Secondary Education Commons^™

How Planning For Engineering Instruction Supported Culturally Responsive-Sustaining Pedagogy For Prek–12 Teachers, Kristen V. Napolitano, Amanda M. Gunning, Meghan E. Marrero

Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-PEER)

With the wide adoption of the Next Generation Science Standards across the United States and an increased focus on growing a diverse engineering workforce, learning to teach precollege engineering has become more important than ever. Yet limited precollege engineering certification pathway exists, leaving preK–12 teachers to integrate engineering with few resources or professional learning support. In high-need districts, where teachers are already underresourced and stretched thin, engineering may not make its way into the classroom at all. As a result, access to engineering and other STEM opportunities is disproportionately low among Black and Brown and/or low-income students in these communities, …

Restorative Practices And Resilience Among Trauma-Impacted Elementary Students, Rose E. Ostenson

Graduate Teacher Education

This paper examined how restorative practices may promote resilience among trauma-impacted elementary school students. Fifteen peer-reviewed studies were analyzed to address the following research question: How do restorative practices promote resilience among trauma-impacted students in elementary schools? Three consistent themes emerged from the literature: relationship building and relational safety, school connectedness and belonging, and emotional regulation and co-regulation. These themes represent crucial protective factors associated with resilience among children who have experienced trauma. Although resilience was not directly measured in most of the studies reviewed, the findings consistently suggested that restorative practices may strengthen the relational, social, and emotional conditions …

Remixing Dialogue: A Case Study On Perceptions Of Hip Hop Pedagogy In A Professional Learning Course, Kelly J. Thelen

Dissertations, Theses, and Projects

This qualitative case study examines how teachers’ decision-making and professional autonomy shift while participating in a Hip Hop Pedagogy Professional Learning course supported by structured FIXIT (Lo & Wachter, 2023a, 2023b, 2023c, 2023d; Wachter & Lo, 2024) game-facilitated dialogue in a rural, culturally and linguistically diverse Midwest community. Grounded in Freire’s (1970) Critical Pedagogy, Ladson-Billings’ (1995) Culturally Relevant Pedagogy, Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy (Paris and Alim, 2017), and Adult Learning Theory (Knowles et al., 2005), the study explores the reclamation of agency by teachers in a time of constrained creativity and educator autonomy shaped by strict policy environments, an emphasis on …

A Narrative-Restorative Framework For Addressing School Bullying, Tristan Patel, Michelle Myers, Daniel Stewart

Journal of Educational Research and Practice

Bullying in schools is often addressed through punitive deterrence practices, solution-focused counseling, or restorative conferencing. These approaches often fail to recognize or account for the power imbalance that ultimately sustains bullying. This article discusses a narrative-restorative intervention to address bullying as a relational and communal issue, rather than relying on isolation or deterrence practices. The limitations of the dominant models discussed highlight the role of power in shaping bullying dynamics and connect legal and ethical responsibilities of narrative-restorative practices. Situated within the framework of California education law and professional ethical standards, at its core, undercover anti-bullying teams aim to redistribute …

Understanding And Responding To Childhood Trauma In The Classroom, Kara L. Ganzer

Master of Arts in Human Services

This capstone explored childhood trauma as a significant public health and educational issue because of its widespread impact on children’s development, learning, behavior, and educational experiences. A review of the current literature was conducted to examine adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), the neurobiological and developmental effects of childhood trauma, its impact within educational settings, and the trauma-informed approaches for supporting students who have experienced adversity. The literature suggested that childhood trauma can disrupt brain development, executive functioning, emotional regulation, attention, memory, and stress-response systems, contributing to academic, behavioral, and social-emotional challenges within the classroom. Findings also highlighted the important role schools …

What Makes Implicit Bias Training Effective? An Examination Of Training Program Interventions And K-12 Educator Experiences, Kyleigh K. Mcaloon

