Education Commons^™

The Development And Validation Of The Teacher Dispositions Index, Laura Schulte, Nancy Edick, Sarah Edwards, Debora Mackiel

Essays in Education

The purposes of this study were to develop and validate a quantitative instrument (Teacher Dispositions Index (TDI)) that measures the dispositions of effective teachers as specified by the Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (1991). To provide evidence of the TDI’s reliability and validity, we distributed the TDI to 105 undergraduate students enrolled in an instructional systems course in a College of Education at a Midwestern metropolitan university. The TDI could be used to assess teacher candidate dispositions over the course of pre-service preparation and to help candidates determine if teaching is an appropriate professional fit.

School Financial Equity Litigation: Black Hole Of Civil Rights, Michael W. Simpson

Essays in Education

This paper uses the sociology of the case and the legal sociology of Donald Black to examine the litigation over public school financing inequality. Initial examination is made of the United States Supreme Court decision in San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez and the Oklahoma Supreme Court decision in Fair School Finance Council of Oklahoma v. State of Oklahoma from a technical legal core perspective and a critical lens. Other cases are discussed along with other information to allow the reader a “big picture” of the issues and policies involved in the intersection of race, wealth, law, education, and …

The Dilemmas Of African-American Men From Historically Black Colleges And Universities In Completing Doctoral Degrees From Predominately White Institutions, Jeffrey Shears, Chance Lewis, Rich Furman

Essays in Education

This paper examines the experiences of two African-American men in their pursuit of doctoral degrees from predominantly white institutions. It presents an overview of other studies that discuss the unique challenges experienced by African American students enrolled in undergraduate and graduate programs at these institutions. It also includes a case study that describes the struggles and difficulties of these two men, who completed their undergraduate degrees from two separate Historically Black Colleges and Universities, and completed their Ph.D. programs in separate Predominately White Institutions (PWI’s). The authors share their thoughts on the factors they felt were instrumental to their success, …

How Will No Child Left Behind Improve Student Achievement? The Necessity Of Classroom-Based Research In Accountability Reform., Stephanie W. Cawthon

Essays in Education

No Child Left Behind (2001) legislation emphasizes the use of large-scale assessments in evaluating student proficiency in core academic areas. Classroom-based measures of proficiency, such as research projects, classroom assessments, and homework assignments, also provide rich data regarding students’ academic progress. This article articulates three areas where classroom-based measures can complement the large-scale assessment data used in NCLB reports of school, district and state progress: 1) Alignment of curriculum to state standards, 2) Assessment of student achievement, and 3) Identifying strategies for teaching in a diverse classroom. Making links between classroom instruction, student work, and large-scale assessment will be critical …

A Proposed Voucher System For The Higher Education Of Hong Kong, Bryan Cheung

Essays in Education

A voucher system, named financial-rebalance funding system, has been proposed to be adopted for higher education in Hong Kong in 2002. Education voucher has been proposed by Friedman as early as 1955, and reaffirmed by Gary Becker in 2002. Although, education voucher system has attracted much discussion and debate worldwide since its introduction, most of the discussion and debate are for primary and secondary education. Moreover, very little research has been undertaken on the opinions and attitudes of stakeholders from the supply-side and demand-side. Without input from these stakeholders, a funding mechanism might not function as what it is supposed …

The History Of Desegregation And The Theory Of Student Choice, Sandra K. Woodley, Victoria L. Figiel

Essays in Education

Diversity of the student population is legislated and affects recruitment strategies at colleges and university. There is much legal history bringing administrators to the current position. Blending the history of desegregation and the resultant legal situation with the Theory of Student Choice is important to ensure enrollment targets are met. Student choice factors are instrumental in determining which college a student will attend. Understanding which factors influence white students to attend HBCUs, and black students to attend TWIs, is important for administrators and will help them ensure desegregation structural diversity mandates are met. This paper reviews the legal history and …

Technological Inequality In Education, Matthew Kleiman, Joan Rudel Weinreich

Essays in Education

This paper investigates the technological divide: that gulf that develops between rich and poor school-age children, and how they gain access to and utilize either effectively or not the wealth of information technology promises to provide. Inequality of educational opportunity has existed since the very first schools in the United States, when men like Horace Mann tried to level the information playing field with the common school and common library.

