bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Critical Geography in Preschool: Evidence of Early Childhood Civic Action and Ideas about Justice
Authors: Payne Katherina A. , Falkner Anna , Adair Jennifer Keys
Published: November 2021

Background

U.S. preschool children from Latinx immigrant and Black communities often experience schooling rooted in compliance and overdiscipline. In these contexts, schools do not recognize the rich lived experiences of Children of Color as suitable for civic learning. This article explores how, when schools value young Children of Color as capable and their work as important, classrooms become sites of children's daily embodied civic action.

Purpose

Our study sought to better understand how children conceptualize and enact their ideas about community and to document the kinds of civic action present in early childhood classrooms. Applying theoretical tools of critical geography, we specifically analyzed how children used space and materials to enact their vision of a just community.

Participants

Three classrooms—an inclusion classroom, a bilingual classroom, and an English-only general education classroom—located within a Head Start center in South Texas participated in this study. The campus is roughly 65% Latinx, 33% Black, and 2% White, serving 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old children.

Research Design

This study used a multisited, comparative ethnographic methodology. Multisited ethnography allows researchers to locate patterns and contextual differences that impact people's lived experiences. Initially, researchers conducted ethnographic observations through field notes, photographs, and short videos documenting children's action on behalf of or with the classroom community. Next, we used video-cued ethnographic methods, filming for three days in each classroom and editing the footage into a 20-minute film. We showed that film to teachers, families, and children in focus groups. Analysis occurred in multiple phases, during which we refined codes through individual, partner, participant, and team-level work.

Findings

Children used physical space and materials to assert community membership and to strengthen community ties. They adapted space and classroom materials to include other community members in shared activities. Finally, children advocated for space for their own purposes.

Conclusions

When teachers and administrators approach the classroom as a civic space where children representing racial, linguistic, and ability diversity can access embodied experiences with civic action, children can use their space to act on behalf of the community. Rather than offering lesson-based social-emotional learning, schools can reflect on how children might build a just, caring community through authentic embodied experiences that include having some control over space and materials. Doing so may allow a shift toward class environments that support shared endeavors and opportunities for children to care for community members.
Teacher Learning through Technology-Enhanced Curriculum Design Using Virtual Reality
Authors: Han Insook , Patterson Timothy
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

The rapid development of virtual reality (VR) technology increases expectations regarding the potentials of using VR in the classroom and requires teachers to engage in professional development. Although there are recent studies that explore how this new technology can facilitate learning in classroom settings, little research has explored what constraints and affordances emerge during VR curriculum design and implementation and how a teacher's knowledge and beliefs change during this process.

Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study

The purpose of this study is to explore one exemplary teacher's curriculum design processes and changes in knowledge, beliefs, and practices during the design and implementation of VR lessons in an elementary classroom.

Population/Participants/Subjects

The participant of this study is one teacher who works in a private elementary school in a metropolitan area of South Korea. The participant is an exemplary teacher with a unique combination of experience and training in pedagogy and technology.

Research Design

We used an intrinsic case study approach to collect and analyze data around the development of the participant's reflective practice, beliefs, and knowledge.

Data Collection and Analysis

During two iterations of design and implementation of VR lessons, we collected qualitative data in the form of the participant's written reflections, video recordings of his classroom teaching, field notes of observations, and follow-up interviews after each observation. Data were open-coded based on the interconnected model of teacher professional growth (IMTPG) and the framework of technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK).

Findings/Results

We observed changes occurring in the participant's TPACK, his beliefs about students, and his dispositions toward the use of VR. Most of the changes in the design phase appeared to inspire the participant's development of TPACK and ended with curriculum design using newly developed knowledge. The participant's enactment brought changes in instructional outcomes for both himself and his students, which then either altered his practice while teaching or changed/reinforced his knowledge and beliefs.

Conclusions/Recommendations

Our findings support a nonlinear, ongoing, and iterative approach to teacher change, as emphasized by the IMTPG. We add to this line of research by offering a detailed description of one teacher's learning process and development of TPACK. More important, this study focused on an exemplary teacher's design and implementation of VR and explored how certain barriers or enablers affected his design decisions by changing his knowledge, beliefs, and instructional practices. The findings of this intrinsic case study allow us to offer advice for teachers interested in integrating VR into their instruction.
Learning Opportunities about Teaching Mathematics: A Longitudinal Case Study of School Leaders’ Influence
Authors: Rigby Jessica G. , Andrews-Larson Christine , Chen I-Chien
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

When new, rigorous standards are adopted, teachers often need to learn new content and new ways of teaching while concurrently attending to accountability demands. Both formal and informal school structures potentially enable this new learning, and school leaders likely influence the nature of these structures.

Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study

We examine teachers’ learning opportunities in one school by asking the following research questions: (1) What is the nature of changes in teachers’ formal learning opportunities, as seen by changes in teachers’ workgroup conversations about mathematics instruction? (2) In what ways do school leaders shape the nature of instructional conversations, and thus formal learning opportunities, in teacher workgroups? (3) What is the nature of changes in teachers’ informal opportunities to learn, as seen by shifts in informal advice networks?

Research Design

This is a longitudinal case study using mixed methods: qualitative analysis of audio-recorded teacher workgroup meetings and quantitative analysis of informal social networks.

Data Collection and Analysis

This analysis is a part of a larger eight-year longitudinal study, the Middle-school Mathematics and the Institutional Setting of Teaching (MIST). Data used in this analysis were collected over a three-year period in one middle school that was working to improve mathematics instruction by focusing on teaching mathematics conceptually and building procedural fluency. Data used in this analysis include audio-recorded teacher workgroup meetings, informal social network surveys, interview transcripts, and student-level standardized test scores.

Findings/Results

We found that formally, school leaders shifted teachers’ workgroup conversations away from instructional matters to those of standardized tests. Informally, teachers stopped going to each other for instructional advice. Triangulating interview data confirmed that over time, pressure that teachers felt to do well on the standardized tests shifted their attention away from a conceptual approach to instruction and toward an emphasis on test preparation.

Conclusions/Recommendations

Our findings suggest that school leaders must be involved in new learning about standards and instruction to appropriately support teachers’ learning opportunities.
Learning from and About Elite Online Teacherpreneurs: A Qualitative Examination of Key Characteristics, School Environments, Practices, and Impacts
Authors: Shelton Catharyn C. , Archambault Leanna M.
Published: November 2021

Background

Today's teachers are turning to online educational marketplaces, such as TeachersPayTeachers.com (TpT), where they purchase teacher-created classroom materials for a small fee. Meanwhile, teachers who sell resources in these spaces, online teacherpreneurs, stand to benefit financially and may experience other affordances as well as challenges associated with the practice.

Purpose of Study

This study is one of the first empirical investigations of online teacherpre-neurship. We interviewed highly experienced and successful online teacherpreneurs to understand who they are, what they do, and the impacts they encounter.

Research Design

Ten one-hour semistructured interviews were conducted with online teacherpreneurs who were ranked in the top 1% of sellers on TpT and had sold materials on TpT for at least four years. Interviews addressed the areas of online teacherpreneur experiences, personal characteristics, work environments, and opinions regarding online teacherpreneur controversies. Responses were analyzed to identify salient and/or repeated themes across the interviews, using the constant comparative method.

Findings

Online teacherpreneurs described themselves as helpful, hardworking, organized, creative, and risk-taking. Whereas some worked in supportive school environments, others worked in ambivalent schools, where they kept their teacherpreneur work separate and/or secret. They indicated that the practice of online teacherpreneurship involved creating resources, collaborating with teachers and online teacherpreneurs, and engaging in entrepreneurship. Online teacherpreneurs experienced positive impacts relating to teaching practice, teacher leadership, and their careers. They also experienced some professional stressors.

Conclusions

Online teacherpreneurs are emerging as virtual teacher leaders and educational influencers. They carry the responsibility to share high-quality resources, and they need the support of their schools and connections with colleagues to thrive.
Institutional Ambiguity and De Facto Tracking in STEM
Authors: Puckett Cassidy , Gravel Brian E.
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

Many schools no longer track classes to increase access to courses at all levels, including science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subjects. However, informal processes can “de facto” track students, placing them at the same level across subjects. Research shows that de facto tracking is prevalent in STEM, especially between mathematics and science course placements. Less is known about the relationship between mathematics and engineering—the focus of this study.

Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study

Mathematics placement is likely to shape participation in engineering given its position under the STEM umbrella. Yet, de facto tracking does not occur all the time. This may depend on the categorization of courses as “academic” or “vocational,” but there is little research about this aspect of course-to-student matching. Therefore, we investigate an unexpected case of equitable participation where mathematics placement does not de facto track students in engineering. We ask: How do institutional and organizational factors shape the absence of de facto tracking?

