Franklin University Faculty Contribute to New Handbook on Educational Leadership and Research Methodology

Contact:

Sherry Mercurio
Executive Director, Office of Community Relations
(614) 947-6581
Email: sherry.mercurio@franklin.edu

Franklin University, one of the leading educators of working adults, is pleased to announce that two of its esteemed faculty members, Dr. Isidoro Talavera, and Dr. Constance Wanstreet, have contributed to a new handbook of research titled Educational Leadership and Research Methodology, by Viktor Wang (California State University) and published by IGI Global.

The Handbook of Research on Educational Leadership and Research Methodology discusses the evolution of educational leadership knowledge and practices across all levels of education. The handbook shares insight on topics such as critical race design, toxic leadership, and adult learning. 

Dr. Talavera’s chapter titled Some Problems in Advancing Academic Inclusion: A Call for Critical Thinking focuses on problems in advancing academic inclusion. Specifically, Dr. Talavera shares insight into the nature and importance of critical thinking to academic inclusion and examines the limits of outcome-based instruction, the role and problem of leadership and why it matters, and the problem of working definitions for diversity, equity, and inclusion and why they matter. 

The chapter, An Exploratory Study on the Effect of Coaching on Learner-Led Synchronous Discussion, co-authored by Constance E. Wanstreet, Franklin University, and David S. Stein, The Ohio State University, explores the effect of a coaching intervention on a learner-led synchronous discussion. Insight was cultivated by analyzing transcripts of synchronous discussions in the context of the community of inquiry framework. 

About Dr. Isidoro Talavera
Dr. Isidoro Talavera is a Philosophy Professor and Lead Faculty member responsible for introducing critical thinking throughout all curriculums and creating and managing all of the University's philosophy courses.  Before coming to Franklin, Dr. Talavera taught for nearly 35 years in a variety of courses at both the high school and college levels in Central and North America—earning the 1999-2000 Burke Award for Teaching Excellence at Vanderbilt University.  Dr. Talavera has degrees in Mathematics (M.S.E.) and Philosophy (M.A., M.A., and Ph.D.).  He earned his doctorate from Vanderbilt University with his thesis: Time and the Nature and Possibility of Knowledge.  Dr. Talavera’s philosophical research is on the confluence of applied epistemology, logic, critical thinking, and the philosophy of natural and/or social sciences—emphasizing a call for public ethical and/or critical rational engagement for the survival and flourishing of humanity.   Besides his work in the Handbook of Research on Educational Leadership and Research Methodology, Dr. Talavera’s most recent scholarly research deals with the crisis of American democracy (Talavera, I. (2022).  The impossibility of a Democratic society: A call for critical thinking in a time of crisis.  In l. Harper (Ed.), The crisis of American democracy: Essays on a failing institution.  Vernon Press.).

About Dr. Constance Wanstreet
Constance E. Wanstreet, Ph.D., coordinates a U.S. Department of Education grant to improve undergraduate retention and graduation at Franklin University. She is also an adjunct assistant professor in the College of Education and Human Ecology at The Ohio State University. Her doctorate from The Ohio State University is in workforce development and adult education. Dr. Wanstreet has developed and implemented training programs for adult learners in workplace settings and has served as a consultant to the Ohio Department of Higher Education and the Supreme Court of Ohio Judicial College. She has presented at national and regional conferences, primarily on how adults learn in online environments. Dr. Wanstreet’s current research interests include electronic coaching in communities of inquiry and online knowledge building.

About Franklin University

Accredited, nonprofit, and dedicated to educating adults since 1902, Franklin provides onsite course options at our Main Campus in downtown Columbus, Ohio, and is an innovator in providing personalized online education. The University offers applied in-demand undergraduate, masters, and doctorate programs that enable adult learners to achieve their educational and professional goals. Through agreements with partner institutions, the University also offers international academic programs, including its top-ranked MBA.

Franklin University is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission and holds specialized accreditations for specific academic programs through the International Accreditation Council for Business Education, the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education, the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation, and the Commission on Accreditation of Health Informatics and Information Management Education. The National Security Agency and the Department of Homeland Security have designated Franklin University as a National Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense Education (CAE-CDE).