Teacher Education and Professional Development Commons^™

Seeing God Clearly: Meaning-Making And Attributions To God Made By Resident Assistants, John Macikas

Growth: The Journal of the Association for Christians in Student Development

Resident Assistants (RAs) at a Christian college in the Midwest were interviewed in order to explore the nature, reasoning, and complexity of attributions to God from their RA-related experiences. Resulting themes found that RAs made attributions to God for experiences of identifiable goodness, which included positive developmental experiences and experiences of deep unity and spirituality. Though RAs often saw themselves as God’s intermediary agents, they also claimed they were limited in their ability to affect deep change. The relationship between their agency and God’s was complex, but RAs sought solace in God’s ultimate control in the midst of their efforts. …

When Conflict Crosses Cultural Lines: How Culture Informs Conflict, Joel Perez, David M. Johnstone

Growth: The Journal of the Association for Christians in Student Development

Diverse cultural experience provides tremendous educational value. At the same time, it presents the possibility for increased misunderstanding and conflict. While conflict can happen with students of the same background, cross-cultural dynamics tend to add complexities to tension. Using a tool such as the Intercultural Conflict Style Inventory, we have helped college student leaders build stronger teams, with a better and deeper ability to navigate, mediate and mitigate conflict among their leadership teams and peers.

Christian Service: Learning To Serve And Serving To Learn, Bill Kuhn, Scott Moats, James Zapf

Growth: The Journal of the Association for Christians in Student Development

Small, private higher educational institutions have played a significant role in American society. Historically, these institutions have emphasized the role of teaching and service. With this in mind, this article reports on the effects of service-learning embedded in an existing course at an institution with an extensive co-curricular service-learning program. This research reveals the results of a creative partnership between Student Development leadership and faculty to investigate the effects of service-learning on students when embedded in an existing class. Using in-depth interviews, the researchers seek to discover the student experience of making a co-curricular program curricular. Results indicate students showed …

Campus Sexual Assault: College Women Respond, Haley Williamson

Growth: The Journal of the Association for Christians in Student Development

No abstract provided.

A Survey Of Sexual Minorities Who Attend Faith-Based Institutions Of Higher Education, Mark A. Yarhouse, Janet B. Dean, Stephen P. Stratton, Michael Lastoria, Emma K. Bucher

Growth: The Journal of the Association for Christians in Student Development

This research considers the intersection of sexual identity and religious/spiritual identity in the context of faith-based institutions of higher education. One hundred and sixty students identifying as sexual minorities from fifteen Christian colleges and universities with Association for Christians in Student Development affiliations provided information on their experiences in these unique settings. The findings suggest sexual minorities on faith-based campuses are navigating religious/spiritual aspects of their identity as well as same-sex sexuality and sexual identity development. Both sexuality and religiosity/spirituality are two salient, interacting and multilevel variables for these students, particularly as they relate to doctrinal matters and policies at …

Grit: The Power Of Passion And Perseverance, Emilie K. Hoffman

Growth: The Journal of the Association for Christians in Student Development

No abstract provided.

Arab 202: A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Inquiry Portfolio, Abla Hasan

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

This project examines the impact of adopting a text book of teaching Arabic for nonnative speakers that doesn’t use any English. The project targets “ARAB 202”, second year Arabic, since this course has already used a text book that uses English for instructions and grammar for 3 semesters, ARAB 101 , ARAB102, ARAB 201 and before the new curriculum was available in the market. Students of ARAB 202 will be the first to experience the switch to the new curriculum and therefore can be the best to evaluate the experience. For the project, students were asked to complete a pre-course …

Ides 200: Program, Standards And Codes—A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Benchmark Portfolio, Nathan E. Bicak

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

This teaching portfolio documents my teaching efforts for IDES 200, a class in UNL’s Interior Design Program, entitled Program, Standards and Codes. Although I have taught similar content prior to this course, Spring 2017 marked the first time I taught this course. After seven years of teaching the material, and now packaged in a new class, the Peer Review of Teaching project offered the opportunity to critically reflect on course objectives, teaching and delivery methods, the structure of course activities and documenting and analyzing student learning. My primary objective through the Peer Review of Teaching project has been to …

The Challenge Of Chinese Character Acquisition: Leveraging Multimodality In Overcoming A Centuries-Old Problem, Justin Olmanson, Xianquan Chrystal Liu

