Faculty Scholarship

i.e.: Inquiry in Education

NCE's peer-reviewed online journal, i.e.: inquiry in education, aims to promote and disseminate a broad range of research and scholarship focusing on school-based contexts with teacher inquiry at the core. Focus areas include but are not limited to classroom practice, educational leadership, foundations, curriculum, practitioner training, and action research in education. Indexed by the Education Resources Information Center (ERIC), which is sponsored by the Institute of Education Sciences of the United States Department of Education, i.e.: inquiry in education attracts submissions from national and international authors.

Faculty Publications

Karen Tardrew, associate professor, has published the chapter "Using Visual Art Practices to Enhance Educators' Professional Growth" in Visual Pedagogies in Higher Education: Between Theory and Practice.

Mary Hoch, associate professor, co-authored the article "Literacy Clinics During COVID-19: Voices that Envision the Future" published in the journal Literacy Research and Instruction.

Mary Ann Poparad, associate professor, published an article in The Journal of Reading Recovery "Literacy Lessons: Reaching School Improvement Goals."

Arlene Borthwick, professor emerita, published "Perspectives of Educational Technology Teacher Educators: Mavericks, Champions, or Change Agents?" in the Journal of Digital Learning in Teacher Education.

Molly Buren, assistant professor, co-authored "Parents’ Experiences Transitioning from Early Intervention Services to School Services" in the Journal of Early Intervention.

Kristin Lems, professor, published "Native Land Acknowledgments: What Are They? Why Write Them?" in the Evanston RoundTable.

Adjunct faculty Kendra Tlusty and Nicole Tschohl co-authored and published an article entitled "Dancing in the Sky with Ava" with Jen York and Sonya Roe in the Spring issue of The Journal of Reading Recovery.

Sherri Bressman, professor, Kavita Kapadia Matsko (Northwestern University), Eun Kyung Ko, associate professor, Lisa Mozer, executive director, field experience & PK-12 partnerships, and Jeffrey Winter, professor, have published "Two Sides of a Coin: Examining Mentor and Student Teacher Relationships During Student Teaching" in Teaching and Teacher Education, Volume 130. The article is a culmination of research starting in 2019 on how mentor teachers and student teachers prioritize different types of interactions in their mentoring relationships.

Emily Hoffman, assistant professor, is co-editor of Casebook: Developmentally Appropriate Practice in Early Childhood Programs Serving Children from Birth Through Age 8. This book was released by the National Association for the Education of Young Children.

Mark Newman, professor, published the article "American Progress: Sourcing and the Promise of Primary Sources" in The Social Studies.

Carlos Azcoitia, professor emeritus, co-authored the article "Mentoring Ed-Leaders for Equity in Chicago" published by EdPost.

Sadia Warsi, associate professor, has an article in NAEYC's book Spotlight on Young Children: Social and Emotional Development, Revised Edition. The article “Welcoming Refugee Children into Early Childhood Classrooms” addressed several questions for teachers and other professionals working with refugees.

Tracee Farmer, assistant professor, co-authored an article "Reflecting on Our Practices When a Child has a Limited Repertoire" for the same publication.

Below are recent presentations given by NCE faculty.

Buren, Molly (June 2022) presentation "Barriers to Advocacy: Experiences Among Rural Parents of Children with Disabilities" at the 146th Annual Meeting of the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (AAIDD).

Chen, Xiaoning, Xue Han, Eun Ko, and Vishodana Thamotharan (February 2022) "Leveraging Visually Inclusive Primary Sources (VIPS) to Empower Multilinguals in STEM” at the Multilingual & ESSA Conference. 

Degener, Sophie (March 2022) presentation "Literacy, Equity, and Anti-Racism: Aligning Your Literacy Instruction with the CRTL Standards" at the 53rd Annual Conference of the Illinois Reading Council (IRC).

Denny, Jack, Angela Elkordy, Ayn Keneman, and Donna Wakefield (April 2022) presentation "Teaching, Learning and Changing Instructional Practices in the Post-COVID Era," at American Educational Research Association (AERA)  Annual Meeting. 

Dipinto, Vito (July 2022) workshop Lone Wolf: A Darwinian Speculative Thought Experiment and presentation "With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility": Using Pop Culture to Teach Science at NSTA Chicago22. 

