CEHD Research in Press: 2025 October

NEWS 

Dr. Virginia Clinton-Lisell is a Co-PI on a recently awarded grant from the National Science Foundation. The project will examine how AI-generated visuals in open educational resources can improve mathematics learning for middle school students. The project is lead by Candace Walkington at Southern Methodist University. More information can be found here.

Dr. Clinton-Lisell also received funding from the CEHD Research and Professional Development Committee has approved Research Group Development Funding ($1000) for the Digital and Open Literacy and Learning (DOLL) Research Group. The RPD strongly and unanimously supported DOLL’s purpose statement, “The purpose of this research group will be to advance research at the intersection of open education and digital reading by investigating open educational practices and the future of digital texts. Members will also be examining learning technologies as they relate to education and reading.”

Dr. Renuka De Silva (PI) and Dr. Elizabeth Suazo-Flores (Co-PI) have been awarded a $976,145.00 grant from the U.S. Department of Education. The grant project called Knowledge, Utility & Access (KUA): An Indigenous Teacher Retention Initiative will strengthen the retention and leadership of Indigenous educators teaching at two schools: Tate Topa Tribal in Fort Totten, North Dakota and Enemy Swim Day School in Waubay, South Dakota. The three-year project will deliver annual summer institutes, culturally grounded professional development, and mentoring rooted in Indigenous pedagogies.

Logan Rutten and colleagues received the PAC-TE Distinguished Research Award from the Pennsylvania Association of Colleges and Teacher Educators. This award “recognizes empirical research completed within Pennsylvania that has implications for theory and practice” in the field of teacher education. Rutten and colleagues were recognized for their 2024 article published open access in the Journal of Teacher Education and titled “Leaning Into Difficult Topics: Inquiry Communities as Teacher Professional Learning for Turbulent Times”.

On September 9, Dr. Logan Rutten presented an invited session for the Texas Woman’s University Research & Innovation Speaker Series titled “Integrating artificial intelligence (AI) with teaching: It starts with a good question.” This session will facilitate a discussion of ways AI tools can be utilized intentionally and critically to enhance teaching and support students to show what they know—when AI integration is approached through an inquiry stance.

The Center for Engineering Education (CEER) aims to expand research that will transform engineering education at all levels and will broaden pathways for more students into engineering. Through a number of collaborations across colleges and institutions, CEER has supported the development and submission of about ten grant proposals this spring and summer. Recently, two have been funded by the National Science Foundation.

One focused on exploring how teachers translate principles from engineering professional development into practice: NSF Translation and Diffusion Grant, Collaborative Research: Understanding the Impact of Professional Learning Programs on Teacher Decision Making and Practice. Hammack, R. (Principal Investigator at Purdue University), Robinson, J. (Principal Investigator at the University of North Dakota), Scherer, S., & Perry, A. (Co-Principal Investigators). The other, a partnership with Montana State University, to explore the role of community-based participatory research in engineering education: NSF EPSCoR Research Fellows Grant, Expanding Pathways for Rural Students into Engineering. J. Robinson, J. (Principal Investigator) & Brecklin, C. (Postdoctoral Scholar).

Dr. Ryan Summers had an article in The Conversation, Science costs money – research is guided by who funds it and why. In the article, Ryan describes how “funders and financial systems shape the trajectory of research across fields.”

CEHD PhD student Maria Zaman presented at the Northern Rocky Mountain Educational Research Association (NRMERA) annual meeting in Salt Lake City, and received the Schraw Student Fellowship Award which funds students to attend at present their research at NRMERA.

SPOTLIGHT 

Drs. Cheryl and Joshua Hunter this summer, launched a journal with support from the Chester Fritz library using the Digital Commons platform. The Cicadian is an interdisciplinary space for creative scholarship, publishing works exploring nature-based relationships, stories of place, belonging and dwelling, and experiential and embodied scholarship rooted in relationships with natural spaces. The editorial board includes both faculty and students, which has been a great opportunity to work alongside students in the review and publishing process. “It’s been a labor of love from ideation to creation and into publication- and we are quite proud of the range of work in our inaugural issue.” Congrats!

LATEST SCHOLARSHIP

CEHD faculty are in bold, and CEHD students are underlined. 

