Education Commons^™

Head Start Administrative Practices, Director Qualifications, And Links To Classroom Quality, Mccormick Center For Early Childhood Leadership

McCormick Center for Early Childhood Leadership Publications

An emerging body of research confirms practical wisdom from the field that center directors are the gatekeepers to quality. Through the teachers they hire, the administrative practices they put into place, and their ability to promote a shared vision, directors create professional environments that enable teachers to provide enriching learning environments for children. Recognizing the importance of program leadership, an increasing number of state initiatives are including a measure of administrative practices in their approaches to assessing and improving program quality across early learning settings. To help inform these initiatives, this research examined how administrative practices in Head Start programs …

Factors Impacting Job Satisfaction And Commitment In The Early Childhood Workforce, Mccormick Center For Early Childhood Leadership

McCormick Center for Early Childhood Leadership Publications

Job satisfaction is one of the most widely researched topics in psychology. Its popularity is not difficult to understand; the topic has immediate relevance to our own lives. With the latest wave of educational reform, the issue has taken on heightened importance. Across the educational spectrum, work satisfaction is related to organizational and professional commitment. Thus, understanding the factors that influence job satisfaction is central to attracting and retaining an effective and committed workforce. The present study was designed to provide a profile of the early childhood workforce to understand the specific job facets that contribute most to professional fulfillment. …

Libr 200 Fall 2010 Face-Face, Rob Morrison

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Libr 200 Fall 2010 Online, Rob Morrison

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

A Comparison Of The Career And Technical Education Programs In A Us Community College And A Chinese Institution, Harry Hou

Dissertations

This research study explores and compares the career and technical education programs offered in a US community college and the vocational/career and technology education programs offered in a comparable Chinese postsecondary institution. The study sought to find positive transferable characteristics of the career and technical education programs in each country, which could be shared by similar institutions in China and the US.

Under the impact of globalization, international cooperation and collaboration between institutions and programs becomes more and more important, particularly considering there are many shared problems and thus the potential for shared solutions. This research offers insights and information …

Connecting The Dots: Director Qualifications, Instructional Leadership Practices, And Learning Environments In Early Childhood Programs, Mccormick Center For Early Childhood Leadership

McCormick Center for Early Childhood Leadership Publications

It has long been assumed that directors are a linchpin to high-quality early care and education programs. However, research investigating the influence of director qualifications on instructional leadership practices and the quality of classroom learning environments is sparse. The research that has been conducted, however, supports conventional wisdom that better educated directors provide teachers with supervision that enables more effective classroom teaching.1 The purpose of the current study was to explore different aspects of directors’ qualifications to determine how they relate to the quality of instructional leadership practices and the quality of the learning environment in center-based early childhood programs.

Libr 200 Summer 2010, Rob Morrison

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Culturally Relevant Information Literacy, Rob Morrison

Faculty Publications

This paper is a qualitative case study of the role of culture in the information-seeking process. This study revealed that culture does affect how we locate, evaluate and value information and thus specific kinds of knowledge. Librarians and educators must engage in discussions on “Critical Information Literacy” where information is tied to knowledge creation that does not limit learners to a specific cultural worldview. Information and information-seeking processes cannot be separated from knowledge production

Deans Of Career And Technical Education: Charting The Course To Senior Administration, Shelley Zarovsky Levin

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to explore the essential leadership practices, abilities, and experiences of Deans of Career and Technical Education (CTE) and to consider how these Deans of CTE fit into the succession process of the community college. A qualitative case study was conducted with three dyads of career Deans and their supervising senior administrators, using the comparative case method to analyze the data collected from the participants.

The data were collected from in-person participant interviews on their respective campuses. One Dean of CTE and the supervising senior administrator were at a rural college; one dyad was at …

Essential Personal Attributes, Skills And Abilities Needed By Aspiring Community College Presidents, Jeffery Steven Boyd

Dissertations

The community college presidency is in critical state of evolution. Boggs (2003) stated that the rate of presidential retirements appears to be on the rise, with 79% of presidents planning to retire by 2012. Weisman and Vaughn (2007) in a 2006 survey found the number of presidents planning to retire within ten years is 84%. The most likely candidates to fill these presidential vacancies are the senior administrators. This presents a challenge because the senior administrators are at the same age as the retiring presidents and they too are preparing for retirement.

