<p> This was an instrumental case study (i.e., Stake, 1995) of an exemplary teacher and the students from one of her 7th grade ELA classes. The collection of data investigated a New Literacies teaching stance that also managed testing and standards requirements. Research questions for this study included: (1) In what ways, if any, does the teacher take and implement a New Literacies stance in her classroom in a school and policy context that press for higher test scores?; (2) What do the New Literacies practices she initiates look like in action in these contexts?; (3) How do students engage with and respond to these practices, if at all?&nbsp;As a qualitative case study (i.e., Creswell, 2007; Kaarbo &amp; Beasley, 1999), data were collected using ethnographic methods (i.e., Glesne, 2006; De Munck &amp; Sobo, 1998). Data sources included: (1) Over 100 pages of field notes from 30 classroom observations; (2) Teacher and student artifacts including lesson plans, assignments, and scores; (3) Audio recordings and transcripts of over 20 teacher interviews and talks throughout the time at the school; (4) 2 student questionnaires; and (5) Audio recordings and transcripts of 9 focal student interviews. Open coding (Ely, 1991), discourse analysis (Gee, 2011), and the constant-comparative method (Strauss &amp; Corbin, 1998) were used in data analysis.</p><p> Through New Literacies pedagogy, Mrs. Blazel positioned students as capable and active participators in learning, shifting the traditional educational paradigm. I found that despite straying from traditional pedagogy, Mrs. Blazel&rsquo;s students more than met high-stakes assessment scores and flourished in her classroom. This research contributes to the growing field of research on NL teaching, learning, high-stakes assessments in education.</p>

<p> As education evolves in the 21st century and students learn to develop knowledge from the ground up, educators step into the role of facilitator. Critical to this paradigm shift is a connection with places that develops knowledge from local experiences into broad global understanding. This thesis explores the literature on how people develop a connection with place, the importance of learning about the world through appropriate developmental stages, and the relevance of place-based education as part of learning in the 21st century. Through qualitative research methods&mdash;including surveys, interviews, and focus groups&mdash;this thesis demonstrates the ways in which educators in an elementary school in Albuquerque, New Mexico develop a personal sense of place. It also asks how an educator&rsquo;s understanding of place is integrated into her or his teaching practices and addresses where there is room for place-based education principles in a wide range of classrooms. The findings of this study suggest that through relationships to place and people, young learners can develop a sense of belonging that drives a love of and responsibility for places on both local and global scales.</p>

<p> Research on the "why" of collaborative learning is fairly extensive for a disciplinary focus that is comparatively young. Research on one critical aspect of collaborative learning, group work, has focused more on group functionality once they are together, as opposed to determining the most pedagogically sound method for forming the groups and determining their composition. The formation and composition of groups in a learning environment presents unique challenges. Structured as a phenomenological study, this study was not designed or intended to produce generalized solutions, it was designed to see what could be learned from the lived experience of seven full-time, tenured or tenure-track faculty teaching an undergraduate class and utilizing group work. </p><p> Group work is an established part of the educational experience and considered a critical component of a collaborative learning model (Hoadley, 2010; Slavin &amp; Cooper, 1999; Strijbos &amp; Weinberger, 2010; Webb, 1982; Webb, Troper, &amp; Fall, 1995; Yeh, 2010). Although learning collaboratively promotes "higher achievement than competitive and individualistic learning situations" (Johnson, Johnson, &amp; Stanne, 1986, p. 383), it can also create more problems than its use might solve (Johnson &amp; Johnson, 1999; Linn &amp; Burbules, 1993). </p><p> Even though some of the benefits of effective and functional group work have been documented, the formation and composition, and support of student groups, is often wrought with complicated and time-consuming problems. Problems will always vary, but some of the more common examples include: the group member who does not do his/her share (or any) of the work; general resistance by students to working in groups; or pairing group members who do not have appropriate skills or work styles to complete the learning objective. </p><p> There are many things to consider when determining if group work is the appropriate pedagogical approach. This research is predicated on the understanding that the instructor has already determined that group work is the best pedagogical approach for the assignment, project, or class in question. </p><p> Although there are some fundamental differences between working in groups or teams in-person versus online, the location of the group work was treated as another variable in the decision-making process of the instruction leader. Technology used by the instructor for the group formation and composition process is discussed briefly here, but the focus of this study was not about how instructors implemented their decisions, but why they made those decisions in the first place.</p><p>