Research Design

We used qualitative data drawn from a two-year mixed-methods study in a public high school district with one large comprehensive high school. The school is in the lower third of per pupil spending in the state of Massachusetts, yet has significant engineering-related course offerings. Located near Boston, it serves an economically and racially diverse student body of ∼1,800 students. For this article, we analyzed 998 hours of observations during and after school, in engineering-related elective courses and extracurricular activities, and interviews with 29 students, 31 teachers, six guidance counselors, two district administrators, and the principal.

Findings/Results

We find competing vocational and academic logics equally frame engineering, which we call “institutional ambiguity.” This dual framing is present at the institutional level and is supported at the school level by three organizational factors: 1) courses and activities that occur in both vocational and academic spaces, 2) teachers who link vocational and academic fields, and 3) an organizational commitment to support the integration of vocational activities.

Conclusions/Recommendations

Overall, this article contributes to educational and organizational research by identifying the institutional factors and organizational processes that shape the categorization of courses and student-to-course matching. Our research reveals the conditions under which schools and the actors within them have greater agency, where ambiguity in the broader environment allows for contestation and renegotiation of status hierarchies. We argue that by leveraging ambiguity, schools may avoid contributing to inequity in STEM.
In Pursuit of Engaged Learning with Latinx Students: Expanding Learning beyond Classrooms through Performance-Based Engagements
Authors: Curry Marnie W. , Athanases Steven Z.
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

Urban public high schools serving low-SES communities historically have underserved nondominant culturally and linguistically diverse students by divesting them of social and cultural resources and delivering impoverished curriculum and instruction. Associated with such subtractive schooling, many Latinx youth have suffered from academic disengagement and limited academic success and futures.

Focus of Study

This study investigates one school's efforts to promote Latinx students’ academic and intellectual engagement through a schoolwide system of performance-based assessments (PBAs) that featured meaningful, embodied, discourse-rich activities, many of which occurred beyond classrooms during after-school hours. We examine the scope of PBA opportunity across the school and the ways educators enacted PBAs to optimize nondominant students’ engagement. We also report the organizational structures that enabled the PBA system and some implementation challenges/tensions.

Setting

This study features Mario Molina High, a small urban Title 1 public California school serving 262 students, of whom 90% received free/reduced-price lunches, 76% were Latinx, and 33% were emergent bilinguals. MHS emphasized an explicit social justice mission and had a record of some success with Latinx students, as measured by graduation and college-going rates, course completion for admission to California universities, and standardized achievement tests.

Research Design

We treat MHS as a “critical case,” holding strategic importance to the problem on which the study focuses. Using qualitative methods, we employed a bi-level design to uncover links between school organization and instruction.

Data Collection and Analysis

We drew on 240 hours of school observations, with special attention to PBA enactments. We also drew on 45 interviews with key stakeholders; faculty survey responses; school documents; student work; and email list communications. Our analysis involved thematic coding, memos, metamatrices, and situated/discourse analyses.

Findings/Results

MHS's PBAs drew school actors out of the spatial/temporal boundaries of classrooms and fostered serious, spirited, interactive spaces for learning. Three aspects of PBAs—authentic audiences, embodied action, and dialogic argumentation—transformed these assessments into what we call performance-based engagements (PBEs). This shift enhanced students’ engagement and contributed to a schoolwide culture of engaged learning. We argue that sustained participation in PBEs encouraged students to experiment with and adopt expanded practice-based identities as critical thinkers and change agents.

Conclusions/Recommendations

Our study suggests how the schoolwide implementation of dynamic, innovative, and culturally sustaining forms of assessment can expand and revivify traditional school learning in ways that promote the academic and intellectual engagement of historically underserved students.
“There Isn't an Easy Way for Me to Talk About This”: A Historical and Contemporary Examination of Emotional Rules for Teachers
Authors: Dunn Alyssa Hadley , Moore Ashley E. , Neville Mary L.
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

As grounding for our work, we consider the creation and development of the teaching profession as a particularly “feminine” role. We then briefly describe the contemporary context of schooling, particularly related to neoliberal accountability and its impact on teachers’ experiences. This comparison shows that the historical claims pertaining to women in the teaching workforce have modern-day equivalents, suggesting that the workforce and emotions pertaining to it are still heavily regulated and monitored.

