Faculty present at 2026 AERA annual meeting
Twenty-six East Carolina University College of Education faculty presented at the 2026 American Educational Research Association (AERA) Annual Meeting in Los Angeles during April.
The faculty represented all four COE departments and participated in 22 different sessions, including papers, posters, roundtables, symposia and journal talks. Check out the different topics they presented on below:
Adaptive AI for Science Text Accessibility in Students with Reading Disabilities
Session Type: Paper
Faculty: Dr. Tosha L. Owens
AIRE: AI Reading Enhancer for Personalized Decodable Texts in Early Literacy
Session Type: Structured Poster Session
Faculty: Dr. Tanya M. Christ
This session reports on the generation of personalized, decodable texts using generative AI. Text generation was improved through multiple iterative rounds of generation, feedback, and process refinement. Additionally, a multi-agent system, text evaluation rubrics, and human annotations were used to improve text generation. Over time, the text quality rubric evaluation scores improved significantly.
Algebra Teaching That Breaks Racial and Gender Barriers: Cultural Competence, Self-Efficacy, and Culturally Relevant Neuroeducation
Session Type: AERA Ed Talk
Faculty: Dr. Ranjini Mahinda JohnBull
Women and people with minoritized identities are drastically underrepresented in STEAM careers, because they are often socialized to believe that they would be better suited for other careers (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2020). The combination of variable teacher self-efficacy and teachers’ cultural competence within STEAM discipline lessons can be either uplifting or debilitating for girls and students with minoritized identities. We explored the perceptions and interpretations of a highly successful mathematics teacher as she reflected on her practices from an earlier professional learning study. We found evidence of high self-efficacy, cultural competence, and specific practices that exemplify the integration of culturally relevant pedagogy and neuroeducation instructional practices.
Building Community Resilience and School Readiness Post-COVID
Session Type: Roundtable Session
Faculty: Dr. Daniel J. Boudah
Resilience is both a desired outcome of school readiness and a protective factor that buffers against adversity. In one small rural community, data highlighted that it is strengthened through supportive relationships, consistent expectations, and social emotional skill-building—but undermined by family instability, disengagement, and lack of coping skills. School district leadership cultivated Community Learning Exchanges to create shared understandings of the drivers of school readiness and begin to create thoughtful pathways to heal and strengthen students and community members.
Critical Race Coaching: Centering Racial Realism to Sustain Antiracism in Schools
Faculty: Dr. Benjamin Blaisdell
This paper shares an initiative to train teachers and other school personnel to be equity coaches across a school district in a small city in the southeastern U.S. It examines how critical race theory (CRT) was used to help school personnel craft and pursue equity goals that better accounted for the embedded nature of racism in U.S. schools. It argues that CRT, when used collaboratively with teachers, administrators, and other school personnel, can help promote antiracist efforts that avoid the pitfalls of liberalism. It also argues that a CRT approach that centers racial realism is particularly useful in helping educators develop their agency as racial equity leaders.
Culturally Responsive Caring Principals: A Call for Anti-Carceral Leadership
Session Type: Paper Session
Faculty: Dr. Rachelle S. Savitz
This presentation explores the practices of culturally responsive, caring principals committed to anti-carceral leadership in middle and high school settings. Through qualitative narrative inquiry, we examined the experiences of five principals who work to dismantle punitive disciplinary practices and foster inclusive, equitable school cultures. By centering student well-being and community engagement, these principals implement restorative justice, culturally responsive pedagogy, and proactive family partnerships to create supportive environments for students of diverse backgrounds. Findings reveal that these leaders face significant challenges, including resistance from staff, community misconceptions, and limited resources. However, their commitment to equity and restorative approaches has positively impacted student behavior, school climate, and family trust.
Designing a Cross-Disciplinary Rubric for Assessing Preservice Teachers’ Applied Technology Integration Competencies
Session Type: Roundtable Session
Faculty: Dr. Bethann Fine-Cole, Dr. Crisianee Berry, Dr. Rebecca M. Clark-Stallkamp, Dr. Xi Lin
Digital Tools, Real Voices: What Teacher Candidates Say About Seesaw in Early Childhood Contexts
Session Type: AERA Ed Talk
Faculty: Dr. Xi Lin
Elementary Pre-Service Teachers’ Experiences Using ChatGPT to Generate Early Literacy Materials
Session Type: Paper Session
Faculty: Dr. Christiana K. Kfouri, Dr. Kristen H. Gregory
This mixed methods case study examined elementary pre-service teachers’ (PSTs) experiences using ChatGPT to generate early literacy materials. Fourteen PSTs enrolled in a K-2 foundational reading course learned how to apply assessment data to generate decodable texts and lesson plans. Data sources included AI-generated decodable texts and lesson plans, student evaluations, student reflections, and focus group interviews. PSTs demonstrated growing instructional judgement using phonics assessment data to inform AI-generated literacy material, applying specific phonic features, and engaging in reflective practices to ensure instructional alignment. They engaged in AI literacy practices by effectively prompting, critically evaluating outputs, and aligning AI-generated materials with student needs. This study highlights the potential of AI as an instructional resource to support early literacy lesson planning.