Elkordy, Angela. (May 2022) presentations ”STEAM in a Global K-12 Educational System"  at the BalancED-FAU International Education Conference in collaboration with the International Council of Professors of Educational Leadership (ICPEL.

Elkordy, Angela. (June 2022) presentation "Thinking by Design: Framing Thought with Cognitive Tools and Strategies"  at ISTELive 22.

Elkordy, Angela. (February 2022) presentation , "Thinking by Design: Framing Thought with Cognitive Tools and Strategies," at the Learning & the Brain Conference: The Science of Teaching. 

Elkordy, Angela (February 2022) presentations "Planning for Success: A Systems Approach to Technology Planning" and "Scaffolding Deep Thought: Thinking, the Brain and Digital Learners" at  IDEAcon 2022.  

Gugel, Renee and Geri Chesner (February 2022) keynote "Leveraging Teachers as Leaders" at the 5th Annual Illinois Teacher Leadership Summit.

Hoch, Mary (March 2022) presentation "Empowering Readers through Structure Sorts Integrated Strategies to Comprehend Expository Texts" at the 53rd Annual Conference of the Illinois Reading Council (IRC).

Imam, Seema (May 2022) presentation "Technology and Curriculum: Tapping into the Future" at the 23rd Annual ISNA Education Forum.

Imam, Seema (May 2022) presentation "One Muslim American Professor's Identity Construction: an Autoethnography" at the 18th International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry.

Keneman, Ayn and Angela Elkordy (February 2022) presentation "Design Ed: Connecting Learning Sciences Research to Practice" at the Learning & the Brain Conference: The Science of Teaching. 

Ko, Eun Kyung and Kavita Venkatesh (May 2022) webinar How to Implement TEAACH at NLU. 

Lems, Kristin (March 2022) presentation "5 Things Language Arts Teachers Need to Know about Linguistics" at the 53rd Annual Conference of the Illinois Reading Council (IRC). 

Lems, Kristin (February 2022) presentation "Planning and Delivering Lessons to Address the Climate Emergency." at the 18th Annual Cambodia Conference for Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (CamTESOL).  

Lems, Kristin (February 2022) presentation "Building Relationships with Multilingual Learners in Online/Blended Settings" at the Multilingual & ESSA Conference. 

Lukenchuk, Antonina (June 2022) presentation "Resolving the Dilemma between Your Teaching Responsibilities and Your Scholarly Writing Pursuits" at the 34th Annual Textbook & Academic Authoring Conference. 

Price, Todd (April 2022) presentation "Critical Race Theory as Policy as Curriculum?" at American Educational Research Association (AERA) Annual Meeting. 

Quiroa, Ruth (March 2022) presentation "2020 Vision: Selecting and Using P-8 Culturally Relevant Texts in a Digital World" at the 53rd Annual Conference of the Illinois Reading Council (IRC).

Radford, Pamela (February 2022) presentation , "Paving the Way for Successful MTSS Implementation," and , "Special Education Eligibility: MTSS Doesn't Stop. The Outcome is Always the Plan," at the the MTSS Innovations Conference. 

Stricker, Kristi (March 2022) facilitated discussion on the proposed Part 25 ISBE Teacher Education Licensure changes at The Illinois Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (IACTE) spring conference. 

Winter, Jeffrey (February 2022) presentation "Supporting Teacher Well-Being and Antifragility: Perspectives from Early Career Educators" at the 2022 Association of Teacher Educators Annual Meeting.

Wakefield, Donna (February 2022) presentations "Interactive Learning with Choice Boards” and  "Google Tools for Differentiation" at IDEAcon 2022. 

Wu, Xiuwen, Kate Zilla and Kathy Kotel (April 2022) presentation "High-Leverage Practices (HLPs) and Implications for Teacher Preparation: Voices from First Year Teachers." at American Educational Research Association (AERA) Annual Meeting.

Wu, Xiuwen (March 2022) presentation "Using the Ancient  Board Game 'Go' (Weiqi, Baduk) to Enhance Math Learning in  Elementary Classrooms" at the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) 2022 Indianapolis Regional Conference & Exposition. 

