Education Commons^™

Peer Observation To Improve Teacher Self-Efficacy, Bethany R. Mather, Jeremy D. Visone

Journal of Educational Research and Practice

This qualitative descriptive study explored teachers’ perceptions of a peer observation structure, collegial visits (CVs), and CVs’ connection to teacher self-efficacy (TSE). The research question was: How do teachers perceive CVs, particularly with respect to their influence on TSE? Semi-structured interviews and a focus group were utilized to collect data from 13 K–12 educators from urban and suburban public school districts in the United States. The theoretical foundation included Bandura’s social cognitive theory and the triadic reciprocal causation model. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the data, and four themes emerged: (1) cultural drivers and effects of CVs; (2) impact …

How To Deliver An Effective Course: A Student's Perspective, Jaipaul Udaipaul, Lynne N. Kennette

Journal of Educational Research and Practice

Certain course features, such as engaging delivery, can benefit student learning. This essay presents one student’s opinion of what made for an effective introductory psychology course. The student provides his perspective on various features of the recently completed psychology course and how those elements supported his learning. The elements he identified included various ongoing knowledge checks, test reviews, tests, in-class engagement, personalized touchpoints, scaffolding, and student feedback. For each, the course instructor explains the pedagogical underpinnings of her choices. Faculty may find a student’s perspective on courses valuable as they consider their pedagogical decisions in terms of course design and …

Online Assessment In Large Undergraduate Courses During Covid-19 Emergency Response Teaching, Kate Maloney Williams, Alice E. Donlan

Journal of Educational Research and Practice

The transition to online instruction during the COVID-19 pandemic was unprecedented and forced many universities to quickly embrace online distance learning. This context created new challenges, particularly around assessment strategies. Empirical research has demonstrated that formative assessment fosters more active learning in online classrooms. However, formative assessment strategies are not always adapted well to online platforms based on the nature of the subject matter and the size of the class. This qualitative case study sought to understand instructors’ experiences and strategies for conducting assessment remotely, specifically for large-size undergraduate courses. The investigation relied on data from semi-structured interviews with University …

Results Of A One-Day Seminar On Preservice Teachers’ Incorporation Of The Udl Framework In Lesson Design, K. Alisa Lowrey, Audra Classen, Peter Paprzycki

Journal of Educational Research and Practice

Students with disabilities are increasingly receiving their instruction in inclusive classrooms. General education teachers continue to report a lack of preparation to address their needs. This study examined the impact of a 6-hour professional development seminar on the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework to determine if preservice general and special education teachers’ overall performance in lesson design to reduce barriers, identified through increased attention to student variability, improved. Two lesson plans, preseminar and postseminar, from 242 participants were scored using a modified education field experience (EFE) rubric that included 19 evaluation criteria. A Rasch analysis was used to determine …

Redefining “Lgbtq+ Interculture” In Academia, Samantha Winterberg, Michelle Mccraney

Journal of Educational Research and Practice

Members of the LGBTQ+ community often face discrimination, harassment, and exclusion in academic settings, which can negatively impact their academic and personal success. Studies have shown that LGBTQ+ students are more likely to experience negative mental health conditions, drop out of school, and struggle to find employment after graduation. Cultural humility fosters diversity, equity, and inclusion, which is critical to ensuring an equitable educational experience for all students, particularly those from marginalized communities. Intercultural understanding is essential to develop cultural humility so that attitudes reflect empathy and tolerance of differences, including sexual or gender orientation variances or ambiguity. Understanding how …

Critical Education In Community Health Literacy For Brazilian Nurses: A Course Evaluation, Margareth S. Zanchetta, Walterlânia S. Santos, Onislene A. E. De Almeida, Katarinne Lima Moraes, Maria Wanderleya L. Coriolano-Marinus

