Education Commons^™

School Culture And Implementation Of Future Teacher Recruitment Programs, Erin Ashcraft

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Capstones

The recruitment of new teachers to staff school vacancies has had a long history of difficulty in public schools across the United States. Strategies offered to improve teacher recruitment have often included intentionally and explicitly encouraging youth to consider pursuing a career in teaching through future teacher clubs. Educators Rising is a future teacher program, recognized by Kentucky as a Career and Technical Student Organization and supported by the Kentucky Department of Education. Despite its long history of promotion as a teacher recruitment strategy and the successes of other Career and Technical Education programs, Educators Rising remains highly underutilized across …

Cultivating Teachers For High-Poverty Schools, Kit Z Mcguire

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Capstones

This quantitative study examines the connections between teacher preparation programs (TPPs) and later retention. According to the Theory of Transformative Multicultural Education (Vavrus, 2002), to prepare future teachers for the needs of urban, high-poverty schools, candidates need to be in a culturally responsive environment and receive dedicated instruction in multicultural education. These characteristics were measured three ways: inclusion of diversity in the TPP mission/vision statement, required multicultural coursework course levels, required multicultural coursework credit hours. These variables were included in a path analysis model along with teacher characteristics and school characteristics known to affect teacher retention rates. The intervention variables …

Understanding The Lived Experience Of The Embodiments Of Catholic Social Teaching By Doctoral Alumni From A School Of Education Of An Independent Catholic University: A Phenomenological Study, George Munjanattu

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Capstones

This study set out to understand how the doctoral alumni from the School of Education of an independent Catholic university experience embodiments of Catholic Social Teaching in their everyday lived experiences. The conceptual framework of seven Catholic teaching embodiments allowed the researcher to explore the perspectives of the doctoral alumni about their experiences with their values and beliefs about family, community, solidarity, human dignity, different responsibilities in their lives, care for creation, and their current engagement with various social justice activities. This research was a phenomenological qualitative study using interviews and artifacts review. Twelve participants were interviewed to explore their …

The Essence Of K-12 Teaching In A Catholic Archdiocese In Kentucky During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Danielle Atzinger Wiegandt

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Capstones

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic research showed that teacher attrition among new teachers (less than five years) was a problem for schools throughout the country and Catholic Schools were facing an even higher rate (Ingersoll, 2003). Research also shows that there are often cultural and structural components of Catholic schools that influence teachers to stay (Youngs, 2013; Convey, 2012, 2014). The COVID-19 pandemic forced the education system to pivot and teachers are expected to continue to have high standards for education while making these shifts.

In the early period of COVID-19 pandemic research was already suggesting attrition rates were rising …

The Impact Of Supplemental Phonemic Awareness Lessons On Phonological Awareness And Spelling Development Among Kindergarten And First Graders, Crystal Olinger

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Capstones

Reading is a developmental process that builds on complex cognitive processes and starts long before children enter school. This present study investigated the impact of supplemental phonemic awareness lessons on phonological awareness and spelling development among kindergarten and first graders. The Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing (CTOPP-2) measured phonological awareness. The Kindergarten Inventory of Developmental Spelling (KIDS) measured spelling development in kindergarten students. The Developmental Spelling Analysis (DSA) measured spelling development in first grade. Participants in the treatment group received 16 weeks of weekly word study instruction and 10-15 minute daily phonemic awareness instruction. A mixed design full factorial ANOVA …

Understanding The Relationships Between Social-Emotional Competency, Reading Fluency, Reading Comprehension, And Reading Achievement In Adolescent Students, David Phillips

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Capstones

The improvement of social-emotional factors is thought to help increase students’ achievement by 11% (Durlak et al., 2011). This current study is a descriptive study set in a rural setting, and it included 101 seventh and eighth-grade students. The study explored the relationship between social-emotional competency, reading ability, and reading achievement in adolescent students. Correlation results showed statistically positive relationships between reading measures and social-emotional measures except for social awareness and grit. Regression results revealed that social-emotional competencies explained from 7% to 36% of the variance in adolescent reading. Social-emotional competencies and reading ability measures together explained 51% to 53% …

Cultivating Connectedness To Nature In The College Classroom: A Consideration Of Nature-Based Pedagogy In Undergraduate Education, Cody H. Nygard

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Capstones

Nature-based environmental education, and research around the cultivation of connectedness to nature, has focused primarily on younger learners without paying close attention to the development of nature-based college curriculum (Leiflander et al., 2013; Ernst & Theimer, 2011; Cheng & Monroe, 2010). Additionally, spirituality as a mechanism for engaging students in the development of connectedness to nature has largely been neglected in higher education pedagogical research (Crowe, 2013). The purpose of this study was to explore the impact of a nature-based, spiritually engaging undergraduate environmental course on students’ connectedness to nature. This quasi-experimental, mixed methods case study compared changes to connectedness …