Given the rapidly growing number of students with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) from diverse cultural communities in the United States, researchers have steadily emphasized the importance of developing and implementing culturally responsive interventions and practices. Unfortunately, there is no clear understanding of culture and diversity in…

The pedagogical potentials and challenges experienced when trying to incorporate the use of a wiki social media site with undergraduate childhood study students are reported. The wiki was introduced to inspire students to engage in student peer-learning, develop their writing skills, and facilitate a PhD student's developmental teaching beyond the…

The Civics Education Initiative is a project of the Joe Foss Institute, a nonprofit dedicated to shaping "young Americans for civic engagement as voters and informed members of their community." The three-year initiative, which launched in September 2015 and concludes in September 2017, has three goals: (1) To ensure students graduate…

The National Center for Leadership in Intensive Intervention (NCLII), a consortium funded by the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP), prepares special education leaders to become experts in research on intensive intervention for students with disabilities who have persistent and severe academic (e.g., reading and math) and behavioral…

Students who are considered "college- and career-ready" possess both the academic content knowledge and the 21st century skills, or "noncognitive skills," esteemed by today's higher education institutions and global workforce. And while some K-12 schools have recently embraced pedagogies such as personalized learning that…

The research presented in chapters 2, 3, and 4 in this dissertation uses a sociocultural and sociohistorical lens, particularly around power, authority of knowledge and identity formation, to investigate the complexity of engaging in, supporting, and evaluating high-quality argumentation within a college biochemistry inquiry-oriented classroom.…

Lewis Carroll famously noted that "if you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there". This capstone project joins the dialogue of the importance of adapting the principal preparation programs at colleges and universities to adequately provide aspiring principals the skills needed to lead the work in low-performing…

Many teachers and pre-service teachers of mathematics lack experience with teaching methods, such as mathematical modelling, that require a conceptual learning and problem solving approach. To address this problem, this paper presents a study of a method -- the Enhancement, Learning, Reflection (ELR) process -- that has been designed to improve…

Today, examples of rapid, non-linear progress--sometimes called leapfrogging--are evident in a number of sectors. Often, these instances are most obvious in the developing world, where in telecommunications or banking, for example, whole phases of infrastructure and institution-building that other countries had to go through have been by-passed by…

"What do you want to do for a living?" This is a question dreaded by many young people. The question assumes that youth have had all the information and experience they need to make an informed decision about their future. A youth service professional or someone volunteering his or her time with youth might be wondering how to support…

Nurses need sharp, clinical reasoning skills to respond to critical situations and to be successful at work in a complex and challenging healthcare system. While past research has focused on using virtual learning environments to teach clinical reasoning, there has been limited research on the experiences of nursing faculty and there is a need for…

This literature review examined 36 studies that implemented Video-Based Instruction (VBI) to promote the social initiation skills of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Studies that met the criteria were analyzed to determine (a) characteristics of participants, (b) dependent variable(s), (c) independent variable, (d) results, (e)…

Self-regulation and executive functioning impairments are common in children with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. Given the high rates of fetal alcohol spectrum disorder identified amongst children living in the remote Fitzroy Valley region of Western Australia, the Alert Program® was identified as a culturally safe intervention for use in local…

This article examines social media messages posted while students served on an alternative break. Content analysis was implemented to examine four years of public domain messaging (n = 3,012). Data were collected from social media sites by searching for #hashtags provided to students, a common practice of university volunteer centers. Findings…

Emotion regulation impairments are common among individuals with autism spectrum disorder and are believed to often underlie commonly seen problems with aggression, depression, and anxiety. The Emotional Awareness and Skills Enhancement program was developed to reduce emotion regulation impairment and thereby improve behavioral disturbance, via…