College of Education
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The collections in this community comprise faculty research works, as well as graduate theses and dissertations..
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Item A NECESSARY INTERVENTION: CONCEPTUALIZING AND EMPLOYING CRITICAL RACIAL ETHNIC STUDIES(2024) Charity, Crystal; Brown, Tara; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Over the last decade, secondary schools around the United States have rapidly adopted ethnic studies courses. For instance, California’s governor mandated ethnic studies as a high school graduation requirement in 2021 (Magcalas, 2023). According to scholars, ethnic studies courses offer educational experiences that disrupt the erasure and oppression of Black, Indigenous, and other people of color through Eurocentrism in schools (Hu-Dehart, 1993; Lowy, 1995). However, there is currently no universally accepted understanding of ethnic studies curricula, and ethnic studies programs vary widely. As K-12 ethnic studies programs expand around the country, educators need a unifying framework that retains ethnic studies’ critical integrity. This three-paper dissertation proposes critical racial ethnic studies (CRES), a curricular and pedagogical framework grounded in critical race theory and critical pedagogies, as a tool for organizing ethnic studies curricula. Collectively, this dissertation offers practical tools for educators to cultivate critical consciousness and racial literacies among youth and for teacher educators to do the same among teachers and teacher candidates. In study 1, “Conceptualizing critical racial ethnic studies: A critical analysis of the literature,” I use the CRES framework to analyze the research on secondary-level ethnic studies curricula and pedagogy, its limitations as a means of achieving racial justice, and possible future directions for the field. Drawing from this literature, I develop a definition of CRES and establish the historical context out of which CRES emerged, thereby demonstrating an alignment between the original goals of ethnic studies and the CRES framework. I also identify several patterns in the literature: (1) the variation in critical pedagogies employed by ethnic studies educators, (2) how youth experience CRES, (3) the CRES tenets most frequently highlighted by researchers, and (4) the differences between out-of-school and in-school CRES curricula. In study 2, “Building new worlds through an ethnic studies community education program,” I employ the CRES framework to analyze the development and implementation of an out-of-school CRES program. Through individual and focus group interviews, observations, and participant reflections, this qualitative study examines the decision-making processes of three Asian American undergraduate students working collaboratively to create an Asian American Studies curriculum for local youth of color. This study reveals that educators’ desire and ability to enact a CRES curriculum is largely dependent upon their backgrounds, experiences, and resources. For instance, the participants relied on their peers to help with curriculum development. This study reveals that access to university-level ethnic studies courses and a robust network of critically conscious peers can support facilitators' racial literacies and critical consciousness and, thus, their commitment to critical interpretations of ethnic studies. In study 3, “‘I wish I had this program in high school’: What motivates and sustains ethnic studies community educators,” I build upon the previous study by examining what motivated the three students to create the CRES program and how they persevered despite myriad barriers that can lead to burn out. Through individual and focus group interviews and participant reflections, this qualitative study interrogates how participants describe their pathways to becoming and remaining CRES educators. The findings reveal CRES educators may be inspired to pursue teaching because of their lived experiences during childhood and adolescence, particularly in schools and their families, and their subsequent involvement in ethnic studies courses and politically engaged student groups in college. The study highlights how important community networks and resources are in the development of educators’ critical consciousness and racial literacies, two key factors in employing CRES curricula. Thus, the findings provide insight into how to effectively recruit, train, support, and learn from CRES educators.Item Techquity in the Classroom: Designing to Include Equity and Social Justice Impacts in Computing Lessons(2022) Coenraad, Merijke; Weintrop, David; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Technology is ubiquitous in modern society. It affects our daily activities and exists in every household and on every street corner. Yet, research has shown that both the process of creating technologies and the technologies themselves are biased. New technologies are based on datasets, algorithms, and designs that encode developer and data biases. As youth increasingly use technologies in their daily lives, experience the effects of technologies and algorithms, and learn to be technology creators, it is important for them to critically explore and understand the ways that technology introduces and perpetuates inequities. In this three-article dissertation, I present a design study on the development and implementation of materials specifically designed to teach about Threats to Techquity. Threats to Techquity are aspects of computing and technologies that cause or could cause inequalities, especially inequalities based on