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An Evaluation Of Principals’ Perceptions Of Georgia’S Teacher Keys Effectiveness System, Denise B. Warnock

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

“Teachers are by far the most important in-school factor in determining whether our students succeed and our nation’s schools improve” (Education Trust, 2009. p. 3). Quality instruction should be the objective of all educators. Accountability measures have increased the focus on instruction quality making teacher evaluation an important element in determining teacher effectiveness. A greater emphasis on accountability in the field of education calls for teachers and students to demonstrate standards of competency and performance. In light of current educational policy, the means by which teachers are observed and appraised are as important as the content and students they teach. …

Program Evaluation Of A Tutoring Program To Prepare Disenfranchised Students For College, Rhonda Lee Petrini

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Since 2001, the San Colombano Project has provided the College-Bound Tutoring program for disenfranchised prospective first-generation college students in a southwestern community of the United States. However, an evaluation of the program had never been conducted. The purpose of the study was to conduct a qualitative, responsive program evaluation in a naturalistic setting using a case-study approach with a constructivist lens to create a narrative portrait of the program. Guided by critical race theory, Vygotsky's zone of proximal development, and Wlodkowski's motivational theory, the study explored the effectiveness of the program. Interviews were conducted and archival data were examined to …

A Movement Tool Kit For The Divergent And Convergent Cps Guidelines: Instruction Cards And Activity Floor Mats, Adela Vangelisti

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

A Movement Tool Kit for the Divergent and Convergent CPS Guidelines:

Instruction Cards and Activity Floor Mats

Movement is as natural to humans as breathing is, and, yet, passivity starts early in schools. We are taught to sit still and in silence for long periods of time. By the time we reach adulthood and enter the workforce, we have almost forgotten our sense of embodiment. This lack of movement is counter-productive, not only to learning but to the development of creativity as well. For this project, I designed a tool to recapture the joy and playfulness of movement. Furthermore, the …

An Investigation Of Teacher Evaluation Systems And How They Can Be Transformed To Improve Teaching And Learning: A Change Leadership Plan, Kelly O'Brien

Dissertations

Numerous states have contributed to the overhaul of teacher evaluation systems by imposing mandatory guidelines for the development of new measures. The purpose of this Change Leadership plan was to build upon my research “Principal Perspectives on the Current State of the Art of Teacher Evaluations: A Program Evaluation” which revealed a need to investigate how teacher evaluation systems could be transformed by integrating technology to streamline the process and thus improve teaching and learning. Therefore, this Change Leadership plan aimed to address two important questions. How is technology being used within current teacher evaluation systems? Within current teacher evaluation …

A Comparison Of How Three Four-Year University Teacher Education Programs Prepare Pre-Service Teachers To Use Culturally Relevant Pedagogy, Yvette Lawary

Dissertations

While many pre-service teachers successfully passed the state licensure test, a large percentage of students from diverse school districts continue to score below average on their ending standardized state test. Instruction in Culturally Relevant Pedagogy (CRP) might diminish the discrepancy between student performance and teacher performance. The research question was: How do the three university teacher education programs prepare pre-service teachers to teach CRP? The purpose of this qualitative study was to compare three distinctive TEPs regarding how they prepare pre-service teachers to respond to the learning needs of culturally diverse student populations using CRP. Three distinct Midwest TEPs participated …

Teachers' Perceptions Of Working Conditions: The Difference Between Static And Improving Schools In Kentucky, Amy Bryant Allen

Dissertations

The primary purpose of this study was to identify the changes concerning teachers’ perceptions of working conditions within Kentucky’s District 180 Priority Schools. The District 180 Priority Schools comprises of 41 secondary schools that ranked in the bottom fifth percentile on the Kentucky School Report Card. Schools were divided into two categories, static or improving, based upon student achievement changes from 2009 until 2013. The study utilized results from the 2011 and 2013 TELL Kentucky Survey to determine whether changes in teachers’ perceptions of working conditions were statistically significant from 2011 to 2013 in the areas of instructional time, availability …

Paperless Debate: The Wave Of The Future, Michael B. Greenstein

Program Evaluation

This paper details a complete program evaluation of a high school debate team’s transition from debating with paper to paperless debate. The study examines if switching to debate without paper has improved the success of the debate team by focusing on the team’s winning percentage, the cost of debate travel and participation, as well as the debaters’ views of the ease of debating before and after the paperless transition. The paper concludes that the transition was indeed a success, because it increased the team’s win percentage (though not by a statistically significant margin), saved the team thousands of dollars, and …

Perceptions Of General Education Deans And Department Chairs Of Their Colleges As Learning Organizations, May Charmayne Mulligan

Dissertations

Higher education institutions are being pushed towards increased assessment practices because of rising costs, mass access, new delivery methods, and rising competition on the national and global scale. Academic deans and department heads are at the center of these assessment efforts, and assessment should guide changes within the organization for improvement. Learning organization theory provides a framework for creating an environment favorable to assessment and improvement. Six learning organization principles – learning, communication, measurement, problem-solving, structure, and vision – were used for this study.

