Educational Leadership Commons^™

Creating Systems Of Shared Accountability For Early Leaver Students: Perspectives Of Principals, Lorna Kay Fast Buffalo Horse

Dissertations and Theses

Alternative high schools in the United States perform a significant role for students who drop out, are pushed out, or fall out of conventional high schools. An essential function of alternative high schools is to support some of the most underserved students in the country to graduate from high school. High school graduation is a major factor associated with higher incomes, better health, longer life expectancy, and less involvement in the criminal justice system. It also positively impacts local, state, and national economies. Despite these positive impacts, many alternative high schools are stigmatized as low-performing and even "drop-out factories" by …

Reimagining Education, Not Relocating It: A Reflection For The Covid-19 Pandemic, Brian Robert Taberski

Northwest Journal of Teacher Education

As we prepare for the upcoming academic year and the new normal COVID-19 initiated, how are we as teachers framing our approach? Are we asking how we teach online? Or, are we asking what learning looks like for online and hybrid experiences? The author suggests that the questions we ask guide our decisions and identifies the obstacles we face. By contextualizing the challenges and change we are presented with as adaptive, we can become more conscious of what may be impacting our work and consider paths forward that ensure the equitable success of our students.

Disrupting The Deficit Gaze: Equity Work With University Supervisors, Maika J. Yeigh

Education Faculty Publications and Presentations

Teacher candidates commonly experience tensions within their clinical field placement classroom. Recently, candidates have brought forward tensions around the use of a deficit gaze (Dudley-Marling, 2007) on students and their families by their mentor teachers. Where candidates of the past would ignore negative framing, current candidates want to disrupt the status quo. This conceptual article describes one EPPs attempt to support teacher candidates “disruption” of instances where a mentor teacher used a deficit-lens toward students and/or their families. Clinical supervisors were offered professional development to support teacher candidates and guide them to disrupt in ways that maintained the professional relationship …

The Experiences Of Teachers Successfully Teaching Reading To Black Students, Kevin Michael Walker

Dissertations and Theses

Racist laws and subsequent educational policies and practices have resulted in schools in the United States failing to teach Black students reading. Historically, a racial achievement gap in elementary reading has existed throughout the history of the United States and has persisted to current times. As the population of students of color increases in the United States, we must investigate how teachers create equitable educational outcomes for students who have been historically underserved and oppressed by our education system. Teachers who are successful in ensuring our Black students have the opportunity to experience success in reading are actively disrupting the …

The Collective Contemplation: How A Global Pandemic Offers An Invitation To Dance With The Abundant Divine, Skyler Pestle

Leadership for Sustainability Education Comprehensive Papers

Going into 2020, our world was already facing a multitude of crises to be critically concerned about, such as climate change, growing income inequality, and normalized political exploitation of the vulnerable. All of this is occurring in the age of information which makes for a quick descent into despair, as the scary news fills up our screens. Due to shelter in place orders, many individuals are stuck at home, alone, without a job, and bombarded with news of the carnage and chaos. Collectively, our psyches are experiencing a magnitude of trauma. A sustainable leader who radiates the radical compassion needed …

Transformative Sustainability Education For Juvenile Detention Officers: Empowering Incarcerated Youth Through Holistic Programming, Chantal Krystiniak

Leadership for Sustainability Education Comprehensive Papers

I propose a curriculum, Transforming Juvenile Justice (TJJ), for juvenile detention officers in Clark County, Washington that shifts their roles from enforcers of punishment, to collaborators of health and well-being for the system involved youth.

#Adultingwhileblack: Encountering In The Campus Climate And The Formation Of Racialized Adult Identity Among Traditional-Age Black College Students, Sarah Nana Kutten

Dissertations and Theses

The college years represent a time when traditional-age students transition from adolescence to adulthood. During this period, many Black students encounter racist campus climates that can hinder their academic success and lead to marginalization and departure. Educational scholars have long understood the relationship between identity development and college student success, yet adult identity models often fall short for Black students because they do not consider the impacts of racism on development. As such, Black students face systemic, organizational, and individual racist encounters in higher education that keep them from fully engaging in the college experience and their personal development. This …

Where's The Learning In On-Campus Student Employment? An Inquiry Into The Experiences Of Undergraduate Student Employees, Patricia Ann Dorman

Dissertations and Theses

Student employees spend a significant amount of time at work. Prior research has primarily focused on the deleterious academic impacts on students, with little consideration of how student employment could be effectively framed as an educationally purposeful activity. This qualitative study explored how individual, social, and organizational factors influence learning while working on campus. In-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with undergraduate student employees who work within student affairs units. The findings indicate that on-campus employment is a site for learning; particularly competency development in communication, professionalism, problem solving, and leadership skills. Interdependent personal, interpersonal, and environmental factors of campus employment …

