Instructional Design for Intellectual Risk-Taking in Justice-Centered Educator Preparation Programs

Author

• Kristin LowerFollow

Date of Award

2026

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education (Ed.D.)

Department

Leadership and Innovation

First Advisor

Laura Aguada-Hallberg

First Committee Member

Anne Zeman

Second Committee Member

Girlie Hale

Abstract

Education for democracy requires intentional, justice-centered educator preparation. Justice-centered educator preparation programs must engage future teachers in applying critically conscious lenses across learning experiences while equipping them to design instruction that fosters those same lenses in their future students. However, educator preparation programs often lack research-based, measurable instructional design strategies that explicitly foster the transformative learning conditions needed to prepare teachers for justice-centered pedagogy.

This qualitative action research study explored how specific features of learning tasks, instructional conditions, and their combinations fostered transformative learning in a justice-centered educator preparation course for secondary educators. To operationalize the abstract concept of transformative learning, the study positioned intellectual risk-taking—a feature of learning agility—as an indicator of conditions conducive to transformative learning. Data sources included three action research cycles in which preservice teachers anonymously reflected on how learning tasks and conditions encouraged or discouraged their intellectual risk-taking within a justice-centered educator preparation course at a public university in California. Findings informed instructional design recommendations for educator preparation programs that foster the transformative learning conditions in which preservice teachers can develop the dispositions needed to enact justice-centered pedagogy.

Pages

126

Recommended Citation

Lower, Kristin (2026). Instructional Design for Intellectual Risk-Taking in Justice-Centered Educator Preparation Programs. University of the Pacific, Dissertation. https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/uop_etds/4342