麻豆淫院

Hannah Kay Denker, Research & Evaluation Methodology
Dissertation: 鈥淓xploring Structural Features and Classroom Processes in Early Childhood Education: An Examination of Time-Use, Quality, and Teacher Wages鈥�
Faculty Advisor: Mimi Engel

Hannah Denker, who has earned her PhD in Research & Evaluation Methodology,听has a deep and long-standing commitment to improving learning environments for young children.听In her dissertation, Hannah tackles the formidable task of understanding听how pre-Kindergarten teachers use class time, whether teacher survey reports of time-use align with classroom observations, and how time use varies across classrooms and days, contrasting half-day and full-day pre-Kindergarten. She also explores whether other structural features, in this case state-level bachelors degree requirements for early childhood educators, affect those educators wages and employment outcomes. Hannah鈥檚 dissertation work indicates that there is wide variation in how early childhood educators spend their class time and that multiple classroom observations are needed to more accurately understand time use. Her results also suggest that state-level bachelors degree requirements for preschool teachers are associated with听higher earnings for teachers but also may reduce the number of teachers who are employed. Hannah will begin a postdoctoral research position at the University of Virginia this fall.

Clarissa de Oliveira Deverel-Rico, STEM Education
Dissertation: 鈥淧utting 麻豆淫院 at the Center of Science Learning through Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment鈥�
Faculty Advisor: Erin Furtak

Before coming to CU Boulder, Clarissa was a middle school science teacher and emerging teacher educator in the San Francisco Bay Area. Clarissa鈥檚 dissertation is entitled 鈥淧utting 麻豆淫院 at the Center of Science Learning through Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment.鈥� In three separate studies, Clarissa explores how science curriculum materials should align with new approaches to teaching as advocated in the Next Generation Science Standards, and how assessments are a central part of achieving this vision. The papers illustrate how curriculum, instruction, and assessment can reinforce each other, and also the consequences for learners when they are not aligned.听Through these three papers, Clarissa makes a forward-looking argument to compel all those involved in science education to look beyond the current state of practice and to envision new ways of building learning environments that start with students - in curriculum materials, supported by ambitious approaches to teaching, and with culturally sustaining assessments.听Clarissa will be starting a postdoctoral research position at BSCS Science Learning.

Rebecca Grace Flores, Equity, Bilingualism & Biliteracy
Dissertation: 鈥淒ialogue, Ideology and Convivencia: Dialogic Explorations of Cultural Humility Co-Designing a Culturally Sustaining SEL Curriculum鈥�
Faculty Advisor: Sue Hopewell

Rebecca Flores cares deeply about the educational learning opportunities of multilingual and minoritized students. In her dissertation, Dr. Flores investigates secondary educators鈥� participation in a community of practice to determine how educators鈥� discourse revealed a stance of cultural humility and an understanding of culturally sustaining pedagogy. Applying critical race theory and Chicana feminist frameworks, Dr. Flores found that tensions arose when some educators employed dialogic maneuvers that she defined as tactics of whiteness and while others embraced tactics of culturally sustaining pedagogies. These tensions surfaced the importance of critical restorative practices to support the reparation of a learning community, to develop educators鈥� capacity to convivir, and to foster a stance of cultural humility. This study carries implications for teachers, teacher educators and educational researchers in their efforts to design critical professional learning experiences that support the development of culturally sustaining pedagogy and curriculum.听Dr. Flores is currently sharing her expertise and knowledge in her position as Instructional Designer/Coach at the New Teacher Center.

Michelle Frierson, STEM Education
Dissertation: 鈥淩eauthoring STEM Narratives Towards Black Joy鈥�
Faculty Advisor: Vicki Hand

Perspectives of Black youth and teachers are often missing from educational spaces. Dr. Michelle Frierson is acutely aware of this lack of representation and seeks to center the voices and imaginaries of Black stakeholders in her research.听 Her dissertation听focused on supporting Black youth in re-narrating and re-authoring their experiences in STEM in ways that revealed and enhanced their joy. To prepare for the reauthoring work, Michelle led a participatory group of (largely) women of color to uncover how joy lives in Black bodies, how it differs from feelings such as happiness, how it is constrained and surveilled in K12 classrooms under a white gaze, and what it would mean to recognize and uplift Black students鈥� experiences of joy. Michelle then engaged Black youth in story-making around STEM and their imaginings about it. Michelle鈥檚 dissertation is groundbreaking in centering joy in STEM, and the ways that Black joy is surveilled, commodified, or alternatively, celebrated in STEM classrooms. Michelle will be starting a new position this fall as an assistant professor at Utah State University.

