In recent years, a group of teacher educators has developed a method of teacher education that incorporates practices that provide guidance about how to teach along with a principled vision of teaching that supports teachers to use the practices with judgement. Sometimes termed "core practices-focused teacher education" (Forzani, 2014,…

The use of teams and team-centric pedagogies such as Team Based Learning (TBL) in classrooms has been shown to increase engagement and lead to better overall learning outcomes. Because of these positive outcomes, the use of teams is recommended in many educational fields, including engineering. For many instructors, especially those using teams,…

Mathematics is often taught by lecturing students on how to perform procedures, but it could be taught in ways that promote active student engagement and develop deep conceptual understanding. Research supports the latter approach as better for students' retention, engagement, and success with learning mathematics. An important time to influence…

To successfully create inclusive environments that address the unique needs of each student, teacher candidates must adopt their students' perspectives. Radical imagination is essential for empathy, as it enables individuals to recognize diverse viewpoints (Greene, 1995). Arts-based methods provide a means for teacher candidates to practice…

In the first part, we investigate Birman, Ko, and Lee's left canonical form of a braid and give a new diagrammatic approach. We use the left canonical form to characterize almost strongly quasipositive braids. In the second part, we investigate students' confidence in mathematics and problem solving skills. Every math instructor has heard students…

Fewer than half of all students across the nation qualify as proficient readers. Compounding this problem are the underlying challenges to students and their teachers of learning disabilities and dyslexia. Professional development courses can help teachers address these deficiencies. The purpose of this study was to determine how graduates of the…

This study was about a university course, "Mindfulness & Sustainability" (GC495), that I designed, instructed, and assessed. Twenty-one students and I went on a mindful learning journey; together we cultivated a community of Transformative Sustainability Learning (TSL). I used The Work that Reconnects (WTR) to teach mindfulness in…

In order to better understand how play can be used as a learning tool to teach students in college writing courses, this dissertation examines how play is used in the undergraduate college writing classroom. Using a qualitative case study and narrative inquiry, instructors and students in the University of Minnesota's (UMN) Writing Studies…

Community colleges have teaching faculty whose primary focus is educating their students and providing service to their institution. Community college teaching research has focused on innovation, students' expectations, and the use of active learning techniques to foster student success. Research on blended courses has focused on instructional…

In their popular book "Made to Stick," Heath and Heath (2007) examined characteristics that make an idea sticky, that is, "understood and remembered, and have a lasting impact--they change your audience's opinions or behavior" (p. 8). Lecture-based instruction is a common but debated pedagogical approach in higher education,…

This study examined high-leverage teaching practices (HLTPs) in foreign language instruction. Specifically, this study sought to identify teaching practices that Arabic as a foreign language (AFL) learners and instructors think could enhance learners' oral communicative competence. It attempted to answer the following questions: (1) What are the…

In the past 15-20 years, contemplative practices, designed to cultivate present-moment awareness, have become more common in K-12 educational settings with some growth in higher education contexts seeking to reorient around teaching the "whole student". In response to calls that have also emerged in higher education to advance social…

In the past 15-20 years, contemplative practices, designed to cultivate present-moment awareness, have become more common in K-12 educational settings with some growth in higher education contexts seeking to reorient around teaching the "whole student". In response to calls that have also emerged in higher education to advance social…

This dissertation is prepared to explain the research conducted to study the extent of instruction that school psychology graduate students are receiving on strengths-based assessment in their training programs. Strengths-based assessment is the process of intentionally measuring strengths rather than solely measuring deficits. The positive…

The topic of this research study is mastery learning, an educational theory that began with the work of John Carrol in 1963. The core principle of this theory is that all students can achieve uniform learning outcomes, but it will take some students longer than others to reach the same performance goals. The problem that this research study…