Teacher Education and Professional Development Commons^™

Is The Executioner Wrong? How Controversy And Creativity Can Enhance College Students’ Written Performance, Frederick Gordon

Perspectives In Learning

College is one of the most significant watershed moments in a person’s life. We measure students’ ability to master classes through grades, yet how actual learning occurs is often complex and unchartered. The selected class for this study was Introduction to American Government. Students were introduced to the highly controversial topic of whether or not lethal injection is a form of cruel and unusual punishment. The class took pre- and post-test surveys to measure their comfort level in writing. The study reveals that students are receptive to controversial topics which could be used as a tool to enhance student writing …

Foundations For The Health Care Workforce: The Future Of Health Science Education, Allison Kabel, Ying Hsiu Liu, Jessica Dimka

Perspectives In Learning

Increasing demand for health sector jobs has resulted in unprecedented growth in health science undergraduate education. The rapid pace of growth in this area has left many unanswered questions about the requirements for educating tomorrow’s health care workforce. In this study, 122 undergraduate health science programs in the United States are examined, providing information on basic aspects and current status of health science education, such as education delivery format (face-to-face or on-line), curriculum focus, and identified occupational targets. Program characteristics are also explored. This study illustrates the big picture regarding health sciences education. Critical issues are raised about how to …

Teaching In Times Of Changing Administrations And Stringent Budgets, Kimberly Gill, David Kerr, Kyle Christensen

Perspectives In Learning

This paper explores the organizational and administrative changes occurring at Columbus State University as a result of changes in the University System of Georgia occurring from a progression and degree completion emphasis. Developments in this paper focus on changes at the departmental level to promote and enhance student learning in the context of reduced financial support. These efforts include the use of mentoring, peer tutoring, and improved pedagogical techniques in the online and traditional in-class settings for both undergraduate and graduate education. The goal of this paper is to highlight best practices and lessons learned for other institutions facing similar …

Purpose Of Attending College: A Factor For Success?, Amanda Andrews, Jeniffer Brown

Perspectives In Learning

As higher education accountability increases and financial resources decrease, concerns over student retention rates and the reasons why students remain at a post-secondary institution have moved to the forefront. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of intrinsic and extrinsic factors on freshman students’ performance at a university in the southeastern region of the United States. The researchers conducted an exploratory observational study using pre-existing data from the Freshman Orientation Survey (Brown, 2012), which included a sample of 209 participants. A series of descriptive and frequency analyses were conducted. Then, a series of correlational analyses were conducted …

Essential Skills For Success: Feedback From Beginning Teachers Of Students With Emotional / Behavioral Disorders, Jane Finn, Vicky Lynn Holmes

Perspectives In Learning

This exploratory, case study used qualitative measures to investigate the perceptions of recent college graduates who were teaching students with emotional impairments / behavioral disorders on their preparedness to teach in the field. Structured open-ended interviews were conducted to explore how well their teacher education programs prepared them to work with this population and to meet the mandate of preparing students for entry in a global society. Findings garnered positive comments regarding global competencies and suggestions for improvements in teacher preparation. Effective communication and collaboration with school personnel and parents, organizing paperwork and data collection, decision making, and more relevant …

Table Of Contents

Perspectives In Learning

Table of Contents

Reviewers For Volume 15

Perspectives In Learning

Reviewers for Volume 15

The Effect Over Time Of A Video-Based Reflection System On Preservice Teachers’ Oral Presentations, Michael Cavanagh, Matt Bower, Robyn Moloney, Naomi Sweller

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

We report the development of preservice teachers’ oral presentation performance based on a technology-mediated Video Reflection system. Participants video-recorded oral presentations and uploaded them to an online blog to view and reflect on their performance and that of their peers. Four presentations by forty-one participants were analysed using a range of criteria based on what we call the Modes of Communication (voice, body-language, words and alignment between them) and the Constructed Impression of the communication acts (confidence, clarity, engagement and appropriateness). Results indicate a significant improvement across all criteria with a decreased rate of improvement for later iterations.

Are You Ready To Be A Mentor? Preparing Teachers For Mentoring Pre-Service Teachers, Angelina Ambrosetti

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

The use of mentoring has nowadays become a predominant practice for the professional placement component of pre-service teacher education programs. Research however has identified that being an effective teacher doe not make you an effective mentor. The present research investigated the role of professional development in the preparation of mentor teachers for their mentoring roles. Specifically, this paper presents the findings of a pilot mentoring preparation course that engaged mentor teachers in developing their knowledge about the nature and process of mentoring, and the roles of mentors and mentees. Data about changed understandings of mentoring and changed mentoring practices of …

Generating Cultural Capital? Impacts Of Artists-In-Residence On Teacher Professional Learning, Mary Ann Hunter, William Baker, Di Nailon

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

The introduction of the Australian Arts Curriculum and the rise of a twenty-first century creativity agenda in education signal an opportunity for teacher educators to re-examine the outcomes and potential of arts-based initiatives on teacher professional learning. This study re-visits the outcomes of the Australian Artist-in-Residence program in this context and analyses a subset of data collected for its evaluation. The study reveals that while teachers perceive an improvement in creative capital, it is important to consider questions about the capacity for such programs to generate long term changes in practice. The study illustrates how some States and Territories embedded …

"Inside-Out Pedagogy": Theorising Pedagogical Transformation Through Teaching Philosophy, Rosie Scholl

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

This retrospective interview study focused on the impact that training and implementation of Philosophy, in Lipman's tradition of Philosophy for Children, had on the pedagogy of 14 primary teachers at one school. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to document the impact of teaching Philosophy on pedagogy, the resources required to facilitate and sustain such change, including the necessary dispositions required to teach Philosophy, and the critical junctures in pedagogical change associated with teaching Philosophy. Interview data were coded and analysed to generate a grounded theory regarding the efficacy of teaching Philosophy in terms of its impact on the pedagogy of the …