Enhancing Intrinsic Motivation Through The Use Of A Token Economy, Gess Leblanc

Essays in Education

This work will examine the link between intrinsic motivation and external rewards by describing the experiences of twenty-seven academically under-performing adolescents who were enrolled in an after school program in a New York City public junior high school that implemented a token economy. The goals of the implemented token economy were to establish an objective measure of student competence, to enhance student perceptions of their autonomy, and to establish links between their classroom-based learning and its practical “real world” applications. It is argued that by achieving these goals, the token economy serves as a tool for enhancing levels of self-efficacy …

Defining The Effective Teacher: Current Arguments In Education, Tim Markley

Essays in Education

The high-pressure educational world of today demands accountability of its practitioners. Legislators are reluctant to increase educational funding without exacting a corresponding increase in accountability. This increase in accountability means that educational leaders must be able to assess and identify quality teachers. To assist in this, educators need to review the current state of evaluation practices. This article provides a review of the history of teacher evaluation and a discussion of emerging trends in teacher evaluation

School Psychologists Walking The Talk In Authentic Teacher Preparation Programs, Mindy Sloan

Essays in Education

Knowledge and skills bases once confined to school psychologists are now considered critical to the functioning of effective teachers (CEC, 2003, NCATE, 2003, Wilson, S. M., Floden, R. E., & Ferrini-Mundy, 2001). This paper uses three assumptions to argue for the inclusion of doctoral level school psychologists in teacher preparation programs. The first assumption acknowledges school psychology’s tradition of consultation with teachers (Bardon, 1990, Brown & Pryzwansky, 2002, Conoley & Conoley, 1992). Second, interdisciplinary teamwork is critical to effective educational planning (National Association of School Psychologists, 2003a, 2003b). Rather than merely informing future teachers that they will collaborate with other …

Assessing Conceptual Orientations In Teacher Education Programs, Louis Volante, Lorna Earl

Essays in Education

A well-defined conceptual framework helps identify a program’s central tasks, such as helping teachers become intellectual leaders, promoting the primacy of experience and/or developing a progressive social vision in teachers. This type of conceptual clarity provides guidance to teacher educators in program development and evaluation by identifying issues or tasks that specific programs should address (Feiman-Nemser, 1990).

Conceptual orientations research has typically relied on the analyses of course syllabi to infer a program’s emphases. The degree to which a program fosters knowledge acquisition in a particular area may or may not conform to these course/program descriptions. Direct data gathered from …

Writing Is Power: Critical Thinking, Creative Writing, And Portfolio Assessment, Diane Bekurs, Susan Santoli

Essays in Education

Portfolios can serve a critical role in helping students focus on expanding their minds through reading and discussion, clarifying their own thinking through writing, and broadening student’s creative horizons. Additionally, portfolio assessment allows the flexibility to monitor individual student progress while meeting community, state, and national standards.

Defining Excellence In Graduate Studies, Laurie Carlson Berg, Linda Sabatini

Essays in Education

This article provides an analysis of definitions of excellence in graduate study provided by Master’s degree and doctoral candidates, identified by their department as “excellent,” and by chairs of graduate programs (n = 43) at two western Canadian universities. Faculty members’ definitions tended to focus primarily on external markers of success rather than on personal characteristics of graduate students. Both graduate faculty respondents (n = 20) and graduate student interview participants (n = 23) mentioned the importance of visibility in the department and the community. The graduate student participants made infrequent mention of external indicators, such as grades and ability …

Why School Culture Both Attracts And Resists Whole School Reform Models, Bobbie J. Greenlee, Darlene Y. Bruner

Essays in Education

This paper uses the metaphor of "grafting" to describe the relationship of comprehensive school reform designs to the work culture of schools. One school reform model that has widespread implementation is the Success for All (SFA) reading program. The new practice provided in the SFA reading program offered a compatible "graft" onto the existing culture found in low achieving schools. The grafting on of a new program can only occur as long as its requirements do not stray from the existing traditions of the system. Schools adopt reform programs that offer procedural or curricular changes that fit within their existing …

Highly Qualified For Successful Teaching: Characteristics Every Teacher Should Possess, Susan Thompson, John G. Greer, Bonnie B. Greer

