Teacher Education and Professional Development Commons^™

Accessibility Of Virtual Instruction In Higher Education: Challenges Caused By The Covid-19 Pandemic, Carlie L. Cooper

Journal of Higher Education & Student Affairs

In 1990, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was passed. It prohibits discrimination against individuals with disabilities. Institutions of higher education are included under Title III of the ADA, and as such are required to provide the same access to services and education to qualified individuals with disabilities as individuals without. A review of the literature of accessibility of online programs and courses in higher education shows that compliance to the ADA is sporadic due to several challenges. In Spring 2020, all institutions of higher education transitioned to some form of online instruction due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This created …

Massachusetts High School Teachers’ Perceptions Of Transitions In Teaching And Assessment Related To The Next Generation Science Standards, Alyssa Mocharnuk

All Theses And Dissertations

The experiences and perceptions of high school science teachers with the transitions in teaching and assessment related to the adoption of the 2016 Massachusetts Science and Technology/Engineering Framework based on the Next Generation Science Standards were studied in this interpretative phenomenological analysis. The Next Generation Science Standards incorporated both traditional disciplinary content ideas and the new science and engineering practices (NGSS Lead States, 2013). Teachers were required to develop new materials, and difficulty in developing new ways of teaching and assessing science (Friedrichsen and Barnett, 2018; Kawasaki and Sandoval, 2020; Wilde, 2018) was exacerbated by the delay in high-stakes testing …

Perceptions Of Classroom Management Coaching At District A Independent School District, Ashley L. Brittain

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study addressed teacher retention and research-to-practice gaps in the literature related to classroom management coaching and what types of teacher support are the best and why. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore the perceptions of teachers, campus administrators, and campus intervention coaches regarding District A Independent School District’s campus intervention coach model. This study attempted to understand better the perceptions of how the campus intervention coach model influences teachers’ decisions to remain in the profession; how teachers, campus administrators, and campus intervention coaches perceive the campus intervention coach model’s effectiveness in reducing the percentage of …

Remote Portals: Enacting Black Feminisms And Humanization To Disrupt Isolation In Teacher Education, Mildred Boveda, Keisha M. Allen

Occasional Paper Series

As two Black women teacher educators who contend with the neoliberal expectations of the westernized academy and the material realities of preparing teachers for P-12 contexts, we face the pressures of performing productivity while attempting to ameliorate injustices for multiply-marginalized students (e.g., Black students with disabilities facing economic hardships). Working within predominantly white spaces, we were already socially and intellectually isolated prior to the 2020 pandemic. In this collaborative essay, we articulate how COVID-19 exasperated existing educational and social inequities, yet served as a portal to collective sense-making of our heightened intersectional consciousness, sense of duty to community, and enactments …

Supporting Students With An Autism Spectrum Disorder In Engineering: K-12 And Beyond, Jennifer L. Kouo, Alexis Hahn, Sarah Morton, Jay Gregorio

Journal of Science Education for Students with Disabilities

Individuals with disabilities, including individuals with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD), are underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. With the importance of STEM skills in future employment and other disciplines, effective instructional strategies must be identified to enhance early and sustained access to STEM for students with ASD. However, the literature identifying effective STEM-specific supports and practices for this population of students is sparse and regarding engineering, there are no empirical studies that focus on teaching engineering skills to students with ASD. Therefore, the article aims to provide an overview of the available literature on the perspectives …

The North Carolina Teaching Fellows Program: A Case Study Of The Use Of Forgivable Loans In Recruiting Future Stem Teachers, Katie N. Smith

Journal of Student Financial Aid

In 2018-2019, North Carolina implemented a loan forgiveness program to recruit talented postsecondary students into teaching majors in needed subject areas. This qualitative case study analyzes the influence of the North Carolina Teaching Fellows Program (NCTFP) on 10 student participants’ college, major, and career plans in STEM education to understand how loan incentives shaped student interest in teaching careers in STEM subjects. Findings reveal that forgivable loan funding influenced college choice among those choosing institutions at the time of NCTFP acceptance. While the NCTFP was most appealing to participants who already planned to become STEM educators, there is also evidence …

Building Bridges Not Walls: An Exploratory Study Of Student Involvement And African American Student Retention At Community Colleges, Brittney Rasjan Hernandez-Stevenson

Dissertations

African American students are attending college and working toward earning credentials, yet this population is persisting at lower rates compared to their White counterparts. The purpose of this study is to explore the impact that student involvement has on African American student persistence and retention at community colleges. A Sequential Explanatory mixed methods design was conducted with quantitative data from 743 African American KCTCS community college students that completed the 2019 Community College Survey of Student Engagement (CCSSE) and qualitative data from 11 focus group interview participants. An ordinal logistic regression was used to analyze the data and the quantitative …

What Really Matters For Instructors Implementing Equitable And Inclusive Teaching Approaches, Tracie Marcella Addy, Philip M. Reeves, Derek Dube, Khadijah A. Mitchell

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Supporting instructor implementation of equitable and inclusive teaching approaches is a critical area of focus in educational development. However, there is limited empirical evidence on factors that either support or hinder instructors’ implementation of inclusive teaching. The results of this national survey study reveal several predictors of instructors’ utilization of inclusive teaching approaches and reported obstacles faced. For this sample, knowledge of inclusive teaching was a statistically significant predictor of implementation, as was being from a non-STEM discipline. Responses highlighted promising approaches, several of which can inform the efforts of educational developers.

