The purpose of this action research study was to understand and develop school-wide critical literacy practices with middle school teachers. During Cycle 1, students, teachers, and administrators from one school within an urbanized district spoke with the researcher in either interviews or focus groups. Results indicated that in order to implement…

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, transitioning to online education proved to be difficult due to lack of training, resources, and funding to adequately provide what every student and teacher needed. We present a framework for ongoing professional development for in-service teachers to expand their attitudes and beliefs about culturally…

Purpose: The purpose of the study was to provide an example of instructional coaching for inservice teachers within the context of community-engaged scholarship (CEP), involving professional learning communities (PLCs). This study seeks to encourage policymakers to allocate budgets for instructional coaches, as well as resources for schools.…

Supporting students' engagement in meaningful mathematics discussions can be challenging. It involves, for example, choosing tasks that are worth discussing (e.g., Stein and Lane 1996), negotiating norms for how students engage with one another's ideas (Kazemi and Stipek 2001; Horn 2012), eliciting students' thinking, and pressing students to…

This study was conducted to propose a framework of professional development tasks (PDTs) that may be used to enhance mathematics coaches' content knowledge and understanding of student work, as well as to help them conceptualize their role in facilitating a professional learning community in school. In this qualitative design experiment,…

This essay contends that personalized professional learning can support the shift towards a culture of personalized learning at the middle school level, with the potential to make a district-wide impact. If you have ever worked in a middle school, you would agree there is a sense magic and contagious energy within middle school students. Middle…

After a significant policy change led to the admittance of students with moderate disabilities, St. Agnes School (SAS; pseudonym)--a Catholic PK-8 school in Southern California--implemented an 18-month professional development (PD) program to improve teachers' inclusive classroom practices. Grounded in the theoretical framework of Universal Design…

After-school programs, such as a STEM Career Club, can promote student interest, engagement, and awareness of STEM majors and fields, as well as encourage teachers to become more knowledgeable and competent in STEM areas. In this dissertation study, two schools were selected from a larger NSF-funded project to participate in this study. Teacher-…