Education Commons^™

Teacher Perceptions Of Competence In Supporting Lgbtq+ Students, Christina Beushausen

Dissertations

LGBTQ+ students continually express concerns about safety in school. This population experiences various forms of bullying and harassment from not only their peers, but from their teachers. Teachers are unaware of the unconscious bias and heteronorms they carry into their classroom that alienate these students. Teachers express that they do not have adequate training to feel confident in their competence to intervene in the issues their LGBTQ+ students face. This study examined how teachers’ perceptions of their competency changed after participating in role-playing simulations as part of professional development. Participants included Midwestern middle school teachers who voluntarily participated in role-playing …

Investigating The Connection Between Teacher Professional Development And The Lesson Planning Process, Kyle B. Corlett

Dissertations

School districts across the country are facing increasing pressure to raise student achievement, specifically on state standardized tests (Buzick & Jones, 2015; Marsh & Farrell, 2015). Many states, including Michigan, connect teacher and administrator evaluations to student achievement (Revised School Code Act 451, 2003). The primary strategy school districts use to improve student achievement is professional development for its staff (Guskey, 2009). Professional development can consist of a variety of strategies to support educators in increasing their knowledge and skills, resulting in improved instruction and ultimately improved student achievement. This instrumental case study sought to explore how teachers experience the …

Examining District Administrators’ Professional Development Decision-Making Processes Concerning New Special Education Teachers, Sarah J. Bacalia

Dissertations

New special education teachers face an abundance of challenges from day one that directly correlate to student outcomes (i.e. classroom management, instruction, curriculum, school culture and operations, test preparation and administration, state standards, parent relations, and interactions with other teachers). District administrators, (i.e. superintendents, assistant superintendents, curriculum and instruction directors, directors of student services, special education directors, and special education supervisors) play an important role in determining how to best use their districts' professional development time and resources to support new special education teachers as they work to continually improve student outcomes. Therefore, professional development should be a purposeful endeavor. …

How Elementary Teachers Demonstrate Leadership In The Classroom To Increase Science Learning, Dipsy Anais Etanislao Gonzalez

Dissertations

In the DR, the need of producing drastic changes in students’ outcomes fostered the adaptation of a professional development (PD) program to improve the public education system. In 2013, the National Institute for Teacher Preparation chose the School Centered Continuous Teacher’s Preparation (EFCCE, acronym in Spanish) PD program to help teachers with the needed transformation. This program aimed to form knowledgeable and skillful teachers who exhibit instructional leadership in the classroom.

This qualitative, multiple instrumental case study involved 10 Dominican science elementary teachers who had completed the EFCCE program and who had self-identified as a teacher actively implementing engaging science …

A Model For Propagating Educational Innovations In Higher Stem Education: A Grounded Theory Study Of Successfully Propagated Innovations, Raina Khatri

Dissertations

A critical problem in undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education is the slow uptake of innovative teaching strategies and materials. Developments from the STEM education research community can be shown to improve learning and retention outcomes, but the majority of new teaching strategies go unused by instructors. This problem is increasingly acknowledged by funding agencies such as the National Science Foundation, which now calls for “transferability and propagation” to be addressed throughout a project’s lifetime in the request for proposals. However, few publications synthesize what is known about propagating innovations into usable, actionable recommendations for developers in the …

The Quick Analysis For Principals In The Alignment Of Administrative Plans Within The School Improvement Framework At The Middle School Level, James Vanden Heuvel

Masters Theses

High performing schools require administrators to align the continuous improvement efforts with the professional development activities while evaluating teaching and learning for fidelity. The administrative plans of school improvement, professional development, and teacher evaluation systems systemically aligned begin with an administrator who can see the important interaction of these three plans. The increased pressure for improved achievement from stakeholders, coupled with competing demands on time for the school administrator, leads towards a need for efficient tools for improvement. School administrators are creating administrative plans that are in isolation or disconnected from each other which leads to a lack of cohesion. …

General Education Teachers’ Attitudes About Inclusion, Larry D. Monje

Dissertations

This study uses Q Methodology and semi-structured interviews to examine general education teachers’ attitudes, beliefs and perceptions about inclusion of students with disabilities in their general education classrooms. As reported in the 38th Annual Report to Congress on the Implementation of the Individuals with Disabilities Act, 2016, 94.8% of students with disabilities are being educated in general education classrooms for some part of the school day (U.S. Department of Education, 2016). For this reason, it is important to understand general education teachers’ attitudes, beliefs and perceptions about the inclusion of students with disabilities.

In this study there were 50 Q …

The Impact Of A Student Device Technology Integration Professional Development Program On K-6 Performance Data, Peter Grostic

Masters Theses

When schools choose to secure devices for their students to integrate into class, they are engaging in a student device technology integration initiative. Results of such initiatives so far have been inconsistent (Bebell & Kay, 2010, Gulek & Demirtas, 2005). These inconsistencies may be, in part, due to poor professional development and/or incomplete data collection. The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of a professional development program for teachers on the effectiveness of a student device technology integration initiative. “Effectiveness” will be defined by standardized test data as well as student attendance data and student behavior referral …

Principals’ Perspectives On The Professional Development Process And Its Outcomes, Sara Kathleen Moore

Dissertations

This study examined principals’ perspectives on the professional development process and its outcomes. Principals are in the best position to ensure a connection between research-based best practices and what actually happens in the classroom, but there is little research on how principals actually select professional development for their staff in the field. This study was conducted in a Midwestern state using data gathered from public elementary school principals in the form of a survey. The sample included all K-5 and K-8 elementary principals on record with the state department of education, with 242 principals responding. It examined how much control …

Place-Based Education: An Impetus For Teacher Efficacy, Tamara Chase Coleman

Dissertations

This research investigated professional development in place-based (PB) methodology on the efficacy of science teachers. While teachers are expected to use best practices they do not always implement them due to a lack of efficacy in implementation. A professional development program (PD) was designed to increase confidence among teachers planning to incorporate PB methods. Place-based education (PBE) is recognized as a best-practice among professional educators. PBE includes the selection, design and engagement with science using the geographic place as the content. The literature reports that student learning and teacher efficacy will improve when teachers are prepared effectively in PB practices. …

District Mandated Changes In Technology And Inquiry-Based Instruction, Mulonge Musa Kalumbula

Dissertations

Federal and state mandates aimed at improving the American K-12 school system abound (Spillane, 2004). Federal legislation of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB, 2002), and state-mandated curriculum are aimed at improving teaching and learning thus ultimately improving student achievement. The purpose of this phenomenology study was to examine the experiences of 7 middle and high school social studies teachers through district-mandated changes in inquiry-based instruction and technology-integrated lessons. By capturing how individual teachers experience mandated changes, this research aimed to discover the existence of policy coherence within a district as it translated federal and state policy …

The Influence Of Teacher Leadership And Professional Learning On Teachers’ Knowledge And Change Of Instructional Practices In Low Performing Schools, Christen Conklin Topolinski

Dissertations

A cross-sectional survey was utilized in this study to explore the perceptions of teacher in low performing schools. These perceptions concerned the influence of teacher leadership and professional learning on their changes in knowledge and instructional practices. Research advises that in order to help students grow, teachers must engage in professional learning activities which help them to develop and master new instructional strategies (Bredeson & Scribner, 2000; DuFour & Marzano, 2012; Harrison & Killion, 2007). Research also suggests that distributed leadership can have a positive influence on the professional culture in a building, creating a positive learning environment for both …