Education Commons^™

Evaluation And Student Learning Objectives In Connecticut Schools, Vittoria Fielosh

EDL Sixth Year Theses

Over the past several years, states across the country have been restructuring their teacher evaluation models due to changes in federal education policies. The focus of many of these models has become student achievement, and there are many ways states are measuring a teacher’s impact on student achievement. Connecticut, along with more than 20 other states, uses student learning objectives to measure a teacher’s impact on student learning. Unlike other states, Connecticut has not specified what assessment be used to measure student growth. This case study, of one school district in Connecticut, examines the type of assessments used as a …

A Case Study Of The Implementation And Impact Of The System For Teacher And Student Achievement (Tap), Tyrone D. Burton

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

For many years, educators and researchers have debated over which variables influence student achievement. A growing body of evidence suggests that schools can make a great difference in terms of student achievement, and a substantial portion of that difference is attributed to teachers. (International Institute for Educational Planning, 2004). Specifically, differential teacher effectiveness is a strong determinant of differences in student learning, far outweighing the effects of differences in class size and class heterogeneity (Darling-Hammond, 2000). Students who are assigned to one ineffective teacher after another have significantly lower achievement and learning (that is, gains in achievement) than those who …

Characteristics And Behaviors Of School Board Members In "Grade A" Arkansas Public School Districts, Bridget Lynn Polk

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this grounded theory study was to describe characteristics and behaviors of school board members in Arkansas school districts where 50% or more of their campuses earned a letter grade of “A” on the 2014 Arkansas School Performance Report (Arkansas Department of Education [ADE], 2015). This purpose was achieved through analysis of artifacts from selected school districts including: achievement patterns; board minutes; and board member professional development records. A web-based survey of school board members was also utilized to gather demographic and background information. Finally, personal interviews were completed with a small group of board members to collect …

The Influence Of Administrators On Literacy Instruction Through The Promotion And Selection Of Professional Development, Lucy K. Johnston-Josey

Dissertations

Literacy is a key component to success in school and in life. Literacy has been a focus of education since 1965 when President Jimmy Carter announced a “war on poverty.” Since then, history has shown that educators should place an emphasis on literacy within schools. Because literacy is so important, I set out to explore how administrators influence literacy through the promotion and selection of professional development.

Mississippi was chosen as a basis for the study because it falls below the nation in terms of literacy rates on the National Assessment for Educational Progress assessment. Nineteen participants from four school …

Writing Focused Professional Development For Content-Area Teachers: The Effects Of Writing Instruction On Content-Area Student Achievement, Amanda Edwards Whatley

Education Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this study was to analyze the impact of writing on the content areas when coupled with ongoing professional development and support for content-area teachers. Research shows that writing is an essential skill for success in and beyond the school setting. Research further indicates that writing plays an important role in student learning through its development of cognitive processes; however, in general, writing as a mode of learning is not a focus of either pre or in-service teacher training. As such, writing beyond note-taking and fill-in-the-blank activities is not necessarily a strategy utilized in content-area teacher classrooms. This …

A Comparative Study On The Impact Of Pbis On Student Academic Achievement And Behavior, Kristin Nicole Pitts

Education Dissertations and Projects

Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) were initiated to address behavior problems for students with disabilities in the school system but became a proactive discipline approach for all students. The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of PBIS on all student behavior and to examine possible connections to academic achievement. Student behavior can be impacted by many things including teacher attitude, academic struggles, and climate of a school. The focus of this study was to determine if PBIS reduces office discipline referrals (ODR) and if there are any impacts on student standardized achievement scores from PBIS. This …

An Examination Of The Relationship Between Teacher Performance Evaluation System Ratings And Student Achievement, Lisa Hilberg

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

This study was guided by the question: Is there a statistically significant relationship between the teacher evaluation tool (using the summative ratings of teacher evaluations from the 2015–2016 and 2016–2017 school years for teachers of Grades K-5 using the Danielson Framework for Teaching model, 2007) and student achievement (as measured using the Northwest Evaluation System (NWEA) Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) in that same period of time) in a selected Michigan school district?

Quantitative methods and a Spearman correlation were utilized to determine if there was a positive, negative, or no relationship between the independent variable, teacher evaluation ratings, and …