As educators, our goal is to help our students be successful, but in order to accomplish this, we need to understand what factors contribute to student success. One factor, small-group active learning, has been correlated to improved academic outcomes; however, the magnitude of this improvement can vary across different courses, different types of…

Parents are a child's first teachers. They are responsible for building children's social, emotional, physical, and intellectual foundations. The problem investigated through this dissertation case study was the inconsistent knowledge of child development and developmentally appropriate activities among parents of young and primary school aged…

Current studies focus on critical pedagogy in the classroom as a practice, but do not connect these practices to praxis outside of the classroom as it relates to identity-based student activism. The purpose of this research is to investigate students' experiences and development as identity-based student activists and the role of dialogue in the…

"Service-learning" (SL) is an experiential pedagogy that engages students in working for, with, and in communities in need. While prior research has explored the effects of SL on second language (L2) users' (perceived) language development (e.g., Gaugler & Matheus, 2019), intercultural awareness (e.g., Sa´nchez-Naranjo, 2021), and…

This study examined the relationship between the strength of Professional Learning Community dimensions and the level of Self-Direction in Learning as perceived by California State certificated elementary teachers. The Professional Learning Community Assessment-Revised recorded teacher perceptions of the strength of five PLC dimensions.…

The overall goal of the present study was to develop, implement, and test the effectiveness of a curriculum designed to improve spatial thinking amongst preschool children. Specifically, the study explored the effects of shape-based training on 4-year-old children's ability to disembed and whether the training transferred to improvement in mental…

This is a multi-article format dissertation that explores emotional and cognitive engagement in higher education classrooms. Student engagement in higher education classrooms has been associated with desired outcomes such as academic achievement, retention, and graduation. Student engagement is a multi-faceted concept, consisting of behavioral,…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between undergraduate student performance on an information literacy assessment activity and their performance in global learning assessment activities for three global learning outcomes: global awareness, global perspective, and global engagement. Global learning is the process whereby…

The purpose of this study was to understand the impact of spirituality in higher education. This literature review explored the role of spirituality in the transformational learning process of students in higher education. In order for transformational learning to be comprehensive and authentic, the spiritual dimension must be considered in the…

This dissertation conducted a science classroom intervention using two instructional approaches, computational modeling and paper-based pictorial modeling, in the context of food webs. A series of research papers were written on the impact of the intervention on students' attitudes and learning, and on teachers via professional development and…

Reliance on online media in providing educational opportunities has gained tremendous momentum in mathematics education. Genre of studies that explore pedagogical practices of mathematics teacher educators in the online environment is still in infancy. Using survey method and three in-depth case studies in this work I examined pedagogical…

There is a movement in secondary education praxis across U.S. public schools and policy makers that recognizes the value of developing the capacity for academic self-regulation in learners. While there are many interpretations of self-regulation, in this context self-regulation refers to a learner's capacity to understand their own learning as a…

The overall goal of this dissertation was to examine teacher characteristics, teachers' beliefs, and contextual factors that may motivate teachers' decisions to engage in high quality teacher-child interactions. I use two complementary studies to meet this goal. These two studies provide insight into several aspects of early childhood teachers'…

The purpose of this quantitative study was to describe the perceptions of students pursuing an Adult Education graduate degree at King Saud University; the students' perception was examined regarding the teaching practices they received in the classroom. Participants for this study were males and females pursuing Adult Education degrees at King…

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to develop descriptions of how teenage students remain engaged in learning while using mobile technology. Developments in technology have expanded learning contexts and provided learners with improved capacities to connect with others to exchange, gain, and construct knowledge. Developments in…