Student engagement has been at the forefront of education in all levels. From Pre-Kindergarten to Higher learning, the ways in which students attend during instruction and with tasks can be seen as an indicator of varying levels of student achievement and growth. The Corona Virus of 2019 opened up new questions when examining student engagement.…

This qualitative multiple case study comprised an investigation of the beliefs, understandings, and experiences of school principals charged with overseeing the curricular innovations and implementations taking place at four STEM elementary schools. The study was organized around a proposition based on five factors adopted from the "Framework…

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of the social and cultural instructional process on independent reading. In addition, the purpose of this study was to examine the effect of the administrator-teacher relationship on educational practices in a lab site classroom. Using an action research design, data was collected through…

The underrepresentation of women in STEM more generally and in physics specifically has been well established (e.g., Hyater-Adams, Fracchiolla, Finkelstein, & Hinko, 2018; Johnson, Ong, Ko, Smith, & Hodari, (2017); Lock & Hazari, 2016), and the field remains challenged by the negative consequences of this underrepresentation. Women's…

The purpose of this study was to explore how closely upper elementary magnet school reading teachers' perceptions of evidenced-based practices in reading compared to actual practices in their classrooms. Literacy instruction, beginning in the third grade, places more emphasis on comprehension and higher expectations on the students than in the…

This action research study used data from multiple assessments in Mechanics and Electricity and Magnetism to determine the viability of Modeling Instruction as a pedagogy for students in AP Physics C: Mechanics and Electricity and Magnetism. Modeling Instruction is a guided-inquiry approach to teaching science in which students progress through…

This dissertation builds on and extends research on the relationship between equity-minded mathematics teaching, specifically teaching mathematics for social justice, complex instruction, and project-based learning, and students' learning and identity development. Although different in their structures and strategies, equity-minded mathematics…

This research examined middle school student conceptions about global climate change (GCC) and the change these conceptions undergo during an argument driven instructional unit. The theoretical framework invoked for this study is the "framework theory" of conceptual change (Vosniadou, 2007a). This theory posits that students do not…

The purpose of this study was to explore the professional learning process that teachers reported enhanced their use of technology in their classrooms. The framework for this qualitative, theory-building study was guided by research from the field of adult learning. Data were obtained from interviews of six teachers who worked in an urban science…

This study examined the perceptions of Language Arts teachers, Mathematics teachers, and administrators in four high schools in a large urban New Jersey school district regarding a standards-based teacher evaluation system implemented in 2003 adapted and modeled on "Enhancing Professional Practice: A Framework for Teaching" (Danielson,…