Education Research

 

 

Inclusive uses of Digital Technologies for Developmentally and Linguistically Diverse Learners

(Back to Top)

 

Students with special needs remain one of the last groups that is not fully included in US K-12 education. New uses and forms of digital technologies provide a powerful means for amplifying the voice and agency of children with special needs, thus enhancing their educational and social inclusion. Yet while previous dissertation projects examine the uses of digital technologies by children with disabilities in out-of-school settings, none focus on the uses of technology within a purposely inclusive elementary school integrating students with and without disabilities in the same classroom setting.

This dissertation project puts forth a theoretically rich and empirically rigorous view of the intersection of inclusive education at the intersection of language, literacy, and technology. It draws on a combination of theoretical analysis, a review of extant literatures, and the author’s case study research in a remarkable full-inclusion school in the Western United States, drawing on data both before and after the COVID-19 pandemic shuttered the school building and necessitated emergency distance learning.

The dissertation project seeks to advance our understanding of how digital technologies can contribute to language and literacy development, agency, and inclusion for children with special needs. Based on a wide range of qualitative data, three main themes are illuminated: (1) the kinds of social organization that allow a fully inclusive environment for exceptional children to thrive, (2) the ways that digital media are used in the program to help students express their voice and agency, while developing language and literacy skills, and (3) the ways that digital media are used to foster stronger networks and connections among all school stakeholders.

One fascinating element woven throughout is how the strengths of the school environment and culture carried through during the months of pandemic-based emergency distance learning and thus helped minimize the educational and social disruption during that period.

Books:

Prado, Y., Warschauer, M. (2024, In Press) Voices on the Margins: Inclusive Education at the Intersection of Language, Literacy, and Technology, MIT Press.

Conference Presentations:

Prado, Y., Tunney, J., Tate, T., Warschauer, M. (2021, April) Virtual Inclusion in the COVID Era: Supporting Exceptional Students’ Participation in Remote Learning Environments (Panel Submission). American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting, Orlando Florida.

Prado, Y., (2020, February) Voices on the Margins: Promoting Exceptional Learners Agency as Readers and Writers (Dissertation Work in Progress). UC Special Education, Disabilities, and Developmental Risk, University of California, Los Angeles, California

 

Community Education Fellows: An Initiative at UC Irvine to connect student mentors with families and schools

(Back to Top)

 

Pandemic learning pods are small groupings of children for socialization, education, and play. Pods have the potential to be an innovative solution for families faced with remote learning in the COVID era, but are also a potentially problematic practice perpetuating educational inequities. In this project, we partner with local community schools and nonprofits to match families in need with UC Irvine undergraduate students to form learning pods. These learning pods are designed to support students’ social emotional learning and facilitate small-group learning. These arrangements afford the opportunity to explore how pods create specific contexts for diverse communities to come together to meet multiple needs.

As pods are community-based endeavors, we adopt a sociocultural approach to our work - allowing us to attend to power dynamics and manifestations within and across pods in differing communities; as well as critically examine podding motivations, goals, and designs. Recognizing that communities have different resources, we take a funds of knowledge perspective in framing our exploration. This approach allows us to look at the resources and wealth that differing communities bring and use for shared goals.

Conference Presentations:

Prado, Y., Zinger, D., Ahn, J. (2021, April) Organizing to Support Learning Pods across Diverse Family Contexts (Session Submission) American Education Research Association Annual Meeting, Orlando, Florida.

In the Media:

Interviewed and featured in the Wall Street Journal, August 4, 2020, by Yoree Koh. "Can you form a school pod without fueling inequality? These groups are trying"

Essay in the Online Learning Research Center site, August 1, 2020. "Pods for the people! Galvanizing family and community action in support of children's schooling."

Interviewed in Science News, September 8, 2020, by Sujata Gupta. “Creative school plans could counter inequities exposed by COVID-19.”

 

CONECTAR: Collaborative Network of Grades 3-5 Educators for Computational Thinking for English Learners

(Back to Top)

 

Under the grant Collaborative Network of Educators for Computational Thinking for All Research (CONECTAR 1.0), our team visited partner elementary schools to gather information about the current teaching of computational thinking, conducted a district-wide survey of elementary school teachers, and gathered examples of instructional materials developed nationally to inform local adaption strategies. Researchers worked with a team of teachers to develop pilot materials and instructional units for the 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade levels. These materials–scaffolded for non-native English speakers–integrated computational thinking with Next Generation Science Standards. In the following year, teachers implemented the instructional materials in their classrooms with support from UCI and OCDE. Data was gathered to study the implementation process, the challenges faced and how they were addressed, the extent to which the materials learners, and the suitability of the materials for promoting computational thinking.

