We share with you some highlights of the remarkable work carried out this year and presented by our School of Education and Human Development faculty and students at the 2023 AERA Annual Meeting, Interrogating Consequential Education Research in Pursuit of Truth.

UM School of Education and Human Development
AERA Presentation Highlights

Fostering Classroom-Level Engagement for Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students
Mary Avalos, Wendy Cavendish

This study presented results from a teacher professional development (PD) project aimed to increase secondary teachers’ understanding of and engagement practices at the classroom-level with their culturally and linguistically diverse students.

The Relationship Between Self-Determination and High School Graduation for Youth With and Without Disabilities in Foster Care
Wendy Cavendish, Nastasia Schreiner, Deborah Perez

This research examined the role of domains of self-determination on the likelihood of high school graduation for 37 high school youth in foster care.

Mentor-Mentee Relationship Development for College Access
Wendy Cavendish, Deborah Perez, Kayla Larkin

This study examined the relationship between first generation undergraduate mentors’ (n = 18) emotional intelligence and level of mentee contact to their mentees’ (n = 18) perception of match quality.

Youth Spatial Storytelling Across Scales: Understanding Transnational Experiences in the Islita Libra Community Hyperlocal Context
Matthew Deroo, Jennifer Kahn, Daryl Axelrod

Presentation from a design study that engaged a class of transnational and immigrant high school youth in multidisciplinary digital storytelling about their local school and home neighborhoods.

Oral Histories and Data Stories: Youths' Identity Development Discovery Through a Research Elective Course
Matthew Deroo, Jennifer Kahn, Daryl Axelrod

Research documented the ways in which 11th grade students in an Advanced Placement elective research course learned about various data sources for inquiry to create digital, layered map-based stories about the factors that shape their (and others’) immigrant experiences in their local community.

Photo: (l-r) Daryl Axelrod, Jennifer Kahn, Emma Chen, Laxmi Ojha, Matthew Deroo, Lucia Cardenas Curiel, Guofang Li, Zang Luqing, and Patriann Smith

Interrogating Dynamics of Language and Power in Visual Compositions
Matthew Deroo, Jason DeHart, Daryl Axelrod

This work draws on theories of dynamic bilingualism and heteroglossic views of language and texts (Garcia et. al., 2021) and examined power dynamics for educational environments (ie: classrooms, schooling) as rendered by words, text, and images in graphic sequential novels (henceforth: comics), which are natural multimodal texts (Jacobs, 2013; Serafini, 2014).

Care as Developing Sustainable Partnerships With Youth Participants Over Time
Matthew Deroo

This research, highlighting co-authorship between a Black, female Muslim immigrant youth and a white, Christian, U.S. born researcher is grounded in humanizing approaches to research (Paris, 2011) as an avenue for researchers to enact care in their qualitative studies with youth.

Toward Consequential Research in Language and Social Processes
Matthew Deroo

A workshop session to encourage cross-“generational” dialogue within the LSP SIG featured a moderated discussion between senior scholars of language and social processes and featured speakers providing insight on how to engage in consequential research. A mentoring session followed the discussion for graduate students and early-career scholars to discuss manuscripts.

Coalition of Black Education Deans - Truth and Consequences: Leading in a Post-Truth Era
Laura Kohn-Wood

In this symposium session, the leadership group of the relatively new Coalition led a discussion that clarifies the issues related to leading schools and colleges of education during a time when education is a highly contested political space.

Photo: (l-r) Dean Marvin Lynn, University of Colorado Denver; Dean Valerie Kinloch, University of Pittsburgh; Dean Donald Easton-Brooks, University of Nevada-Reno; Dean Laura Kohn-Wood, University of Miami; Dean Kimberly White-Smith, University of San Diego; Dean Donald Pope-Davis, Ohio State University; and former Dean Michael Dantley, Miami University of Ohio

Examining Pathway to a College of Education Deanship: Expectations, Challenges, and Rewards
Laura Kohn-Wood

Initiated at the 1997 Annual Meeting in Chicago, the 2023 session of “The Continuation of Conversations with Senior Scholars on Advancing Research and Professional Development Related to Black Education” is now back in Chicago 27 years later. This was number 26 in this popular and widely heralded series.

Comparison of the Effects of Individual Learning Versus Collaborative Learning in Online English Learning Platform
Nam Ju Kim

This study compared the effects of individual learning supported by scaffolding and the collaborative learning supported by the script in one online English learning platform, with results revealing that three learning methods used greatly enhanced students’ English skills, but collaborate learning had significantly better performance.

Exploring Drama's Potential to Broaden Underrepresented Students' Interest and Participation in Science
Maria Kolovou

This study uses case study design embedded in a grounded theory approach to examine how drama may broaden underrepresented youth’s interest and participation in science. The study initially followed 12 racially and linguistically diverse students enrolled in a STEAM elective at an elementary urban public school (4-6 graders), followed by an in-depth analysis of three cases of African American students.