Longitudinal Impact Of Faculty Participation In A Course Design Institute (Cdi): Faculty Motivation And Perception Of Expectancy, Value, And Cost, Cara Meixner, Melissa Altman, Megan Good, Elizabeth Ben Ward

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Course design institutes (CDIs), which systematically guide faculty through the (re)design of courses, often transpire in an intensive residency or learning community format. Little is known, to date, of the long-term impact of such initiatives, particularly in the context of faculty motivation. This longitudinal study explores changes in faculty attitudes toward teaching, offering insight into the multifaceted gains and limiting factors influencing motivation as conceptualized by the expectancy-value-cost model (Barron and Hulleman, 2015). Findings reveal that CDI engagement bolsters the value placed on teaching, but arrives at a noteworthy cost to faculty. Implications for CTLs and instructional faculty are explored.

Place-Based Educational Development: What Center For Teaching And Learning Spaces Look Like (And Why That Matters), Laura Cruz, Karen Huxtable-Jester, Brian Smentkowski, Martin Springborg

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

This study seeks to explore the physical spaces centers for teaching and learning (CTLs) occupy; with an emphasis on gaining a better picture of what CTL spaces look like; where they are located; how they developed: and what these spaces represent. We gathered visual, empirical, and qualitative data to take the first steps towards developing a shared vision of not only of our physical spaces, but also as a jumping off point for further analysis of the CTL as a meaningful place.

Cultivating An Institutional Culture That Values Teaching: Developing A Repository Of Effective Practices, Lindsay Shaw, Jill Grose, Erika Kustra, Lori Goff, Donna Ellis, Paola Borin

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Educational researchers developed an online repository of effective practices contributing to or enhancing the teaching culture at multiple higher education institutions as part of a larger project exploring institutional teaching culture. The repository was designed to be a companion document to the Institutional Teaching Culture Perception Surveys (ITCPS), a resource for administrators, educational developers, and Centers for Teaching and Learning (CTL) striving to cultivate institutional cultures that support the development of teaching and learning. This paper outlines the methods for developing this repository, summarizes findings, identifies some of the practices included and highlights areas for future development.

Preparing The Next Generation Of Institutional Leaders: Strategic Supports For Mid-Career Faculty, Vicki Baker, Caroline Manning

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Calls for leadership development and associated supports for faculty members are growing in prominence in higher education. Yet, traditional leadership development efforts in higher education fail to account for both individual and institutional needs as critical to fostering a leadership pipeline with multiple entry points. This manuscript offers succession management and onboarding as important and necessary steps to facilitating a more deliberate, strategic approach to supporting the next generation of institutional leaders – mid-career faculty members.

Supporting Faculty As Writers And Teachers: An Integrative Approach To Educational Development, Jennifer Ahern-Dodson, Monique Dufour

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

In this article, we explore how supporting faculty writers can also help them to become more effective teachers of writing in their disciplines. Based on over ten years of facilitating and studying faculty at our writing retreats, we demonstrate how understanding and improving their own writing experiences can spark insight into their students as writers. Furthermore, we suggest that helping faculty make this “turn to teaching” exemplifies the potential for an integrative model of educational development, one that leverages connections across faculty roles and responsibilities.

#Iteachmsu: Centering An Educator Learning Community (Elc), Erik Skogsberg, Makena Neal, Melissa Mcdaniels, Madeline Shellgren, Patricia Stewart

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Many scholars recommend preparing faculty for educator roles. Faculty Learning Communities, The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL), and teaching centers represent common preparatory approaches. But faculty and teaching assistants report time, disciplinary disconnects, and lack of incentives as ongoing barriers. Inspired by K-12’s professional learning networks and “hashtag activism,” the authors’ university launched #iteachmsu. #iteachmsu combines practices of social networking with a digital and in-person teaching “commons.” Through #iteachmsu, the authors hope to further shift campus cultures in the age of COVID-19, centering teaching and learning as a valuable and ongoing focus for an educator learning community (ELC).

