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Autonomy In The Spaces: Teacher Autonomy, Scripted Lessons, And The Changing Role Of Teachers, Madhu Narayanan, A. L. Shields, T. J. Delhagen

Educational Leadership and Policy Faculty Publications and Presentations

The work of teachers has historically been highly controlled, but one area teachers have been granted considerable autonomy is in instruction and planning. Teacher autonomy is a complex concept with important implications for both the quality of instruction and teacher persistence in the field. The rise of charter management organizations (CMOs) and the increasing use of scripted lesson plans (SLPs) have introduced new institutional arrangements with unknown impacts on teachers’ perceptions of autonomy. This mixed method study surveyed 155 teachers across all grade levels from CMOs, independent charter, and district schools, on their perceptions of autonomy related to lesson planning. …

Teaching Routines And Student-Centered Mathematics Instruction: The Essential Role Of Conferring To Understand Student Thinking And Reasoning, Eva Thanheiser, Kathleen Melhuish

Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Publications and Presentations

We compare two lessons with respect to how a teacher centers student mathematical thinking to move instruction forward through enactment of five mathematically productive teaching routines: Conferring To Understand Student Thinking and Reasoning, Structuring Mathematical Student Talk, Working With Selected and Sequenced Student Math Ideas, Working with Public Records of Students’ Mathematical Thinking, and Orchestrating Mathematical Discussion. Findings show that the lessons differ in the enactment of teaching routines, especially Conferring to Understand Student Thinking and Reasoning which resulted in a difference in student-centeredness of the instruction. This difference highlights whose mathematics was being centralized in the classroom and whether …

Increasing Collaboration To Improve Student Outcomes: Improvement Science, Cassandra Diane Thonstad

Dissertations and Theses

The aspiration of achieving equitable outcomes for all students is a focus of schools, districts, and communities but has largely remained unattainable with the top-down implementation of change ideas and directives that come and go as quickly as they are implemented. Too often the direct users, students and classroom staff, are left out of the conversations around what works best to improve student success, contributing to the achievement gaps experienced by our students of color, students receiving special education or English language services, or in the case of a hook discipline, young men. By utilizing Improvement Science through collaboration across …

A Letter Writing Assignment For Leadership Development: Creating Stakeholder Connection For Policy Advocacy, Candace Bloomquist, Carly Speranza, Daneen Bergland, Kerry K. Fierke

University Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

The purpose of this article is to share with leadership educators a writing exercise designed to provide doctoral students enrolled in an Administrative and Policy Leadership course an opportunity to gain experience with building collective will for policy advocacy on a social justice issue. This article describes the use of a letter writing assignment including the background and justification for using letter writing rather than other forms of writing across the curriculum, instructions for students to complete the assignment, and examples and ideas for grading and providing constructive and instructive feedback to leadership students. The article concludes with recommendations and …

Silos In Higher Education Institutions: Shifting From Organizational Phenomena To A Practical Framework For Equitable Decision-Making, Mandi Sue Mizuta

Dissertations and Theses

As higher education has evolved, administrative and support functions have become more stratified and specialized, creating institutions with complex and compartmentalized organizational structures known as silos. These silos have a detrimental impact on institutions, employees, and ultimately the student stakeholders that they serve. Silos within higher education administration support services are readily acknowledged anecdotally; however, robust research to describe this phenomenon and actionable resources to address it are lacking. This multi-paper dissertation explores the theoretical implications and practical applications for using collaborative, intentional approaches to address what is argued to be at its core is a matter of equity. The …

Improvement Science: Improving Employee Engagement, Ryan S. Carpenter

Dissertations and Theses

Improving employee engagement has proven elusive in too many schools and districts in our nation, persistently contributing to high staff turnover in buildings and limited employee ownership in the mission, vision, and values of a school's strategic plan. The most common approach to the improvement of educational systems has been the adoption of top-down reforms and short-lived improvement programs. In recent years, an Improvement Science approach, which originated in the medical and business worlds, has made its way onto the education scene. The impact of Improvement Science in education is a developing area in educational research. This dissertation includes four …

Culture Of Care And Prosocial Leadership: Autoethnography Of An Elementary School Principal Navigating Covid-19, Ashley Marie Davis

Dissertations and Theses

Since 2016, I have been serving as principal at Davis Elementary School, a Title 1 school in Portland, Oregon. This autoethnography is a reflective account of my role as a principal during Covid-19 school closures and reopening. School systems and school leaders had to become more adaptive to change and had to find ways to creatively deal with Covid-19 challenges. Utilizing the conceptual frameworks of (a) culture of care informed by the constructs of ethic of care, cultural wealth in critical race theory, and culturally responsive leadership; and (b) prosocial leadership, this autoethnography used self-reflection and thematic analysis to elucidate …

The Eloquent Letter, Daneen Bergland

University Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

Inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” The Eloquent Letter is an authentic, adaptable assignment for acquiring critical skills: identifying and researching social problems, examining value systems and diverse perspectives, communicating effectively, and proposing solutions based on common ground. Moving beyond traditional argumentation essays and debates, this project situates activism and writing “in its native habitat.”

