Education Commons^™

Writing Development Of Emerget Bilinguals: School-Wide Contextual Factors, Alma Rosa Martinez

Theses and Dissertations

The State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness (STAAR) measures Texas public school students’ knowledge and skills in many areas, including fourth grade writing. This system requires that students meet a certain performance standard score in writing to be successful. This state mandate impacts many Texas districts, teachers, and students. Districts must be prepared with necessary resources and tools to meet the writing needs of all students, including emergent bilinguals.

This case study focused on investigating how a bilingual teacher in a bilingual campus taught writing to her emergent bilinguals. Using the writer’s workshop approach, which many districts implement to …

Outcomes Teacher Mentoring Has On Professional Learning And Delivery Of Instruction, Susana A. Zapata-Burguete

Theses and Dissertations

A qualitative study using grounded theory was conducted to discover how educational mentoring was transferred to subsequently transform instructional delivery in the second year of teaching for novice secondary school teachers. The study was conducted in a Deep South Texas public school district during the 2017–2018 academic year. After concluding a year of mentoring, interviews were conducted to reveal how the mentoring phenomena helped transform their present day delivery of instruction. Data was gathered through face-to-face interviews with seven participants. During this second year, the novice teachers primarily relied on both what was learned through their mentoring experiences and networking …

The Role Of Teaching Presence On Academic Achievement In Fully Online Asynchronous And Hybrid Undergraduate Mathematics Courses, Shaghayegh Azadi Setayesh

Theses and Dissertations

This study was designed to investigate how mathematics student perceptions of teaching presence differ by course delivery mode and student achievement. Online learning has had a steady growth in higher education, and mathematics courses are also offered in fully online and hybrid modes, but the research on online mathematics learning and academic achievement is limited. In order to contribute to the body of research in this field, the focus of this study was on teaching presence and academic achievement in two delivery modes: fully online asynchronous, and hybrid.

The Community of Inquiry was the theoretical framework of this study, where …

A Case Study Of A Technical College's Faculty Perceptions Regarding The Value Of Professional Development Activities, Kermelle D. Hensley

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this qualitative research study was to investigate technical college faculty members' perceptions of the professional development. Most of the literature was focused on four-year higher educational institutions. For the purposes of this qualitative case study, the researcher addressed the limited amount in the literature about professional development in two-year technical colleges. The researcher investigated faculty perceptions concerning the usefulness of professional development in a two-year higher education institution through survey research design with 8 participants. The main themes were 1) technical college faculty desired professional development; 2) technical college faculty needed for follow up from the professional …

Universal Design For Learning: Is Training Making A Difference In Teacher Pedagogy, Michelle D. Sizemore

Theses and Dissertations

David H. Rose and his colleagues at the Center for Applied Specialized Technology (CAST), a non-profit organization specializing in educational research and development, worked for over one quarter of a century to improve learning opportunities for all individuals (Rose, 2012). In the late 1990s this work led to a set of principles known as Universal Design for Learning (UDL), a research-based instructional framework grounded in neuroscience and educational research that allowed teachers to proactively identify barriers that might exist between students and learning and account for those barriers during lesson development and implementation (CAST, 2015). One school district in southwest …

An Examination Of Teacher Perceptions Of Credit Recovery In Three South Georgia School Districts, Brooks Robinson

Theses and Dissertations

The present study was an exploration of the credit recovery program in three school districts in Georgia. The researcher explored the implementation of the credit recovery program used as a tool for improving graduation rates and college and career readiness of students in three purposefully selected school districts in Georgia. Three research questions were used focusing on the implementation process, the reason why the credit recovery program was implemented, and the outcome of the credit recovery program after implementation. The methodology was a qualitative comparative research design, which included data from three school districts in Georgia. Data were collected via …

In- And Out- Of-School Literacy Practices Of Student Refugees: A Cross-Case Analysis In A South Texas Middle School, Maria L. Mendez

Theses and Dissertations

As the leading U.S. state currently welcoming all kinds of refugees, Texas has a public school system that offers a formal education to refugee students (Bureau of Population Refugees and Migration, 2015). For many student refugees, formal schooling begins in this system. Thus it is important to understand how Texas public schools support the linguistic and academic development of these diverse learners. In order to fill this research gap, this study examines student refugee school-based literacy interactions in the U.S. public school system and how these practices connect or do not connect with the literacy practices these students experience in …

Teaching And Living In La Frontera: Teacher Perceptions Of Mexican Immigrant Students' Lived Experiences With Border Violence, Edith Trevino

Theses and Dissertations

This research is grounded in the truth of my own lived experience with border violence in La Frontera. Gloria Anzaldua (1987), describes the U.S. Mexico border (La Frontera) as an “open wound where the Third World grates against the First World and bleeds”(p. 3). Border violence in La Frontera is discussed in this research through four lenses which create a nexus of intertwined connections within curriculum and education. I use the lens of a grieving displaced daughter, a desperate mother trying to find support for her traumatized child in a failing educational system, a teacher who tries to honor her …

Investigating Faculty Perceptions Of Technological Pedagogical, And Content Knowledge (Tpack) At A Newly Established University, Jessica Daniell Hruska

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is in response to Garrett’s (2014) dissertation on “A Quantitative Study of Higher Education Faculty Self-Assessments of Technological, Pedagogical, and Content Knowledge (TPaCK) and Technology Training” which has been the inspiration and guide throughout the design of this study. The purpose is to assess the perceptions of tenure and non-tenure faculty on technological, pedagogical, and content knowledge (TPaCK) at a recently established university in Texas. More specifically, this study compared and contrasted the technological, pedagogical, and content knowledge (TPaCK) of faculty use of technology tools in face-to-face, blended learning and online environments as methods to enhance learning based …

A Natural Pairing: Social Justice And Theatre Education, Danielle Wright

Theses and Dissertations

Social justice curricula are often solely geared toward middle and high school students. I intend to prove that a social justice curriculum can be creatively paired with a theatre curriculum. I also intend to prove that social justice can be taught as young as pre-kindergarten. I will design a social justice curriculum for various grade levels, beginning with pre-kindergarten. Through research and age-appropriate strategies, I will develop curriculum goals and learning experiences for all grade levels. The curriculum is not an end point for teachers, but rather a starting point for theatre teachers who want to integrate social justice into …

Not-So-Compehensive Health Education: Teacher Attitudes Toward Heteronormative Sexuality Education, Sarah Elizabeth Burnham

Theses and Dissertations

Drawing upon queer theory, this study investigated health teachers’ interactions with the heteronormative sexuality education curriculum as prescribed by the 1988 South Carolina Comprehensive Health Education Act (SC CHEA). A survey composed of Likert-type and open-ended response items measured three constructs: the amount of preparation to teach health education, self-efficacy in teaching sexuality education, and teachers’ levels of alignment with, or rejection of, heteronormativity. A convenience sample of middle and high-school teachers in SC public schools responsible for teaching health education yielded 181 responses. Descriptive statistics of the respondents precedes non-parametric analyses of correlations between constructs and among constructs and …