Where Are The Students In Efforts For Inclusive Excellence? Two Approaches To Positioning Students As Critical Partners For Inclusive Pedagogical Practices, Alison Cook-Sather, Tracie Marcella Addy, Anna Devault, Nicole Livitskiy

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Most educational development for inclusive excellence does not draw directly on the experiences and perspectives of students. This article presents two different approaches to positioning undergraduate students as critical partners in developing inclusive pedagogical practices. Co-authored by the directors of and student partners who participated in each approach, the article defines inclusive excellence and inclusive teaching and provides selected examples of partnership work that strives for equity and inclusion. It then describes our different approaches, discusses potential benefits of launching student-faculty partnership work through these approaches, and offers recommendations for developing pedagogical partnership efforts for inclusive excellence at other institutions.

The Intersection Of School-Based Leadership Practices And School Grades In The State Of Florida, Wendelynn A. Mcpherson

Doctor of Education (Ed.D)

The purpose of this non-experimental, quantitative study was to examine to what degree 12 self-reported leadership behaviors were associated with and predictive of school grades in the state of Florida. The study participant sample was exclusively comprised of educational leaders from elementary schools located in Florida. In this descriptive study, elementary principals were surveyed to determine the frequency of leadership behaviors (independent variable) and school grades (dependent variable). Two research questions and hypotheses were posed to address the study’s research problem. Research question one utilized a simple linear regression to assess the predictive variable of the overall leadership practices for …

Principals’ Perceptions Of The Importance Of Teacher Certification In Rural Christian Schools, Ronda L. Dry

Doctor of Education (Ed.D)

The literature associated with principals' perceptions of certified/uncertified teachers within private Christian schools is limited, specifically in rural communities. Therefore, little is known about principals’ perceptions of the importance of teacher certification in rural Christian schools. The purpose of the study was to evaluate principals’ perceptions concerning the pedagogical practices of certified teachers as compared to the pedagogical practices of teachers who are not certified. Specific to this study, teacher certification was defined as certification earned through the state or certification through a school-accrediting organization. A total of 82 principals were surveyed and asked to identify their perceptions of the …

Unlearn: Preparing Preservice Teachers As Antiracist Educators, April Eddie

Northwest Journal of Teacher Education

This paper explores a Teacher Education faculty member’s approach in providing preservice teachers a holistic, antiracist preparation that includes prioritizing the hiring of Black and Brown faculty, teaching critical pedagogies, and providing diverse experiences to enhance their theoretical and classroom learning. Although research that explores the impact of race and education exists, more is needed if we are to deconstruct the impact of antiblackness in Teacher Education programs.

An Artificial Intelligence Tool For Accessible Science Education, Jacob D. Watters, April Hill Dr., Melissa Weinrich Dr., Cary Supalo, Feng Jiang Dr.

Journal of Science Education for Students with Disabilities

One of the most important issues in accessible science education is creating a laboratory workspace accessible to blind students or students with visual impairments (VI). Although these students are often provided access to the science lectures, they are usually denied full participation in hands-on laboratory work. Current solutions to this problem focus on providing special accommodations such as asking sighted lab partners to complete the hands-on work. Although the accessibility of laboratory devices in modern science education has been improved in recent years, students with VI often remain passive learners. In this work, we developed a new artificial intelligence tool, …

Making Scientific And Technical Materials Pervasively Accessible, Jason J.G. White

Journal of Science Education for Students with Disabilities

In this paper, the question is explored of what policies, standards and practices are desirable to ensure that hardware, software and publications in the sciences and associated disciplines are created from the outset to be accessible to people with disabilities. Insight into this question can be obtained by considering the unique accessibility challenges that these materials pose, including complexities of notation, language, and graphical representation.

Having analyzed what sets this problem apart from broader issues of accessibility, the advantages and limitations of current international standards are reviewed, and contemporary developments in standards and policies are considered from a strategic perspective. …

The Perceptions Of Teachers Of Students With Visual Impairments On Students With Visual Impairments And Graphing: How To Teach, Ashley N. Nashleanas Ph.D.

Journal of Science Education for Students with Disabilities

Many gaps exist in what is known around teaching students with visual impairments (SVI) about how to use graphs (Rosenblum et al., 2018; Rosenblum & Herzberg, 2015; Zebehazy & Wilton, 2014a;2014b;2014c). When teachers first experience a student with a visual impairment, some of the questions that come to mind are: How can I be sure this student understands what I am saying about these graphs I show on the board? Will this student be able to keep up? The study herein, based on findings from Author (2018), serves as a guide for teachers to consider in the case that SVI …

Voices Of Teacher Graduates: Preparation For Black Mattering In Schools, Loyce E. Caruthers, Jennifer Waddell, Bradley Poos, Ashley N. Smith

Northwest Journal of Teacher Education

The Institute for Urban Education (IUE) began in 2005, following unitary status of Kanas City Public Schools in 2003, as a four-year undergraduate urban teacher preparation program to prepare students to interrupt school-centered practices of Eurocentric identity and antiblackness. A program feature entails recruitment of high school students from urban communities and scholarships to support fulltime preparation without employment distractions. Graduates commit to teach for a minimum of four-years in an urban school. Our investigation incorporated BlackCrit with in-depth interviews to capture the experiences of nine graduates in the schools where they teach or engage in school leadership. While testimonials …