Matthew J. Garcia, Educational Foundations, Policy & Practice
Dissertation: 鈥淭hree Essays on Hope and Youth Civic Engagement for Education Reform鈥�
Faculty Advisors: Kevin Welner and Michelle Valladares

Dr. Matt Garcia鈥檚 dissertation investigated the concept of hope in youth activism and organizing. He began with a case study of a community-based participatory research project with Californians for Justice. He then provided an in-depth theoretical analysis of two theories of hope that can be used by researchers, organizers and policymakers in practical settings to identify and perceive hope in the words of youth activists. Finally, he conducted an interview study with adult allies to better understand how they see hope in youth activism and organizing through the lens of political solidarity. These articles make strong contributions to research and practice on youth organizing and the theoretical concept of hope. Matt is enormously impressive is his drive to always seek new insights, combined with a remarkable level of diligence and organization. He鈥檚 committed to engaging in community-based research and creating changes in education policy and practice that ensure that youth of color are better served by our education systems. Matt is now the Director of the Honors Program at Red Rocks Community College, where he is undoubtedly helping other first-generation students fulfill their dreams.

Molly Marie Hamm-Rodr铆guez, Equity, Bilingualism & Biliteracy
Dissertation: 鈥淩e-Storying Paradise: Language, Imperial Formations of Tourism, and Youth Futures in the Dominican Republic鈥�
Faculty Advisor: Mileidis Gort

Dr. Molly Hamm-Rodr铆guez is the recipient of the 2023 School of Education PhD Outstanding Dissertation Award. She also was awarded a number of highly competitive national fellowships and grants that supported her dissertation field work, analysis, and writing, including the NAEd/Spencer Dissertation Fellowship, the Wenner-Gren Dissertation Fieldwork Grant in Linguistics, and the Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship. Through 12 months of research using ethnographic, sociolinguistic, and participatory action research methods, Dr. Hamm-Rodr铆guez鈥檚 dissertation study explored the interpersonal and institutional implications of raciolinguistic ideologies that differentially structure the education and employment experiences of Dominican and Haitian youth. Molly's research centers youth perspectives and reveals race as a category of social difference that is intimately linked to both the nation-state's desire to use tourism as an engine for economic growth and the dynamics of tourism as they play out in everyday life. She specifically focused on the language ecologies within which English, Spanish, Haitian Creole, and French coexist, attending to the power relations and language ideologies that are expressed through both education policy and the communicative practices of speakers. Her study will contribute an important perspective on the struggles for survival among Black Dominican and Haitian youth who seek education and employment opportunities amidst the social stratifications generated by tourism economies in the Dominican Republic. Dr. Hamm-Rodr铆guez will join the College of Education faculty at the University of South Florida as Assistant Professor of Social Foundations of Education in August.

Daniel J. Mangan, Research & Evaluation Methodology
Dissertation: 鈥淢ultiyear Looping: Theoretical Perspectives and Empirical Evidence鈥�
Faculty Advisor: Mimi Engel

Dan Mangan has earned his PhD in Research & Evaluation Methodology. Prior to entering our program, Dan spent over a decade teaching middle school and had the unique experience of 鈥渓ooping鈥�, or spending two to three years teaching the same group of students as they progressed through grades. Upon learning that there was almost no high quality quantitative research that explored the effects of looping on students and teachers, Dan tackled the challenge of writing a dissertation that is the best work on this topic to-date. In addition to this empirical work, his first dissertation essay makes a strong theoretical and conceptual argument for why looping may be an under-utilized and potentially effective intervention for fostering student engagement and student-teacher connections. In his second and third dissertation essays, Dan uses quasi-experimental methods to estimate the effects of looping on student learning in ELA and math as well as its effects on teacher retention. His results suggest that looping has positive effects for both teachers and students who loop. Dan will begin a position at the Colorado Department of Education this summer as a Senior Consultant in Growth and Accountability.

Kaitlin R. Mork, Research & Evaluation Methodology
Dissertation: 鈥淎n Evaluation of Colorado Turnaround Programs: The School Turnaround Network and Connect for Success鈥�
Faculty Advisor: Benjamin Shear

Over the past two decades, efforts to support school improvement have transitioned from top-down prescriptive approaches to more collaborative and flexible approaches. In her dissertation, Kaitlin investigated whether participating in two recently implemented school turnaround programs in Colorado had an impact on student and school outcomes between 2015 and 2019. The research questions and statistical analyses were informed by conversations with staff in the Department of Education. The results suggest these programs have had small positive effects on student math achievement and no measurable effect on other factors such as student enrollments. The dissertation discusses the implications of these results locally for Colorado policymakers and nationally for researchers evaluating school improvement programs in other states. Kaitlin will continue collaborating with the Department of Education and Colorado schools next year as a postdoctoral associate with the School of Education鈥檚 Center for Assessment, Design, Research and Evaluation (CADRE).

