Theses and Dissertations from UMD
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Item CREATING OPPORTUNITIES FOR EPISTEMIC AGENCY IN THE LEARNING OF SCIENTIFIC DISCIPLINES(2024) Hirst Bernhardt, Christine; Elby, Andrew; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation consists of three studies exploring factors affecting whether, when and how students engage in sensemaking in science disciplines, and the epistemological components of instruction that impact their engagement. Each study is grounded in science education reform efforts, including the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), which call upon educators to engage students in science practices to learn science through sensemaking and necessitate a reorientation to position learners to “shape the knowledge building work in their classroom community (Miller et al., 2018, p. 1058; NRC, 2012). In other words, students must now act with epistemic agency to figure out more than they learn about (Krist et al., 2019). Study 1 addresses a gap in astronomy education research literature. Astronomy education is largely centered on undergraduates and is minimally researched in pre-college settings. I conducted a qualitative study with thematic analysis of surveys (N = 68) and 10 interviews with select participants to discover methods of teaching and learning astronomy internationally, as a follow on to the quantitative curricular study by Salimpour et al. (2021). I was looking for examples of astronomy as a gateway for further STEM learning in classrooms and community, and as a bridge to equity, as well as examples and takeaways. While the interview participants provided notable examples of programs which disrupt representation gaps in astronomy fields and promote STEM connections amongst historically underserved populations, I did not find easily replicable examples for US teachers to use astronomy as a “gateway” science; I found other nations wrestling with similar issues of deprioritized science instruction, lack of resources and poor access to teacher professional learning opportunities. Therefore, I turned to a deeper understanding of epistemologies of teaching and learning in studies 2 and 3. Papers 2 and 3 investigate the role of epistemological framing, or how people make sense of a particular situation, through speech and behaviors, from past experience (Elby & Hammer, 2010; Goffman, 1974; Hammer et al., 2004). Students may frame learning science as doing school for completion of worksheets and production of “correct” answers for a grade, or they may frame learning science as doing science when they consider “correct” as considering available evidence and weighing it against predicted outcomes to make sense of phenomena or developing disciplinary knowledge through the process of sensemaking (Hutchinson & Hammer, 2010; Miller et al., 2018). In papers 2 and 3, I explored how teachers used framing moves or bids through explicit or implicit signals such as means of instruction, tone, or body language to sustain, shift or redirect students’ approaches to learning activities (Berland & Hammer, 2012). In paper 2, I investigated the impact of two teachers varied framing moves while using similar curricular materials through secondary video analysis. I used codes for cognitive authority and epistemological stance to segment each teacher's dialogue while introducing the activities, or their” public talk,” which established and sustained classroom norms for participation and engagement. I also analyzed dialogue between each teacher and small student groups, as seen from a teacher-worn GoPro camera. I found that one teacher mostly framed the lesson as students doing science and established a culture of collaboration. I found that the other teacher mostly framed the lesson as doing school and established a culture of compliance. However, these findings were nuanced and context dependent. In paper 3, I investigated, through a single case study, how a veteran teacher acknowledged, addressed and adapted her work within the same curriculum from paper 2 to address a mismatch between the epistemic agency afforded by the materials and students’ “typical” epistemic agency enacted in that classroom. I engaged in a collaborative planning interview and observation cycle with the teacher, Amy, over five observations and eight interviews. While I intended to better understand and characterize Amy’s framing moves and how those moves positioned students to act with epistemic agency, I determined that, what I thought were purely her framing moves were also reinforcing embedded commitments (for relationships and community). These commitments were baked into all of her framing moves for sensemaking. I also saw over multiple days that students did not take up her framing bids; after revisiting the data, including a lesson not using the curricular materials, I saw students in her class and school, by structural design, always had some form of epistemic agency, and that the curricular materials suppressed some of the form of epistemic agency to which they were accustomed. By contrast, when Amy modified the lesson to grant students their “typical” epistemic agency, the lesson went well, with students engaging excitedly in scientific argumentation. Therefore, this study demonstrated that the construct of epistemic agency is not monolithic, that the form of epistemic agency matters. Students recognize when there is a mismatch between the epistemic agency invited by curriculum and that which they are accustomed to, which influences their engagement and participation. Amy demonstrated the pedagogical moves and strategies to realign this mismatch.These studies are significant in that many teachers use highly structured materials to assist with NGSS implementation, yet the manner in which teachers approach these materials determine the objectives they establish, and the framing moves they enact, which are likely taken up by students (EdReports, 2022). Paper 3 specifically