Zero Tolerance Policies Are Anti-Black: Protecting Racially Profiled Students From Educational Injustice, Jonathan Lightfoot

Northwest Journal of Teacher Education

When students are tracked from their schools into the juvenile and adult criminal justice system, primarily because of zero-tolerance policies, they fall victim to a practice that is now widely known as the school-to-prison pipeline. President Obama urged educators to abandon severe disciplinary policies that criminalize students for offenses that could be handled without law enforcement (Du, 2015). A review of the literature indicates a disproportionate number of Black students are at a greater risk of being adversely impacted by such policies thus increasing their chances of having a negative educational experience. Research shows that Black students receive higher rates …

High School Journalism Advisors And African American Students, Jerry Crawford Ii

Journal of Research Initiatives

This study examined whether African American participation in high school journalism is lower than the participation of other students in the State of Kansas. Past research has found that participation in high school newspapers and yearbook staff is often the pathway for students to consider careers in journalism. For the sake of this study, participation was defined as "any school-directed journalistic activity or program where students are allowed to produce content." This study used a questionnaire sent to 100 high school advisers and teachers, experimentally accessible in the state, administered over three years as the survey instrument. The response rate …

Black Women Leaders Professional And Social Experiences In Higher Education: A Review Of The Research Literature, Marian E. Truehill

Journal of Research Initiatives

The purpose of this review of the research literature was to offer a critical take on the current body of research focusing on the aspect of how Black women are affected by their experiences in higher education. Some of the themes discussed in this review include discrimination, social conditions, and lack of advancement in academic institutions. Implications for these issues is discussed and delineated.

Leading Leaders In Rethinking Grading: A Case Study Of Implementation Of Standards-Based Grading In Educational Leadership, Erin E. Lehmann

Journal of Research Initiatives

The purpose of this paper is to share the process of how one university instructor worked toward a shift to standards-based grading (SBG) in a graduate Educational Leadership program. Educational leadership programs use standards to guide coursework and instruction in an accountability era, but grading practices remain as subjective as they were 50 years ago. Educators of future leaders must address this need. In addition, instructors need to effectively communicate essential learning to students to understand their learning progression clearly; standards-based grading is designed to do this. The author shares best practices in grading as well as the challenges of …

Listen To Your Doppelganger! Global Cultural Empathy For Educators: A Literature Review Based Conceptual Model, Papia Bawa Dr.

Journal of Research Initiatives

Our student populations' diversity now includes African Americans, Native Americans, and Latinos, as classrooms represent various cultural backgrounds. This shift in student population dynamics brings fresh challenges to educator's unpreparedness to identify with the unique cultural identities of international students. The cultural dissonance that international students face compounds this challenge since the cultural unawareness and misconceptions may be generated from both educators and student groups. The Doppelganger Inspired Change Effect model or DICE discussed in this article is inspired by an extensive literature review. It elucidates a process of fostering global cultural empathy and preparedness of educators by linking such …

Honors College Type: A Detailed Mbti Analysis, Angela Farmer

Journal of Research Initiatives

Individuals in society today are entrenched in stress, from competitive environments like school or work to social anxieties, including one's struggle to acclimate and survive within a given subset of individuals. As a result, life can have challenges. Nowhere is this more apparent than among the schools' high schools and college campuses where students, overwhelmed by a culture where they fail to thrive, take drastic, irreparable, and lethal action. While no established student profile is likely to engage in extreme violence like school shootings, reliable data is detailing some ominous motives (The school shooter, 2002). Paired with this information and …

Hbcu Administrators And The Covid-19: Dealing With The Pandemic Under The Pressure Of Funding And Self-Care, Jerry Crawford

Journal of Research Initiatives

Historically Black Colleges and University presidents and chancellors have been facing challenges similar to administrators at other institutions of higher learning. These demands center on accreditation, federal and state funding, and enrollment. COVID-19 has heightened each of these essential functions that administrators have as priorities.

There has been a lot of research on the roles and responsibilities of HBCU administrators and how there has been a seemingly revolving door at these institutions, and how many have found them to be more autocratic than inclusive in governance. In addition, the coronavirus pandemic has added to the pressure and expectations administrators must …

Teacher Stress In The Current Covid-19 Pandemic, Allison H. Anderson

Journal of Research Initiatives

The Covid-19 infection drastically altered the 2019-2020 school year, shortening and preventing its completion. As a result, we do not know if the school will return as normal in the fall or not. This uncertainty causes stress for parents, students, and teachers. We need to recognize these stresses and develop a strategy to deal with them.