Teacher Education and Professional Development Commons^™

From The Editors..., Todd Pagano

Journal of Science Education for Students with Disabilities

No abstract provided.

Preservice Elementary Teachers Conceptions And Self-Efficacy For Integrated Stem, Deepika Menon, Deef A. A. Shorman, Derek Cox, Amanda Thomas

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

Educational reform efforts have emphasized preparing highly competent and confident preservice teachers to deliver effective K-12 Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) instruction. Self-efficacy is a key variable that influences motivation and performance, and therefore it is necessary to support the development of preservice teachers’ integrated STEM teaching self-efficacy. This mixed-methods study investigates how preservice elementary teachers’ integrated STEM teaching self-efficacy is shaped during their participation in a newly redesigned STEM semester consisting of three concurrent methods courses (science and engineering, mathematics, and technology methods courses). The quantitative data sources included the Self-efficacy for Teaching Integrated STEM instrument administered as …

Special Education: Inclusion And Exclusion In The K-12 U.S. Educational System, Erik Brault

Dissertations

The U.S. Department of Education defines students with disabilities as those having a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more life activities. Previous research has found that students with disabilities placed in inclusive environments perform better academically and socially compared to students with disabilities who are placed in segregated environments. Yet, we know that inclusion in K-12 general education classrooms across the country is not consistently implemented.

The purpose of this study was to better understand the effects, if any, of general education high school teachers’ personal and professional experiences and knowledge on their attitudes toward educating …

Audacious Corazón: A Nuanced Art Of Care, Dianne Bermudez Torres

Dissertations

Historically, the concept of care in higher education has focused on academic achievements, neglecting the significance of building meaningful relationships between faculty and students that engage both affective and cognitive dimensions (Noddings, 1994). Teaching with the heart, or corazón, embodies care in teaching. Employed in this study was a mixed-methods, exploratory case study approach that explored the intricate art of care and how faculty foster bilingual authorization credential teacher candidates to evolve into culturally responsive educators. Pearson et al.’s (2021) cariño pedagogy serves as a model that empowers faculty’s humanizing agency. Additionally, the study also reflected on the concept of …

Equalizing Postsecondary Transition For At-Promise Youth Receiving Special Education Services: A Chance To Succeed, Karla R. Sanchez

Dissertations

Postsecondary transition can be difficult for At-Promise Youth Receiving Special Education Services (APYRSES). Special educators supporting postsecondary transition often manifest traditional and institutionalized forms of oppressive education while dismissing collective values and beliefs.

This qualitative case study examined the beliefs and attitudes shared by three special education teachers after being introduced to a justice-focused, humanizing intervention to facilitate postsecondary transition for APYRSES. The conceptualized intervention was grounded in liberatory educational frameworks and drew from critical, culturally affirming, sustaining, and humanizing theories that foster cultural reciprocity, self-determination skills, and antiracist social–emotional justice learning to afford opportunities for APYRSES to succeed. The …

Becoming Restorative: Discomfort, Praxis, And Ecstasy At The Intersections Of Restorative Practices And Teacher Identity Development, Gwynn Alexander

Dissertations

Restorative justice is inclusive of a philosophy and set of practices that have challenged long-standing paradigms that perpetuate harm in schools. Through this lens, schools are recognized as interconnected communities where the well-being and dignity of all members must be valued. While the restorative movement has demonstrated great promise in cultivating the aims of justice, educators have encountered significant hurdles in their efforts toward transformation. A substantial challenge educators face is to identify effective means through which to disrupt persistent pedagogies of violence in primary and secondary education. This dissertation proposed a pedagogy of transcendence, a framework inclusive of restorative …

Racism Without Race: The Racialization Of Middle Eastern And North African Students At U.S. Colleges, Hannah Mesouani

Dissertations

Although a growing body of literature covers the experiences of international students at U.S. colleges, the stories of those who do not fit into the U.S. racial schema remain untold. This study examined how Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) students understood their racial identities given the United States’ tense history with Islam and the MENA world. Using foundational texts on critical race theory, current scholarship on Arab Americans and foreign-born students, and facets of the Ethnic Identity Scale (EIS), this study examined the experiences of MENA students who study amid a national backdrop of xenophobia and racialized Islamophobia. This …

Resistencia Indocumentada: Exploring The Lived Experiences Of Higher Education Undocumented Students In The San Diego-Tijuana Border Region, Adan Escobedo Sanchez

Dissertations

Undocumented students face myriad obstacles while attending higher education institutions that would deter them from completing their academic journeys. Furthermore, they are placed with a dual narrative that labels them as either dangerous or exceptional. This study explored the lived experiences of undocumented students in college in the San Diego-Tijuana border region to consider what factors have led to resilience and resistance in their academic journey. By understanding these factors, the research aimed to tackle the dual narrative that burdens undocumented students from the illegality as a master status they possess.

