Education Commons^™

A Phenomenology Study Of First-~Year Teachers Looking At The Shared Lived Experience Of Learning To Grade, Brandon Lee Yost

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This study describes the phenomenon of how first-year teachers learn to evaluate students learning by (letter) grades. Grades seem simple enough; but in reality, each grade carries serious consequences with it – for either good or bad. For example, grades affect benefits/consequences at home; they affect placement in remedial or advanced courses; they affect grade level promotion; they affect participation in programs, i.e. extracurricular activities like sports; they affect high school graduation, college acceptance, and scholarship eligibility (Brookhart, 1991; Marzano, 2000).

Despite the extreme importance of grades and how they can influence a person’s life over a period of time …

States And Multicultural Education Policies: An Event History Analysis, Leander D. Kellogg

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Multicultural education policies related to K-12 curriculum have been shown to benefit underperforming students. This research found that 10 states have adopted such policies between 1978 and 1994. A unified model of policy innovation and diffusion with a conceptual framework, which included three factors: motivation to innovate, obstacles to innovation, and resources to overcome such obstacles was used to explore demographic, political, and economic conditions along with neighboring states diffusion. Both internal and external determinants were found to significantly influence the adoption of multicultural education. Specifically, states with slightly less education funding were more likely to adopt a policy. Additionally, …

Negative Impacts Of Teacher Evaluation Reform: The Role Of Federal Policy In Student Achievement And Teacher Quality, Allison Smith

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The purpose of this sequential transformative study was to elucidate the negative experiences of teachers with performance evaluations and to juxtapose the intended use of current popular teacher evaluation reform movements to the evident implementation. One may quickly assume that negative experiences with evaluation are a result of unsatisfactory teaching practices. However, this may not accurately explain the negative experiences. This study focused on the negative experience of teacher evaluation to provide a broader understanding of the impact of new evaluation policy reform on student achievement and teacher quality. Five data sources were analyzed: PAR policy, a teacher survey, district …