Education Commons^™

Cycle Of Renewal: Yoga’S Influence On The Professional Lives Of Novice Teachers, Danette V. Day

Doctoral Dissertations

Teachers must acquire the appropriate knowledge, skills and dispositions to effectively meet the demands and challenges of the teaching profession (Darling-Hammond, 2006, 2010; Shulman, 2000). There is considerable research about how someone perceives they can perform effectively as a teacher, and what constitutes effective teaching (Bandura, 1995, 1997; Ashton & Webb, 1986). Research suggests that novice teachers feel unprepared, unsupported and ineffective; and 50% of novice teachers leave the profession within the first few years of teaching (Levine, 2006; Kaufman, et al., 2002; Kelley, 2004; Maciejewski, 2007) This study examined the question, “To what extent do novice teachers’ experiences and …

Supporting The Persuasive Writing Practices Of English Language Learners Through Culturally Responsive Systemic Functional Pedagogy, Joshua Mark Schulze

Open Access Dissertations

The purpose of this dissertation is to explore the potential of Systemic Functional Linguistic (SFL) pedagogy to support English language learners (ELLs) in enhancing their meaning making potential as they engage in persuasive writing practices within academic contexts. The dissertation results from a teacher action research project in which the teacher researcher (the author) constructed qualitative case studies focusing on the teaching practice of a veteran ESL teacher (the researcher) and the persuasive writing practices of three middle school beginning level ELLs. Through data analysis methods drawing on SFL and intertextuality, the study illuminates connections between the SFL based teaching …

Systems Of Accountability As A Technology Of Governmentality: Policy, Preparation, And Inclusive Practice, Denise Lavoie Lafrance

Open Access Dissertations

Neoliberal ideology frames the discourse of the current political rhetoric of education as an economic investment in the preparation of students to compete in a global economy. These discourses that emanate from policymakers shape the construct of schooling and control the trajectory of education in the US. As education policy becomes centralized, accountability systems are assumed to be the driver of positive educational outcomes and higher student achievement; however, the impact of these systems of accountability shape teaching practice and may be pushing students with disabilities out of the competition and violating their right to access and participate in general …

Circles And Lines: Complexities Of Learning In Community, Sara Lynne Schupack

Open Access Dissertations

Following is a study that explores learning in community in a fully-integrated, team taught course at a community college in New England. These classes, Learning Communities (LCs) represent rich opportunities for exploring and practicing democratic education. From a theoretical grounding in social learning theories and an exploration into learning and community as active, ongoing phenomena, I present narrative, relational research as enactment. Data from field notes, interviews, focus groups and researcher reflections inform findings and analysis. I represent this as an experience parallel to -- not claiming either to mirror or replace -- the experiences of the other participants. In …

Racialized Spaces In Teacher Discourse: A Critical Discourse Analysis Of Place-Based Identities In Roche Bois, Mauritius, Elsa Marie Wiehe

Open Access Dissertations

This eleven-month ethnographic study puts critical discourse analysis in dialogue with postmodern conceptualizations of space and place to explore how eight educators talk about space and in the process, produce racialized spaces in Roche Bois, Mauritius. The macro-historical context of racialization of this urban marginalized community informs the discursive analysis of educators' talk at school. Drawing on theories of race that call for the non-deterministic exploration of race relations as they occur in different contexts and times (Hall, 2000; Pandian & Kosek, 2003; Essed & Goldberg, 2000), I explore the spatial racialization of children in Roche Bois as a process …

Production Of Third Spaces For Immigrant English Language Learners: (Re)Negotiating Identity And Discourse In The Secondary Classroom, Andrew W. Habana Hafner

Open Access Dissertations

This study explores theoretical and pedagogical implications of space, language, and power in renegotiating identity for immigrant English Language Learners (ELLs) in secondary schools in the United States. The primary research question explored in the study is: How does spoken and written language and discourse shape the production of third spaces for renegotiating immigrant student identity in the ELL writing classroom? I adopt an epistemological lens of space from a postmodern geographic perspective that contends that space is socially produced and is co-constituted by material, abstract and lived spaces. The theoretical framework draws on constructs of social space, space-time, and …

It's Nothing Personal: Competing Discourses For Girls And Women In Mathematics, Shannon Dawn Bryant

Open Access Dissertations

This dissertation used a post-structural feminist theoretical lens to examine women’s under-representation in mathematics graduate programs and careers. Five dominant discourses that potentially influence women’s decision to enter mathematical careers were discussed, including how those discourses interact in competing and complementary ways to shape women’s and men’s ideas about the nature of mathematics. The study investigated the long-term impact of a single-sex reform-based summer mathematics program on high school girls. The study utilized a variety of data collection techniques including surveys, field observations, phenomenological interviews, and artifact collection. Nine participants who were enrolled in a summer mathematics program for high …

The Voice Of Elementary School Principals On School Climate, Suzanne Elayne Scallion

Open Access Dissertations

School climate has been described as "the set of internal characteristics that distinguish one school from another and influence the behaviors of each school's members" (Hoy, Smith & Sweetland, 2005). In the landmark study by Brookover, Schneider, Beady, Flood and Wisebaker (1978), school climate was found to be a more significant factor in student achievement than the variables of race and socioeconomic status. Principals need training in the phenomena of school climate and to develop the skills needed to alter it as needed for the benefit of students. This phenomenological study explored the conceptual understanding of school climate by experienced …

