The transition to graduate school is a unique experience that is challenging for every student as they leave behind many sources of support and enter a new environment that requires incredible independence to navigate. However, programs and institutions often do not focus on supporting the needs of graduate students specifically. Previous research…

Purpose: The goals of this research study included evaluating the outcomes of Interdisciplinary Science Threshold Experience (InSciTE) on student experience of science discipline, level of sense belongingness to a large Faculty of Science (FoS), outcomes in learning science literacy skills and whether a student's background played a role in the…

Rural undergraduate students at flagship universities in the United States are typically outnumbered by their urban and suburban peers. Students from rural demographic backgrounds bring different forms of social and cultural capital to higher education with them. This phenomenological study at a flagship university in the Deep South region of the…

A unique model of government and civil society cooperation has emerged in Ukraine since the Revolution of Dignity in 2014 and grew even more important amid the full-scale invasion of Russia. Recent reforms and teacher professional development in Ukraine build on this model that promotes addressing national-level challenges in equitable…

When thinking of wellness in dance, we often think about addressing mental or physical health-related challenges facing performers, although when looking at community dance, there are additional considerations to ensure the wellness of citizens and neighbors participating in dance programming. Gaps remain in dance education training to prepare…

Blind/partially blind people are underrepresented in post-secondary education and lack equitable opportunities to develop a sense of belonging. This study shares narratives of 28 blind/partially blind students from across Turtle Island (in what is colonially called Canada) using Teng et al.'s (2020) Belonging in Academia Model (BAM) as a…

Movements have been the driving force of social change through most of human history. Yet despite the important impacts that movements had in the past that led to a more just present, most Americans generally hold low opinions of movements. The authors see this as a major failing of history education. The authors argue for a need to center the…

The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore how faculty members describe facilitating student learning utilizing cognitive presence, social presence, and teaching presence in an online environment in post-secondary institutions in Southern California. Community of inquiry (COI) framework was used to guide the following research questions:…

The emergency school closures caused by the COVID-19 pandemic impacted students and teachers across the globe. This study explored how the Global Educator Collaborative Facebook group, with over 125,000 members, supported teachers as they adapted to distance learning instruction amid emergency school closures. Through the Facebook group, teachers…

The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to explore high school principals' perceptions of how a supportive environment, strong family-community ties, and trust assist educational leaders in improving the culture within their schools. Participants of this study included 15 high school principals in the New York City Department of…

Campus agricultural projects (CAPs) are a growing phenomenon across the U.S. with nearly 269 CAPs at institutions of higher education. In their simplest form, they are places where students learn to grow food, having the potential to engage students through experiential and service-learning. These spaces not only have the capacity to engage…

The factors of identities, positionalities, and ideologies are critical on how leaders lead, guide, engage, and communicate with their constituencies to create equitable learning experiences for students. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to gain understanding of the experiences of three Asian American community college presidents'…

In this dissertation, I aimed to improve elementary teachers' mathematical instruction by enhancing their content knowledge and skills through the implementation of professional learning communities (PLCs) and professional development. The research design consisted of multiple evaluation steps conducted over time with a collaborative action plan…

This qualitative, thematic analysis explores the emergent themes related to community college professors' experiences adopting and using technology during the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. The interviews included semi-structured questions (i.e., closed- and open-ended) to elicit themes related to the professors' adoption and use of…

Statement of Purpose and Method of Study: The purpose of this study is two-fold. One purpose is to examine whether there is a correlation between Mississippi community college instructors' self-reported recollections of their coping self-efficacy and burnout during the COVID-19 pandemic. The second purpose is to explore Mississippi community…