions and instructional decisions that result in deeper learning outcomes for high school students. Deeper learning outcomes are often described as 21^st century skills, including mastery learning, support of holistic and scholarly student identities, and the ability to engage collaboratively with critical and creative problem-solving skills. The authors suggest a series of young adult literature texts that can serve as springboards into project-based learning opportunities that provide authentic and real world-connected activities, iterative cycles of learning, peer-peer collaboration, and in-depth disciplinary …

Bank Street School For Children’S Story Of Integrating Structured Phonics Into A Progressive Literacy Approach, Melanie Bryon, Douglas R. Knecht, Emily Linsay, Emily Schottland

Occasional Paper Series

This article explores how the Bank Street School for Children (SFC), a historically progressive institution rooted in child-centered, experiential learning, has successfully integrated structured phonics into its literacy program. Traditionally focused on whole language practices, SFC recognized inconsistencies in student reading outcomes and, beginning in 2017 undertook a multi-year evaluation of its literacy approach. Guided by the core values of child development and equity, and research in cognitive science, the school adopted a research-based phonics program, implementing it across Kindergarten through fourth grade over multiple years. This shift aimed to ensure all students—not just those with strong language backgrounds—gain the …

Lessons From The Field On The Science Of Reading: School And Classroom Stories Across Contexts

Occasional Paper Series

No abstract provided.

“It Was Hard, But It Worked:” Children’S Theories Of Learning To Read, Cristina Valencia Mazzanti, Laura Tiktin-Sharick, Madeleine Zuck, Tiphareth Ananda

Occasional Paper Series

In this paper we come together as teachers, a school leader and a professor to examine children’s theories of learning to read captured in written and illustrated texts created by 143 children currently enrolled in kindergarten to sixth grade. This collection of children’s theories of reading was created in the context of a progressive elementary school located at Smith College, a women's liberal arts college in Massachusetts. Our hope in examining children’s theories is to humanize and historicize current debates about how reading is taught. We also hope to offer a counter narrative to the dichotomies currently shaping reading education, …

“This Curriculum Has No Real Reading:” A Case Study Of Student Activism In Response To A Centralized Curriculum Mandate, Alina Lewis

Occasional Paper Series

The widespread implementation of “science of reading” policies across national and local contexts in the past few years is yet another chapter in the reading wars (Preston, 2022; Thomas, 2024; Goldberg & Goldenberg, 2022). This is not the first time that a national panic about literacy has incited fierce debates over how best to teach reading. Since the publication of “Why Johnny Can’t Read” in 1955, the question of “how, when and how much phonics instruction” has been hotly contested among scholars and practitioners (Thomas, 2024; Flesch & Sloan, 1955). However, the current literacy policy landscape--in the wake of the …

Thinking Narratively About Science Of Reading Forces, Moral Injury, And Teacherhood, Kyle C. Arlington

Occasional Paper Series

Stories of teachers’ classroom lives shape the public imagination of what it means to be a “good teacher,” yet these narratives are always partial, contextual, and entangled with broader cultural and institutional forces. This research essay narratively explores the experiences of Lisa, a veteran literacy teacher navigating Science of Reading (SoR) mandates in her elementary classroom. It examines how her identities, values, and visions for literacy teaching intersect with the discursive, material, and affective dynamics that shape how SoR unfolds in the context of Lisa’s classroom life. (Re)storying her experiences draws attention to the emotional toll and moral dissonance teachers …

All Flourishing Is Mutual: Cultivating A Gift Economy Of Literacy, Lindsey Lush, Melissa Kurtz

Occasional Paper Series

In this paper, two scholars and practicing elementary educators argue that the policies and practices of the Science of Reading (SoR) movement in early literacy education are being constructed with the logic of a market economy, shaped by neoliberal ideologies of individualism, scarcity, and competition. Compelled by our concerns for the bodies and beings of readers and reading teachers in the context of our Northeast Georgia public elementary school and provoked by our shared engagement with The Serviceberry, Indigenous scientist and scholar Robin Wall Kimmerer’s book on lessons from the natural world, we engage a postqualitative approach to emergent, relational …

When Science Of Reading Policy Meets Classroom Reality: The Nonsense Word Problem, Lisa Dewing-Birno, Luis Lopez

Occasional Paper Series

A central feature of many Science of Reading (SoR)-aligned curricula is the use of nonsense words in early literacy assessment to measure a student's ability to decode unfamiliar words using knowledge of letter-sound correspondences. However, the research base for using nonsense words as an instructional tool is much weaker and more contested. Through two narratives, we illustrate how the implementation of SoR instruction with nonsense words can be particularly problematic. We argue that effective literacy instruction demands what we call pedagogical clarity, the ability to integrate pedagogical practices with deep understanding of individual learners, their cultural and linguistic resources, and …

La Gran Historia De Dilly Meets The Science Of Reading: A Cuento Of Scripts, Skills, And Silenced Selves, Elenita Irizarry Ramos, Ysaaca D. Axelrod

Occasional Paper Series

This article offers a deep dive into two lessons of a structured literacy curriculum to interrogate how current SoR–aligned mandates materialize in a Spanish dual-language first-grade classroom. Using Critical Discourse Analysis and Curriculum as a Discourse as both our conceptual frame and analytical method, we examine (a) La gran historia de Dilly—a retelling of The Ugly Duckling translated into Spanish—and (b) the teacher-facing lesson plan supplied by a major commercial publisher. Four patterns emerged: (1) reading is reduced to quantifiable skills (Lexile badges, sight-word drills) while the tale naturalizes biologically ‘correct’ identities, erasing hybrid selves; (2) scripted directives recast teachers …