McNair Summer Research Program

Differences in disciplinary referrals based on race have led many to argue that bias may influence disciplinary decisions. Implicit bias (IB) training is designed to address such disparities by raising awareness of biases that may impact assessment of behavior and disciplinary decisions. In recent years, many have questioned the validity of IB as a construct and also the potential impact of training. Some scholars argue that these programs fail to produce meaningful behavioral change and may unintentionally reinforce or increase bias. The aim of the present study was to investigate how individuals receive and respond to such training. Sixteen K-12 …

Rockin’ Rover On The Rainbow Road, Michael Kolta, Lawrence Burgee, Ying Yuan

Transformations

This paper presents a progressive series of age-appropriate lesson plans for grades K-12 that all use the same interdisciplinary activity to educate students about Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics (STEAM) simultaneously. Technology from Texas Instruments (TI) was employed including a TI Nspire graphing calculator that can run Python programs, a TI Innovator Hub, and a TI Rover. The TI Rover is a small, robotic car that has sensors and is controlled by the calculator via the Hub hardware interface. A Python program was developed that uses the color sensor in the Rover to detect the color on colored paper …

Best Practices For Classroom Seating Arrangements: A Narrative Literature Review, Sophia M. Williams

Graduate Student Research Symposium

Every K-12 classroom has a unique dynamic produced by students and managed by its teachers. The relationships between peers, as well as the relationships between students and their teacher play an integral role in how students work and behave each day. An important aspect of the classroom dynamic that teachers’ control is seating arrangements. Indeed, extant research has debated on the best practice for seating arrangements in classrooms to create optimal learning environments that benefit both pupil and teacher. Some studies suggest that students work better when they are working with people that they have positive relationships with. Contrarily, others …

Preparing Teachers To Read The Data: Strengthening Data Literacy For Early Literacy Decision-Making, Tevia Q. Strand

The Interactive Journal of Global Leadership and Learning

Teachers are increasingly expected to use literacy screening and benchmark data to guide instruction, identify student needs, and participate in multi-tiered systems of support. However, pre-service and early-career teachers may enter the profession without sufficient preparation to interpret assessment data or connect benchmark patterns to instructional action. This white paper examines the gap between teacher preparation and the realities of K-12 data use, with particular attention to early literacy decision-making. Drawing from Bradbury’s discussion of teacher preparation and the changing realities of education, this paper argues that data literacy is an essential part of preparing teachers for equitable classroom practice. …

Influence Of Stormwater Flooding Events On The Mobile County School District Student Population, Kadence Kali Johnston

Honors Theses

Mobile County, Alabama, receives among the highest annual rainfall totals in the United States resulting in frequent stormwater flooding that intersects with existing socioeconomic vulnerabilities. Within the Mobile County Public School System (MCPSS), 77% of students are economically disadvantaged and over 10% experience homelessness, creating heightened risk for educational disruption during flood events. This study investigates how stormwater flooding influences school attendance, closures, and academic performance across MCPSS, providing insight into how climate-driven hazards exacerbate educational inequities. The research integrates flood frequency, school performance metrics, and GIS flood-zone mapping and teacher perceptions to understand how flooding affects student learning opportunities. …

Commedia Dell’Arte - Serious Funny Business, Caleb Dransfield

Course Materials

[From Introduction]

Picture this. It’s the year 1570. You fi nd yourself in Venice for the fi rst time and you are delighted by the unique culture around you. It’s a city built on the water, streets are replaced by canals. St Mark’s Basilica, the Doge’s palace, and the piazza do not disappoint. The Rialto is a hive of markets and vendors. As you wander the city you encounter something you haven’t seen before. A wooden stage erected, backed by a simple cloth. Onstage, actors in masks are leaping about and speaking to each other animatedly. Even with your limited …

Poetry Personified, Joseph Midolo

Course Materials

[From Introduction]

This chapter introduces several important elements of poetry, including figurative language, sound devices, Mood & Tone, theme, and common poetic forms. Throughout the chapter, readers will examine examples of poems and literary devices while learning how poets use language to shape meaning and emotion. Students will also practice identifying poetic techniques and analyzing how these elements work together within a text.