demonstrates the ability of expert, veteran teachers to understand and act upon knowledge of their students. This knowledge should be leveraged and supported through professional development and curriculum. Paper 1 is also significant because the NGSS embeds and interconnects Earth and Space Science into every grade band in every content area, thus elevating a previously ignored subject matter. Many teachers globally, as Paper 1 demonstrated, are unprepared to integrate this content with efficacy and authenticity. Therefore, we must consider, honor and respect the insight, experience and professionalism of teachers, and work holistically in that space to better understand what they already do well, instead of trying to consistently reshape or re-direct. Perhaps instead of teaching about practices and disciplinary engagement from a deficit stance, professional development should center teachers as professionals to improvise, to experience and to adapt materials as only professionals can. Each of the studies presented in this dissertation describes teachers (or teacher educators in Paper 1) with expert knowledge of their classroom or disciplinary cultures as they relate to engagement, and suggest that we must trust teachers, as professionals, to do just that.Item EXPLORING THE IMPACT OF A COMPUTATIONAL THINKING MODULE FOR MATHEMATICS AND SCIENCE METHODS COURSES(2024) Moon, Peter; Walkoe, Janet; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Computational thinking (CT) has great potential for enhancing mathematics and science lessons in K-12 education. Numerous studies demonstrate that under the right circumstances, CT integration in math and science can improve student learning and promote deeper understanding. However, teacher education currently does not include preparation for using CT in the classroom on a widespread scale. Instead, most current CT courses or professional development (PD) opportunities for teachers are taught by a local CT researcher who can only reach a limited number of teachers. This qualitative three-article dissertation summarizes the development, implementation, and effects of a five-lesson module on CT designed to be integrated within a math & science methods course or a similar course for teachers. The goal of this module is to provide learning about CT within most teacher education programs without substantially affecting that program’s requirements for teachers (i.e., adding a new course). In Study 1, “Module Implementation in a Mathematics and Science Methods Course,” I describe the module activities, the CT knowledge of the teacher candidates who participated in the study, and how that knowledge evolved. I argue that participants’ understanding of CT expanded from a limited scope to a wide variety of practices and skills, and that the experience-first design helped them build knowledge of CT as distinct from knowledge of their discipline. In Study 2, “Use of CT Knowledge as Classroom Teachers,” I discuss sets of interviews with two teachers who had previously participated in the CT module in different years, analyzing commonalities and differences in their organization and use of CT knowledge. I argue that the Preparation for Future Learning (PFL) (Bransford & Schwartz, 1999) perspective is particularly important when considering the impact of the CT module. In Study 3, “A Faculty Workshop on CT Implementation with Mathematics and Science Methods Courses,” I discuss the effects of a summer workshop with methods instructors from universities throughout Maryland, noting different perspectives around what “counts” as a CT activity, and two implementation profiles for CT that instructors used that fall. I argue that the PFL perspective is important to consider for methods instructors’ CT integration.Item PRIORITIZING NEW TEACHER RETENTION FOR PRINCIPALS IN HARD TO STAFF DIVERSE SCHOOLS(2024) Lane-Pettway, Kimberly; Eubanks, Segun; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Teacher attrition is a major challenge for public school districts across the country, especially in poor, urban and/or high needs schools. Sixty-one percent of school district superintendents identified teacher retention as a top concern. The majority of the teachers who leave are the new, well-prepared, successful teachers and the mid-career teachers. The study design used a mixed methods approach, with an improvement science methodology and an action research design to explore the principal’s role in the retention of non-tenured effective teachers. The design incorporated a focus group, implementing a teacher retention change strategy/change idea, and a survey to assess the potential influence of the teacher retention change strategy/change idea. The research was conducted in three phases. Phase 1 consisted of a qualitative focus group and brief training. Phase 2 consisted of a qualitative and quantitative implementation of a Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycle and the completion of a PDSA instrument. Phase 3 consisted of a quantitative survey. The findings supported that principals do consider the retention of effective teachers to be important, however they are not implementing effective strategies. Findings highlighted that when principals implement specific, research-based retention strategies it can enhance the focus on retaining effective teachers; and it shows promise that it may help to retain new teachers. Two recommendations of this study include identifying new and innovative teacher retention strategies and providing principals with targeted training opportunities in order to enhance collaboration and retention strategy implementation at the school level.Item "I'm a dual language teacher": Examining Teachers' Identities in Dual Language Bilingual Education(2024) Cataneo, Amanda; Martin-Beltran, Melinda; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Dual language bilingual education (DLBE) seeks to promote the goals of bilingualism and biliteracy, academic achievement, and