Purpose of Study

The purpose of this study is to explore how teachers’ emotions are or are not supported and nurtured in an urban high school, contextualized by an exploration of what it means to work in a “feminized” profession that is increasingly subject to regulations that limit teachers’ autonomy and agency.

Research Design

Drawing on portraiture methodology and using interview and field note data from a case study on teacher morale in an urban high school, we advance a theory about the emotional rules of teaching in a neoliberal era.

Findings

We argue that teachers have been socialized into the emotional rules of the profession in ways that inhibit their expressions of so-called outlaw emotions, or negative emotions that certain groups have been taught not to exhibit. For some teachers, these emotions may manifest as vulnerability, shame, or burnout.

Conclusions/Recommendations

We conclude that emotional rules are embodied and that there are material consequences to the ways teachers are required to regulate their emotions. Teachers’ expressions of outlaw emotions should be viewed as courageous. Teachers’ vulnerability should be nurtured at both individual and institutional levels in order to build teacher community, reduce feelings of burnout and isolation, and ultimately (hopefully) reduce teacher attrition. Valuing the humanity and emotions of teachers is a critical step in ensuring humanity for all of our children.
Guiding Principals: Middle-Manager Coaching and Human-Capital Reform
Authors: Bush-Mecenas Susan , Marsh Julie A. , Strunk Katharine O.
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

School leaders are central to state and district human-capital reforms (HCRs), yet they are rarely equipped with the skills to implement new evaluation, professional development, and personnel data systems. Although districts increasingly offer principals coaching and training, there has been limited empirical work on how these supports influence principals’ HCR-related practices.

Purpose

Drawing on a two-year, mixed-methods study in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), this article examines the role of principal supervisors in HCRs. We ask: What role did principal supervisors (Instructional Directors [IDs]) play in the implementation of human-capital reforms? What did high-quality coaching on the part of IDs look like in this context?

Research Design

Our two-part analysis draws upon survey and interview data. First, we conducted descriptive analyses and significance testing using principal and ID survey data to examine the correlations among principals’ ratings of ID coaching quality, ID coaching practices, and principals’ implementation of HCRs. Second, we conducted in-depth interviews, using a think-aloud protocol, with two sets of IDs—those consistently highly-rated and those with mixed ratings—who were identified using principals’ reports of coaching quality. Following interview coding, we created various case-ordered metamatrix displays to analyze our qualitative data in order to identify patterns in coaching strategy and approach across IDs, content, and contexts.

Findings

First, our survey data indicate that receiving high-quality coaching from IDs is correlated with stronger principal support for and implementation of HCRs. Our survey findings further illustrate that IDs support a wide range of principals’ HCR activities. Second, our think-aloud interviews with case IDs demonstrate that coaching strategy and approach vary between consistently highly-rated and mixed-rated coaches: Consistently highly-rated IDs emphasize the importance of engaging in, or defining HCR problems as, joint work alongside principals, while mixed-rated IDs often emphasize the use of tools to guide principal improvement. We find that, on the whole, the consistently highly-rated IDs in our sample employ a nondirective approach to coaching more often than mixed-rated coaches.

Conclusions

These findings contribute to a growing literature on the crucial role of principal supervisors as coaches to improve principals’ instructional leadership and policy implementation. While exploratory, this study offers the first steps toward building greater evidence of the connections between high-quality coaching and policy implementation, and it may have implications for the design and implementation of professional development for principal supervisors and the selection and placement of supervisors with principals.
Coaching and Districtwide Improvement: Exploring the Systemic Leadership Practices of Instructional Coaches
Authors: Hashim Ayesha K.
Published: November 2021

Background

Many school districts are relying on instructional coaches to improve teaching and learning under the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). Yet we know very little about how coaches exercise systemic leadership to support districtwide improvements in instruction.

Purpose

In this study, I broadly define systemic leadership as efforts to coordinate multiple reform goals with school improvement strategies and classroom instruction, and to build institutional knowledge and collaborative structures for scaling up instructional change. I used social-network theory and the concept of brokering to study the systemic leadership practices of Digital Learning Coaches (DLCs) in the Peterson Unified School District (PUSD, a pseudonym), a midsized urban district that distributed iPads and laptops to schools in the 2014–15 school year for CCSS instruction.

