Teacher Education and Professional Development Commons^™

The Dialectics Of Teacher Change Within A Community Of Practice, Armand R. Pires

Master's Theses, Dissertations, Graduate Research and Major Papers Overview

Teacher change is at the heart of school reform. The research on teacher change has been primarily focused on teacher change from an individualistic perspective and has identified three possible paths of teacher change: beliefs precede change, change precedes beliefs, or change is nonlinear and recursive. This study looked at teacher change within a middle school during a time the school was undergoing a district-driven change in student grouping practices.

The study was conducted during the 2009-2010 school year and included ten teachers of science, social studies, and English in a grade 6-8 middle school. A qualitative study approach was …

Parent-Teacher Partnerships In Special Education, Cassandra Braley

Honors Projects

There is an old African proverb that says, “It takes a village to raise a child (Buzzell, 1996, p.1).” In today’s society, this saying is applicable to the idea of parent-teacher partnerships in education. The underlying assumption of such partnerships is that everyone who has a stake in a child’s life, including the parents, teachers, and community, should work together to give that child the best education possible. In reality, however, key stakeholders in a child’s life may have many different ideas and beliefs, and, as a result, a disconnect in communication and relationships among them can arise. In such …

"Ok, I'M A Teacher Now:" Reading Young Adult Literature In A Teacher Education Program, Brittany Richer

Honors Projects

After taking a young adult literature course as part of my Secondary Education/ English program, I felt I had gained only a limited understanding of the importance of the genre to my future career. In the class, we read several popular young adult texts, learned about their authors, identified censorship issues, and mentioned a few strategies related to the teaching of the texts. Much of the “understanding” related only to future applications in imagined classrooms, which left no room for critical reflection about what we might learn from reading the texts about ourselves as students and teachers. A sense of …

What About Me? An Examination Of Identity Formation Among Beginning Educators, Nicholas Bernardo

Honors Projects

Over the past decade, I have been an athlete, a stage manager, an actor, a parliament member, a treasurer, a resident assistant, a tour guide, a ballroom dancer, and very involved with music, participating in marching band throughout high school as well as my college wind ensemble. Of all those roles, the only one that has stuck is my most recent—teacher. I decided that I wanted to be a teacher in fourth grade, and I have grown to be very passionate about it. But even in that regard, the question “what is right?” continued to linger. What if I am …

An Empathetic Approach To Physical Education Teacher Education, Tony Monahan

Master's Theses, Dissertations, Graduate Research and Major Papers Overview

Based on the theory that a more student-centered approach in physical education classes might encourage more students to engage in lifelong physical activity and, thereby, lead a healthier life, this study was undertaken to determine the effect of a semester-long empathy-focused educational intervention on empathy levels in 59 college-level students studying in Physical Education Teacher Education (PETE) Programs at three East-coast universities. ANCOVA results revealed statistically significant findings in "Higher Order" empathy levels in the experimental groups, and analysis of essays written for the study also suggested a change in experimental group subjects' personal view of PE toward an empathetic …

A Qualitative Study Of The Epistemological Interplay Between Teachers And Students In A High Stakes Testing Environment, Donald Bruce Bierman

Master's Theses, Dissertations, Graduate Research and Major Papers Overview

Employing grounded theory methodology informed by microethnographic discourse analysis, studies the classroom conversations, interviews with students and teachers, and students' written texts in a high stakes test preparation program for tenth graders to determine the effects students and teachers have upon one another's epistemological beliefs concerning the source of knowledge. Students were preparing for the Connecticut Academic Performance Test (CAPT).

Synthesizing Synthesis: A Unique Step Beyond Summary, Melissa A. Leblanc

Honors Projects

Analyzes the concept of synthesis, often referred to as a higher order thinking skill or an advanced form of reading comprehension strategy, and how the ability to synthesize can be incorporated into classroom and everyday life. Compares a survey of professionals to a model of how synthesis works to help generate methods for teaching students/thinkers to synthesize.