Journal of Educational Research and Practice

This article presents an immediate evaluation of a professional development course in community health literacy for Brazilian nurses. An evaluation based on an applied thematic analysis of the accounts of 63 attendees in three Brazilian cities (January 2020) was guided by the following themes: (a) expansion of understanding about community health literacy as a pillar for planning and providing health care; (b) encouragement of innovation in research and/or practice; and (c) plans to incorporate the information shared in the course into professional projects. The evaluation disclosed the complexity of social contexts for health literacy, which is intertwined with ethnocultural diversity …

So Much New To Learn And So Much Unknown: Novice Teachers’ Experiences During Covid-19, Angela W. Webb, Jennifer J. Baumgartner

Journal of Educational Research and Practice

To support novice teachers, we need to listen to and honor their experiences in the classroom. This is true during the best of times and especially true amid the tumultuous teaching and learning experiences brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. In this paper, we discuss emergent themes from interviews with student teachers and early career teachers in spring 2021 about their experiences with the transition to virtual or remote teaching in response to COVID-19. We explore how student teachers and early career teachers experienced the stress of pandemic teaching, what they found supportive, and how their experiences can inform care-full …

Case Study Method To Increase Preservice Teachers' Experience With Ell Accommodations And Self-Efficacy, Kelly M. Torres, Samantha Tackett, Meagan C. Arrastía-Chisholm

Journal of Educational Research and Practice

The enrollment of English language learners (ELLs) in American public schools continues to increase each year. The substantial growth in this population of learners makes it imperative for future educators to understand how to effectively support ELLs’ acquisition of academic content and English language proficiency. In past studies, preservice teachers have reported lower levels of self-efficacy when supporting these learners. This investigation examines how case study approaches can be utilized with preservice teachers to understand how they recommend strategies/accommodations for ELLs and their levels of self-efficacy in implementing these instructional approaches. Findings from this research suggest case studies are effective …

Student Mistakes In Elite School Classrooms: Teacher Reflections And Reported Instructional Strategies, Maleka Donaldson

Journal of Educational Research and Practice

This article explores how teachers respond to student mistakes in one educational setting—an elite private high school. This qualitative study is a thematic analysis of in-depth, semi-structured interviews with teachers at one such school. The results reveal that in their responses to student mistakes, the teachers work to build trust and emotional safety, give students agency throughout the learning and feedback processes, and ask probing questions that rigorously challenge their thinking. By considering teacher accounts of their instructional approaches and past experiences, the study adds a context-specific, real-world perspective on how teachers in an elite school frame student mistakes.

Examination Of Training On Pre-Service Science Teachers’ Views On Socio-Scientific Issues And Nature Of Science, Aylin Çam

Journal of Educational Research and Practice

Science continuously interacts with the social environment. Science develops with social needs, and society develops and changes with scientific advances. These changes and developments may cause dilemmas in society. Thus, the purpose of this study is to investigate the improvements among pre-service science teachers in terms of socio-scientific issues and nature of science after explicit theoretical and practical training. The participants in this case study were 16 voluntary pre-service science teachers. In-depth views of the pre-service science teachers on nature of science and socio-scientific issues were examined with open-ended questions and reflective diaries. After the training, the understanding of the …

Enacting Inclusive Mathematics Teaching And Learning Using Biography Driven Instruction, Jessie C. Store

Journal of Educational Research and Practice

As schools become increasingly diverse, there is an increasing need for examples of classroom practices that create inclusive teaching and learning environments. Many research studies found that gaining knowledge of student home life and using it to bridge learning and home supports access and equity. Many scholars have called for exemplars of activities that connect students’ in-school and out-of-school cultural activities. This paper provides an example that may be used in teacher education and K–12 classrooms to bridge out-of-school and in-school activities. In this paper, we discuss the enactment of biography-driven instruction, specifically how cultural biographies can be used to …

Closing Reading Achievement Gaps For Middle School Students, Michael D. Daugherty

Journal of Educational Research and Practice

This research examined how self-efficacy, collective efficacy, and professional development compared between core content and special education middle school teachers working with middle school students in reading comprehension and fluency. Accordingly, no statistically significant difference in teacher self-efficacy between core content and special education teachers was discovered based on the ANOVA analysis results. An analysis of professional development and collective teacher efficacy showed mixed results with a negative relationship predicted between increased professional development hours for core content teachers. A predicted positive relationship existed with the number of professional development hours increasing for special education teachers. There was no statistically …