Grants

National Science Foundation. Using Generative AI to Create Illustrative Diagrams to Support Mathematical Problem-Solving. Principal Investigator: Candace Walkington, Southern Methodist University. Co-Principal Investigators: Jiunyu Wu, Southern Methodist University, Virginia Clinton-Lisell, University of North Dakota, and Cristina Heffernan, Worchester Polytechnic Institution. $899,988.

NSF EPSCoR Research Fellows Grant, Expanding Pathways for Rural Students into Engineering. J. Robinson, J. (Principal Investigator) & Brecklin, C. (Postdoctoral Scholar). $299,997. Funded 2025.

NSF Translation and Diffusion Grant, Collaborative Research: Understanding the Impact of Professional Learning Programs on Teacher Decision Making and Practice. Hammack, R. (Principal Investigator at Purdue University), Robinson, J. (Principal Investigator at the University of North Dakota), Scherer, S., & Perry, A. (Co-Principal Investigators). $750,000. Funded 2025.

Adgerson, A. (2025, December). 2025 TPS Consortium Meeting and National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) Conference Travel Mini-Grant [Grant]. Teaching with Primary Sources Eastern Region. Funded, $2,000 (Washington, DC).

de Silva, R. & Suazo-Flores, E. (2025, September). Knowledge, Utility & Access (KUA): An Indigenous Teacher Retention Initiative, Native American Teacher Retention Initiative grant ($976,145.00).

Publications

Liu, F., & Cho, H. (2025). Factor structure of teacher-related boredom in EFL classroom: A mini literature review. Frontiers in Education, 10, 1641256. (Open access) https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2025.1641256

* Funded by the UND CFL Open Access Publication Grant

Hairui Liu, Melanie Gregg, Peter Hastie. (2025). Comparing Sport Education and Direct Instruction to enhance physical literacy in elementary physical education. Revue phénEPS / PHEnex Journal, Volume (15), 1-17 (Physical & Health Education Canada’s Official Research Journal).

Wei Mao, Hairui Liu, Peter Hastie (2025). Growing quality student coaches: Practical insights on integrating three teaching styles into the Sport Education model. Journal of Physical Education, Recreation & Dance. Accepted.

Wei Mao, Jessica Zorn, Hairui Liu (2025). Dance like no one is watching: Differentiated instruction strategies for teaching line dance to students with vision impairments. PALAESTRA: The National Consortium for Physical Education for Individuals with Disabilities Practice Journal. Accepted.

Stupnisky, R. H., & Salahuddin, M. (in press, accepted Sept 22, 2025). Motivation is important, but can it be improved? Examining faculty perceptions of research motivation and productivity interventions. Higher Education.

Robinson, J., Smart, K., & Luecke, D. (2025). Sacred Relatives: Learning about interconnectedness within the local watershed. Climate Literacy Journal, 3(3).

Boz, T., Lee, M., Macias, M., Summers, R., Zaman, M., Inouye, M., Robinson, J., & Hammack, R. (2025). Large-scale online science and engineering professional learning for rural elementary teachers. Research in Science Education https://doi.org/10.1007/s11165-025-10300-x

Boz, T., Hammack, R., Scherer, S., Lux, N., & Gannon, P. (2025). Sustaining engineering education for rural contexts: Implications from a multi-year study. Theory & Practice in Rural Education, 15(1), 158–181. https://doi.org/10.3776/tpre.2025.v15n1p158-181

Suazo-Flores, E., Sherva, D., McGrail, C., & Adgerson, A. (2025). A number talk informed by the socio-ecological. Mathematics Teacher: Learning and Teaching PK–12, 118(9), 702–707. https://doi.org/10.5951/MTLT.2024.0249

Rawlins Williams, L. A. (2025). Unprepared and Overlooked: Strengthening Disaster Readiness in Vocational Rehabilitation. The Rehabilitation Professional, 33(2). https:/​/​doi.org/​10.70385/​001c.144897

McClure, K. E., Clapp, J. D., Dahl, E., & Mohr, J. L. (2025). Endorsement of Trauma Stereotypes: Implications for the Provision of Survivor Support. Psychological Trauma.