marginalized identities (e.g., inequalities due to race, immigration status, gender, sexual orientation, ability). To understand how to bring Techquity into the classroom, I partnered with youth and teachers using participatory design to develop the “Talking Techquity” curriculum for middle grades (5th through 8th grade) students. Findings from this work revealed: (1) youth initially named and identified examples of visible Threats to Techquity, but as they learned more about these threats, they uncovered and discussed invisible Threats to Techquity more frequently and identified these threats as topics to be taught to peers; (2) youth and teacher designers had similar instructional priorities and utilized similar pedagogical strategies when designing and critiquing learning experiences about online data collection and data use, but had contrasting ways of discussing examples and different learning goals; and (3) when implementing “Talking Techquity,” teachers who helped co-design the curriculum made adaptations to content and project requirements to provide more scaffolding and ensure students experienced success based on teachers’ perceptions of student needs and other factors. This research encourages researchers, curriculum designers, educators, and students themselves to consider how to teach and learn about the Threats to Techquity affecting youth’s daily lives and demonstrates how participatory design methods can help uncover key conceptualizations and instructional priorities that make this possible.Item Interventions Targeting the Executive Function Skills of Young Children(2021) McCatharn, Jennifer Marie; Taboada Barber , Ana; Special Education; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Interest in improving children’s executive function (EF) skills through interventions is increasing and several approaches have been tested (Takacs & Kassai, 2019). However, there is a need to further focus on specific populations of students, such as young students. The focus on young children (under age 7) in the synthesis and in the subsequent intervention studies is important as there is evidence that EF development has specific theoretical and empirical groundings to consider for this age group. Chapter 2 of this dissertation is a synthesis of mindfulness-based interventions targeting the EF skills of young children. The synthesis examines nine studies and provides in-depth descriptions of the interventions, ratings of the methodological rigor, and reports the effects of interventions. Chapter 3 reports the findings from a randomized control trial of two intervention approaches: mindfulness and social-emotional learning (SEL) conducted in small groups. Chapter 4 describes a second study which explores the effects of implementing a novel intervention (Mindfulness + SEL) to whole classrooms of students in kindergarten compared to a historical control group from the first study. Although the outcomes of most omnibus tests performed were non-significant in both studies, inspection of the effect sizes seemed to demonstrate a pattern of EF skill improvement favoring students in the intervention conditions over control group students. Both studies occurred in a public school in a typically under-resourced community, thus the findings are likely be relevant to schools with similar demographic profiles. This dissertation contributes to the field in the following ways: the synthesis provides a specific focus on EF skill development and interventions for children under age 7, Study 1 provides a comparison of two EF intervention approaches which have not been directly compared, and Study 2 provides preliminary data on the implementation of a combined, practitioner informed intervention. Both studies utilize an EF measure which has strong psychometric properties and matches the age appropriate construct of EF. The effects reported in both studies will likely contribute to future meta-analyses of EF interventions, as well as to the planning of future interventions. Areas for future research are discussed throughout the dissertation.Item FORMATIVE-HOME CULTURAL INFLUENCES OF SCIENTIFIC SENSE-MAKING: A CASE STUDY ON THE AFFORDANCES OF PEDAGOGICAL “BIO MECHANISTIC THOROUGHNESS” (“BMT”)(2020) Powell, Kweli Bennett; Chazan, Daniel; Elby, Andrew; Curriculum and Instruction; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Science education research continues to struggle with clarifying the formative-home culturally pedagogical merits of everyday, vs formal science vocabulary focused, classroom discourse (ex. Hammer, et al, 2005; Warren et al, 2001). More broadly, cross-contextual cultural pedagogical efficacy is a resonant aim for education scholar-practitioners in general, regardless of topic (ex. Chazan, 2000; Howard, et al, 2017). While a bio-mechanically thorough (BMT) methodological lens could offer robust theoretical insight into these questions, such an application has yet to become widely evident. In this dissertation, I apply a bio-experimental theoretically based case study approach (Yin, 1989) to interrogate the BMT-causal African-American cultural dynamics of two science sense-making transcripts. The first transcript (2010) featured a first year cohort of teachers as they engaged in the same science sense-making discourse that we researcher-trainers aimed for them elicit in their classrooms. Findings indicate that, from a BMT-aligned perspective, the learning practices of the two African-American (formative-home) cultural participants (out of 5), indeed evinced signatures of their formative-home culture’s discursive-behavioral influence. The second transcript (2012) featured a first year cohort of