Essays in Education

This article examines the reflections of university students regarding the characteristics of their favorite teachers from whom they were able to learn. Data collected from the students indicates that there are twelve common characteristics that emerged as central to what students conceptualize as good teaching. Those twelve characteristics connect to the theme of caring for students, both academically and personally and strengthen recent indicators for “highly qualified” teachers. In reviewing effective teacher research, there is a strong link between what students characterize as good teaching and what the research reports as the traits of effective teachers. Awareness of these traits …

Power, Prestige, And Wealth: Indiana’S 1998 Award-Winning School Districts, Loretta Flanagan Li, Dale Banks

Essays in Education

This research examines relationships between the Blue Ribbon school awards of 1998-1999 in Indiana and their per pupil expenditure, their local monetary sources, and their self-reports evidencing power, prestige, and wealth. An earlier study of 1994-1996 middle and high schools in Indiana found that total local funds were significantly greater in Blue Ribbon school districts than in non-Blue Ribbon school districts. Part of the conclusion suggested a follow up study of subsequent years. The ensuing report seeks to determine if school districts chosen for Blue Ribbon awards in 1998-1999 had greater local sources, or greater total expenditures per pupil, than …

Using Portfolios Effectively In Tenth Grade English Classrooms, Jerry Odell Chappell, Jennifer Borek

Essays in Education

This action research project explores ways in which portfolios can be used in an English classroom. Students created portfolios by choosing which works were included in the final product. Students improved their organization, showed greater use of voice and style, gained confidence as writers, and acquired some important editing and evaluation tools. The survey shows that most of the students feel that portfolios are worth the time and effort, they allow the teacher to see what the students have accomplished as writers and artists, and that portfolios are an accurate form of alternative assessment.

The Teacher As Taoist, Daniel W. Doerger

Essays in Education

Eastern philosophies addressing education (including Taoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism) focus on virtue and wisdom instead of wealth, prominence, and status. Because of this, these philosophies align well with many of the contemporary ideas related to humanistic ideals, holistic views, inter-disciplinary instruction, and constructivist education. Of the eightyone chapters in the Tao, this essay focuses on eleven that not only give an overall impression of the Tao’s philosophy but also show how it best relates to contemporary educational issues. The chapters of the Tao are first discussed as they directly relate to Taoism, then they are specifically connected to the field …

Using Comprehensive Needs Assessment To Improve Student Achievement, Cathy Stockton, David Gullatt, Dawn Basinger

Essays in Education

This article focuses on the use of a comprehensive needs assessment to improve student achievement. Higher education institutions and P-12 schools should use a comprehensive needs assessment to aid them in improving their students’ achievement in this era of redesign and reform. The authors use their experience as school administrators, college professors, and district assistant team members to explain the needs assessment process.

Efficacy Of Teaching Electrocardiography Over A Full-Semester Versus During A Short, Intensive Session, Christopher Dewitt

Essays in Education

At the University of South Carolina Aiken (USCA) each Exercise and Sports Science (ESS) student is required to take our fundamental Electrocardiography (EKG) course. Electrocardiography follows Human Physiology and is a prerequisite course to Exercise Testing in the ESS course sequence.

At USCA, this course is offered during Spring semester and during Maymester. During Spring semester, EKG is taught for four months, three days per week, 50 minutes per session. The course ends in the middle of May. During Maymester, the course is taught for 2.5 weeks, five days per week, 3.5 hours per session. Maymester ends at the end …

Classroom Management Students Observing Student Teachers: A Win-Win Combination, Donna R. Sanderson

Essays in Education

Classroom management has long been a grave concern for pre-service teachers. This study explores a unique teaching assignment designed to enhance the learning opportunities of pre-service education students in two distinct ways. By one, bridging the reality-based world of the elementary classroom with the world of the pre-service teacher educator and two, by providing a glimpse into the mystique of the student teaching semester, pre-service educators confirmed that this observational assignment helped to prepare them to be future teachers on multiple levels. Twenty-seven pre-service elementary education students enrolled in a senior level, classroom management course participated in a field-based observational …

Being Black In U.S. Urban Schools: No Assumptions, Lavada Taylor Brandon, Mary J. Didelot

Essays in Education

To be an African-American student attending a school dominated by working class, urban, minority learners means failure. Working class African-American students are not experiencing education, they are colliding with education. These collisions will continue as long as they are facilitated by the assumptive dominant theories regarding African- American students’ educational experiences. One strategy to constructively disrupt these assumptive theoretical notions buried within current theory is to look to a working class, urban African-American student’s qualitative longitudinal formation of identity as she progresses from student to teacher within the learning process as categorized by Bateson (1972). The understanding gleaned from this …

