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A Mixed Methods Approach To Exploring Relationships Among Professional Preparation, Professional Development, And The Implementation Of Sex Education In Mississippi, Joyee Washington

Dissertations

The state of Mississippi has led the nation in high rates of teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases among adolescents, despite mandating sex education in public schools for over a decade (SIECUS, 2011; SIECUS, 2016; SIECUS, 2017). Although studies conducted among Mississippi sex educators in the K-12 setting have shown that teachers receive very little to no professional development and desire more training, there is little supporting evidence to understand the position of professional development relative to sex education implementation in the state (Kolbo, Werle, Ismail, Arrington, Harbaugh, & Esters, 2015; Arrington, Ismail, Werle, Esters, Frederick, Ellis, & Kolbo, 2018). …

The Influence Of Administrators On Literacy Instruction Through The Promotion And Selection Of Professional Development, Lucy K. Johnston-Josey

Dissertations

Literacy is a key component to success in school and in life. Literacy has been a focus of education since 1965 when President Jimmy Carter announced a “war on poverty.” Since then, history has shown that educators should place an emphasis on literacy within schools. Because literacy is so important, I set out to explore how administrators influence literacy through the promotion and selection of professional development.

Mississippi was chosen as a basis for the study because it falls below the nation in terms of literacy rates on the National Assessment for Educational Progress assessment. Nineteen participants from four school …

Virtual Communities Of Practice For Non-Native K-12 Spanish Educators As Professional Development, Javier Gerardo Gómez

Dissertations

Many world language and culture educators are non-native speakers of the language they teach. Although the current face-to-face professional development sessions do a good job in helping educators acquire technology tools to implement in their world language classrooms, professional development lacks in target language enrichment and providing ongoing collaboration among world language educators who are geographically dispersed. Additionally, the cost of attending state-wide, regional, and national world language professional development is very expensive and thus many world language educators cannot take part in these trainings. Consequently, many world language educators do not have the professional training they need to improve …

Comparing Professonal Development Practices Of Low Performing Public Schools And High Performing Public Schools In The State Of Mississippi, Lori Rogers Wilcher

Dissertations

This study was designed to investigate the professional development practices of public schools in Mississippi. More specifically, the causal comparative design sought to discover if there were differences in professional development practices between low-performing public schools in Mississippi and high-performing public schools in Mississippi. For the purposes of this study, high-performing schools were classified A or B and low-performing schools were classified D or F by the Mississippi Department of Education. Classifications were based on student performance measures from the statewide testing system for the 2012-2013 school year.

The review of literature guided the examination of differences in perceived value …

Teachers' Perceptions About The Types, Quality, And Impact Of Their Job-Embedded Professional Development Experiences, Delilah Mitchell

Dissertations

This study was designed to determine eighth grade teachers’ perceptions of the impact, quality, and types of job-embedded professional development activities they have participated in and the relationship to student achievement in language arts, math, or science. The researcher identified school districts with 50% or more of their eighth grade students scoring proficient or advanced on all three areas of Mississippi’s Curriculum Test, Second Edition (MCT2). Sixty-four eighth grade language arts, math, or science teachers who had been at their current school at least two years completed a questionnaire created by the researcher. Multiple Linear Regression and Pearson’s Correlation were …

Factors That Impact Administrator-Teacher Relationships, Patrick Sean Gray

Dissertations

Retaining teachers continues to be problematic for educational leaders across the country. With these numbers steadily increasing, one must examine the reasons as to why teachers are leaving the profession and how school administrators can address these problems if schools are going to maintain and increase their levels of success. Reasons teachers leave the profession can be attributed to the relationship teachers have with their building-level administrator.

The purpose of the study is to identify as well as describe the frequency and relative importance of circumstances that may impact administrator-teacher relationships. A questionnaire, developed by the researcher, was mailed to …

Influence Of Teacher Qualifications, Experience, Instructional Methods, And Professional Development On Student Achievement On The Mississippi Writing Assessment In Grades Four And Seven, Stacy Kihneman Garcia

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine if teacher qualifications, experience, instructional methods, and professional development influenced student achievement on the Mississippi Writing Assessment in grades four and seven. The study was conducted in the three coastal counties of southern Mississippi. Participants were fourth or seventh grade teachers who taught in one of the eight school districts that were included in the study.

Participants were asked to provide information regarding their qualifications, amount of classroom experience, preferred instructional methods, and feelings on professional development. Also requested from each teacher was his/her classroom average on the Mississippi Writing Assessment from …

An Examination Of Mississippi Public School Teachers' Perceptions Of The Effectiveness Of Their Professional Development Experiences In Raising Student Achievement, Daniel Martin Rushing

Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to provide insight into the elements needed to produce a high quality professional development program for teachers. The researcher sought to determine possible factors that had a significant relationship to Mississippi public school teachers’ perceptions of the effectiveness of their professional development experiences in raising student achievement. Furthermore, the researcher wanted to identify possible inequities with professional development opportunities for teachers in Mississippi. It is the hope of the researcher to highlight the characteristics of effective professional learning defined by research that would kindle a desire in classroom teachers to advance their skill levels …

An Investigation Of Support, Goals, And Incentives Among Minority And Nonminority National Board Certified Teachers, Melissa Salana Collins

Dissertations

National Board Professional for Teaching Standards play a pivotal role in the classroom of National Board Certified Teachers (NBCT). NBCTs have been recognized for increasing student achievement. There are more than 90,000 NBCTs in schools across the United States, but the ratio of nonminority to minority NBCTs, according to the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards report of 2004, was 89% to 11%. The intent of this study was to examine the levels of support among minority and nonminority NBCTs to determine which combination of support factors and incentives would best predict the successful completion of the NBCT process by …

Teacher Professional Development And Its Effects On Reading Instruction, Kristen Lea Suarez

Dissertations

The world of education is an ever-evolving profession. We, as a society, have learned so much about education and how we can better benefit our students. Students depend on education to equip them with the tools needed to become successful. This dissertation addresses the need for and adequacy of today’s teacher professional development in Reading instruction and how that training can translate into more meaningful classroom education.

The writer surveyed elementary Reading teachers in grades 3-6 from two school districts in southern Mississippi to determine their perceptions concerning various elements of the professional development training they received during the 2009-2010 …

The Merit Of Intensive Leadership Development Programs On Building-Level Administrators' Sustainability, Sonja Jean Robertson

Dissertations

With recent research identifying the propensity and ability of principals to lead as a key culprit of school and district failure, it would seem that one of the most reasonable steps should be to better determine how effective specially designed leadership development programs in the area of educational leadership are at not only equipping principals and school-based leaders, but at creating a foundation and a prevailing culture for longevity or sustainability in those positions. If the development of principals and other school-based leaders is vital to the improvement of schools, the effectiveness of the measures implemented to bring about that …

Middle-Level Leaders Perceptions Of Accountability, Deena Cousar Brown

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to identify the perceptions of middle-level principals personal and school accountability, their perceptions of beliefs and competencies that influence improvement in student achievement and accomplishment of accountability, and their perceptions regarding the adequacy of professional development and preparation for middle-level principals that affect their ability to improve student achievement and perform their leadership role in an increased accountability environment. This study specifically examined differences in the perceptions of middle-level principals' accountability based on the socioeconomics of the school, the number of years of administrative experience, and previous middle-school teaching experience.