Education Commons^™

Discussion In Middle And High School Earth Science Classrooms And Its Impact On Students' Abilities To Construct Evidence-Based Arguments In Their Written Work, Rachel Martin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Middle and high school teachers who participate in the Maine Physical Sciences Partnership (MainePSP) noted persistent problems in their classrooms, including low levels of student engagement and gaps in how students use evidence. To address these problems, this study was designed in collaboration with MainePSP teachers in a design-based implementation research process as teachers aimed to better connect classroom discussion and written argumentation. Though scientific writing makes use of argumentation to support ideas, it is often the sharing of ideas that makes an argument stronger.

Two teachers collected data from their seventh and ninth grade Earth Science classrooms at schools …

Ireach Blended Learning Model And Reading Lexile Growth Of Freshmen In Maryville City Schools, Whitney Ann Schmidt

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Maryville City School system has implemented the first year of the iReach blended learning model for which all students in the school district have access to either a laptop or an iPad to support their learning every day. The availability of research on the impact of iReach is limited because the blended learning instructional model is relatively new and has not yet been subjected to numerous research studies. The purpose of this ex post facto quasi-experimental quantitative study was to compare student reading Lexile growth data collected through the use of the Reading Comprehension Assessment before and after iReach …

Online Education: The Relationship Between The Perceptions Of Online High School Teachers Compared To Traditional Classroom Teachers Regarding The Visual Arts, Karen A. Fine

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The incorporation of the arts as an academic subject in the high school distance education delivery method is being reinvented as something new. Most of the current research is focused on college courses. Online high school curricula are most often placed in research studies as an afterthought. Perceptions of faculty members from high schools with traditional instructional delivery models as well as public online schools concerning online education as it relates to the arts in 5 different areas was the focus of this research; mentor, delivery method, satisfaction, student learning, and curriculum. Examining the perceptions of teachers gives a blueprint …

The Reading Intervention Program Making Connections Intervention And Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program Scores In One East Tennessee School District, Jami H. Corwin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the relationship between the reading intervention program Making Connections Intervention (MCI) and pre-intervention and post- intervention Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program (TCAP) reading scaled scores in one East Tennessee school district. Participants included 99 Tennessee students in grade levels six through nine who received reading intervention instruction through MCI and were frequently monitored following the requirements stipulated in the Tennessee Response to Instruction and Intervention (RTI2) Framework. This study assessed pre- and post-intervention data specific to gender, special education classification, Title I classification, and instructor classification through a series of t-tests. Findings …

High School Teachers’ Perceived Self-Efficacy In Teaching Literacy Across The Curriculum In Tennessee First Core Region 1 High Schools, Ashley N. Keys

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

At the high school level teachers are often departmentalized by their content area and do not teach subjects outside of their specialties. Common Core State Standards (CCSS) introduced literacy standards across the curriculum requiring reading and writing instruction in all courses. The adoption not only affected traditional literacy teachers but also science, math, social studies, and career and technical education teachers who may have had little or no training or experience in teaching literacy to adolescents. These teachers, because of little training or experience in teaching literacy, may feel unprepared for the CCSS literacy shifts or inadequate in delivering literacy …

Inconsistent Conceptions Of Acceleration Contributing To Formative Assessment Limitations, Gregory D. Kranich

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education has become a national priority in light of measures indicating marginal student interest and success in the United States. Just as evidence is integral to policy decisions, so too do teachers depend on evidence to inform instructional choices. Classroom assessment remains a touchstone means of gathering such evidence as indicators of students’ progress, and increasingly, teachers are designing, implementing, and interpreting assessments in collaboration with one another.

In rural Maine, the work of the Maine Physical Sciences Partnership (MainePSP) has enabled science educators to come together as a supportive professional community. We focused …

Understanding Through Narrative Inquiry : Storying A National Writing Project Initiative., Amy Renee Vujaklija

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This narrative inquiry study informed the understanding of a professional development planning process within the National Writing Project Assignments Matter initiative sponsored by the Literacy Design Collaborative. Because little has been written about teacher-leaders in the roles of planning professional development for colleagues, this narrative inquiry used the three dimensions of situation, continuity, and interaction (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000; Dewey, 1938) to explore interviews, large and small group meeting recordings, and email communications among leadership team members during an initiative to plan professional development. Qualitative data analysis included coding of attributes, process, in vivo, and patterns (Saldaña, 2013). Pattern coding …

The Source And Impact Of Student Engagement For Black Students In An Urban High School, Deshawn Sims

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The achievement of Black students has repeatedly met only the lowest standards of performance on standardized assessments, which begs the question; do American schools have the capacity to educate Black children? The purpose of this action research manuscript dissertation was to explore the teacher behaviors and instructional strategies that developed a culture of high achievement among Black students as measured by student engagement and discourse, immediately before and after desegregation, and in classrooms today. The examination of popular theories concerning the education of Black people in the early 1900's and narratives of individuals who attended segregated schools, provided a historical …

Applying The Technology Acceptance Model To Predict And Explain Elementary And Secondary Preservice Teachers' Continuance Behavioral Intentions And Pedagogical Usage Of Twitter To Build Professional Capital: A Structural Equation Modeling Inquiry, Nandita Gurjar

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research study was to predict and explain elementary and secondary preservice teachers' continuance behavioral intentions and pedagogical usage of Twitter, a web based social networking, microblogging platform, to build professional growth and capital. The objective of the research study was to examine preservice teachers' beliefs associated with the specified constructs that formed the latent variables of the hypothesized research model; these latent variables were then measured with their associated indicators or manifest variables, and the relationship between the manifest variables was examined through the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) process. A non-experimental empirical research study was conducted …