Curriculum and Social Inquiry Commons^™

Making The Case For Career Academies In Shaping Pre-Collegiate Students For Stem Career Pathways, Felix Quayson

Journal of Research in Technical Careers

Career academies are increasingly important in preparing pre-collegiate high school students for STEM pathways by connecting academic learning, technical skill development, career identity, and postsecondary readiness. STEM-focused career academies function as structured bridges between secondary education, higher education, and the labor market. Through small learning communities, interdisciplinary curricula, employer partnerships, work-based learning, and early exposure to college and career expectations, career academies help students understand STEM not only as school subjects but as possible futures. Research suggests that career academies can improve student engagement, support school persistence, and strengthen labor market outcomes when implemented with fidelity. The article concludes that …

Looking For Inclusivity In Higher Ed? Start In The Classroom!, Michelle Carpenter

Atlantic Marketing Association Proceedings

No abstract provided.

Exploring The Impacts Of Contextualized Learning In An Engineering-Specific Corequisite Precalculus Course On Student Achievement, Motivation, And Belongingness, Amy Mathis-Leonard

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This study examines the design and implementation of a contextualized engineering-specific corequisite Precalculus I course and its impacts on student achievement, motivation, and sense of belonging. This study was conducted in response to decreasing national rates of mathematical readiness, the elimination of stand-alone developmental mathematics courses across multiple states and systems, and the demand for research related to effective corequisite models in mathematics coursework. The intervention created an experimental section of corequisite Precalculus I in which all the students were engineering majors who did not demonstrate readiness for a college-level precalculus course. Unit lessons incorporated engineering-specific topics and career-oriented discussions. …

Sense Of Belonging And Self-Efficacy Of Women In Stemm At The University Of South Alabama, Emilie Dedeaux

Honors Theses

Despite decades of calls and initiatives to diversify science, technology, engineering, math, and medicine (STEMM) disciplines, females are still more likely to leave STEMM career paths compared to their male peers, which is often depicted as a 'leaky pipeline'. Females in STEMM often report greater social alienation, greater selfdoubt, lower sense of belonging and academic satisfaction due to a mismatch in values in STEMM disciplines. STEMM values have traditionally been normed by cisheteronormative, white, male ideologies . While extensive research has focused on the barriers females experience in STEMM that reduce sense of belonging , less research has focused on …

Future Ready Young Adults: Building Creative And Adaptive Thinkers, Robell Yeung

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

Abstract of Project

Future Ready Young Adults: Building Creative and Adaptive Thinkers addresses a developmental gap in educational practices that prioritize technical proficiency over the psychological frameworks necessary for navigating systemic ambiguity. This project introduces an interdisciplinary, modular curriculum specifically designed for the challenges of emerging adulthood. By synthesizing Creative Problem Solving (CPS), James Clear’s habit architecture, and Martin Seligman’s PERMA model, the curriculum provides a structured pathway for cultivating creative self-efficacy and financial capability. Moving beyond traditional views of innate creativity, this model employs asset-based frameworks to treat cognitive agility and ambiguity tolerance as developable competencies. The project culminates …

Show And Tell: Integrating The Arts Into Transdisciplinary Public Health And Community Organizing Education, Bree L. Hemingway, Margaret Hawkins

The Transdisciplinary STEAM+ Journal

This field note examines the integration of arts-based pedagogy into a transdisciplinary graduate course that brings together students from public health, medicine, the social sciences, humanities, education, technology, and the arts. Central to the course is the Show and Tell assignment, in which students select and present a work of art connected to a social movement. Over three years and 42 student submissions, this assignment has served as an accessible entry point for exploring how artistic expression shapes activism, fosters community, and deepens understanding of justice-oriented work. Through an inductive content analysis of student-selected artworks and presentations, five major thematic …

Fiesta De Día De Muertos: Integración De Artes Visuales, Artes Literarias, Artes Escénicas Y Patrimonio Cultural En Una Celebración Escolar De Nivel Primaria, Mayra Urbina, Linda Judith Palafox

The Transdisciplinary STEAM+ Journal

Esta nota de campo documenta un festival transdisciplinario de Día de Muertos organizado en el Colegio México, una escuela primaria ubicada en la colonia El Tapatío, San Pedro Tlaquepaque, Guadalajara, México. El evento integró artes visuales mediante la construcción de tumbas decorativas y el montaje de un altar, artes literarias a través de calaveritas literarias escritas por los alumnos, y artes escénicas mediante coreografías de baile y representación teatral, todo ello vinculado con contenidos de estudios sociales sobre el patrimonio cultural mexicano. Aproximadamente 30 alumnos de primero a sexto grado (edades de 6 a 12 años) participaron como intérpretes, escritores …

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, …

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 …

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.

