This study investigated the understudied area of virtual reality (VR) creation among elementary-aged youth, exploring their engagement in VR creation and the ways in which educators can facilitate this creative process. Using an embedded case study, the researcher examined how the youth visualize writing using the VR creation tool, CoSpaces. To…

Although evidence-based practices (EBPs) exist to support emotional and behavioral health for children and their families, their adoption in community settings remains startlingly low. While therapist training is a promising method to promote the successful adoption of EBPs, there is often a lack of agreement on the foundational skills therapists…

This multiple case study interrogates the pedagogical practice of queering LGBTQ-inclusive children's literature in 3rd-6th grade classrooms. Five teachers, representing both private and public schools, demonstrated their process of using LGBTQ-inclusive literature by participating in interviews, observations, and providing supporting documents.…

This research focuses on the ways in which preservice teachers evolve in their beliefs and understandings of literature while they are enrolled in a semester-long course, TLS 480, Children's Literature in the Classroom. I was the instructor of the course and served as a teacher researcher using qualitative research and Louise Rosenblatt's…

This action research study describes the influence of culturally relevant literacy instruction on an urban preschool classroom and its effect on an educator-researcher. This research study was grounded in a theoretical framework that involved culturally responsive teaching pedagogy (Ladson-Billings, 1995), reality pedagogy (Emdin, 2012), and early…

Our current education system depends exclusively on standardization, accountability, and test scores, which often limits the learning within the classroom. This type of curriculum does not include children as contributors, their lived cultural experiences, or their voices and cultural diversity. The intent of this dissertation was to connect…

Despite a 100-year-old history and the existence of schools in nearly every country in the world, Waldorf education is a little known and poorly understood educational model that was developed in Europe by Austrian philosopher Rudolph Steiner. For many years it existed in the United States in the form of private schools. Few of their teachers or…

The current shift in U.S. educational reform toward standards and guiding frameworks that are more inclusive of twenty-first-century competencies has created a need for research regarding the assessment of these skills. Also, needing further exploration is an understanding of how these new learner-centered assessments may impact students.…

This dissertation is a hermeneutical phenomenological analysis of the value of mindfulness practices intervention for children diagnosed with emotional disturbance (ED). My research is based on the work of mindfulness scholars such as Daniel J. Siegel, Jon Kabat-Zinn, H.H. Dalai Lama, Thich Nhat Hanh, and others. Mindfulness is described as non…

"Progressive education" is a term more often used than fully understood. Generations of authors have attempted to settle on a definition for this term, generally by looking to the work of John Dewey around the turn of the 20th century. Many have noted the variety of interpretations of this ideology, with some arguing that no single…

Current educational policy in the United States supports the standardization of school curricula and promotes a high-stakes testing culture that reinforces the ideologies of market fundamentalism. This accountability movement has resulted in school curriculum that aims to transcend children's diverse lived experiences and the local contexts in…

Early learning standards have been articulated in an effort to improve and create cohesion between and within informal and formal learning environments for young children. To fulfill these goals, early learning standards need to be implemented in a manner that is: (1) tailored to the variable nature of early childhood development, (2) adapted for…

Research Topic: The majority of Christian schools in the United States exclude children who have disabilities from their learning communities. This study examines the practices of 11 Christian schools throughout the United States, through conversations with a top leader in each school, that provide access to and/or inclusion in their schools.…

In the United States education system a large achievement gap between African American and Latino students compared to White American students exists. Various studies have documented the gap, but there has not been much success in closing it. Recognizing that the educational system is growing more, not less, diverse, including due to the rise in…

The use of drawing in the classroom has a contentious history in the U.S. education system. While most instructors and students agree that the activity helps students focus and observe more details, there is a lack of empirical data to support these positions. This study examines the use of three treatments (writing a description, drawing a…