With near ubiquitous smartphone ownership among 18–29-year-olds, many students carry mobile technology everywhere they go, yet little is known about how students use mobile devices for learning. For historically marginalized students, in particular, their phone may be an important tool for learning—especially if it is the primary device used to access the internet. This study explores student perceptions of using mobile devices for learning in focus groups with students from a California community college, a California state university, and a California university. Findings suggest that students often rely on their mobile devices as both an emergency bridge and to make progress on coursework in the in-between moments of their day. However, students also note frustration with using mobile devices due to limitations of small screens and challenges with accessing course content or completing assignments. Implications of this study highlight the importance of faculty development on designing mobile-friendly courses to empower students in leveraging their mobile devices for learning.

Literacy influences all aspects of life. Unfortunately, a rising number of students struggle with reading and spelling, which can result in enormous educational barriers. Difficulties in literacy accompanied by learning-related problem behavior can create additional risk factors. Effective interventions for these students should consider individual needs and focus on multiple components of learning simultaneously. The present single-case study focused on the effects of motivational reading racetracks, with and without self-graphing, on the word-reading and spelling performance of three third graders with severe literacy and behavior problems. Our intervention was carried out three times a week over a 5-week period. The results show strong effects of the racetracks on reading, while the self-graphing component did not seem to be an additional booster. Regarding spelling, the ability to read words was not equivalent to being able to spell all words correctly. However, effects were found when self-graphing was added. In sum, the data suggest that, while it was effective to practice reading using racetracks without motivational reinforcers, it was not sufficient to merely practice spelling. Nevertheless, self-graphing had a positive effect on spelling when attention was focused on spelling the words correctly.

This article presents an immediate evaluation of a professional development course in community health literacy for Brazilian nurses. An evaluation based on an applied thematic analysis of the accounts of 63 attendees in three Brazilian cities (January 2020) was guided by the following themes: (a) expansion of understanding about community health literacy as a pillar for planning and providing health care; (b) encouragement of innovation in research and/or practice; and (c) plans to incorporate the information shared in the course into professional projects. The evaluation disclosed the complexity of social contexts for health literacy, which is intertwined with ethnocultural diversity and deep socioeconomic disparities, such as restricted access to essential public health services for socially deprived and vulnerable individuals. Expanded understanding about community health literacy is a pillar for care planning and delivery, as well as innovation in research and practice projects. Participants’ evaluations revealed ideas to improve nurses’ practice in promoting community health literacy and empowerment, as well as quality of life and social well-being. Future knowledge dissemination may impact nurses’ clinical practice and management actions, bringing changes in various areas of practice to redesign more socially inclusive actions for clientele.

Keywords: Community health literacy; extracurricular education; immediate evaluation; nursing; professional development course.

Members of the LGBTQ+ community often face discrimination, harassment, and exclusion in academic settings, which can negatively impact their academic and personal success. Studies have shown that LGBTQ+ students are more likely to experience negative mental health conditions, drop out of school, and struggle to find employment after graduation. Cultural humility fosters diversity, equity, and inclusion, which is critical to ensuring an equitable educational experience for all students, particularly those from marginalized communities. Intercultural understanding is essential to develop cultural humility so that attitudes reflect empathy and tolerance of differences, including sexual or gender orientation variances or ambiguity. Understanding how the power embedded in cultural climate marginalizes some while privileging others is vital to achieving equity.

The coronavirus disease of 2019, known as the COVID-19 pandemic, is a disaster event that posed significant physical, social, financial, and mental health risks to college students. Disproportionate experiences of stressors position students of color as a population particularly vulnerable to the negative impacts of COVID-19, thus, the current study assessed the impact of COVID-19 on undergraduate students of color in the United States. Students participated in semi-structured in-depth interviews about their experiences with stressors during the pandemic. Data were analyzed using conventional content analysis and revealed themes including (a) the pandemic’s impact on students; (b) basic needs as college students; (c) strategies used to cope with stressors; and (d) supports desired from institutions and faculty. Findings inform colleges and healthcare providers of the most salient concerns for students of color and the sources found helpful. As such, these findings may guide effective prevention and intervention strategies to minimize the effects of future disasters.