An Inquiry Into Developing College Student Socially-Responsible Leadership: Ethics Of Justice And Care In The Midst Of Conflict And Controversy, Jill Frances Childress

Dissertations and Theses

Colleges not only educate students in academic discipline knowledge, but also help them develop skills to meaningfully lead and participate in our complex democracy as socially responsible citizens. All campuses have formal and informal opportunities to engage students in roles that challenge and develop students' socially responsible leadership skills including commitment, common purpose, and collaboration. However, individual and organizational elements such as differences in perspectives and hostile climates can quell leadership and educational participation, inhibit critical student development skills, and result in disempowerment, especially for those students from underserved communities. Given this, a critical question is how can colleges foster …

Teachers' Critical Reflection In An Equity-Focused Professional Learning Community: A Case Study, Patrizia Lina Mastne

Dissertations and Theses

In a culturally diverse world, teachers adopt complex roles to educate a changing student body toward higher standards. They can respond to students' needs and design responsive curriculum by engaging in ongoing learning and improvement. When teachers have time and space for collaboration and reflection, they can learn and improve. Professional learning communities (PLCs) are forums for educators to think deeply about praxis. In this study, the problem of practice is that teachers have had few opportunities to reflect critically within PLCs. The purpose of my study was to describe and explain how critical reflection occurred in an equity-focused PLC …

Sense Of Belonging From A Distance: How Online Students Describe, Perceive, And Experience Belonging To The Institution, Marleigh Luster Perez

Dissertations and Theses

The availability and ease of access to online bachelor's degree programs has led to a dynamic shift in the world of higher education. While overall, there has been a decrease in student enrollments, distance student enrollment has been growing. According to a report by the Babson Survey Research Group, between the fall of 2012 and the fall of 2016 students pursuing higher education at all levels across degree-granting institutions fell by 3.8%. During the same four-year period, the percentage of those students choosing to take all or some of their courses at a distance increased from 25.9% to 29.7%. Among …

Perceptions Of Students Of Color About Their Experience In An Alternative High School: A Phenomenological Inquiry, Massene Mboup

Dissertations and Theses

Public schools in Oregon have been struggling to include students of color and teachers of color for so long. Students of color represent more than one third of the school population, yet remain underserved, underrepresented, and over disciplined. Most of their teachers and support staff are White; the teachers of color represent less than 8% of the teaching staff. The students of color attend comprehensive high schools that generally ignore them--or push them out. Some students of color end up in alternative schools.

My problem of practice was the oppression of students of color in urban schools. Specifically, my research …

Residence Life As Learning Organizations: An Inquiry Into Organizational Elements That Support Integration Of The Residential Curriculum, Heather Kropf

Dissertations and Theses

Student learning and success is tied to the learning goals and mission of each institution, including environments outside of the classroom. Students are more diverse than ever in terms of their lived experience and their culture, identity, and how they engage in learning. Research has indicated that students spend the majority of their time outside the classroom, where they are learning through informal and formal environments. This has significance and opportunities for student affairs practitioners who desire to create student learning environments. In fact, residence life curricular approaches have demonstrated positive learning experiences for students.

However, implementing a learning-based curricular …

Cultural Wealth And The Racialized Experiences Of Persisting Latinx Business Students In A Predominantly White Institution: A Study On Sense Of Belonging, Rebecca Sue Sanchez

Dissertations and Theses

The changing landscape of higher education calls for a shift in approach to ensure that all students are given not just the opportunity but also the environment in which to succeed. In order to facilitate the growing demand for a diverse workforce, universities must work to retain students and support them sufficiently as they move toward graduation. Student persistence rates from year one to year two show markedly different rates based on race and ethnicity with the lowest persistence rates associated with Latinx and Black students. National projections of college attendance by race and ethnicity predict that Latinx students will …

Untangling The Factors That Affect Student Retention: A Quantitative Study Of The Relationships Among First-Year Seminar Program Characteristics And Instructor Type (Full-Time And Part-Time), Christina Marie Shafer

Dissertations and Theses

Each fall first-year college students have met and overcome many challenges and transitions. However, one-third of first-year students who enter college in the U.S. do not return for their second-year. Making the first-year a critical juncture for students, administrators, and institutions. First-Year Seminars were created to help assist students with their transition to college and have been identified as an effective initiative to aid in first-year retention.