The previous generations of community college presidents, the …

Community College Succession Planning: Preparing The Next Generation Of Women For Leadership Roles, Angela Kaysen Luzbetak

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to explore strategies to enable community colleges to develop and cultivate women for leadership roles through succession planning. According to the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC), the pace of administrative and other key staff retirements exceeds the pace at which these positions are being re-staffed (Shults, 2001). One might question why the purposeful development of future community college leaders is critical. Community colleges currently face a crucial leadership crisis in the United States. Pending retirements and the lack of succession planning to fill upcoming vacancies is reaching a critical turning point. The Chronicle …

Bridging The Gap: Linking Co-Curricular Activities To Student Learning Outcomes In Community College Students, Katie Lauren Storey

Dissertations

This study investigated the extent to which participation in co-curricular events enhances the achievement of student-learning outcomes in community college students. One community college in Illinois—Chicago Metropolitan Area Community College (CMACC), a pseudonym—was selected to research based on its robust co-curricular activity programming. A concurrent nested mixed methodology (Plano Clark & Creswell, 2007) was used, nesting quantitative data within qualitative data.

To generate quantitative data, a student survey was distributed to 128 students involved with co-curricular activities at CMACC. Participating students were asked to identify their involvement with co-curricular programming and how this participation correlated with the institution’s general education …

Librarianship In The 21st Century: Lessons In Leadership, Rob Morrison, Jack Fritts

Faculty Publications

Many of the challenges librarians face in the 21st century have existed for years and reflect the nature of higher education and society in the United States. One issue the presenters have observed is that librarians, like many educators, react to rapidly changing systems, pressures, economics, and technologies by “balancing” workloads and budgets and not by deeply reflecting on how to change strategies in order to integrate themselves more fully into academic curricula, prove the library’s value to administrators, and develop meaningful services and resources.

In order to thrive and survive, librarians must be proactive at their institutions in areas …

A Window On Early Childhood Administrative Practices, Mccormick Center For Early Childhood Leadership

McCormick Center for Early Childhood Leadership Publications

There is strong consensus among early childhood professionals that sound administrative practices in center-based programs help ensure high-quality learning opportunities for young children. Since its publication in 2004, the Program Administration Scale (PAS) has been used across the country to reliably measure and improve center-based leadership and management practices.1 Data from these initiatives have been compiled to provide a window into the administrative practices of a large, national sample of center-based programs.

Improving Services For Students With Disabilities At Community Colleges, Michael William Duggan

Dissertations

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to discover ways in which community college faculty and administrators can better facilitate learning for students with disabilities. Semi-structured interviews, preinterview questionnaires, and a review of relevant documents were used to gain an understanding of how community college faculty perceive the challenges of teaching students with disabilities. Additional research goals included an exploration of strategies community college faculty have found effective in assisting students with disabilities to be successful, actions community college administrators have taken that effectively address issues related to success for students with disabilities, and approaches community college administrators use …

Multiple Roles: The Conflicted Realities Of Community College Mission Statements, Mark David Mrozinski

Dissertations

Questions of efficacy have always plagued the use of mission statement as a strategic planning tool. In most planning models, the mission statement serves to clarify goals and guide the formation of strategies. However, little empirical evidence exists validating that mission statements actually improve the performance of organizations, even though regional accrediting commissions in higher education include mission statement and affiliated processes as criterion for accreditation. For community colleges, the question is how can mission statements best be used to move the institution forward in a climate of change and challenges?

The purpose of this study is to explore the …

Libr 200 Winter 2010, Rob Morrison

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Imagining A Better World: Service-Learning As Benefit To Teacher Education, Virginia M. Jagla, Antonina Lukenchuk, Todd A. Price Dr.

Faculty Publications

This study intends to broaden the conception of service-learning and to expand on its models, epistemological positions, and exemplars. Our intentions are to develop a substantive analysis of service-learning in its current theoretical development and to diversify service-learning pedagogical repertoire for teacher education candidates in graduate education programs. As university faculty, who embed service-learning components in various education courses, we are concerned with the manner in which higher education institutions manage their practices—primarily according to narrowly conceived technical and prescriptive models, thereby restricting multiple ways of knowing, teaching and learning. We demonstrate how service-learning can develop new forms of knowledge …

Veterans Education: Coming Home To The Community College Classroom, Karen Rae Persky

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to identify the needs of veterans who are community college students and to examine community college programs and services essential to meeting their needs. A qualitative case study design using interviews, observations, field notes, document reviews, a focus group, and a preinterview demographic questionnaire provides a holistic account of the community college experience for veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars. This research study gives a voice to veterans who are community college students, and provides community colleges with insights that may enable them to improve their services for this population.

Five major themes …