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Full-Text Articles in Education

Family Message Journals: A Tool For Writing Instruction Combined With Parent Involvement, Sandi Michele Mccann Jan 2008

Family Message Journals: A Tool For Writing Instruction Combined With Parent Involvement, Sandi Michele Mccann

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Mandates on reading and math achievement in elementary education in rural Georgia have led to a decline in writing proficiency as the subject becomes increasingly neglected. At the same time, schools strive to increase parental involvement programs. Consequently, there is a need for more research on the impact of parental involvement on student writing proficiency. Accordingly, this qualitative case study examined the impact of Family Message Journals (FMJ) and parent participation on teaching writing across the curriculum. Participants included 6 third-graders and their parents. Students wrote in journals 4 days per week across the 4 months of the study, and …


The Effects Of Teacher Race In The Elementary School On Student Achievement Test Scores, John Stortz Jan 2008

The Effects Of Teacher Race In The Elementary School On Student Achievement Test Scores, John Stortz

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The racial and gender composition of elementary school teachers does not match those of the students and this may be contributing to an inequity of achievement scores between African American and European American students. This ex post facto causal comparative study compared three levels of elementary school diversity personnel staffing on Grade 4 African American student Criterion-Referenced Competency Test (CRCT) scores and differences between male African American scores and female African American scores in a suburban Atlanta county. Nine intentionally selected elementary schools were chosen representing 3 racial diversity personnel staffing levels including 39% to 50%, 25% to 27%, and …


Dialogue Within Professional Learning Communities And Its Impact On The Professional Growth Of Teachers In The Elementary School Setting, Melanie Spradley Jan 2008

Dialogue Within Professional Learning Communities And Its Impact On The Professional Growth Of Teachers In The Elementary School Setting, Melanie Spradley

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The implementation of professional learning communities is a professional development practice that uses collaborative interactions within a constructivist framework to increase teacher and student learning. The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to explore the question of how the dialogue of grade level meetings within professional learning communities impacts the professional development of teachers using the constructivist theory of learning as the conceptual framework. The researcher gathered data through hour-long interviews over a 4-week period with 6 learning community participants, one from each of the 6 grade levels at the elementary school research site. A thematic analysis of the …