This study used narrative inquiry and a literature review …

First-Year Engagement And Intention To Return In Higher Education: A National Study Of Undecided Major Students, Jacqueline Galler

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

Research suggests that a student’s persistence in higher education is influenced by their academic preparation, commitments, and involvement, (Tinto 2005). Predictors including student demographics, academic preparation and commitments have shown in previously studies to affect the rate at which students persist in higher education, (Pascarella & Terenzini 2005, Astin & Oseguera 2005, Terenzini & Reason 2005). Involvement at an institution contributes to a students’ engagement and intent to persist in higher education or at a specific institution. Researchers have found that students engage in the university, academically and socially, based on how their values align with the institution, feedback they …

My 11th Teacher Alphabet, Jo Earp

Teacher infographics

What do you need information on? Behaviour strategies? Embedding First Nations perspectives? Student engagement? Reflective practice? The 11th Teacher alphabet brings you quick links to popular content that you might find useful. Download the PDF for a hyperlinked version.

Sjsu Erfa Annual Meeting Minutes, May 19, 2023, San Jose State University, Emeritus And Retired Faculty Association

SJSU ERFA Minutes

SJSU ERFA Annual Meeting Minutes

May 1, 2023

Translanguaging In World Language Higher Education, Alessia Barbici Wagner

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Theses and Other Student Research

Increased global migration and a myriad of other social and political factors has made today’s universities more diverse than ever. As a result, teachers in higher education regularly find multilingual learners from a variety of different linguistic and cultural backgrounds in their classrooms and must consider this diversity in their teaching. One of the ways that teaching can better serve today’s multilingual and multicultural student population is through translanguaging. The objective of this dissertation is to investigate the intentional and unintentional use of translanguaging by multilingual language learners and world language instructors in higher education. Additionally, this qualitative case study …

Preparing To Engage Migrant-Origin Students Through Culturally Responsive Teaching: A Handbook For Teachers, Grayson E. Briggs

Master's Theses

Students of migrant-origin currently represent approximately 25% of the total student population in the United States. As immigration to the U.S. continues, the proportion of migrant-origin students in public schools is only expected to grow. Despite the growing representation of migrant-origin youth amongst the K-12 student population, current schooling approaches have not expanded to address the diversifying needs of the student population. Because public school systems are struggling to adapt to the needs of migrant-origin students, these students’ educational attainment is suffering. The presence of implicit bias, microaggressions, and stereotypes in all aspects of schooling is a significant factor that …

When Culturally Responsive Practices Meet Social-Emotional Learning: A Guide For Educators, Sharon Ju-Ting Cheng

Master's Projects and Capstones

Many educators hope to give their students quality and well-rounded education while balancing all the contents they need to learn. Social-emotional learning (SEL) and culturally responsive teaching, however, are two areas that teachers seem to struggle with (Stark et al., 2021). Teachers have encountered situations where it was difficult for them to support their students due to the cultural differences between the teacher and student (Heineke & Vera, 2021). This lack of professional development in the culturally responsive aspect is concerning.

The shortfall of training leads to failure to apply these practices into schools. For newcomer students, who are usually …

Techniques For Reducing Public Speaking Anxiety In Adult English Learners, Andy Mardesich

Master's Projects and Capstones

Making presentations to a group is a complex skill that takes time to develop, and it can be intimidating and anxiety inducing. Using mindset theory and feedback from interviews with community college teachers, this teacher's guide, Techniques for Reducing Public Speaking Anxiety in Adult English Learners, discusses approaches for reducing anxiety in an adult ESOL/EFL speaking classroom. It discusses the importance of providing a safe and comfortable environment to practice and manage anxiety, building good support structures, providing clear rubrics and student roles, and offering plenty of opportunities for interaction through purposeful communication. This guide holds significance for students, teachers, …

Desde El Suelo: Resources For Anti Colonial And Abolitionist Educators In Puerto Rico, Jazdil Poupart-Feliciano

