College of Education
Permanent URI for this communityhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/1647
The collections in this community comprise faculty research works, as well as graduate theses and dissertations..
Browse
5 results
Search Results
Item ADDRESSING THE DISPROPORTIONALITY OF BLACK/AFRICAN AMERICAN STUDENTS IN ADVANCED PLACEMENT (AP) CLASSES(2022) DiFato, John Paul; Imig, David; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Data at the national, state, and local levels all indicate disproportionately low enrollment of Black/African American students in Advanced Placement (AP) classes at the high school level. Black/African American students are missing out on educational opportunities and access to an equitable education by not participating in AP classes in high school. One method for high schools to address this issue is to explore the processes in place for recommending/selecting students for AP classes. The purpose of this study was to develop and pilot a talent-spotting tool using student data for teachers and school counselors to use in the AP course recommendation process. Specifically, this protocol was developed to identify more students, especially Black/African American students, whose data indicated that they might be ready for AP coursework. The researcher developed the talent-spotting tool, and the algorithm used to process the data, and tested its effectiveness in identifying students who should be recommended for AP classes. The researcher employed the following methodology for the study: (a) developed a data-based talent-spotting tool protocol draft; (b) obtained input from potential users regarding current course recommendation practices (including the use of AP Potential) and their perceptions of the talent-spotting tool and its potential usefulness via an anonymous, web-based survey; and (c) piloted the talent-spotting tool and compared the results with course recommendations based on SY1819 AP Potential data and with the SY1819 actual course recommendations. Based on survey responses from potential users, the majority indicated they want a process that is simple to use and can be a portion of the course recommendation process, but not the entire process. Participants appreciated the objectivity that the talent-spotting tool brought to the course recommendation process, but many were not ready to completely give up on the subjective human factors that are involved with course recommendations. Furthermore, the talent-spotting tool accurately identified students who were recommended for AP courses. But, more importantly, the talent-spotting tool identified more students who were not recommended for AP courses but who have the aptitude to succeed in those courses. In fact, the talent-spotting tool identified a higher proportion of Black/African American students than white students. The adoption of this talent-spotting tool as part of the course recommendation process has the potential to directly impact the disproportionate representation of Black/African American students in AP courses.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 WHO GETS WHAT: A WITHIN-SCHOOL EQUITY ANALYSIS OF RESOURCE ALLOCATION(2014) Wolf, Rebecca; Davis, Thomas E; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This study analyzes resource allocation within schools, and it is one of the first in the literature to analyze the equity of monetary resources at the individual student level. The study calculates teacher resource expenditures (TREs) per pupil by allocating teacher salaries to individual students for each high school student in a large urban public school district. Next, the study compares the degree of within-school variation in per-pupil TREs to the variation between schools and concludes that the variation within schools is much larger than the variation between schools. The study then uses Berne and Stiefel's (1984) equity evaluation framework and develops an analytic approach that is appropriate for conducting a within-school equity analysis of per-pupil TREs. The findings indicate that inequities in the allocation of teacher salaries at the student level do exist. Specifically, the study finds violations of horizontal equity, vertical equity for low-income students, and equal opportunity for students of differing achievement levels. These findings also suggest that district leaders may be unaware of how resources are ultimately allocated to students.This study also evaluates the equity of the within-school allocation of specific resources to identify if resources are equitably allocated in academic courses that are critical for academic success. This study evaluates the equity of the allocation of class size, teacher experience, and social capital in students' English and math courses only as well as the number of advanced placement (AP) courses taken by students, which indicates access to rigorous curricula. In analyzing the equity of these specific resources within each school in the district, this study determines if multiple resource advantages or disadvantages exist for some students.
Findings indicate that multiple resource inequities may exist for low-performing, low-income, and minority students. Further, the study finds that schools with greater socioeconomic and racial diversity have more occurrences of within-school resource inequities for low-income and minority students than schools with homogeneous student populations. The study is among the first to analyze the equity of the within-school allocation of multiple resources simultaneously to gain a better understanding of whether students in the same school receive equitable resources.
