This dissertation is inspired by the creativity in children’s books and films, and by the possibilities for education as they are advancing with modern technology and media. Research tells us that youth are spending less time reading books and more time watching movies and television, and there is a growing trend in our culture to translate popular kids’ books into movies. Given this, I wondered: How can fiction books and their Hollywood film adaptations be leveraged to educate youth? To answer this, I present two papers, both of which explore instructional approaches for using crossmedia (books and film) in middle school classrooms in pursuit of enhancing student engagement and socioacademic success. In Paper 1, I describe The Giver Project and share findings to show how a piloted crossmedia curriculum, called The Giver Educator’s Resource was implemented in seven sixth-grade classrooms across three states: Colorado, Massachusetts, and North Carolina. Using The Giver as a case study, I use teacher interviews and student writing to explore teachers’ evaluations of the instructional approaches introduced in that curriculum. My findings indicate that teachers positively evaluate lessons that are enjoyable for students, connect to students’ social realities, and synchronistically provide academic and social benefit. Further, teachers prefer lessons that are interactive in nature and allow students to collaboratively write and act out scenes from a book or movie. In Paper 2, I extend my analysis of an activity from The Giver Educator’s Resource that was most positively reviewed by teachers. Based on those findings, I introduce an instructional approach called the Storyteller’s Literary Arts Workshop (Storyteller’s LAW). I use teacher interviews, student writing, and classroom-discussion transcripts from The Giver Project—juxtaposed with theories of constructionism, research in dialogic instruction, and practices in fanfiction—as a frame for understanding 1) the socioacademic properties in the Storyteller’s LAW and 2) why the approach was so positively evaluated by teachers. The content of this dissertation has implications for the development of future K–12 curricula that utilize entertainment media as a means to bring informal media to formal learning environments.

This qualitative study used design-based research to explore how teachers can be supported to apply Universal Design for Learning (UDL) in ways that promote disciplinary thinking in English Language Arts (ELA) among diverse learners. Using a purposive sampling strategy, I recruited three upper-elementary teachers who were interested in exploring the intersection of UDL and disciplinary thinking in ELA. This study occurred over eleven months and included three phases: 1) establishing a baseline for each teacher in terms of current practice and current understandings of UDL and disciplinary thinking; 2) collaboratively designing, implementing, and refining an individualized intervention with each teacher; and 3) reflecting on our collaboration. Data were collected throughout these phases via classroom observation, collection of instructional materials and student work, teacher interviews, and regular meetings. The analytical framework for this study joins CAST’s UDL Guidelines and common themes of disciplinary thinking in ELA distilled from the literature and piloted in my qualifying paper. Data were analyzed to determine how teachers’ practice, understandings, and beliefs evolved; how students’ disciplinary thinking evolved; and which aspects of the interventions were useful in developing teachers’ practice, understandings, and beliefs. A case study approach was used to dive deeply into each teacher’s journey, and a cross-case analytic approach was used to uncover common and divergent themes. The findings underscore the potential synergy between UDL and disciplinary thinking and reveal the rich student thinking that is possible when UDL is leveraged for disciplinary aims. Further, the findings contribute to existing conversations on teacher change by exploring the influence of teachers’ preexisting practices and beliefs on their learning trajectories and by identifying the factors and conditions of the interventions that facilitated teacher growth: developing the lenses to “see” evidence of student thinking, leveraging tools for specific aims, and attending to the affective nature of the learning process. Together, these findings have potential to inform leaders in schools, districts, and organizations who seek to support teachers to apply UDL to encourage all learners to engage in disciplinary thinking in ELA—and who seek to support teacher learning at a broader level as well.

This dissertation examines teacher implementation of an adolescent literacy intervention with a coaching component, guided by questions about fidelity of implementation (FoI) and curriculum adaptation. In the first of two studies, I used data from observations of teachers (n=17) in nine schools during the 2013-14 school year to conduct a nuanced descriptive analysis of FoI. I also analyzed weekly logs completed by literacy coaches (n=3) to examine variation in quantity and intensity of coaching. I then compared variation in coaching with variation in FoI, and finally compared FoI to outcomes for students (n=287). FoI at observation 1 was found to predict coaching time, and FoI across both observations predicted student outcomes. This emphasizes the critical role of investigating implementation in order to better understand the results of intervention research. In the second study, I used qualitative methodology to analyze adaptations made by four experienced teachers in one school that sustained implementation of this curriculum after the intervention trial had ended. Six focal adaptations were identified, three each from two teachers, and analyzed for productivity using criteria from Debarger and colleagues (Debarger, Choppin, Beauvineau, & Moorthy, 2013). Of the six, only two met criteria for productivity. This suggests that making productive adaptations is difficult, and that teachers should be supported to do so through educative curriculum materials and effective professional development. In addition, an account of teaching practice methodology was used to define each teacher’s orientation toward the curriculum (Simon & Tzur, 1999), and then to determine whether this orientation demonstrated assimilation or accommodation to intervention principles (Coburn, 2004). I found that the vast majority of time spent implementing the curriculum included adaptations, and that each teacher’s adaptations were different. Although one teacher demonstrated assimilation and accommodation to intervention principles, the other three primarily demonstrated assimilation. These findings suggest the importance of understanding teachers’ orientations toward curriculum in order to provide more tailored professional development which may help teachers accommodate to the most critical pedagogical features of a curriculum.

