Tacelosky, Kathleen (2017). Transnational Students in Mexico: A Summer Writing Workshop as a Way to Improve English Writing Skills. International Education Journal: Comparative Perspectives, v16 n4 p89-101. Transnational students, that is, those who have had one or more years of schooling in the US and are now in school in Mexico, make up a sizeable and growing population. For these students, the language of the home, Spanish, abruptly becomes the language of school and what was the language of school and socialization outside the home, English, is all but removed from their sphere. However, English is a language with which they identify. Further, in my interviews with them, transnational students express a desire to maintain English and express concern over lack of opportunities to do so. Thus, a writing workshop was offered for three weeks in the summer of 2015. The four member instructional team made up of US university students and a professor engaged the workshop participants in warm-up activities, mini-lessons, sustained writing periods and sharing of work. Some gains were found in the areas of mechanics, content and spelling, but the study's greater contribution is as a case… [PDF]

Jackson, Dia; Pierce, Jennifer (2017). Ten Steps to Make RTI Work in Your Schools. The 10. Education Policy Center at American Institutes for Research P.S. 52 Sheepshead Bay School in Brooklyn, New York, serves more than 850 students from pre-kindergarten to fifth grade from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds. After scores on the 2014 New York State English language arts assessment were unsatisfactory, first-year principal Rafael Alvarez searched for a way to improve academic outcomes for his students. The school leadership team partnered with American Institutes for Research (AIR) to design and implement its Response to Intervention (RTI) framework, a research-based framework that uses data-based decision making and three levels of instruction to address a wide range of student needs. Over a period of three years of implementing the framework, both AIR and the school took away several important building blocks useful to any school or district implementing RTI. This piece summarizes that information by sharing the narrative of P.S. 52's work alongside useful resources and evidence about the implementation of RTI. Ten RTI building… [PDF]

Coons, Andy; Noble, Kenneth; Pelika, Stacey (2017). Online Credit Recovery Programs. NEA Research Brief. NBI No. 2. National Education Association In recent decades, in line with improvements in technology, schools have increasingly opted for Online Credit Recovery Programs (OCRPs) over traditional face-to-face courses. Despite sharing a common goal with traditional face-to-face programs–providing a pathway for students to get back on track, to avoid failing additional courses and falling further behind, and to graduate ready for college and/or a career–questions have emerged regarding instructional methods and the efficacy of OCRPs. To date, research on OCRPs is limited because "few states formally track or report student participation in online learning." The few studies that do exist mostly compare the effectiveness–in terms of success rates–of online versus face-to-face programs. Few data are available about the percentage of face-to-face instruction used in blended programs. Similarly, few studies address the certification status of staff members working with students in blended programs. This Research Brief… [PDF]

Amaral, Jo√£o Alberto Arantes do; Hess, Aur√©lio (2017). What Drives the Viewership of an Online Video-Lecture Course? A Case Study. Anatolian Journal of Education, v2 n1 p21-33 Apr. In this article, we discuss the dynamics that led to viewing of 18 five-minute videos, created as part of a business dynamics course and made freely available on Internet. Over a period of five years, the videos were watched 2,740 times in 80 countries. The goal of our research was to understand what dynamics drove the viewership. We collected quantitative data from eighteen Google Analytics reports and from professor's courses log, and made a systems analysis of it. We reached the following conclusions: 1) The professor's actions to promote the course enabled direct access on the part of the students; it also led to wider viewership as a result of being picked up by search engines that made the videos available to a wider audience; 2) Once the videos were posted on YouTube, YouTube and search engine algorithms stimulated increased viewership; 3) Internet users' actions such as sharing the videos on social networks and embedding the videos on personal websites also stimulated the the… [PDF]

(2018). Design for Impact: Designing a Residency Program for Long-Term Financial Sustainability. Public Impact For more than a decade teacher residencies have prepared classroom-ready teachers for hard-to-staff subjects and high-need schools. Across the country, mounting evidence shows that residencies produce effective teachers who stay in the profession longer and produce greater student achievement than traditionally-trained teachers. No residency, however, can be truly successful if it is not financially sustainable. The financial challenges confronting new and existing residencies are complex, but they can be overcome with smart, intentional planning and strategic thinking. That's why the National Center for Teacher Residencies (NCTR) teamed up with Public Impact to develop "Design for Impact", a suite of resources to help existing residencies become more sustainable, and to ensure that new programs start off on solid financial footing. "Design for Impact" guides programs as they collect and analyze financial data, and its interactive budgeting tool helps program… [PDF]