Forced Isolation In An Era Of Inclusion Within U.S. K-12 Public School Communities, Cheryl Burleigh, Andrea Wilson

Journal of Educational Research and Practice

The COVID-19 pandemic brought to the forefront disparities and inequities in U.S. K–12 public school systems that affected both educators and the students they served—not only during school closures but also after in-person instruction resumed. The purpose of this scholarly essay is to shed light on the levels of isolation that occurred during the pandemic and still affect educators in K–12 public schools as they seek to foster academically rigorous and inclusive school communities. Recognizing, and then quickly responding to, historic events by implementing strategies that take into account the social determinants of learning and health is the starting point …

In Search Of Belonging Online: Achieving Equity Through Transformative Professional Development, Michelle Pacansky-Brock, Michael Smedshammer, Kimberly Vincent-Layton

Journal of Educational Research and Practice

Abstract

Online classes hold the potential to expand college access to Black, Latino/a/x, Indigenous, and other students of color who must be supported to diversify the STEM workforce. Research shows that fostering belonging is key to the academic success of students from minoritized groups. However, online classes often lack interpersonal interactions and are often left out of research about the positive impacts of belonging. This paper summarizes an equity-focused STEM grant project that produced an openly-shared online professional development program, the Humanizing Online STEM Academy. Through the Academy, STEM faculty are introduced to a model of humanized online teaching that …

Community Circles In Response To Restorative Justice Research And Critique, Hannah Edber

Journal of Educational Research and Practice

Zero-tolerance discipline in schools has resulted in disproportionate referrals, suspensions, and expulsions for Black students, students with disabilities, and low-income students of color. Restorative Justice (RJ) seeks to intervene in these patterns by emphasizing community interconnectedness and a discourse of harm, accountability, and repair. Although RJ has been shown to increase school connectedness and decrease suspensions and expulsions, teachers and students using RJ (as a response to discipline issues) report varying degrees of satisfaction with the framework. Frustrations can include limited time and limited depth of conversations with students who have caused harm, so that root causes of behavior are …

Operationalizing Centerness And Measuring It In Professional Development Teams, George M. Nickles, Bruce Herbert

Journal of Educational Research and Practice

Centerness is defined as a quality of multi-agent systems (groups) where agents share a common set of system goals and interact so the system will achieve those goals. A pair of measures is identified to capture the two dimensions of centerness: distance-weighted fragmentation and average goal centerness. As a case study, the measures of centerness are applied to six teacher professional development groups within the Information Technology in Science Center for Teaching and Learning. The calculated measures of centerness of these groups generally conform to the expectations. Insights on using this measure of centerness to evaluate centerness in other professional …

Attitude Toward Physics Teaching Of Science Teachers: A Revised Scale And Analysis, Fikret Korur

Journal of Educational Research and Practice

The first aim of the study was to apply the revised version of the Dimensions of Attitudes toward Science Scale, namely Dimension of Attitudes toward Physics Teaching Scale (DAPT) with a sample consisting of 207 in-service science teachers in Turkey. The second was to determine the percentage distributions of in-service science teachers’ attitudes toward physics teaching in the confirmed seven sub-dimensions. The DAPT is a valid and reliable scale to measure Turkish science teachers’ attitudes toward physics teaching. Most of the teachers acknowledge the importance of physics subjects in science lessons and believe that they have self-efficacy in teaching physics …

Reflections On Inclusive Teaching, Michelle Pacansky-Brock

Journal of Educational Research and Practice

The COVID-era has left a lasting impression on each of us. How are college educators applying the full complexity of these experiences to their work to make teaching and learning in all modalities more welcoming, meaningful, and fulfilling for everyone? This reflection opens a conversation about inclusive teaching and invites you to be part of it.

