Despite the widely recognized effectiveness of place-based education (PBE) by researchers in the science education community, there is a lack of resources and curriculum appropriate for the environment of urban schools. Unequal access to quality science curriculum materials is an ongoing issue facing urban schools in the United States. This basic…

Colleges face growing pressures to maintain or enhance the quality of what they offer while being challenged to meet the needs of an increasingly diverse range of students. Staff in higher education face the challenge of supporting students to feel they belong and are valued. The co-creation of teaching and learning is one model in which we may be…

When educational leaders supervise the implementation of standards-based curricula, they should understand the forces acting on classroom teachers during that implementation process. This study investigated the lived experience of 20 elementary teachers who developed, piloted, and implemented an elementary science curriculum (ESC). Using DiMaggio…

This study explores the development and implementation of a five-day curriculum designed to enhance students' understanding of algebraic concepts through the integration of educational robotics and growth mindset principles. The study is structured around three research questions that investigate influences on decision-making in curriculum design,…

The globally shared pandemic experience forced schools to shut their doors and required communities to examine their education systems. An important part of that examination is the evaluation of online learning education options. Online K-12 learning continues to grow, so examining how it can work better for students is important. This…

The purpose of this mixed-methods study was to explore how students develop cultural competency through participation in an experiential learning-embedded college course. Existing literature often addresses career readiness, student success, cultural competency, and faculty-student affairs collaboration as distinct areas of research. However,…

The goals of nonmajor science education are to improve scientific literacy and produce pro-science attitudes. Together, these goals are expected to improve an individual's ability to make evidence-based decisions based on newer understandings of the natural world as well as developing technologies. In a post-COVID-19 world, public understanding of…

A common educational assumption is that coherence is a pre-requisite for a "good" curriculum. Indeed, in mathematics education this perspective has persisted both nationally and internationally as a foundational principle for curriculum design, reform, and evaluation. While curricular coherence is often unquestioningly accepted as…

The primary purpose of this qualitative study was to examine the Algebra I and Algebra II mathematics course curriculum documents at a local high school to determine alignment to the mathematics section of the Texas Success Initiative Assessment (TSIA) and to identify content necessary for students to demonstrate college readiness in mathematics…

This work explores the complex cognitive processes students engage in when addressing contextual tasks requiring linear and exponential models. Grounded within Piagetian constructivism and the Knowledge in Pieces (KiP) epistemological perspective (diSessa, 1993, 2018), this empirical study in a clinical setting develops a Microgenetic Learning…

To this day, Columbia College maintains one of the most robust liberal arts curricula among the tertiary education landscape, an institutional decision that has been both lauded and denounced by students, professors, and cultural critics alike. As this dissertation examines, high tensions from all angles largely stem from the Core Curriculum's…

The purpose of this project was to create a systematic, spiritual formation plan for Central Christian School that strategically integrates the Bible curriculum into the chapel programming of the school and connects it to the home. The project involved a three-part strategy consisting of statistical testing of surveys, classroom-type observations,…

The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to "understand" how secondary teachers describe the curriculum change processes of unfreezing, change, and refreezing in the southwestern school districts of the United States. The research questions were as follows: RQ1: How do secondary teachers describe the curriculum change…

In higher education, significant efforts have been made to improve student success outcomes. In this dissertation, two important problems related to student academic success are considered. The curriculum plays a crucial role in shaping student success. Curricular complexity has been shown to be inversely related to the graduation rate of…

For decades, education policy has prioritized the need to improve reading and math achievement while science teaching and learning have received far less emphasis. In 2013, schools across the United States began implementing Next Generation Science Standards (or similarly structured, state-adopted science standards). These new science standards…