Scheffel, Tara-Lynn (2016). Individual Paths to Literacy Engagement: Three Narratives Revisited. Brock Education: A Journal of Educational Research and Practice, v25 n2 p53-70. What does it mean to be engaged, especially when it comes to literacy learning? It is this question that drove my doctoral research in 2007 when I became a participant observer in a grade two classroom with the goal of making the everyday visible while sharing a greater understanding of classroom life in relation to engagement. Six years later, I returned to the original school where the grade two students were in grade eight to revisit and expand student understandings of successful engagement in learning. In this paper, I revisit the narratives of Spike, Jasper and Avery (Scheffel, 2012) to consider themes of change and continuity, including ways in which initial success and struggle appeared to influence their journey over time. I also propose a revised Framework for Engagement that draws upon grade eight students' insights…. [PDF]

Clarke, Anne-Marie (2017). A Place for Digital Storytelling in Teacher Pedagogy. Universal Journal of Educational Research, v5 n11 p2045-2055. Traditional school subjects are challenged by the acceleration of access to knowledge in the new age of media available to both teachers and students. Teachers who are socialized into existing traditional practices are now encouraged to introduce technology into their pedagogy. This Paper explores a particular way in which teachers can creatively introduce a new and useful technology known as Instructional Digital Storytelling (IDS), guided by the Technological, Pedagogical and Content framework (TPACK) developed by Mishra and Koehler. It illustrates how, through narrative inquiry, teacher experience of both the creation and use of Digital Storytelling for instructional purpose in a Secondary School setting, highlighted challenges, rewards, accelerated learning and developed a community of practice across subject disciplines. The focus is on the reconstruction of the experience of creating a Digital Story on four levels: a) Internal structures of blending voice over, imagery and… [PDF]

Hill, Jennifer; Kneale, Pauline E.; Walkington, Helen (2017). Reciprocal Elucidation: A Student-Led Pedagogy in Multidisciplinary Undergraduate Research Conferences. Higher Education Research and Development, v36 n2 p416-429. There is no previous study of the benefits of attending a national multidisciplinary conference dedicated to undergraduate researchers, despite the growing number of such conferences internationally. This paper addresses the gap in knowledge of the learning gains from these conferences, and reveals a student driven learning process, a multidisciplinary signature pedagogy. It presents the results of 90 in-depth interviews with student conference participants conducted over three consecutive years of a multidisciplinary National Conference of Undergraduate Research (2012-2014). This paper uniquely captures the student voice on their perceived learning gains from this experience. The results reveal that some students co-create a pedagogy of Foucauldian reciprocal elucidation, through a sense of "unfinishedness", allowing them to reflect on their own learning in the light of divergent perspectives, questions and frames of reference. Bidirectional exchange of ideas and insights… [Direct]

(2017). What Works for Latino Students in Higher Education: 2017 Compendium–Examples of iExcelencia!. Excelencia in Education Through "Examples of Excelencia," "Excelencia" in Education recognizes programs that accelerate Latino student success in four categories: the Associate, Baccalaureate, Graduate levels as well as Community-Based Organizations (CBOs). Over the 12 years of Examples, "Excelencia" has recognized many evidence-based programs increasing Latino student success. In 2017 we received over 160 nominations from 25 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico and recognized 19 finalists. An external selection committee then selected four programs, one program per category, as the 2017 Examples of "Excelencia." All finalists are included in our annual compendium "What Works for Latino Student Success in Higher Education." The compendium contains short program summaries of the four Examples of "Excelencia" and the 15 finalist programs making a positive impact on the educational achievement of Latino students through evidence-based practices…. [PDF]

Bahlmann Bollinger, Chelsey; Noguer√≥n-Liu, Silvia; Shimek, Courtney Hokulaniokekai (2020). "'Dime De Que Se Trat√≥'/Tell Me What It Was About": Exploring Emergent Bilinguals' Linguistic Resources in Reading Assessments with Parent Participation. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, v20 n2 p411-433 Jun. The purpose of this study was to explore the ways emergent bilingual first-graders draw on multiple linguistic resources during reading assessments and the participation of their Spanish-dominant parents in those assessments, as children engaged in English and Spanish retelling tasks. Informed by a translanguaging lens, sociopsycholinguistic and holistic approaches to reading and critical approaches to family literacy, the analysis centres on assessment sessions with two mother-child dyads whose children attended school in a relatively new migration setting. Primary data were drawn from four reading assessment sessions and audio-recordings over a 7-month period with each child, individual interviews and home visits with mothers, and field notes from research team members. The analysis examined linguistic patterns related to second-language approximations and code-switching in miscues and oral retellings. The analysis also includes coding of strategies and resources children used in… [Direct]