Articles in Refereed Journals:

Prado, Y., Jacob, S. R., Warschauer, M. (In Press) Teaching Computational Thinking to Exceptional Learners: Lessons from Two Diverse Classrooms using Scratch, Computer Science Education.

Conference Presentations:

Prado, Y., Jacob, S. R. & Warschauer, M. (2020, September) Inclusive Computational Thinking Instruction using Scratch (Paper Presentation). International Society of Technology in Education, Anaheim, CA (conference postponed).

Prado, Y., Jacob, S. R. & Warschauer, M. (2020, April) Teaching Computational Thinking to Exceptional Learners: Lessons from Two Diverse Classrooms Using Scratch (Poster Session). American Education Research Association, San Francisco, CA http://tinyurl.com/v8sw7zq (conference canceled).

Prado, Y., Jacob, S. R., Warschauer, M. (2020, February) Teaching Computational Thinking to Exceptional Learners: Lessons from Two Diverse Classrooms (Poster Session). UC Special Education, Disabilities, and Developmental Risk, University of California, Los Angeles, California.

 

Cultivation of Spanish Use in Dual-Language Immersion Contexts

(Back to Top)

 

This project examined the ways in which teachers and parents cultivated students’ Spanish language use across multiple contexts within a dual-language immersion program. Research to date indicates that Spanish-English bilinguals tend to privilege English over Spanish use, even in spaces meant to be supportive of Spanish language use. Past researchers have posited language preference to be related to monolingual paradigms in education; relationships between identity, proficiency, and language usage; and cross-cultural attitudes toward language. However, what is not clear are the ways in which this privileging of one language over another, less surprising in mainstream and monolingual educational contexts, might occur and be addressed in culturally responsive environments supportive of dual-language cultivation. Our study seeks to address this gap in the literature by exploring the strategies and moves that teachers and parents use to counter language privileging vis-a-vis their concerted cultivation of Spanish use at a dual-language immersion school. Exploring these moves was critical to the discovery, and intentional development and implementation, of strategies and practices that cultivated students’ dual-language use.

Articles in Refereed Journals:

Prado, Y., Ramos, M., Peña, E., Zavala, J. (under review). Dual-Language Engagement: Concerted Cultivation of Spanish use among Students, Teachers, and Parents, Bilingual Research Journal.

Conference Presentations:

Prado, Y., Ramos, M., J. & Pena, E. (2021, July) Concerted Cultivation of Spanish use at a Dual Language Immersion School (Paper Presentation). International Society for the Study of Child Language, Philadelphia, PA.

Prado, Y., Zavala, J. & Pena, E. (2020, April) Dual-Language Engagement: Concerted Cultivation of Spanish use among Students, Teachers, and Parents (Paper Presentation). American Education Research Association, San Francisco, CA. http://tinyurl.com/wofha2a (conference cancelled).

In the Media:

Interviewed and featured in UCI SOE Dean’s Forum Donor Newletter, February 11, 2020, by Ryne Hodkowski, "OCEAN Spotlight: Enhancing Dual-Language Curriculum"

 

Digital Scaffolding for English Language Arts

(Back to Top)

 

In this project, we examined the efficacy of Visual Syntactic Text Formatting (VSTF), a technology for reformatting text to make it easier to understand, on 7th and 8th grade students’ reading and writing outcomes and preferences. Students are expected to read and understand progressively more complex texts as they get older, and many of these texts are complex both in their language and their structure. One way to help students better understand the complex text they read is to adjust the text itself; even changing the size or spacing of letters can help students’ reading comprehension. VSTF is an empirically validated text formatting tool that arranges phrases so that it highlights the meaning of the text. Researchers are examining whether reading text in VSTF improves students’ reading and writing outcomes and preferences as compared to reading text in standard blocks.

Articles in Refereed Journals:

Tate, T., Collins, P., Xu, Y., Yau, J., Krishnan, J., Prado, Y., Farkas, G., & Warschauer, M. (2019). Visual-Syntactic Text Format: Improving Adolescent Literacy, Scientific Studies of Reading. DOI 10.1080/10888438.2018.156170

Conference Presentations:

Prado, Y., Warschauer, M., Collins, P. (2018, April). From Attitudes to Action: Promoting Positive Literacy Beliefs and Practices through Digital Scaffolding. (Paper Presentation). American Education Research Association, New York, NY.

Prado, Y. (2018, January). Using Visual Syntactic Text Formatting to Promote Equity in Literacy for Children with Exceptional Needs (Work in Progress) UC Special Education, Disabilities, and Developmental Risk, University of California, Davis, CA.