Scholarly Works, School of Education
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- The Impact of Computational Labs on Conceptual and Contextual Understanding in a Business Calculus CourseSpencer-Tyree, Brielle; Bowen, Bradley D.; Olaguro, Modiu (Springer, 2024-08-19)This study investigates the impact of computational labs on students' conceptual understanding of calculus in a one-semester Business Calculus course. The computational labs integrated Jupyter Notebook as the modeling tool. Using the Calculus Concept Inventory, quantitative analysis was performed to measure differences in conceptual knowledge between a control and experimental group based on whether the student engaged in computational labs compared to traditional classwork. Qualitative analysis was conducted to understand student perspectives about the value of participating in computational labs during the course. The qualitative data involved student reflections at the end of each lab experience. Although the quantitative analysis did not produce statistically significant results, the qualitative analysis revealed the students perceived the computational labs as beneficial regarding their understanding of the content and practical applications of the material. Notably, the students reported the labs offered a unique way to solve problems, allowed for connections to real-life mathematical situations, and helped to visualize calculus concepts. This paper describes the research project and offers practical applications of computational labs in Business Calculus courses, as well as suggestions for future research.
- "We're Controversial by Our Mere Existence": Navigating the U.S. Sociopolitical Context as TQ-Center(ed) Diversity WorkersKannan, Kalyani; Oliveira, Kristopher; Feldman, Steven; Catalano, D. Chase J.; Duran, Antonio; Pryor, Jonathan T. (MDPI, 2025-09-29)In the face of escalating sociopolitical hostility toward diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts, trans and queer (TQ) center(ed) diversity workers in higher education are navigating increasingly precarious professional landscapes. This study explores the lived experiences of TQ-center(ed) diversity workers through a general qualitative design informed by participatory action research (PAR). Drawing on the concept of “burn through,” critiquing the role of institutions in the exhaustion of practitioners, and the theory of tempered radicalism, describing the fine line diversity workers must navigate to advocate for change within oppressive systems, we examine how these practitioners persist amid institutional neglect, emotional labor, and political antagonism. Findings from interviews with eight participants reveal three central themes: the systemic nature of burn through, the protective power of community, and the multifaceted role of liberation in TQ-center(ed) diversity work. Participants described both the toll and the transformative potential of their roles, highlighting community as a critical site of resistance and renewal. This study contributes to the growing literature on TQ advocacy in higher education and underscores the need for institutional accountability and collective care in sustaining liberatory futures.
- Deep Approaches to Learning, Student Satisfaction, and Employability in STEMKapania, Madhu; Savla, Jyoti S.; Skaggs, Gary (MDPI, 2025-08-29)This study examines the link between deep approaches to learning (DAL) and undergraduate senior students’ employability skills and perceived satisfaction in STEM fields in the United States. DAL, comprising higher-order (HO) and reflective/integrated (RI) learning constructs, enhances the understanding of real-world applications and promotes reflective thinking about individual ideas in broader contexts. HO activities focus on analyzing, synthesizing, and applying new information in practical scenarios such as internships, classroom discussions, and presentations. RI activities involve integrating existing knowledge with new ideas. The efficacy of DAL in improving student outcomes including employability and satisfaction skills was investigated using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), which included a Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) to measure observed variables associated with the four latent factors (HO, RI, student satisfaction, and employability skills), followed by structural analysis to explore the relationship between these latent factors. Data from 14,292 senior students surveyed by the National Study of Student Engagement (NSSE) in 2018 were analyzed. The results indicated a significant positive effect of DAL on students’ satisfaction and perceived employability skills, underscoring its importance in higher education for STEM students. These findings can guide higher education institutions (HEIs) in focusing on DAL activities for meaningful learning outcomes and enhanced critical thinking.