The Tactical Games Model Sport Experience: An Examination Of Student Motivation And Game Performance During An Ultimate Frisbee Unit, Eric John Carpenter

Open Access Dissertations

Students benefit from positive sport experiences in physical education. If designed well, sport provides a social avenue for physical activity and strengthens student achievement in psychomotor (e.g., motor skill), cognitive (e.g., decision-making), and affective (e.g., personal and social responsibility) learning domains. Unfortunately, not all students receive quality sport instruction and many students fail to have positive sport experiences in physical education. The Tactical Games Model (TGM, Griffin, Mitchell, & Oslin, 1997) is an instructional model focused on improving student sport experiences. As a constructivist approach to teaching and learning sport, TGM reshapes sport lessons to allow students to experience small-sided …

International Study Tours And The Development Of Sociocultural Consciousness In K-12 Teachers, Raymond Yu-Kuang Young

Open Access Dissertations

This research study examined the long-term effects of a professional development study tour to Southeast Asia that took place in 2001. Participants included ten public school teachers from Western Massachusetts, which has a significant population of people of Vietnamese and Cambodian descent. Funded by a Fulbright-Hays Group Projects Abroad grant, the purpose of the study tour was to increase teacher awareness, knowledge and understanding of contemporary Southeast Asia so that they could more effectively address the educational needs of students representing diverse cultural backgrounds, particularly immigrant and refugee youth, through the development of culturally relevant curricula and lesson plans. From …

An Examination Of Teacher-Student Trust In Middle School Classrooms, Virginia Louise Durnford

Open Access Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to explore: (a)how and to what extent teachers experience and express trust in relation to individual students and groups of students (b)how and to what extent teachers value and focus on specific attributes of trust over others and (c) how and to what extent the levels of teacher trust in students and the various attributes of trust impact the teachers’ behaviors and choices in the classroom. Data were collected from teacher interviews, teacher questionnaires, classroom and school artifacts, and descriptive field notes from observations. Data were analyzed using content analysis and open, axial, and …

Engaging Students In Mathematics Conversations: Discourse Practices And The Development Of Social And Socialmathematical Norms In Three Novice Teachers' Classrooms, Mary T. Grassetti

Open Access Dissertations

Research on learning to teach mathematics reveals that mathematics teaching is a complex process (Lerman, 2000) and classroom teaching and learning is a “multifaceted, extraordinarily complex phenomenon” (O’Connor, 1998, p. 43). Moreover, research reveals that the mathematics reform agenda has had an impact on what happens in the mathematics classroom, however, the impact has been superficial (Kazemi & Stipek, 2001) with teachers often retaining their pre-reform habits and attitudes in regards to mathematics teaching and learning (O’Connor, 1998). This study examined the reform discourse practices that three novice teachers, who had been enrolled in a reform based methods course during …

Teaching For Social Justice With Standards-Based Secondary English Language Arts Curriculum, Alison George Dover

Doctoral Dissertations 1896 - February 2014

Teaching for social justice is the attempt by classroom teachers to use their position in the classroom to promote social and educational reform within and despite current educational conditions and mandates. However, while a growing number of K-12 teachers have published anecdotal reports of their attempts to teach for social justice in secondary classrooms (e.g., Bender-Slack, 2007; Christensen, 2000; Singer, 2005), there is great variability among these accounts, and scant evaluation of their impact on specific academic, behavioral/motivational, and attitudinal outcomes (see Grant & Agosto, 2008; Kelly & Brandes, 2008; Poplin & Rivera, 2005).

This qualitative study addresses this research …

A Study Of Pre-Service Teachers: Is It Really Mathematics Anxiety?, Marsha Marie Guillory Bryant

Open Access Dissertations

This research study was motivated by a hypothesis, generated on the basis of formal and informal observations, personal and professional experiences, discussions with prospective teachers and a pilot study conducted by this author; that pre-service teachers have a high level of mathematics anxiety and negative attitudes about mathematics. The primary purpose of this research was to examine the relationship between mathematics anxiety and pre-service teachers. The secondary purposes of this study were to examine the relationship between anxiety and performance and to examine the relationship between math anxiety, test anxiety, and stereotype threat. A quantitative experimental research design was used …

Teacher Change Facilitated By Sustained School Situated Professional Development: Exemplar Learning Of Technology Enhanced Formative Assessment (Tefa), Karen St. Cyr

Doctoral Dissertations 1896 - February 2014

This case study instantiates longitudinal change over a two year period by examining the role of School Situated Sustained Professional Development (SSSPD) on the evolution of the participant's practice. The participant was a secondary science teacher who emerged as an exemplar in integrating Technology Enhanced Formative Assessment (TEFA) pedagogy into her practice, which was facilitated by personal response systems (PRS). The research question was: What could be revealed about the impact of SSSPD by studying teacher learning of a teacher who emerged as an exemplar? The participant was one of ten teachers learning the TEFA pedagogy. Professional development (PD) that …