Scholarly Work - Education

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://scholarworks.montana.edu/handle/1/2974

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American Indian English Language Learners: Misunderstood and under-served
(2016-09) Carjuzaa, Jioanna; Ruff, William G.
English Language Learners (ELLs) represent the fastest growing segment of pre-K-12 students in the United States. Currently, Montana has the highest percentage of ELLs who are American Indian/Alaska Native. Although there is tremendous linguistic diversity among students, more than 80% of ELLs in the US speak Spanish as their first language. This is not the case in Montana, where 80% of ELLs are American Indians who do not necessarily speak their heritage languages; yet, their academic English skills are inadequate to support content mastery. Students whose first language is an American Indian language and who are learning English as a second language (ESL) are easier to identify as ELLs. Students who do not speak a heritage language but have not acquired academic English proficiency are harder to identify. This unique group of ELLs had their English acquisition framed by parents/grandparents or guardians themselves who were ELLs who did not fully acquire Standard English and currently speak and model a non-standard or non-academically proficient variety of English. Recommendations for how to broaden policy perspectives to facilitate comprehensive educational support for the full range of culturally and linguistically diverse American Indians in all classrooms are highlighted.
Analysis of 100 Years of Curriculum Designs
(Eskisehir Osmangazi University, 2013) Kelting-Gibson, Lynn
Fifteen historical and contemporary curriculum designs were analyzed for elements of assessment that support student learning and inform instructional decisions. Educational researchers are purposely paying attention to the role assessment plays in a well-designed planning and teaching process. Assessment is a vital component to educational planning and teaching because it is a way to gather accurate evidence of student learning and information to inform instructional decisions. The purpose of this review was to analyze 100 years of curriculum designs to uncover elements of assessment that will support teachers in their desire to improve student learning. Throughout this research the author seeks to answer the question: Do historical and contemporary curriculum designs include elements of assessment that help teachers improve student learning? The results of the review reveal that assessment elements were addressed in all of the curricular designs analyzed, but not all elements of assessment were identified using similar terminology. Based on the analysis of this review, it is suggested that teachers not be particular about the terminology used to describe assessment elements, as all curriculum models discussed use one or more elements similar to the context of pre, formative, and summative assessments.
Area Conceptions Sprout on Earth Day
(2015-04) Wickstrom, Megan H.; Nelson, Julie; Chumbley, Jean
Within the context of gardening, students examine rectangles with the same perimeter to see if and how their areas differ.
Arizona’s reversal of fortune to no longer require educational spending to be tracked at the school level: A historical legislative analysis
(2010-03) Jimenez-Castellanos, O.; Barnett, J.; Ewbank, Ann D.
Efforts to provide equitable and adequate resources to schools continue to be debated in state legislatures across the United States. In all cases, these conversations are significantly limited by the publicly available fiscal data. Researchers and policymakers recognize that money is generally allocated to districts that disperse the resources to schools, meaning that spending is more accurately determined at the local level rather than the state level. A historical legislative analysis reveals that in Arizona, policymakers opted to track educational spending at the school level in 1998. However, a decade later in 2008, the state legislature overwhelmingly passed HB2369 that reverted back to district level fiscal reporting. This decision seems counter-intuitive to the growing accountability mentality in many legislatures across the United States. As such, the authors contend that the Arizona decision is unique and provides a context for other state legislatures because fiscal accountability has gone from district level to school level and back to district level reporting.
Beyond the Margins: Evaluating the Support for Multicultural Education within Teachers' Editions of U.S. History Textbooks
(2015-11) Stanton, Christine Rogers
Although previous research has described analysis of history textbooks in terms of multicultural education, limited attention has been given to teacher only resources, such as the “wraparound features” of teachers' editions. The study highlighted in this article applies critical discourse analysis to explore the potential for teachers' editions to support multicultural education. Teachers' editions of five U.S. history textbooks demonstrate the tendency for textbook authors to position Native peoples as invisible, as the savage Other, and as actors of the past. Additionally, teachers' editions privilege White settler and economically-motivated narratives, which suggests that conflict between Native peoples and settlers was a matter of destiny. Less frequently, wraparound features encourage critical thinking about dominant culture narratives and actors. The results demonstrate that today's teachers' editions frequently marginalize Indigenous peoples, experiences, and histories both spatially and literally through uncritical acceptance of the dominant culture narrative (i.e., “business as usual”) or assimilationist orientations (i.e., “teaching the culturally different” or “human relations”). The article concludes with implications for scholarly practice and classroom pedagogy.