Moody, E., Holst, B., Sturges, H., Dahl, E., Crume, T., Dahm, J., Durkin, M., Hightshoe, K., Nadler, C., Pazol, K., Rosenberg, S., Wiggins, L., DiGuiseppi. C. (2025). Resilience to COVID-19-Related Challenges in Preschool-Aged Children with and Without Autism Spectrum Disorder. Research in Autism, 128, 202705. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.reia.2025.202705.

Johnson, S. J., Moody, E. J., Kral, T. VE., Holst, B., Dahl, E., Withrow, N. A., Leavy, S. E., Reynolds, A, M,. & Rosenberg, C. R. (2025). A multisite community-based, case-control study to examine the nutrient intake adequacy of young children with and without developmental delays and other disorders: findings from the Study to Explore Early Development (SEED). The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

Piccorelli, A. V., Moody, E. J., Heath, D., Dahl, E., & Root-Elledge, S. (2025). Support Needs and Adaptive Behavior Surveys: Services Prediction and Relationship. PLOS One, 20(9): e0294539. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0294539

Presentations

Malloy, C., Robinson, J., Shein, P., Sukinarhimi, P., Chinn, P., Potes, S., & Allen, P. (2025, Nov.). Connecting to science knowledge through Indigenous storytelling from around the world. Presentation accepted for the World Indigenous Peoples’ Conference on Education (WIPCE), Auckland, NZ.

Zaman, M., Zacher, S., Vojacek, L., & Summers, R. (2025, October). Cases of Teacher Induction after Participating in a Rural Student Teaching Experience. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the Northern Rocky Mountain Educational Research Association, Salt Lake City, Utah.

Stupnisky, R. H., & Jorgenson, M. (2025, October). Supporting Innovation and Synergy in Faculty Research Administration: Growing a CADREI Associate/Assistant Deans for Research Network. Paper presented at the Council of Academic Deans from Research Education Institutions (CADREI), October 13, 2025.

Adgerson, A. (2025, September). Fueling dialogue in teacher education: Primary sources as instructional tools for exploring rural energy issues [Conference paper]. 2025 North-Central Association for Science Teacher Education (NC-ASTE) Regional Meeting, St. Cloud, MN, United States.

Hung, W., & Trottier, J. (accepted). Learning by Teaching (LBT): A case of using AI as a cognitive tool. Paper to be presented at 2025 PAN PBL International Conference, Belo Horizonte, Brazil, October 29-November 1, 2025.

Murphy, M. P., & Hung, W. (accepted). Facilitating mental model development of physiology core concepts through systems thinking and modeling. Paper to be presented at AECT 2025 International Convention, Las Vagas, NV. October 20-24, 2025.

Islam, M., Hung, W., Ahmed, Bansah, P. F., & Johur, T. (accepted). A Survey of Law Students’ Classroom Experiences on Multimedia-Based Visual Instructions: A Case of Bangladesh. Paper to be presented at AECT 2025 International Convention, Las Vagas, NV. October 20-24, 2025.

Islam, M., Hung, W., Ahmed, Bansah, P. F., & Johur, T. (accepted). Faculty Efficacy and Technology Integration in the Legal Education in Bangladesh. Paper to be presented at AECT 2025 International Convention, Las Vagas, NV. October 20-24, 2025.

Ahmed, P., Hung, W., Bansah, P. T., Islam, M., Johur, T., Mustafa, E., & Islam, R. (accepted). Honing Law Students’ Legal Drafting Competency with an AI Personal Trainer: Does it Work? Paper to be presented at AECT 2025 International Convention, Las Vagas, NV. October 20-24, 2025.

Olateru-Olagbegi, S., & Hung, W. (2025, April). Investigations of the effects of microlearning in the workplace. Roundtable presentation at AERA 2025 Annual Meeting, Denver, CO, April 23-27, 2025.

Ravi, P. (2025, October 7–10). Photovoice in tobacco control research – A systematic review [Poster presentation]. 2025 International Cancer Education Conference, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Memphis, Tennessee, United States.

Rutten, L. (2025, September 9). Integrating artificial intelligence (AI) with teaching: It starts with a good question. Invited virtual seminar for the Research & Innovation Speaker Series, Texas Woman’s University, Denton, TX.

Public Media

Summers, R. (October 3, 2025). Science costs money – research is guided by who funds it and why. The Conversation.