Adult and Continuing Education and Teaching Commons^™

The Challenges That Nontraditional Early Childhood Educators Face When Completing Higher Education, Polixeni Pantelidou

Dissertations

ABSTRACT

The Challenges that Nontraditional Early Childhood Educators Face When Completing Higher Education by Polixeni Pantelidou

Purpose: The purpose of this qualitative research study was to explore the challenges that non-traditional Early Childhood Education (ECE) teachers face as they pursue higher education. The study aimed to identify key barriers, motivators, and strategies that influence their educational progression and completion. It aims to identify the motivators that drive these individuals to pursue further education, the challenges they encounter once enrolled, and the strategies they employ to overcome these barriers.

Methodology: This study employed a qualitative descriptive method, engaging a select group …

Radical Hospitality: Transforming Adjunct Care, Jennifer L. Kritsch, Rachelle Wong, Michael Corke, Ricardo Ramos, Deb Erickson

International Christian Community of Teacher Educators Journal

What would it look like to actively connect with others instead of fighting to affirm our differences? Could radical hospitality usher in a way to connect with others? What would a deep connection to adjuncts in an educational community look like? This research intended to document adjunct faculty responses to departmental efforts to better support adjunct faculty based on their expressed needs. Further, the researchers examined literature on the ethic of care, hospitality, invitational theory, and the role that leadership plays in making people feel welcome. The research team also illuminated how radical hospitality/transformative care can redefine the relationships found …

Principal Agency 50 Years After The Lau Decision: Building And Sustaining Bilingual Education Programs For Asian Languages, Kevin M. Wong, Zhongfeng Tian

Education Division Scholarship

This study examined how three champion principals of Asian language dual language bilingual education (DLBE) programs—Cantonese, Korean, and Mandarin—in California have navigated the oscillating language-in-education policies after the Lau decision. We explored principals' various roles through a lens of agency in a social justice leadership framework, specifically considering the opportunities and challenges for agentive leadership from three different phases: foregrounding and engaging, planning and implementing, and evaluating and sustaining. Findings demonstrate that the success of DLBE programs goes beyond the overarching language policies that supposedly enable bilingual education; rather it hinges on the bottom-up commitment, collaboration and resilience of principals, …

“I Know How Much He Cares For Our Learning”: Moral Life In University Elt Classrooms, Leila Tajik, Seyyed Abdolhamid Mirhosseini, Mahsa Kashkooli

The Qualitative Report

In Iran’s higher education English language teaching (ELT) context, we explored the moral nuances embedded in two conversation courses offered to undergraduate students majoring in English Literature at one of the branches of the Islamic Azad University (IAU) in Tehran. We collected data through classroom observations, field notes, and semi-structured individual and focus group interviews. Our content analysis revealed a range of moral values embedded in significant incidents, which we categorized into five themes: (a) relations, (b) rules and regulations, (c) assessment, (d) curricular substructure, and (I) culture. These themes were further subcategorized into more specific concepts that emerged from …

Academic Support Programs At Hbcu Law Schools, Marla L. Dickerson

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This qualitative descriptive case study delves into the effectiveness of academic support programs (ASPs) for students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) law schools, focusing on enhancing academic performance and passing the bar exam. The underrepresentation of minority lawyers in the United States, which is attributed partly to standardized test disparities, underscores the need for tailored support mechanisms. Drawing from social cognitive theory (SCT), the study investigates how ASPs impact academic success, informed by participant interviews and thematic analysis.

Key findings reveal four prominent themes. Firstly, effective features of ASPs for promoting academic performance include personalized guidance from academic …

The Perception Of The Implementation Of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy To Support Black Male Students In Mathematics – A Case Study, Chiquita Granville

Dissertations

Culturally Relevant Pedagogy is a method of education that promotes an inclusive and empowered learning environment by acknowledging and valuing students varied cultural origins. CRP is especially important for tackling the ongoing achievement discrepancies encountered by high school Black Male students in the context of mathematics instruction. This abstract emphasizes the value of culturally sensitive instruction in enhancing black male students' mathematics learning results and experiences.