Brave New World: Transformational Teaching for a Web-Based Multicultural Education Course in the Age of COVID-19
(Palgrave Macmillan, 2022-01) Brazill, Shihua C.; Munday, Pat
Multicultural education has become embedded in higher education as the student population has become more diverse. This chapter examines how to apply brave space and transformational teaching in a web-based multicultural education course. In order for brave space to be effective, it is vital to establish a shared vision for the course by applying transformational teaching practices. This chapter draws on perspectives from faculty and students’ experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Building Primary Preservice Teachers’ Identity as Engineering Educators
(MDPI AG, 2022-09) Lux, Nicholas; Hammack, Rebekah; Wiehe, Blake; Gannon, Paul
The purpose of this qualitative case study was to investigate how two primary preservice teachers built their engineering education identities during a clinical field experience that emphasized engineering education. More specifically, we explored the development of their engineering education identities while facing unforeseen circumstances and unfamiliar engineering content. We used a nested qualitative case study approach that was bounded by a university practicum field experience that took place at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Data sources included preservice teacher interviews and reflective field notes. We found that the preservice teachers faced a series of contextual factors in the clinical experience that both afforded and constrained professional learning opportunities that influenced their identity development. The affordances made professional learning opportunities possible, while the constraints limited professional growth. We also found that it was the negotiation of the factors, where the preservice teachers worked to mitigate the effect of the constraints while maximizing the advantages of the affordances, that had the greatest influence on their engineering pedagogical knowledge and engineering teaching self-efficacy. Findings from this study could provide teacher educators with insight into preparing primary teachers for unexpected challenges when teaching engineering, as well as how to best prepare engineering-efficacious teachers.
Chinese international doctoral students’ cross-cultural socialization: Leveraging strengths and multiple identities
(Informing Science Institute, 2022-02) Brazill, Shihua C.
Aim/Purpose The purpose of this study is to use narrative inquiry to discover and understand how Chinese students leverage their strengths and multiple identities in socializing to American higher education and their profession. Chinese students engage with American academic culture while embracing their multiple identities. I will explore the cultural strengths they use to socialize and develop their personal, social, cultural, and professional identities in their doctoral educational experience. Background Chinese international doctoral students encounter a unique socialization experience during their doctoral studies because they lack meaningful cross-cultural support. Likewise, it is problematic that Chinese students are often viewed as a homogeneous group and much prior research has emphasized the traditional deficit perspective in explaining how Chinese students must adjust and assimilate to the university environment. Methodology This qualitative research uses narrative inquiry to study Chinese international doctoral students’ socialization experiences while retaining their authentic voices. Narrative inquiry allows for a more nuanced understanding of the experiences of Chinese students compared to the perceptions imposed by other stakeholders. The narrative methodology provides diverse ways to understand Chinese student interactions within American culture, place, and context. This study applies the three-dimensional approach to retell participants’ stories. The three-dimensional approach is more holistic and provides a broad lens to learn about the interactions, past, present, and future experiences of individuals through time and space. Contribution This research shifts the narrative from the deficit view to a strength-based perspective as to how Chinese international doctoral students can rely on their cultural values and multiple identities as strengths to succeed academically, socially, and emotionally. Findings Findings related to the literature in two important ways. First, findings support how the six cultural strengths of Yosso’s community cultural wealth apply to Chinese international doctoral students. Chinese students’ stories align with these strengths and through these strengths, they explore and develop their personal, social, cultural, and professional identity. Second, Chinese students’ stories as a counternarrative challenged and contradicted the essentialist view and misconception that Chinese students are a homogenous group personally, socially, culturally, or academically. Recommendations for Practitioners The findings from this study offer insight for practitioners into what institutions and departments might do to support Chinese international doctoral students in their socialization journey. It is vital to support the whole student through understanding their multiple identities. Recommendation for Researchers Chinese students and other diverse learners may benefit from peer and faculty mentors in different ways. Therefore, understanding the unique cross-cultural socialization needs and strength-based perspective will help tailor social activities and inclusive learning environments. Impact on Society The current political, economic, and social relationships between the U.S. and China make it vital for American institutions to consider Chinese international doctoral students’ cross-cultural socialization journey. Future Research Though it is hoped that this study is transferable, specific issues of how it can be generalized to other Chinese international doctoral students in other areas of the U.S. are beyond the scope of this study. Future research might explore how Chinese International doctoral students’ socialization experiences differ depending on where they study in the U.S.
College experiences that contribute to students’ thinking about their sexual orientation identity
(2013-03) Hughes, Bryce E.; Hurtado, Sylvia
Coming out in STEM: Factors affecting retention of sexual minority STEM students
(2018-03) Hughes, Bryce E.
