Educational Methods Commons^™

Teaching Frances Burney's Evelina With Netflix’S Bridgerton, Willow White

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640–1830

This pedagogical essay explores strategies for teaching Frances Burney's first novel Evelina (1778) through comparison with Netflix's popular series Bridgerton. The essay demonstrates how Bridgerton's widespread popularity has renewed interest in Georgian literature and provides an engaging and accessible entry point for undergraduate students to explore Evelina's themes of social anxiety, gender, and coming of age.

Introduction: Concise Collection On Teaching The Works Of Frances Burney, Dana Gliserman Kopans

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640–1830

This short essay introduces a Concise Collection special issue on teaching Frances Burney. The collection brings together a range of texts and approaches to them and demonstrates that Burney can be successfully taught to students outside of the graduate context.

Transforming Equity: A Systemic Analysis Of The Equity Model Of Social Justice Education Through The Lens Of Conflict Transformation Theory, Precious J. Golden

University Honors Theses

Current pedagogical theory and practices grounded in social justice aim to rectify systemic barriers to equity, yet despite decades of teaching through a social justice lens, social inequality and cultural division are on the rise.  "Justice," as a noun, has several meanings (Cambridge Dictionary). It can mean "judge", "law," or "fairness," and justice, no matter its meaning or its need, is achieved through methods of conflict resolution and conflict transformation. This inquiry seeks to present conflict transformation as a radical means of achieving transformative social justice, bringing voice to the voiceless and oppressed, and rectifying the contradictions in the current …

"Hand And Mind Lead To Life": Craft Pedagogy In Art Education For Older Adolescent Learners, Katherine Fu

Masters Theses

Art educator Jo-Anna Moore (1991) asks “What is the purpose of our individual growth through art or craft?” (p. 162). Moore’s question is daunting not least for the seasoned artist, but for the young people in our art classrooms who, to varying degrees, are or are not interested in art. This thesis draws from my personal narrative as an older adolescent whose introduction to craft helped me navigate great questions of identity, belonging, and motivation. It seeks to discover how craft can become a method of teaching art to all students, and in particular, how such a pedagogy addresses the …

Reining It In: From Reflexive To Intentional Instructor Self-Disclosure, Rona Miles, Alla Chavarga, Chelsea Blaney

Essays in Education

Instructor self-disclosure is often promoted as a means of humanizing the classroom environment and improving learning outcomes. Though disclosure has the potential to be highly beneficial, it also carries a risk to students and learning that is often overlooked. This paper presents a point of departure perspective that instructor self-disclosure should be approached with far greater caution than most educators consider. We argue that disclosures should occur only when they are justified with a clear pedagogical purpose. Casual or spontaneous disclosures, by contrast, carry sufficient potential for unintended harm such that their risks outweigh presumed benefits to classroom rapport and …

Workplace English For Non-Profits: Using Visual And Specific Purposes Pedagogy, Emma K. Brown

2026 Symposium

Between April and June 2025, I designed and taught an English for Specific Purposes (ESP) workshop series for Refugee and Immigrant Connections Spokane (RICS) in Spokane, Washington. The purpose of this workshop series was to provide RICS’s employees, who were advanced English learners, instruction and practice with the nuances of professional communication, especially email communication, and vocabulary unique to their career in a non-profit organization. The workshop was entirely voluntary, provided online over Zoom after their workday had ended, and met once a week for one hour. I designed this workshop series using the pedagogy of ESP: conducting a thorough …

Identifying Levers For Change In Teaching Communities: Does Teaching Professional Development Build Stronger Communities?, Willow Danielle, Sandhya Krishnan, Mark Baillie

Research and Creative Works Expo

Our project investigates the impact of teaching professional development on teaching communities. We use social network analysis to visualize these changes and understand teaching communities on campus. This equips us to identify levers to create large-scale change in teaching practices.

