Teacher Education and Professional Development Commons^™

In Search Of Relevance And Sustainability Of Educational Change : An International Conference At Aga Khan University Institute For Educational Development, Aga Khan University, Institute For Educational Development

Books

No abstract provided.

Tech Edge Student Rubric Grades 2-3, Laurie A. Friedrich, Guy Trainin

Research and Evaluation in Education, Technology, Art, and Design

This rubric can be used to evaluate formative and summative assessments of technology integrated products across the curriculum for grades 2-3.

Tech Edge Student Rubric Grades 4-5, Laurie A. Friedrich, Guy Trainin

Research and Evaluation in Education, Technology, Art, and Design

This rubric can be used to evaluate formative and summative assessments of technology integrated products across the curriculum for grades 4-5.

Relations Between Teachers’ Motivation And Students’ Motivation: A Self-Determination Theory Perspective, Inok Ahn

Open Access Theses

There is little research that examines impact teachers' motivation on students' motivation due to sparse attention to teachers' motivation. The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the relations between teachers' motivation and students' motivation using self-determination theory. Participants were 697 5th and 6th students and 35 of their teachers in Seoul, South Korea. Students completed the questionnaires for motivation, basic psychological needs, and perceptions of teacher's instructional styles. Teachers also answered questionnaires about their own motivation. Multiple regression analyses were used to analyze the data. Teaching experience was controlled for throughout the analysis process due to its significant …

Teachers Of English In Pakistan : Profile And Recommendations, Ayesha Bashiruddin, Rabail Qayyum

Institute for Educational Development, Karachi

This paper answers a pertinent question: Who are the teachers of English in Pakistan? By answering this question, the current profile of teachers of English is highlighted. We were inclined to do this study because there was no data available in Pakistan. Data for this paper was generated through a survey questionnaire, which was filled out by 100 teachers of English over three years. Out of these 100 teachers, 53 teachers were from public sector schools, 29 teachers from communitybased English‐medium schools, and 18 teachers from private Englishmedium schools. These teachers belonged to various regions of Pakistan, which included Sindh, …

Navigating With Trust: A Proposal For Transforming Public Sector Schools Towards Learning Organizations In Pakistan, Zubeda Bana

Institute for Educational Development, Karachi

While working with teachers, teacher educators, educational leaders and principals of schools and teacher education colleges throughout the country, I am informed that the most significant factor for transforming public sector schools is winning the trust of teachers. Teachers, no matter how they are recruited and what their current competencies are, have become part of the work-force in public sector schools. It is observed that the school administrators have exhausted their trust and treat all kinds of teachers including good and committed teachers, with the same administrative approach which places them in odd situations, wherein they start losing their own …

Vocabulary Instruction Practices Of Highly Effective Kindergarten Teachers, Huda Alenezi

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this qualitative study was to investigate vocabulary instruction in kindergarten classrooms by exploring and describing highly effective kindergarten teachers' practices. The fundamental question that guided this study was how do highly effective kindergarten teachers teach vocabulary? The study focused on five areas: teachers' methods, techniques to select vocabulary, assessment approaches, use of technology and whether their practices in the previous four areas were consistent with recent research. The study involved nine highly effective kindergarten teachers from nine elementary schools within one school district in Northwest Arkansas. The sample teachers were selected based on principals' recommendations, using specific …

The Effects Of Kindergarten Redshirting From A Parental Perspective, Kelli Dougan

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Kindergarten redshirting is the term used to describe the phenomenon where a parent chooses to keep their child from attending kindergarten so that the child may gain a year's worth of maturity. This qualitative dissertation examines the decision making process undergone by parents who have redshirted their children. While some parents began the decision making process soon after their child's birth, every parent in the study considered the decision carefully. The study also provides an analysis of the outcomes the redshirting has provided for children as perceived by their parents. Parents rated the academic, Social and emotional effects of kindergarten …

Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge In Teacher Preparation: Impact Of Coaching Professional Development And Mobile Devices, Guy Trainin, Laurie A. Friedrich