An online questionnaire was used to capture the perceptions of deans and department heads as to …

Effects Of Positive Behavior Interventions And Supports On Middle School Student Achievement, Chad Knowles

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Today's teachers face more frequent and more severe challenges than perhaps any generation of teachers that have come before them. Administrators attempt to support teaching in an environment of ever-increasing accountability and dwindling financial resources with new and innovative strategies. One such strategy employed by modern educators has been the Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS) model for clear behavioral expectations and pyramids of intervention for targeted support for students. This study compared a middle school that employs PBIS with a middle school that does not, to determine if there was any statistical improvement realized on academic achievement. Two diverse …

Two Case Studies Of The University Strategic Planning Process, Robert Lawrence Salter

Dissertations

This is a study of how the quality of a university strategic plan can be assessed on the basis of content validated rubrics. It further explores of the dynamics of how the choice of a planning process, i.e. inclusive or non-inclusive, can be affected by strategic intent, change capacity and leadership style of the organization’s President. As the definition of a quality strategic plan document is established by the study, the next problem the study addresses is the gap in higher education literature about the import of clear strategic intent, i.e. the focus on what the organization is trying to …

Instituting Large Scale Change At A Research Intensive University: A Case Study, Robert Drake, James Crawford, Chad Rohrbacher

Publications

This paper uses Bolman and Deal’s four analytic frames to examine the difficulty of instituting large-scale change at one research-intensive university. In this case, the partially successful attempt to implement a new curriculum for undergraduates at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University is explored. The authors theorize that if an institution is to attempt a far-reaching, innovative transformation, it must have consistent leadership and the commitment of middle managers. Otherwise well-crafted plans are doomed to meet resistance.

The Historical Formation Of Academic Identities: Rhetoric And Composition, Discourse And Writing, Louise Wetherbee Phelps

English Faculty Publications

(First paragraph) This talk originated in my work as a consultant at the University of Winnipeg, where I spent six weeks on a Fulbright Specialist grant in Spring 2011. I was invited to advise the Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and Communications on its plans for “program architecture renewal,” which included critically assessing its programs, articulating levels of the curriculum, and charting future directions for the department. The grant had larger goals as well, charging me to study the development of writing and rhetorical studies in Canada as an emerging field seeking both definition and visibility. The Winnipeg faculty hoped that …

The School District Superintendent In The United States Of America, Lars G. Björk, Theodore J. Kowalski, Tricia Browne-Ferrigno

Educational Leadership Faculty Publications

Public education is one of the main forces that make a healthy and democratic society. It strives to educate and to provide the younger generation knowledge and skills that allow children to become contributing citizens in their society. Public education is considered highly significant in consolidating the society and establishing its cultural and economic strength. For those reasons, governments choose to invest a significant portion of the state’s national resources in public schooling.

Taking into account the costs and political significance attributed to public education, it is not surprising that governments establish some formal mechanism responsible for the monitoring of …

Influence Of Target Population Misspecification On Employee Perceptions At A, Joe Lee Smith

Wayne State University Dissertations

Numerous researchers have conducted qualitative and quantitative studies examining employee perceptions related to changes in their work environment based upon management/top-down (deductive) communication of vision, mission, and envisioned organization goals Hofstede, Neuijen, Daval, Ohayv, & Sanders (1990), but research on the influence of subgroup/identity types on workforce perception is sparse Dutton, Dukerich, & Harquail (1994). Data on subgroup identification with the mission and strategic goals envisioned by management/administration is limited. Also limited is knowledge of the influence they have over their members, which places management at a disadvantage in planning strategic organization objectives Albert & Whetten, (1985). These subgroups have …

A Case Study Of The Leadership Program At Andrews University: Its Origins And Early Development As Reflected In Documents And Relics, Participant And Faculty Interviews, And Participant-Observation, 1994-2003, Priscilla Tucker

Dissertations

Purpose. The Leadership Program was established at Andrews University in 1994 as a non-traditional, competency-based, adult-oriented doctoral program. The purpose of this case study was to relate the story of the creation and development of the Leadership Program from 1994 through 2002 by examining the concepts incorporated into the program and the experiences of participants, faculty, and staff involved in the program during those years.