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

For learners unfamiliar with character-based or logosyllabic writing systems, the process of developing literacy in written Chinese poses significantly more obstacles than learning to read and write in a second language like Portuguese or Cherokee. In this article we describe the linguistic nature of Chinese characters; we outline traditional and new media approaches to Chinese character acquisition; we unpack how multimodal technologies combined with computational linguistics might be used to provide new types of support for Chinese character learning; and we offer a design that incorporates several of these concepts into a digital writing support tool that could work as …

Engaging Families And The Community In Schools, Alison H. Whitaker, Kathryn Pritchard, Erin Keene, Kim Coleman

Instructional Modules for Professional learning Responding to Opportunities and Valuing Educators (IMPROVE)

This module is designed to lead a collaborative group of educators through the process of designing and implementing an event or activity to increase the levels of family and community engagement in schools. The module presents current research supporting family and community involvement in schools. Learners are prepared to recognize potential barriers to increasing family and community involvement and methods to overcome those barriers.

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Questioning For Critical Thinking, Karen Conner, Ashton Coppley, Betsy Furr

Instructional Modules for Professional learning Responding to Opportunities and Valuing Educators (IMPROVE)

Effective questioning is essential for learning. This module will explore questioning for learning and critical thinking. This module was designed for use by teachers of all grade levels. It is intended for the benefit of teachers in designing their instruction and for the benefit of the students they teach. Participants in this PLM will consider the importance of which questions are asked, who gets to ask them, and what role they play in student achievement.

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School Administrators As Instructional Coaches: Teachers’ Trust And Perceptions Of Administrators’ Capacity, Yanira Oliveras Ortiz

Educational Leadership and Policy Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

Dr. Yanira Oliveras-Ortiz examines the role of school administrators as instructional coaches. In this quantitative study, which is part of larger study, she analyzed the perceptions of 198 teachers about their administrators’ capacity to be instructional coaches as well as the level of trust teachers have on their administrators to serve as evaluators and instructional coaches.

Partnering For Professional Development, Jennifer Davis-Duerr

The Language and Literacy Spectrum

Literacy specialists are often overlooked when determining the professional development needs within a school, and yet they are arguably the school’s best resource to empower teachers with professional growth to meet state mandates. How can literacy specialists be supported to increase their knowledge and skills so that all educators’ and students’ needs can be met? This article explains how small-scale school-university partnerships that connect literacy specialists and literacy teacher educators are an innovative way to provide high quality professional development that empowers literacy specialists and classroom teachers.

Measuring Our Impact: What Did Our Attendees Think Of Our Conference?, Louisa Kramer-Vida, Karen Meier

The Language and Literacy Spectrum

Peers evaluated conference presentations at an annual conference that is sponsored by two professional organizations of literacy educators in one geographic location in New York State. Conference sessions dealt with innovations and programs in schools that encouraged literacy learning. Comments from conference attendees indicated that the presenters seemed to be empowered by the ideas and strategies they were disseminating and the conference attendees themselves were inspired to try innovative uses of new technologies and other means of supporting language and literacy development in their own classrooms. All presentations were congruent with the then current New York State Common Core Learning …

Online Professional Learning For Science Teachers Of Multilingual Learners, Kara Viesca, Elizabeth Mahon, Christopher D. Carson, The Ecallms Team

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

In its 2009 position statement Science for English Language Learners, the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) recommended “that teacher preparation and professional development programs for teachers, regardless of area of certification, focus on science content and pedagogy for English language learners” (p. 2). Since that time, widespread adoption of both English language developments standards such as WIDA (https://www.wida.us) and comprehensive, rigorous science standards such as NGSS (http://www.nextgenscience.org) have provided extensive support in describing what bilingual students can and should be doing in science. While most science teachers have access to professional development to support the teaching …

Contours Of Neoliberalism In Us Empirical Educational Research, Mardi Schmeichel, Ajay Sharma, Elizabeth Pittard

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

Neoliberalism has an enormous influence on P–12 education in most industrial societies. In this integrative, theoretical literature review, we surveyed the journal articles on neoliberalism in US-based educational research to better understand how neoliberalism has been conceptualized in this body of work and to offer implications for future research on neoliberalism and education. We drew on Foucauldian discourse theories to conduct an analysis of peer-reviewed studies of American P–12 contexts to consider how researchers’ depictions of neoliberalism have shaped the discourse of neoliberalism in education and contributed to particular ways of thinking and responding to neoliberalism in the United States. …

Examining Preservice Elementary Teachers’ Technology Self-Efficacy: Impact Of Mobile Technology-Based Physics Curriculum, Deepika Menon, Meera Chandrasekhar, Dorina Kosztin, Douglas Steinhoff

