03/12/2026
By Zakkiyya Witherspoon

The School of Education invites you to attend a doctoral dissertation defense by Petrina Powell “From Collaboration to Classroom Impact: Leveraging Professional Learning Communities to Build Teacher Self-Efficacy for Culturally Responsive Teaching in Second Grade Small-Group Literacy Instruction."

Candidate: Petrina Powell
Degree: Doctoral- Ed.D. Leadership in Schooling
Defense Date: March 25, 2026
Time: 10:30 a.m.
Location: Via Zoom
Thesis/Dissertation Title: From Collaboration to Classroom Impact: Leveraging Professional Learning Communities to Build Teacher Self-Efficacy for Culturally Responsive Teaching in Second Grade Small-Group Literacy Instruction

Dissertation Committee

  • Chair: Linda Riley, Ed.D., Visiting Professor, School of Education, University of Massachusetts Lowell
  • Committee Member: Michelle Scribner, Ed.D., Clinical Professor, School of Education, University of Massachusetts Lowell
  • Committee Member: Phitsamay Sychitkokhong Uy, Ed.D., Interim Chair, School of Education, University of Massachusetts Lowell

Abstract
At Park Hill Elementary School (PHES) (pseudonym), early literacy achievement functions as a gatekeeper to long-term academic success, high school graduation, and postsecondary opportunity. The transition from “learning to read” to “reading to learn,” typically occurring by the end of third grade, represents a critical inflection point in students’ educational trajectories. Consistent with statewide trends reported by the Connecticut State Department of Education, Hispanic students in this urban K–5 setting continue to achieve low literacy outcomes. This improvement science dissertation examined how participation in structured professional learning communities (PLCs) influenced second-grade teachers’ self-efficacy for culturally responsive teaching (CRT) within literacy small groups. Grounded in Teacher Self-Efficacy Theory (Bandura, 1995), and CRT—emerging from the foundational work of Culturally Responsive Pedagogy (Ladson-Billings,1995), this six-week Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) improvement cycle intervention engaged second-grade teachers in four PLC sessions designed to model culturally responsive strategies and intentionally integrate students’ cultural and linguistic assets into small-group literacy instruction. Data were collected through a concurrent mixed-methods approach and guided by the two research questions: (1) How, if at all, do four PLC sessions focused on reimagining culturally responsive small-group literacy instruction influence second-grade teachers’ culturally responsive teaching self-efficacy? and (2) How, if at all, do teachers’ perceptions of the impact of culturally responsive teaching on Hispanic students’ literacy outcomes change over the course of the intervention? Findings indicated measurable growth in teachers’ self-efficacy for implementing CRT practices. By centering teacher self-efficacy and culturally responsive small-group instruction in the early grades, the dissertation affirms the PLC collaborative model for addressing persistent literacy gaps at PHES.