Research and Evaluation in Education, Technology, Art, and Design

This presentation explores the process of change for a teacher preparation program as it attempted to teach pre-service teachers how to integrate new technologies into instruction in elementary schools. The aim was to impact the instruction of preservice and inservice teachers in a way that would reach their current students. This study shows that it is possible to significantly increase the technological pedagogical content knowledge of pre-service teachers. This positive result is a clear indication that the approach of improving the quality of technology integration in Teacher Education, hand in hand with changes in technology integration in schools, had a …

Eliciting And Characterizing Students’ Mental Models Within The Context Of Engineering Design, Chelsey Ann Dankenbring

Open Access Theses

Recently, science education reform documents have called for the incorporation of engineering principles and practices into the K-12 science standards and curriculum. One way this has been done is through the use of engineering design tasks as a way for students to apply their scientific understandings to real-world problems. However, minimal studies have documented students' conceptions within the context of engineering design. Thus, the first chapter of this thesis outlines the steps taken to develop a draw-and-explain item that elicited students' mental models regarding the cause of the four seasons after finishing an engineering design task. Students' mental models regarding …

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 Effect Of The Helps Program On The Oral Reading Fluency And Accuracy Rates Of Third-, Fourth-, And Fifth-Grade Students, Susan C. Blackburn

Education Dissertations and Projects

This dissertation was designed to examine the effects of the HELPS Program on the oral reading fluency and accuracy rates of third-, fourth-, and fifth-grade students as compared to students who received regular classroom instruction only. The study was conducted in a school district in northwestern North Carolina. The students in this study scored below benchmark on a Reading 3D End of Year Assessment and were nonproficient on the North Carolina end-of-grade reading test. As fluency is tied to reading comprehension, it is important that students have sufficient fluency and accuracy skills to read grade-level texts.

The study used Reading …

A Mixed-Methods Study Of Teachers' Perceptions Of The Impact Of The Common Core State Standards On Elementary Students' Abilities To Think Critically, Chris Blanton

Education Dissertations and Projects

This dissertation employed a mixed-methods design to ascertain the perceptions of elementary schoolteachers in relation to the impact the Common Core State Standards had on their students' abilities to think critically. The participants were teachers from three schools within the same district in western North Carolina. Quantitative data were collected via a 5-point Likert scale survey distributed via Survey Monkey. Qualitative data were collected via open-ended questions and focus group interviews. The data were collected to answer the research question, "What is the impact of the Common Core State Standards on the critical thinking abilities of students?" The researcher designed …

Student Mobility On The Rise: A Case Study Of Strategies To Support Mobile Students, Alisha J. Cloer

Education Dissertations and Projects

Extensive literature on the problems in our country's education system exists; however, little attention has been given to high classroom student turnover at the state and federal levels (Hartman, 2002). Largely, research suggests mobility as being one of several interrelated factors which have an effect on students and the level of success experienced in school. Poverty is a prevailing factor in much of the student mobility research. Children in poverty are most likely to be mobile because their parents are moving from place to place to avoid rent, and they often become homeless. Some researchers say poverty is the cause …

The Relationship Between Mclass Reading 3d Assessment And The North Carolina End-Of-Grade Assessment Of Reading Comprehension In An Elementary School, Amy S. Bowles

Education Dissertations and Projects

The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (NCDPI) instituted the Reading Diagnostic Initiative in 2009 in which select elementary schools across the state were piloting the reading diagnostic tool mClass Reading 3D. This study investigated the relationship between results from the North Carolina End-of-Grade (NCEOG) Assessment of Reading Comprehension and the results from the mClass Reading 3D assessment in a North Carolina elementary school's third, fourth, and fifth grades, especially examining the degree to which mClass Reading 3D predicts scores on the reading comprehension measures of the NCEOG.

