Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education
Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Theses and Other Student Research
First Advisor
Elaine Chan
Committee Members
Lauren Gatti, Nicholas Husbye, Phu Vu
Date of this Version
5-2025
Document Type
Dissertation
Citation
A dissertation presented to the Faculty of the Graduate College at the University of Nebraska in partial fulfillment of requirements for the degree of Doctor of Education
Major: Educational Studies (Teaching, Curriculum, Learning)
Under the supervision of Professor Elaine Chan
Lincoln, Nebraska May, 2025
Abstract
In this dissertation, I explore how personal practical experiences teaching reading intervention impacted my own understanding of the role of a secondary literacy coach. Drawing on the concepts of dialogism and adult learning theory, I leveraged learning conversations to grow my own body of knowledge. The methodology of this study was done using narrative inquiry and autoethnography. This methodological blend allowed me to closely study myself as the primary participant with a unique positionality as a scholarly practitioner. I unpack the complexities, contradictions, and tensions of my lived experience through stories and vignettes set in a rural midwestern public school district. My analysis suggests the importance of advocacy, cultural implications, teacher knowledge, and outcomes of reading intervention to both reading interventionists and secondary literacy coaches. My analysis also includes suggestions to improve secondary reading intervention practice guides and literacy coach standards of practice. This dissertation is an examination of complex issues at the intersection of adolescent literacy, teaching reading, and teacher professional development from a scholarly practitioner perspective. My research contributes to the field by detailing the ways secondary literacy coaches grow their body of knowledge through professional conversations and deep, introspective work to explore contradictions and tensions among a cast of characters. This scholarship provides insight and perspective into the lived experience of a teacher’s ongoing learning journey and process of becoming.
Advisor: Elaine Chan
Included in
Contemplative Education Commons, Curriculum and Social Inquiry Commons, Educational Methods Commons, Humane Education Commons, Language and Literacy Education Commons, Reading and Language Commons, Teacher Education and Professional Development Commons
Comments
Copyright 2025, Kelsey J. Walker. Used by permission