Picture books are often underused tools in schools and communities. The purpose of this research was to investigate the affordances and constraints of using picture books as tools to deepen senses of identity and belonging. Two cycles of participatory action research were conducted: the first with educators and the second with adults who…

Recognizing the prevalence of low literacy achievements of secondary students with disabilities despite numerous mainstream reading interventions' attempts to alleviate the issue, this dissertation considers an alternative path to literacy. To begin, this study theorizes knowledge, literacy, and learning as mutually constituted person-world…

Teacher beliefs have received substantial attention particularly in Chinese as a world language context due to the Chinese language proficiency challenges, Chinese character complexity, and cultural barriers. With the development of cutting-edge technology, Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL) has played a pivotal role in Chinese language…

The observational and interview study explored how two middle school teachers, Ms. Watson and Mr. Garry, from two different public schools in a small college town in a midwestern state in the United States, used talk moves to establish mathematical discussions during both small group and whole class discussions. The study also examined their…

At schools in the Unites States, English-centric hegemonic policies often hinder emergent bilingual students from fully applying their linguistic skills to read non-fiction texts. This phenomenon necessitates investigation into how culturally sustaining pedagogy (CSP) can be utilized to support fifth-grade bilingual students' understanding of…

Many historically underrepresented students enroll in online classes because they need the flexibility to balance work, family, and coursework (Phirangee et al., 2016). However, community college students are less successful in online classes than they are in face-to-face classes (Xu & Jaggars, 2014). Feelings of isolation and disconnectedness…

Educators have applied the Center for Research on Education, Diversity, and Excellence (CREDE) standards to classrooms of children and youth for over 30 years. However, few studies have focused on applying the strategies in higher education. Therefore, this multiple-case study investigated one of those standards, Instructional Conversations, with…

Incorporating small-group discussions in classrooms has shown promising benefits in improving 4th grade students' thinking and social skills; however, the practice remains challenging. Although teachers are motivated to try to incorporate small-group discussions, studies examining the shift from teacher-dominated classroom practice towards a more…

In the past decade, misinformation has become more challenging to decipher. While separating fact from fiction has always been difficult, it has only grown more difficult with the increasing ubiquity of social media and ongoing political polarization. This is especially the case for students with disabilities, who have traditionally struggled with…

Success in higher education is a concept that has been researched for years and is especially critical in relation to the shift to online higher education. Online learning is inevitably a part of the future landscape of higher education, but success rates in online courses are often lower than in traditional courses. To contribute to the existing…

With the expansion of higher education and the growth of online course offerings in Sub-Saharan Africa, there is a critical need to support faculty in developing the necessary skills to teach effectively online. The purpose of this qualitative, single-case study was to examine the nature of the discourse in which faculty members engaged within a…

This study investigated the difference in the impact of several different online teaching strategies on student self-efficacy to work with suicidal clients. An online written module, written module plus online synchronous role play, and written module plus online synchronous discussion groups comprised the teaching strategies utilized in the…

This action research used a qualitative comparative analysis approach to explore the use of asynchronous video communication during online peer review activities in the discussion board of an undergraduate blended U.S. English composition course for non-native speakers. The purpose was to compare second language students' online communication…

A Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) is a course that is offered fully online and is usually open for enrollment by any individual, with no limit on the number of participants. MOOCs are a popular resource for learning worldwide with over 23 million new learners registering for MOOCs in 2017 alone. Coursera, the most popular MOOC platform, has…

The purpose of this dissertation was to identify if rich-media discussion boards are effective in helping students in online graduate courses develop better social presence and become more engaged with their fellow students and instructor. Additionally, the researcher sought to discover the extent to which rich-media discussion boards affect…