Zemmahi, Hicham (2020). Using a Participatory Evaluation Framework for Building Evaluation Capacity in Youth Houses in Morocco. ProQuest LLC, Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Youth houses in Morocco are public institutions that focus on the integration of Moroccan youth in the social and economic fabric of society. The Moroccan Ministry of Youth and Sports made evaluation a pivotal component of its 2030 vision. Yet, it does not involve any mandates for internal evaluations. Given the fierce competition for grants and efforts for more financial accountability, funders now require organizations to be able to conduct internal evaluations. This makes building evaluation capacity for Dar Chababs an important step towards better practice, more funding and effective participation in the national evaluation mandate. Building evaluation capacity in organizations through workshops, guides, trainings, participatory evaluation, and external evaluators has become increasingly critical. One of the least explored approaches is the participatory framework. This study carried out a participatory evaluation in 3 youth houses in a city in Morocco over a period of 5 months… [Direct]

Chang, Ching-Yi; Hwang, Gwo-Jen (2018). Trends in Smartphone-Supported Medical Education: A Review of Journal Publications from 2007 to 2016. Knowledge Management & E-Learning, v10 n4 p389-407 Dec. Issues relevant to smartphone-supported mobile learning have been extensively discussed and investigated over the past years. Unlike general mobile devices, the advantages of smartphones, such as recording learning and portability, can cross formal and informal education. Smartphones can promote communication between health professionals; however, there is still a lack of systematic analysis of the application and development trends of smartphone use in medical education. The present study systematically reviewed research articles published in international academic journals from 2007 to 2016, analyzed the application domains, subjects, and adopted learning strategies, and investigated the research issues of smartphone-supported medical education. The findings revealed that the application of smartphones in medical education and training has not gained much popularity over the past years. In addition to the changes in the software technology in smartphones and the rising number of… [PDF]

Cooper, Katelyn M.; Gin, Logan E.; Wiesenthal, Nicholas J. (2023). Face Negotiation in Graduate School: The Decision to Conceal or Reveal Depression among Life Sciences Ph.D. Students in the United States. International Journal of STEM Education, v10 Article 35. Background: Depression is one of the top mental health concerns among biology graduate students and has contributed to the "graduate student mental health crisis" declared in 2018. Several prominent science outlets have called for interventions to improve graduate student mental health, yet it is unclear to what extent graduate students with depression discuss their mental health with others in their Ph.D. programs. While sharing one's depression may be an integral step to seeking mental health support during graduate school, depression is considered to be a concealable stigmatized identity (CSI) and revealing one's depression could result in loss of status or discrimination. As such, face negotiation theory, which describes a set of communicative behaviors that individuals use to regulate their social dignity, may help identify what factors influence graduate students' decisions about whether to reveal their depression in graduate school. In this study, we interviewed 50… [Direct]

LaFrance, David L. (2023). Empathy Matters: Building Relationships One Story at a Time. ProQuest LLC, Ed.D. Dissertation, Illinois State University. We all have a story; doesn't it make a difference when we know them? As I get older and as I see my own children grow, I've noticed the fast pace we are living. Society has a self-destructive addiction to faster living and the world will tell you to always move forward and there are no limits to how far you can get. Don't pause, don't reflect. Over-scheduling and double booking as you juggle ten plates in your busy week. We are seeing an alarming increase in stress-related disorders at all ages, beginning with elementary school-aged children who are struggling with obesity, depression, anxiety, attention disorders, and all kinds of learning disabilities, and a list of problems for all ages (Brown, 2015). The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has caused an increase in the number of socially isolated people and an increase in loneliness, fear, and other mental health factors (Murayama et al., 2021). World pandemics, the pace of society, and increased academic expectations… [Direct]

Rachel Powers Knight (2023). Centering Children's Voices and Cultural Worlds in an Online Writing Club. ProQuest LLC, Ed.D. Dissertation, Teachers College, Columbia University. For 10 weeks, an online writing club was a place where seven children, ages 5 to 8, came together to co-construct a space for sharing favorite texts and composing practices. This study documents the ways that the writing club offered a space for children to construct shared literacy practices that allowed for new meaning-making, social relationships, and literate identities. As the researcher and facilitator of the writing club, I took up an inquiry as stance position, which provided a generative space for exploring the tensions between practice and theory. Additionally, literacy dig analysis provided an opportunity to understand the discursive elements of the popular culture texts that young children bring into their literacy practices. Taking up sociocultural and critical childhood frameworks as well as multiliteracies and multimodal models of literacy, I explored the following questions: How do young children narrate their identities and social worlds through text? What stories… [Direct]

