Collaborative staff development in education is the vehicle to student success, and research shows that the closer professional learning is to daily practice, the more meaningful and impactful it will be. Written with deep respect for the work educators do in their classrooms each day, this practical resource illustrates the importance of…

"State Policy Opportunities: Advancing Comprehensive School Mental Health Systems to Support Students" aims to help state leaders understand their role, as well as the urgency, in addressing student mental health needs. The specific recommendations, and the numerous state examples and resources provided, identify policy opportunities for…

Responsive teaching is an approach to instruction that foregrounds listening for, attending to and engaging with student disciplinary thinking and ideas in the classroom. This style of teaching differs from how many traditional STEM classes are taught, especially at the college level. Entry-level college science courses that are taught by graduate…

Research suggests that anti-racist teaching is the solution in classrooms to give students the ability to understand the origins of racism and to give them the ability to disrupt White Supremacy culture; however, there is a limited number of studies that look at anti-racist teaching in the classroom. The obstacle and challenge is how to implement…

Multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS) have been increasingly implemented in schools since the re-authorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Act of 2004 and the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) of 2015. Despite researchers' efforts to identify elements of MTSS--including evidence-based practices, leadership and communication systems and…

The purpose of this research is to investigate the relationship between participating in an online software application focused on phonological processing and working memory and outcomes on foundational reading assessment measures. The online software application utilized was the Sound Reading Program. Students began the intervention working in…

This study examines how minoritized community college students taking developmental mathematics courses construct their math identities and how structures within academia affect this construction. It uses interviews and a focus group with open-ended questions to look beyond the quantitative studies examining the effectiveness of math developmental…

This dissertation is an effort to better understand Black children's conceptions of smartness and the ways that teachers communicate smartness through their practice. Here, I reimagine smartness as a verb rather than a noun--that is, smartness is about what one does that is smart. I develop a conceptual framework that attends to race, mathematics,…

Autism affects about 4.57 million children under the age of five worldwide, and 95% of them live in low-and-middle-income countries, where services are scarce. In China, there is a scarcity of professionals who can provide evidence-based treatments. Families of children with autism often experience delays in diagnosis and treatments, and this…

The problem addressed in this study was the current low retention and graduation rates of Black males at community colleges nationwide. The purpose of this causal-comparative quantitative study was to determine the effect of the Black Male Initiative (BMI) on Black males' academic self-efficacy and academic achievement scores. Academic…

A cluster randomized design was used to investigate effects of the Story Friends vocabulary curriculum on learning of 84 preschoolers in 24 classrooms who were at risk for language difficulties. Children in the treatment condition received explicit vocabulary instruction of 36 words during small-group storybook listening centers with extended…

Concerns regarding social competence skills in preschool and kindergarten students and the impact to the disruption of learning within the classroom is a growing area of concern within public schools. Decreased social competence skills lead to increased difficulty in engagement and cooperation in the classroom, disrupting the learning environment…

Archived student reading achievement data and teacher perceptions of a one-to-one technology implementation were studied at a small, rural public school in northwest Arkansas. This study looked at data collected prior to and during an unprecedented time in education, the COVID-19 pandemic. The purpose of this study was to determine if a one-to-one…

The Arkansas Better Chance (ABC) program longitudinal study (2009-2021) reviews the changing circumstances and outcomes of participation in Pre-K services in Arkansas. The "core comparison" of this study is between ABC participants and students who had no known Pre-K participation but have similar low socio-economic household income…

Chemistry outreach has an important role in building trust between scientists, scientific research, and the public. Ensuring that chemistry outreach is relevant and inclusive to diverse participants is necessary to achieve genuine inclusion of individuals from minoritized groups. We describe the design, delivery, and evaluation of an outreach…