Wu, Xiuwen (January 2022) presentation "An Explorative Study on the Implementation of Go Game in Third-Grade Classrooms" at the 2022 National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) Research Conference.

NCE faculty collaborates with community agencies, organizations, and schools to co-design and implement grant-funded initiatives.

• STARTALK The National Louis University STARTALK Chinese Teacher Program aims to provide alternative entries for individuals who are interested in obtaining the Illinois Professional Educator’s License (PEL) and teaching Chinese in K-12 settings. The program’s theme is methods and materials of teaching Chinese. Featuring a virtual program with all costs covered by the grant, the program consists of three phases including 60 hours of pre- and post-program activities and 75 hours of summer camp from May 2023 to May 2024. Participants will receive a 3-credit hour graduate level course that counts toward the National College of Education (NCE)’s Master in Teaching (MAT) programs and IL ESL/Bilingual Education endorsement coursework upon completing the program. 
  
  
• National Science Foundation - Noyce The National Science Foundation (NSF) recently awarded NLU and IIT a Noyce Scholarship multi-year grant of approximately $1.1 million. The prestigious grant was bestowed by the Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program, which provides funding to recruit and prepare STEM majors and professionals to become K-12 teachers. The program seeks to increase the number of K-12 teachers with strong STEM content knowledge to teach in high-need school districts. The project, titled "Engaging Noyce Scholars in Anti-Racist Community-Based Teaching in Biology, Chemistry, Mathematics, and Physics," will prepare STEM teachers who will strengthen the STEM persistence rates of marginalized groups by providing anti-racist, community-based science and mathematics instruction that gives high school students the skills and experiences to understand how STEM can positively impact their own communities. 
  
  
• CLAVE The primary graduate student initiative is to increase retention and graduation of Latinx graduate students. This work is supported by the Promoting Post baccalaureate Opportunities for Hispanic Americans (PPOHA) program, a grant from the Hispanic Serving Institutions Division of the Department of Education.
  Through CLAVE, an acronym for “Comunidades Latinas Académicas con Visión de Éxito,” [Latino Academic Communities with Vision of Success] we aspire to:  
  • increase enrollment of Latinx students in Masters and Doctoral programs,
  • develop and support a network of promising diverse doctoral scholars through the CLAVE Fellowship Program, and
  • increase graduate students professional networks, writing capacity, and financial and professional knowledge base through establishment of CLAVE Graduate Student Institute
    
    
• The Chicago Leadership Collaborative (CLC) is a unique partnership between Chicago Public Schools (CPS), NLU, and local higher education institutions that provides CPS with an unprecedented capacity to develop, attract, and retain high-performing principals. The CLC recruits and trains principal candidates who commit to a year-long residency and receive mentoring from a select group of high-performing principals in the district. NLU’s context-specific and learner-focused course content prepares our principal candidates to be culturally competent leaders who understand how to influence and lead meaningful change and community engagement.
• Coaching Current Principals with Chicago Public Schools (CPS) - Supported by Fry Foundation, Chicago Public Schools and Chicago Public Education Fund teamed up with NCE’s Educational Leadership faculty to design a new coaching strategy to support and empower effective principals. They focused on blending research and pedagogy with an application for today’s schools. The program enables coaches to work with acting principals on solving context-specific problems of practice. Together, coaches and principals set data-informed goals, benchmarks, and develop school improvement plans aligned to district objectives and strategies.

• Strengthening Science Education with Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT)- Through a US Department of Education Teacher Quality Partnership Grant, NCE faculty and IIT are strengthening science teaching in Grades 2-8 in Chicago Public Schools.

• Leveraging Primary Sources in Teaching with Chicago Public Schools (CPS)- Funded by the Teaching with Primary Sources (TPS) Partner Program, NCE faculty are providing pre-service and in-service teachers at two CPS schools with professional development related to leveraging primary sources to empower culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students in STEM.

• Advancing Early Childhood Educators with Community Based Organizations- In collaboration with Chicagoland nonprofits and Community-Based Organizations (CBOs), NCE is offering a one-year pathway to licensure for early childhood professionals. Read about the grant: Early Childhood Credential Completion Cohort (EC4).