Honors In Focus: A Study Of Public University Programs With New Course Proposals For Arkansas Tech University, Haley Greer, Payton Mccain, Hannah Melton

ATU Scholars Symposium

This project evaluates the structure and effectiveness of honors programs at Arkansas Tech University and five comparable public institutions—University of Central Arkansas, Arkansas State University, Truman State University, Northeastern State University, and the University of Central Missouri—to identify best practices that support student achievement, engagement, and retention. The study was designed to assess how honors programs influence academic rigor, curricular flexibility, community development, and access to high-impact educational opportunities. Using a mixed-methods approach, the researchers collected data through student and faculty surveys, follow-up interviews, and a comparative review of institutional materials, including honors curricula, housing models, scholarship structures, and program …

Centering Joy And Connection: Returning To Instruction After Hurricane Helene, Megan Keiser

Current Issues in Middle Level Education

This descriptive essay focuses on one teacher educator's response to a disrupted academic semester after a natural disaster that threatened to erode a service-learning designated interdisciplinary methods course for middle grades educators. This essay shares the process of pivoting to retain critical elements of the course. Reinforcing the use of resilience-informed pedagogy and modeling use of advisories, the instructor focused on developing a cohesive classroom community. Other aspects of the course revamp include offering differentiated service-learning opportunities. Centering teacher candidates’ joy and modeling best practices for middle level educators, the instructor describes project-based learning, a multidisciplinary literacy experience with a …

Cuny Oer Initiative Catalog (Ay 2024-2025), Jahanara Alamgir, Yujin Lee-Hwang, Rachael Nevins, Elliot Galvis, Rebecca Morofsky, Andrew Mckinney, Jojo Karlin

Open Educational Resources

This circulating catalog inventories the reusable teaching objects produced by CUNY campuses in AY 2024-2025! You’ll find textbooks, assignments, syllabi, videos, and more, organized by discipline and with brief descriptions of the resource. This publication (which links to all the resources) is supplemented by a by our online, filterable CUNY OER Initiative Catalog.

The CUNY OLS Research and Publishing Strategy team gathered, described and indexed the work of the campuses. OLS Fellow Hwang-Lee Yujin designed the publication.

Making Social Studies Work In The Age Of Ai, Angelo Letizia

The Councilor: A National Journal of the Social Studies

The purpose of this paper is to first outline a more embedded stance toward AI use, which I have labeled invisible philosophy and history as DNA and use this embedded framework as a backdrop for a more concrete discussion of skills and dispositions in regard to the use of AI in the social studies classroom and beyond. This dual positioning, one more theoretical and one more concrete, calls attention to the fact that AI should not simply be seen as some flashy tool divorced from a more nuanced and embedded understanding of its role in society. A list of practical …

Client Feedback Effects On Enjoyment, Motivation And Self-Efficacy In A Project-Based Learning Course, Krista Stacey, David M. Bourrie

University Faculty and Staff Publications

This paper reports a mixed-methods evaluation of how feedback/project source (faculty-led versus client-led) shapes student outcomes in a two-course undergraduate game and simulation development sequence (N = 29 across two academic years). Quantitative measures (enjoyment, intrinsic motivation, self-efficacy) were collected with a six-point Likert survey and analyzed, but due to small sample sizes were not used to empirically evaluate the constructs. Instead, qualitative data comprised of de-identified focus-group transcripts and open-ended survey responses were analyzed with a keyword-assisted codebook and manual validation. Year 1 (faculty feedback) exhibited more consistent post-course gains, especially in self-efficacy, while Year 2 (client feedback) produced …

Cultural Science Night, Jiyoon Yoon

Mavs Open Press Open Educational Resources - Archive

This book is to learn water and weather by integrating with other cultures. This textbook is organized around two interconnected components. The first component provides cultural knowledge of China, India, Korea, and Mexico. The second component focuses on culturally responsive science instruction created for the Cultural Science Night event, an occasion in which teachers present hands-on, culturally responsive science activities in collaboration with students.

If you need an accessibility accommodation or have questions about the use of this text, please contact Mavs Open Press.

Leveraging The Intersection Of Ai And Play To Foster Human Connectedness And Character Formation, Lori B. Doyle, Ashley Brandon

Journal of Organizational & Educational Leadership

The benefits of fostering character formation are vast, encompassing psychological, social and emotional growth, yet there is no universally prescribed manner by which to proceed. Central to these efforts is human connectedness, which enhances psychological functioning and provides a pivotal foundation for well-being. Emerging factors such as integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the pedagogy of play are novel topics for the conversation within the character formation discourse. These elements, while tangentially related, hold significant potential to amplify character formation and sense of belonging. This paper examines the intersection of AI, pedagogy of play, and character formation through a theoretical …

The Western Curriculum And Identity Conflict Among Pakistani Students, Tauqeer Abdullah, Johar Ali

Makara Human Behavior Studies in Asia

Education systems play a critical role in shaping students’ cultural identities in an increasingly globalized world. In Pakistan, the growing presence of international schools following Western curricula exposes students to values that often diverge from local traditions. Drawing on Erikson’s identity theory, Berry’s acculturation model, and Tajfel and Turner’s social identity theory, this study examines how Western curricula influence students’ self-perception, identity conflict, and cultural alienation. Data were collected from 324 students (179 males, 145 females) enrolled in O-level and A-level programs across five international schools in Lahore, Punjab, using a cross-sectional survey design. The results indicate that Western curricula …

