Other Teacher Education and Professional Development Commons^™

Was The Professional Development I Conducted In South Africa Evident In Teachers’ Practices Many Years Later?, Darlene Demarie

Journal of Practitioner Research

I conducted professional development by working alongside the teachers I hired at a child development center in South Africa. I spent one year and 9 months there while I was a Fulbright CORE Scholar from 2007 to 2009. After 8 years with only two short visits back, the digital tools (photographs and videos) I used and reviewed with teachers at the time of the professional development also helped me to assess the impact of that professional development. I saw how it influenced the teachers' practice and noted what was similar and what had changed over the years.

Teacher Talk: How Many White, Middle-Class, Female Educators Perpetuate White Privilege In School, Theresa Nomensen

Dissertations

This paper examines the ways middle-class, white, women, who comprise more than eighty percent of the teaching force in public schools perpetuate white supremacy in public schools, explicitly at looking at how and what middle-class, white teachers say to and about their students of color. I interrogate and analyze my own beliefs and experiences, using autoethnography, revealing my journey from learning about my white privilege to understanding how I perpetuate white privilege in schools. Using the theoretical framework of Critical Whiteness Studies, I will interrogate my own whiteness as I confront and wrestle with whiteness in myself and in five …

Impact Of Student Leader Role On A Study Abroad Trip, Anna Jones

Honors Projects

This research looks specifically at a college-level course associated with the EDTL 4900: Ireland! Crossing Borders and Building Bridges study abroad program. The ideals of expeditionary learning guided the development of the course assignments and curriculum, the choice of field experiences, and the teaching styles that were utilized while abroad. The paper is an analysis based upon the experiences the student leader had while abroad taking into the duel role the student leader had while experiencing the expeditions and culture of a new country and leading a group of students through their first venture abroad. Due to the need for …

Romance And The Teacher: A Dissertation Revisited, Amy B. Spiker Ed.D

The Qualitative Report

This article is an auto-ethnographic study of my own deeply held metaphors about teaching and how I carry them into my university classroom work with preservice teachers. It is a continuation of a previously shelved dissertation. Ignited by a simple question during an encounter with a former student and research participant, this article looks at the dissertation work carried out previously through a new lens. The dissertation focused on my participants who were students and student teachers and their metaphors about teaching. Years later I was challenged to revisit this work and identify my own teaching metaphors. By holding a …

Reflective Documentation As A Movement Potential: Two Digital Platforms Building A Professional Learning Community, John Taylor, Defne Erdur

Proceedings from the Document Academy

Creating dance and training dancers is a collaborative and co-creative process, and teaching has a central role in the co-creative artistic processes. Yet dance teachers, whether free-lance or working in an institution, often develop and maintain their physical teaching practice in isolation. Additionally, because of the ephemeral nature of dance and the relational nature of dance education, these practices usually do not end up being recorded or documented as a body of knowledge. In the face of such a reality the online database IDOCDE.net provides a platform for the development and maintenance of an inclusive professional learning community through a …

Career Pathways Program Annual Report, 2017-2018, Wie Yusuf, Chris Osgood

Career Pathways

Career Pathways launched in August 2017 as the university-wide initiative to provide graduate student professional development. It encompasses both the Preparing Future Faculty program and the Preparing Future Professionals program. Preparing Future Faculty was an existing program, started in 2007, while Preparing Future Professionals was launched concurrently with Career Pathways. The Career Pathways program prepares graduate students for successful transition into thriving careers. Career Pathways is a gateway to resources, programs, events, and planning tools for ODU graduate students and postdocs.

Effects Of Direct Instruction Flashcards And Reading Racetracks On Sight Word Acquisition And Maintenance For A Student With Autism, Chelsea Burton

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

A student’s abilities in literacy can be indicative of his/her ability to live successfully in our society (Rinaldi, Sells, & McLaughlin, 1997). The ability to read is an area of difficulty, particularly for many students with autism spectrum disorders. Two fundamental cognitive processes required for skilled reading are word recognition and reading comprehension (Spector, 2010). Struggles with word recognition hamper the ability of students with ASD to work towards the goal of literacy (Spector, 2010). Browder and Xin (1998) argued that sight word instruction is important because that knowledge provides a foundation for other functional academic skills. The purpose of …

