Volume 2

In this volume, you will find a focus on engaging all students in learning. Contributors this year focused on engaging students across scale. Contributors focused on engaging entire classes: for instance, instituting independent reading time for Pre-K students, asking fifth graders to express themselves through art; making middle school social studies more hands-on; and redesigning high school math homework. Others focused on smaller groups of students: helping at-risk pre-K students get ready to read; restructuring elementary school classrooms to increase participation of kinesthetic learners and children with behavior disorders; taking lower-performing fourth graders outdoors. Yet others focused on the needs of individual students, including a kindergartner just learning to speak English and a fourth grader who was reluctant to learn. Consistent with our mission in Educational Studies to prepare reflective teachers for diverse classrooms, you will also find a focus on diversity and multiculturalism, including reflections on a year-long conversation between a black and white intern, the multiculturalism (and at times the lack thereof) of a unit on ancient Rome, the use of feminist literary criticism to motivate boys to read, and the development of homework practices which close economic achievement gaps. 

Outdoor Education

Lindsey N. Hayden, Leaving the Classroom Behind: Increasing Student Motivation through Outdoor Education

Adrienne Patterson, Effectively Incorporating the Outdoor Environment into the Standard Curriculum

Alun Oliver, The Benefits of Outdoor Education and its Effects on Reluctant Learners

Reading and Writing

Jim Ritter, Reinstating the Draft: Using Creative Writing to Enhance Composition Skills

Amelia Hinnebusch, Reintroducing Independent Reading Into the Classroom: An Active Approach

Madeline Eberhardt, Independent Reading Programs: Improving Achievement and Attitudes

Rio Cardone, Surveying Road to the Code: An Assessment of a Pre-K Reading Intervention Program

Engaging Students in the Upper Grades

Nicole Adrienne Chaplin, Comparing Student Responses to Various Instructional Strategies

Lisa Daciek and Rachel Johns, Homework FOR Students: Differentiating Homework Assignments in Math

Laura Stanley, Viewing and Cueing: Identifying Strategies for Using Political Cartoons Effectively

Mandy Heatwole, Unwrapping Giftedness: Using MI Theory to Engage Honors Students in Language Arts

Graham Michael Bateman, Motivating Students for Success in the Co-gendered Inclusion Classroom

Engaging Students in the Elementary Grades

Anita Rich, Developing Self Perception in Young Artists Through the Creation of Personal Comics

Jane Miller-Pankiewicz, An Ounce of Intervention is Worth a Pound of Cure

Barbara Delamarter, To Move or Not to Move: A Kinesthetic Learning Environment

Aubrey Jena Lawrence, Classroom Management for Attention Seeking Students

Paula Zweimiller, Structured Lessons and Their Impact on Student Behavior and Performance

Diversity and Multiculturalism

Matthew F. Adams, How Multicultural Is It? Personal Reflections on Multicultural Teaching

Corey Ahearn, You Got Fried: What I Learned About Race, Schooling and Anti-Racist Education, A Narrative Account if a Student-Teacher’s Education

Eric Smith, Utilizing Feminist Literary Criticism to Close the Gap between Masculinity and Literacy

Catherine Koch, Changing Homework to Help Students: Closing the Economic Achievement Gap

Alison L. Femi, Incorporating English Language Learners in the Early Childhood Classroom

Teachers and Students Reach Across Race

Re’nee Wilburn & Sara D. Greenback, Race, Social Class, and Teaching; The Conversation Between a Black and a White Teacher

Avanti Fernandez, Blurring Racial Lines Through Education: My Job is to Listen, not to Dictate

Caitlin Fisher, Diversity and Friendship: Creating a Classroom that Supports Diversity in Friendship Choice

Allison N. Scheller, The Effects of Different Backgrounds on Student-Teacher Relationships