Patriarchal ideologies and structures helped to shape the public school institution at the onset of compulsory education in the United States and continue to circulate within educational discourses today, causing harmful consequences for the workforce made up of mostly women that is tasked with educating our nation's youth (Jones, 2020, Accepted…

As the 21st century unfolds, the world has become increasingly fast-paced, interconnected and unpredictable compared to previous generations (McChrystal, et al., 2015). As a result, education researchers and practitioners must be prepared for the challenge of helping students better apply their knowledge to respond to the complex and novel…

The aim of this action research study is to link research to action in order to meet individual learner needs through the creation of collaborative inquiry based teams that seek to provide equitable learning experiences through differentiated instructional practices. Key findings include the results of the primary goal of this study, which was…

A prevailing challenge in teacher education is the "problem of enactment," a discrepancy in what teacher candidates (TCs) know or say about practice and what they can actually do or enact (Kennedy, 1999). Current practice-based teacher education research focuses on articulating pedagogies of practice and core practices to integrate…

Access to advanced-level science courses can be difficult for those students who start in a tracked system. Tracking is an educational practice where students are assigned to different classes based on ability level. African American and Hispanic students are most at risk since most minority students are found in the lower level track (Burris,…

One of the major issues confronting education in Arizona and across the United States has been the consistent low performance of culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students in comparison to their peers as evidenced by the disparity of the achievement gap at every level in the educational pipeline. A contributing factor has been the lack…

Gordon Wells (2001) states that policy makers and educational planners believe there is a crisis in public education. These individuals talk about improving the "delivery of a standardized education" (p. 172) and creating nation-wide assessments that ensure particular outcomes. On the other hand, Wells (2001) discusses academic…

This qualitative study explored faculty members' and senior level administrators' views of intelligence studies, communities of practice, and learning approaches. A focus group interview, individual interviews, and a review of documents were the sources of data for the study. Themes emerging from the investigation were strategies to connect…

Because data access may be perceived by principals as overwhelming or irrelevant rather than helpful (Wayman, Spikes, & Volonnino, 2013), data access does not guarantee effective data use. The data-based decision making literature has largely focused on teacher use of data, considering less often data-based organizational improvements for the…

Problem: There is an existing cycle of questionable grading practices at the K-12 level. As a result, districts continue to search for innovative methods of evaluating and reporting student progress. One result of this effort has been the adoption of a standards-based grading approach. Research concerning standards-based grading implementation has…

This is a study of teachers' authentic professional learning at a public school in Poudre School District in northern Colorado. At Polaris Expeditionary Learning School, teachers and administrators have developed a form of school-based instructional rounds referred to herein as PLC rounds (professional learning community rounds). In PLC rounds,…

Video has been shown to be an effective tool for synthesizing theory and connecting theory to practice in meaningful ways. This design-based research study examined how localized video of a practicing teacher impacted pre-service teachers' ability to learn culturally responsive teaching (CRT) methods and targeted strategies in an online…

This case study conceptually illustrated how a leadership living-learning community provided an educational context well suited to enhance development of leaders within changing leadership and educational paradigms. Specifically, it highlighted how both leadership and learning have come to be viewed as sociocultural processes, and presented…

This qualitative, practitioner research study, conducted by a school leader-as-researcher, was designed to gain insight into instructional leadership and teacher learning through the perceptions of high school teachers participating in a voluntary, school-based, self-organized, self-directed, cross-curricular teacher learning group within a…

Traditional notions around "research" and "teaching" tend to project the two as separate, often conflicting, activities. My dissertation challenges this perceived dichotomy and explores points of connections, or continuities, between teaching and research through my own practice as an adjunct community-college English as a…