Education Commons^™

Investigating Residual Impacts Of Teachers With Cancer, Jill Athena Netz-Fulkerson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study investigates the residual impacts of cancer on teachers. Much research is currently available on how to support students in the classroom who have cancer, but there is still a gap in research regarding the impact of teachers with cancer.

This research focuses specifically on three central questions: 1) What are the perceptions of practicing teachers who identify themselves as cancer patients with regard to their professional experiences? 2) What are the perceptions of the teachers about their school community when they are identified as cancer patients? And, 3) What are the perceptions of practicing teachers who identify themselves …

Captivating College Classrooms: Applications Of Aesthetic Themes For Higher Education, Amanda Lynne Smith

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study investigates the intentions and practices of aesthetically-minded college educators and their use of aesthetic themes (CRISPA) in the classroom. These topics were explored through interviewing and observing participants under the qualitative framework of educational connoisseurship and criticism. Three research questions guided this study: (a) What are the intentions of aesthetically-minded educators who purposefully utilize CRISPA in higher education? (b) How do the aesthetic themes (CRISPA) operationalize in college classrooms? And (c) what is the significance of the intentions and practices of aesthetically-minded educators for higher education and for education in general? The findings show that the intentions of …

Adair Instrumental Genesis Inventory: Measuring Instrumental Genesis For Interactive Whiteboard Technology—An Exploratory Sequential Mixed Methods Design, Mindy H. Adair

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The adoption of interactive whiteboard technology in the mathematics classroom has been reasonably explored in terms of effective use (Glover & Miller, 2009), student engagement (Morgan, 2008) and achievement (Lutz, 2010), pedagogy (G. Beauchamp & Kennewell, 2013), and learning environments (Yang, Wang, & Kao, 2012). However, there has been little research performed regarding how teachers actually become effective at orchestrating and managing the technology in the classroom in terms of their level of instrumental genesis attainment. In this study, I examined how a teacher develops instrumental genesis, the two-fold process involving instrumentation and instrumentalisation, with interactive whiteboard technology through an …

Professional Development And The Impact On Teacher Growth And Development, Sherry Kathleen Segura

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study involved examining the beliefs of teachers at one urban elementary school regarding how professional development has helped them meet the needs of culturally and linguistically diverse students. This study included a series of in-depth interviews with three teacher leaders. The goal was to obtain consent from them to participate in this study at their school. With a qualitative approach, this study included a narrative inquiry method to illuminate teachers' perceptions of whether professional development had a positive impact on their instruction. A series of in-depth one-on-one interviews further shed insight on which types of professional development teachers felt …

Living Divided No More: An Exploration Of Authenticity In Philosophically Inspired Schools, Melanie Reiser

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study explores school authenticity (SA) by conducting research at three philosophically inspired schools. The study investigates consciousness to identity, integrity to that identity, and ascertains characteristics of authenticity across settings through an investigation of the school's congruence between the philosophy and the school ecology. Two frameworks are utilized to explore school congruence. The first framework addresses establishment of identity--the school's attention to and congruence between the philosophy and their identified core educational principles. The second investigates integrity by exploring adherence to identity--in other words, the school's attention to and congruence between educational principles and the school ecology. I explore …

Veteran Teacher Engagement In Site-Based Professional Development: A Mixed Methods Study, Biaze L. Houston

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research study examined how teachers self-report their levels of engagement, which factors they believe contribute most to their engagement, and which assumptions of andragogy most heavily influence teacher engagement in site-based professional development. This study employed a convergent parallel mixed methods design to study veteran teachers' perceptions of engagement in site-based professional development using the assumptions of andragogy as the theoretical lens. The study began with both a quantitative and qualitative phase that was conducted simultaneously. The quantitative data was collected to assess teachers' reported engagement and factors influencing engagement in an ideal state. Descriptive statistics were used to …

Same Same But Different: The Self-Portraiture Of A Vietnam War Adoptee And The Poststructural Language Of Alterity, Joie Norby Lê

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the journey of a Vietnam War adoptee and the multitude of experiences that influenced her alterity. Through the development of a poststructuralist conceptual framework, the author reveals a philosophy of difference realized by philosophers such as Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, Jean-François Lyotard, and Jacques Derrida. Using the method of self-portraiture, the author illustrates how this philosophy of difference was shaped as a result of her experiences and how those experiences have informed her engagement or disengagement throughout her K-12 and post-secondary education, her work as a student, and her beliefs as an educator. The study focuses upon …

Middle School Noncognitive Development In A Sample Of Hispanic/Latino Youth, Jill E. Mcvey

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study examined the development of noncognitive skills in a sample of 4,769 Hispanic/Latino students as they went through middle school and the first year of high school using ACT Engage 6-9, an assessment designed to predict student outcomes by measuring students' behaviors and psychosocial attributes. The scales of Academic Discipline, Relationships with School Personnel, and Thinking before Acting were examined longitudinally through HLM analysis. The factors of gender and several indices of academic achievement were used to predict differences in students' starting scores and growth over time.

All factors related to academic achievement were significantly related to differences in …