Doctorate in Curriculum and Instruction

 Research Practice Teams

Select a Research Practice Team that best aligns with your interest, experience, and career goals. We are currently accepting applications to the following teams:

Supporting Students’ Evidence-based Thinking across the Curriculum

As social issues become more and more complex and increasingly entangle perspectives from science, mathematics, economics, politics, and history, it has never been more important to weigh and consider various sources of evidence when making personal, social, or policy decisions. But what counts as evidence? How can individuals use evidence to make compelling arguments and support their stance on an issue? These are questions that have relevance in current society and also within classrooms across the K-12 curriculum. The Evidence-based Thinking Research Practice Team (RPT) will explore:

• How do students engage in evidence-based thinking within and across disciplines?
• How do teachers build capacity in students’ evidence-based thinking skills?
• How can we build teachers’ capacity to incorporate evidence-based thinking in their classrooms?
• How can argument-driven instructional approaches support students’ evidence-based thinking?
• What curricular implications are there for integrating argument-driven practices to support students’ evidence-based thinking?

The work of this RPT will prepare graduates to become educators with deep knowledge of the theory and research backing the design of learning environments and curricula that support students’ use of evidence within diverse disciplines and the associated instructional implications. Participants in the RPT will have the opportunity to collaborate with leading researchers and organizations specializing in supporting students’ evidence-based thinking and related teacher professional learning. The findings generated as part of this RPT will be shared broadly with schools and districts through the creation and dissemination of teacher resources and curriculum supports, publication in high-impact research and practitioner journals, as well as presentations in high visibility teacher and researcher conferences.

 

For more information, please contact Dr. Jonathon Grooms (jgrooms@gwu.edu).

Data and Innovation

The overarching purpose of the Data and Innovation Research Practice Team is to increase fairness in college and career outcomes for all students. The team will bring together teachers, school leaders, counselors, and other education professionals to analyze large-scale data sets and create action plans in local schools. Questions the team may explore include:

• What courses over time best support college vs. career attainment?
• Is there a significant effect of school curricula on performance in college majors (e.g. Math, Science, English)?
• Do qualities of schools (elementary, middle, high-school, community college, college) impact college and/or career outcomes?
• What types of programs and interventions influence academic engagement and achievement?

A core objective of the team is to apply data science methods to build and refine multi-level longitudinal classification models to better understand pathways to majors and careers within the public-school system. Informed by the expertise of the team, variables from state and/or national data will be merged with local school system data to identify critical features predicting college and career outcomes for students. A second core objective is aimed at improving practice. The team will identify, develop, and study interventions relevant to the variables modeled that can improve engagement and learning in disciplinary pathways. Each team member will analyze model results in the context of a local school or system and apply personal expertise, results of prior research, and local knowledge to propose an intervention and evaluation plan. The third core objective is to engage in implementation and evaluation of approved interventions.

Doctoral students joining the team in fall 2023 may work with the Virginia Longitudinal Data System (VLDS), the National Center for Educational Statistics High School Longitudinal Study (NCES-HLS), or an alternative large-scale data set appropriate to their school.

For more information, please contact Dr. Curtis Pyke (cpyke@gwu.edu).

Research of Informal Learning in the Arts and Humanities

Taking place among DC’s world-famous museums and performance spaces, this Research Practice Team (RPT) will engage with arts and humanities and its pedagogies to conduct research of informal learning experiences. A focus of the RPT is on interdisciplinary content and methods, creativity, and the integration of the arts and humanities with other ways and means of inquiry and formal education practices, such as those of PreK-12 schools. The team will explore:

• What informal learning experiences and approaches do educators and students find to be the most novel and useful both in terms of their everyday lives and in relation to formal education?
• How might museum and performance art experiences inspire visitors, audiences, and researchers to take social and political action?
• What do we know and what needs to be developed in terms of arts and humanities integration with other content areas and research?
• How might permanent and temporary public arts, performances, and humanities content and practices function as public pedagogy?

The RPT experiences will prepare graduates to apply knowledge of teaching, learning, and research in designing, analyzing, and assessing education programs and developing curriculum and instruction both in and out of schools. Individuals in PreK-12, museum education, social sciences, performing and visual arts, government, public administration, and non-profit organizations are encouraged to apply. The work of this RPT will be shared through international conferences and publications in high impact venues.

For more information, please contact Dr. Jonathan Eakle (jeakle@gwu.edu).

Professional Learning

This Research Practice Team (RPT) will provide students with experiences in how to design, implement, evaluate, and sustain effective educator professional learning in a variety of settings. The team’s research will focus on identifying crucial features and strategies of high impact, effective professional learning that supports both educator practice and student learning. Doctoral students on this team may explore questions such as:

• What aspects of professional learning work, don’t work, and why?

• What are the challenges to developing effective professional learning programs for educators?

• What design features and related curriculum products effectively improve instructional practice and student outcomes across classrooms and contexts?

• What design features are particularly effective in schools serving large concentrations of students living in poverty or from historically marginalized backgrounds?

• How can professional learning most effectively support teaching for equity and justice?

• What data are needed to correlate education professional learning with student outcomes?

Individuals in early childhood and K-12 education, museum and heritage site education, social sciences, and non-profit organizations are encouraged to apply. The work of this RPT will be shared through regional professional development networks, leading conferences, and publications in high-impact venues.

For more information, please contact Dr. Karen Kortecamp (karenkor@gwu.edu).