Investigating Early-Career Teacher Propensity For Arts-Based Pedagogy, Jamie Allison Hipp

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This study investigates the factors which support the use of arts-based pedagogy in elementary settings. To address the lack of a current profile of an early-career teacher (ECT) with a propensity to use the arts – music, theatre, dance, and visual art – this study illuminates ECT attitudes and behaviors related to arts-based pedagogy. The researcher administered Oreck’s (2001) Teaching with the Arts Survey (TWAS) and employed a non-experimental survey design using purposive sampling. The ECT population studied included currently employed elementary (1-5) teachers who completed the compulsory arts-based pedagogy class at a large Louisiana university in the fall of …

Rethinking “Parent Involvement”: Perspectives Of Immigrant And Refugee Parents, Zeynep Isik-Ercan

Occasional Paper Series

I arrived in the U.S. 15 years ago as a master’s student in early childhood education after teaching in elementary schools in Turkey. Becoming a permanent resident in my new country and parenting my two Turkish-American boys fueled my scholarly interest in the experiences of immigrant communities with their children’s early school years, specifically the ways they negotiate cultural and linguistic identities in educational settings. Among many encounters with my children’s teachers, one is particularly memorable.

Shortly after Enis, my older son, began attending the campus preschool at age two, his teacher asked me to speak only English at home …

Increasing Stem Literacy Via An Informal Learning Environment, Christa D. Jackson, Margaret J. Mohr-Schroeder

Journal of STEM Teacher Education

STEM literacy is the ability to apply concepts from science, technology, engineering, and mathematics to solve problems that cannot be solved using a single discipline. In this qualitative study, we examined how a robotics course in an educator preparation program that integrates informal learning experiences increased teachers’ exposure to a variety of STEM learning activities and impacted their STEM literacy. The results revealed the teachers developed a deeper understanding of STEM and broadened their STEM literacy through participating in the informal learning experiences.

Estimating Wasi Iq Scores To Assist In Identifying Elementary School Gifted Students, Debra Garrett Pregler

Dissertations

Identifying gifted students early is important so they may receive adaptations in their learning environment including admittance into gifted programs (Subotnik, Olszweski-Kubilius, & Worrell, 2012). An effective method to increase the likelihood of identifying gifted students is needed (Pfeiffer, 2003). Admission at the elementary level primarily uses the individually-administered intelligence test; yet, the test is only administered to students nominated to the gifted program. The purpose of this study was to determine if individually-administered IQ test scores were related to specific information available to the elementary school counselor to aid in the determination of unidentified gifted elementary school students who …

Pre-Service Teachers’ Perspectives On How The Use Of Toon Comic Books During Guided Reading Influenced Learning By Struggling Readers, Ewa Mcgrail, Alicja Rieger, Gina M. Doepker, Samantha Mcgeorge

SANE journal: Sequential Art Narrative in Education

The study presented in this article examines the use of comic books, specifically the TOON comic books during guided reading instruction. The instruction was provided to struggling readers by the Literacy Center at a comprehensive university in southeastern United States. What most pre-service teachers in this study agreed upon was that comic books served as an effective tool for getting their students interested in reading. Reading comic books with tutors as partners in conversation with the struggling readers in this study was also a powerful medium for facilitating students’ literacy skills development, particularly in the areas of reading fluency and …

Faculty Development Initiatives: A Prerequisite For Capacity Building And Enhanced Productivity In A Medical Institution, Rehana Rehman, Hassan Mehmood, Syeda Fatima, Irfanullah Baig, Zohaib Rana, Mohammad Iqbal

Department of Biological & Biomedical Sciences

Objective: To determine the contribution of teaching, learning and assessment forum's initiatives on professional development of faculty and staff.
Methods: This retrospective study was conducted at the Department of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, Aga Khan University, Karachi, from July to December 2016, and comprised teaching, learning and assessment activities carried out from 2012 to 2015. The responses acquired from feedback evaluation were recorded at the end of activity on a Likert-type scale ranging from 1-5. Positive responses were presented for each variable with respective activity type across the study years. The association of the effectiveness of teaching, learning …

Knowledge Of School Resource Officer's Roles And Their Perceptions On School Social Worker's Roles, Cynthia Crystal Cervantes, Vanessa Vazquez

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

The study examined the perception of school resource officers (SROs) role in a school setting, the training they received prior to working in a school setting, their interaction with students, and their relationship with school administration, staff, and school social workers. Previous studies discussed SROs’ roles to be ambiguous and their primary focus of a school resource officer to maintain school safety, while other studies discussed the criminalization in schools due to the placement of law enforcement in the school settings.