- The Formative 5: Everyday assessment techniques for every math classroom [Book review]Olaguro, Modiu (2024-03-06)
- Refutation text offers mixed effects on Nigerian preservice teachers' use of the representativeness heuristicOlaguro, Modiu (2024-11-09)This study enlisted a refutation text to foster conceptual change among 71 preservice teachers of mathematics education in situations that might elicit the use of the representativeness heuristic. Statistically significant differences were found between respondents’ pre- and post-tests, with more than half exhibiting normative reasoning after prior use of the heuristic. Analysis of their written explanations revealed differential patterns in their reasoning across two effect categories. Implications for misconception research and practice are discussed.
- From Holidays to Heritage: A Critical Content Analysis of NCSS Notable Trade Books about ReligionAllen, Amy E.; Hansen, Christian; Yates, Libby (2025-04-24)
- A Portrait of Rural Social Studies Teachers: Demographics and Implications for Professional DevelopmentAllen, Amy E.; Williams, Thomas O.; Hicks, David (American Educational Research Association, 2024-04-11)In this study, we first provide a snapshot of key demographics and characteristics of social studies teachers in a rural setting based the 2017-2018 National Teacher and Principal Survey (NTPS) restricted-use data file from the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES), administered by the Institute for Education Sciences (IES). Second, we look at potential implications based on specific insights from the data, including recognition of the change happening in the demographics of rural communities and a need for sustained PD about teaching students with diverse identities.
- Building on Existing Theories of How Teachers Learn: Preparation, Commitment, Relationship, and AgencyAllen, Amy E. (2025-07-15)Despite the promise of discussion-based pedagogy in fostering democratic habits and critical thinking, classroom discussion remains underutilized in elementary social studies. This qualitative case study investigates how three elementary teachers learned and implemented discussion strategies introduced through a series of professional development (PD) sessions. Framed by theories of personal and personal practical knowledge, the study explores the relationship between teacher learning and practice. Drawing on interviews, classroom observations, and analytic memos, four interrelated factors emerged as critical to teacher uptake: preparation, commitment, relationship, and agency. Findings illustrate that teachers’ prior experiences, perceived control, and levels of support significantly influenced whether and how PD learning was integrated into instruction. Rather than assuming a linear relationship between exposure and implementation, this study emphasizes the complex and relational nature of teacher learning. It highlights the importance of sustained, content-specific PD grounded in trust, reflection, and contextually responsive mentorship. Ultimately, this research contributes to our understanding of how in-service teachers translate PD into practice and underscores the unique opportunities and challenges of fostering authentic discussion in elementary social studies classrooms.
- Zambian Teachers’ Perceptions About Schools’ Preparedness to Integrate Entrepreneurship Education Into the 2023 CurriculumMukuni, Joseph Siloka; Libingi, Petros Kaluwe; Samanenga, Marvin Anthony (Allied Business Academies, 2025-07-09)In 2023, the Government of the Republic of Zambia (GRZ) revised its curriculum framework to, among other things, promote entrepreneurship education by integrating it into other subjects at primary and secondary levels. This study sought to determine Zambian teachers’ perceptions about the preparedness of schools to implement the integration of entrepreneurship education as stipulated in Zambia’s new curriculum of 2023. The following questions drove the study: a) How familiar are teachers with the concept of entrepreneurship education? b) To what extent are schools prepared for the integration of entrepreneurship education into the curriculum? c) What suggestions do teachers have for effective integration of entrepreneurship into the curriculum? The study was based on a mixed-method design using electronic questionnaires, focus groups, and lesson observations. The population sample was 115 teachers of various teaching subjects, with a wide range of years of teaching experience. The data collected were from both male and female teachers. The findings of this study seem to suggest that schools and teachers were not quite ready because of issues relating to teaching- learning materials, facilities, teachers’ content knowledge in Entrepreneurship, pedagogical knowledge, and the entrepreneurship ecosystem in Zambia. Despite these challenges, teachers welcomed the new emphasis placed on entrepreneurship education and it was in that spirit that they made the suggestions presented in this paper.
