Education Commons^™

Transitioning To A Standards-Based Grading Model At The Middle Level: A Case Study, Jeffrey Scott Szymczak

Theses and Dissertations

Report card grades have long been a part of the system of communication used in our schools to signify student achievement. Letter grades have been with us for centuries, but it was not until recently that educators began recognizing there may be a better way to communicate what a student knows and can do for parents and other schools. While standards-based grades have been common at the elementary level, middle and high schools have been slow to put them to use.

This phenomenological case study was of a seventh and eighth grade school in northeast Illinois in 2013 in the …

Illinois Teacher Evaluation Student Growth Component: A Predecision-Making Policy Analysis, Joshua Robert Olsen

Theses and Dissertations

ILLINOIS TEACHER EVALUATION STUDENT GROWTH COMPONENT:

A PREDECISION-MAKING POLICY ANALYSIS

Joshua R. Olsen

122 Pages May 2015

Public school districts in Illinois are going to face massive changes to their evaluation systems in the coming years. Thanks to the adoption of the Performance Evaluation Reform Act of 2010 and Senate Bill 7 of 2011, teacher evaluation must contain student growth as a significant factor, beginning with the 2016-2017 school year. Not only must student performance on tests become part of the evaluation of teachers, but, moreover, teacher evaluation will play a greater role in the hiring, retention, and release of …

Raising The Bar: The Stories Of Ged Graduates Transitioning To Community College, David Weatherspoon

Theses and Dissertations

RAISING THE BAR: THE STORIES OF GED GRADUATES

TRANSITIONING TO COMMUNITY COLLEGE

David Weatherspoon

216 Pages January 2015

The purpose of this study is to examine the educational stories of GED graduates' pursuit of a college degree. The analysis captures the shared experiences of a select number of students' challenges and barriers during their transition to college. This research explores the links between the concepts of social and cultural capital and locus of control (behavior) by examining how these concepts are logically interrelated. The students were purposefully selected to participate based on their involvement in the community college GED transition …

Revisiting Gender Equality In Millennium Development Goal 3: Establishing Education For Women As A Human Right, Colleen Renee Kahl

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this thesis is to evaluate Millennium Development Goal 3 and to propose a new goal based in a human rights-based approach. This goal promotes gender equality and women's empowerment and is primarily measured by gender parity in education. For many countries in the developing world, this goal is far from being reached and has resulted in millions of children, particularly girls, out of school. The primary focus of this thesis will be on the secondary level of education as gender parity is far from being obtained. This thesis will review the goals and the human rights-based approach …

Delivering The Parent-Implemented Communication Strategies ( Pics ) Intervention Using Distance Training And Coaching With A Father And His Child Who Is Hard Of Hearing, Marc Daczewitz

Theses and Dissertations

Many children with disabilities (i.e., deaf/hard of hearing; DHH) experience language delays (Sarant, Holt, Dowell, Rickards, & Blamey, 2009). Parents of children who are DHH can mediate their children's language delays with responsive communication (Guralnick, 2011; Pressman, Pipp-Siegel, & Yoshinaga-Itano, 1999; Warren & Brady, 2007). This study is a partial replication of the Parent-Implemented Communication Strategies (PiCS) Project (Meadan, Angell, Stoner, & Daczewitz, 2014). The PiCS project was implemented with 11 parents and their children with various disabilities (e.g., Down syndrome, Autism Spectrum Disorder). These parents were trained and coached to use naturalistic teaching strategies (i.e., environmental arrangement, modeling, mand-model, …