Check Before You Trust: Teaching K–12 Students To Evaluate Digital Information, Elexia Hertel

Resources for Educators

[First paragraph]

Students in K–12 schools encounter digital information every day, but they are not always prepared to decide whether that information is credible, useful, biased, incomplete, or misleading. This chapter is written specifically for K–12 school library and classroom instruction, not for academic library users or college-level research instruction. Its primary audience is upper elementary, middle school, and early high school learners who are beginning to conduct research, cite sources, compare online information, and participate in digital life.

Highly Confident But Slightly Uncertain: A Long Overdue Reinvention Of The School Scientific Method, Uncertainty And Error - Volume 3, Stephen Demeo

Publications and Research

Volume 3 explores the essential roles of uncertainty and error in scientific experimentation. It distinguishes between scientific error and scientific uncertainty: Scientific error refers to the difference between an experimental value and an accepted literature value, as well as the difference between data points in an x-y scatter plot and a predicted trendline. Scientific uncertainty, on the other hand, is associated with doubt arising from instrument limitations, variability within a data set, and psychological factors. Human error is set apart as mistakes or blunders, not to be conflated with scientific error.

Of utmost importance to the scientific investigator is the …

Highly Confident But Slightly Uncertain: A Long Overdue Reinvention Of The School Scientific Method, Teaching - Volume 4, Stephen Demeo

Publications and Research

In Volume 4, the last book of the series, I continue the argument for greater parity between conceptual knowledge—the "what" of science—and methodological knowledge—the "how" of science—but in the context of teacher instruction. To this end, two literature reviews are presented: One on how students build confidence, specifically regarding the reliability or consistency of measurement or results, and the other on scientific uncertainty. Research studies focusing on student misconceptions are summarized and organized from the elementary to the college level. These literature reviews describe invaluable ways for teachers to improve their instruction, while providing examples of experiments that can be …

The Woman In Hijab: A Performance Autoethnography Of Intersecting Identities In Arabic Language Teaching, Sayonara Tomoum

Journal of Educational Research and Innovation

This performance autoethnography inhabits the pedagogical encounter between a North African Muslim woman in hijab teaching college-level Arabic and an African American Muslim student whose Islam traveled a different racial and geographic history. Race and religion move through every exchange, shaping who holds authority, whose Arabic counts, and how bodies are racialized and read through religious markers. This work draws on Della Pollock’s (2007) concept of error as a site of possibility and her performative question “What now?” to name pedagogical rupture as the moment when the conditions shaping the encounter become legible as knowledge. Through performative writing, this autoethnography …

English For Speakers Of Other Languages Program: Compliance Vs Realities Of Practice, Ana Sofia Rodriguez-Oronoz

Graduate Student Dissertations, Theses, Capstones, and Portfolios

This research study examined the misalignment between policy compliance and instructional practice within English for speakers of other languages (ESOL) programs in K–12 public education. Although federal and state mandates require equitable access and services for English language learners (ELLs), compliance with these requirements has not consistently resulted in effective classroom practice. The problem of practice focused on how educators interpreted and enacted ESOL policies and the extent to which these practices aligned with the intent of the Multicultural Education, Training, and Advocacy (META) Consent Decree and related accountability frameworks.

A qualitative research design was used to explore educators’ perceptions …

Building Bridges: The Reference Interview As A Mechanism For Social Capital In School Libraries, Jessica M. Lilly

Learning Hub

Building Bridges: The Reference Interview as a Mechanism for Social Capital in School Libraries

Abstract

School librarians occupy a unique position within schools, interacting across all stakeholder groups and serving as a conduit between students, teachers, administrators, and the broader learning community. This article examines the reference interview not merely as a transactional information-retrieval tool but as a relational practice through which school librarians generate, sustain, and distribute social capital. Drawing on the foundational theories of Putnam (2000), Coleman (1988), and Bourdieu (1986), and on the reference transaction model grounded in Jesse H. Shera's foundational work (Coleman et al., …