- Secondary school students’ perceptions of entrepreneurship education and career options in ZambiaMukuni, Joseph; Libingi, Kaluwe Petros; Samanenga, Anthony Marvin (Academic Journals, 2025-05-22)The central question of the study was “What are Zambian secondary school students’ perceptions of entrepreneurship and career options?” Quantitative data were collected using a Google form to collect students’ career options from 113 secondary school respondents and focus group discussions involving 40 students were used to determine in-depth students’ perceptions concerning the concept of entrepreneurship and students’ likelihood of considering entrepreneurship as a career option. In addition to stating their career preferences, students made some suggestions regarding how future curriculum reforms could make schooling more effective in preparing students for their future as formal sector employees or as self-employed entrepreneurs.
- Integrating sacrificial listening and children's literatureAllen, Amy E.; Engelhardt, Mason (2025-06-15)Sacrificial listening is the practice of listening attentively to unfamiliar voices and adjusting one’s own interpretations to adapt to what a speaker (or, in some cases, a text) is saying. This ongoing act promotes “listening for understanding” rather than focusing on “listening to respond.” Sacrificial listening can be used to frame instruction through its application as an underlying framework. When implemented as part of social studies instruction strategies, including read-alouds and group discussions, sacrificial listening can assist students in developing positive relationships with peers, promote a high level of understanding of other perspectives, and reduce bias in active listening. One key way this can be achieved is by applying its ideas and tenets to the selection and reading of children’s literature books. In this article, we provide examples where the framework of SL might be paired with specific children’s literature books to help students build empathy, reconsider the interconnectedness of people and the world, and think critically. We also provide questions that can be used to guide discussions about literature situated in a sacrificial listening frame.
- Discourse Within the Interactional Space of Literacy CoachingDunham, Valerie; Robertson, Dana A. (MDPI, 2025-06-04)Reviews of literacy coaching show positive outcomes for teaching and learning, yet also that coaching’s impact varies widely, especially at increased scale. Thus, some scholars argue the quality of coaching interactions may matter more than broad coaching actions (e.g., co-planning, observing). Situated within Habermas’s notion of “public sphere”, we used discourse analysis to examine video-recorded pre- and post-interviews, coaching meetings, and coach retrospective think-aloud protocols of a literacy coach and elementary school teacher who described their partnership as “successful”. We examined participants’ values expressed about coaching; how each participant positioned themselves, each other, and the coaching context; and the nature of the coach–teacher discourse therein to answer the following question: what occurs in the interactional space between a coach and teacher when engaged in coaching meetings? We found four categories of values focused on participatory choice, their sense of connectedness, knowledge development, and their approach to working with/as a coach. Further, participants’ positionings signified agency for both the coach and teachers in the interactional space. While bracketing and leveraging their own authority, the coach’s language choices promoted teachers’ agency within the interactional space, providing insight into how language functions to shape the “public sphere” of coaching interactions.
- Storying the FEW Nexus: A Framework for Cultivating Place-Based Integrated STEM Education in Rural SchoolsScherer, Hannah H.; Azano, Amy Price (MDPI, 2025-06-13)When education in STEM, social science, and the humanities are disconnected from each other and from place, it is inauthentic and nonresponsive to the lived experiences of people and communities. In rural spaces, the Food–Energy–Water (FEW) Nexus, a framework for problem solving and decision-making around these central resources, is salient because of the concentration of FEW resource production and extraction present. Storying the FEW Nexus is an interdisciplinary pedagogical framework that is theoretically rooted in a critical pedagogy of place and socio-ecological systems. Storying the FEW Nexus brings together these two related but distinct frameworks, calling attention to the need for relevant, place-based, and rural-focused narratives within STEM instruction. Developed for K-12 learners in rural places, Storying the FEW Nexus positions STEM knowledge and skills as resources that, alongside local narratives, are vital to the sustainability and viability of communities with unique and intertwined environmental justice histories and current realities. The FEW Nexus is leveraged to support rural learners in developing sustainable solutions to local socio-ecological systems issues. In this conceptual paper, we review the literature base supporting this integrated approach, describe the framework within the context of these aims, and make suggestions for researchers and practitioners.