The Effects Of An Undergraduate Research On Pre-Service Teachers’ Notions Of Stem Education And Educational Research, Erin Pearce, Jesse Brock, Phillis Bunch

Journal of Educational Research and Practice

Pre-service teachers (PSTs) often lack the self-efficacy necessary to effectively implement STEM education into their classrooms. Undergraduate research experiences (URE) can help fill this void by providing opportunities for PSTs to engage with STEM content and K–12 students in a field-based research context. This case study details the impact a URE had on PSTs’ STEM self-efficacy and views on research. The URE consisted of STEM curriculum development, teaching the curriculum at a local middle school, gathering research data, and presenting results at academic conferences. Participation in the URE positively influenced the PSTs’ self-efficacy in STEM and changed their perceptions regarding …

Teacher Instructional Practices And Student Mathematics Achievement, Michael C. Osborne

Journal of Educational Research and Practice

Using the nationally representative sample from the United States in the 2012 Programme for International Student Assessment (N = 7,429 students from 240 schools), I examined the relationship between teacher instructional practices and student mathematics achievement. To account for the multilevel structure of the data with students nested within schools, I used a two-level hierarchical linear model in the data analysis. Teacher instructional practices showed statistically significant effects on student mathematics achievement, even after controlling for socioeconomic status (SES) and sex at the student level and school mean SES and whether the school is public or private at the …

Virtual Faculty Strategies For Supporting Motivation Of Online Doctoral Students, Crissie M. Jameson, Kelly Torres, Shereeza Mohammed

Journal of Educational Research and Practice

Our study focused on online faculty members and their perceptions of the strategies and activities they use to promote progress for and motivation in their online graduate students, particularly at the dissertation/doctoral study phase of the program. Results show high-achieving faculty members vary their strategies according to each students’ needs. High-achieving faculty members reach out to students often, offer encouragement throughout the process, and establish realistic goals.

An Evaluation Of Local Mentor Support In Ae E-Teacher Educational Technology Integration Online Teacher Training Course, Yasemin Yelbay Yilmaz, Seher Balbay

Journal of Educational Research and Practice

This study addressed a different approach to online language teacher training programs. The researchers investigated the pros and cons of having local mentor support for an online course titled Using Technology in the English Language Classroom provided by the AE E-Teacher Program. The course was offered to preservice teachers from 24 different universities across Turkey. The study collected data through a pre- and post-online survey and individual semistructured interviews. The results revealed that while local mentoring as a supplement to the main course content contributed to teacher candidates’ emotional and professional attachment to their profession by helping them relate theory …

Converging Andragogy With Working Adult Professionalism In Initial Teacher Preparation, Michelle Anderson, Stefani Boutelier

Journal of Educational Research and Practice

Educator Preparation Programs (EPPs) are tasked with providing preservice teachers with pedagogical theory, practical field experiences, mentorship, and scaffolded professional dispositions during critical phases of their preparation. In addition, EPPs collaborate with school districts and state departments of education to address critical issues in the field, including teacher retention and shortages. Our research explores how one EPP pilot, designed to build upon experience, supported working adult education students (e.g., parapros) seeking initial teacher certification. We sought to understand how adult teacher candidates engaged in professional learning and emergent professional relationships. Our qualitative study examined the experience of the first cohort …

Teachers’ Perceptions Of Teacher–Child Relationships, Student Behavior, And Classroom Management, Szu-Yu Chen, Natalya A. Lindo, Sarah Blalock, Dina Yousef, Latoya Smith, Kara Hurt-Avila

Journal of Educational Research and Practice

Children’s relationships with their teachers are a potential resource for enhancing developmental and academic outcomes. The effects of positive or negative teacher–child relationships can be either beneficial or detrimental to students’ academic progress, behaviors, and emotions. In the current study, we utilized a qualitative research design to examine 18 pre-kindergarten to fourth-grade teachers’ perceptions of teacher–child relationships, student behavior, and classroom management. Analysis of in-depth interviews yielded five major themes: (a) beliefs in children, (b) teaching strategies, (c) acknowledging individual differences, (d) challenges, and (e) relationships. Findings of this study have the potential to inform in-service training regarding relationship-building skills …

