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Opening Doors with Open Resources: Transforming Nursing Education for Access and Success
Full text linkTrack: Open Educational Resources, Open Pedagogy & Open Access Scholarship
The nursing workforce shortage in North Carolina has prompted innovative strategies to address educational barriers and increase nursing graduates. Guided by state legislation and the Time for Action report by the North Carolina Institute of Medicine, this initiative leverages Open Educational Resources (OER) to strengthen pathways to nursing careers. This is a Systemwide initiative driven by nursing faculty representing the System’s 12 nursing schools.
Building on the 2020 UNC System Digital Course Enhancement Initiative, UNC System faculty will collaborate in Spring 2025 to develop affordable, high-quality OER materials for two foundational courses: Nursing Fundamentals and Community Health Nursing. These resources, including syllabi, assessments, PowerPoint presentations, test banks, grading guides, and instructor support, will be housed in the UNC OER Commons for statewide accessibility.
This initiative fosters evidence-based teaching strategies, making nursing education more accessible and cost-effective for all learners while serving as a replicable model for strengthening the workforce pipeline
A Head Start on STEM: Investigating the Relationship of Teacher Knowledge and Self-Efficacy
No full textResearch substantiates that providing high-quality STEM experiences at an early age is important for young children to become college and career ready (Moore et al, 2016). However, not all early childhood educators (ECE) feel knowledgeable and/or confident in supporting STEM instruction. How ECE’s feel, think, and motivate themselves is often influenced by their self-efficacy beliefs. Individuals with strong self-efficacy tend to commit to goals that challenge their current capabilities (Bandura, 1993). Therefore, ECE’s may be more inclined to implement STEM activities if they feel knowledgeable and confident. Professional development (PD) when connected with formative feedback, often leads to increased self-confidence (Blonder & Vescio, 2022). This current study explored how purposefully designed PD opportunities impacted ECE’ self-efficacies and perceptions of STEM instruction, using a mix-methods design with Head Start preschool educators. The findings suggested a significant increase in participants’ self-efficacies for supporting preschool-aged children’s STEM instruction
Does a Decade Make a Difference? Changes in Pre- and In-service Preschool Teachers’ Knowledge of Early Mathematical Development
Full text linkThis study examines whether, in the wake of considerable research since 2007 on the importance of supporting early mathematical development, teacher education programs have improved instruction over the intervening ten years on this essential area of development. The analysis compares data on pre- and in-service teachers’ knowledge of mathematical development gathered during 2008 as measured by the Knowledge of Mathematical Development Survey (KMDS) and compares it to data gathered in 2017-2018. The results showed that while the KMDS mean scores of students in each of the education groups (beginning versus seniors versus math course) statistically differed for each collection year, there was no statistically significant difference between 2008 and 2017-2018 collection years for beginners. However, there was a statistically significant difference between 2008 and 2017-2018 collection years in average scores in the seniors and math course groups, resulting in lower mean scores in 2017-2018 than those in 2008
Choosing and disusing educational technology: Examining parents’ decision making about math and literacy apps for their young children
Full text linkMany parents are interested in using educational apps for their young children. Evidence indicates that well designed apps can promote children’s literacy and math skills. However, many commercially available apps are poorly designed. This highlights the importance of understanding how parents decide which educational apps they make available for their child and also why they may disuse them. Sixty-five Canadian parents (58 mothers) completed a survey assessing literacy and math knowledge, and decisions about literacy and math apps. Parents’ naturally self-generated features for app selection yielded similarities e.g., (ease of use, age appropriateness) and differences (e.g., advertisements, games) to rubrics typically generated by researchers. Highly endorsed features were similar across app types. App quality and potential for independent use were key reasons for disuse. Parental knowledge of foundational literacy and math concepts such as phonological awareness and cardinality was low, which could pose a challenge for their assessments of apps. 
Educational Apps for Young Children: Insights from Parents
Full text linkMany parents are interested in using educational appsto supplement their children’s literacy and math developmentat home. Research shows that well designedapps can be a tool to support children’s learning,however parents might struggle to find well designedapps due to the large number that exist and theiroverall poor quality. The present study investigatedhow parents choose educational apps, including theirattitudes towards teaching their children, the sourcesof information they use, and the features they lookfor in math and literacy apps. Results indicate thatparents are motivated to find educational apps butmay not be certain about some important instructionalfeatures that would make an educational appeffective. Practical suggestions based on the findingsare provided. Understanding obstacles parents face aswell as how they select instructional tools is importantin order to identify ways to support parents infinding high quality educational apps that have thepotential to supplement education at home
Unsettling Whiteness: Democratizing Adult Education to Transform Academia
No full text This article explores ways that universities, through policies, practices, and structures embody white supremacy. As an extension of society, where anti-Blackness/Brownness prevails, universities replicate this racism. Despite rhetoric purporting democratic decision-making, academia centers whiteness. In this environment, Black and Brown bodies are forced to squeeze intospaces not conceived for them. When they don’t fit, they are labeled unfit (Ahmed, 2014).
The co-authors share through dialogic reconstruction layered accounts of a year-long professional development effort at a public, adult education institution in New York. This series focused on decentering whiteness in academia. Utilizing critical race theory/critical theory frameworks, the authors (the facilitator of these sessions and three faculty from the adult education institution) collectively interrogate the purposes, processes, and results of these sessions in relation to the of role diversity, equity, and inclusion in unsettling whiteness
Examining One Mathematics Teacher’s Decisions Regarding Mathematics and Language
Full text linkTeachers have to make many in-the-moment decisions when teaching. We investigated one teacher’s decisions in response to the difference between the intended meaning of a mathematical problem and her student’s understanding. The student—an English language learner—had a different interpretation of the mathematical scenario related to one particular clause in the problem that was, ironically, intended to be explanatory but ended up obscuring intended meaning and therefore impacted the student’s solution. In order to reflect on the teacher’s decisions, we include a vignette that illustrates the teacher’s tensions when making her instructional decisions. The vignette is followed by the teacher’s rationale for her decisions and an analysis of the episode. We invite readers to participate in her decision-making process and explore impacts of each decision
Flowing With the Translanguaging Corriente: Juntos Engaging With and Making Sense of Mathematics
Full text linkThe translanguaging corriente, or current of language practices, as described by García et al. (2017), is always flowing through your mathematics classroom, whether you realize it or not. The corriente, how multilinguals use all their languages to learn and engage with content in school and make sense of a complex world, requires educators to reconsider what is understood about language and mathematics. By rethinking how we view language separation in the multilingual mathematics classroom, we propose that teachers teach with a translanguaging stance in order to access multilingual students’ full linguistic repertoires and to develop deep mathematical understanding
Poetic Mathematical Knowledge, Cultural Connections and Challenging Epistemic Injustice
Full text linkThis article focuses on poetry as a shared point of mathematical reflection, connection, and culture while discussing the importance of the driving force behind liberatory action. Specifically, a math-inspired poetry template will be discussed across multiple learning contexts to highlight the richness of poetry and math. We put forth the idea of Poetic Mathematical Knowledge to provide an entry toward transformational mathematical teaching and learning rooted in resistance, healing, and liberation. Insofar to say that antiracist mathematics must move beyond superficial activities and must focus on the wholeness of students and their communities
Reorient the Orient: A Case Study
Full text linkLionel Popkin delves into his body and art as methods to navigate the world and comment on its affordances in representation