This research will examine the difficulties faced by Black male students in Mathematics classes, including prejudice, a lack of cultural representation in the curriculum, and a lack of relevance between the subject matter and …

Cte Teacher Recruitment, Training, And Retention Toolkit: A Nationwide Search 2024, Lisa Martino, Sara Shaw

Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

This updated toolkit is a collaborative effort of ECMC Foundations research fellows from the University of Central Florida as well as U.S. academic experts with experience in postsecondary and secondary CTE teacher recruitment, training, and retention. The purpose is to create a digital toolkit of practical and proven strategies for the hiring and retention of quality postsecondary CTE teachers. This toolkit contains similar information from seven U.S. states and two U.S. territories regarding their CTE teacher policies and practices including lessons learned and best practices. By comparing similar information in a digital toolkit, CTE leaders and stakeholders have easily accessible …

Social Constructivist Mentoring Program To Support Teacher Professional Development: An Action Research Approach, Kurniawan Yudhi Nugroho, Choiril Anwar, Hartono Hartono

The Qualitative Report

Despite the presence of various TPD initiatives from governmental and non-governmental organizations, English teachers in the private universities in Indonesia continue to encounter challenges in accessing TPD programs, that fit their specific needs. This study explored the implementation of a social constructivist mentoring program to support the professional development of seven teachers teaching English academic writing. Using an action research approach, this mentoring emphasized collaborative inquiry, reflective practice, and continuous improvement. We opted for a qualitative approach to gain a deeper understanding and exploration of the learning process within the program. Data were collected from multiple resources such as interviews, …

Subjective Experiences From The College Remedial Student, Deborah A. Quinones

Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of the study was to write individual narrative stories about the subjective experiences of six students who entered college and had to take at least one remedial course their first semester. A subjective experience refers to the emotional and cognitive impact of the personal account of an experience (Subjective Experience, n.d.). The participants, including the researcher, were students who entered college for the first time without the minimum requirements for college enrollment; therefore, each was considered a remedial college student. The students were required to take remedial courses in math, writing, and /or reading before taking any credit …

A Performance-Based Exploration Of Vocal Anatomy And Pedagogy: Maximizing Technical, Stylistic, And Physiological Frameworks For Superlative Vocal Technique In Artistic Function, Michael J. Civitano

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This study investigates the influence of specific frameworks in performance and vocal pedagogy on artists' capacity to enact evidence-based learning outcomes, with emphasis on vocal physiology and educator-performer relationships. Employing an experimental design, five philosophies that support capacity-building were tested across two trial settings, varying in intensity. The participant utilized narrative reasoning, diversified methods, and mentorship from specialized educators to apply frameworks. Findings indicate that, in practicing evidence-based learning and maximizing anatomic foundations of the voice, substantial developments in artistic capacity ensued. Educator-performer relationships mediate this process through reciprocal collaborations that foster capacity-building. Performers display optimal artistic capacity by effectively …

Book Review: Robot-Proof: Higher Education In The Age Of Artificial Intelligence By Joseph Aoun, Jordan O'Connell

Essays in Education

This book review examines Robot-Proof: Higher Education in the Age of Artificial Intelligence by Joseph Aoun, which focuses on the imperative to evolve higher education in preparation for AI-driven job labor market shifts that are only now entering the public consciousness. Aoun advocates for a new "humanics" curriculum that emphasizes cognitive skills and literacies robots cannot replicate. Highlighting numerous historical reinventions of the our education systems over the centuries, Aoun makes a compelling case that our colleges and universities once again find themselves responsible for preparing Americans for the technological displacements and miracles still to come.

Teaching And Practicing Goal Setting In A Course Onboarding Module, Jedediah E. Blanton, Rachel E. Williams

Educational Practices in Kinesiology

Teaching about the empirical evidence and basic tenets of setting and pursuing goals is a common topic in undergraduate kinesiology courses, especially in sport and exercise psychology. Yet, many textbooks and materials include goal setting as an applied skill or behavior change process buried in the middle of the term. In this article, we will define types of goals and share a goal setting activity that may be scaled for a variety of courses and class sizes. The purpose of this article is to share a proposal for opening the course by first covering the topic of goal setting. The …

A Qualitative Descriptive Study Exploring The Perceptions Of New Teacher Induction Supports, Tonya P. Dixon

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The problem of novice teachers leaving the profession in the first few years of their career represented a global issue and an increased attrition rate. The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to explore the perceptions of novice U.S. teachers and effective systemic supports provided to new teachers through the lens of social capital. For this study, the intangible components of social capital emerged through the development and fostering of mentoring relationships in an induction program. The methodology used was a qualitative descriptive study using a survey, interviews, and thematic analysis of the survey and interview data collected. The …

Supporting Justice-Impacted Students: Recommendations For Elgin Community College, Ginger M. Reynolds, Emily Rusca, Dania Ibrahim

Reports, Analyses, and other Publications

No abstract provided.

