Browsing by Author "Lisanti, Melissa Wall"

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    The Development of GIS Instructional Model to Facilitate Authentic Intellectual Work in Secondary Social Studies Classrooms in Kuwait
    Alazmi, Huda Salem (Virginia Tech, 2020-04-24)
    The adoption of Geographic Information System (GIS) technology in social studies classroom practices has helped accelerate the achievement of educational goals. However, despite the value that GIS possesses for supporting student learning skills, few schools have adopted it so far. A reason for this deficiency lies in the absence of specific instructional models that demonstrate possible methods for incorporating GIS into class curriculum. This study sought to address this problem, tailored specifically for Kuwaiti social studies classrooms, with the design, development, and validation of a GIS Instructional Model to facilitate AIW. The study employed a design and development research methodology, comprised of five major phases, (i) selection of model components and theoretical foundation, (ii) analysis and development, (iii) formative feedback, (iv) revision, and (v) usability evaluation. In phase one, the Inquiry Design Model (IDM) format and components with AIW framework were selected to provide basic guidelines for the GIS Instructional Model. In phase two, following a comprehensive review of relevant academic literature, and in combination with personal experience, the researcher developed a preliminary GIS Instructional Model. In phase three, two expert reviewers evaluated the model, delivering their opinions by completing an online survey and taking part in follow-up interviews. The expert reviewers were primarily tasked with determining the model's ability to facilitate AIW in a social studies classroom, and providing suggestions for improving its performance. In phase four, the details gleaned from this formative feedback phase were then used to revise the model and enhance its effectiveness. In the last phase, six Kuwaiti expert reviewers assessed this updated version of the GIS Instructional Model to determine what barriers it might face regarding its implementation in the Kuwaiti educational system. They completed an online survey as part of this process and provided possible solutions to address perceived barriers. The data gained from expert reviewer feedback in these formative and usability evaluation phases were analyzed using qualitative methodologies. This step-by-step procedure helped to validate the model. As a result, a ready-to-implement teaching model, with all necessary teaching materials and instructions, was developed for Kuwaiti social studies classrooms. This model is proposed to enable social studies teachers to better understand how to integrate GIS into their classrooms to support AIW. Recommendations are provided for Kuwaiti educational policymakers and stakeholders to help overcome perceived obstacles that may hinder model implementation; suggestions for future research are also included.
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    Interaction, Power, and The Institution: Uncovering the Negotiations that Organize the  Planning Work of Social Studies Teachers
    Lisanti, Melissa Wall (Virginia Tech, 2015-06-12)
    With the proliferation of standards and accountability systems in education, questions about how they function and intersect with broader patterns of institutional relations await investigation. The existing literature in social studies education is replete with studies that frame teachers' expertise for managing how instruction unfolds in the classroom and how sophisticated domains of knowledge contribute to the ways that teachers manage the complexities of their work. While valuable for better understanding what makes teachers effective, this dispositional and cognitive framing makes it difficult to capture the myriad negotiations at play when teachers plan instruction. Further, relations of power are often rendered invisible. To uncover the negotiations and interactions that shape the work of teaching and learning requires research questions and method that bring the institution into view. There are two broad questions guiding this investigation. How are instructional design and planning activities coordinated, organized, regulated, and/or standardized by broader extralocal relations of power that function beyond the daily experiences of teachers? How do discourses and activities in the institution replicate, constitute, and/or challenge those institutional relations? My study drew on tools from institutional ethnography and was embedded in everyday experiences of teachers. Four teachers partnered with me, allowing me to observe their work as they planned their lessons. However, the interactional framing of the study required a shift in gaze away from teachers and to the production of instruction. Through teachers' conversations, activities, and materials, I mapped instructional units and analyzed them for predictable patterns and threads of interaction that crossed contexts and reflected institutional relations that shaped their work. Textual analyses related to curriculum documents at the state level were paired with the everyday experiences of teachers to illuminate points of intersection and how they were discursively constituted during planning. Rather than isolate these intersections as a study of the impact of standards on teaching, I positioned them in a complex landscape of negotiation that connected the work of teaching and learning beyond the classroom walls. An intriguing glimpse into the production of the institution and the relations of power that contextualized the lived experiences of teachers was revealed.