Teacher Education and Professional Development Commons^™

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 …

Documenting Elementary Teachers' Sustainability Of Instructional Practices: A Mixed Method Case Study, Bridget Cotner

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

School reform programs focus on making educational changes; however, research on interventions past the funded implementation phase to determine what was sustained is rarely done (Beery, Senter, Cheadle, Greenwald, Pearson, et al., 2005). This study adds to the research on sustainability by determining what instructional practices, if any, of the Teaching SMART[reg] professional development program that was implemented from 2005-2008 in elementary schools with teachers in grades third through eighth were continued, discontinued, or adapted five years post-implementation (in 2013). Specifically, this study sought to answer the following questions: What do teachers who participated in Teaching SMART[reg] and district administrators …

The Impact Of Instructional Rounds Professional Development On Teacher Self-Efficacy, Melessa B. Widener

Education Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this study was to determine the impact of instructional rounds professional development on teacher self-efficacy. The scope of this study was a qualitative case study including interviews with teachers who had participated in instructional rounds professional development in a rural district in the foothills of North Carolina. The methodology included interviews with two teacher leaders from all elementary schools implementing Responsiveness to Instruction (RtI) and teachers at the Early College who participated in instructional rounds professional learning through the New Schools Project. The findings include teachers' quotes from the transcriptions of the interviews as supporting the research …