When Dr. Tina Lupton and Dr. Timisha Barnes-Jones joined the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools, Opportunity Culture implementation was happening in the midst of COVID. Lupton, the executive director of professional learning, and Barnes-Jones, the area superintendent for a network of 15 transformation schools, used their experience in other…

This thematic analysis utilizes teacher insights from their experiences in an online professional development (PD) course on early reading instruction to determine course design features educators perceive as being beneficial and questions and concerns educators raised during the course. We analyzed discussion forum contributions and course…

An ecojustice seminar, held in May 2016 at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina, is described in this chapter. The ecojustice theoretical framework, the seminar class design, and our findings relative to student learning as gleaned from follow-up focus groups, reflection papers, and online discussion are reported. Seminars such as…

The value of the liberal arts and humanities has increasingly been called into question on multiple fronts. Attempts to bridge the practical and liberal arts through forms of civic professionalism have been gaining traction in larger spheres of influence. This article outlines the results of a deliberative civic engagement forum (n = 42) that…

Jeremy Thomas and Russell McBride are social studies teachers in North Carolina and, until recently, were colleagues at a charter school outside of Raleigh, serving students in grades 6-12. After learning about the Inquiry Design Model (IDM), both teachers implemented it into their classrooms and immediately saw how the blueprint helped deepen…

To challenge deficit thinking concerning immigrants and refugees in urban schools, we engaged members of local immigrant and refugee communities from China, Mexico, Liberia, and Sudan in focus group discussions about their prior educational experiences, their hopes and aspirations for education, and the supports and challenges they encountered in…

To explore the relationship between theory and practice in evaluation, we focus on the perspectives and experiences of student evaluators, as they move from the classroom to an engagement with the social, political, and cultural dynamics of evaluation in the field. Through reflective journals, postcourse interviews, and facilitated group…

The purpose of this lesson is to engage young students in thinking about the complexity of socio-historical symbols in the present day. After careful preparation, the authors decided to teach about the decision by the state legislature in July 2015 to remove the Confederate flag from the South Carolina statehouse grounds. Presenting the…

New analytical tools have facilitated the exploration of the trajectories of alcohol use; however, there are a limited number of studies that explore early adolescence. A sample of 5,903 youths followed from sixth through eighth grade was used to (1) examine the trajectories of alcohol use and (2) determine the degree to which common correlates…

With online learning becoming a more viable option for teachers to develop their expertise, our report shares one such effort focused on improving the teaching of statistics. We share design principles and learning opportunities in an online course developed specifically to serve as a widescale online professional development opportunity for…

With the rapid growth of online learning at community colleges and the low course completion and performance associated with it, there has been increasing need to identify effective ways to address the challenges in online teaching and learning at this setting. Based on open-ended survey responses from 105 instructors and 365 students from…

Using literature as the catalyst for change is grounded in Freirean pedagogy. In the case of the Oaks Leadership Scholars, leadership educators are crafting an environment for building transformative leadership skills using texts calling for the enactment of justice and equity as a starting point for capacity building and self-reflection. Students…

The lobby of the college building echoes with the noise of teenagers milling around a table filled with books. Hands flutter over the bright covers, picking them up, flipping them over, thumbing through pages. Welcome to an Elon Academy Saturday at break time, the mid-point pause in this monthly gathering of the more than 70 student participants…

Rural, middle schools in North Carolina have struggled with the Students with Disabilities subgroup in making Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) in reading since No Child Left Behind (NCLB) was passed. Consequences could be dire for a school and principal with a subgroup of these children who were unable to show growth each year toward total…

This personal reflection describes events at the Appalachian State University that celebrated the Darwin Bicentennial throughout the 2008-2009 academic year. Prominent speakers and writers joined with a film series, theatre productions, and art exhibits to focus on Darwin and his scientific discoveries. The Darwin Bicentennial provided the members…