The study employed a qualitative design with face-to-face interviews with seven participants who serve or have served as a …

Cognitively Guided Instruction In Elementary Mathematics: Understanding Factors That Influence Classroom Implementation, Teresa A. Conowal

Doctor of Education in Teacher Leadership Dissertations

This study focused on the teaching technique known as cognitively guided instruction (CGI), through which teachers explore the individual learning styles of their students and use the information they gather to teach more complex concepts more effectively. The focus of this study was on 10 elementary mathematics teachers, with the goal of gaining a deeper understanding of the reasons they are making limited use of CGI techniques in their classrooms. The study used interviews and classroom observations of the 10 participants to identify the factors influencing their willingness or reluctance to apply CGI techniques to their instructional practices. The study …

Developing An Internal Leadership Pipeline In Urban Districts: A Pathway To Capacity Building, Marnie G. Mckoy

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

The purpose of this qualitative study is to understand how an urban school district designs and implements leadership development programs for internal candidates. The challenge of continuously developing a cadre of committed and qualified leaders is not new (Darling-Hammond, LaPointe, Meyerson, Orr, & Cohen, 2007). To maintain the high standards of instructional leadership and to continue sound practices in teaching and learning, school districts must think and move strategically to protect their investments in professional development and coaching, and to secure the future growth of its students and staff. The literature is clear and consistent on the elements of effective …

Black Mothers' Counter-Narratives Of Agency: A Pulse On Racism And Parent Involvement Strategies In Twenty First Century Schools, Sharnee N. Brown

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

This qualitative study examined African American mothers’ perceptions of their children’s schools (public, charter, and private) within the context of institutional, structural, and individual racism. Employing qualitative techniques, interviews and focus groups of middle to lower working class Black mothers were conducted to explore their lived experiences with individual, institutional, and structural racism within American schools. The goal of this study was to learn how these mothers make meaning of the educational institutions that serve their children, the racial barriers they encountered and the strategies of contestation they employed in order to address these perceived barriers.

The results of the …

Maximizing Teacher Time: The Collaborative Leadership Role Of The Principal, William L. Sterrett, Michele A. Parker, Kris Mitzner

Journal of Organizational & Educational Leadership

Using data from the 2014 North Carolina Teacher Working Conditions (NCTWC) biennial survey researchers identified a sample from over 2,500 principals. The researchers surveyed 68 principals; 24 principals participated in a 19-item survey containing 5 demographic questions, 7 Likert-scale questions, and 7 open-ended questions. The descriptive analyses revealed that the principals in the study had the highest agreement with time constructs related to “reasonable class size” and “protecting teachers from duties that interfere” and lowest levels of agreement with “efforts made to minimize routine paperwork.” The qualitative analyses shared further principal perspective regarding specific strategies with the seven time constructs. …

Factors Impacting Teacher Turnover In Texas Public School Districts With Fewer Than 500 Students: A Mixed Methods Study, Paige N. Benoy

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Rural Texas districts experience higher rates in teacher turnover compared to other districts. This explanatory sequential mixed methods study was designed to explore the relationships among district size and the factors that contributed to teacher turnover. Data was collected from Texas public school districts with fewer than 500 students. A simple correlation determined that no relationship existed between district size and teacher turnover rate during the 2016-2017 school year in the 313 districts that had fewer than 500 students. Participating districts came from two different regions. Four superintendents were interviewed about the factors surrounding turnover regarding the teacher turnover in …

The Challenges Of Newly Adopted Mathematics Curriculum In Title I Schools: A Mixed Methods Study, Carmen Cruz

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this mixed methods study was to examine the early impacts of the newly adopted mathematics TEKS (Texas Essential Knowledge Skills) introduced in 2014 by TEA (Texas Education Agency) that detail the curriculum standards for all students across schools in Texas schools, for grades K-12. The study examined the challenges that teachers and administrators have had to overcome to meet federal legislation educational compliance. Additionally the study examined how schools and districts were professionally developing their teachers on new curricular standards. Five Title 1 schools in four school districts were used in the study. Schools were selected from …