Robbin Thornton Riedy, Learning Sciences & Human Development
Dissertation: 鈥淒ignity-Affirming Care in Collaborative Research Spaces鈥�
Faculty Advisor: Bill Penuel

In her dissertation research, Dr. Riedy designed and investigated a framework for dignity-affirming care in collaborative research. The concept is intended to guide empirical study 鈥� both research and evaluation 鈥� of a range of collaborative research arrangements in education, from research-based partnerships to community-engaged research to community science. Its novelty is in its powerful integration of recent scholarship related to dignity and to care in education, and as such, it contributes to our growing appreciation for relationality in both research and practice. Her theory posits that care is manifested through kind treatment, careful listening, as well as a commitment to the growth and meaningful participation of collaborators in collaborative research. Her empirical investigation of the framework relied on interviews from a national sample of research-practice partnerships and a genetics lab inside of a museum that was run by volunteers called community scientists. She found that the intensity of collaboration, as well as the specific nature of opportunities for learning and participation within collaborative contexts shapes whether participants in collaborative research experience it as dignity-affirming. Her dissertation research provides a new framework for characterizing a key ethical dimension of collaborative research, the quality of care within it.

Kim Strong, Equity, Bilingualism & Biliteracy
Dissertation: 鈥淪tudent Learning, Student Demographics, or Something Else? A Quantcrit Analysis of How School Accountability Reflects Student Labels but Not Student Needs鈥�
Faculty Advisor: Kathy Escamilla

Despite decades of legislation, and policy designed to improve academic achievement of historically marginalized students, they continue to suffer from disparate academic outcomes. Using Critical Race Theory and QuantCrit frameworks, Kim analyzed accountability outcomes in relation to student demographics, and school contexts in a large urban school district over three years to understand whether the accountability framework employed by the district was in fact measuring student learning, or if it was missing key indicators of student need and potential. Findings indicated that the schools with the highest accountability ratings consistently served smaller proportions of students of color, economically disadvantaged students, and Emerging Bilingual Learners, while concomitantly being staffed by lower rates of fully qualified teachers in sites with more than double the frequency of disciplinary actions, and other incidents that disrupt instruction.听Results revealed that student demographics and disciplinary actions were statistically significant predictors of both accountability scores and outcomes.听 The accountability framework was biased in favor of schools that served small proportions of historically marginalized students which is significant considering most students in the district were students of color, economically disadvantaged and Emerging Bilingual Learners.听Implications suggest accountability frameworks should be revised to ensure they do not disproportionately and negatively impact schools with large numbers of marginalized students.

Sanford R. Student, Research & Evaluation Methodology
Dissertation: 鈥淏ridging Gaps between Psychometric Research and Practice in U.S. K-12 Education鈥�
Faculty Advisors: Derek Briggs and Benjamin Shear

Sandy Student has earned his PhD in the Research and Evaluation Methodology program. His dissertation 鈥淏ridging Gaps Between Psychometric Research and Practice In US K-12 Education鈥� is comprised of three articles that each demonstrate how issues in assessment design and analysis can have a big impact on the answers that education researchers, policymakers, and the public are able to give to questions such 鈥渨hat and how much have students learned from one grade to the next?鈥澨齋andy has already published his research in several high-profile and extremely selective peer-reviewed journals, including Educational Researcher and Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice. And here is a thing to know about Sandy: although it seems clear that he could walk on water if it was necessary, he would never admit it. He鈥檚 much more likely to laugh while telling you a story about the time he tripped and fell in water. In August of 2023, he will be starting a tenure track position as an Assistant Professor in the School of Education at the University of Delaware. That鈥檚 right folks, you guessed it. We can finally give him the title that was clearly his destiny when he started at CU 5 years ago: Professor Student!

Curriculum & Instruction: STEM Education

Curriculum & Instruction: Secondary Humanities

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Cultivating Compassion and Dignity in Ourselves and Our Schools

Teaching Culturally/Linguistically Diverse 麻豆淫院

Leading for Change in Science Assessment Practice

The Teacher and Social and Emotional Learning

Rethinking Inclusive and Special Education

Designing for Learning: Inquiry-Based Pedagogy for K-12 Educators