Digital Commons Network^™

Influence Of School Principals On Teachers' Perceptions Of School Culture, Evelyn M. Britton

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Teachers' perceptions of leadership are often based on the leaders' behavior, and what leaders model daily. The problem in this case study was that teachers' perceptions of school leadership were not well enough understood to leverage as a tool for school improvement. The purpose of this study was to explore how teachers' perceptions of school principal's leadership style, and behavior affect school culture. The conceptual framework was based on literature of 3 key dynamics: leadership styles, and approaches, school culture, and influences of leadership on teachers' perceptions of school culture. The primary research question explored how teachers' perceptions of school …

Community College Professors' Engagement And Perceptions Of Professional Development In Remote Environments, Norma-Jean J. Nielsen

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Research shows that consistent, supportive, and relevant professional development (PD) is an action that empowers educators to change. In the east central region of Canada, the sustainability of community colleges had been linked to program collaboration and internationalization which requires implementation of high-quality PD for its professors. Guided by Mezirow's adult transformative learning theory, the purpose of this study was to understand the PD practices of full-time professors by investigating the connections between professors' level of engagement in PD and their perceptions of the resources and processes that may improve their instructional practices. This single-phased, concurrent mixed-methods study was conducted …

The Relationship Between Memorable Messages And Identity Construction, Raphaela P. Barros Campbell

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

A qualitative analysis is reported here, in which 22 international students were interviewed about their overall experiences studying abroad, as well as memorable messages received and the context in which those were communicated. Scholars like Larson and Gill (2017) and Alvesson (2010) have focused on the role communication plays in constructing identity. With that in mind, Knapp et al.’s (1981) concept of memorable messages informs how specific messages influence individuals’ sense of who they are. This study expands knowledge on the relationship between memorable messages and international students’ identity construction, focusing on the impact of messages exchanged before and during …

Individual And Organizational Culture Predictors Of Participation In Training And Development Activities Among Student Affairs Professionals, Andrea Adams-Manning

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Organizational culture substantially impacts employee motivation, employee behavior, and employee participation in professional development activities. In the field of Student Affairs, it is critical for employees to regularly participate in professional development activities to stay up-to-date with understanding today’s students’ needs and meeting federal and state demands. This study examined what individual and organizational culture factors predict participation in professional development activities among student affairs professionals at higher education institutions. For this study, 354 participants from various public and private institutions were emailed an anonymous web-based survey. Field theory served as the theoretical foundation giving perspective as to how external …

The Effect Of Modality On Student Achievement And Course Completion In A Developmental Mathematics Course, Robert Allan Greene

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Students taking courses in developmental mathematics do so in one of three modalities - some take the classes face-to-face in a classroom with a professor who is physically present, others take the classes in what is known as a blended or hybrid mode in which the professor uses a combination of classroom and online time to teach the course, and another group takes the classes completely online. Increasingly, a growing number of students are taking these courses in a hybrid mode or completely online, and this phenomenon is causing educators to redesign their programs, offering more courses in these two …

2018-2019 Graduate Catalog, Morehead State University.

Morehead State Catalog Archive

2017-2018 Graduate catalog for Morehead State University.

Change In The Organization Socialization Of The United States Border Patrol's Basic Law Enforcement Training Academy: A Supervisor's Perspective, Vic M. Manjarrez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This study examines the role of a changed organizational socialization process on supervisory adaptation. The research study is motivated by the central question: how do supervisors adapt in their role as supervisors when the initial organizational socialization process has changed. Literature on socialization in policing has focused almost exclusively on long-term job satisfaction, while literature on police supervisory adaptation centers on leadership approaches. Previous research on police socialization clearly indicates the process is a series of stages filled with "rite of passages". There is no distinction between the socialization of a non-supervisor officer versus a supervisory officer. The literature is …

District Strategic Teaming: Leadership For Systemic And Sustainable Reform, Thomas L. Alsbury, Margaret R. Blanchard, Kristie S. Gutierrez, Chris M. Allred, A. Dell Tolin

Teaching & Learning Faculty Publications

Reform efforts in schools have become increasingly focused on the nature and direction of teamwork in efforts to achieve sustained and systemic districtwide capacity for innovation and needed change. The six-year study reported in this article involved development, implementation, and assessment of a unique collaborative process for districtwide reform in some of the most challenging and fluid educational settings in the United States of America. This reform process, called District Strategic Teaming, involved a representative vertical cross-section of members from the district office to school-based support staff. Participating schools are located in isolated, rural communities in the south-eastern region of …

Small Schools: What's Small?, Matt Gladden

Occasional Paper Series

Essay examining the question of what constitutes a small school through the Chicago Small Schools Study. It explores why educators are founding new small schools and documents the diverse range of small schools that flourish throughout Chicago. Building from these observations, it then seeks to identify characteristics that delineate small schools and provide them the opportunity to improve students' educational experiences.