- Report of the American Psychological Association’s Board of Scientific Affairs Task Force on Promotion, Tenure, and Retention of Faculty of Color in PsychologyAzmitia, Margarita; Martin, Michelle Y.; Blue, Shawn; Bookwala, Jamila; Johnson, Marcus Lee; Perez, Marisol; Pham, Andy; Shear, Paula (American Psychological Association, 2025-06-05)Recruitment, promotion, tenure, and retention of faculty of color remain significant challenges in academia. Despite an increasingly diverse population, the representation of faculty of color in tenure-track and senior faculty positions remains disproportionately low. Structural barriers, including bias in hiring and faculty evaluations, misalignment between academic culture and cultural values, unequal distribution of service labor, and limited access to mentorship and leadership opportunities, continue to hinder the advancement of faculty of color across academic ranks. This report summary from the American Psychological Association’s “Task Force Report on Promotion, Tenure, and Retention of Faculty of Color in Psychology” examines these systemic issues. It provides actionable recommendations for institutions to foster an equitable academic environment. Key strategies include enhancing recruitment efforts, implementing transparent and equitable tenure and promotion policies, addressing bias in evaluation metrics, and strengthening mentorship and retention initiatives. Additionally, the report emphasizes the importance of recognizing nontraditional scholarship, ensuring fair distribution of service responsibilities, and supporting leadership development for faculty of color.
- The Power of Storytelling: Creatively Facilitating Conceptual Change in the ClassroomRose, Mackenzie S.; Johnson, Marcus Lee (2025-05)Conceptual knowledge encompasses understanding the interrelationships among multiple pieces of information. Misconceptions of these interrelationships illustrate the need for effective educational strategies to facilitate conceptual change, with the goal of facilitating changes in learner understanding to appropriate, accurate, and complete concepts. Strategies, such as refutation texts, have proven effective in addressing science misconceptions, yet there is a prominent gap in research on conceptual change in nonscience subjects and the use of storytelling to facilitate such change. Storytelling, presented in a range of educational subjects, invites learners to engage in social discourses and problem-solving exercises. Prompted by classroom storytelling practices, creativity, flexibility, and high levels of motivation support learners in approaching ambiguous or complex instructional material as well as promote abstract conceptualization. Despite storytelling’s oral tradition, diverse formats using technology and digital platforms position storytelling as a multidimensional, multidisciplinary pedagogical strategy for conceptual change.
- Personality traits in describing entrepreneurial intentions: a sequential mixed methods studyNeupane, Sagar M.; Bhattarai, Prakash C.; Lowery, Charles L. (2025-05-09)Entrepreneurship is shaped by personality traits and driven by personal intention, and it is crucial for economic mobility and societal progress. Despite being an underexplored area, the relationship between traits and entrepreneurial intention is vital for understanding how educational entrepreneurs differ from non-entrepreneurs. This study used a mixed-methods approach to investigate how personality traits influence entrepreneurial intentions. The study’s first phase was a survey of 171 teachers and 125 school owners, employing a validated scale to identify traits such as need for achievement, ambiguity tolerance, enthusiasm, creativity, locus of control, and risk-taking. The results showed that these traits collectively explained 89% of entrepreneurial intention, with enthusiasm as the strongest predictor. The second phase involved case studies of four individuals with extreme trait scores, revealing that school owners possessed stronger traits and excelled at resource utilization and overcoming challenges, unlike the schoolteachers—the non-entrepreneurs. Findings revealed that stronger personality traits significantly impact entrepreneurial intention. The contrasting result was found in individuals with weaker traits characterized by their favor toward traditional job security. The findings enhance our understanding of the psychological drivers behind entrepreneurial intentions and the implication of cultivating these traits through program interventions for entrepreneurship. Recommendations include policy makers fostering specific traits by creating enabling environments and supporting educational entrepreneurs in developing personal confidence and traits like risk-taking and adaptability. The study also calls for a cultural shift to prioritize entrepreneurship over traditional employment.