Preservice Mathematics Teachers’ Personal Figural Concepts And Classifications About Quadrilaterals, Emel Ozdemir Erdogan, Zeliha Dur

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

The aim of this study was to determine preservice mathematics teachers’ personal figural concepts and hierarchical classifications about quadrilaterals and to investigate the relationships between them. The participants were 57 preservice primary mathematics teachers in their senior year at a state university in Turkey. The preservice mathematics teachers were administered a questionnaire that consisted of 13 questions extracted from studies on the descriptions and images of quadrilaterals, identification of quadrilateral families among given images, and identification and classification of the relationships between quadrilaterals. The results showed that the preservice mathematics teachers’ knowledge of quadrilaterals learnt at primary-secondary school level and …

Chemistry Graduate Teaching Assistants: A Comparison Of The Classroom Discourse Within Expository And Problem-Based Learning Laboratories, Kelley M. Current

Masters Theses

Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs) commonly function as instructors within undergraduate chemistry laboratories. This study sought to explore and describe GTA classroom discourse within two distinct instructional modes, using discourse analysis as the theoretical framework. Theclassroom discourse within a series of verification style labs was comparedto the classroom discourse produced within a set of Problem-Based Learning (PBL) labs. The results suggest three primary findings: (1) the apparent relationship between the instructional mode and form of GTA classroom discourse, (2) the patterns in classroom discourse observed within a given instructional mode repeat, irrespective of content, and (3) the classroom discourse observed within …

Stakeholder Perceptions Of The Special Education Referral Process For Black Males Based On Ace: Administration, Culture And Environment, Malik Douglas

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this causal comparative study is to contribute to the understanding of Critical Race Theory by using a parametric test to compare the independent variable of human characteristics to the dependent variables of Administrative, Cultural, and Environmental/ Hereditary (ACE) factors to develop a picture of parents'/guardians' and educators' attitudes about factors that may explain the overrepresentation of Black males in special education programs. A total of 162 participants completed a self-reporting demographic characteristic survey and the Gresham survey to provide information on the attitudes towards the administrative, cultural, and environmental/hereditary factors that may be correlated with the overrepresentation …

The Differences In Approaches To Learning Among Kindergartners Who Attended State-Funded Pre-K, Kristin Mobbs

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This causal-comparative study examined the differences in early childhood experiences on the critical school readiness domain of approaches to learning. Kindergarten teachers from a small district in northeast Georgia completed the Learning Behaviors Scale to examine the dependent variables of competence motivation, attitude toward learning, attention/persistence, and strategy/flexibility from a convenience sample of 187 kindergarten students. The school district provided archived data that included kindergarten class lists, preschool experiences during the 2012-2013 school year, race, gender, free/reduced lunch status, and elementary school attended for kindergarten in order to examine kindergartners' learning behaviors. Descriptive statistics provided information on the mean differences …

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 …

Gait Mechanics And Proprioceptive Adaptations From Minimalistic “Five-Finger” Shoe Use, Holly N. Remmenga, M. L. Mcgrath, Sara A. Myers, Neal Grandgenett, T. L. Grindstaff

Teacher Education Faculty Publications

Barefoot running is a growing phenomenon in the running community and has spurred the popularity of minimalistic shoe use. Little is known about how minimalistic shoed running effects gait mechanics and relatively no research has been performed to analyze how the habitual use of these shoes effects proprioception.

A Method For Assessing And Describing The Informal Inferential Reasoning Of Middle School Students, Joshua Michael Goss

Dissertations

Informal Inferential Reasoning (IIR) has emerged in the last decade in the study of statistics education. Developing students’ IIR ability is seen as a way of preparing students for the important topic of Formal Statistical Inference (FSI); however, research is still needed in order to investigate how students transition between informal and formal statistical reasoning. A primary difficulty is that we do not have a way of assessing and describing students’ IIR ability levels. In order to address this, an Assessment of Informal Inferential Reasoning (AIIR) was developed, along with a Structure of Observed Learning Outcomes (SOLO) taxonomy (Biggs & …

Workers’ Compensation And The School Business Official, Charles J. Russo

Educational Leadership Faculty Publications

Workers’ compensation laws emerged during the Industrial Revolution to protect individuals and their families from salary losses and medical expenses that resulted from work-related injuries, illnesses, or death. The laws allow employees to receive partial or full benefits temporarily or permanently, depending on the seriousness of their conditions.

In light of the significance of workers’ compensation laws for school board budgets and staffing, this column begins with a brief history of the statutes; examines the components of a typical workers’ compensation statute, along with selected representative recent litigation; and then offers recommendations for school business officials (SBOs), their boards, and …

Examining Adjunct Instructor Characteristics, Perceived Fit, And Teaching Modality To Determine If They Predict Organizational Commitment And Job Satisfaction At A Mid-Western Career College, Randy Hill

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this quantitative, multiple regression study was to examine the relationship between 10 adjunct instructor characteristics and organizational commitment and job satisfaction. Part-time instructors who taught for the institution during the 2012-2013 academic year completed an electronic survey with questions from three valid and reliable instruments: perceived person-organization fit (Cable & DeRue, 2002), part-time faculty job satisfaction survey (Hoyt, Howell, & Eggett, 2007), and organizational commitment questionnaire (Fields, 2002). Data from the survey was analyzed using separate hierarchical regressions to answer the following research questions: (a) Do adjunct instructor characteristics (age, gender, ethnicity, education level, teaching experience, teaching …