Flipping The Format: A Comparative Analysis Of Pedagogy’S Performance On Comprehension In Introductory Financial Accounting Education, Allison Drozd

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

Education is an ever-evolving field, and accounting education is no different. Introductory financial accounting is a required business course at universities that is characterized by high failure rates (Kealey et al., 2005). Evidence suggests that active learning and constructivist approaches improve comprehension of introductory financial accounting concepts as measured by exam performance. All methods studied produced statistically significant positive results on comprehension learning outcomes. Many professors' experiences support the studies' sentiment that active learning is important for teaching course concepts. The evidence reviewed in this thesis supports positive learning outcomes for comprehension of accounting concepts through active learning and constructivist …

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 …

Learning From The Legacies Of Phillis Wheatley Peters: A Collaborative Pedagogical Public Humanities Project, Sandra Zagarell

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640–1830

“’Learning from the Legacies of Phillis Wheatley Peters’: A Collaborative Pedagogical Public Humanities Project” is an account of a Spring, 2024 Zoom and web-based public humanities project for primary, secondary and post-secondary teachers interested in learning more about African-born American poet Phillis Wheatley Peters (c.1746-1784) and developing writing-based curricular materials about her. Foregrounding the levels of pedagogy the project involved, the essay describes leaders’ planning processes and our sessions with teacher-participants and provides links to the materials the teachers prepared. The instructional approaches the essay details can be adapted by educators working in a wide variety of classroom settings.

Teaching Phillis Wheatley (Peters) As A Working Artist, Lenora Warren

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640–1830

In recent years, the challenge of teaching the poetry of Phillis Wheatley (Peters) has been managing my students’ expectations of what constitutes “representative” African American literature and coming to a more comprehensive idea of constitutes both “political” and black art. In managing some initial confusion around Wheatley’s muted response to her enslavement I have landed on presenting Wheatley’s insistence of her work as a poet as “labour” to be the most interesting tact to take with students. For Wheatley it is the imperative of becoming a poet that allows her access to what might be seen as a more vital …

On Being Brought From Gambia Or Ghana To Colonial Boston: Teaching Phillis Wheatley And Place, D. Quentin Miller

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640–1830

In this pedagogical article, I describe my classroom practice in which the context of place becomes supremely important when introducing Wheatley’s work to students. With the help of experiential learning in the form of a walking tour of Wheatley's Boston and some maps, I call attention to spatiality as a crucial context for framing the poet’s most persistent concerns. The article contains images that can be useful to instructors who do not have the benefit of teaching Wheatley in Boston.

Bob And Ellen Kaplan's Brazilian Adventure: O Círculo Da Matemática Do Brasil, Angels Varea

Journal of Math Circles

Bob and Ellen Kaplan deployed their boundless energy to spread The Math Circle word in Brazil in what they called their “Brazilian adventure.” They are the inspiration for the project O Círculo da Matemática do Brasil and participated wholeheartedly in its implementation, travelling to Brazil six times over five years to train teams of young Math Circle leaders that taught over twenty-seven thousand underprivileged children within the framework of the project.

Bringing Math Circles Into New Mexico Classrooms: An Interview With James Taylor, Amanda Serenevy

Journal of Math Circles

In this interview, conducted on December 14th, 2022, James described his math outreach journey and the many members of the Math Circle community who helped him along the way.

Corresponding With The Kaplans, Rodi Steinig

Journal of Math Circles

Readers of this journal have asked to hear the Kaplans’ voices: their tone, the way they were able to contextualize math questions, their generosity, and their joy. We think it’s important to share a few of these hundred-plus emails so that readers can feel that tone.

The Kaplans’ Math Circle Method, Amanda Serenevy

Journal of Math Circles

This essay explores what is meant by "The Socratic Method" in classical and modern times and examines the extent to which the Kaplans employed it in their Math Circles. We offer an imagined dialogue between the Kaplans and their students on the same mathematical subject explored by Socrates and the slave boy in Plato's dialogue \emph{Meno} to illustrate how the Kaplans might have handled that topic

The Pedagogical Lineage Of The Kaplans And Its Future, Taylor Yeracaris

Journal of Math Circles

This article describes the origins of Bob and Ellen Kaplan's Math Circle, one of the first Math Circles in the U.S. It covers Bob and Ellen's personal histories and some of the wide-ranging impact of their work and philosophy of teaching. It also discusses how the current form of their organization, The Global Math Circle, is working to carry forward their legacy, including building community and supporting Math Circle leaders with the Nexus project.