Using a national longitudinal survey data set from the Higher Education Research Institute, this study tested whether students who identified as a sexual minority (for example, lesbian, gay, bisexual, or queer) were more or less likely to persist after 4 years in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, as opposed to switching to a non-STEM program, compared to their heterosexual peers. A multilevel regression model controlling for various experiences and characteristics previously determined to predict retention in STEM demonstrated that, net of these variables, sexual minority students were 8% less likely to be retained in STEM compared to switching into a non-STEM program. Despite this finding, sexual minority STEM students were more likely to report participating in undergraduate research programs, and the gender disparity in STEM retention appears to be reversed for sexual minority STEM students.
Conceptualizing the innovation: Factors influencing doctoral candidates’ interventions in the action research dissertation
(2013-09) Wetzel, Keith A.; Ewbank, Ann D.
In this action research study, we describe how doctoral candidates conceptualize innovations for their dissertations and outline how we are using the results to improve the doctoral dissertation experience for our new cohort. Over the course of one academic year (2010/11) we documented our students’ process of conceptualizing their innovations as they moved from general ideas to concrete plans, which they would carry out the following year during their dissertation research. We found four major factors influencing the conceptualization of the innovation: the leader–scholar community, prior cycles of action research, interactions with stakeholders, and the student’s work context. As the next cycle in this action research study, we shared the results with our local community and are currently implementing recommended changes based on the study for the next cohort of students.
Confronting Coyote: Culturally Responsive Pedagogy in an Era of Standardization
(2008) Stanton, Christine Rogers
The trickster, a crucial character in many cultural histories, often slips into our lives without warning. In the western United States, the trickster frequently manifests himself as Coyote, and is central in the oral traditions of tribal people, ranching families, and outdoor adventurers alike. Coyote is responsible for some missing turkey sandwiches. You won’t believe this, but Coyote snatched my left hiking boot from right outside my tent. Coyote tricked a man out of is best horse. No luck hunting today? Coyote scared away the game. Coyote stole grain from a shed, and then locked the door behind him when he left. Coyote is a complex character that teaches and teases: One moment he shares painful lessons with us and the next he makes us laugh at our ridiculous flaws. In today’s world of educational standardization, Coyote the trickster lurks in the shadows of every classroom. He has crept among the masses in schools under the guise of a democratic model of education. He is so cunning that many educators actually ponder his suggestions associated with no Child Left Behind, despite our simultaneous suspicion of is promises. Sometimes Coyote’s claims are alluring: If we offer the same opportunities—through the same curriculum, instruction, and assessment—it seems we are promoting equity in the classroom. Despite the bitter taste of it all, Coyote presents an enticing case.
Continuing the Debate: A Response to the Literacy Research Association’s Dyslexia Research Report
(Australian International Academic Centre, 2022-08) Green, Elizabeth A.
The Literacy Research Association (LRA) is known for releasing research reports on essential topics in the field of literacy. An Examination of Dyslexia Research and Instruction, with Policy Implications is a recent LRA report with far-reaching impact in education and policy. The report claimed to be a summary of dyslexia research and instruction, however, much recent research on dyslexia definitions, diagnosis, interventions, neuroscience, and law was left out. This paper is a response to the LRA report with the intent to examine elements of the report that are particularly important and well explained, as well as those that are problematic.
Crossing Methodological Borders: Decolonizing Community-Based Participatory Research
(2013-10) Stanton, Christine Rogers
To advance socially just research, scholars—including those who utilize qualitative methodologies—must confront the colonizing reputation that frames such work in Indigenous communities. This article explores the potential for Community-Based Participatory Research to guide the re-envisioning of mainstream conceptions of scholarly control to cross epistemological borders between theory and practice. A project that endeavored to engage Native participants throughout the research process provides context for the discussion of ongoing challenges and emerging possibilities. This work holds implications for participatory research design and implementation in cross-cultural contexts, especially as connected to shifting decolonizing theory to practice.
