Mini Grant Program

Recent/rising anti-Trans legislation, family separation through I.C.E. detention, and challenges to the Indian Childhood Welfare Act highlight ways in which the state enacts/perpetuates violence against working class/poor, Black and Brown, and/or Trans/Queer caregivers and communities. Emerging educational research provides counterstories to ‘parent involvement’ that reveal that building authentic partnerships with families is the most effective way to engage students, but how schools’ climates/cultures are anathema to family-centered collectives that authentically value and act upon these families’ cultural wealth. Working in partnership with the LGBTQ Center of Southern Nevada and Gender Justice, the proposed research will examine–through qualitative individual interviews with members of Black and Brown Queer, Trans, and Gender Non-Conforming families with children in PK-12 schools and pre-service teachers–the lived experiences of these families in schools in Southern Nevada and if/how pre-service teachers are prepared to think about/engage with them.

This study proposes to investigate how charter schools in Clark County navigate issues of teacher retention and working conditions in the context of Southern Nevada’s teacher vacancy crisis and the power of Clark County Education Association (CCEA), the largest and most powerful teacher union in the state. A major responsibility of unions is to foster positive working conditions for their members. However, charter school teachers are not eligible to participate in CCEA’s collective bargaining since they are treated as individual contractors. In-depth interviews with charter school leaders, charter school teachers, and leadership in the state’s two charter school organizations will be conducted understand how charter school leaders, as the brokers of workplace conditions, are managing the region’s teacher vacancy crisis, how they leverage working conditions to improve teacher retention, and how they compete with the benefits and opportunities that CCEA ensures for traditional public school teachers.

This project explores the use of conceptually oriented whole-class discussions in four middle school science classrooms, focusing especially on the specific needs of Emerging Multilingual Learners (EMLs). Tools would be created that support teachers in building on learners’ ideas, prior experiences, and home languages in the context of fostering students’ conceptual understanding of scientific concepts. Four undergraduate research fellows would work with a Graduate Research Assistant (funded by a TTDGRA award) to partially develop case studies of two teachers. The fellows would learn to code and interpret transcripts qualitatively. They would also assist with classroom observations. Mini-grant funds would furthermore be used to have class discussion and interview transcripts professionally transcribed. The overall project would produce evidence of the specific needs of EMLs and related support tools, evidence that would form the basis of a NSF grant proposal, as well as conference presentations and a journal manuscript.

To address the Nevada special education teacher shortage, UNLV has developed accelerated licensure programs. Evaluation data indicate that the mentor teacher (MT) supporting pre-service special education teachers (PSET) is a critical variable to their success. However, there has been a limited focus on identifying key variables to develop this relationship. Therefore, we propose Mentoring the Mentors (M2) to collaborate with undergraduate research fellows to implement a quasi-experimental research project in the fall of 2023 that examines the efficacy of professional development on MT’s (i.e., 16) ability to coach PSETs; we also propose to collect qualitative data on MT development in their role and PSET perceptions of mentorship. Using the findings, we will design a professional development for all mentor teachers in special education during the spring of 2024. The goal of our project is to share information with key stakeholders on the impact of high-quality MT professional development.

While schools are highly complex organizations and leadership has been found to be an important factor to increase student achievement, the principal alone is unable to successfully lead schools to better outcomes. Instead, a shared leadership approach, in which teacher leaders engage in and collaborate in school leadership, have been found to positively influence pedagogy and student achievement. This proposal seeks funding to explore how a developed graduate certificate in teacher leadership has impacted teachers who participated in the funded certificate program. Specifically, this proposed study seeks to understand how engaging in the teacher leadership training program may shape how teachers and principals understand and practice teacher leadership. Through mixed methods, we propose to collect and analyze quantitative and qualitative data that will help broaden the collective understanding of teacher leadership and how a university-based graduate program can influence practitioner understanding of teacher leadership.

This project is phase two of a critical participatory action research (CPAR) project designed with community members. The goals of this project are to address the STEM education needs of the local community and to support teachers in developing an understanding of community-based, culturally relevant STEM teaching, potentially impacting teacher identity and retention. Building on a successful initial phase in which a community research collective was developed, this phase focuses on two community-generated goals: development of a workshop for k-12 science teachers and development of a community garden/workshop for community members. Using CPAR and Discourse analysis, this project will explore the following: 1) how participation in CPAR impacts STEM identity of community members; 2) how workshops developed by the research collective impact teachers’ perceptions of students’ and communities’ funds of knowledge and cultural wealth; 3) how workshops developed by the research collective impact community members’ perceptions of STEM education.

The primary mission of this grant is to create a network of Latinx leaders providing support, resources, and professional development to accelerate the retention, recruitment, and ascension of Latinx leaders in Clark County. This project has potential to impact the restructuring of policies and practices related to recruitment, retention and professional development over time and to provide a stronger foundation for a more diverse workforce. Linking Latinx Leaders herein referred to as the “L3” Professional Development Pilot Project aims to support Latinx educators and administrators by providing them a safe space to network, learn, and prepare for next level leadership. With support of Latino Network of Clark County, UNLV is proposing the L3-Linking Latino Leaders pilot project with the intent of continuing the project’s mission beyond the grant funding to target active educators and support their retention and long term professional goals.

Research has examined the intersections between race and disability and racism and ableism in PK-12 and teacher education. The proposed research draws upon Dis/ability Critical Race Theory or DisCrit and racial literacies-informed data analytical frameworks to unpack deficit assumptions and dominant narratives about racism and ableism. Through qualitative individual and focus group interviews with Pre-Service Teachers of Color and members of Families/Communities of Color, the research team, working in partnership with Make the Road Nevada and No Racism in Schools #1865, both community-embedded organizations in Southern Nevada, will center these participants’ lived experiences and surface their counterstories to problematize master narratives about intelligence and ability. By rethinking how teacher education programs prepare Pre-Service Teachers of Color to recognize and respond when they see racism/ableism in their schools, including by partnering with the families and communities of Students of Color, the proposed research will expand and deepen education research in Nevada.

Teacher turnover and attrition matters. Although modest turnover and attrition might positively impact schools if the departing teachers are ineffective, patterns of chronic turnover are instructionally, financially, and organizationally detrimental. This discontinuity destabilizes professional communities and negatively impacts student outcomes. Commonly, schools who experience patterns of chronic turnover and attrition employ a disproportionately large amount of novice teachers and lack the social capital created within collegial relationships. Curbing the turnover and attrition of educators begins by ensuring that systems are in place to support pre-service educators as they enter the profession. Increasing the number of educators who are serving in our economically disadvantaged and ethnically diverse communities requires an intentional and sustained approach to building high-retention and supportive pathways into teaching and strategies to support induction This project proposes to perform a needs assessment to better understand the experience of first year educators who serve in economically disadvantaged and ethnically diverse schools.