Education Commons^™

Creating Conversations, Changing Cultures: Case Study Of A Professional Development Plan, Alexis Goldberg

Graduate Student Independent Studies

There's a lot working against authentic demonstrations of thinking, and legitimate avenues of collaboration in our school cultures. We force-feed students high-stakes tests that promote a single "right answer" instead of multiple solution paths. Despite research that suggests teachers learn best from each other, we promote the ideal of the teacher-as-­maverick. Many of our systems endorse closed-set, closed-door thinking that leaves room for neither independent student thinking nor the collaborative generation of ideas.

Breaking cultures this strong, this endemic, is a weighty task. In a yearlong case study, Alexis Goldberg creates and executes a professional development plan that engages with …

After The Final Bell: The Self-Directed Learning Practices Of Elementary Teachers, Susan Renee Wagner

Doctoral Dissertations

Are elementary teachers self-directed learners? If so, do their learning activities outside their classrooms translate into their classrooms? The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship, if any, between elementary teachers’ self-directed learning and activities in their classrooms. A two phase, mixed methods design first utilized a quantitative study from which the results were used to denote the type of data collected in the second, qualitative phase. The quantitative Phase I of this study involved using a survey instrument in order to identify self-directed learners and identify categories of teacher learners. These quantitative data were gathered through the …

Teacher Professional Standards, Accountability, And Ideology: Alternative Discourses, Katarina Tuinamuana

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

Teacher professional standards and accountability are today writ large on the landscape of both schooling and teacher education practice around the world. This paper explores some of the related debates through a discussion of four discourses on teacher professional standards: namely, discourses of commonsense, professionalism and quality, managerialism/performativity, and strategic manoeuvring. It is argued that each of these discourses legitimises particular understandings of standards and quality, illustrating the competing set of lenses through which they are viewed, as well as the broader ideologies from which they emerge, including neoliberalism and technical rationality. These discourses also represent the interpretive practice that …

Putting Partnership At The Centre Of Teachers' Professional Learning In Rural And Regional Contexts: Evidence From Case Study Projects In Tasmania, Sue Stack, Kim Beswick, Natalie Brown, Helen Bound, John Kenny, Joan Abbott-Chapman

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

This paper presents a professional learning (PL) model that emerged from the authors’ involvement with PL processes in several rural and remote schools in the state of Tasmania. As is the case for rural areas generally, young people in rural areas of Tasmania have lower retention rates to Year 12 and lower participation rates in higher education than their urban peers. Schools in these regions typically have less experienced staff, higher staff turnover and reduced access to professional networks compared with urban schools. Four case studies are presented to illustrate the experiences that lead to the partnership model of PL …

Teachers And Language Learning In Primary Schools: The Acquisition Of Additional Languages In The Early Years, Anna Dillon

Doctoral

This study set out to explore teachers’ attitudes towards home language maintenance among children acquiring English and Irish as additional languages in the early years of primary school and to explore the experiences of mainstream teachers who are working with these children. The study includes a consideration of the pedagogical issues involved in teaching young English and Irish language learners and an examination of the support that the whole school community provides for the teachers and the children. Data were gathered using a mixed methods approach, bearing in mind the rights of children to use their home languages and learn …

Teachers And Directors: Artists In Their Own Medium, Kathleen Kristin Ruen

Articles and Other Publications

"Theatrical directors engage in a form of teaching and their insights are often applicable to the classroom."

Line In The Sand: An Essay On Principal-Teacher Relationships, David Dunaway

Academic Leadership: The Online Journal

was a fall Saturday morning, and I was in my Auburn doctoral program monthly seminar where we talked of various topics of interest to our group of 15. Somehow the topic came around to the relationships between teachers and principals. Consensus of the group was that the proverbial line in the sand was an inevitable and unchangeable part of being a school principal. I, to the surprise of no one then or now, disagreed. This time I was not playing my well-honed role of Devil’s Advocate, I really believed that there was no good or logical reason that there should …

Developing Strategies At The Pre-Service Level To Address Critical Teacher Attraction And Retention Issues In Australian Rural, Regional And Remote Schools, Sue Trinidad, Elaine Sharplin, Graeme Lock, Sue Ledger, Don Boyd, Emmy Terry

Research outputs 2011

This ALTC project is a collaborative endeavour between the four public universities involved in teacher education in Western Australia (Curtin University, Edith Cowan University, Murdoch University and The University of Western Australia), focussed on improving the quality of preparation of pre-service teachers for rural, regional and remote appointments. The project, building on the work of other recent Australian rural education research projects (conducted through the ARC funded Renewing Rural Teacher Education: Sustaining Schooling for Sustainable Futures [TERRAnova] and the Renewing Rural and Regional Teacher Education ALTC Curriculum projects), will create a nexus between the theory and practice of teaching and …

First Amendment Knowledge Of Classroom Teachers, Gary L. Taft

Ed.D. Dissertations

This research examined the knowledge of the first amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America possessed by teachers in two secondary high schools in East Tennessee. Additionally, an attempt to evaluate the relationship between church attendance in protestant evangelical churches and the teacher’s ability to address church/state conflicts within parameters previously established by the United States Supreme Court was conducted. Finally, the role of social environment was examined in teacher’s knowledge of the first amendment. Prior research within this context has produced evidence that teachers are in fact not adequately prepared to address church/state conflicts within their …

Workplace Pressures Of Pk-8 Teachers In A Midwestern Archdiocese, Carrie O'Donnell Brink

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The intent of this research study was to determine the types of workplace pressures that PK-8 teachers, in a Midwestern Archdiocese, experience. Two hundred eighty teachers participated in the survey. Results from this study indicate that PK-8 teachers express elevated levels of stress in the following areas: income/salary, amount of hours spent outside contract hours on instructional tasks, paperwork required, student behavior/discipline, and implementation of new curricula.

Statistical differences were found in the following areas: female and male stress levels with regard to income; school locale (suburban, urban, and rural) income stress levels; school locale (suburban, urban, and rural) implementation …

Teacher Satisfaction With Professional Development In Rural Elementary Schools In New York State, Adeline Imperiale Basil

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Abstract

The Revelation Of Teacher Identity In The Process Of The "Descriptive Review Of A Child", Deven Lynn Horne

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Teaching is a complex relationship of the "I", the "Thou" and the "It" as described by David Hawkins (1974). This study examines the "I", a teacher's professional identity, as it is revealed in a specific professional development activity focused on examining students and student work known as the "Descriptive Review of a Child". Using a phenomenological case study approach, I followed four individual teachers throughout their engagement in the inservice as well as conducted post-interviews to the activity. The theoretical frameworks of the "I", "thou" and "it" by Hawkins and the "core reflection" by Korthagen provided the constructs used to …