Education Commons^™

Fostering Creativity: Ontario Teachers’ Perceptions, Strategies, And Experiences, Catharine M. Dishke Hondzel

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This study provides a broad overview of perceptions elementary school teachers hold regarding creativity, the strategies those teachers use to foster creative thinking and behaviour in their students, and the environmental challenges and opportunities they navigate when striving to develop 21^st century skills in students. Earlier research examining teachers’ perceptions and creativity-fostering behaviours have typically asked teachers to describe their classroom practices, or self-report their perceptions regarding creative children or children’s creative actions. Using a mixed-methods approach, in this study 22 Grade 5-7 teachers working in Ontario completed an online questionnaire which measured their creativity-fostering behaviours. Following the survey, …

Teachers And Teaching - Powell County, Kentucky (Sc 927), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 927. Agreement of Fannie Hanks to teach school in Powell County, Kentucky for a six-month term beginning 5 July 1909. The contract lists the number of pupils and the responsibilities of the teacher.

Hill, Jesse Murray, 1891-1961 (Sc 954), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 954. Teacher’s certificate issued for the period 1909-1911, to J.M. Hill, Hardin County, Kentucky. Included are grades he earned in various subjects.

Teachers’ Perceptions On The Availability And Quality Of Computer Science And Technology In Schools, Pauline H. Lake

Senior Theses and Projects

As our world becomes more technologically advanced and the availability of jobs in the Computer Science (CS) field increases, it is important that U.S. students are provided with a CS education and experience technology integration in their classrooms. My research examined the availability and quality of CS and technology in schools based on the perceptions of K-12 teachers in the Hartford area. Through analysis of online survey responses and follow-up interviews, I identified that teachers’ perceived the availability and quality of CS and technology in schools to be influenced by factors, such as funding disparities, teacher inexperience, and lack of …

Differences In Assessments Of Organizational School Climate Between Teachers And Administrators, Brandy Duff

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the organizational school climate perceptions of teachers and principals and to ascertain the extent to which their perceptions differed. This causal comparative study used the Organizational Climate Description Questionnaire for Elementary Schools (OCDQ-RE) as the survey instrument for data collection. The OCDQ-RE was administered to 244 teachers and 11 administrators in four north Georgia elementary schools. The mean scores of the teachers and administrators were compared. The results indicated relationship the organizational school climate perceptions of teachers and administrators in only one of the four schools were alike. Administrators in each …

Early-Childhood Teacher Candidates’ Service Learning With Family Book Celebrations, M. Susan Mcwilliams

Teacher Education Faculty Publications

An associate professor and a public school district administrator formed a family-school-community partnership to introduce family book celebrations to an early-learning center located in a high-poverty area in a midwestern city with more than 80% of children (n=75) who attended the center qualifying for free and reduced lunch. Primary goals for the celebrations were (a) to offer a venue for book-related experiences with families of children attending the early-learning center; (b) to engage early-childhood teacher candidates in service with families in an authentic and meaningful way; and (c) to analyze efficacy of the service-learning experience on teacher candidates. Overall, teacher …

Teachers’ Experiences In And Perceptions Of Their12th-Grade British Literature Classrooms, Keisha Simone Mcintyre-Mccullough

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to understand the experiences and perceptions of 12th-grade literature teachers about curriculum, Post-Colonial literature, and students. Theories posed by Piaget (1995), Vygotsky (1995), and Rosenblatt (1995) formed the framework for this micro-ethnographic study. Seven teachers from public and private schools in South Florida participated in this two-phase study; three teachers in Phase I and four in Phase II. All participants completed individual semi-structured interviews and demographic surveys. In addition, four of the teachers were observed teaching.

The analysis yielded three themes and two sub-themes: (a) knowledge concerned teachers’ knowledge of British literature content and …

Teachers' Mental Health Literacy And Capacity Towards Student Mental Health, Tamara D. Daniszewski

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The current youth mental health care system is ineffective at meeting the needs of Canadian youth. More than ever, teachers are placed on the frontlines of mental health care provision, including identification and intervention delivery. The present study explored teachers’ mental health literacy and capacity in the context of providing help to their students. Secondary data from a large-scale survey of teachers in one Ontario school board was analyzed to assess teachers’ current levels of knowledge, awareness and comfort levels in student mental health care. Teachers were compared based on teaching experience, school division, and school location, in terms of …

I2StemE - What, Who, Where?, Kania Greer, Bob Mayes

Interdisciplinary STEM Teaching & Learning Conference (2012-2019)

I²STEM^e is a new Institute on the campus of GSU whose focus is to increase opportunities for K-20 students, teachers, and businesses to partner together to improve STEM Education in Georgia around the tenets of place-based learning, problem based learning and teaching for understanding.