<p> In this thesis, I propose a curriculum for first year composition (FYC), called the Game Studio curriculum, in which students learn writing through experiences playing, analyzing, and designing games. In Chapter 1, I review the ways in which many students are already learning in video game spaces and argue that the study of games has potential to alter FYC instruction for the better. In Chapter 2, I frame the scholarship behind the Game Studio using James Paul Gee&rsquo;s <i>What Video Games Have to Teach us About Learning and Literacy</i> and Jesse Schnell&rsquo;s <i>The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses.</i> I also provide context for Middle Tennessee State University&rsquo;s &ldquo;Literacy for Life&rdquo; objectives and discuss how the Game Studio curriculum supplements these objectives. In Chapter 3, I provide a detailed list of introductory projects designed to give both students and instructors a running knowledge of game jargon and game design concepts. In Chapter 4, I provide details for the final two projects, which involve the development of student-designed games. I conclude in Chapter 5 with my reflections on student responses to an exit survey at the end of the Game Studio semester.</p>

<p>This dissertation suggests that metaphors are a powerful learning tool in education and a way to develop as a professional educator. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to gain a deeper understanding of how teachers utilize metaphors during reflection. I addressed their experience with metaphors, how they use metaphors, how metaphors play a critical role in their teaching, how students benefit from their use of metaphors, why they use metaphors, and if through technology they are able to use metaphors to reflect. I, individually, interviewed educators to understand the overall process and the emotions they encounter because they are teaching our students. My involvement in this project led me to discover that metaphors are a way of addressing social justice and expanding the following: (a) an ethic of choice, (b) an ethic of virtue, (c) an ethic of identity and above all else, and (d) an ethic of care. All of my participants expressed both literally and metaphorically that utilizing metaphors validated students individually, allowed them to connect on a personal level, and above all else showed an ethic of care towards student learning. Our educators are leading the way in a metaphorical world that must be taught literally as well. </p><p> <i>Key Words:</i> metaphor, reflection, educators, students, education. </p>

<p> Undocumented students have fought for the ability to attend institutions of higher education, but research has often overlooked their experiences outside of the classroom. Weaving together Freirean critical pedagogy and photovoice to create a type of advocacy participatory action research, this project followed eight undocumented Latina/o undergraduates at a Research I institution over the course of one academic year. Using critical pedagogy, the participants and I co-created a class in which we explored the intersections of race, class, educational access, and citizenship. By using critical pedagogical methods the students in the project were able to dictate the direction of both the class and the research itself. During this time the participants also used photovoice to create photo diaries of their lives, exploring what it means to be undocumented college students. They determined that while research had been conducted concerning undocumented students in higher education, their particular experiences as undocumented persons had not been fully captured. As such, this project sheds valuable light on the ways in which being undocumented affected these students' personal relationships with family, friends, and lovers.</p>

<p> This hypothesis-generating study initially sought to understand teacher and student supportive interactions within a literacy classroom. The researcher began with a thorough examination of three reading instructional methodologies that purported to be based on teacher support. Questioning the Author, Reciprocal Teaching, and The Scaffolded Reading Experience were reviewed, because the researcher had anticipated witnessing such scaffolds within literacy lessons. Data were then gathered in a small group, fourth-grade, reading class. Following data collection and analyses, however, the researcher recognized supportive instructional interactions derived from teacher and student academic discourse rather than predetermined reading programs purporting to be based upon foundations of teacher scaffolds. Due to this finding, the researcher narrowed the study's focus and questioned the nature of student and teacher supportive interactions, namely academic discourse, while engaged in fourth-grade small group literacy time. Four episodes from this reading lesson were intensively investigated. Exploratory talk and presentational discourse were two primary talk types evidenced. Based on transcript analysis and triangulation of data, findings from this qualitative study generated two hypotheses that addressed classroom concerns. Analyses of data suggested supportive academic discourse may enhance student inquiry when reading challenging texts in class, and classrooms in which exploratory talk is prompted may lead to increased conceptual learning. The researcher proposes altering the nature of a traditional and hierarchical academic discourse pattern to one based upon democratic principles. A less structured discourse pattern consisting of the sequence <i>inquire, wait, think,</i> and <i>share</i> may offer students authentic learning opportunities that intrinsically inspire inquiry.</p>

