Community Writing has emerged as a relatively new subdiscipline that spans elements of larger fields such as Rhetoric and Writing Studies, Technical and Professional Communication, and Composition Pedagogy. Despite this recent emergence, teacher-scholars are still grappling with three major problematics traditionally associated with Community…

The low academic learning outcomes and persistence rates among students starting in developmental mathematics at community colleges are concerning. Improving the teaching and learning of developmental mathematics is imperative. This Action Research study aimed to investigate and improve developmental mathematics students' low retention rate and…

Sustainability and reciprocity are critical and persistent obstacles in community-engaged projects. While deeply theorized at a local level, they are rarely compared in large-scale analysis--leaving sustainability and reciprocity as assumed staple points in community literacy work but difficult in transfer since written accounts are contextually…

Building community is essential to achieving optimal learning conditions. Failure to build community in online courses is linked to higher drop-out rates, feelings of isolation, and lower academic success rate (Adams & Wilson, 2020). Although there is research on building a sense of community in online course settings, much of this work has…

This interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) sought to answer the question: How do skilled martial arts practitioners with advanced academic degrees interpret the role of mindfulness in their practice, and how do they believe this integration impacts the social and emotional learning of children? The focus of the study was to understand…

Changing orientations to language, informed by poststructuralism and postcolonialism, challenge modernist representations of languages as bounded entities, tied to particular territories and identities (Canagarajah, 2019; Makoni and Pennycook, 2007). Viewing language as a hybrid and fluid practice, these developments question the theoretical…

This correlational study investigated how secondary educators' engagement in online learning communities relates to their tech-enhanced instructional practices, a relationship that gained importance following the COVID-19 pandemic's acceleration of educational technology adoption. Through the lens of Keller's ARCS Model of Motivation (Keller,…

This project focused on the study of resilient Latinas in California Community Colleges and how educators and administrators can better support them through resilience-informed teaching practices, college policies, and support services. It studied factors specifically related to Latinas' resilience. Critical resilience is the theoretical…

Although external engagement practices, such as parent, family, and community engagement, are widely acknowledged as good teaching practice, there are no regulations and little fiscal support in the state of California for conducting these practices within the school system. Using the conceptual framework of community equity literacy (CEL) (Green,…

This counterstorytelling study involved examining how Practitioners of Color (POC) enact "carino" and embed restorative literacies or cultural and community practices in community college integrated reading and writing (IRW) classrooms to create a safe counterspace for Students of Color (SOC). The significance of this research is to…

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore the experiences of Early College High School (ECHS) adjunct instructors teaching dual enrollment courses in a southern region school district. Through interviews with ten ECHS adjunct instructors, the researcher examined the factors contributing to their success, their professional…

The institutionalization of K-12 Ethnic Studies in California Public Schools is the culmination of decades of grassroots community organizing to address inequities between students of color and their advantaged peers. Empirical evidence suggests that K-12 Ethnic Studies courses have positive academic and social outcomes for historically…

Research has revealed that online writing instructors use a variety of instructional methods in class to improve student learning experiences. However, current research has not addressed rural students' learning experiences with connectivism in an online composition course. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to explore what, if any,…

This qualitative research study sought to help community colleges aid math faculty in making a transformation in their teaching practices. The research questions were: (a) What did it take for faculty to change their teaching style from traditional lecture-based instruction to one that incorporates low-stakes collaborative practice, just-in-time…

This dissertation project designed, implemented, and measured the efficacy of Transformative Experience teaching methods in Community-Engaged contexts to help students connect with and apply their scientific knowledge in their daily lives. The Transformative Experience framework connects class ideas to everyday experiences by scaffolding students'…