Students identify and research a social problem or issue and write and send a persuasive letter, asking for specific action toward addressing the issue. This assignment is meant to assess DQP proficiencies in Broad and Integrative Knowledge, Intellectual skills, …

Principal Leadership Practices In High Poverty K-5 Model Schools In Oregon, Janice Marie Adams

Dissertations and Theses

Children living in poverty in the United States face some of life's greatest challenges, including achieving academic success in school. Evidence is also emerging of a growing income disparity in America that affects families, communities and local labor markets in ways that can undermine the effectiveness of schools serving disadvantaged populations (Duncan & Murnane, 2011). Evidence exists, however, that high academic performance is within the reach of all children in high poverty schools, and that principal leadership is a contributing factor.

This study examined principal leadership practices in three high poverty K-5 elementary schools in Oregon identified as Model schools …

Effective Technology Implementation In Schools: Differing Perceptions Of Teachers, Administrators, And Technology Staff, Joseph Stephen Morelock

Dissertations and Theses

This study examined the connection between perceptions of teacher self-efficacy, professional development, and leadership practices and attitudes as it relates to successful implementation of technology for student learning in K-12 schools. As external pressures exhort schools to transform the learning environment and to include more meaningful applications of technology in the learning experiences for all students, issues which create barriers to a successful implementation of new practices must be examined.

This study examined the responses of teachers, school and district administrators, and technology support personnel in a stratified random sample from 37 school districts in the state of Oregon to …

Leadership And Decision-Making Skills Of High Poverty Elementary School Principals In An Era Of Reduced Resources, Kevin Eugene Spooner

Dissertations and Theses

Recently, a great deal of interest has been generated around the role of principal and its effectiveness, especially its impact on improving teacher instruction and student learning. Waters, Marzano, and McNulty (2003) concluded that one quarter of all "school effects" on achievement can be attributed to principals. While there is general agreement on the principal's importance and affect, do we understand how principals have adapted to changes in schools with reduced resources and increased learning needs of students? How have principals made decisions in an environment where resources have been reduced over time? Given the stories of retired principals from …

Gender Representations In U.S. Ed.D. Dissertations: A Feminist Content Analysis, Debora Kay Nelli

Dissertations and Theses

Educational access, achievement and opportunity for students and educators in U.S. educational institutions is influenced and often limited by gender. Although the U.S. Glass Ceiling Commission reports that the gender equity values, beliefs and commitments of institutional leaders are a key factor in reducing institutional gender inequities (U.S. Dept of Labor, 1995), very little is known about the current preparation or evaluation of educational leadership values, especially at the doctoral level (Hess & Kelly, 2007, Grogan & Andrews, 2002; Levine, 2005; Murphy & Vriesenga, 2004).

This study utilized feminist content analysis as a conceptual framework and research methodology to examine …

Building Communities As A Necessary Tool For Sustainability, China G. Ageros

Leadership for Sustainability Education Comprehensive Papers

From ten thousand years ago back to the beginning of human existence, people lived in small communities of hunter-gatherers; tight knit communities who depended upon each other for their very survival. There was no ownership of land, homes, crops or animals, every thing they did have was communally held and shared in a term Ryan & Jetha (2010), call “fierce egalitarianism” (p. 9), sharing was mandatory. Humans have been around in our current manifestation for roughly two hundred thousand years and the earliest evidence of agriculture is from approximately ten thousand years ago (Ryan & Jetha, 2010), or five percent …

Learning, Identity And Agency : Secondary Mathematics Professional Developers' Lived Experiences Of Participation And Collaborative Inquiry In Professional Learning Communities, Susan Stein

Dissertations and Theses

This study of professional development for professional developers used a narrative inquiry design to understand the lived experience of two professional developers as they participated in professional learning communities (inquiry groups), and learned to improve their practice as inquiry group facilitators. The study's purposes included: investigating professional developers' experience and practice in inquiry groups; amplifying professional developers' voices in the professional development field; and suggesting recommendations for educational leadership.

A literature review developed a framework grounded in social, situated learning theory. It revealed that professional development needed to provide teachers with opportunities to collaborate in inquiry groups to solve problems …