<p> This thesis articulates the importance of the use of efficient and effective student data documentation systems as classroom teachers determine the next instructional steps to support their students' abilities to demonstrate independent proficiency within grade level academic material. While operating under the broader structure of a Response to Intervention (RTI) framework, action research methodologies were used to address the question: How can deliberate documentation systems enhance the ongoing performance of an RTI program in a K-4 elementary school setting? This research examines various student data documentation systems, tracks student academic growth, explores the opinions of highly experienced classroom teachers, and discusses the characteristics of effective student data documentation systems. This thesis introduces the pedagogical process of Student Need-Based Education, in which educational decisions are intentionally structured according to the current academic, social-emotional/behavioral, or physical needs of students.</p>

<p> This qualitative research study offers a new model through which to examine Black motherhood as resistance to institutionalized racism, being driven in part by the current mortality rate of Black children in the United States of America. Six mothers who self-identify as Black and activists were interviewed about how they resist racism through how they raise their children. Two major findings emerged and are discussed at depth within this study: Critical Race Socialization and Countering Mis-education. The Critical Race Socialization process is a new way to examine a critical, intentional process of racial socialization towards liberation taken on by Black mothers. The Critical Race Socialization process combines key components of Critical Race Theory, Pedagogies of the Home, Oppressed Family Pedagogy and Harro&rsquo;s cycles of socialization and liberation. Recommendations provided in the conclusion of this study encourage new Black mothers to center race and other sites of oppression in their pedagogy, utilizing age appropriate material for children when speaking about the truths of the world and Blackness. The study also calls for a village of support to be built around Black children, and for educators working with Black children to develop a critical repertoire of the lived experiences of Black people and trauma.</p><p>

<p> This dissertation presents a multidimensional learning theory called Interactive Spatial Learning (ISL). Using constructivist grounded theory methodology, ISL was abductively derived from a qualitative investigation into the forms of learning that emerged through the practices found at the Builder&rsquo;s Brewery school in the 3D virtual world of Second Life. ISL was developed in response to the divergence that exists between two theoretical perspectives in online learning research; studies from a cognitive perspective define learning as changes in individual cognition while studies from a sociocultural perspective define learning as participation. The exclusive adoption of either learning perspective may lead to oversights in four important aspects of learning: (a) the temporal sequencing of independent and social regulatory learning processes, (b) contextual learning cues embedded within the virtual learning environment, (c) individual learner attributes, and (d) the development of socioemotional connections between learners. To address these oversights, this study utilized data collected from interviews, participant observations, chat logs, survey responses, and digital artifacts to extend our understandings of the learning that emerges from the coordinating mechanisms between the individual, social, and technological aspects of a virtual learning environment. Data collection and analysis incorporated the use of data sensitizing principles to develop the theoretical constructs of knowledge places, community-based Discourses, and technology mediation found in ISL. ISL posits that learning is the recontextualization of information to different modalities through interactions that occur in interactive spaces. Interactive spaces are where information and knowledge are generated and transformed. At a systemic level, ISL explains information flow across spaces and semi-permeable boundaries mediated by technology. At a mechanistic level, a sub-theory of ISL, called autonomous learning, looks at the emergent learning process and how people learn&mdash;the nature of which is spontaneous, self-directed, and independent. Autonomous learning trajectories describe the processes that individuals construct in order to learn. These trajectories consist of four different but interchangeable and repeatable components: learning cues/Cues, learning goals, resourcing, and recontextualization. This dissertation concludes by exploring the implications and connections that ISL has to instructional design, pedagogy, and theorizing in online spaces.</p><p>