Grounded Practical Theory To Improve Persistence-Retention Strategic Enrollment Management, Kenneth W. Borland Jr.

Journal of Research, Assessment, and Practice in Higher Education

The author introduces grounded practical theory (GPT) as a useful research approach in the field of strategic enrollment management (SEM) and its focus on persistence-retention. The GPT approach is then illustrated by engaging sample voices of persistence-retention and SEM; scientific theory (the philosophical level) and normative theory (the technical level) as observed in the literature. The scientific theory voices and normative theory voices are then positioned in relation to voices of students and practitioners (observed respondents) who have identified real world persistence-retention and SEM problems. These problems suggest implications for reconstructing the relationship between persistence-retention and SEM philosophical, theoretical, and …

“More Challenging Than I Expected But More Satisfying”: Exploring The Experiences Of New Heads Of Independent Schools And The Leadership Skills They Employ, Andrew O'Brien

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This study examines leader behavior in an independent school setting. Specifically, this qualitative phenomenological study explores the lived experiences of new heads of schools in independent schools located in Louisiana, Texas, and Oklahoma and their conceptualization of the skills required for the headship. The study explores the knowledge and skills new heads say they use as leaders, how the knowledge and skills they developed in their careers prepared them for leadership, and the ways in which they feel they might have been better prepared for leadership. The study uses the skills-based model of leadership as its theoretical framework, and its …

Charismatic Leadership Perceptions From K-12 Administrators: Phenomena Of Follower And Leader Interdependency, Lucinda G. Martinez

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

A greater understanding of the nature of leadership can be gained by empirical analyses, such as this quantitative study, addressing the influence executive administrators have on their message recipients, their followers. This study sampled 64 non-teaching K-12 school, district, and state administrators and measured their perceptions of their immediate supervisors’ leadership behaviors by completing the ©Conger-Kanungo Charismatic Leadership Scale (Conger, Kanungo, Menon, & Mathur, 1997) and the ©Perceived Leadership Behavior Measures Inventory (Conger, Kanungo, & Menon, 2000). Analyses of variables measuring perceived leadership behaviors and those effects on the attitudes and perceptions of their followers may contribute to …

Best Practices Used By Assistant Superintendents Of Curriculum And Instruction: Improving Teacher Instruction In A High Accountability Environment, Julie Madden

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative multi-case study investigated not only the role of assistant superintendents of curriculum and instruction, but the strategies and best practices used by four assistant superintendents of curriculum and instruction and a deputy superintendent of teaching and learning from East Texas in order to improve classroom instruction and support teachers in the high-stakes testing environment. The study sheds light on the role of central office leaders, their views related to the high-stakes testing environment and the impact they have on instruction for teachers and students. The responses given in this qualitative case study were carefully analyzed in order to …

Addressing Uncertainty During Workplace Change: Communication And Sense-Making, Rich Parsells

Administrative Issues Journal

Change is a commonplace occurrence in today’s organizations. A number of scholars suggest that communication strategies during organizational change are an important element to the success of a change initiative, yet such strategies are not given primacy in the research literature. The purpose of this paper is to add to the discourse on communication and workplace change initiatives by reporting on a research project that explored communication actions which were employed and viewed as useful by those experiencing a change in the workplace. This paper presents the findings that emanated from the study and explore their meaning in relation to …

How Managers Use The Stockdale Paradox To Balance “The Now And The Next”, C. W. Von Bergen, Martin S. Bressler

Administrative Issues Journal

Recent discussions of leadership paradoxes have suggested that managers who can hold seemingly opposed, yet interrelated perspectives, are more adaptive and effective. One such paradox that has received relatively little attention is the “Stockdale Paradox,” named after Admiral James Stockdale, an American naval officer who was held captive for seven and one-half years during the Vietnam War and survived imprisonment in large part because he held beliefs of optimism about the future, while simultaneously acknowledging the current reality of the desperate situation in which he found himself. This contradictory tension enabled him and his followers to emerge from their situation …