sociocultural competence, upon a foundation of critical consciousness (Howard et al., 2018; Palmer et al., 2019). Due to the unique blending of content and language instruction (Cammarata & Tedick, 2012) in these programs, DLBE teachers need specialized skills and knowledge to effectively meet the goals of the program. However, research has found that teachers in DLBE programs lack DLBE-specific training (Amanti, 2019; Cammarata & Tedick, 2012; Freeman et al., 2005; Freire & Valdez, 2017; Lachance, 2017a, Lachance, 2017b) and instead have backgrounds of mainstream or content teaching (de Jong & Barko-Alva, 2015) which would not otherwise prepare them to teach language learners. For DLBE programs to meet their goals to be equitable for MLs, qualified teachers are needed. This dissertation study examines how teachers DLBE conceptualize their identity as language teachers within their DLBE programs, the factors that contribute to a language teacher identity, and the subsequent effect that their identity has on instruction. This qualitative, multiple case study (Yin, 2018) examines the teacher identities and pedagogies of eight DLBE teachers in two different schools and districts. Drawing on language teacher identity and professional learning frameworks, I developed a framework to guide my investigation of DLBE teacher identity (Bunch, 2013; Cammarata & Tedick, 2012; Lave & Wenger, 1991; Martin & Strom, 2016; Yazan, 2018). Data collection included interviews with focus teachers and observations of classroom and collaborative planning meetings, triangulated with interviews with two school administrators. Findings reveal that DLBE teachers’ professional identity acknowledges the distinct focus on language in DLBE contexts and displays nuanced levels of understanding of DLBE goals, especially about the roles of language and sociocultural competence in teaching. Findings also reveal the complex intersection of factors that contribute to the formation of a DLBE teacher identity, including teacher backgrounds, contextual influences of the program, and teacher beliefs. I discuss implications for research and teacher education in understanding and developing professional identity among current and future DLBE teachers.Item The Impact of Leadership Practices on Teacher Retention in Maryland Public Charter and Contract Schools(2023) Carnaghan, Heather Elizabeth; Imig, David; Eubanks, Segun; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Teacher turnover imposes a significant negative impact on the education system as a whole, much to the detriment of student achievement. The Learning Policy Institute (2021) suggests this problem was exacerbated in all school settings by the global Covid-19 pandemic in which growing disparities between children and uncertainty about the future of public education has made the teacher’s role “more untenable than ever before”. Charter and contract schools face heightened challenges in regard to this phenomenon in retaining teachers, producing a high need for leadership practices that positively curb attrition. School leadership has the potential to implement change in response to environmental changes and work conditions, thus it is a critical catalyst for retention change. An extensive review of related research revealed that leadership practices can have a significant impact on populations that Ingersoll (2004) popularized as “movers, leavers, and stayers”, though little research existed specific to Maryland’s public charter and contract schools. The purpose of this study was to determine the leadership practices that Maryland public school teachers and leaders believe positively impact retention of teachers in the state. A survey was completed by 151 educators in which participants ranked the leadership practices they believed had the most positive impact on teacher retention at their schools. Categorical and ordinal responses were analyzed and a t-test was applied to determine significance of the differences between teacher and leader responses. Two focus groups were held to better understand the context of the survey findings. Sessions were transcribed and coded via open/emergent, axial, and selective coding. Two leadership practices were ranked in the top three by the vast majority of almost every generalized group and specialized subgroup: “Nurturing a Positive School Culture'' and “Cultivating Trusting Relationships”. No other practices came close to this level of selection by participants. While teachers and leaders agreed on the two foundational practices that increase retention, there was variance in the contextual answers given by each group regarding why that practice was necessary and how to implement it well. The literature, the teachers, and the leaders all pointed to charter and contract schools being “different”- different workloads, different visions, different challenges. Yet, this study finds that, despite differences in policy and demographics, public charter and contract schools share an essential commonality with traditional public schools; they retain teachers by cultivating trusting relationships and nurturing positive school environments.Item Teachers of Color Return Home to Teach(2023) Bunney, Kanoe; Brown, Tara M.; Swalwell, Katy; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)While increases in the number of K-12 teachers of color has been linked to decreases in achievement disparities between White students and their Black and Latino counterparts, a demographic divide continues to persist between teachers and students. Teach for America has made efforts to match teacher and student backgrounds in hopes of alleviating these racial and ethnic disparities. Further, overall K-12 teacher staffing shortages have prompted alternative certification programs, such as TFA, to provide quick entry routes into the classroom. This dissertation focuses on the experiences of former TFA teachers of color who returned to their home communities as educators. Taking a