Joshua Kunnath - Independent Researcher (original) (raw)

Papers by Joshua Kunnath

Teacher Grading Decisions: Influences, Rationale, and Practices

American Secondary Education, 2017

Student report card grades are an integral part of K-12 education, and grading is an important te... more Student report card grades are an integral part of K-12 education, and grading is an important teacher responsibility, but experts are in agreement that grades largely fail to accomplish their main purpose of communicating student academic achievement (Cizek, Fitzgerald, & Rachor, 1995; Guskey, 2015; McMillan, 2001; Stiggins, Frisbie, & Griswold, 1989). Instead, because student grades are often created from an imprecise amalgam of factors that includes achievement, ability, effort, and behavior (Cross & Frary, 1999; Randall & Engelhard, 2010; Reeves, 2011), exactly what they communicate is rarely clear (Allen, 2005; Marzano, 2000). Failure to use grades for their primary purpose leaves educational stakeholders largely uninformed about students' true level of learning. This may lead to such negative consequences as passing students with deficient knowledge and skills, misinforming parents of student learning, and misrepresenting student merit to colleges and universities (Allen, ...

Native Student Technology in the Classroom: Exploring the Affordances of Twitter in Applying Critical Literacy to the English Curriculum

Global Learn, 2015

Editor’s Note: 5th Anniversary Special Issue, Part 2

This dissertation examined the effects of school poverty level on the teacher grading decision-ma... more This dissertation examined the effects of school poverty level on the teacher grading decision-making process. Utilizing two theoretical frameworks––a critical pedagogy framework primarily based on the work of Paulo Freire (1996) and a teacher grading decision-making framework from the work of McMillan (2003)––the study sought to compare teacher grading practices, the influences of teacher grading, and teacher grading rationale by low-, mid-, and high-poverty schools in order to determine poverty’s impact on the process. A small, yet significant number of studies have found grades in high-poverty schools to be less accurate and more subjective than low-poverty schools in communicating student achievement. This study contributes to the literature by helping to establish the link between high-poverty schools and inaccurate student grades. Additionally, this study is novel in being the first (to the knowledge of the author) to combine the concepts of teacher grading, poverty, and decis...

Editor's Note: Fall 2020 Issue

Editor’s Note: 5th Anniversary Special Issue, Part 1

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Teacher Development in the English Classroom: Exploring the Affordances of Twitter to Address the Action Element of Critical Literacy

Poverty has a significant impact on the education of America’s youth, causing an income achieveme... more Poverty has a significant impact on the education of America’s youth, causing an income achievement gap in American PreK-12 schools. A large amount of research has been done on poverty’s effect on many aspects of schools, but few studies have addressed poverty’s role on student grades. A century of grading research has shown that teacher grading practices are rarely an accurate representation of student academic achievement, but rather a construct of unclear meaning containing both objective and subjective factors. Because these practices are so difficult to understand, several studies have investigated teacher grading decision making to attempt a more analytic assessment of the process that produces these grades. The purpose of this study was to investigate teachers’ grading decisions and the relationship to school poverty level in order to better understand the effectiveness of teacher grades in high-poverty schools. Using a causal-comparative design, the study was set in an ...

Journal of Media Literacy Education

As young people today are flooded with information from a multitude of sources, they must be prep... more As young people today are flooded with information from a multitude of sources, they must be prepared to perceive the potentially oppressive and nefarious nature of many texts. Critical literacy is a theory and strategy that allows young people, along with people of all ages, to achieve just this; however, teachers often experience difficulties implementing and guiding students in taking crucial action steps in the classroom. This exploratory action research case study was conducted to address these concerns, as a teacher utilized Twitter to implement critical literacy and guide 32 ethnically diverse eleventh grade students in applying critical literacy in an AP English Language and Composition class. The study was conducted within a unit on American Transcendentalist literature over the course of one month, and the teacher and students used their cell phones inside and outside of the classroom to access Twitter for purposes of research, communication, and interaction. Qualitative methods were used to collect data from student and teacher tweets, reflections, and interviews, which were analyzed with a qualitative conventional content analysis approach. Results showed that Twitter was effective in implementing critical literacy in the classroom. Additionally, multiple affordances included a transformation of teaching and learning in the classroom of study, amplified student voice, increased student engagement, and a potential for student action. Results are discussed in the context of students' achievement of critical action and approach to a state of critical consciousness and may be of interest to the teacher or administrator challenged by critical literacy implementation, curious about critical literacy, or seeking additional technology-infused literacy strategies

Journal of Media Literacy Education, Apr 15, 2019