Societal shifts increasingly demand that people work across social and geographic borders, often virtually, to solve complex problems in the areas of education, environment, healthcare, poverty, technology innovation and ethics, and more. This collaboration requires critical and emancipatory dialogue and problem-solving. This qualitative multiple…

Recognizing the ethical implications of computing, leading computing organizations advise integrating ethics within traditional technical and theoretical courses. Yet, many instructors feel unprepared or unqualified to introduce ethical concepts, fail to see their relevance to technical topics, or lack the time to cover ethics without sacrificing…

Project based learning (PBL), a well-known pedagogical approach, is becoming more widely recognized for creating and sustaining student engagement and motivation in 21st-century learning while improving academic achievement. Teachers support this hands-on, collaborative approach and see it as beneficial for students of all learning modalities, but…

Problem based learning is a teaching methodology that utilizes patient scenarios to facilitate student learning that may improve clinical reasoning. While problem based learning has been adopted in many medical schools, the transition to other health profession schools, including physical therapy schools, has been slow and often criticized. The…

The projected number of engineering professionals will increase in the next decade. Implementing instructional technology to support engineering students in creating design solutions to authentic problems may lead to a more significant number of engineering graduates. The problem is knowing the extent to which parametric 3-dimensional…

When instructing very large groups of students in science, it can be difficult to engage all students in the content and measure their understanding. A major unaddressed challenge in science instruction is how specifically to design and implement strategies that engender active learning particularly in high-enrollment undergraduate courses. Active…

This dissertation presents the results and outcomes of an effort to design educational tools and curriculum to improve student learning in introductory programming courses. The work was conducted at the University of California, Merced (UC Merced), situated in the Central Valley of California, and home to a diverse student population. The findings…

The overarching theme of this research was to explore different aspects of the science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education experience across cultures and contexts in two engineering education communities, higher education and K-12. This dissertation offers new perspectives and resources to the engineering education community and…

Problem-solving, collaboration, and adaptability to in-person and virtual environments are critical for success today. Therefore, brick-and-mortar and online instructional models have shifted to ensure that K-12 students are prepared with these skills for 21st-century challenges. Grounded in systems theory, the study examined the inputs,…

In an ethnographic study of one high school mathematics department made up of four African American teachers, I explored their co-construction of knowledge about teaching mathematics for social justice. This began with an in-depth study of each teacher's professional identity, their emotional connections to teaching in their local African American…

The increasing complexity of global challenges demands a STEM-enriched approach to learning for all students, regardless of their future career paths. Challenge-Based Learning (CBL) is a pedagogical method to foster a STEM-enriched education, engaging students in the design of societally impactful, interdisciplinary solutions. To investigate the…

The purpose of this qualitative hermeneutic phenomenological study was to understand the lived experiences of teachers in kindergarten through first grade utilizing digital technologies to engage elementary students during mathematics instruction. This phenomenological study was guided by the following research questions. (1) How do elementary…

The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to explore how high school teachers describe problem-based learning as an instructional model for student learning in various academic disciplines in the United States. The research was grounded in constructivist learning theory and Problem-based learning (PBL). The study addressed two research…

This mixed-methods study examined the moderating role of resilience in the relationship between personal, social, and academic factors and academic success, as measured by grade point average (GPA) among Doctor of Physical Therapy students. It aimed to identify the strongest predictor of GPA among self-efficacy, friends and family support, and the…

In this dissertation I explore the fugitive technology practices of Black high-schoolers in a tech-rich after-school makerspace. To do so, I invoke ontologies from two cyborgs to make sense of these Black teens' practices. First, James and Costa Vargas (2012) offer the Black Cyborg-- the rebel intellectual rejecting victimization through…