Education Commons^™

My Story Is In The Structure: An Autoethnographic Study By An Instructional Designer Working In A Centralized Academic Reporting Line, Pamela Williams

Dissertations

Although not officially named in the shared governance of an institution, instructional designers play an important role as they collaborate with administrators and faculty to create high quality, regulatory-compliant courses for enrolled students. Instructional designers working in centralized, academic reporting units may be well-positioned to advance the work of institutions to maintain good standing with the industry and regulatory bodies. To illustrate the challenges, opportunities, and strategies employed by an instructional designer working in such a position, an autoethnographic study was conducted to elucidate how shared governance influences, empowers, and disempowers an instructional designer’s ability to lead and collaborate on …

Building Community In Online Faculty Development, Jennifer Mckanry

Dissertations

The purpose of this mixed-methods study was to examine current best practices building community in online faculty development (FD). Ongoing participation in pedagogical FD is critical to teaching today due to changing technologies, pedagogical strategies, and increasing numbers of at-risk students. However, competing demands make prioritizing FD challenging. As a result, many institutions are implementing online asynchronous FD offerings. Little research exists on online offerings specifically for faculty with needs and motivations different from students. Particularly, it is important to look at social construction of knowledge through community in online asynchronous FD.

This study supplemented the scant literature by interviewing …

Teacher Autonomy In A Site-Managed Charter School: Views Of Autonomy, Autonomy Support, And Their Educational Impact, Kristen Levin

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to discover how pre-service teachers (PSTs), classroom teachers, and administrators in an urban charter school perceive their own professional autonomy and administrative support by the school, and how the balance of autonomy and support impact their instructional practices. I designed and implemented this research as a single case study of Highland Charter School (a pseudonym), in a Midwestern U.S. city. This study involved seven teachers, three pre-service teachers, six administrators, and the charter sponsor. The case is an independent charter school serving mainly students of low socioeconomic backgrounds, from Kindergarten through Eighth Grade. At …