Pedagogies Of Peace And Justice In Integrated Israeli-Palestinian Youth Programs, Tchelet L. Tutman, Aviv Cohen

Peace and Conflict Studies

This qualitative study investigates how pedagogical choices in Israeli-Palestinian peace education programs shape the enactment of educational aims related to citizenship, justice, and democratic engagement. Drawing on interviews, observations, and document analysis from four educational organizations working with Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel, the study explores how educators navigate core dilemmas including whether and how to address the conflict directly, contend with language asymmetries, respond to participant resistance, and facilitate dialogue during periods of political violence. The analysis develops four pedagogical models: Neither-Nor, Both-And, Encounter, and Conflict Without Meeting, which capture distinct strategies for balancing intergroup interaction with engagement …

'The Rest Is Silence': Reframing Stasis As Integral To Creative Practice, Corinna Di Niro, Pablo Muslera

Staff Scholarship - Australia & Dubai

This duoethnographic study examines the relationship between motion and stasis in creative practice through the lens of two creative educators working in postgraduate and undergraduate Creative Industries. Drawing on our combined experiences as practitioners and educators at SAE University College, we explore how creative blockages can be reframed as productive rather than problematic, challenging dominant productivity paradigms in contemporary creative industries and education. Through structured dialogic exchange, we investigate three interconnected themes: the rhythmic nature of creative practice, the pedagogical value of embracing productive stasis, and the tension between institutional timelines and creative development. We consider how encouraging SAE creative …

“We Sing Too:” Pedagogical Approaches For Listening To Children In Indigenous Picturebooks, Rachel Stubbs, Anja Dressler Araujo, Kari Dressler, Jadyn Fischer-Mcnabb, Aubrey Hanson, Erin Spring

Occasional Paper Series

This article explores how storytelling, particularly through picture books, facilitates learning across boundaries of age, culture, gender, and education. In this article, we emphasize the value of picture books in integrating Indigenous oral traditions into the classroom, highlighting how these texts foster a reciprocal relationship between listener and storyteller. By focusing on the act of listening, our article argues that Indigenous picture books require active participation and decentering of the individual, positioning listeners as part of a larger collective. This article also underscores the importance of viewing children as active, responsible, and agential members of their communities, aligning with Indigenous …

Growth Mindset In The Mathematics Classroom: Studying The Effects Of A Growth Mindset Intervention On High School Students In A Geometry Classroom, Katelyn Strauss

Mathematics Graduate Theses

Having a growth mindset is crucial to being successful in a mathematics classroom. However, many students believe themselves to be either “mathematics people” or “not mathematics people”. When students believe they are not a mathematics person, they are far less likely to engage in material where they face struggles, and thus they miss out on valuable learning. A review of the literature has show that students have been able to shift their mindset from fixed to growth through a series of interventions. I used a unit in Geometry to see how a growth mindset intervention would affect the mindset of …

So Much Fun, They Don't Realize They're Learning: Creating & Implementing Experiential Activities, Steven Austin Stovall

Journal of the North American Management Society

One of the challenges of teaching business students is meaningfully driving home the concepts in a course. Certainly, this can be achieved through lectures, but many instructors want to engage the students in a more active manner. This is where experiential activities come into play. An exercise can be not only an opportunity to reinforce course material, but it can be fun as well. This paper presents a roadmap for developing one’s own experiential activities and is written by an author who has written a casebook on human resources and is a regular contributor to Cengage, Prentice Hall, Sage, and …

Exploring Higher Education Faculty Experiences With Artificial Intelligence: A Case Study, Keisha Pierre-Stephen

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this case study was to explore the experiences and perceptions of higher education educators integrating artificial intelligence (AI) tools, such as ChatGPT, in curriculum work conducted within a university setting, focusing specifically on faculty members. The theory guiding this study was the technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) framework, which presented a window for understanding the integration of technology, pedagogy, and content knowledge in educational practices. The central research question was: What are the lived experiences and perceptions of higher education faculty members at an urban university on the West Coast of the United States regarding students' use …

Extracting From The Extracurriculum: Using Extracurricular Composition Practices To Bring Purpose, Voice, And Engagement Back To The English Classroom, Grace N. Ellis