Unfreezing Language: A Decolonial Reframing Of Translanguaging Pedagogies In English As A New Language & Dual Language Bilingual Education Settings, Cristian R. Solorza

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This qualitative multi-case study examines how elementary teachers in English as a New Language (ENL) and Dual Language Bilingual Education (DLBE) settings conceptualize, implement, and reflect upon translanguaging pedagogies, with particular attention to translanguaging rings as tools for language differentiation. Grounded in a rearticulation of language as a dynamic, socially, politically, and historically constructed subject and object, this study challenges monoglossic ideologies that position named languages as bounded systems at the center of language education. Instead, it centers students’ lived, embodied, and agentive language practices as foundational to language learning and to their participation as knowledge producers in ENL and …

Adolescent Literacy: Bridging Literacy Gaps In Georgia's Social Studies Classrooms A Call For Disciplinary Literacy In Secondary Education, Kimberly N. Miles

Teaching Social Studies in the Peach State

This article advocates integrating disciplinary literacy into secondary Social Studies instruction, arguing that the content area is critical to strengthening adolescent reading skills, particularly in alignment with the Georgia Standards of Excellence (GSE). Drawing from the "Bridging Literacy Gaps" presentation, the paper asserts that literacy is not merely a prerequisite for studying history but the very methodology by which students learn to read, write, and think like historians.

The article details three high-leverage strategies for Social Studies educators:

1. Disciplinary Literacy and Multimodal Text Integration: Teaching students how experts analyze primary and secondary sources, and integrating diverse media (e.g., political cartoons, …

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Pa 146: What Is Clear, What Is Fuzzy, And What Should We Do Next?, Jenelle Williams, Nicole Peterson

Michigan Reading Journal

Michigan’s Public Act 146 (PA 146), the state’s K–12 Literacy and Dyslexia Law, establishes new requirements for screening, evidence-based instruction, structured literacy practices, professional learning, and strengthened multi-tiered systems of support to improve reading outcomes. While the law provides detailed and prescriptive guidance for elementary schools—particularly regarding decoding-focused instruction aligned to the science of reading, universal screening, and intervention planning—its implications for grades 4–12 are less clearly defined. This article examines what is explicit in the legislation, what remains open to interpretation in secondary contexts, and how districts can move forward strategically as they prepare for full implementation by 2027–2028. …

Finding Aid For The Mississippi Science Teachers Association Collection (Mum00949)

Archives & Special Collections: Finding Aids (alphabetical)

The collection contains programs, minutes and conference materials related to the Mississippi Science Teachers Association Collection

Ai-Enhanced Digital Exhibits As Inquiry-Driven Civic Practice In The Great Lakes Region, Erik Kormos

The Great Lakes Social Studies Journal

This article presents a pedagogical framework for using AI-enhanced digital exhibits to support inquiry-based civic learning in the Great Lakes region. Students investigate meaningful community questions, use AI tools strategically for research and analysis, and create public-facing exhibits that develop civic reasoning and agency. The framework addresses grade-band applications (K–12) and emphasizes equity, ensuring all students, regardless of school funding, develop AI literacy and access authentic civic inquiry opportunities. The article articulates essential ethical considerations including data privacy, algorithmic bias, and teacher mediation, and provides a practical implementation framework for educators. Drawing on research in place-based education and inquiry learning, …

Making Sense Of The Faith-Based School’S Mission: An Instrumental Case Study Exploring How The School’S Espoused Mission Is Enacted, Richard Mingerink

Dissertations

What happens in the space between a school’s espoused mission and the enactment of that mission in the classroom? For faith-based schools—institutions whose very identity rests upon a religiously grounded purpose—this question is not merely technical but existential. While these schools publicly espouse missions centered on a religious faith, research consistently suggests that what is proclaimed on paper is not always what is practiced in classrooms. The persistent gap between espoused mission and enacted practice raises a critical question: how do educators actually make sense of their school’s religious mission, and how does that sensemaking shape what they do?