Emotion as Engagement: Understanding Adult Learners’ Emotional Openness and Persistence in AI-Mediated Learning
Session Type: Paper Session
Faculty: Dr. Xi Lin
Imagining Futures for Early Literacy and Responsible AI: Results from CELaRAI’s Year 1 Exploratory Study
Session Type: Structured Poster Session
Faculty: Dr. Tanya M. Christ
This presentation shares findings from the Year 1 Exploratory Study of the Center for Early Literacy and Responsible AI (CELaRAI), a national AI research center funded by the Institute of Education Sciences. The study examined K–2 teachers’ current practices, interests, and needs related to early literacy, digital reading, and artificial intelligence to inform development of the AI Reading Enhancer (AIRE), an AI platform designed to generate decodable, culturally relevant texts for beginning readers. Grounded in the Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework, the study investigated how teachers are developing knowledge for integrating digital texts and AI into early literacy instruction. Data sources included a nationally representative survey of 1,200 K–2 teachers in the United States, 12 teacher interviews, and seven focus groups across three states. Findings identified 30 digital and AI-powered literacy tools currently used in classrooms, including digital libraries, curriculum-based platforms, instructional support products, and teacher-facing tools such as ChatGPT and Magic School. Teachers valued personalization, planning supports, assessment, differentiation, and text generation, while also noting challenges related to usability, screen time, weak voice features, overreliance on read-aloud supports, and inappropriate differentiation. Findings highlight both teachers’ openness to AI-supported literacy instruction and the need for more research-based, developmentally appropriate, and instructionally useful AI tools.
Instructional Technology SIG Business Meeting
Session Type: Business Meeting
Faculty: Dr. Rebecca M. Clark-Stallkamp
Role: Participant
Journal of Advanced Academics (Table 6)
Session Type: Journal Talks
Faculty: Dr. Angela Novak
More than a Calling: Factors that Draw Beginning Teachers in Rural Settings to the Profession
Session Type: Paper Session
Faculty: Dr. Christopher J. Rivera, Dr. Crisianee Berry, Dr. Lawrence Hodgkins, Dr. Mary Huffman, Dr. Travis Lewis
Teachers are motivated to teach for a variety of reasons, and understanding these can foster long-term commitment to the profession. These motivations can be altruistic (driven by helping others), intrinsic (finding enjoyment and satisfaction in teaching), or extrinsic. Extrinsic motivations include identified (consciously supporting education) and integrated (aligning teaching with core values). While past research on motivation has often relied on surveys, this study uses community learning exchanges and Q-methodology to delve into why beginning teachers choose to work in rural school districts, which often face significant recruitment and retention challenges. The study posits that solutions for attracting and retaining teachers in these areas can be found within the motivations of those already drawn to the profession and location.
Negotiating Play: A Discourse Analysis of Paired Videogame Play
Session Type: Symposium
Faculty: Dr. Laurie “Darian” Thrailkill
Overcoming Obstacles in the Pursuit of the Superintendency
Session Type: Roundtable Session
Faculty: Dr. Monica Headen
During a time when legislation seeks to de-emphasize and de-legitimize identities and intersectionalities, it is more important than ever that we offer collective support and community to those who continue to hit glass ceilings and land on glass cliffs. This study uses a feminist lens combined with the constructive-developmental theory to examine the stories of 12 female school district leaders across the state of North Carolina who aspire to be superintendents. With data gleaned from semi-structured interviews, this study reveals the internal and external barriers they face, strategies to overcome these barriers, and advice for other women who desire to be school superintendents.
Social Change, Social Justice (Table 5)
Session Type: Roundtable Session
Faculty: Dr. Rachelle S. Savitz
Role: Co-Chair
Teaching in the Age of AI: Empowering Educators Through Professional Development
Session Type: Paper Session
Faculty: Dr. Kenneth J. Luterbach, Kristen H. Gregory, Sarah Sconyers, Dr. Todd Blake Finley, Dr. Xi Lin
Teaching Under Surveillance: Censorship, Book Bans, and the Struggle for Educational Freedom
Session Type: Paper Session
Faculty: Dr. Rachelle S. Savitz
Role: Chair
Untangling words from work: Teacher residents take up Rural Educational Justice in era of polycrisis
Session Type: Roundtable Session
Faculty: Dr. Angela Novak, Dr. Christy Howard, Dr. Jennifer L. Gallagher
Use of High-Quality Children’s Literature in Elementary Preservice Preparation and Assignments: Literacy Teacher Educators’ Perceptions
Session Type: Roundtable Session
Faculty: Dr. Marjorie W. Rowe
Where is the Empirical Evidence?
Session Type: Symposium
Faculty: Dr. Kristin K. Burnette (joined by Charlene Loope from Joyner Library)
In recent years, inclusive education for students with extensive support needs (ESN) has faced growing criticism (Fuchs et al., 2025; Kauffman et al., 2023), often without empirical evidence. In this review, we explore studies with empirical data on inclusive educational placements for students with ESN. This review examines empirical research on inclusive placements for students with ESN, aiming to challenge persistent myths about their exclusion from general education. To date, drawing from a review of over 15,000 articles, we found no empirical evidence that supports segregation of students with ESN, only studies that affirm the academic benefits of inclusive practices.