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This thesis explores how principles and practices from extracurricular literacy spaces and the extracurriculum as a whole can inform and revitalize the secondary English classroom. In response to growing student disengagement, apathy, and disconnection, particularly within highly standardized and product-focused classrooms, this argument investigates how programs such as the Nebraska Writers Collective’s All Writes Reserved program and the University of Nebraska–Lincoln’s Young Writer Camp model authentic engagement, identity exploration and development, and rhetorical agency through creative, student-centered writing practices. Drawing from composition theory, educational research, and experiential data from Nebraska-based writing initiatives, the thesis argues that incorporating choice, safe-risk taking, …

Evidence-Based Shared Agendas For Scholarship On Teaching With Primary Sources: Reflections On A Bibliometric Analysis, Jen Hoyer, Anne Bahde

Publications and Research

This article explores how scholarship about teaching with primary sources (TPS) has evolved over time and what future directions past work might suggests. Using bibliometric analysis and visualization tools, we examined how TPS work has grown; what fields and disciplines focus on this work; key themes and issues; and what scholarship has been influential to the field. These insights led to reflections on disconnects across the field, considerations for publishing about TPS, and the potential of pedagogical standards and guidelines. Finally, this article concludes with recommendations on how this analysis points to possibilities for shared education, space, conversation, and products.

Hearing All The Colors: Stories Of Engagement From Teachers' Perspectives, Carolyn Allison

Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative case study documented four high school English II End of Course teachers' stories about student engagement in the classroom. Students of color, in particular, have been maligned for underperformance on state-mandated tests. Instead of focusing on the despairing headlines and data, this study focused on how teachers follow the state standards and district curriculum guides to increase success. The teachers' authentic voices on student engagement shine through their stories. Student engagement is not a one-size-fits-all scenario which these teachers prove.

The teachers' stories served as the data for this study. The data was viewed through the lens of …

Utilizing Culturally Responsive Teaching Practices In The Classroom, Lindsey Nicole Finley

Theses and Dissertations

This research study aimed to address the impact of teaching concepts of culturally responsive pedagogy on teachers’ understanding of their implicit biases. Additionally, it examined the impact that professional development training utilizing culturally responsive teaching (CRT) methods have on teachers working with multilingual learners (MLs). The research questions were: (1) What is the impact of teaching concepts of culturally responsive pedagogy on teachers' understanding of their implicit biases? and (2) What is the impact of intentional, ongoing professional development utilizing CRT methods for teachers working with multilingual learners? This study used a theoretical framework of culture centered pedagogies such as …

There's A Method To This Physics Madness, Hanna J. Ross

Physics and Astronomy Presentations

Physics tends to be seen by the general public as scary and unattainable, especially for students who are non-STEM majors. However, at Ursinus College (as well as many other institutions) the professors employ the use of specific problem-solving strategy instruction to mitigate these fears and further general problem solving skills. This study reviews previous experiments evaluating the merit of this strategy and analyzes its results as it relates to Physics on Screen, a physics class at Ursinus geared specifically towards non-majors.

Speed-Coaching As A Pedagogical Practice: Decision-Making And Priorities Among Successful Speed Coaches, Dillon R. Martinez

Education Doctorate Dissertations

This study employed a three-round Delphi study technique to identify key elements in speed development coaching by surveying 106 qualified coaches, including certified professionals, championship-winning coaches, facility operators, and NCAA strength-and-conditioning specialists. This study explored five critical domains: nonnegotiable elements of speed development, decision-making factors for teaching priorities, effective teaching methods, environmental influences, and coaching philosophies. The results revealed a significant emphasis on technique/mechanics and maximum velocity exposure as foundational speed development elements, with notable differences between elite-level and lower-level coaches. Elite coaches demonstrated more sophisticated measurement approaches through systematic data collection, advanced technical assessment tools, comprehensive performance metrics, and …

Constructivism Made Easy Using The Consider, Construct, Confirm Learning Cycle, Timothy E. Goodwin Ed.D

Essays in Education

Shifting from didactic, teacher-led instruction to a student-centered, constructivist classroom is often a daunting task for teachers. The Consider, Construct, Confirm Learning cycle is a framework for teachers to organize their planning—be it individual lessons, units of study, or whole courses. The CCC Learning Cycle framework shifts the format of a typical lesson from didactic instruction leading to short-term renting of knowledge through memorization, to student-centered, lived experiences resulting in students owning their new knowledge.