Democracy Camp for Teachers: Cross-Cultural Professional Development for Preparing Educators to Create Social Justice-Minded Citizens

The Civitas Democracy Camp for Teachers provides professional development for educators to collaboratively explore ideals of citizenship and citizenship education in democratic societies. Reported herein are the findings of a study of the camp experience of a cross-cultural group of educators who examined the concept of social justice and ways to teach their students about it. Results of the study indicate that the participants broadened their definitions of social justice, expanded their recognition of the importance of teaching about social justice, and enhanced their understandings of approaches for teaching about social justice. Further, the findings indicate that cross-cultural professional development can have positive effects in altering and expanding educators’ content and pedagogical knowledge of important international issues such as social justice

Inquiry in the commonplace: Participatory citizenship, intertextuality, imagination, and aesthetics in the multiage gifted and talented inclusion classroom

This study explored the role of inquiry and curriculum development in a fourth and fifth grade gifted and talented inclusion classroom where students were involved in intertextual, imaginative, and aesthetic experiences. Using the aesthetic frameworks of Maxine Greene and John Dewey, the study explored how students came to be informed and participatory citizens in a classroom that grew to be a “commonplace.” Dewey\u27s work regarding experience and aesthetics served as a foundation for discussion and analysis of the interdisciplinary connections that were central in our multiage classroom. The classroom community evolved and became a commonplace as the teacher-researcher and learners/teachers co-constructed their learning journeys based on forces from within and outside the classroom. The study linked civic education, William Pinar\u27s notion of curriculum as “currere,” and Dennis Sumara\u27s “commonplace” through the philosophies of Maxine Greene and John Dewey. Specific attention was paid to intertextuality, imagination, and aesthetics as each concept was understood and applied in the commonplace by the teacher-researcher. The classroom was studied over a two-year period in a large suburban elementary school. Written in autoethnographic form, with framing quotations from Lois Lowry\u27s books and other published writing; the researcher explored the teacher-researcher\u27s ongoing role in understanding curricular innovation and design. Furthermore, the study examined the roles taken by teacher and students to help a classmate who suffered from a brain tumor. Efforts took place in the classroom and school and then extended into the community with extra-curricular artistic fund raising projects. Five focal students were selected at the end of the second year of the study because of speeches they wrote in a Student Council election process. These speeches and students\u27 self-selected writing from two year portfolios were used to reflect upon and analyze student use of intertextual, aesthetic, and imaginative resources and to see how the students positioned themselves as participatory citizens. This study has implications for teachers and teacher educators. When provided with the chance to be actively involved in challenging classroom work through content explorations and aesthetic experiences, students came to “be” as participatory citizens

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certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: A move to smaller schools: The impact on teacher communit

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To my husband, Walt, who always believed this was possible. Acknowledgements This dissertation is the completion of something that others saw as possible before I ever did. They say that writing a dissertation is a lonely, isolating experience, and in terms of keeping ones mind in the right place, as apposed to finding ways to be distracted like updating the Netflix queue, this has been anything but a lonely experience. I am fortunate to be surrounded by people who support me (and in terms of self-efficacy, it would be accurate to say that mine is far more influenced by verbal persuasion leading me toward mastery experiences). For those who have participated in the verbal persuasion, this is for you. Being the first family member to pursue a graduate degree is as Richard Rodrequez writes in Hunger of Memory is a difficult thing. Your family, though they love you, never knows what in the world you are doing, how to talk to you about it, and fear that it will make you unknown to them on some level. But, I have been fortunate to be influenced by their verbal persuasion and their belief that I could do this. While they may not understand it, they are all part of this work. There are others who are also deserving of my gratitude and thanks