The Curricular Indian Agent: Discursive Colonization and Indigenous (Dys)Agency in U.S. HistoryTextbooks
(2014-12) Stanton, Christine Rogers
In the 1800s and early 1900s, the United States assigned Indian Agents—non-Native employees of the federal government—to coordinate intergovernmental efforts, to encourage the assimilation of Native peoples into European-American society, and to serve as advocates for individual tribes. Although Indian Agents no longer exist in an official capacity in the United States, the potentially contradictory expectations that informed their work continue to influence communities across the country. Instead of decolonizing education, today's curricular agents typically misrepresent the historical and future agency of Native peoples while reinforcing the patronizing, normative, dominant-culture narrative. This article outlines the critical discourse analysis of five widely adopted U.S. history textbooks, as situated within the broader scope of textbook research and emerging educational movements. Findings show that textbook authors and other curricular agents use strategies of exclusion and passivation to control the historical and curricular agency of Indigenous peoples. Given the influence of educational reform efforts such as those related to the Common Core Standards, now is the critical time to retheorize curriculum design and inquiry as dialogic, dynamic, transformational, and agentive processes. The project's conclusions demonstrate the need to confront the biases of curricular agents in order to guide the decolonization of curriculum materials.
The Digital Storywork Partnership: Community-centered social studies to revitalize Indigenous histories and cultural knowledges
(2018-09) Stanton, Christine Rogers; Hall, Brad; Carjuzaa, Jioanna
Indigenous communities have always cultivated social studies learning that is interactive, dynamic, and integrated with traditional knowledges. To confront the assimilative and deculturalizing education that accompanied European settlement of the Americas, Montana has adopted Indian Education for All (IEFA). This case study evaluates the Digital Storywork Partnership (DSP), which strives to advance the goals of IEFA within and beyond the social studies classroom through community-centered research and filmmaking. Results demonstrate the potential for DSP projects to advance culturally revitalizing education, community connectedness, and identity-development. The DSP offers a model for social studies education that is not only culturally affirming and revitalizing for Indigenous communities, but also holds potential for use in all communities. We conclude with recommendations for educators, scholars, and community members engaged in similar efforts.
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in MSU Youth STEM Outreach
(Montana State University, 2022-02) Meyerink, Monte; Taylor, Suzanne; Luo, Fenqjen
This tool highlights exemplary practices for diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) outreach programs for youth in informal/out-of-school-time setting. The tool is based on guiding questions for reflection and is designed to allow those who host university STEM outreach programs for youth to evaluate and modify their practices to improve DEI. We also call specific attention to challenges faced by youth who are typically under-served or under-represented in STEM along with suggestions from community educators.
Don’t Be Too Political: Depoliticization, Sexual Orientation, and Undergraduate STEM Major Persistence
(Informa UK Limited, 2021-11) Hughes, Bryce Edward; Kothari, Shriyansh
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer (LGBQ) students persist in STEM majors at a lower rate than their heterosexual peers. This study posits that heteronormativity, as an instance of depoliticization in STEM affecting LGBQ students, could be a primary contributing factor. Using national, longitudinal data from the Higher Education Research Institute (HERI) at UCLA, this study tested LGBQ-related college experiences to determine if they help explain the retention gap between LGBQ STEM students and their heterosexual peers. Through multilevel regression modeling, we found that LGBQ status is not a significant predictor of retention in STEM after controlling for LGBQ-related experiences. The results suggest that LGBQ-related and other politicized experiences predict lower retention in STEM for heterosexual students, meaning a culture of depoliticization in STEM may be detrimental to more students than those in minoritized social identity groups.
DXI Dyslexia & Innovation: Spotlighting the Strengths of the Dyslexic Mind
(Montana State University, 2021-04) Conger, Jeffrey; Pennington, Sarah; Parrish Takes The Gun, Christian; Dyer, Lynsey; Weitzman, Cliff; Robb, Marley; Cruzado, Waded
This publication highlights the speakers from the 2019 Dyslexia & Innovation Symposium which took place at Montana State University on October 29 & 30, 2019. The publication features Christian Parrish Takes The Gun, Lynsey Dyer, Cliff Weitzman, Linda Siegel, & Marley Robb, as well as a welcome message from MSU President Waded Cruzado.
Educating for Sustainability in Remote Locations
(National Rural Education Association, 2019-07) Reading, Chris; Khupe, Constance; Redford, Morag; Wallin, Dawn; Versland, Tena; Taylor, Neil; Hampton, Patrick
At a time when social, economic and political decisions, along with environmental events, challenge the viability of remote communities, educators need to better prepare young people in these communities to work towards sustainability. Remote locations can be defined by their inaccessibility rather than just distance from the nearest services, while the sustainability construct encapsulates a range of community needs: environmental, social, cultural and economic. This paper describes experiences that involve innovative approaches towards educating for sustainability in remote locations in six diverse countries: South Africa, Scotland, Canada, United States of America, Pacific Island Nations, and Australia. For each, the nature of what constitutes a “remote” location, as well as the detail and challenges of the innovation are presented. Readers should consider how they might more suitably educate the next generation to protect, showcase and learn from/with the local knowledges and capacities of the people and environments in remote locations.