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

While iPads and other mobile devices are gaining popularity in educational settings, challenges associated with teachers’ use of technology continue to hold true. Preparing preservice teachers within teacher preparation programs to gain experience learning and teaching science using mobile technologies is critical for them to develop positive beliefs and self-efficacy for future technology integration. The purpose of this study was to investigate changes in preservice elementary teachers’ technology self-efficacy during their participation in a specialized science content course that utilized a mobile technology-based physics curriculum, Exploring Physics. The Exploring Physics curriculum is available as a hybrid online-offline application running on …

Historical Analysis: Tracking, Problematizing, And Reterritorializing Achievement And The Achievement Gap, Justin Olmanson, Zoe Falls, Guieswende Rouamba

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

For more than a century, state and federal governments and organizations have used different measures to determine if students and groups of students have achieved in a particular subject or grade level. While the construct of achievement is applied irrespective of student differences, this equal application turns out to be anything but equitable. In this chapter, we work to understand the way achievement plays out for Black students by deconstructing how the word achievement works. In doing so, we track the history of education, testing, and curriculum as it has been applied to Black youth and youth of color.

Othering Others: Right-Wing Populism In Uk Media Discourse On “New” Immigration, Grace E. Fielder, Theresa Catalano

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

Right wing populism is on the rise. Through the use of othering, right-wing groups delimit their own identities while excluding others. The purpose of this chapter is to shed light on how European mediated public spheres (such as reader responses to media discourse) constitute an important domain of identity articulation and struggle through the discursive construction of the ‘Other’. In this case, the others come from the Central and Eastern European countries that are perceived as newcomers to Western Europe due to the consecutive enlargements of the European Union. Specifically, this chapter provides an in-depth analysis of 236 reader comments …

Students’ Out-Of-School Experiences, Job Priorities, And Perceptions Toward Themselves As A Scientist: A Cross-Cultural Study, Hunkar Korkmaz, Julie Anna Thomas, Nilgun Tatar, Serpil Altunay

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

The purpose of this study was to examine middle school students’ out-of-school experiences related to science, priorities related to their future job, and perception toward themselves as a scientist. One intact school was assigned randomly from each country. The study involved 479 students (363 Turkish students; 116 American students), aged between 11 and 13. It used the survey instrument “Relevance of Science Education” developed by an international team. Results show that for this sample there continue to be significant gender and cultural differences in science experiences and perceptions toward scientists and of careers. It is thought that the findings of …

Cultivating Social Capital In Undergraduate Research: Key Sources And Distinctions By Gender, Heather Ann Daniels

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Women are outpacing men in overall educational attainment, however this is not the case in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields when women fall behind men. Establishing strong social connections is important to retention in STEM fields and persistence in the STEM pipeline. This study qualitatively examines what serves as social capital in STEM-focused undergraduate research and how social capital is accrued and deployed differently by men and women in ways that could be contributing to the gender gap in STEM. 17 students participating in external summer research programs at 12 different universities were interviewed at 3 points in …

Investigating Mathematics Self-Efficacy Beliefs Of Elementary Pre-Service Teachers In A Reform-Based Mathematics Methods Course, Abdelghani Setra

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

For the last thirty years research has unfailingly shown that teacher efficacy has a positive impact on student outcomes, making teacher efficacy an critical element in quality mathematics instruction. The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of a math methods course on the mathematics teaching efficacy beliefs of elementary pre-service teachers. Seventy participants from four classes were students enrolled in ELED 4310 math methods course responded to the Mathematics Teaching Efficacy Beliefs Instrument (MTEBI) on

first and last week of class. Paired sample t-tests were used to analyze the quantitative data. mixed methods design was implemented to …

Teacher Challenges In Implementing Cognitively Demanding Tasks In The Mathematics And Science Classrooms, Angelica Monarrez Monarrez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This mixed methods study examines secondary school mathematics and science teachersâ?? understanding of cognitive demand and the challenges in implementing tasks at different levels of cognitive demand. The conceptual framework for this study is grounded on the conception of cognitive demand proposed by Stein, Smith, Henningsen, and Silver (2000), which includes the following levels: memorization (level 1), procedures without connections (level 2), procedures with connections (level 3), and doing mathematics and science (level 4). The study attempts to address the following research questions: 1) To what extent are secondary mathematics and science teachers able to recognize, solve and construct tasks …

Applying Universal Design For Learning To Study Abroad Programs: A Best Practices Model For Education Abroad Professionals, Juanita Lillie