Given the lack of diversity in the P–12 teaching force, we contend that white normativity is prevalent and remains mostly unchallenged in these settings. Acknowledging such inequities requires an intentional focus on equity in teacher education programs. The project described here facilitated in-service teachers’ growth in becoming culturally competent and critically conscious by using Photovoice in P–12 classrooms. Photovoice is a participatory action research method that uses photography to examine the lived experiences of participants. Photovoice was used to examine school-based practices that erased and silenced students while offering an inflection point from which the in-service teachers could develop and exhibit critical consciousness. They moved beyond examining the system of inequity and toward actions to counter the culture of whiteness.

The case study methodology was used to analyze instructional strategies to discuss and refine diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) practices in two psychology courses at a community college in California’s Bay Area. A mentor and mentee professional development experience, referred to as the DEI studio, used four sessions over 5 weeks to explore reflective practice using the W.H.O.L.E. Experience framework as a guide to review current DEI practices and implement additional strategies intended to improve the engagement, experience, and success of all students. Student feedback and data were collected via a six-question student evaluation of the courses. Results showed that inclusion of the W.H.O.L.E. Experience framework elements, welcoming, holistic, open, liberating, and empowering, increased student belonging, motivation, engagement, and overall success. Educators/practitioners can employ this framework to consider their own DEI practices.

In an increasingly diverse and interconnected world, the need for the development and mastery of soft skills has perhaps never been greater. Schools can play a key role in soft skills education, but implementation in the classroom has faced a range of challenges that have impeded instruction. One solution is embedding soft skills within an extant academic curriculum, with the advantages that the academic infrastructure is already in place, and few additional materials or time are needed. This field study found that embedding soft skills had excellent outcomes, even with limited resources, materials, and training, a notable first step in the long road toward urgently needed, facilitated, and measurable soft skills instruction in the secondary school learning environment.

Students with disabilities are increasingly receiving their instruction in inclusive classrooms. General education teachers continue to report a lack of preparation to address their needs. This study examined the impact of a 6-hour professional development seminar on the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework to determine if preservice general and special education teachers’ overall performance in lesson design to reduce barriers, identified through increased attention to student variability, improved. Two lesson plans, preseminar and postseminar, from 242 participants were scored using a modified education field experience (EFE) rubric that included 19 evaluation criteria. A Rasch analysis was used to determine pretest and posttest scoring validity and to enable regression analysis with a continuous outcome variable. Results indicated that the seminar resulted in higher scores for the participants’ postmeasures, controlling for the premeasure effects, as well as unique findings based on subject matter. These findings are presented, as well as implications for future research and practice.

Cyberbullying is a problem in educational settings, and much of the research has focused on the development of effective prevention and response initiatives. Because of the vulnerability of children, cyberbullying research and intervention programs have largely targeted elementary students. A growing body of research has shown that cyberbullying is not limited to elementary settings, but the problem is also prevalent in postsecondary institutions, with potentially severe negative consequences. Yet, there is a gap in research about interventions tailored to this life stage. To address this gap, we conducted virtual semistructured interviews through Zoom with 21 university students on the availability and the effectiveness of prevention and response initiatives on campus, existing barriers, and potential solutions. We found that university students were concerned about a lack of available initiatives, and they identified several barriers, including a lack of cyberbullying conversations occurring on campus, limited knowledge about the impacts of cyberbullying on university students, and stigmatization associated with cybervictimization, which made it difficult for students to openly talk about their experiences. To remedy these barriers, university students offered several solutions: increasing education for postsecondary students, faculty, staff, and support teams; conducting studies examining cyberbullying from the unique life stage perspective of young adulthood and employing an ecological point of view; and finally, creating age-appropriate cyberbullying resources, such as flyers, webpages, and anonymous reporting systems. A central theme across these solutions was the need for conversations around cyberbullying experiences at the postsecondary level, as students perceived that it was treated as a taboo topic.