Rock, Kristin Naomi (2021). Using Analytic Rubrics to Support Second Language Writing Development in Online Tasks. ProQuest LLC, Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Hawai'i at Manoa. With the accelerated move to online learning, writing skills have become increasingly important for managing digital genres, such as educational blogs and discussion forums. Although effective written communication via such media is important for student success, many university-level second language learners navigate these unfamiliar tasks without access to guidelines concerning content, structure, and language use. Researchers in Applied Linguistics have suggested communicating teacher expectations through descriptive rubrics (Crusan, 2010; Ferris & Hedgcock, 2014; Weigle, 2002), and this dissertation investigates the effects of sharing an analytic rubric on learners' written development. The first phase of this sequential mixed-methods research involved the expert review of academic blog posts written by learners of English as a foreign language (EFL). Quantitative and qualitative data gathered during the review led to the identification of five categories around which… [Direct]

Sampson, Demetrios G.; Zervas, Panagiotis (2013). Designing Learning Object Repositories as Systems for Managing Educational Communities Knowledge. International Association for Development of the Information Society, Paper presented at the International Association for Development of the Information Society (IADIS) International Conference on Cognition and Exploratory Learning in the Digital Age (CELDA) (Fort Worth, TX, Oct 22-24, 2013). Over the past years, a number of international initiatives that recognize the importance of sharing and reusing digital educational resources among educational communities through the use of Learning Object Repositories (LORs) have emerged. Typically, these initiatives focus on collecting digital educational resources that are offered by their creators for open access and potential reuse. Nevertheless, most of the existing LORs are designed more as digital repositories, rather than as systems for organizing and sharing educational communities' explicit knowledge (depicted in digital educational resources constructed by teachers and/or instructional designers) and tacit knowledge (depicted in teachers' and students' experiences and interactions of using digital educational resources available in LORs). Within this context, in this paper we present an approach for designing LORs as systems for facilitating the organization and sharing of different types of educational communities'… [PDF]

Morwick, Carolyn (2019). From the Corner Office: New England Governors' Budget Proposals. New England Journal of Higher Education, Feb. This article summarizes the Governor Budget proposals in the New England region. Governor Ned Lamont of Connecticut proposed restructuring, refinancing the systems' payments and slowing the rate of increase in the teachers' pension fund and the state employee pension fund, both of which are underfunded. Lamont also announced that for the first time, cities and towns will be asked to contribute $73 million toward municipal teachers' pension funds. At the same time the governor will provide cities and towns with an extra $65 million in Education Cost Sharing grants. In Maine, Governor Janet Mills increased spending in K-12 education, which is slated to receive an additional $126 million over the previous two-year budget cycle and for the University of Maine System. Governor Charlie Baker of Massachusetts presented to lawmakers a $42.7 billion budget for fiscal 2020, which represents a 1.5% increase over the prior year's budget. Governor Chris Sununu of New Hampshire provides $64… [Direct]

(2019). Forum Guide to Personalized Learning Data. NFES 2019-160. National Forum on Education Statistics Educators employ different methods of teaching and learning to help their students succeed. One such method is personalized learning, which aims to tailor instruction to the needs, talents, and skills of each individual learner. Rapid advances in technology platforms and digital content over the last decade have enabled more widespread use of personalized learning. As a result, many schools and districts may be interested in expanding its use across various content areas and grade levels. Effective personalized learning requires the collection, understanding, and use of data across many variables. Schools and districts that are interested in implementing personalized learning need to be prepared to ensure the data access, data privacy, and time and training to use data that are necessary to making personalized learning scalable. This document is designed to assist education agencies as they consider whether and how to expand their use of personalized learning. It provides an overview… [PDF] [Direct]

Lan, Yu-Ju (2013). The Effect of Technology-Supported Co-Sharing on L2 Vocabulary Strategy Educational Technology & Society, v16 n4 p1-16. Strategies play an important role in learning a second or foreign language (L2). The aim of the current study was to develop and evaluate a co-sharing-based strategy learning system for L2 vocabulary learning known as [Direct]