Method. Using a case-study approach, I have examined the conceptual development and procedural evolution of the Leadership Program at Andrews University from 1994 through 2002; that is, from the year of the program’s …

Students' Perceptions And Experiences Of A Diversity And Inclusion Training Program At A Community College, Norma I. Corral-Chandler

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

A community college developed a diversity and inclusion training program, Maximizing Our Strengths as an Inclusive Community (MOSAIC), to address the lack of diversity training for students and staff. However, the program had not been evaluated. The purpose of this study was to learn about students' perceptions and experiences of the MOSAIC program. Guided by theories of constructivism and components of critical race theory related to critical studies in Whiteness, social identity theory, and best practices for diversity and inclusion training, this study explored how students described the effectiveness of the program. Interview data for this responsive program evaluation using …

Teacher Perceptions Of Effective School Leadership Using Twenty-First Century Skills And Knowledge, Bobbie Anita Augspurger

Dissertations

This quantitative study was conducted to examine the primary components of school leadership for 21st-century skills and knowledge integration. With the passing of the National Educational Technology Standards (NETS) for students, teachers, and administrators, the need for administrative leadership within the realm of technology is continually evolving and growing. The NETS based survey required teachers from three varying sized school districts, who have implemented a 1:1 student device initiative, to answer statements, using a Likert scale, about themselves and their principal. Survey statement data results were revealed using a Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient formula, scatter plots, and regression studies …

Designing Innovative Alternatives To Traditional High Schools: What Leaders Need To Know, Chester Roy Edwards

Dissertations and Theses

The need for new and innovative alternatives to traditional high schools has never been greater. Never designed to graduate all students on time, traditional high schools and their high dropout rates have remained unchanged for the last 30 years. Improving secondary schooling for all young people is a worthwhile social and educational objective. Many school leaders want to create alternative high schools but may lack the knowledge of what to do, nor may they have a comprehensive design process to follow.

The research question explored in this dissertation is: What do leaders in education need to know to design innovative …

A Data-Based Evaluation Process For Superintendents, Matthew Shane Baker

Morehead State Theses and Dissertations

A capstone submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Education in the College of Education at Morehead State University by Matthew Shane Balker on April 16, 2013.

Visualizing Interaction: Pilot Investigation Of A Discourse Analytics Tool For Online Discussion, John Mccormick

Staff Scholarship

Discussion boards are perhaps the most commonly used collaboration tool in online courses. However, native discussion tools in learning management systems are limited in their ability to show interaction patterns among learners. Tools that provide more robust visual representations of discussions can improve instructors’ understanding of how students are interacting and, as a result, their ability to intervene when identifying suboptimal interaction patterns. This paper presents an exploratory investigation of one such tool, Social Networks Adapting Pedagogical Practice (SNAPP), examining its potential to help faculty understand and react to discussion patterns. Emerging learning analytics tools such as SNAPP can enhance …

Systems Appraisal Feedback Report (2013), Aqip Program, Higher Learning Commission

Accreditation

This document includes the feedback report from the Higher Learning Commission on the Systems Portfolio submitted in 11/2002.

Structuring A Teacher Education Program For Faculty Collaboration And Second-Order Change, Tammy V. Abernathy, Shanon S. Taylor

Journal of Educational Leadership in Action

The purpose of this paper is to describe the structure and functions of an integrated elementary special education undergraduate teacher program (Integrated Elementary/Special Education Teacher Education Program, ITEP). By abandoning our old “enhancement model” of teacher education, we redesigned our program into a “merged model.” We examine this restructuring from the perspective of first- and second- order change, and we discuss the obstacles we found that prohibit meaningful second-order change. Finally, we briefly discuss how our experiences in designing ITEP and our state’s devastating fiscal crisis have affected our teacher-education programs and nudged us into more authentic second-order changes.

First-Generation Freshman College Students: Factors Impacting Retention For The Subsequent Year, Laura Colson Mclean

Education Dissertations and Projects

Against all odds, first-generation college students continue to enroll in postsecondary schools with aspirations of obtaining a bachelor's degree. Unfortunately, many have not successfully reached their goal, which in turn has affected retention rates of colleges and universities. There are programs that provide academic support and advising to increase retention for first-generation college students. However, there are academic and nonacademic needs of the students that colleges, universities, and public policymakers have neglected to address.

