Education Commons^™

Perceptions Of The Impact Of High School Advisory On Academic Success, Connectdness And Personalization Of Education, Beth S. Brodie

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Public education is a cornerstone of our democracy and social advancement. However, current Vermont graduation rates would indicate that public education at the high school level does not address the needs of all twenty-first century learners. Research has revealed that personalization and creating a connected environment are promising innovations for improving education for all students. One structure that supports personalization, high school advisory, provides each student with an adult advisor that knows them well through their high school years.

This research on high school advisory in Vermont was divided in two phases: 1) an assessment of the current state of …

Employing "Best Practices" In Teacher Education: Faculty Perceptions Of Their Success And Their Needs In Preparing Teachers To Increase Student Achievement, Prem P. Timsina

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

This qualitative study focuses on the faculty engaged in the preparation of secondary teachers at North East University (NEU). It seeks to discover how they see themselves as professionals and assess their work preparing future teachers in "Best Practices" of teaching so that they can effectively teach all students, particularly low achievers. To achieve the goal of this study, I conducted semi-structured individual interviews with those faculty who are engaged in preparing teachers at the secondary program. Eight participants were interviewed for this study, among them six participants were fully engaged in the teacher preparation. Once I collected the data …

Voices Of Leadership: A Narrative Study Of Four Vermont Superintendents And Their Experience With Policy Governance, Daniel Mcneil French

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

In 2006, the Vermont School Board's Association launched a pilot implementation of Policy Governance® in four Vermont school districts. Policy Governance is a coherent governance model that requires boards to establish policy in four policy quadrants (Carver, 2006). Key features of Policy Governance include the clear delineation of roles and responsibilities between a board and its CEO and the articulation of Ends policies which describe the desired outcomes for the organization from a future-oriented perspective (Carver, 2006). These characteristics of Policy Governance are in many ways antithetical to traditional Vermont public school governance practices which are grounded in a long-standing …

Letters From An Interdisciplinary Artist: Illuminating Korean Adoptee Identity Through Mentors And Metal, Tonya Ferraro

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Interdisciplinary integration and practice through meaning making and context can contribute to the reconsideration and revolution of research by supporting narrativesand creating space for public discourse. In researching my heritage as a Korean adoptee, I found that the literature has been predominantly from adoptive parents' perspective,focusing primarily on child and adolescent development. Lacking in the literature is the adult adoptee perspective, and specifically their experiential voices.

This interdisciplinary thesis has three major purposes (1) to explore how transracial transnational Korean adoption affects identity formation, (2) to illustrate how mentoring relationships can be a means to address and reframe the theme …

Iraq: My Stories Of Life, Liberty And Leadership, Kenneth Smith

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

...this war is lost, and the surge is not accomplishing anything...

- Harry Reid, April 19, 2007

Human nature prevails. Our desire is to live. Our unalienable right is to be free; to enjoy the fruits of our labor. How we spend our limited time on this earth pursuing happiness is up to each of us: uniquely, individually, with our own distinctive personality, intellect and motivation. In the following personal exploration and scholarly analysis, I discuss how our inherent gift of life and the desire for liberty form an integrated platform from which leadership personifies itself in the lives of …

Faculty Perceptions As A Foundation For Evaluating Use Of Student Evaluations Of Teaching, Scott Hamilton Baker

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Amidst ever-growing demands for accountability and increased graduation rates to help justify the rising costs of higher education, few topics in undergraduate education elicit a broader range of responses than student evaluations of teaching (SETs). Despite debates over their efficacy, SETs are increasingly used as formative (pedagogical practices) and summative (employee reviews) assessments of faculty teaching. Proponents contend SETs are a necessary component in measuring the quality of education a student receives, arguing that they further enable educators to reflect upon their own pedagogy and thus informing best practices, and that they are a valid component in summative evaluations of …