Research Design

I used an explanatory sequential research design to examine how DLCs engaged educators at all organizational levels of PUSD to support systemic change. I collected social-network data to map communication networks in the district and how DLCs brokered information in these networks. I then conducted a multiple case study of three DLCs in six elementary schools to characterize the quality of systemic leadership exercised by DLCs through their brokering exchanges and the organizational factors informing their leadership.

Findings

I find that DLCs brokered information in a siloed, top-down manner from the central office into schools, guiding teachers on how to integrate technology with instruction but failing to coordinate this support with other CCSS resources popular among school leaders and teachers. Consequently, DLCs struggled to build coherence around the use of technology with school goals for improvement, provide instructional support to a broad footprint of teachers, and discover and share novel uses of technology developed by teachers. The organizational context of the central office and its schools informed DLC brokering, with top-down hierarchies, organizational silos, principal leadership, and the experience, goals, and training of DLCs influencing how these coaches engaged educators.

Conclusions

My findings suggest that district leaders should provide explicit guidance, resources, and more time for instructional coaches to demonstrate leadership in support of systemic change. I also show that instructional coaching is dependent on the organizational context of schools, suggesting that there will be local variation in the leadership outcomes that coaches achieve in practice and that district leaders should account for pertinent factors such as principal leadership, school structures for teacher collaboration, and school-reform readiness when developing coaching programs.
Thriving, Surviving, or Striving? A Part-Time Non-Tenure-Track Faculty Typology for the New Era of Faculty Work
Authors: Pryor Kim Nelson
Published: November 2021

Context

As instructional part-time, non-tenure-track faculty (NTTF) come to constitute an increasing proportion of all teaching faculty in the United States, significant research has investigated the experiences and perspectives of these essential higher education workers. In past decades, a subset of this work has sought to typologize this heterogenous group by various characteristics including their professional attributes and motivations for teaching part-time. Yet these typologies evidence limited usefulness to the robust and current scholarly debate surrounding NTTF in higher education.

Purpose

This article presents a novel typology of part-time NTTF for the new era of faculty work—an era marked by financial inequality. Thus, the proposed typology sorts these faculty, within the context of structural inequality, by their motivation to teach part-time and their financial dependence on this work.

Research Design

This analytic essay synthesizes literature on the attributes, work experiences, perspectives, and motivations of part-time NTTF in order to critique existing part-time faculty typologies and present a novel classification system.

Conclusions

The proposed typology advances three types of part-time NTTF: “thrivers”— those who work as teachers predominantly by preference; “survivors” —those who work as teachers predominantly out of financial need; and “strivers” —those who work as teachers because of a combination of preference and financial need. As proposed, the new typology enables a more complex understanding of part-time faculty's work experiences and better differentiates lines of future inquiry and practice for these essential professionals, many of whom are indispensable to, yet face inequitable working conditions within, the field of higher education.
“Losing One African American Preservice Teacher is One Too Many”: A Critical Race Analysis of Support for Praxis Core as African American Students Speak Out
Authors: Wynter-Hoyte Kamania , Long Susi , Mcadoo Terrance M. , Strickland Jennifer D.
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

Praxis Core, an ETS general knowledge examination, is required for teaching licensure in many states. However, it exists within a history of racist testing from time of the first IQ and SAT tests. Because of Praxis Core, Preservice Teachers of Color are regularly denied entry into the teaching profession, a reality incongruent with the call for a more diverse teaching population.

Purpose/Research Question

While recognizing the need to eliminate racist gatekeepers to the profession, this study focused on providing Praxis Core support so that no more African American preservice teachers are lost to the test while working to dethrone it. To understand effective support, this study asked: What can we learn through the experiences of 10 African American preservice teachers at a Predominately White Institution (PWI) about characteristics of effective support as they prepare for the Praxis Core examination?

Research Design

Data were collected and analyzed using qualitative critical race methods and a framework grounded in culturally relevant, responsive, and sustaining pedagogies. Data included student interviews and questionnaires, lesson plans, and emails among the researchers/instructors and students.

Results

The study identified characteristics of effective support as grounded instructors’ culturally responsive caring defined by: a commitment to student success and empowering students’ belief in their success; knowing each student well to understand strengths, fears, needs; establishing relationships considered by students to be trusting and comfortable; countering messages of ineptness by teaching students about the racist nature of the test and validating them as knowledgeable and capable; recognizing the linguistic dexterity of African American Language speakers and helping them use their linguistic abilities to conquer the tests; and emancipating students by making them aware of the sociopolitical intent as well as structure of the tests.