Capstone Collection

In 2015­­­­–2016, 8.8 percent of students with disabilities studied abroad, a significant increase from the academic year of 2014–2015 where 5.3 percent of students with disabilities studied abroad. Despite the small percentage, several organizations are working to increase access within international education. The initiative Generation Study Abroad aims to double the number of students who study abroad by 2020. Students and professionals are creating resources, offering scholarships, and more to increase student participation in study abroad. As a person with a disability, and a professional who works closely with universities and students around access, I designed a program on behalf …

The District's Stepchild: The Total Erasure Of Low-Income Latinx Students' Needs At Continuation High Schools, Gabriela R. Ornelas

Pitzer Senior Theses

My study explores the underlying factors that allow systemic structural issues to exist within continuation high schools which result in the low educational performance of low-income Latinx continuation students. My study focuses on educators’ experiences, as I conducted 20 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with Southern California continuation high school teachers. I focused on the following areas of study: the teacher’s career, the teacher’s interactions with students, and the teacher’s opinions regarding their accessibility to funding and resources. My findings indicate that teachers, the outer community, and school-board administrators utilize cultural deficit thinking and stigmatization as tools of total erasure to exchange …

Using A Senior Seminar During Internship Ii As A Means To Increase Self-Efficacy, Perceptions Of Preparedness, And Internship Experiences For Elementary Education Teachers, Shane Trenta

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this quasi-experimental, mixed methods study was to examine how a Senior Seminar pilot conducted during elementary preservice teachers' Internship II semester could potentially increase their teacher self-efficacy and perceptions of preparedness to teach. The study was conducted at a large public university located in the southeast United States and included 29 participants. The collection of data included the 24 item Teacher Sense of Self-Efficacy Survey (Tschannen-Moran & Woolfolk Hoy, 2001) used to measure pre- and post- teacher self-efficacy for classroom instruction, classroom management, and student engagement. To measure pre- and post- perceptions of preparedness, the 8 item …

Developing And Validating The Elementary Literacy Self-Efficacy Survey, Adam Ulenski

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The goal of this study was to develop and validate an instrument to measure the task-specific self-efficacy beliefs of elementary literacy coaches. In order for this to happen, a synthesis of literature regarding literacy coaching tasks including the International Literacy Association's standards for literacy coaches were used to write several items on the survey. In addition, the Teachers' Sense of Efficacy Scale and the researcher's experiences as an elementary literacy coach were used to write other items on the survey. Experts in the field of literacy coaching and self-efficacy provided content validity. Construct validity was established through correlation statistics with …

A Formative Process Evaluation Study Of Teacher Usage Of A Learning Management System In A K-12 Public School, Victoria Franzese

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to explore teacher perceptions, concerns, and integration of a Learning Management System (LMS) in a K-12 public school. With more educational institutions adopting LMSs, it is imperative to examine teachers' concerns regarding the tool as teachers have an important role in how effectively an innovation—such as an LMS—is implemented (Lochner, Conrad, & Graham, 2015). Ultimately, adoption of an innovation can be successful if teachers have an understanding of the components leading to the innovation's success, such as the innovation's value in enhancing both the curriculum and the students' learning experiences (Lochner et al., 2015). …

The Seven Step Strategy, Connie Schaffer

Teacher Education Faculty Publications

Is this a familiar scenario? You give students a reading assignment. During class, you pose discussion questions related to the reading. Silence. You rephrase the questions. After an awkward pause, one student responds with a brief answer.

According to the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U 2010 AAC&U. 2010. Reading VALUE Rubric. https://www.aacu.org/value/rubrics/reading [Google Scholar] ), when students read they should:

• engage beyond the explicit message,
• consider important questions and scholarly contributions,
• identify relations among ideas,
• acknowledge multiple perspectives, and
• deepen disciplinary conversation.

Modeling Evolution In The Classroom: An Interactive Lego Simulation, Abby Hongsermeier, Nealy F. Grandgenett, Dawn M. Simon

Teacher Education Faculty Publications

Evolutionary theory is critical for a comprehensive understanding of biology, yet students often fail to grasp its underlying principles. This results partially from ineffective teaching; however, the use of interactive activities could alleviate this problem. In this guided investigation of evolutionary mechanisms, students use LEGO bricks to simulate how mutation, migration, genetic drift, and natural selection can affect the evolution of a population. This exercise was undertaken and assessed with college introductory biology students, but is also appropriate for advanced high school students.