Scripted/narrowed curricula are tangled in the webs of school reforms and standardization. Teachers are experiencing a monumental challenge: the deprofessionalization of their roles as educators. I sought teachers' understandings of how scripted/narrowed curricula impact their curriculum autonomy, specifically, their professional responsibility…

Declining national assessment scores and continuous critiques of Common Core curricula have presented persistent challenges for stakeholders within the American education system. This study was an investigation of the existence of parallelism in five commonly used Common Core middle school mathematics curricula. An embedded mixed methods research…

Structural reasoning is a combined ability to "look for structures, recognize structures, probe into structures, act upon structures, reason in terms of general structures, and see how a piece of knowledge acquired resolves a perturbation experienced" (Harel and Soto, 2017). The purpose of this study was to explore the cognitive…

While K-12 online education and cyber charter schools have existed for decades, the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 compelled every professor and teacher globally to participate in this mode of instruction. Four years after the pandemic, many brick-and-mortar K-12 schools have retained cyber or online classes within the curriculum to offer students more…

Professional development programs aim to make long-lasting change to teacher practice. However, these programs are often short-lived due to limited personnel, cost, and time constraints. Using an actor-oriented approach, this study aimed to understand how teachers transfer their learning from a professional development program focused on…

First, a meta-analysis of Culturally Responsive (CR) science teaching characteristics and practices was conducted. Findings revealed that there are a limited number of CR teaching studies at the elementary science level. When studies conducted at the middle, secondary and postsecondary level were included, six themes which encompassed the…

At the local site, many students were not achieving necessary learning gains on state assessments. Administrators and teachers were concerned as to why students on the local level were falling short. Current trends emphasized differentiation of instruction in classrooms to meet individual student needs; however, classrooms generally adhere to a…

The problem this study addressed was educators of students with severe and profound disabilities face barriers to teaching a functional curriculum due to the lack of training and targeted curriculum. The purpose of this qualitative single exploratory case study was to examine the benefits and barriers faced by teachers of students with severe and…

The present study sought to understand teachers' beliefs and perceptions during Second Step implementation. The leading central question was stated: How do kindergarten through fifth grade teachers describe implementation of the Second Step Social Emotional Learning Program? The following research questions guided this qualitative study: R1: How…

The purpose of this study was to create a culturally relevant, inquiry-based science lesson plan and examine how I can become a more culturally relevant educator. This was done first through the use of seminal frameworks in both pedagogies to examine similarities and differences. Secondly, eight experts in the fields were interviewed to gather…

High school English classrooms are in need of critical literacy. This study examines the current research related to English classroom pedagogy and applies some pedagogical techniques along with critical literacy tools recommended in order to improve students' critical literacy. I am a practicing high school English teacher. I used Improvement…

As English has become a global lingua franca used by a greater number of nonnative speakers than native speakers, a focus on native speaker norms in English language teaching (ELT) has become obsolete. There has been a call to incorporate different varieties of Englishes (native, nonnative, and nativized) and related cultures in both teacher…

Districts across the country are quickly moving toward a 1:1 student to laptop ratio. Where computer labs or carts were once the norm, many districts are now purchasing all students a laptop to start the year. This movement is occurring at a rapid pace, despite a growing body of research that shows that increased technology does not automatically…

Rituals have proven effective in the elementary classroom. One ritualistic practice, the morning meeting, is rooted in social and emotional learning (SEL), an approach that integrates traditional academic pursuits with an understanding of emotional regulation, self-actualization and interpersonal relationships. Ethical literacy, a facility with…

Purpose. The purpose of this qualitative study was to identify and describe the impact of instructional technology on lesson effectiveness and obstacles to incorporating instructional technology into lesson design as perceived by elementary school teachers. Methodology. A qualitative ethnographic method was used in this study. Triangulation was…