In The Light Of Shared Words: Collaborative Writing In A Research Study On Student Voice In Spanish Schools, Teresa Susinos Rada, Noelia Ceballos López, Ángela Saiz Linares

The Qualitative Report

This article describes the process of collaborative writing between teachers and researchers which constitutes the final phase (results dissemination) of a qualitative-collaborative research project. This study was developed in Cantabria (Spain) with the purpose of promoting and analysing student voice experiences in various schools. The final process of collaborative writing was organised in two parts: one oral, based on an epistemic interview and a second moment of written production based on a shared writing of the report. This process of collegial writing facilitated a new reading and reappropriation of the described student voice experiences by the participants. It also constitutes …

Normal Schools Revisited: A Theoretical Reinterpretation Of The Historiography Of Normal Schools, Garrett H. Gowen, Ezekiel Kimball

Journal of Critical Scholarship on Higher Education and Student Affairs

This article provides a theory-driven account of the emergence, development, and ultimate disappearance of the normal school as a unique institutional form within higher education. To that end, this article engages new institutionalism in order to construct a composite narrative from the historiography of teacher education which counters the cursory treatment of normal schools in popular and widely-used synthetic histories of higher education. This article also responds to the challenge of better integrating normal schools into the historiography of higher education and suggests future avenues for theory-driven history.

Navigating Middle Of The Road Reforms Through Collaborative Community, Andrea J. Bingham, Patricia Burch

Democracy & Education

The current wave of educational reform is complex and situated in market-based initiatives coupled with a renewed emphasis on local autonomy, deliberation, and community—middle-of-the-road reforms. In practice, schools are challenged to develop organizational forms that can support collaboration and community engagement, alongside the bureaucratic and accountability-driven reforms that demand more oversight, transparency, and demonstrable results. Our intent in this paper is to begin to map the emerging contradictions and opportunities that the complex reform climate presents for practitioners through a case study of a personalized learning charter school. In so doing, we illustrate how a community of teachers within a …

Change: A Leader’S Perspective, Hassan Al Tamimi, Kayleen Berwick, David Biedenbender, Nabih Elteir, Ross Hemmingsen, Kevin Horton, Benjamin Johnson, Danica Johnson, Wail Kailani, Julie Kiehne, James Lowery, Michael Mangan, Matthew Ohs, Lori Steinke, Riley Swier, Terrelle Wilson, Barbara Holmes, Kendall Larson

Leadership Education Books

Change: A Leader's Perspective represents the culmination of the Change Leadership course taught at Winona State University in the fall term of 2017. Leadership is a broad category with many facets. This book explores the subject and offers students of leadership and aspiring leaders current perspectives on leadership theories, the omnipresence of change, and personal reflections on the course material. Additional thoughts which resonate throughout this text are that leaders influence outcomes and that leadership manifests itself in change, whether by cause or effect.

Faculty Drivers And Barriers: Laying The Groundwork For Undergraduate Stem Education Reform In Academic Departments, Susan E. Shadle, Anthony Marker, Brittnee Earl

CTL Teaching Gallery

Background: Calls to improve student learning and increase the number of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) college and university graduates assert the need for widespread adoption of evidence-based instructional practices in undergraduate STEM courses. For successful reforms to take hold and endure, it is likely that a significant shift in culture around teaching is needed. This study seeks to describe the initial response of faculty to an effort to shift teaching norms, with a long-term goal of altering the culture around teaching and learning in STEM. While the effort was envisioned and led at the institutional level, dialog about …

Wicor Walkthroughs And Teacher Practice, Christie L. Mcmullen

Dissertations

Watching experts execute their craft allows for learning. In four schools, this type of learning, teachers watching one another teach, was made available and the feedback from those interviewed showed positive results. This paper explains the process each school used for allowing teachers to watch others teach and the results that they got in the process. This program evaluation was designed to provide guidance to principals on some specific ways to ensure that they can avoid pitfalls if they were to employ a similar strategy with their staff. Teachers using high yield strategies with confidence in their classrooms has the …

A Great And Good Place, David Forte

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

No abstract provided.

An Examination Of Factors Influencing Persistence At Columbus State University, Varonika Brown Hardman

Theses and Dissertations

The researcher designed the mixed method study to contribute to the field of study on persistence and provide information to CSU leadership, faculty and staff that may benefit efforts to reach and retain students. A better understanding of the factors influencing persistence may become vital for funding. Some form of performance-based funding is in place in 32 states. Georgia policymakers are considering factors such as student progression and degree completion.