The purpose of this research study was to determine from 168 first-generation college students at 5 participating institutions, what factors impacted their enrollment after their first …

Perceptions Surrounding The Implementation Of Colorado Senate Bill 10-191'S New Teacher Evaluations, Sarah Melvoin Bridich

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In 2013, many public education reform efforts in the United States of America center on testing and accountability. Recent data revealed that teachers have the single greatest in-school impact on student learning; however, the methods to assess teacher effectiveness are widely criticized for not holding teachers accountable and, consequently, are experiencing significant legislative attention. In 2010, Colorado passed Senate Bill 10-191: The Great Teachers and Leaders Act to improve student learning by revising teacher and principal evaluations, including linking them to student learning data, and eradicating tenure.

Teachers, administrators, and policymakers hold critical roles in the implementation of this bill, …

Increasing The Cultural Competence Of Assessment Professionals Via Online Training, Jennifer L. Schroeder, Maximino Plata, Harry Fullwood, Melanie Price, Jennifer Dyer

Faculty Publications

The preponderance of literature suggests that culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) learners demonstrate unexpected underachievement in academic areas, mainly due to educators’ inability to differentiate between students’ cultural attributes rather than demonstrable cognitive dysfunction. Thirty assessment practitioners participated in a study to investigate the effectiveness of teaching cultural information and culturally-relevant assessment practices via an online teaching platform. The Munroe Multicultural Attitude Scale Questionnaire (MASQUE) and short-answer tests were used to obtain participants’ pre- and post- training attitudes and knowledge regarding cultural diversity. Results indicated that online training improved attitudes toward multicultural issues in education. A number of suggestions for …

Community College Presidents' Perspectives Of Dichotomous Events: The Consequences Of The Great Recession & Coincidental Increased Enrollment, Corey W. Carlson

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Theses & Dissertations

The community college, like all of higher education, has been significantly impacted by the Great Recession and coincidental increased enrollment. The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine the decision making processes of community college presidents as related to resource allocation and the impact of these decisions on the comprehensive community college mission. Declining state funding and increased enrollments have greatly impacted how community college leaders make decisions with leaders incorporating shared governance and informed decision-making. Community college leaders have also been proactively seeking out alternative revenue streams in order to help offset decreased state funding. Findings of this …

Teacher Beliefs, Teacher Concerns, And School Leadership Support As Influences On School Readiness For Implementing A Research-Based Reform Model, Elizabeth Hoag Carhart

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Theses & Dissertations

Federal policy makers and school leaders increasingly recognize middle school math as a turning point in students' academic success. An i3 scale-up grant allowed grant partners to conduct a large-scale implementation of Power Teaching (PT), a research-based reform to increase student math achievement. In a mixed-methods study during the pilot phase of the project, eight schools' readiness for reform was explored. Teacher questionnaires; interviews with project managers, school leaders, and teachers; classroom observations; and school evaluation forms were used to describe school characteristics that affected variability in initial implementation of the PT model. A cluster analysis demonstrated the relative importance …

Measuring Transformational Leadership In Athletic Training: A Comparative Analysis, Kristan M. Yates

Theses and Dissertations--Educational Leadership Studies

The purpose of this study was to measure the construct of transformational leadership among athletic training academicians and clinicians. Additionally, this study sought to determine whether perspectives regarding transformational leadership were the same or different based on full-time vocational roles. Finally, this study introduced a methodology for survey data analysis relatively unknown in athletic training research circles. Participants included athletic training education program directors as well as individuals in leadership roles at the state, district, and national level.

Planning And Implementing Online Instruction: Faculty Perceptions Of One University, James M. Wright

Dissertations, Theses and Capstone Projects (Full IR Collection)

To maintain a competitive advantage, many universities have expanded their online course offerings, and college faculty members are vital to the design, development, and delivery of online instruction (Allen & Seaman, 2007; Mitchell & Geva-May, 2009; Tabata & Johnsrud, 2008). In this study, a mixed-method approach is used to investigate faculty’s perceptions about teaching online at one university. Understanding the factors that motivate and impede faculty to teach online provided the knowledge to plan future strategies to increase faculty participation with this instructional medium.

At a large suburban university in the Southeastern United States, 363 faculty members were surveyed and …

The Relationship Between Teacher Perceptions Of Elementary School Principal Leadership Style And Teacher Job Satisfaction, Joseph Kirk Biggerstaff

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between teacher perceptions of elementary school principal leadership style and teacher job satisfaction. The study also investigated differences in teachers’ perceptions of elementary school principal leadership style and teacher job satisfaction based on teachers’ demographics (i.e., age, grade level taught, education level, teaching experience). Additionally, an examination of the significant factors that contribute to teacher job satisfaction as identified by the elementary teachers was explored.

This correlational study with a quantitative, non-experimental design utilized two surveys to measure elementary teacher perceptions of principal leadership style (Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire [MLQ]) and …