The goal of teaching is student success, but defining success can be daunting. A rudimentary description of student success involves academic achievement and students’ attainment of a high level of satisfaction with their educational process. The pinnacle of student success is transformational learning. Transformational learning is ultimately evidenced by knowledge-based, responsible, and autonomous thinking. Student engagement enhances student success. As a result, course design and assignment design are critical. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how an online discussion assignment can be used to enhance student engagement and increase student success in a university class. The assignment presented in this paper was used in three sections of Global Environment of Business classes in 2021. We designed it to be more than a simple transactional assignment. For the discussion assignment, students were required to address the following: “Should society adopt capitalism or socialism as an economic system? Why?” Students were presented relevant information and were required to think critically about the topic, write their thoughts on a discussion board, and respond to their peers. Then, the instructors evaluated students’ comments, sought to understand their perspectives on the topic, and followed up with appropriate materials in subsequent classes. The coursework moves students toward transformational learning. The assignment requires students to present new information, reflect critically on their point of view, consider the applications of what they have learned, and, finally, think responsibly and autonomously, which is the goal of transformational learning.

We presented a 4-hour training program designed to enhance school counselors’ self-efficacy in handling school crises, with a specific focus on school shootings. Employing a pretest-posttest research design using the School Counselor Response to Violent Crisis Questionnaire, we found that the training was effective in improving the self-efficacy of participants (n = 35) in crisis handling. We discovered, in our pilot study, that crisis training specifically tailored to school counselors can be effective in enhancing their self-efficacy in crisis handling. We discuss our study’s implications for school counselors, workshop leaders, school leaders, and researchers.

The transition to online instruction during the COVID-19 pandemic was unprecedented and forced many universities to quickly embrace online distance learning. This context created new challenges, particularly around assessment strategies. Empirical research has demonstrated that formative assessment fosters more active learning in online classrooms. However, formative assessment strategies are not always adapted well to online platforms based on the nature of the subject matter and the size of the class. This qualitative case study sought to understand instructors’ experiences and strategies for conducting assessment remotely, specifically for large-size undergraduate courses. The investigation relied on data from semi-structured interviews with University of Maryland, College Park instructors who received a Teaching Innovation Grant from the Provost’s Office in Summer 2020 intended to fund sustainable online delivery beyond the emergency response teaching phase. For this analysis, we analyzed the transcripts of 13 interviews, representing a diverse range of programs, schools, and faculty seniority levels at the university. Findings show instructors experienced several successes during course retooling, including significant increases in student performance. Most instructors also indicated that they would continue to keep new online assessment strategies for the future, regardless of whether that future includes online, blended, or in-person delivery. Despite the anticipation that the pandemic would fuel more opportunities for cheating, there was only one experience of academic dishonesty.

Utilizing the Understanding by Design (UbD) framework, a lead philosophy instructor and an instructional designer collaborated with seven other faculty members to create Great Ideas in Philosophy for online asynchronous delivery. We presented a broad array of topics in philosophy and provided substantial practices in “doing” philosophy, aiming to create a welcoming space for a diverse student body, to help students see philosophy as a diverse field, and to provide an engaging and meaningful learning experience for students. Student feedback and final project presentations demonstrated significant learning growth in students taking this newly designed Great Ideas in Philosophy. This collaborative development method can be applied to many undergraduate- and graduate-level survey courses.

Certain course features, such as engaging delivery, can benefit student learning. This essay presents one student’s opinion of what made for an effective introductory psychology course. The student provides his perspective on various features of the recently completed psychology course and how those elements supported his learning. The elements he identified included various ongoing knowledge checks, test reviews, tests, in-class engagement, personalized touchpoints, scaffolding, and student feedback. For each, the course instructor explains the pedagogical underpinnings of her choices. Faculty may find a student’s perspective on courses valuable as they consider their pedagogical decisions in terms of course design and delivery.