For the study, the researcher asked:

1. What are the reasons graduating CSU students give for persisting at CSU? 2. What are the reasons incoming CSU students give for choosing …

Academic Interventions In Secondary Schools: Examining Teachers' Perceptions Of Implementing A Multi-Tiered System Of Support, Shannon Mortrud

Theses and Dissertations

According to the National Center for Education Statistics (2015) only 34% of eighth grade students in the U.S. scored at or above proficient in reading and only 33% were at or above proficient in math. Reading comprehension is essential for the acquisition of knowledge in all coursework and those students who have reading deficits may experience increased academic failure. Deficits in math skills may also increase core academic failure for secondary students expected to complete rigorous courses in algebra and beyond. In a review of the literature, Blount (2012) deduced that academic failure is one of the main predictive risk …

Developing A Partnership In Teacher Preparation Program Between Colleges, Universities And School Districts: A Policy Advocacy Document, Leah Gauthier

Dissertations

Teachers are leaving the profession at an alarming rate. Many are unprepared for the rigors of the job, and others become overwhelmed with new initiatives. This problem is due in part to school districts in Illinois not currently being a part of the teacher preparation accreditation process for colleges and universities. This policy advocates for creating that partnership. The findings indicate that doing so will build expertise for the new teachers and help them stay in the classrooms. This, in turn, will help improve student achievement.

A Program Evaluation Of Double-Period Algebra, Jason Major

Dissertations

Students in ninth grade traditionally take algebra courses, but many students come in lacking foundational skills in mathematics. High schools have tried to solve this problem by introducing double-period algebra courses with sporadic results. During this program evaluation, I interviewed an administrator and a teacher from two different high schools about the methods they used to begin and evaluate the program; I found that student-teacher relationships were the most important factor in the effectiveness of the program. Using quantitative data was a good starting point to determine the students who would benefit from the program and who would be successful, …

Policy Advocacy For Letting Schools Be Schools, Jason Major

Dissertations

Ever since the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, schools have been in an era of high stakes accountability around test scores, attendance, and climate and culture. This has also ushered in a wave of accountability down to teachers in the form of paperwork, mandates, and a heavy emphasis on reading and math. In Chicago Public Schools, all schools in the district are rated on the School Quality Rating Policy, which utilizes the Northwest Evaluation Association’s Measures of Academic Progress assessment to determine student growth from the spring of one year to the spring of the next. This heavy …

Kindergarten For Equity: A Policy Advocacy Statement, Amy Houlihan

Dissertations

The urgency to close the achievement gap means it is our moral imperative to provide all children with the opportunities necessary to succeed as early as possible. Knowing the critical timing of a child’s brain development from birth to age five, we cannot afford to wait until a child is six or seven years old to begin developing their academic and social emotional capacity. This policy advocacy document supports a statewide mandate for children to attend kindergarten at age five throughout the state of Illinois. With little need for increased resources to accommodate the mandate, the social, moral and ethical …

Ensuring Student Success In Full-Day Kindergarten: Purposeful Professional Development And Professional Learning Communities, Amy Houlihan

Dissertations

The change leadership model, developed by Wagner et al. (2008), was utilized to assess the context, culture, conditions and competencies of a large suburban school district during the early stages of districtwide implementation of full-day kindergarten. With overwhelming support from families, teachers and administrators, the change plan revolves around ongoing and purposeful professional development for staff building upon systematic work of Professional Learning Communities in order to provide a high quality full-day kindergarten program across twenty-three kindergarten program sites. When districts and schools focus on purposeful professional development and enhanced practice of Professional Learning Communities programs can work to provide …

An Evaluation Of Full-Day Kindergarten Programming, Amy Houlihan

Dissertations

The purpose of this program evaluation document is to provide a rationale and structure for implementing full-day kindergarten. The persistence of the achievement gap in the United States requires considerable and deliberate action to narrow and eliminate the gap over time. With the evolving educational landscape and the adoption of the Common Core State Standards, early education, including systematically designed and implemented full-day kindergarten are one way to afford children the opportunity to begin their education on pace to succeed. This program evaluation examines the differences between half-day kindergarten and full-day kindergarten programs including data analysis from the first year …