Uplifting The Legacy Of Black Teachers: Loving And Liberatory Pedagogies In A Science Of Reading Context, Natasha A. Thornton, Amanda L. Armstrong, Brooke Blacknall, Jordan Freeman, Elaine Nevers-Williams, Mukkaramah Smith

Occasional Paper Series

This article explores Black liberatory pedagogy (BLP) as a critical approach to navigating current Science of Reading (SoR) mandates, which are often restrictive and fail to honor the literacies and linguistic practices of Black children. Through the narratives of six educators—classroom teachers, teacher candidates, and teacher educators—the article examines how they have experienced and responded to the implementation of SoR standards and curriculum shifts. These stories also illuminate what becomes possible when teachers are in spaces that allow for autonomy, imagination, and culturally responsive pedagogy. The educators’ experiences, expertise, and cultural wisdom are centered, demonstrating how they enact BLP through …

Lessons From The Field On The Science Of Reading: An Introduction, Gail Boldt, Patricia Enciso

Occasional Paper Series

No abstract provided.

Letter From The Editor's Desk, Cinde Wollenberg

Virginia English Journal

No abstract provided.

The Impact Of School Resource Officers (Sros) On Background Juvenile Arrest Rates, Marcell D. Dely

SACAD: Scholarly Activities

School Resource Officers (SROs) are widely used in U.S. schools with the goal of improving safety and preventing violence. However, research shows mixed results regarding their overall effectiveness. While SROs can help deter serious threats and create a safer school environment, their presence is also associated with increased disciplinary actions and arrests for minor, non-violent behaviors. This study examines whether SROs reduce school violence or contribute to the criminalization of student misconduct. Findings suggest that outcomes largely depend on factors such as implementation, role clarity, and school policies. The paper highlights the need for clearer guidelines, limited involvement in minor …

Pages Of Despair: Economic Policy Uncertainty And Mental Health, Kori Massner

SACAD: Scholarly Activities

Policy uncertainty threatens access to affordable medical care, yet few studies have examined how it shapes what people search for online. This study examines whether economic policy uncertainty predicts mental health information-seeking behavior by analyzing daily Wikipedia pageviews from July 2015 to April 2026 using a time series model. Results show that as economic policy uncertainty increases, there is an increase in pageviews on Wikipedia for suicide related information. When there is an increase in those searching for information on pages about depression and pages about anxiety, there is also an increase in pageviews on Wikipedia for suicide related information. …

Stylemys Nebrascensis Predation Hypothesis, Noah Lohrmeyer, Amanda Peng

SACAD: Scholarly Activities

In 2008 a fossilized tortoise shell was brought into the Sternberg Museum of Natural History. As we prepared the fossil, we observed markings that resembled predation. We are trying to find what species from the White River Formation could preyed on the tortoise. There are few publications on predation for this species. With few publications, we want to find what predator would hunt these species. We cross referenced the site of the tortoise and observed several carnivorous species. We used straight carapace length (Hermanson et al., 2024) and a regression formula (Wilson et al., 2016) to analyze the species we …

Exploring Innovative Display Of Painting Through Creating A Dual-Sided Suspended Piece, Erin K. Tichota

SACAD: Scholarly Activities

For this project, I aimed to expand upon my existent painting skills and learn new methods through unconventional techniques for display. My concept of this piece was to convey the sinking and stagnant feeling of being in a rut of depression. The ropes are meant to convey a web of thoughts that the subject is trapped in, while they are sinking deeper in their bed. The dual sided aspect of this project is meant to further emphasize the concept through creating a sense of  duality and permanence.

Spectroscopic Characterization And Extraction Optimization Of Catechins In Green Tea, Zach J. Mckinley, Masakatsu Watanabe

SACAD: Scholarly Activities

This research initiative immerses students in a multifaceted analytical chemistry investigation of catechins—polyphenolic antioxidants prevalent in green tea—through the application of both classical and modern techniques. The project emphasizes hands-on experience with real-world sample analysis, method development, and critical data interpretation.

Catechins were extracted from various commercial green tea products, including loose leaves, powders, and dietary supplements, by trituration with ethyl acetate followed by solvent partitioning using a methanol and water solution. The resulting extracts were analyzed using UV-Visible spectroscopy to quantify catechin content. Selected samples were further characterized by liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry (LC-MS), confirming both the identity and purity …

Mumm Vs. Minium: A Tale Of Two Quarries, Kale Link, Amanda Peng

SACAD: Scholarly Activities

In 2025, a discrepancy was discovered in the field numbers of a selection of mammal fossils, which had been mistakenly catalogued as originating from the Minium Quarry in Graham County, KS instead of the Mumm Quarry in Rawlins County, KS. While both quarries belong to the Ogallala Formation, they demonstrate differing biostratigraphic ages, faunal assemblages, and taphonomic settings. Mumm is Clarendonian aged, while Minium is Hemphillian. To correct this issue, all the Mumm specimens were assigned to an updated locality with more precise geographic and biostratigraphic data.