The quantitative, correlational study utilized a predictive design to determine if the …

Evaluating Project L.I.F.T And Its Impact On Reducing The Elementary Literacy Gap Through Teacher Professional Development, Quinetta Hall

Education Dissertations and Projects

This dissertation was designed to evaluate Project L.I.F.T and its plan to reduce the student achievement gap. A 5-year plan was proposed by investment researchers who recognized the importance of increasing student achievement and closing barriers in education. Trends in research data indicate that literacy significantly falls behind math on many state tests. Despite teacher professional development, innovative literacy practices, and interventions, there has not been an increase in literacy scores among minority subgroups such as African Americans and Hispanics. There is also a trend in achievement gaps among males and females.

Project L.I.F.T was granted $55 million to be …

Outliers In Educational Achievement Data: Their Potential For The Improvement Of Performance, Tooba Farooqui, Isba Mustafa, Thomas Christie

Examination Board

Statistical outliers (Barnett and Lewis, 1994) have customarily been identified as either potential threats to data integrity (Cook, 1977) or as potential distortions of estimates of central tendency (Strutz, 2010). In both circumstances outliers are treated as having nuisance value. On the other hand, Gladwell (2008) views outliers as success stories. The study adopts the latter approach to reach to classrooms and teachers which add value in student’s academic capabilities. Scores of 86207 students from 423 government schools in 2010 middle school (Grade VI to VIII) promotion examinations are analysed to explore the possibility of identifying gifted teachers.
The study …

Student Behavior Management : School Leader’S Role In The Eyes Of The Teachers And Students, Shirin Nooruddin, Sharifullah Baig

Professional Development Centre, Gilgit

This study explored the perspectives and viewpoints of the teachers and students in relation to the influence of the head teacher and senior leadership team on students’ behavior management in the form of policies, procedures and support mechanisms in a secondary school in Karachi Pakistan. Two surveys were developed and employed, one for the entire teaching staff (N=43) and one for a sample of students (n=120). The majority of teachers (97%) and students (83%) reported that school leadership influences students’ behavior management through policies and procedures. A large number of the teachers are of the view that sharing of personal …

Beyond The Content And Pedagogy : A Step Forward Towards Value Based Teacher’S Professional Development, Sharifullah Baig

Professional Development Centre, Gilgit

This paper reviews the contemporary literature of human values and valuation processes, and proposes a re-conceptualized model of a teacher’s professional development. This paper suggests a thorough analysis of the teacher’s personality and devises alternative, well thought-out strategies and approaches to alter self-knowledge, values, valuation processes, and beliefs to imbed the desired impact on their teaching practices. This paper supports the use of deliberate attempts to alter the basic motivation level of teachers and to deliberately expose them to available knowledge to modify their values, attitudes, and actions in their respective professions, organizations, and formal associations. Hence, such professional development …

Students’ Attitude Towards Science In Lower Secondary Classes : Comparison Across Regions, Nahid Parween Anwar, Sadia Muzaffar Bhutta

Institute for Educational Development, Karachi

Science education is an area of interest for long and has gained a lot of attention from science educators. Keeping this in view, the current study explored the attitude of grade VI-VIII students towards science in the provinces of Sindh and Balochistan. This research study was conducted as part of a 5-year project titled ‘USAID-LINKS to learning: Education Support to Pakistan’ (USAID-EDLINKS). A 5-point rating scale, Science Attitude Scale (SAS) was adapted from previous research. SAS has 32 items arranged under five constructs: learning science in school, self-concept in science, science outside of school, future participation in science and importance …

Enhancing Teaching Through Professional Learning: Case Studies Of Professional Learning To Improve Reading Instruction For Year 2 Students With Reading Difficulties In One Australian State, Susan Main

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Reading is internationally recognised as a mediating factor in the life outcomes of individuals and the continuing failure of Australian children to attain the same level of literacy as children in other Western countries is an ongoing concern. Within the continuum of reading development, there are some children who experience more difficulty than their peers in acquiring reading skills and these children are at even greater risk of poor life outcomes if they do not receive appropriate instruction. Research demonstrates that professional learning is an effective way of enhancing teachers’ knowledge and practice and, therefore, the purpose of this study …