The Influence Of Collective Bargaining On Teachers’ Salaries In New York State, David B. Lipsky, John E. Drotning

David B Lipsky

This study tests a model of teacher salary determination with data describing several aspects of all school districts in New York state, outside of New York City. The authors find that collective bargaining is not significant in explaining variations in 1968 teacher salaries among all school districts, but bargaining did have a significant effect among small districts and on the rate of salary change from 1967 to 1968. On the whole, however, the authors conclude that the results of this and other studies show that bargaining has had a surprisingly minor effect on teacher salaries.

The Politics Of The Education Reform Movement: Some Implications For The Future Of Teacher Bargaining, David B. Lipsky

David B Lipsky

[Excerpt] In summary, the ongoing battle over education reform and emerging demographic trends do not bode well for the success of reform efforts in this country and probably mean tougher, if nonetheless more interesting, days at the bargaining table. In recent years taxpayers have been willing to support increased expenditures for public education. But sooner or later taxpayers will want to see results. Both liberal and conservative politicians have been staunch supporters of the school reform movement, but politicians are a notoriously fickle group. To improve the quality of education, we need a sustained effort over an indefinite period of …

The Education Reform Movement And The Realities Of Collective Bargaining, Robert E. Doherty, David B. Lipsky

David B Lipsky

[Excerpt] The response to what many believe to be a serious decline in educational achievement and standards has been, so far, a spate of studies, commissions, and reports, all aiming toward reform of the education system. Most of the recommendations that have been implemented to date have come about through state-level legislation and mandates (Darling-Hammond and Berry, 1988). Education reformers disagree on the role of teacher bargaining in achieving their objectives. One wing of the reform movement believes collective bargaining is an obstacle to change and maintains collective bargaining is one reason the schools are in bad shape. But another …

Breaking The Log-Jam: Teaching The Teachers About Technology, Shelley Kinash, Ron Kordyban

Ron Kordyban

Extract:Like logs in a metaphoric lumber mill, educational technologies are streaming in faster than they can be gathered and processed. There are wikis, blogs, podcasts, social networks and a host of applications to complement the already robust world of mobile learning. Where things tend to get jammed-up is at the point of training. Someone needs to show teachers how and when to use these new e-learning tools. More and more schools and universities are hiring dedicated educators to provide professional development in the pedagogical use of educational technologies.

Tracing Discourses Of Health And The Body: Exploring Pre-Service Primary Teachers' Constructions Of `Healthy' Bodies, Jan Wright, Rosemary K. Welch

Rosie Welch

Contemporary notions of childhood overweight and obesity have become increasingly influential in curriculum and pedagogy in school-based Health and Physical Education (HPE). Teachers' delivery of HPE subject matter and related school practices are likely to have a considerable impact on the attitudes and beliefs of the children they teach, particularly in the primary school. It thus becomes important to consider the ways of thinking about and doing health (discourse positions on health) that teachers bring to their teaching of HPE. This paper examines pre-service teachers' positions in relation to the health discourses to better understand what teachers, in this case …

Feeding Students? Examining Views Of Parents, Students And Teachers On The World Food Program’S School Feeding Initiatives In Chamwino District In Tanzania, Benjamin Ngaji Oganga

Master's Capstone Projects

School feeding programs have become a worldwide phenomenon and an agenda pushed by the International Development Agencies such as the World Food Program (WFP) with the assumption that it may contribute towards addressing barriers to poor students’ enrollment and retention in primary schools in developing countries. The assumption is that, because of hunger and low income, parents are mostly likely not motivated to send their children to school; and on the other hand, children too may not effectively concentrate in learning and therefore are likely to drop out of schools. Different studies have shown the effectiveness of the school-feeding program …

The Effects Of Incentive Initiatives On Teacher Retention In Tanzania: A Case Of The Rukwa Region, Anna Every Swai

Master's Capstone Projects

Availability of teachers at Secondary schools is one of the major factors that enhance students and general school performance. Despite this fact, there is high teacher reluctance in taking teaching position in remote areas. Different policy initiatives have dramatically improved the state of education in Tanzania, particularly in terms of classroom infrastructure and student enrollment. The increased students’ enrollment has increased the national demand for secondary school teachers and training of teachers has not mirrored this growth. There is a very high teacher shortage in secondary schools particularly those located in remote areas.