Goldman, Haviva M.; Hortsch, Michael; Lee, Lisa M. J. (2018). The Virtual Microscopy Database–Sharing Digital Microscope Images for Research and Education. Anatomical Sciences Education, v11 n5 p510-515 Sep-Oct. Over the last 20 years, virtual microscopy has become the predominant modus of teaching the structural organization of cells, tissues, and organs, replacing the use of optical microscopes and glass slides in a traditional histology or pathology laboratory setting. Although virtual microscopy image files can easily be duplicated, creating them requires not only quality histological glass slides but also an expensive whole slide microscopic scanner and massive data storage devices. These resources are not available to all educators and researchers, especially at new institutions in developing countries. This leaves many schools without access to virtual microscopy resources. The Virtual Microscopy Database (VMD) is a new resource established to address this problem. It is a virtual image file-sharing website that allows researchers and educators easy access to a large repository of virtual histology and pathology image files. With the support from the American Association of Anatomists… [Direct]

Sibanda, Lucy (2018). Distributed Leadership in Three Diverse Public Schools: Perceptions of Deputy Principals in Johannesburg. Issues in Educational Research, v28 n3 p781-796. This article explores the perceptions of deputy principals of formerly segregated township schools in South Africa on the concept of distributed leadership. In the apartheid dispensation, school leadership style was hierarchical and centralised on the principal, but now distributed leadership has gained global attention because it allows different leadership roles to be allocated over multiple members of the school, for the purpose of improvement of learner achievement. The paper is based on a case study research of three deputy principals in three schools in Johannesburg. The schools were selected on the basis that they were historically disadvantaged, hence they are designated here as former Indian, Black and Coloured schools. A qualitative approach was employed in which semi-structured interviews were used to gather data. The findings revealed that all the three deputy principals understood distributed leadership as sharing responsibilities and working collaboratively for the sake… [PDF]

Fengliang, Li (2012). Financing Higher Education: Lessons from China. Irish Educational Studies, v31 n2 p191-206. In China, debates about higher education finance led to the introduction of a cost-sharing model, whereby students were required to pay tuition fees, over a decade ago. However, there is still significant resistance towards such a system within the broader society. In order to share insights into the development of the cost-sharing policy in China with international readers and scholars, this paper thoroughly reviews the origins, impact and challenges of the cost-sharing system in Chinese higher education. Based on systematic analysis, the paper recommends reforms to the cost-sharing system in order to contribute to a stronger financial foundation for the development of the Chinese higher education system. (Contains 3 figures, 2 tables, and 8 notes.)… [Direct]

Altidor-Brooks, Alison; Carey, Jennifer; Cummins, Jim; Naqvi, Rahat (2015). The Role of Identity Narratives in Overcoming Barriers to Parental Engagement. TESOL in Context, v25 n1 p16-33 Sep. This paper describes a qualitative study conducted over the course of one school year in an ethnically diverse school. Aimed at exploring the conditions under which parents of low socioeconomic status (SES) immigrant-background children will engage actively with the school, we involved parents and facilitators in story-telling sessions, sharing personal experiences and reading and writing stories about identity and diversity. An interactional space for these exchanges was created within the school where parents' linguistic and cultural talents were valued. We conclude, on the basis of interviews and group discussions with parents, that parental engagement will be productive in supporting student achievement only when their relationships with educators in the school are identity-affirming…. [PDF]

Nieto, Ana Maria (2016). Parents' Beliefs and Commitments towards Formal Education and Participation in Book-Sharing Interactions amongst Rural Mayan Parents of First Grade Children. ProQuest LLC, Ed.D. Dissertation, Harvard University. As Western schooling continues to expand and reach remote communities, it is imperative to understand rural parents' beliefs about formal education and the ways in which they can support their children's schooling. Sociodemographic changes in rural communities have been connected to shifts in parents' cultural values and practices (Greenfield, 2009), and parental participation in the institution of Western schooling has been identified as an important influence in these changes (Chavajay, 2006; LeVine et al, 2003; 2012, Rogoff & Chavajay, 2002; Rogoff et al., 1993). This dissertation contributes to this knowledge base by exploring both schooled and unschooled parents' beliefs and commitments towards formal education and their participation in a book-sharing interaction in four rural Mayan communities. In the first study, I used grounded-theory methods to characterize and compare schooled and unschooled parents' beliefs on the benefits of formal education for their children's… [Direct]

