Education Commons^™

The Professional Learning Community Model Of Continuous School Improvement And The Effect On Job Satisfaction, Professional Collaboration, And Implementation Of Best Practices, Danielle Sullivan Tormala

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine whether a greater number of years of participation in the Professional Learning Communities Project positively impacts professional staff perceptions of job satisfaction, professional collaboration, and implementation of best practices as defined by the ¿Critical Issues for Team Consideration¿ (DuFour et al., 2006, pp. 100-101). A total of 223 participants completed the self-reporting survey out of a total 481 eligible teachers, school administrators and other staff members. Participants were divided into groups based on the number of years their respective schools had been involved in the PLC Project for a between-groups approach to …

Higher Education And The New Capitalism: Social Enterprise Partnerships And The Opportunity For Community Colleges, Rosanna S. Diaz

Dissertations

In the current economic climate, driven by their mission of open access, affordability, and a desire to help all of their constituent communities, community colleges are under increasing pressure to service a rapidly expanding and increasingly diverse group of students with fewer and fewer resources. Declining budgets and a burgeoning enrollment spurred by the recent economic downturn have forced community colleges to become more entrepreneurial in the ways that they develop new programs and find alternative revenue streams. (Wiers, 2007; Dingfelder, 2007).

A critical concern for community colleges is that the business paradigm that fuels the increasing pressure to produce …