This …

The Influence Of Intervention Strategies On Students With Disabilities Who Exhibit Challenging Behaviors In Rural Public Schools: Teacher Perceptions, Ben B. Robertson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This phenomenological qualitative study addressed rural teachers' perceptions of the influence of intervention strategies on students with disabilities who exhibit challenging behaviors. The purpose of this study was to examine teachers’ perceptions of the effect of intervention strategies on academic achievement, student behavior outcomes, and teacher self-efficacy through the lens of Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory. This theory is a complex, dynamic interaction among people, their behaviors, and their environments. Data collection included 14 individual interviews, conducted on Zoom with educators from one school district in Southern Virginia, including seven general education teachers and seven special education teachers. Data analysis strategies …

Integrating Steam Through Honeybee Education In Southern Appalachia, Gary Padgett, Haley Holt

The Transdisciplinary STEAM+ Journal

Honeybees are vital to pollination and food production, yet their populations are declining in the United States.  This underscores the need for ecological literacy, making honeybees an ideal focus for STEM/STEAM lessons. Middle grades students are familiar with honeybees and instantly engage with them, providing a framework for promoting inquiry, creativity, and real-world problem solving. This article presents a lesson taught in Southern Appalachia, a region facing educational disparities with limited access to advanced STEM/STEAM opportunities. The honeybee focused STEAM lesson presented in this article addresses this gap by providing middle grades students with an interactive, interdisciplinary opportunity that links …

Motivational Systems In Education That Encourage Academic Achievement & Student Leadership, Hannah A. Lockhart, Angela Elsass

2026 Honors Symposium

This research examines how school-based motivational systems influence academic achievement, student engagement, and leadership development in K–12 educational settings. Grounded in contemporary motivational theory, the project explores motivation as a multidimensional construct shaped by autonomy, competence, relatedness, and belonging. Using an expanded review of literature as the primary methodological framework, the research synthesized 97 scholarly sources retrieved through multiple academic databases, including the University of Arkansas Libraries system, and integrated qualitative insight from a semi-structured professional interview with educator Ron Clark. Findings suggest that intentionally designed motivational systems, including schoolwide frameworks that foster belonging, recognition, and student agency, have a …

Hitler Must Be Killed: A Wwii Case Study, Jeffrey Byford, Presley Shilling, Alisha Milam

The Councilor: A National Journal of the Social Studies

Social studies education during the 1960s experienced an educational renaissance known as the new social studies movement. Over 50 projects were funded by the National Science Foundation or private corporations to interject a student-centered curriculum into K-12 classrooms during this period. Nearly 60 years later, can student-centered decision-making activities be used in an era of high-stakes testing and planned curriculum? This article attempts to rekindle students' interest in decision-making and discussion by exploring elements in Moral Reasoning: The Value of Life from the Harvard Social Studies Project (HSSP). The activity called "Hitler Must Be Killed" helped students bring the content …

Transformative Leadership In Action: A Narrative Study Of Principals’ Influence On Students’ Achievement, Staci Taylor Fullmighter

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This narrative inquiry examined how principals in low-performing high-minority urban schools use transformational leadership to improve academic outcomes. The purpose of this research was to describe principals’ leadership behaviors that are perceived to positively influence academic achievement among students who identify as minority and low socioeconomic status and are attending or have attended urban school districts with high concentrations of the identified population. Data were collected through semistructured interviews with principals, and narratives were studied to identify trends across their experiences. Four themes emerged: (a) trust and shared accountability, (b) encouraging creativity and risk-taking, (c) communicating shared goals, and (d) …

Tech Trekker, Erika Marti, Yania Avila

Community Engagement Expo Research Posters

We are a team of faculty and students in STEM fields who are dedicated to providing cutting-edge technology to teachers and students in Las Vegas and nearby communities.

Our Mission: Our primary mission is to increase student exposure to and engagement in modern science and engineering tools in order to encourage students into high-demand STEM fields.