In 2004, in the National Strategy for …

A Phenomenological Study Of Indonesian Cohort Group's Transformative Learning, Markus Budiraharjo

Dissertations

This study was set to investigate how a cohort of ten Indonesian teachers experienced transformations in their teaching professionalism upon receiving an assignment of instructional leadership training to other school leaders. These ten teachers, who came from three different Indonesian Jesuit high schools and one archdiocese-based educational foundation in Jakarta, belonged to an initiative called Indonesia Secondary Education Development Program (ISEDP) intended to develop instructional leadership skills among school administrators in Indonesia. This six-year initiative (2006-2012) involved three international institutions, namely Loyola University Chicago (LUC), Indonesian Jesuit High Schools Association (IJSA), and Sanata Dharma University (SDU), Indonesia. The goal was …

Charter Schools Or Progressive Education? Lessons From Finland, Christopher J. Poor

Christopher J Poor

New Zealand’s current government has embarked on a course of supporting private providers of education in the form of “partnership” schools with the claim that these charter schools can address the recalcitrant problem of disparity of achievement between students from different ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds. This paper examines evidence from the research on charter schools and argues that attention should rather be paid to the Finnish example of high and equal educational achievement and to the landmark achievements of New Zealand’s own pioneers of progressive education as we prepare a new generation for the twenty-first century.

Pre-Service Teachers’ Perceptions Of Disability As Represented In Children’S Television Programs, Dusty Columbia Embury, Laura Clarke, Anna Epperly, Jennifer Christensen

Teacher Education Faculty Publications

As colleges and universities prepare pre-service teachers to teach in inclusive classrooms, it is important to understand college students’ schema of diversity. Part of creating an inclusive classroom culture is to understand how children view similarities and differences in others, and how to create a culture of acceptance. One way to create a culture of understanding is to use media representations and popular children’s television shows as a springboard for conversation and acceptance, but before pre-service teachers can use media, they have to first understand the characteristics and qualification criteria for students with disabilities, and also how the community at …

Changes In Pre-Service Teachers Perceptions’ Of Tea Cher Qualities: Development From Egocentric To Student Centric, Lynn D. Sheridan

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

This study looks at pre-service teachers’ developing perceptions wit h a view to supporting teacher education practices. In determining and guiding program structures it is the opinions of the experts that are most often heard. Absent from this debate is an understanding of the changing perceptions of the pre-service teacher as they progress through their program. The purpose of this paper is to extend our understanding of pre-service teacher belief systems’ highlighting, the relevance this has for understanding and supporting pre-service teacher development. The perceptions of valued teacher qualities changed from ego-centric beliefs to student centric practices for the participants …

Trainee Teachers' Attitudes Towards Students With Specific Learning Disabilities, Stuart Woodcock

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Policies on the inclusion of students with special educational needs in mainstream classrooms have focused attention on how general education teachers perceive these students. Furthermore with specific learning disabilities forming a large group of diverse students, and teachers' attitudes often not changing over the career span, preparing teachers for inclusive education is vitally important. This study aimed to identify the attitudes of trainee1 teachers towards students with specific learning disabilities and differentiation of the curriculum. Significant differences were found between the attitudes of primary and secondary school trainee teachers, and the influence of training. There were no differences in attitudes …

More Than Beliefs: Subject-Areas And Teachers' Integration Of Laptops In Secondary Teaching, Sarah K. Howard, Amy Y. C. Chan, Peter Caputi

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Abstract presented at the 15th Biennial EARLI Conference for Research on Learning and Instruction, 27-31 Aug 2013, Munich, Germany

Technology & Knowledge: An Exploration Of Teachers' Conceptions Of Subject-Area Knowledge Practices And Technology Integration, Sarah K. Howard, Karl A. Maton

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

This paper explores teachers' understanding of subject-area knowledge practices (e.g. curriculum, goals, and pedagogy of a subject area, etc.) and technology integration, through the use of Legitimation Code Theory. Drawing on a major study of a technological initiative in all state secondary schools in New South Wales, Australia, this paper illustratively uses one dimension of LCT to explore the organising principles underlying the key subjects of Mathematics and English, in relation to teachers' perceptions of technology use in learning and teaching. Analysis suggests a 'code clash' with Mathematics and a 'code match' with English might help explain their different patterns …

