Dr. Darshan Thakkar, JD, PhD.

Dr. Darshan Thakkar holds a Juris Doctor degree in law, a Ph.D. degree in education, and a double bachelor’s degree in economics and chemistry.

Dr. Thakkar has developed professional training programs in education, eLearning, engineering, social media, internet marketing, and journalism. He is also a consultant in instructional design and social media marketing for universities and mid-to large-size companies. He has designed online courses for seven universities in the United States. He has designed online training modules for professional licensing exams in education, science, and business. He has authored more than 350 questions for the Multichoice Bar Examination. He brings current academic research to practical application in academia, business, and industry.

Dr. Thakkar has been a professor of immigration law, international law, and environmental law at Newbury College. Currently, he is Assistant Superintendent and General Counsel in a public school district.

Scope of Expertise
Writing- articles for peer-reviewed journals, white papers based on current research, materials for presentation at conferences and workshops, brochures, marketing material, and newsletters
Social Media Strategy- website content, blogs, twitter, Facebook, Instagram,
Research- legislative agenda in congress involving energy
Compliance- applications for government licenses and grants, liaison with political action committees

Publications
1. Thakkar, Darshan. (2013). The relationship between English Language Learners’ language proficiency and standardized test scores: It is generally theorized that English Language Learner (ELL) students do not succeed on state standardized tests because ELL students lack the cognitive academic language skills necessary to function on the large-scale content assessments. The purpose of this paper was to test that theory. Through the use of quantitative methodology, ELL students’ writing prompt response scores (Topic Development and Standard English Conventions) were compared to their English Language Arts (ELA) and Math scores on the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS).

2. Thakkar, Darshan. (2011). Social and cultural context of education among Chinese learners 
Strategies for American educators to teach Chinese learners, Multicultural Education- Caddo Gap Press. This paper evaluates the social and cultural context of education among Chinese learners, and discusses ways in which American educators can create multiple pathways to knowledge for Chinese learners by accommodating their varying learning needs. It discusses the following emerging themes (a) Chinese learners emphasize the Confucian value of effort over ability, (b) they thrive under authoritarian parenting style, and (c) they follow constructivist learning.

3. Thakkar, Darshan. (2012). Web-Based Machine Translation History, Statistical Models, and Lesson Plans for Secondary Teachers. Today, web-based machine translation is widely used for instantly translating words, documents, and websites. The social role of the machine in web-based translation has gained much importance in people’s global interaction because it allows them to communicate with anyone, from anywhere, in any language. This role of the machine has had profound socio-political implications, mainly due to two developments: significant improvement in translation quality due to statistical modeling, and people’s digital literacy due to widespread presence of the internet. While machine translation has become an important feature for communicating among the youth all over the world, secondary U.S. educators have not yet garnered its power to improve classroom instruction. This article demonstrates the power and limits of web-based machine translation in the secondary school as powered by statistical modeling.

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