Your Story, Your Life, Your Learning: Autobiography Reveals Basis For Supporting Personalized, Holistic Pedagogy, Michael Maser

Journal of Contemplative and Holistic Education

Each person ongoingly experiences the world uniquely through vital processes shaping their subjectivity, personhood and sense of self. Learning, an innate characteristic or modality of each human life, of living, likewise arises subjectively or idiosyncratically. In this paper, a phenomenological lens is applied to auto/biographical excerpts concerned with various learning experiences to help reveal essential, subjective characteristics of emergent learning. The insights help establish a basis for challenging the primacy of objectivist learning evaluations. The insights also confirm the importance of personalizing learning as a pedagogical gesture nurturing and enfranchising student learning in significant ways beyond conventional educational approaches …

Intentional Planning To Differentiate, David Wolff

Open Educational Resources - Teaching and Learning

The proficiency model expects all students to meet the same standards, regardless of their readiness nor ability. The essay discusses how Gentry’s (2014) 2 P’s, 2 C’s, and 2 F’s of Differentiation framework may help teachers plan lessons to meet the array of learning needs in their classroom.

Surviving Pandemic Practicum: Early Career Music Teachers' Perceived Self-Efficacy Following The Covid-19 Pandemic, Aubree Pacifico Windish

West Chester University Doctoral Projects

This qualitative study examines early career music teachers’ perceived self-efficacy following teacher practicum during a global pandemic. I conducted focus group conversations with undergraduate music education alum (N=16) from Southeastern State University (SSU) at the end of 2023. Participants described the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on their music teacher practicum and overall experiential learning at SSU. The focus group questions, and subsequent deductive coding of their answers, aligned with the four roles of Bandura’s (1977) Self-Efficacy Theory. Participants reported low perceived self-efficacy in their first year of in-service teaching, with variations based on the stages of the COVID-19 pandemic …

The Apprenticeship Of Observation In Gifted Education, David Wolff

Open Educational Resources - Teaching and Learning

The ‘Apprenticeship of Observation’ is described as one’s perception of ‘good teaching’ as informed by our own experiences as a student observing teaching for thirteen years in a K-12 school system. Perception of gifted education is susceptible of the ‘apprenticeship of observation’ and often influencing teachers’ actions and beliefs about the needs of gifted learners.

Supporting New Colleagues In Gifted Education: Finding Your Starting Point, David Wolff

Open Educational Resources - Teaching and Learning

Newly hired teachers and administrators often lack experience with gifted learners. The goal of this essay is to share four books to act as primers to introduce new teachers and administrators to gifted education and understanding gifted learners.

Higher Order Thinking ‘On The Go’, David Wolff

Open Educational Resources - Teaching and Learning

Educators of gifted learners often teach in non-traditional spaces and need to be adaptable. This essay shared five cognitive models that support higher order thinking which can be implemented anywhere and with few materials.

Catching Up To Yesterday: An Argument For A Practical Application Of Creativity For Inspiring Change From A Content-Based Course Delivery To A 21st-Century Skills-Based Delivery, Darren Chapman

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

This project is a creative vision for how college-level courses could be changed to deliver the most important skills students need in the 21st century—moving toward an essential employability skills-based delivery process while training vocational (content) skills. Technology is outpacing humans' ability to adapt and adopt to it, making it increasingly difficult to keep pace with technological change. This has wide-ranging effects on each of us – productively, emotionally, and perhaps physically. Colleges are at the forefront of educating citizens about the working world to improve their productivity, incomes and their sense of intrinsic motivation. However, these same colleges are …

Mapping The Historical Discourse Of A Right-To-Read Claim: A Situational Analysis, Mursalata Muhammad

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This dissertation project used an interpretivist qualitative research design to study how the right-to-read claim made by seven teenagers attending Detroit public schools in 2016 reflects, addresses, or describes contemporary discussions about educational access. Using situational analysis (SA) as a theory/method, the entirety of the claim comprises the situation of the social phenomenon being studied, not the people. This research combines critical race theory (CRT) with Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems and uses situation analysis to map historical discourses to conduct a study that examines the history of a present situation of inquiry as presented by this question: How does the 2016 …

Steps On Establishing A Faculty Development Curriculum For Health Science Educators In A New Medical School, Beatriz Tapia, Karina Madrigal, Robert Nelson

Research Colloquium

Purpose: New Medical Schools need health science educators, to teach throughout the medical education continuum from basic science to clinical years. The need to establish a defined faculty development curriculum for health science educators will aid in standardizing best teaching practices and build a potential master teacher to move the curriculum toward active learning and innovation. The UTRGV SoM is a distributed campus, to achieve increase outreach we will offer synchronous and asynchronous online faculty development during the pandemic. This poster will share our progress to date.