teachers as they engaged in a facilitated science sense-making structure identical to that applied in 2010. Again, BMT-informed findings indicate that the learning practices of the three African-American participants (out of 6) showed signatures of said culture’s motivating impact. Further notably, relative to the first (2010) context, the 2012 cohort evinced markedly more on-topic discursive-learning per unit time. This dissertation models the affordances of a BMT-aligned case study lens (Yin, 1989) for understanding the culturally causal dynamics of productive sense-making. Results suggest that the distinction between the two transcript outcomes rooted in a deeper sense of ‘starting familiarity' or 'communalism' amongst the focal cultural participants in the 2012 group, a factor shown to uniquely resonate among African-American learners (ex. Boykin, 1994; Seiler, 2001). These findings demonstrate how science sense-making educational contexts that cultivate 'everyday', thus including formative-home culturally rooted, discourse can facilitate learning. This model can inform the development of cross-contextually robust forums for sense-making based teacher-preparatory policy, regardless of topic.Item Re-Claiming Primary Pedagogical Place: The Lived Experiences of Unschooling Parents(2020) Schonfeld-Karan, Khara; Hultgren, Francine; Curriculum and Instruction; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This hermeneutic phenomenological study explores the lived experiences of parents re-claiming the primary pedagogical place of unschooling. In this investigation, unschooling is framed as a life philosophy and a form of home education that enables children to follow their interests and learn without imposed-schooling paradigms and practices. Unschooled children do not follow a prescribed curriculum. Instead, their education is shaped by a curriculum of learning-through-living with the support of their parents. Through a series of in-depth conversations with seven unschooling parents, experiential re-clamations of primary pedagogical place are brought forth, thoroughly examined, and rendered into five predominant themes. The participants’ narrative accounts uncover the internal tensions that can arise when parents re-side between (un)divided sides in their pedagogical placement. As unschoolers, parents may sway between doubting and believing and may regularly face concerns raised by others about their practice. Parents can find themselves making certain trade-offs to unschool and needing to determine if the costs required to unschool are worth the return of benefits. Additionally, parents may be inclined towards either concealing or revealing who they are as unschoolers, and the practice of unschooling can reveal concealed aspects of the parents to themselves. The lived experience descriptions also provide insights into how parents re-side with their unschooled children. Unschooling parents are called to make ongoing pedagogical decisions while leading and following their children. Also, in the formation of their primary pedagogical identities, unschoolers may find themselves re-siding between the realms of parenting and teaching. In closing, pedagogical possibilities for unschooling are reviewed and suggestions are offered to prospective and practicing unschoolers, as well as other interested parents, pedagogues, and educators. Such considerations of unschooling are deemed especially relevant at this time given that the coronavirus pandemic has led to the sudden, widespread adoption of some aspects of home education.Item EXPLORING THE DIMENSIONS OF GENDER AND STUDENT EPISTEMOLOGIES IN A REFORMED LEARNER-CENTERED ORGANISMAL BIOLOGY COURSE: A MIXED METHODS APPROACH(2019) Klosteridis, Jennifer Hayes-; Hultgren, Francine; Croninger, Robert; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Gender and student epistemology play a role in how students interact with STEM content and knowledge development in the classroom and may influence the retention of women in the sciences. Reform agencies have called for changes to the undergraduate biology curriculum to produce students with high level quantitative and critical thinking skills. As educators seek to reform college biology courses to align with policy maker recommendations, it remains important to consider how these dimensions influence student learning of reformed content and pedagogy. This mixed methods study explored the dimensions of gender and epistemology as they related to student learning in a reformed learner-centered organismal biology course at a large east coast university. Pre-test and post-test epistemological survey results and qualitative interview data collected over two semesters by Hall (2013) were analyzed. The results indicated that there was no significant relationship between gender and student epistemologies at pre-test or post-test on the MBEX I instrument or in 3 of the 4 epistemological clusters. Both women and men experienced significant positive shifts on the instrument overall and in two clusters of the survey instrument. Specifically, women and men became more sophisticated in their view of the structure of biological sciences knowledge as composed of principles, and how biology knowledge should be constructed rather than memorized. Qualitative findings, however, suggested that gender and level of epistemological sophistication played a role in how women and men experienced the reformed content and pedagogy in the course. Specifically, women expressed resistance to the inclusion of physical science content in the course, while most men expressed receptivity. This study is unique in that it explored the interplay