This qualitative descriptive study explored teachers’ perceptions of a peer observation structure, collegial visits (CVs), and CVs’ connection to teacher self-efficacy (TSE). The research question was: How do teachers perceive CVs, particularly with respect to their influence on TSE? Semi-structured interviews and a focus group were utilized to collect data from 13 K–12 educators from urban and suburban public school districts in the United States. The theoretical foundation included Bandura’s social cognitive theory and the triadic reciprocal causation model. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the data, and four themes emerged: (1) cultural drivers and effects of CVs; (2) impact of formal and informal learning experiences on teachers; (3) teachers’ positive shift in (a) opinions and (b) emotions regarding CVs; and (4) teachers’ increased TSE throughout CV implementation. Conclusions highlighted that CVs were an effective vehicle for professional learning. The results provide qualitative evidence demonstrating that CVs foster educators’ TSE beliefs.

Student teachers who are unclear about their performance expectations may be driven toward perfectionism. This possibility is discussed as an over-compensation strategy to manage uncertainty and a perceived lack of clarity regarding student teachers’ roles in the classroom. In this case study, I examined perfectionism and stress among six female student teachers enrolled in senior-year student teaching at a small private New England university. I conducted interviews regarding perfectionism, stress, and the coping strategies student teachers used to manage the stress of teaching. Response themes are identified, and strategies to manage perfectionism and stress-related behaviors for student teachers are provided. Finally, I consider the relevance of these present findings for other professional development programs.

When multilingual students face the challenge of writing a doctoral capstone or dissertation, delays in academic progress may occur. The aim of this study was to identify writing challenges multilingual doctoral students face and provide recommendations regarding learner-centered resources to support timely academic success, as literature regarding multilingual students and language diversity in the doctoral environment is limited. A qualitative descriptive design was used for this study, and six multilingual DNP and PhD alumni participated. Data were collected using semi-structured audio interviews and analyzed using iterative content analysis. The findings support the need for community and culture to support language identity and doctoral writing development. Findings also support that early diagnostics of writing issues and opportunities for editorial feedback help support multilingual doctoral students. Findings also suggest a need for faculty and academic team development regarding the impacts of language diversity and culture on academic writing. Ultimately the goal is to help all graduate students preserve and share their identity in their writing.

The goal of this study was to explore the use of assistive technology (AT) for students with disabilities in technical colleges in Ondo State. Three research questions guided the study. A cross-sectional survey design was adopted and the survey included 104 participants (38 university lecturers and 66 students with disabilities) drawn from the three technical colleges in Ondo State. A structured questionnaire consisting of 54 items was also adapted and used in data collection. The reliability coefficient of the instrument was 0.86. The data collected were analyzed using SPSS Version 26. The findings of the study revealed that while there are ATs available for students with disabilities in technical colleges in Ondo State, their utilization is limited. The study recommends that technical colleges in Ondo State increase access to ATs in classrooms and laboratories for students with disabilities. The government and school management should also provide adequate, modern instructional facilities and human resources to enable the implementation of ATs and make them accessible and available to all.

The primary-to-secondary school transition is a milestone for children because of the multiple changes they must navigate. Although most adjust successfully, approximately 30% of children have difficulties during this transition. Intersecting identities are also likely to influence how children navigate the adjustment of the school transfer, but there have been no syntheses of existing evidence relating to the impacts of intersectionality. We conducted an integrative review using eight databases (Education database, ERIC, ProQuest Education, PsychInfo, Scopus, SocIndex, Sociology Database, and Web of Science) and searched for quantitative or qualitative studies that examined how intersecting identities impact children’s self-concept, mental health, and adjustment of the primary-to-secondary school transition. We initially identified a total of 3,193 studies through database searches, with 1,790 remaining after deduplication. After we screened the titles and abstracts, 83 studies were included for full-text screening, of which eight met the review criteria. The studies included in the review were published between 2000 and 2018; no studies were found after 2018. Syntheses of the included studies (three quantitative studies, four qualitative studies, and one mixed methods study) revealed three themes: (1) academic and social discord; (2) defining and constructing negative identities; and (3) the female body. Our findings from the review highlighted how children with minority intersecting identities are faced with additional challenges during the transition to secondary school and how these can have negative ramifications for their self-concept, mental health, and adjustment to the transition. Future research needs to be directed away from prioritizing identities, such as gender and ethnicity, to include intersectional identities.