Review Of Schooling Of Learners With Disabilities And The Manifestation Of The Hidden Curriculum Of Time, Theodoto Ressa

Journal of Educational Research and Practice

Postsecondary outcomes remain difficult to attain despite their significance to learners with disabilities. This qualitative study investigated the impact of a hidden curriculum of time on the education of five undergraduate students with disabilities at a Carnegie Research One institution in the midwestern U.S. Participants in their quest for an education experienced a hidden curriculum of time in the form of physical impairments, educational costs of ill-health, and disability discrimination. The academic barriers participants encountered in reaching their educational goals suggest that addressing the hidden curriculum of time is essential for authentic inclusion and achievement of postsecondary education outcomes.

The Effect Of Mindfulness Techniques On Teacher Resilience As Moderated By Conscientiousness, Aundrea T. Harris, Nancy S. Bostain

Journal of Educational Research and Practice

Burnout continues to be apparent among teachers and often leads to increased health care costs, absenteeism, and turnover rates. Burnout stems from unmanaged stress, which is the result of teachers’ response to challenges in the workplace. The purpose of this cross-sectional design study was to examine the relationship between mindfulness techniques and resilience in high school teachers. An additional purpose was to examine whether the personality trait and conscientiousness moderate the relationship between mindfulness techniques and resilience. The frameworks for this study were based on the self-awareness, -regulation, and -transcendence (S-ART) framework, the theory of planned behavior, and the concepts …

Linkages Between Grade Point Average And Student Ratings, Robert D. Richardson, Robert L. Williams

Journal of Educational Research and Practice

In order to better understand the potential influence of high school students’ grades on how they rate their teachers and schools, we explored the relationship between student grade point average and student ratings of teacher and school effectiveness in 370 classes taught by 230 instructors with over 6,000 students in grades 9–12 in an Intermountain West school district. Teachers were evaluated with an 18-item student survey. Students also rated their schools with six additional items. The performance measure was the grade point average (GPA) for the quarter in which students evaluated their teachers and schools. ANOVAs showed that both year …

Digital Colleague Connectedness: A Framework For Studying Teachers’ Professional Network Interactions, Darci J. Harland

Journal of Educational Research and Practice

The coronavirus outbreak will likely highlight both strengths and weaknesses of the pre-corona educational system. Researchers have a responsibility to examine the experiences educators have had during the pandemic; however, there are no education-specific frameworks for researchers to use to examine teachers interacting with digital colleagues for professional purposes. This paper describes the literature used to design the digital colleague connectedness framework. The purpose of the framework is to operationalize terminology used to examine educators interacting in professional exchanges within a virtual network. This framework includes six behaviors in which digital colleagues engage and four roles they may assume that …

Exam Preparation: Concerns Of London Upper Secondary School Students With Implications For Teachers And Teaching, Mark A. Minott

Journal of Educational Research and Practice

The aim of this qualitative case study was to ascertain factors impacting the examination preparation process and causing concerns for London upper secondary students, to learn steps taken to reduce and/or resolve the concerns, and to discuss the implications for teachers and teaching. A subsidiary yet important aim was to give the students a “voice” in the research literature. Using convenient or opportunity sampling, 14 Grade 12 and 13 students, ages 16–18 in a south-west London secondary school, were interviewed face-to-face. The analysis of the data revealed external factors and a personal need factor, that is the need to pass …

The Influence Of A Science Methods Course On Prospective Elementary Teachers’ Visions Of Science Teaching, Martha M. Canipe, Jessica Y. Coronado Verdugo

Journal of Educational Research and Practice

Prospective elementary teachers may enter their teacher education program having experienced science more as a collection of definitions and facts than in ways that support rich engagement with scientific phenomena. As a result, their visions of themselves as science teachers may not align with the most recent understandings about how to teach science to support student learning. Science methods courses are settings that have the potential to shift prospective teachers’ visions of science teaching. We used an explanatory sequential mixed methods approach with collection of survey data followed by interviews with selected participants. We analyzed how prospective elementary teachers’ visions …