narrative inquiry approach, this research utilizes the stories brought forth by participants as data sources. Participants shared stories of their K-12 student and teaching experiences in the same geographic location in which they grew up. Informed by theories related to teacher identity, racial literacy, social capital and culturally responsive teaching, this study aims to understand how teaching in one’s home community influences both teacher identity and teacher-student relationships. Three central findings emerged from the study: 1) participants drew upon assets based on cultural and neighborhood affiliations as they connected with students, 2) participants both cultivated and gained social capital in their work in the classroom and amongst faculty members, and 3) experiences away from home contributed to their racial literacy, their effectiveness as teachers, and their advocacy for students of color. These findings point to the relevance of centering both culturally responsive teaching and geographic location in urban teacher preparation programs. Pre-service teachers might benefit from volunteering in the community to better understand the students who attend neighborhood schools. Study implications also urge “Grow-Your-Own” teacher preparation programs to consider embedding a year of teaching and learning abroad for pre-service educators.Item Noticing Teachers' Noticing: Understanding and Supporting Video Club Facilitation(2023) Walton, Margaret; Walkoe, Janet; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Facilitators of teacher professional development (PD) play an integral role in teacher learning. Facilitators often both plan and implement PD and it is important that they can make these experiences meaningful learning opportunities for teachers. Researchers have only recently delved more deeply into understanding the knowledge and skills facilitators need for their work, and how to support facilitators to learn such knowledge and skills. This qualitative three-article dissertation is a design-based research project that explores what facilitators do and how they learn to support teachers in developing a particular instructional skill- noticing student mathematical thinking. Noticing student thinking is how teachers center and build on student ideas in the classroom. I designed a facilitator PD (F-PD) that aimed to help six novice facilitators learn to lead video clubs, a type of teacher PD that has been shown to support teachers in learning to notice. I examined how the novice facilitators learned to lead video clubs and how characteristics of F-PD supported or constrained that learning. In the first study, “A Facilitator Noticing Framework: How Facilitators Notice Teacher Thinking,” I develop a framework for facilitators’ cognitive process as they support teachers to learn to notice in PD, like video clubs. I argue that, like teachers, facilitators also notice. However, facilitators primarily notice teacher, rather than student thinking. I explain the different aspects of teacher thinking that a facilitator might notice. I then use the framework as a lens to understand how three experienced facilitators’ interactions with teachers in video clubs support the teachers to notice student thinking. Study Two, “Novice Facilitators Learning to Lead Video Clubs: A Framing Perspective” is a close examination of how the participants in my F-PD learned to lead video clubs. The analysis included qualitative coding of the participants’ focus related to leading video clubs during discussions with each other and me as the F-PD leader. The findings indicate that participants’ understanding likely shifted. Early in the F-PD, participants appeared to think of leading video clubs as sustaining any general conversation between teachers. Later in the F-PD, the participants likely understood video club facilitation as paying attention and responding to aspects of teachers’ thinking related to noticing student thinking. The interactions between the participants and me, along with the F-PD design, appeared to contribute to this shift, which is also explained. In Study Three, “Designing to Support Facilitators to Learn to Notice Teacher Thinking,” I zoom out and look at the F-PD as an overall activity. I identify some of the problems that arose during the F-PD that constrained participants' learning. I explore how I changed the F-PD design in response or, how differences in the F-PD design from early to later session mitigated issues. I offer several design suggestions for future F-PDs, based on my findings.Item “I’M NOT GOING TO LET A SYSTEM, THAT’S DESIGNED AGAINST ME, BEAT ME”: EXAMINING BLACK TEACHERS’ RACIAL LITERACY DEVELOPMENT AND TEACHER ACCOUNTABILITY POLICY NAVIGATION FOR ANTI-RACIST PEDAGOGIES(2022) Ghebreab, Nardos; Brown, Tara M.; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Anti-racist pedagogies help students critically examine and critique racial injustice and oppressive structures that shape their lived experiences. Many teacher preparation programs encourage teachers to employ anti-racist pedagogies—usually Culturally Relevant Pedagogy or Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy. However, teacher education literature suggests teacher preparation programs provide Black teachers with inadequate training on anti-racism, and research on K-12 accountability policies outlines various barriers facing Black teachers who enact anti-racist pedagogies. Yet, some Black teachers still find ways to employ these pedagogies. Using frameworks such as Racial Literacy Development, Structure-Culture-Agency framework, and Critical Race Theory, I develop a three-paper dissertation to explore two phenomena among Black teachers: (1) lived experiences that shape their racial literacy development, and (2) strategies to navigate teacher accountability policies. This examination will expand the growing body of research on ways to transform teacher education and K-12 accountability policies to more intentionally