between gender and epistemology as it related to course content and pedagogical reform. Through integration of the quantitative results and qualitative findings, the study concluded that the reformed learner-centered course was successful at creating more epistemologically sophisticated men and women who viewed biological knowledge as principles-based and developed a belief that biological knowledge is a process of knowledge construction. The results also suggested that women had a more favorable response to the active learning pedagogy. Gender may have created a potential resistance to the inclusion of other disciplinary perspectives and content in the course. The results and findings add to the higher education curriculum reform and instruction literature by providing some insight into how student epistemology and gender may influence faculty efforts to develop courses that align with national reform efforts.Item The Initial Implementation Patterns of the C3 Framework in Maryland School Districts(2018) Pugh, Shannon Michelle; De La Paz, Susan; Curriculum and Instruction; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This qualitative study examined the initial implementation patterns of the C3 Framework in Maryland school districts. The National Council for the Social Studies published the C3 Framework as a guide for state departments of education to revise social studies standards. This study sought to determine how district social studies leaders viewed the C3 Framework, how the district social studies leaders translated the C3 Framework in their districts, and why they chose to implement the C3 Framework as they did. The primary data sources were interviews and documents; the data were analyzed using constant comparative analysis to identify overarching attitudes toward the C3 Framework and implementation patterns. Policy implementation research specifically related to cognitive theory and capacity was used to help explain the implementation process. This study found that beliefs, financial and human resources, and time were the main factors influencing implementation. The study also found that how districts approach and support reform implementation for social studies might be different from how districts previously approached and supported new standards and curriculum in other content areas. In this study, all district social studies leaders focused primarily on disciplinary literacy components of the C3 Framework, specifically those related to history. District social studies leaders focused on document-based activities, student projects, and writing to source but few addressed the Inquiry Arc in a way that challenged or altered expected approaches to teaching and learning social studies. Many used the C3 Framework as leverage to justify the continued work and focus on historical thinking and other disciplinary literacy work in their districts. Most district social studies leaders used inquiry and disciplinary literacy as synonyms; the pattern suggests that further work to help educators distinguish between these related approaches to learning is necessary to help support the use of inquiry in the social studies. As more states use the C3 Framework in state standards, this study might help states and districts guide how they approach its implementation.Item EFFECTS OF WORD AND STUDENT FACTORS ON INSTRUCTIONAL REINFORCEMENT IN A VOCABULARY PROGRAM IMPLEMENTED WITH SECOND GRADE BILINGUALS(2018) Artzi, Lauren; Madigan Peercy, Megan; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This study investigates effects of a twenty-minute read aloud vocabulary program developed for second grade English language learners (ELLs). In one condition, words were not instructed, in another condition words were reinforced six times, and words were reinforced fourteen times in a third condition. This study also examines generalized English vocabulary knowledge, Spanish language proficiency, and type of word (abstractness and cognate status) as possible influencers on the word learning. Two hundred and twenty-eight students across twelve classrooms participated in this study. This proof-of-concept study employed a within-subjects design where each study participant received each level of treatment. Findings reveal that the vocabulary instruction in the two instructed conditions compared to the exposed condition garnered significant strong positive effects (d=.64). There were small additional positive effects for the added reinforcement in the reinforcement plus condition (d=.24). Learning was promoted with higher levels of generalized English vocabulary knowledge, as determined through the Test of Oral Language Development IV (TOLD) scores on the oral vocabulary subtest. Students scoring in the higher half of the sample with respect to the TOLD performed better on word learning in the exposed and instructed conditions, compared to students who scored in the lower half of the sample with respect to the TOLD (d=.45). However, when comparing the word learning of the students who scored in the higher half of the sample on the TOLD in the reinforcement condition to those students who scored in the lower half of the TOLD in the more intensive reinforcement plus condition, the gap lessens with only small differences between the two groups (d=.21). Higher levels of Spanish language proficiency, as determined through the Aprenda 3 scores, facilitated the acquisition of cognates. Although students in this study more readily acquired the cognates in the exposed condition, the difference between cognates and noncognates dissipated in the instructed conditions. This finding indicates that without instruction, students