Teachers Integrating Technology: Case Studies, Dawn Basinger

Essays in Education

To understand better the process by which P-12 teachers come to integrate technology into their instructional practices, the researcher undertook a yearlong investigation into technology use at two different school sites in northern Louisiana. Teachers’ stages of concern about technology, levels of technology use, perceptions about coursework impact on technology use and integration, and practices and perceptions about teaching and learning with technology were analyzed. Although all teachers perceived the coursework to be effective in facilitating their utilization and integration of technology, they perceived no single best way to integrate technology. Each teacher identified, designed and developed, and implemented his …

The Mechanics Of Microeconomic Choice: A School Option Perspective, Ikwukananne I. Udechukwu

Essays in Education

The development of this paper describes uniquely the mechanics of choice in the delivery of education services relative to the public school system and school options. Three components, which magnify choice, are consumer (parents), market (pupils), and producer (government). Macbeth (1989) notes that there are four groups of people who benefit from the education system, namely: (1) the pupil (children) (2) the parent (3) the owners of a school (government) and (4) society at large. The first three beneficiaries of the education system are appropriately linked to the three components of choice as illustrated in the model and discussed in …

The Adoption Of A Voucher System In Government-Funded Universities: Perspectives Of Higher Education Students And Workers Of Hong Kong, Bryan Cheung

Essays in Education

Instead of a direct transfer of public funds from government to higher education institutes, a student-centred funding method termed education voucher system is used. The core idea of a voucher system is that the public funding for tuition is being driven by student choice. This change of path of funding has two significant effects, students now have choices and institutes now have to compete for students.

The survey results show that both supply- and demand-side agree that: a voucher system would give students more choice; achieve equal right of choice in education; unpopular programmes and unpopular institutes might be axed; …

The Textbook Controversies In Japan: What History Is Taught?, Aaron Cooley

Essays in Education

The controversies surrounding the content and perspective of several Japanese textbooks are examined and the impact on geo-political relations analyzed. The ways in which these battles affect perceptions of history are discussed in a regional and global context. Extrapolating from this example, a position of inclusiveness is advanced for the content of textbooks that address controversial historical issues in Japan and elsewhere.

Social Competence, Transition Plans And Children With Learning Disabilities, Erica Ruegg

Essays in Education

Social competence is the ability to use the appropriate social skills in every aspect of life. For children with learning disabilities, it is a difficult skill to master. These children have trouble with communicating, following directions, listening and completing a task, which can cause problems in the classroom and in adulthood. Yet, these skills are rarely addressed on the individual education and transition plans for these students. The purpose of this paper is to explore the characteristics of children who have learning disabilities and social competence deficits. The difficulties of social competence are examined through the definition of this skill, …

Maximizing The Student Teaching Experience: Cooperating Teachers Share Strategies For Success, Donna R. Sanderson

Essays in Education

This article critically examines the results of a survey completed by fifty-seven cooperating teachers from nine different school districts in the greater Philadelphia area. All of the cooperating teachers had welcomed elementary education student teachers into their classrooms. Strategies used to help alleviate student teachers’ fears and concerns related to their student teaching experience are shared and explored. Findings suggest that teachers use a multitude of strategies to calm their student teachers and set them up for a successful student teaching semester. Cooperating teachers detailed the tasks needed to be accomplished BEFORE the beginning of the student teaching semester to …

The Charter School As A Factory: This Is Reform?, Michael W. Simpson

Essays in Education

Charter schools have been pushed as a way to reform education. This article is my experience in one charter school. The structural freedom provided charter schools do not necessarily mean an improvement in education practices. Convention, tradition, and banking education may persist. Authoritarian administrative practices may continue and impede true reform which occurs at the classroom level by empowered, professional educators. Computers can assist in the persistence of convention, tradition, and banking education.

Because Writing Matters: Improving Student Writing In Our Schools, Timothy Lintner

Essays in Education

Because Writing Matters is a publication of the National Writing Project whose goal, for over 25 years, is to seek and promote ways in which schools can improve the art of writing. With over 175 affiliates in all 50 states, the NWP promotes the facilitation of proven methodologies in which student achievement, teacher innovation, and administrative support focus on the common objective of increasing student proficiency and confidence in writing.