What role do institutions play in addressing the issue of retention? Some say that those who teach the Seminars matter. The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship among Seminar characteristics …

Paradigm Shifts In Large-Scale Educational Change: Uncovering The Oregon Education Investment Board's Theory Of Change-In-Action, Johanna Kathryn Blackford

Dissertations and Theses

Education system leaders and policymakers around the globe expend vast amounts of resources on educational reform efforts and despite positive intentions, most attempts to affect educational change fail to realize large-scale, sustainable, positive outcomes--yet some have. While it is widely acknowledged that no two systems' educational change journeys are the same, what is becoming clear is that there is significant similarity among the thinking or paradigms underpinning theories of change-in-action guiding positive large-scale system-wide reform. This research highlights four change paradigms and suggests that a collective learning paradigm guided by systems thinking represents the paradigm shift associated with successful large-scale …

Student Voice In A Participatory Design Process Focused On Developing Equity-Based Stem Teaching Practices, Frank Heimerdinger

Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of this study with second grade students in a mid-sized city in the Northwest was to examine an equity-based STEM teaching practice and design process that builds on student's voice in the context of an elementary school. Teaching practice innovations were designed using a participatory process drawing on student voice and experience, culturally responsive pedagogy, STEM content, and teaching practices. The students collaborated with the teacher to design and enact equity-based STEM teaching practice innovations and gave necessary and appropriate feedback regarding its efficacy in creating equitable and empowering learning experiences from their own perspective. A specific goal …

Learn Model Of Career Trajectories: Application To The Stem Postdoctoral Scholar, Audrey J. Jaeger, Karen J. Haley, Tara D. Hudson

Educational Leadership and Policy Faculty Publications and Presentations

Postdoctoral scholars constitute a sizeable population within the academic workforce. Given the intended role of a postdoc position as a time of advanced training and professional development for a future academic career, particularly in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields, it is important to understand whether and how well the career-related needs of postdocs are being met. The purpose of this research was to understand STEM postdoctoral scholars’ career trajectories, with particular attention to the influences on their career-related decision making, by applying the Life Experiences and Role Negotiations (LEARN) model to qualitative data from interviews with 19 STEM …

Do Corporate Owned Adaptive Learning Platforms Perpetuate Banking Style Learning? Integrating Technology For Activism Into Transformational Sustainability Education, Tina M. Garner

Leadership for Sustainability Education Comprehensive Papers

We live in a world that tends to be controlled by corporations. The public school system should be wary of the problems that corporate control has on education. Even though public schools should not have corporate influence, the fact remains that they do, and this perpetuates Freire's banking style learning. Through time, the corporate influence in education was through educational materials such as book sales. Since the decline of the use of books and the growth of the use of technologies, corporations have followed suit through the sales of Adaptive Learning Platforms. Through leveraging the technology which students enjoy using, …

Early Intervention Referral Outcomes For Children At Increased Risk Of Experiencing Developmental Delays, Kristi Laurine Atkins

Dissertations and Theses

Research has shown that children born low birth weight (i.e., ≤2500 grams) and/or premature (i.e., birth prior to 37 weeks gestation) are at increased risk of experiencing developmental delays, as well as long-standing executive functioning and academic challenges. Despite these well-known risks, children born low birth weight are under-enrolled nationally in Part C Early Intervention (EI) services intended to support developmentally vulnerable children. Little is known regarding why EI enrollment is low in this high risk population, especially given children born LBW are readily identifiable as at increased risk of delays at birth. This study explored EI referral outcomes from …

Architectural And Philosophical 'Makerspace' Redesign Impact On Teacher Beliefs And Practices: A Case Study, Rurik-Rory James Nackerud

Dissertations and Theses

Current jobs in a global economy require more complex cognitive skills, such as critical thinking, cooperation, creativity, and collaboration, in addition to content knowledge. To address these areas, researchers have suggested the use of a 'makerspace' in schools. As with many other establishments, my school remodeled the primary school to create a makerspace for developing these skills. What impact might a makerspace -- a physical as well as a curricular change -- have on teachers' individual and collaborative learning? The purpose of this case study was to describe how the makerspace concept and changes to classroom or instructional space influence …

Making Race Matter: Interrupting Racial Color-Blindness In Education Through The Implementation Of Anti-Racist Curriculum, Kelly Deits Cutler

Dissertations and Theses

The United States continues to be a highly racialized society. As a result, race remains a predictor of educational achievement for students in the PK-12 public education system. Concurrently, racial color-blindness continues to dominate educational institutions, as teachers--particularly White teachers--often feel uncomfortable and ill prepared to talk with students about race. One approach that educators have developed to combat color-blindness in schools is anti-racist curriculum. Such curriculum directly teaches students about race and intentionally interrupts the color-blind ideology.