Item What Can I Do? Preservice Elementary Teachers Developing Understandings of Self as Mathematics Teacher and Teaching in Context(2012) Neumayer DePiper, Jill; Edwards, Ann R; Curriculum and Instruction; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In order to prepare preservice teachers (PSTs) to enact teaching practices that best support all students in learning mathematics, elementary mathematics teacher education must prepare PSTs to navigate the many social, political, and institutional dynamics in today's classrooms. In this research, I theorized that successful negotiation of these dynamics requires that teachers have an understanding of themselves as mathematics teachers, including an examined vision of their goals of mathematics teaching, the social and political contexts of schooling, and the realities of their school contexts. In this study, I explored how PSTs understood themselves as mathematics teachers and teaching through participation in a seminar designed to support critical examination of themselves as mathematics teachers, particularly as within complex realities of schooling and attention to equity and access. The theoretical perspective of performativity (Butler, 1999) was used to understand and support PST identity work and specifically guided the design of the seminar and the case analysis. Each of the four cases offers a unique perspective on how PSTs understood themselves as mathematics teachers and mathematics teaching and how these understandings shifted. The first of three findings across the cases was that PSTs understood themselves and their teaching differently. Specifically, as articulated in the second finding, they understood teaching for equity differently and in relation to their own self-understandings. The third finding is that PSTs' understandings of themselves as mathematics teachers and mathematics teaching shifted. Thus, understanding PSTs' mathematics teacher identities through a theoretical premise of performativity and supporting PSTs in deconstructing these contexts, expectations, and constraints supported some PSTs in repositioning themselves in relation to dominant discourses that framed their understandings of mathematics teaching and in problematizing mathematics teaching. These findings have implications for mathematics teacher education, offering new tools and specific concrete resources to support mathematics teacher critical self-examination. Findings also suggest the need for PSTs to engage in continued identity work and in facilitated opportunities to work at the intersections of mathematics teaching with issues of race, class, and institutional discourses of testing. Further research on operationalizing a critical pedagogy in mathematics teacher education is also needed.Item THE EVERYDAY MATHEMATICAL EXPERIENCES AND UNDERSTANDINGS OF THREE, 4-YEAR-OLD, AFRICAN-AMERICAN CHILDREN FROM WORKING-CLASS BACKGROUNDS(2012) Benigno, Grace; Campbell, Patricia F; Curriculum and Instruction; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This qualitative study examined the everyday mathematical experiences and understandings of three, 4-year-old, African-American children from working-class backgrounds. The study drew on Street, Baker, and Tomlin's (2005) broad, ideological model of mathematics as "social" and their analytic concepts of mathematical events (units of analysis consisting of occurrences of mathematical activity) and mathematical practices (patterned uses, meanings, and ways of engaging in mathematics). Mathematical events were examined through four interrelated dimensions that were adapted for this study, constituting the mathematics (content) in and the social aspects (purpose and setting, values and beliefs, and social relations) situating the children's mathematical activities. Characteristics of mathematical events were determined through an analysis across the children's mathematical events. Adapted naturalistic observation methods were used to yield data specifying children's everyday mathematical events within their homes, informal day care setting, and other familiar contexts. An iterative analytic process using inductive analytic procedures was employed to examine and interpret children's mathematical events and to determine characteristics of these events. The three children each engaged in distinct, spontaneous mathematical experiences and understandings that reflected their unique family lives, individual predispositions, and knowledge development. For example, the values of one mother gave rise to many contexts fostering her daughter's nominal, ordinal, and numeric meanings for number. Findings indicated mathematical understandings that are not typically recognized in early childhood mathematics education research and practice and portrayed conditions that fostered children's meaningful engagement in and learning of mathematics. The children's everyday mathematical events tended to: emerge from their intrinsic motivation, involve their pursuit of goal-directed activities or interest in mathematics for its own sake, and promote their purpose-oriented verbal interactions with others. Recognizing the unique, interrelated, and complex social aspects that underlie and support young children's everyday mathematical experiences and understandings, broadening what counts as evidence of mathematical thinking in early childhood, and creating conditions in formal settings that reflect characteristics of children's everyday mathematical events can foster children's continued meaningful engagement in and development of mathematical thinking in early childhood learning environments.