de Groot, Esther; Endedijk, Maaike; Jaarsma, Debbie; Simons, Robert-Jan; van Beukelen, Peter (2013). Development of Critically Reflective Dialogues in Communities of Health Professionals. Advances in Health Sciences Education, v18 n4 p627-643 Oct. Critically reflective dialogues (CRD) are important for knowledge sharing and creating meaning in communities. CRD includes different aspects: being open about mistakes, critical opinion sharing, asking for and giving feedback, experimentation, challenging groupthink and research utilisation. In this article we explore whether CRD aspects change over time, through a study of two dialogues each from six different communities of veterinary health professionals. Change was studied from the perspective of observations, through analysing transcripts of dialogues, and from the perspective of community members' perceptions, through an evaluative discussion with members. The results showed that some communities became more open about mistakes, a finding that is related to an increase in trust. Other observed aspects of CRD seemed to be fairly stable over time. Community members perceived research utilisation and asking for and giving feedback to have been increased. From an analysis of… [Direct]

Pracana, Clara, Ed.; Wang, Michael, Ed. (2022). Psychological Applications and Trends 2022. Online Submission This book contains a compilation of papers presented at the International Psychological Applications Conference and Trends (InPACT) 2022, organized by the World Institute for Advanced Research and Science (W.I.A.R.S.), held in Funchal, Madeira Island, Portugal, from 23 to 25 of April 2022. Modern psychology offers a large range of scientific fields where it can be applied. The goal of understanding individuals and groups (mental functions and behavioral standpoints), from this academic and practical scientific discipline, aims ultimately to benefit society. The International Conference seeks to provide some answers and explore the several areas within the Psychology field, new developments in studies and proposals for future scientific projects. The goal is to offer a worldwide connection between psychologists, researchers and lecturers, from a wide range of academic fields, interested in exploring and giving their contribution in psychological issues. We take pride in having been… [PDF]

Benjamin R. Lowell (2022). Supporting Science Teacher Learning in Curriculum-Based Professional Development. ProQuest LLC, Ph.D. Dissertation, Boston College. Science education is shifting from a vision of students memorizing facts towards engaging in figuring out the natural world as students build ideas from their own experiences and backgrounds. This shift is hard for teachers. One way to support teachers is curriculum-based professional development, which pairs high-quality instructional materials with professional development to help teachers understand the philosophy of those materials and what that looks like in practice. This three-paper dissertation uses the OpenSciEd middle school field test, a curriculum-based professional development program, as a context to investigate how to support teachers with this shift. The first paper is a quantitative look at teacher surveys taken across the first two years of the OpenSciEd field test. I tracked changes in teachers' beliefs about science instruction and confidence in implementing OpenSciEd. I used Hierarchical Linear Modeling to identify teacher characteristics associated with… [Direct]

Samantha J. Bryant (2022). Beyond Access: Best Practices to Increase Success for Low-Income, First-Generation College Students. ProQuest LLC, Ed.D. Dissertation, Morehead State University. Low-income, first-generation (LIFG) student enrollment into postsecondary education programs has been steadily increasing over the last decade. These two groups of marginalized students are habitually overlooked regarding the need for additional supports as they often lack any visual indicators of their LIFG status. LIFG students arrive on-campus with unique goals, stories, and challenges but regularly lack college-going knowledge and social capital necessary to be successful at the collegiate level. Colleges and other advocacy groups have been working across the globe to develop, implement, and examine specific programming and andragogy that hold the potential to increase LIFG collegiate student success when measured by cumulative grade point average (GPA), retention, and degree completion. LIFG students report multiple reasons for leaving a postsecondary program including intense feelings of isolation, financial need, and lack of campus engagement. Several studies reflect similar… [Direct]

Britney L. Jones (2022). Secondary Science Teachers' Sociopolitical Consciousness and Their Conceptions of Science and Science Instruction. ProQuest LLC, Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Connecticut. Science reform efforts over the years have addressed the need to make science engaging and accessible for all learners. These efforts attend to multiple aspects of science teaching and learning, including, but not limited to, more intentional focus on teaching students about the nature of science, as well as increased use of Culturally Relevant Science Teaching. Teachers are thus being asked to lead the charge in facilitating shifts in what is considered science and how science classrooms operate. These shifts require (1) high levels of sociopolitical consciousness, (2) anti-traditional conceptions of science, and (3) critical ideas on how to modify science instruction. The purpose of this dissertation, comprised of three papers, was to investigate teachers' consciousness and conceptions across these three areas. I conducted semi-structured interviews with 20 secondary science teachers from culturally and linguistically diverse districts in the same northeastern state. I drew on… [Direct]