Integrating Digital Practices: A Partnership To Support The Development Of Preservice Teachers' Digital Literacies, Sarah Katherine Howard

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

The importance of digital literacy well established, but it is unclear how this is integrated in teachers' practice. This paper presents a curriculum innovation and collaboration addressing this issue through development of digital products, in first-year teacher education subject. A key aspect of this initiative was providing students with home copies of appropriate software to support the task. Data was collected to investigate possible increases in students' confidence using digital media, as well as their beliefs about using digital products in their future learning and teaching. Findings suggest increased confidence and positive beliefs across the subject, but larger increases in …

Rethinking The Literacy Capabilities Of Pre-Service Primary Teachers In Testing Times, Eileen Honan, Beryl Exley, Lisa Kervin, Alyson Simpson, Muriel Wells

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

This paper demonstrates how teacher accreditation requirements can be responsibly aligned with a scholarly impetus to incorporate digital literacies to prepare pre-service teachers to meet changing educational needs and practices. The assessment initiatives introduced in the newly constructed four year undergraduate Bachelor of Education program at one Australian university are described and analysed in light of the debates surrounding pre-service primary teachers' literacy capabilities. The findings and subsequent discussion have implications for all literacy teacher educators concerned about the impact of standardised assessment practices on the professional future of teachers.

Social Media Use Among Pre-Service Primary Teachers, Wendy S. Nielsen, Rachel Moll, Teresa Farrell, Nicole Mcdaid, Garry F. Hoban

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

This research explores preservice science teachers' social media practices as a first step in considering how to better utilize these tools in preservice teacher education. This is an important issue as these teachers will work with the next generation of students, who are likely to be even more connected through technology tools. We report data from a survey called the Social Media and Science Learning Survey that collects information about proficiencies and frequencies of use for a variety of social media tools for learning science. Results are from a cohort of 119 Australian primary teacher-education students in the context of …

Pre-Service Teachers' Attitudes Towards Overseas Professional Experience: Implications For Professional Practice, Mohan Chinnappan, Barbra Mckenzie, Phil Fitzsimmons

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Reforms in Australia about the education of future teachers have placed a high degree of emphasis on the development of knowledge and skills that are necessary for practitioners who will ply their trade in culturally rich and diverse classrooms (Ramsey, 2000). There is now a broad consensus from key stakeholders (Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership, 2012) that pre-service teachers need to be provided with a range of opportunities that are grounded in classroom practices including exposure to teaching students overseas. The aim of this mixed mode study (Creswell, 2012) is to better understand the skills and knowledge that …

Listening To Teacher Voices: Using Narrative Inquiry To Understand The Lives Of Beginning, Experienced And Veteran Female English Teachers, Tiffany Michelle Sedberry

Open Access Theses

Research shows that teacher retention is an issue of serious concern. Job dissatisfaction from personal and professional stressors is causing teachers at different experience levels to reevaluate their commitment to the classroom. Veteran teachers who complete their career are also evaluating whether or not teaching is worth what is invested. This project is grounded in narrative inquiry, in hopes of understanding the lives of female English language arts teachers. For the participants in this study, financial concerns and family commitments, issues of student accountability, and educational reform worry them equally. For all teachers, regardless of experience level, student apathy remains …

Learning Designs As A Stimulus And Support For Teachers' Design Practices, Shirley Agostinho, Sue Bennett, Lori Lockyer, Jennifer Jones, Barry Harper

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

This chapter builds on and brings up to date the work described in Chapter 6. The authors report on a decade of empirical work with teaching practitioners which has led them to conclude that learning designs (by which they mean a specific form of graphical representation and explanatory text) are usable by university teachers. Designs are referred to for guidance and inspiration, in what the authors see as an example of case-based professional learning. Having a classification system seems to support this, even though it is not directly related to subject area. An important finding is that learning designs from …

Enhancing The Uptake Of Learning Through Simulation In Health, Cobie Rudd

Research outputs 2013

The initial reason that a simulated learning environment (SLE) was pursued was to offer university-based health students a safe and authentic environment in which to learn and practise their skills. Since that time, some eight years later, experience has shown that an SLE needed multiple dimensions to its work, based on evidence. In addition, a new approach to applying and integrating learning through simulation within health curricula, that was replicable and affordable, was required...