Methods: A pilot, faculty development program, was established from faculty needs assessment data, …

الرضا الحركي وعلاقته بمستوى التعلم المهاري (الأداء) لسباحة الزحف على البطن لدى طالبات كلية التربية الرياضية في جامعة اليرموك, Ghaid Mandoub Obedat

Journal of the Association of Arab Universities for Research in Higher Education مجلة اتحاد الجامعات العربية للبحوث في التعليم العالي

هدفت الدراسة التعرف إلى علاقة مستوى الرضا الحركي بمستوى التعلم المهاري (الأداء) لسباحة الزحف على البطن لدى طالبات كلية التربية الرياضية في جامعة اليرموك على عينة تكونت من (49) طالبة من الطالبات المسجلات في مساقات السباحة في كلية التربية الرياضية في جامعة اليرموك. واستخدمت الباحثة المنهج الوصفي، ومقياس الرضا الحركي والاختبارات المهارية لقياس مستوى الأداء في السباحة. توصلت الدراسة إلى أن أفراد عينة الدراسة يتمتعن بمستوى متوسط من الرضا الحركي، وأن هناك علاقة وثيقة ما بين مستوى الرضا الحركي ومستوى الأداء لسباحة الزحف على البطن. وتوصي الباحثة على ضرورة التأكيد على مفهوم الرضا الحركي وتعزيزه لدى المتعلمين للمهارات الرياضية من …

Case Study: The Impact Of Emerging Technologies On Cybersecurity Education And Workforces, Austin Cusak

Journal of Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

A qualitative case study focused on understanding what steps are needed to prepare the cybersecurity workforces of 2026-2028 to work with and against emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. Conducted through a workshop held in two parts at a cybersecurity education conference, findings came both from a semi-structured interview with a panel of experts as well as small workgroups of professionals answering seven scenario-based questions. Data was thematically analyzed, with major findings emerging about the need to refocus cybersecurity STEM at the middle school level with problem-based learning, the disconnects between workforce operations and cybersecurity operators, the …

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 …

How Doctoral Students In A Formal Leadership Program Conceptualize Followership: A Mixed-Methods Study, Katy J. Johnson

Dissertations, Theses, and Projects

The purpose of this exploratory mixed-methods study was to determine how doctoral students in a formal leadership program conceptualize followership. The methods used to conduct this analysis included distributing a Qualtrics (released in August 2022) survey and conducting one-on-one interviews with a sample of degree-seeking doctoral students within a formal leadership program. The researcher collected quantitative and qualitative data addressing students’ followership style, leadership attitudes and beliefs, and perceptions of followership. These data were analyzed concurrently using a triangulation design. A total of 67 students completed the survey, and seven students were interviewed. The findings revealed that the participants employ …

Percepción De Docentes En Integración De Herramientas Tecnológicas Utilizando El Modelo Picrat En Una Institución De Nivel Superior, Marangely Perez Montalvo

Theses and Dissertations

Este estudio tuvo como propósito analizar la percepción de los profesores sobre el modelo de integración tecnológica PICRAT y cómo este evalúa los niveles de reemplazo, amplificación y transformación que se le realizan a las herramientas tecnológicas para lograr una interacción pasiva, interactiva y creativa con el estudiante durante el proceso de enseñanza y aprendizaje. Se utilizó un enfoque cuantitativo con un diseño transeccional no experimental con un alcance descriptivo y correlacional. La muestra estuvo compuesta por 23 profesores universitarios que imparten al menos un curso de manera remota en el nivel académico de maestría con especialidades en Ciencias de …

A Leadership Laboratory: Exploring The Use Of Case-In-Point Pedagogy To Develop Complex Thinking In Leaders, Erica Corley Jackson

Dissertations

Leadership scholars have identified a growing gap between the complexity of 21^st century organizations and the capabilities of individuals in positions of leadership to adequately address these challenges. This gap has contributed to a so-called complexity crisis—a situation in which the demands placed on those in leadership positions increases “at a rate that significantly outstrips the rate at which” leaders are cognitively developing (Rich-Tolsma & Oliver, 2016, p. 1). One way to respond to this growing need for complex adult thinking is through metacognitive development initiatives. However, finding educational methods to promote metacognitive development has proven to be …

Improving My Course In Brightspace D2l, Jason Howell, Jana Swartwood

Academy Resources

Prof. Jason Howell, Director of the Institute of Design, Experience and Art, and professor of graphic design, shares best practices for using Brightspace by D2L. He begins with his approach to continuous improvement at the course level, how faculty and students may make use of various features, how faculty can manage their course shells, and ends with a wish-list for system improvement. Prof. Howell takes questions from the audience to round out his presentation.

Jana Swartwood, Executive Director for Online & Lifelong Learning continues the presentation by offering ways that faculty may improve their use of Brightspace: (1) Copying components, …