This research study sought to understanding how teachers attending a series of collaborative professional development sessions experienced the process of designing and …

Cultivating A Community Of Resilience For Transgender Collegians Through The Practice Of Sustainable Leadership, Beau Gilbert

Leadership for Sustainability Education Comprehensive Papers

Transgender students have always existed in communities of higher education yet are just now beginning to be acknowledged and included within the context of academia. This has primarily led to the development of campus resource centers intended to protect these students and provide safe spaces on campus. While this is a crucial support system for universities to provide, the framework described herein envisions a future where transgender students can practice resilience and feel a sense of belonging anywhere within their college community. Through a comprehensive review of the literature, this paper highlights the need for a sustainable and campus-wide approach …

Next Generation Science Standards And Physics First: A Case Study Of High School Teachers' Beliefs And Practices, Stephen Godfrey Scannell

Dissertations and Theses

This dissertation is a case study of a school district in the Pacific Northwest that developed three-year high school science curricula using a Physics First course sequence (Physics, Chemistry, Biology), with the crosscutting concept Patterns as the central theme of the courses. The purpose of the study was to examine the impact of the implementation of the 9th grade course, Patterns Physics, on teacher practice and beliefs about science teaching and determine whether this new approach facilitated teacher classroom practices and beliefs congruent with those expressed in A Framework for K-12 Science Education (NRC, 2012) and the Next Generation Science …

"It's All Because I Like The Person That's Teaching Me": Masculinities, Engagement, And Caring Relationships In Secondary Schools, Cristy Lauren Weggelaar

Dissertations and Theses

U.S. schools face a well-documented gender gap within some important educational and social indicators. In the United States, boys and young men are significantly more likely than girls and young women to be diagnosed with a learning disability, leave high school without a diploma, receive failing grades in core classes, and be suspended or expelled from school. This study uses an interpretive research framework to investigate the relationship between this gender gap in education and constructions of masculinity, social and cultural capital, agency, caring and resistance in secondary schools. Data collected through interviews with young men who engaged in acts …

Simultaneous Bilingual Middle School Students Becoming Biliterate: What Do Students Think About Their Biliteracy As Taught Through The "Bridge" Strategy In A Humanities Dual Language/Immersion Class?, Alma Lucinda Diaz-Philipp

Dissertations and Theses

In response to the increasing number of United States school students from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds at all grade levels, often called "simultaneous bilinguals," the U.S. school districts are opening schools that offer bilingual instruction. One instructional strategy that seems promising is the "Bridge," where students contrast and connect the literacy skills learned in one language to the literacy skills in their other language. An underlying component of learning a language is student attitude and motivation to learn. Research also seems to indicate that student attitude and motivation toward biliteracy can affect their achievement. There seems to be a …

Teaching Sustainability: Recommendations For Best Pedagogical Practices, Heather L. Burns, Sybil S. Kelley, Heather E. Spalding

Educational Leadership and Policy Faculty Publications and Presentations

Although sustainability has become a key focus in higher education, developing a better understanding of how sustainability competencies can be cultivated in college and university courses and programs is still needed. This article argues that learners who are to become capable of affecting holistic sustainable change, transforming values and culture, healing the earth and human communities, and designing creative solutions, must have the opportunity to engage in learning processes that reflect these learning outcomes. We outline key elements of sustainability pedagogy and suggest best pedagogical practices for designing engaging and holistic sustainability learning, and highlight these practices through a sustainability …

Community-Engaged Teaching: Lessons From A Participatory History Project, Amie Thurber, Sarah V. Suiter

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

How can we create opportunities for students to gain experience in community-engaged scholarship that truly benefits the community given the constraints of the academic calendar, students’ varied capacity to develop reciprocal and responsive community relationships, and the tendency for community-engaged research to instrumentalize community partners in service to academic deliverables? This paper explores one attempt to meet this challenge: an experimental graduate course in community development that linked course content to a participatory history project. Designed as a Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) study, instructors studied the instructional process as well as outcomes for students and community partners. We …

Pedagogy Of The Edges: Anarchism And The Implicate Order, Jenka Soderberg

Leadership for Sustainability Education Comprehensive Papers

The ecological, structural and epistemological crisis that the planet is facing right now cannot be resolved within the modern educational model. Education can be a means for the transformation of society to a more just, sustainable future – but only if education itself is transformed and re-envisioned by looking to the perspectives that have been most marginalized. This new kind of pedagogy will develop outside the realm of an academic discourse, and will be found in transformative social justice movements and the relationships that are formed in these movements.

A Case Study Of Student And Staff Perceptions Of The School Breakfast Program: Food For Thought From A College Preparatory High School For Underserved Students, Jennifer Lucas Young

Dissertations and Theses

Research suggests that participation in the School Breakfast Program positively impacts academic success by improving student behavior, cognitive functioning, and attendance. Additionally, the School Breakfast Program appears to improve food insecurity, overall health and weight-related issues. However, compared to the National School Lunch Program, participation in the School Breakfast Program has been historically low, especially at the high school level. Using an integrated composite framework, a combination of social cognitive theory and ecological systems theory, as the conceptual model, this qualitative case study explored factors influencing student breakfast eating and participation in the school's breakfast program within a college-preparatory high …