are bootstrapping onto their cognate knowledge, but when instruction intervenes, students learn both the cognates and noncognates alike. Trends show that concrete words were more easily learned. However, there were no significant differences between abstract and concrete words.Item MOVING BEYOND COMMON PARADIGMS OF LEADERSHIP: UNDERSTANDING THE DEVELOPMENT OF ADVANCED LEADERSHIP IDENTITY(2017) Rocco, Melissa Lynn; Griffin, Kimberly A; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In both formal and informal ways, leadership is woven into the fabric of higher education. Developing students into leaders who meet the demands of an increasingly interconnected world is a message found in institutional mission statements, program objectives, and learning outcomes. As such, scholars highlight the need for using relational, process-oriented, and socially responsible leadership paradigms with college students (Dugan, Kodama, Correia, & Associates 2013; Dugan & Komives, 2010; Higher Education Research Institute, 1996). Yet, despite educator efforts, most college students maintain approaches consistent with leader-centric and hierarchical paradigms (Haber, 2012). In order to design interventions that broaden students’ leadership perspectives, educators must better understand how students develop their understanding and practice of leadership. The Leadership Identity Development (LID) Model (Komives, Longerbeam, Owen, Mainella, & Osteen, 2005, 2006) is a stage-based model demonstrating development toward interdependent notions of leadership, or, how a person moves beyond leader-centric paradigms toward more relational and process-oriented approaches. Though, research on what prompts development toward later stages of the model is limited, indicating the need for further exploration. The purpose of this study was to understand the factors and forces in educational experiences that contribute to advanced stages of leadership identity development. Case study methods were used to explore the experiences of seven participants with leadership identities consistent with the later stages of the LID Model. Participant narratives indicate leadership learning immersion programs, peer facilitation experiences, and academic courses as transformational. Within these experiences, experiential learning, developmental sequencing, and learning about relational leadership broadened participants’ leadership perspectives and practices. Participants with consistent engagement in leadership learning from adolescence through college developed advanced leadership identities earlier than other participants, and earlier than those in previous studies. In addition, aspects of social identity development influenced participants’ development toward later stages of the LID Model. Findings of this study suggest educators should focus on the value and timing of leadership learning in educational interventions throughout the lifespan, as well as the opportunity for students to cultivate leadership learning in others. Educators should also give further consideration to the interaction between social identity development and leadership identity development.Item A CASE STUDY OF INSTRUCTIONAL SUPPORT AND EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY SERVICES AT THE UNIFORMED SERVICES UNIVERSITY OF THE HEALTH SCIENCES (USUHS)(2014) Kurzweil, Dina; Hultgren, Francine; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This case study traces the evolution of the Education & Technology Innovation Support Office (ETI) at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USUHS). It probes the knowledge and experiences of the leadership and faculty, who use the ETI services. Through discussions with the USUHS leadership and faculty, this study opened up a greater understanding of the development and adoption of the USUHS ETI, addressing the question: "How is the work of the Education & Technology Innovation Support Office (ETI) perceived by the USUHS leadership and faculty members?" Through interviews conducted with USUHS leadership and faculty members, the major findings were as follows. The chronology of the partnership development between the faculty members and the ETI team was comprised of several major elements. This chronology starts with unbundling as the project begins and the faculty member considers his or her multiple roles as an academician as well as how ETI members can support him or her. As the ETI/faculty member partnership grows, shepherding characterizes the mentoring relationship whereby the ETI staff members guide the faculty through necessary instructional design and development stages. Once a strong trust and partnership have been forged, bridging occurs as the ETI continues to support faculty members as they cross into and integrate with new areas, expanding their understanding of instructional design methodology and helping them improve their overall teaching. The study also highlighted two other key findings: that innovation is different for each faculty member, depending on his or her experiences, and that development of a relationship between instructional designers, technical support teams and the faculty member they support is critical for success. USUHS administrators could use this research to enhance their current practices but, more importantly, the research may aid in the operations of the ETI and other faculty support offices. It can help leadership, faculty, and support center staff integrate and provide instructional and educational technology support more skillfully. It can also influence the broader ways in which faculty support is conceptualized, planned, supported, implemented, and evaluated