Conclusions/Recommendations

We offer recommendations recognizing that they are merely Band-aids when biased tests play a role in sustaining a predominantly White teaching force. While we work to change that, our study suggests the development of support systems by faculty who (a) do not settle for deflections from the need for this work; (b) can develop relationships deemed comfortable from students’ perspectives; (c) believe and can help students recognize that they are not broken but whole, intelligent, knowledgeable; (d) understand the biased nature of Praxis Core and can help students examine test items and strategize accordingly; and (e) can help students use their cultural and linguistic knowledge and dexterity to beat the testing game.
A Model of Co-Construction for Curriculum and Professional Development in Head Start: The Readiness through Integrative Science and Engineering (RISE) Approach
Authors: Mcwayne Christine M. , Mistry Jayanthi , Brenneman Kimberly , Zan Betty , Greenfield Daryl B.
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

In the context of increasing accountability mandates in the preK–12 education system, the importance of professional development (PD) supports for early childhood educators is recognized. Education leaders emphasize the importance of partnering with teachers to inform the development of effective PD approaches. This partnering process is often referred to as co-construction. Co-construction with teachers is thought to be an essential element for ensuring that the learnings gained from any PD program are maintained once intensive supports are removed. However, guidance is scant concerning specific aspects of effective co-construction.

Purpose of Study

In this article, we document the process of co-construction within the Readiness through Integrative Science and Engineering (RISE) curriculum and PD approach. In so doing, we hope to illuminate processes potentially at work within the “black box” of PD.

Setting/Participants

The RISE project was implemented at two Head Start program sites that served a high proportion of dual language learning children and immigrant families in a large city in the northeastern United States. Participants were teachers and parent volunteers from these two programs.

Research Design

Using grounded theory methods, qualitative data on implementation across key RISE contexts were analyzed. Data collected across three years included digital audio- and video-recorded interactions among participants, written documentation of meeting agendas, planning notes, and meeting notes.

Results

Analyses resulted in the articulation of a three-step process: (1) setting the conditions for co-construction (establishing mutual respect and trust among partners, leveling roles and authority, and validating/naming partners’ expertise); (2) establishing joint activities as the core process (setting shared goals and agenda, building relationships, and validating co-constructed products); and (3) observing outcomes of co-construction (shifts in attitudes and interactional roles, appropriation of RISE concepts, and integration of RISE components).

Conclusions/Recommendations

The RISE model of co-construction comports with what others in the field have proposed about the importance of teacher input into their own professional learning, adding further dimensionality through systematic documentation and grounded theory analysis. We discuss how the RISE co-construction approach is similar to and distinct from other such efforts in the field of early childhood education, and we suggest future directions for research to document and test effective PD processes.
“The Tail Wagging the Dog”: High-Stakes Testing as a Mediating Context in Secondary Literacy-Related
Authors: Learned Julie E. , Dacus Laura C. , Morgan Mary Jo , Schiller Kathryn S. , Gorgun Guher
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

High-stakes testing (HST) weaves through the fabric of school life, stretching beyond the test day. Results have consequences for a school's reputation and autonomy, as well as teachers’ evaluations and students’ graduation and morale. Prior research demonstrates the constraining and inequitable effects assessments can have on students’ learning.

Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study

Recently, scholars have called for more research on students’ and teachers’ perspectives on HST. Responding to this call, we conducted a yearlong study in a high school designated as “persistently struggling” by the state. We examined adolescents’ and educators’ perceptions, reactions, and resistance to HST. We traced participants’ interactions with and about testing over the course of a school year as they prepared for, discussed, and eventually participated in test day.

Research Design

We conducted a yearlong qualitative study in which participants were 15 focal 11th graders and 9 teachers. We conducted 425 hours of observations and 52 interviews, as well as collected assessment data and classroom artifacts. For this article, we used quantitative survey data as a secondary source and analyzed the responses of 425 11th graders.