Master's Projects and Capstones

“Desde el Suelo” is a set of resources, activities and reflections created for educators looking to name, understand and heal from the systemic harms experienced in our schooling in order to interrupt these cycles and better support children, youth and ourselves in our liberation. For Puerto Rican educators, this process begins with the understanding that any system created with the goal of expanding the u.s. empire through racist occupation and epistemicide can never be reformed into promoting freedom or social justice. Pulling from abolitionist teaching and critical pedagogy, inspired by historical struggles for Black liberation across the diaspora and in …

Understanding And Identifying Specific Learning Difficulties: Dyslexia, Autism Spectrum, And Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity In The Adult Esl/Efl Classroom, Kristen Kearns

Master's Projects and Capstones

Specific learning difficulties (SLDs), including dyslexia, autism spectrum disorders, and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorders, are significant factors that influence the way and rate at which students learn English as an additional language. However, few Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) training programs address the cognitive and behavioral strengths and challenges these conditions carry for adult learners, in part due to concerns about bias in the over- and under- identification of learning disabilities among K-12 English language learners. Informed by Critical Disability Theory, and framed within a realistic discussion of the obstacles that remain in identifying and researching the parallel …

English Pronunciation Skills And Intelligibility Of Native Russian Speakers, Zoia Palgova

Master's Projects and Capstones

The rapid growth of the native Russian-speaking population in the United States created an urgent need to improve their pronunciation skills and increase their second language speech intelligibility. The purpose of this field project was to present a research-based curriculum, with the use of embedded technology, that can be utilized to improve the American English pronunciation skills and intelligibility of native Russian speakers.

The body of analyzed scholarship demonstrated that speech intelligibility is the primary goal of second language pronunciation teaching, justified the importance of research-based pronunciation teaching, emphasized the significant role of technology in pronunciation research and teaching, and …

Calmness As A Quality Of Teacher Presence And The Impact On Learning, Kiana Pelton

Education | Master's Theses

This study seeks to identify the conditions for calmness within an educator's life and its impact on educators and students. Research shows that mindfulness practices can be implemented in the classroom and help students focus (Riner & Tanase, 2014). According to Kane (2018), implementing different practices and strategies of mindfulness can help regulate the internal and external stresses that happen daily. Currently, there is a lack of existing research on what educators do to calm themselves outside of the school day and how those practices impact their relationship with the students, helping students feel calm during school. Specifically, this study …

Democratic Disagreements. A Book Review Of Lived Democracy In Education. Young Citizens’ Democratic Lives In Kindergarten, School And Higher Education, Sonja Helkala, Julia Jaakkola, Tuukka Tomperi

Democracy & Education

As the title Lived Democracy in Education suggests, the predominantly Norwegian writers of the book share a deep and robust vision of democracy. Drawing on deliberative democratic theory and many other theoretical perspectives, the authors blend theory, practice, and empirical case studies to illuminate these modes of “lived democracy” in educational contexts. In particular, the book’s chapters examine different communicative interactions between children and young people, presenting these as examples of learning to live with controversies in communities of disagreement. The book contains valuable perspectives on democratic discussion in education. As several authors are experts in mathematics and science education, …

Moving Toward Critical Political Education With Elementary Preservice Teachers. A Response To “The Impact Of Polarization On The Political Engagement Of Generation Z Elementary Preservice Teachers And Their Teaching", Sara B. Demoiny

Democracy & Education

In “The Impact of Polarization on the Political Engagement of Generation Z Elementary Preservice Teachers and Their Teaching,” Keegan and Vaughan engaged with questions of preparing Gen Z, elementary preservice teachers (PSTs) in political education. Their much-needed study confirmed the continued call for social studies teacher educators to cultivate critical, civically active elementary PSTs who will intentionally attend to political education in the classroom. In this response, I situate Keegan and Vaughan's findings in white discomfort (Zembylas, 2018) as a way to consider a path forward in elementary teacher preparation, moving from a centering of white PSTs’ individual responses to …

Book Review: Missio Dei In A Digital Age, Christina Belcher

International Christian Community of Teacher Educators Journal

No abstract provided.