support Black teachers in employing anti-racist pedagogies.Item "Leveling the Playing Field": Rounds in ESOL Pre-Service Teacher Education(2022) Hall, Wyatt; Peercy, Megan M; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Many pre-service teachers (PSTs) face a common dilemma when completing their internships: they seek to display their own strengths and competencies in teaching while also adhering to the guidance of their mentor teachers and avoiding instructional risks. The underlying structure of the internship promotes a hierarchy which positions mentoring teachers as experts who evaluate their mentees and pre-service teachers who depend on their mentoring teachers’ approval to become licensed teachers. Research into innovative internship structures, such as rounds, can offer insights on how this hierarchy can be flattened in ways that benefit both the pre-service teachers and their mentoring teachers. In this study, I use qualitative case study methods to explore two PSTs and their mentoring teachers’ participation together in a novel form of professional development centered on peer observations called rounds. I further explored how their participation in rounds enhanced the PSTs’ instructional practice in their internships. I facilitated four instances of rounds with the group, observed and interviewed the PSTs four times during their internship, and interviewed each participant once the internship was complete. I analyzed these data through the lens of communities of practice to examine how the PSTs and mentoring teachers worked together around the joint enterprise of inquiring into their teaching of multilingual learners. I also drew on the constructs of boundary crossing and boundary objects to conceptualize how teachers carried aspects of our rounds into other communities of practice at the school and into the PSTs’ instruction. Findings revealed that several aspects of the rounds contributed to a flattening of the hierarchy of status between the PSTs and the mentoring teachers during the rounds. However, changes in the hierarchy during the rest of the internship were more tenuous due to rounds’ difficulty in addressing certain intractable criteria for status as a full teacher in school settings. Observing the PSTs’ internships before, during, and after rounds illustrated how rounds could function as sites of exposure to and experimentation related to persistent instructional problems. The PSTs generated knowledge during rounds that they incorporated back into their internships with unanticipated results that reinforced the iterative and ongoing nature of teacher learning. To break down the barriers of isolation within internships and to challenge the status quo of mentor-PST power dynamics, teacher preparation programs must explore internship structures that move away from evaluation and into collaborative inquiry across experience levels.Item “EMBRACING THE UNCERTAINTY”: AN EXPLORATORY CASE STUDY OF IMPROVISATION-BASED TEACHER PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT(2022) Placek, Dale S; Peercy, Megan; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)While many education researchers have characterized the impromptu nature of classroom teaching as improvisation, few studies of teacher education or professional development (PD) have examined the potential of improvisation workshops for equipping teachers to face unforeseen classroom moments productively. In this dissertation, I introduced an applied theatrical improvisation framework I call Pedagogical Improvisation (PI), and used it to design, implement, and conduct a qualitative case study of an improvisation-based professional development experience (the PIPD) for a group of nine high school teachers. The research questions were:1. How, if at all, did PIPD participation influence teacher-participants’ attitudes toward, and beliefs about, improvisation and improvisational teaching? 2. How, if at all, did PIPD participation influence teacher-participants’ teaching practices, especially with respect to unforeseen classroom moments? Additionally, during the data analysis process, I added a third research question, based on participating teachers’ responses about the benefits of group participation in the PIPD:3. How, if at all, did the PIPD promote the formation of a Community of Practice for teacher-participants? Findings indicated that, as a result of their PIPD experiences, teacher-participants came to see the role of teacher as a professional improviser more clearly, became more comfortable with uncertainty in both the workshop setting and their classrooms, and experimented with various types of teaching practices related to the PIPD workshop activities and the Elements of Improvisation. Teacher-participants also identified several ways in which the PIPD workshops supported their development of improvisational skills/mindsets, and several constraints that served as obstacles to experimenting with improvisational activities or teaching practices in their classrooms. Beyond their individual reflections and applications of the workshop activities to their classroom, PIPD teachers experienced the benefits of group participation through the Community of Practice that formed as a result of the PIPD workshops. By laughing, playing, and learning together in a workshop setting characterized by psychological safety, teachers also came to see themselves as responsible for creating that type of atmosphere for students in their own classrooms, and experimented with many ways of doing so. This dissertation has implications for research, teaching, teacher education, and professional development, and joins a body of now-quickly-growing research across many fields that supports Tint, McWaters, and Van Driel’s (2015) assertion that applied improvisation is “consistently transformative and successful.” Further, it seeks to respond to their call for “rigorous and structured research to ground the findings in larger, evidence-based processes” (p. 73).