Promoting Adolescents' Comprehension of Text (PACT) is a text- and discourse-based set of instructional practices that engage students with disciplinary texts as a means of building content knowledge and improving reading comprehension. PACT)s "efficacy" has been the subject of extensive previous trials. The purpose of this study was to…

Postcolonial studies have long identified history curriculum as a site of empire building. High stakes exams like the Global History Regents Exam in New York (NYGHR) undoubtedly impact curriculum but have yet to be examined through a postcolonial lens. This study evaluates to what extent, if at all, the NYGHR perpetuates eurocentrism as defined by…

The United States history survey course is a standard high school history class in the state of New York. The academic goal is for students to understand key people and developments that molded the United States into its modern identity as a progressive, democratic nation-state. This research examined one manifestation of this course in New York…

This study examines the role of secondary teacher candidates as student partners in research into undergraduate students' historical cognition while contextualizing documents. It highlights the unique role of teacher candidates as near-peer interviewers and change agents within higher education and secondary curricula. Through using decoding the…

Partnership for 21st Century Skills has continuously identified critical and metacognitive thinking skills to be essential for life and career in post-secondary education and workforce settings. As a response to the Race to the Top (2010) initiative and Common Core State Standards (2009), New York State Board of Regents began an overhaul for all…

This dissertation study examined how secondary social studies teachers in an ICT setting plan and teach as they adapt their instruction to prepare students for the new social studies Regents examination framework in New York State. Utilizing a qualitative approach, the researcher asked teachers to complete a survey. Sixty-three participants…

This paper makes a conceptual argument for using the Decoding the Disciplines research paradigm as a pedagogical innovation in the field of teacher education. It incorporates empirical findings from a research project in which teacher candidates conduct Decoding interviews to deepen understanding of historical thinking and learn pedagogical…