Conclusions/Recommendations

Analysis showed that HST served as a dominant context for literacy-related teaching across disciplines. Participants negotiated tension between their beliefs about education and their efforts to boost test scores. Teachers reported that assessments and their accompanying prescriptive curriculum hindered literacy and content area teaching and learning. Students, although they had diverse opinions about HST's usefulness, reported it created emotional distress, which compromised test performance. Testing contributed to a high-pressure environment in which literacy and content instruction were made reductive. Participants’ perspectives, and ways in which they resisted, provide insights into HST effects, as well as suggest promising, alternative routes toward equitable assessment that supports meaningful learning.
Does Teacher Data Use Lead to Improved Student Achievement? A Review of the Empirical Evidence
Authors: Grabarek Jana , Kallemeyn Leanne M.
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

The importance attached to practicing data use is evident in its inclusion in federal law, competitive grant programs, state teaching license requirements, and professional development (PD) workshops around the world. Yet, practitioners and scholars have identified misconceptions clouding data use practice, questioned its utility, and suggested its discontinuation. These tensions are linked to various conceptualizations of data use, which include simple, linear, and complex, contextualized understandings. Prior research on data use as sensemaking, data use intervention components and promising practices, factors influencing data use, and using data to address equity suggest data use is a complex endeavor.

Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study

This study explored the link between teacher data use, in its many forms, and improvements in student achievement.

Research Design

This study is a systematic review of 39 quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods studies.

Data Collection and Analysis

Descriptive details of each study were recorded, including the sample and its demographics; study location, length, design, and measures; school subject foci; type(s) of data used and type(s) of data strategies employed; school levels involved; and findings/results. Data use efforts also were coded for their inclusion of data use intervention components and promising practices; teacher, context, and assessment factors influencing data use; and equity practices and principles. Study results were categorized as positive, mixed, or null based on main effects, and shifts in proportions of study outcomes were noted as results were analyzed through a variety of lenses.

Findings/Results

Fifteen studies identified positive relationships (38% of studies) between data use and student achievement, 10 pointed to mixed relationships (26%), and 14 shared no (or null) relationships (36%). No differences were evident when considering studies by the school levels, subject areas, and study designs involved. Studies that had positive impacts on student achievement more often than the sample overall incorporated the following elements: ongoing professional development, comprehensive data use interventions targeting multiple leverage points, multiple types of data, and intentions to use data for continuous improvement of all students.

Conclusions/Recommendations

Findings demonstrate that a comprehensive framework for data use can have positive impacts on student achievement. Implications for future research and practice are provided.
On the Educational Rights of Undocumented Students: A Call to Expand Teachers’ Awareness of Policies Impacting Undocumented Students and Strategic Empathy
Authors: Rodriguez Sophia , Mccorkle William
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

Undocumented and DACAmented students face substantial restrictions in higher education as well as in U.S. society. Though there has been significant research on the effects of these policies on the lives and educational outcomes of immigrant students, including how undocumented students are accessing higher education, there is less understanding of K–12 teachers’ awareness of these policies and their attitudes toward these policies. This is especially true in regard to aggregated, nationwide quantitative research.

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to examine the awareness of teachers nationwide toward the educational experiences and policies of immigrant students, their awareness of false immigration narratives, and teachers’ attitudes toward education policies for immigrant students. In addition, the relationship between teachers’ awareness and attitudes was analyzed. This research is relevant because the awareness of teachers toward the educational experiences of immigrant students is central to cultivating strategic empathy. Similarly, an understanding of the sociopolitical realties of immigrant students, particularly those with an undocumented status, is necessary to advocate for and fulfill students’ educational needs. Furthermore, teachers’ attitudes and beliefs toward educational policies for immigrant students are fundamental because they may reflect on more implicit attitudes of teachers toward immigrant and marginalized populations.

Research Design

The study is based in a correlation quantitative design that explored the relationship between awareness and attitudes. The research centers on a study of K–12 teachers (N = 5,190) from across all regions of the United States. The instrument measuring awareness and attitudes was designed and validated by the authors. The analyses revealed that overall, there was a relatively strong awareness of educational policies for immigrant students and identification of false immigration narratives. However, several areas of unawareness were especially notable, particularly related to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program and the ease of the immigration system. The attitudes of teachers toward educational policies for immigrant students leaned in a more positive direction overall. Additionally, the analysis revealed a significant correlation between awareness of educational policies and attitudes (r = .170, p = < .001) and a stronger correlation between awareness of false immigration narratives and attitudes (r = .579, p = < .001).

