Transnational Students in Mexico Study (Officially titled; MIGRACIÓN INTERNACIONAL, TRAYECTORIAS ESCOLARES Y POBREZA: inclusión/exclusión en las escuelas mexicanas y trasnacionalismo de los menores migrantes mexicanos"):
In collaboration with Dr. V�ctor Z��iga, who is a sociologist the Universidad de Monterrey (in Nuevo Le�n Mexico), and with funding from CONACYT (Mexico's national science foundation), since 2005 I have been involved in a mixed methods study in the Mexican states of Nuevo Le�n and Zacatecas to identify and learn about the school and life experiences of students there who previously have attended school in the United States. Having visited 391 schools and having found 450 students who previously attended school in the U.S., we project that there are 18,000 such students in these two states and as many as 485,000 across the country. Dr. Edmund Hamann.
U.S. Teachers Learning in Mexico:
With Dr. Beth Doll (in UNL's Dept. of Educational Psychology) I am examining how Midwestern teachers experienced and made sense of a summer training program in Mexico that was intended to raise awareness about Mexico and Mexican education for purposes of helping participants better respond to Mexican newcomer students and families in the U.S. Dr. Edmund Hamann.
Schooling in Demographically Transitioning Communities:
Mainly an undergraduate curriculum development and piloting effort, Jenelle Reeves (also in TLTE) and I are using this Initiative on Teaching and Learning Excellence (ITLE) project to study the experiences of graduate student mentors and undergraduate mentees who we have paired to consider the teacher professional development implications of Nebraska's demographically changing public school enrollment. (Since 1990-91 Nebraska's white non-Hispanic K-12 public school enrollment has declined by 24,379 (-10%); its Hispanic enrollment has grown by 25,648 (+359%); its African American enrollment has grown by 6,980 (+48%), its Asian/Pacific Islander enrollment has grown by 2,602 (+100%), and its American Indian/Alaskan Native enrollment has grown by 1,707 (+57%).) Dr. Edmund Hamann.
Math in the Middle:
This major, federally funded project, explores the relationships among teachers� increased understanding of mathematical content knowledge, their teaching practices, and the effects of those practices on students� mathematics learning. This 5-year initiative will influence the teaching of approximately 125 Nebraska middle school teachers and their students. Dr. Ruth Heaton and Dr. Tom McGowan.
Realizing How History is Alive Around Them: A Partnership in American History Education:
This study focuses on the Nebraska Partnership for American History Education, a project funded by a U.S. Department of Education Teaching American History Grant from 2001-2005. The partners were Educational Service Unit 7 and the Departments of History and Teaching, Learning and Teacher Education at UN-L. Continuous assessment throughout the project included evaluation forms, surveys, oral interviews and analysis of student work. Findings offer insight into what needs to be in place as well as what may intervene in successful professional development activities within and across locations and institutions. Dr. Susan Wunder.
Education for Human Well-being:
My current research aims to establish well-being as a central, and perhaps the ultimate, aim of education. Relevant issues include whether/how current education policies and practices fail to serve well-being, how human well-being should be conceptualized, why well-being is a/the appropriate aim of education, and what educators can/should do to serve the well-being of students, communities, and themselves. Dr. Karl Hostetler.
Finding a Place: Rethinking School Markets, Student Marginalization and Rural Community Survival:
A study in local rural education policy that examines how one small rural public school district has used extant policy environments to create a market alternative for out-district area students who are at-risk academically and socially. By crafting course and academic programs to support these students, the district has been able to maintain student enrollments in the face of declining community population, lower district tax levies, and ensure district sustainability. Dr. Steve Swidler.
Coursetaking in Six Decades:
A Transcript Study of Nebraska High Schools, 1953-2003:The purpose of this study is to describe changes in course-taking patterns of high school students in one state across a 50-year span. Through a transcript analysis of graduating seniors in 17 schools for the years 1953, 1963, 1973, 1983, 1993 and 2003 we offer a view of Nebraska high schools and the courses their graduates completed. We identify constants and changes over time in courses, course complexity, and grades. The analysis suggests what various communities have valued as necessary and important for young people to learn as well as trends in beliefs and ideas about what comprises a quality education. Dr. Jim Walter and Dr. Susan Wunder.
From Student to Teacher: Teacher knowledge of New Teachers in Diverse Classrooms:
In this study, I am examining the experiences of undergraduate teacher education students as they move from student to student teacher, to explore the challenges of planning and implementing curriculum for an increasingly diverse student population. Dr. Elaine Chan
Faculty Leadership for Writing Initiative:
Through an initiative supported by the Program of Excellence in the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, a group of faculty in the Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education are examining the systematic use of writing, with particular attention to peer review and multi-draft efforts, as core features of undergraduate teacher education courses. We are documenting and reflecting upon the process of planning, implementing, and evaluating opportunities for teacher education students to develop academic writing skills. Engaging students in peer-review of reflective writing about their classroom experiences provides an example of the kinds of practices to be encouraged in the teacher education programs within the department that are currently under revision. Dr. Elaine Chan
Immigrant Narratives Intersecting on a School and Community Landscape in Transition:
This study is a preliminary examination of issues contributing to the academic development and social adaptation of immigrant and minority students in an American city. This school-based study will address the unique challenges of educating immigrant and minority students attending diverse schools in previously less diverse communities. This study is an examination of these school contexts from the perspective of the students and their teachers to identify the kinds of knowledge teachers need to acquire about the intricacies of their students� ethnic communities in order to support their academic performance and social adaptation. Dr. Elaine Chan
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), 'Ethnic identity of first generation Canadians: Intersection of culture and curriculum on school landscapes:
In this study, I examine in greater detail the experiences of teachers and students as they live a culturally sensitive curriculum on a multicultural school landscape. I explore ways in which curriculum events have the potential to shape the ethnic identity of the students by highlighting how beliefs and values of individuals may be challenged through the implementation of curriculum events valued by some members of the school community and judged as inappropriate by others.
I focus more specifically on teacher experiences of the inclusion of culture in the curriculum to explore the challenges and complications associated with the development and implementation of a culturally sensitive curriculum. I examine teachers' experiences that intersect with those of immigrant parents whose perceptions of the role of school are shaped by cultural and social narratives very different from those that guide teachers and students in North American schools. I also examine the tensions involved when students' sense of affiliation to both their home and school cultures is challenged as they shift back and forth between cultures, such as when students have different expectations for behavior depending on whether they are in school or at home, and depending on with whom they are interacting. This understanding of the role of curriculum in shaping a sense of ethnic identity contributes to the field of Curriculum Studies by enhancing the ability of educators to meet the needs of their increasingly diverse student populations. Dr. Elaine Chan
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Research Project, 'Intersecting Narratives: Cultural Harmonies and Tensions in Inner-City Canadian Schools.:
n this study, we focus on the family and generational narratives of experience in which present-day narratives of experience are embedded and on the place of school in those narratives. We are gaining a sense of the temporally longer generational stories to describe, understand, and improve the experience of schooling in inner-city contexts. The stories to live by told to us by children and their parents are embedded in cultural narratives of experience, narratives which reach back across generations to homeland stories of other times.
Seeing ourselves as developing a viable methodology and interpretive framework for conducting school-based research, in this study, we will expand our working notion of educational landscapes to include the imaginative, ideological, and narrative web of generational purposes and goals and continue to refine the idea of narrative inquiry as both method and phenomena. Dr. Elaine Chan