Instilling Biblical Dispositions In Faith-Based Teacher Education Programs, Jeff Wiesman

International Christian Community of Teacher Educators Journal

Education faculty understand the importance of emphasizing and assessing teacher candidates’ professional dispositions. While all educator preparation providers examine dispositions, should faculty in our community of Christian colleges and universities include a stronger emphasis on Biblically-based dispositions? This essay explores the beliefs, attitudes, behaviors, and values Christian educators should embrace, including dispositions teachers should display in a public or private-school setting. Christians are called to conform to the image of Christ (Romans 8:28) and, therefore, they should exemplify the Golden Rule (Matthew 7:22) and the Greatest Commandment (Matthew 22). In addition, the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5), a service …

Understanding Motivational Differences Through The Lens Of Gamification User Types, Heather J. S. Birch

International Christian Community of Teacher Educators Journal

In the context of an educational technology course, teacher candidates completed Marczewski’s User Types Hexad Test, a questionnaire based on a typology for classifying both intrinsic and extrinsic motivational tendencies. The test results showed teacher candidates' motivational tendencies, through indicating their resonance with six different User Types, including Socializers, Free Spirits, Achievers, Philanthropists, Players, and Disruptors. Knowing their User Type allowed teacher candidates to reflect on their own personal motivations to use various types of digital tools, as well as to consider how their peers and their students with different user profiles may be motivated differently than themselves. The …

Restoration: Emerging With Courage, Michelle C. Hughes Dr.

International Christian Community of Teacher Educators Journal

This essay, first presented at the conference (name has been changed) as a talk at anonymous university, examines one pre-service faculty’s scholarly journey. Written during the Covid-19 pandemic, the author highlights research about professional teaching dispositions specifically exploring the disposition of courage. The essay reveals how the author’s research and scholarship became life-giving during a challenging season. The author encourages colleagues to cultivate space to reflect, summon courage and consider where they can seek and find restoration in their work and scholarship. The author concludes that seeking restoration is a life-giving practice that reminds educators of our faith and calling––and …

The Impact Of Polarization On The Political Engagement Of Generation Z Elementary Preservice Teachers And Their Teaching, Patrick Keegan, Kelly P. Vaughan

Democracy & Education

This instrumental case study of Generation Z preservice teachers enrolled in elementary teaching methods courses in social studies and literacy explores the impact of polarization on their political engagement and teaching. Using the 2020 presidential election as a teachable moment, participants developed and taught literacy-infused civics units in order to bring to light their understandings of their role in preparing elementary students as political actors. This study has important implications for how teacher educators can better facilitate elementary preservice teachers’ own political engagement, thereby ensuring equitable democratic learning opportunities for students.

Experiences And Support Needs Of Typically Developing Siblings Of Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders, Keely Hamilton

Education | Master's Theses

Children living with an autistic sibling face unique challenges and are in need of support (Angell et al., 2012; Marquis et al., 2019; Molinaro et al., 2020). The purpose of this qualitative study was to understand what the experience of having a sibling with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) is like for a typically developing child during middle childhood or preadolescence, the impacts this experience has, and what types of support they feel they need. Five participants were interviewed for this study; all were in middle childhood or preadolescence, live in Marin County, California, and are in a family with a …

Community And Safe Spaces For English Language Learners In Bilingual/Dual Immersion Settings, Miriam Pazos

Education | Master's Theses

This qualitative study explores teachers' understanding of English Language Learners and newcomer students' need for a sense of belonging and safe spaces in a bilingual/dual immersion classroom. The goal was to identify some best practices for teachers to create an inclusive classroom for multilingual students. This research uses the lens of two frameworks, Acompañamiento (Sepúlveda III, 2011) and Culturally Responsive Pedagogy. According to Sepúlveda III (2018), Acompañamiento is a response to globalization where there is a need to understand a student's humanity and the need to be part of a community. Acompañamiento is about engagement with one another without goals …

Teachers In Elementary Schools…Do They Have What They Need?, Claire Smith

Education | Master's Theses

The purpose of this study was to understand a group of teachers’ perspectives and experiences about inequitable access to instructional materials for students in K-5 classrooms and the effect this lack of access has had on the teaching and learning process (Albornoz, Berlinski, & Cabrales, 2018). The problem identified for this project was that instructional materials (including textbooks, curriculum documents, and technology) are not equally available at all K-5 schools. Hahnel (2020) discussed how even though California is one of the wealthiest states in the nation, funding awarded to schools in California was not enough to meet educational goals or …

Creating Commons: Photovoice Philosophy In A Third Space, Jason M. Cox, Lynne Hamer

Journal of Social Theory in Art Education

Teach Toledo is a program that the authors co-coordinate using community assets to create a third space to confront systemic racism’s impact on teacher education programs and facilitate hybridity (Bhaba, 1994). Diverse student cohort members use their lived experience as the base for their individual and shared urban educational philosophies, coordinated in a first-year horizontally and vertically integrated curriculum including written compositions and a PhotoVoice project. “Creating commons” refers not only to provision of a third space as a common space where private experiences can be combined to create a hybrid, new understanding, but also to the creative act of …