Conclusions

From these data, the authors call for an expanded view of teachers’ awareness in the form of what is conceptualized as sociopolitical strategic empathy. Implications of the data speak to the dangers of ill-prepared teachers and how their lack of awareness impacts attitudes toward undocumented students/lack of inclusive views toward rights.
The Critical Role of Teacher Emotional Support for Latinx Students
Authors: Mireles-Rios Rebeca , Simon Odelia , Nylund-Gibson Karen
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

The relationship between perceived discrimination and students’ academic outcomes is well established, showing the negative effects of experiences of discrimination. Although much attention has focused on how to temper these effects for students, few studies have focused on the potential role that teachers can play in lessening the effects of discrimination on student outcomes.

Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study

In this study, we look at the intersection of race/ethnicity and gender by examining at how Latinx male and female high school students’ academic outcomes, such as grade point average, are impacted by their perceived level of discrimination and teacher support.

Research Design

Using an intersectional framework, this study uses data from 783 Latinx adolescents (Mage = 16.01 years) in the United States. Specifically, we examine the moderating role of perceived teacher support on the relationship between students’ discrimination and their academic performance using a moderated factor analysis approach.

Findings/Results

Results indicate that the items that measure perceived discrimination and teacher support do not function in the same way for Latinx male and female adolescents and that emotional teacher support buffers the negative relationship between discrimination and academic performance for Latinx males.

Conclusions/Recommendations

We argue the need to construct measures and approach interventions in the areas of discrimination and teacher support that would allow us to better identify how to support Latinx adolescents in the most effective ways.
Translanguaging as a Gateway to Black Immigrant Collegians’ Leadership Literacies
Authors: Hotchkins Bryan K. , Smith Patriann
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

Previous research suggested that first- or second-generation African immigrants comprised nearly a third of Black students attending selective U.S. colleges. While research frames the involvement of Black immigrant collegians as distinctly different from African American peers as it pertains to family goals, relationships, ethnic identity, and academic achievement, little is known about the ways in which Black immigrant collegians experience the perceptions of others about their literacy achievement in the academy.

Purpose and Research Design

This qualitative narrative inquiry applies CRiT walking in concert with translanguaging to examine the epistemological perspectives of six second-generation immigrant African male collegians experiencing structural placism and using academic literacies as they traverse a Hispanic-serving institution in rural Texas.

Conclusion

Structural racism excludes students of color from learning and leadership opportunities at predominantly White institutions. Our findings show that participants who used translanguaging by invoking two specific forms of linguistic repertoires, English standardized and cultural nonstandardized, to proactively respond to structural placism. Furthermore, participants associated being multilingual with race and leadership positionality in academic, organizational and cultural spaces. Moreover, African immigrant male collegians spoke of utilizing racially homogenous academic (e.g., study groups) and historically Black cocurricular organizations as spaces to engage in culturally safe ways that validated their intellectual and ethnic identities.
Using Machine Learning to Advance Early Warning Systems: Promise and Pitfalls
Authors: Soland James , Domingue Benjamin , Lang David
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

Early warning indicators (EWI) are often used by states and districts to identify students who are not on track to finish high school, and provide supports/interventions to increase the odds the student will graduate. While EWI are diverse in terms of the academic behaviors they capture, research suggests that indicators like course failures, chronic absenteeism, and suspensions can help identify students in need of additional supports. In parallel with the expansion of administrative data that have made early versions of EWI possible, new machine learning methods have been developed. These methods are data-driven and often designed to sift through thousands of variables with the purpose of identifying the best predictors of a given outcome. While applications of machine learning techniques to identify students at-risk of high school dropout have obvious appeal, few studies consider the benefits and limitations of applying those models in an EWI context, especially as they relate to questions of fairness and equity.

Focus of Study

In this study, we will provide applied examples of how machine learning can be used to support EWI selection. The purpose is to articulate the broad risks and benefits of using machine learning methods to identify students who may be at risk of dropping out. We focus on dropping out given its salience in the EWI literature, but also anticipate generating insights that will be germane to EWI used for a variety of outcomes.

Research Design

We explore these issues by using several hypothetical examples of how ML techniques might be used to identify EWI. For example, we show results from decision tree algorithms used to identify predictors of dropout that use simulated data.

Conclusions/Recommendations

Generally, we argue that machine learning techniques have several potential benefits in the EWI context. For example, some related methods can help create clear decision rules for which students are a dropout risk, and their predictive accuracy can be higher than for more traditional, regression-based models. At the same time, these methods often require additional statistical and data management expertise to be used appropriately. Further, the black-box nature of machine learning algorithms could invite their users to interpret results through the lens of preexisting biases about students and educational settings.