As the twenty-first century hurtles forward, a growing number of American schools have set their sights on ambitious instructional goals—goals which go beyond basic literacy and numeracy to involve “deeper” competencies such as critical thinking and creative problem-solving. At the same time, in response to data demonstrating that youth of color tend to experience disproportionate rates of detention, suspension, and expulsion, many schools are also striving to replace zero tolerance policies with more equitable and inclusive approaches to discipline. In this dissertation, I focus on a former “No Excuses” charter school which recently made commitments to both of these aspirations. Specifically, I employ a range of ethnographic methods to explore and narratively interpret the work of a group of leaders who are engaged in an effort to transform the teaching, learning, and broader culture of their four-campus school in light of its new vision—a vision which marries the goal of supporting deeper learning in classrooms with the goal of reorganizing school culture around the philosophy and practices of restorative justice. Taking a phenomenological approach, I focus on the experiences and sense-making of these leaders as they strive to enact this new vision through their work with each other, with teachers, and with students. The study sheds light on the affordances and dilemmas associated with applying the restorative justice framework to situations of leadership as well as to instances of instructional practice. More broadly, it suggests that successfully transforming schools into more equitable, humanizing, and intellectually vital institutions requires educators to conceptualize culture and instruction as interrelated and mutually supportive entities—an argument which challenges some of the dominant perspectives and structures in the field.

This dissertation explores what sets expert and great systems problem solvers apart, using a multi-player online arena setting in World of Warcraft (WoW) as a model system of study. Expert players comprise the top 0.1% of the player population, while great players comprise the top 0.5%. Systems problem solving in WoW arena is an iterative, real-time process of theory-testing, decision making, and action taken toward a desired system outcome, where one’s behavior in the system has a direct effect on the system. Expertise in WoW arena is defined by the ability to consistently reach a desired end state, requiring one to recognize complex system attributes (e.g., feedback loops, path-dependencies, non-linear effects, time-delays, etc.) and leverage those characteristics in their decision making and actions. Using grounded-theory research methods, I found subtle differences between expert and great players in their acquisition and application of in-game and systems knowledge and skills, with the most notable differences found in their attitudes towards learning and demonstration of emotional intelligence. Implications of my study include the critical role “soft” skills, which traditionally receive less attention in schools, may play in the development of content-specific or “hard” skills such as systems problem-solving. My findings also lend support to the growing argument that attitudes (e.g., growth mindsets, perseverance, passion, and grit) may be a stronger predictor of professional excellence and success in life than academic intelligence. Lastly, computer games—an inherent system of varying complexity—provides a powerful environment to both limit and augment the real world, for learners to engage in decision-making and problem solving within a systemic framework to learn to better resolve complex 21st century challenges.

In Kindergarten classrooms, teachers work to help students learn new information and skills but, as non-experts, students often make mistakes. Making mistakes and, subsequently, receiving corrective feedback are assets to the learning experience (Huesler & Metcalfe, 2012). Young children tend to be open-minded about mistakes, but around age five or six, they begin to develop a fear of failure – a sensitivity about making errors that can constrain their choices during learning (McClelland, 1958; Conroy, Coatsworth, & Kaye, 2007). Furthermore, previous research has indicated that student-teacher relationships exert a strong influence on the student academic and social learning experience (Pianta, Hamre, & Stuhlman, 2003). That said, presently little is known about the features of mistake-related, teacher-student interpersonal interactions in Kindergarten classrooms, and how the classroom context and community influence the responses to student mistakes during instruction. The purpose of this dissertation study is to more deeply explore and articulate how Kindergarten teachers respond to mistakes in real-world, classroom contexts. An analysis of teacher interviews (Study 1) yielded five central themes that illustrate common ways Kindergarten teachers respond to student mistakes. Then, the method of portraiture (Study 2) was used to create rich narratives reflecting the nature of day-to-day responses to mistakes for two teachers and their respective classroom communities. These studies offer in-depth elaborations of how teachers respond to mistakes in practice. The work is both a foundation for further research on mistakes and learning, and a resource for practitioners, school leaders, and policymakers. In particular, this research has implications for the initial training and ongoing professional feedback provided to teachers. Taken together, the two studies can be shared with teachers, particularly those working in early childhood settings, to help them better understand the strategies used by others to help students learn from their mistakes.

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The Positive Living Skills (PLS) program for teens is a personal life enhancement intervention program centered on teaching focusing skills, positive perspectives, and relaxation skills. To date the PLS program has not been introduced to an adolescent population. The purpose of this study was to introduce the PLS program to adolescents (in a classroom context) and to investigate whether the students enjoyed, applied, and found these skills effective in their daily lives. A secondary purpose of this study was to learn from the interactions with the students and teachers and explore the best ways to deliver the program. Two grade 10 health and physical education classes (one boys' and one girls' class) participated in a 10 session PLS intervention over a period of 16 weeks. These sessions included PLS audio CD activities, interactive and person guided PLS activities, logbook exercises, discussions and practice using skills within the physical education context. Teens who participated in the PLS program enjoyed the program skills, applied and planned to continue applying the program skills, and found the program skills effective in daily life. These findings support results from previous PLS research conducted with younger students between the ages of 4-12 years of age (Cox & Orlick, 1996; Gilbert & Orlick, 2002; Taylor & Orlick, 2004). In addition facilitation and program delivery lessons learned are highlighted and discussed.