- Technology Education and Designerly Ways of Knowing: The Pedagogical Goal of Design is UnderstandingWells, John G. (2019-11)Improving student understanding by connecting content and practices through curricula that integrates science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) has been a national priority in the United States for well over half a century. This educational reform has resulted in the U.S. now fully embracing technological/engineering design based learning (T/E DBL) strategies as a means of ensuring STEM integration and achievement of student understanding. Student understanding is the principal learning outcome to be attained through T/E DBL where the instructional goal is explicit in “having students design to understand” when working toward the development of a viable technological and/or engineering solution that meets a human need (Wells, 2016, pp. 14-15). Immersing students in T/E DBL experiences develops their habits-of-hand (designerly abilities) that intentionally leads to their developing the habits-of-mind (designerly ways of knowing) requisite of true understanding. As an approach to acquiring knowledge and achieving understanding, designerly ways of knowing (Cross, 1982) is unique to the T/E design based learning approach. This article provides classroom exemplars as a means of demonstrating how T/E DBL uniquely imposes on learners a need-to-know requiring them to draw on multiple STEM subjects as they move between convergent thinking (what they know) and divergent thinking (what they need to know) when working to learn the content knowledge and practices needed in designing technological or engineering solutions.
- Design Based Biotechnical Learning: Distinct Knowledge Forms Supporting Technology and Science Conceptual UnderstandingWells, John G. (Brill Sense, 2021)Schooling is the means through which literate populations are prepared. Literacies developed in the humanities, sciences, maths, and technologies all reflect different forms of knowledge (Hirst, 1965). Each knowledge form has their own distinctive ways of coming to know, which employs a discrete set of intelligent actions recognized as a Knowledge Acquisition Heuristic (KAH) unique unto that knowledge form. STEM education reform over the past several decades has given rise to design, technological and engineering specifically, as an accepted knowledge form, inclusive of its own discrete knowledge acquisition heuristic. Accepting design as a distinct knowledge form calls for a paradigm shift in technology education that recognizes understanding as the primary learning outcome of design where solving ill-structured design problems, tame or wicked, is the pedagogical framework within which learners design to understand (Wells, 2016a). A logical step toward acceptance entails a pedagogical paradigm shift to (a) recognize design as a unique knowledge form, (b) distinguish problem solving in science from that in design, (c) intentionally teach, with disciplinary fidelity, inherent co-occurring disciplinary concepts, and (d) unpack the instructional strategies used in guiding learners through phases of design toward conceptual understanding. Biotechnology is a content area within the field of technology education that is well suited for explicating the elements of just such a pedagogical paradigm shift where conceptual understanding is the primary learning outcome of design. Biotechnical systems reflect a complex and dynamic set of relationships between the biological requirements and the technological systems necessary to support the biology. Designing biotechnical systems naturally imposes on the designer a need to be knowledgeable of the disciplines inherent within the development of a functional artifact proposal. The biotechnical designer must be able to draw on the full breadth of their disciplinary content and practice knowledge associated with thinking and working across differing disciplinary perspectives. These cognitive demands foster the seamless development of critical thinking necessary for achieving a conceptual understanding of systemic relationships among the biological and technological components. As a pedagogical approach, Design Based Biotechnical Learning engages learners in design with the educational intent of having them achieve deep understandings of targeted technology and science concepts – learners design to understand.
- “Lots of talk, but nothing formal”: Exploring administrators' sensemaking about the recruitment and retention of women of color faculty in STEMLane, Tonisha B.; Woods, Johnny C.; Johnson, Whitley M.; Johnson Austin, Saundra (2023-10-02)
- Exploring institutional retention support initiatives for retaining women of color STEM facultyLane, Tonisha B.; Woods, Johnny C.; Huggins, Natali; Darko, Samuel; Tahir, Faika; Johnson Austin, Saundra; Kos, Lidia (2023-06-25)