The Heart Of An Educator An Autoethnographic Study Of Homeschool Practices That Reflect Core Udl Principles, Kimberly Clinton

Dissertations

The Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework was at the heart of this study, which served as a critical lens for examining the instructional design practices embedded in the homeschool environment. Specifically, I examined how the three core tenets of UDL: representation, action and expression, and engagement were reflected within the Clinton Homeschool Instructional Learning Design (CHILD). The aim was to identify how homeschool instruction, as implemented by the researcher, parallels UDL principles in its responsiveness to learner variability, its emphasis on flexible instructional delivery, and its commitment to student-centered engagement. In contrast to the dominant educational paradigm, which often …

Voices Of Agency: Unpacking Student Insights On Nysed Content Standards, Local Curricular Practices, Pedagogy In New York State Schools, And Their Educational Implications, Alprentice Ashanti Talibudeen Mccutchen

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This research sets out to explore the concept of agency in the context of education, including my distinction between passive agency and active agency, and how these distinctions have been taken up by scholars, educators, and policy makers. The core approach is based in an expansive inclusion of various perspectives on agency as a basis for developing a comprehensive framework of active agency as well as its opportunities for educational practices and outcomes. I am arguing that there is a gap—an agency gap—between the passive and active employment of agency. I am also arguing that there is an agency in …

Global Pathways: Suwon, South Korea - Semester Abroad Program Proposal, Amanda D. Ledger

Capstone Collection

This capstone proposes the Global Pathways: Suwon program, a semester-long study abroad initiative developed in partnership between Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU) and Kyonggi University (KGU) in Suwon, South Korea. The program responds to current limitations in study abroad, particularly the prevalence of short-term tourism-oriented experiences and curricula that prioritizes Western perspectives. A needs assessment consisting of student interviews, surveys, and professional consultation demonstrated strong interest in programs that combine language learning, cultural immersion, and career development. Findings also highlighted the importance of financial accessibility, reciprocal host partnerships, and ongoing advising support. Drawing on Freire’s critical pedagogy and Vygotsky’s sociocultural …

A Qualitative Examination Of The Motivations For Homeschooling Among Black Americans, Portia J. Witt

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This qualitative phenomenological study explored the motivations and lived experiences of African American homeschooling families. Twelve Black parents from multiple states participated in semi-structured interviews. Data were analyzed using Moustakas’ (1994) Modified Stevick–Colaizzi–Keen method and coded thematically using NVivo. Nine themes emerged: autonomy, holistic education, community belonging, online networks, public resources, curriculum gaps, personal values, effective learning, and legacy of harm. While racialization in schools—including tracking, microaggressions, and misidentification—contributed to participants’ decisions, motivations also reflected intersectional factors such as faith, disability, mental health needs, giftedness, and a desire for cultural protection and flexible learning. Findings suggest homeschooling serves as a …

The Roles Of Mathematics In Teaching For Social Justice: A Framework For The College Classroom, Vivian Lim, Daniel Libertz

Numeracy

In this paper, we present a framework for understanding the multiple roles that mathematics can serve in the classroom towards social justice goals, developed through an analysis of 36 social justice mathematics curricular modules in college settings. The framework is grounded in Patricia Hill Collins's matrix of domination and consists of seven themes that represent the different roles mathematics can play: measuring inequality, illuminating conditions resulting in inequality, understanding the mechanisms of phenomena, challenging stereotypes and misconceptions, generating and evaluating solutions, communication and action, and criticizing quantification. Our framework supports the perspective that mathematics can serve important and distinct roles …

Analyzing Educators’ Roles In Preparing Students For Civic Engagement In Arkansas Communities, Mia L. Hastings

2026 Honors Symposium

Young adults ages eighteen to twenty-nine make up a large portion of the voting age population but historically participate in elections at lower rates. Although most students take at least one high school civics course, civic education often emphasizes the memorization of governmental facts rather than preparing students with the skills needed for active civic participation. This gap highlights the need to examine how educators can better prepare students for meaningful civic engagement. The purpose of this study is to examine how educators prepare students for civic engagement in Arkansas communities. The study defines practical strategies educators can implement in …

Apply, Pack, Travel, Repeat: An Autoethnographic Study Of Travel Grant And Travel-Based Learning Experiences As Professional Development For Educators, Julie Ann Midkiff

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

This qualitative research study examines the impact of travel grants and travel-based learning experiences as professional development for educators. Using autoethnography as a research method, this study is written from the positionality of an elementary art teacher living and teaching in Southern West Virginia and as a doctoral student who was a successful applicant for two travel grant experiences, and a self-funded travel-based learning experience. I reflectively and reflexively to recount my personal and professional travel-based learning experiences, the lifelong and transformative learning that occurred because of them, and the direct and emergent outcomes that were the result of travel-based …