Digital Commons Network^™

Working With Beginning Teachers: What Effective Strategies Do Principals Use?, Binbin Jiang, Tak Cheung Chan

Faculty Articles

The purpose of this study was to examine principals’ perception on what beginning teachers can do to ensure success in schools and what principals can do to assist them. Principals claimed that they assisted beginning teachers in mentoring, supervision, and performance evaluation. They advised beginning teachers for successful practices in effective teaching strategies, working with diverse learners, interacting with parents and guardians, handling disciplinary issues, confidentiality of student information, and continuing professional development.

The Relationship Of Teacher Route To Certification To Student Outcomes On Statewide Social Studies Assessment, Aaron L. Smith

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Theses & Dissertations

Public school divisions face daunting challenges today. One such challenge is the ability to recruit and retain highly qualified and effective teachers. Endemic teacher shortages coupled with escalating national education standards make it imperative that school divisions hire and retain teachers who can positively and immediately impact student achievement. Schools without effective teachers face possible sanctions, which could include re-staffing of the school, parental choice that would allow the student population to attend more successful schools and loss of funds.

At the same time, colleges and universities have begun alternative certification programs in an effort to compensate for teacher shortages …

Entering The Virtual Teacher’S Lounge: The Efficacy Of Community In Computer-Mediated Communication Based Environments For Professional Educators, Randall S. Dunn

Faculty Dissertations

This study seeks to illuminate an understanding of naturally forming online communities of professional educators in the context of off-line communities. Essentially, an online discussion forum for educators is evaluated for the purpose of determining whether the forum provides a “space” conducive for the development of a community of professional educators as benchmarked against an understanding of offline community formation and existence. The foundational works of Ferdinand Tonnies, James Coleman, and Ray Oldenburg are used to develop 13 characteristics of community - as understood in the context of informal social communities as opposed to the types related to more formal …

Meeting The Needs Of Ells: Acknowledging The Schism Between Esl/Bilingual And Mainstream Teachers And Illustrating That Problem's Remedy, Edmund T. Hamann

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

Nationwide, education researchers, policy makers, and school reformers agree that the education of English language learners (ELLs) is an increasingly important issue as (1) more students in more districts fit in that category (Ruiz-de-Velasco, 2005; Suarez-Orozco & Suarez-Orozco, 1999; Wortham, Murillo & Hamann, 2002); as (2) they, in aggregate, continue to fare less well than most other student populations (August & Hakuta, 1997; Callahan & Gindara, 2004; NCES, 1997); and as (3) policy compliance with the No Child Left Behind Act holds their schools accountable for their cumulative average yearly progress (Abedi, 2005; Crawford, 2004). There is also an emerging …

Successful Schooling For Ells: Principles For Building Responsive Learning Environments, Maria Coady, Edmund T. Hamann, Margaret Harrington, Samboen Pho, Jane Yedlin

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

Guiding Questions

• What are the goals of schooling in general and for ELLS in particular?
• What roles do language and culture play in teaching, in learning, and in the assessment of learning?
• How do we measure the successfulness of schooling for ELLs?
• What factors besides the quality of classroom instruction impact the education of ELLs? How?
• In addition to research-based, age-appropriate literacy instruction, what more do ELLS need in order to develop good literacy skills?
• What is the importance of parental and community involvement in the education of ELLs?

While measurable academic gains in …

Determining The Role Of Technology In Supporting The Professional Growth Of Administrative Leadership Candidates, Antoinette P. Bruciati, Gail Nordmoe

Education Faculty Publications

School improvement planning that is guided through data-driven decision making has been recognized as a “best practice” among educational leaders for many years. Although national standards for school administrators routinely incorporate educational and information technology components, state boards of education do not currently mandate technology training for those enrolled in programs leading to administrative certification. As a result, many school administrators may not be adequately prepared to use computer and information technologies supportive of their roles and responsibilities. This investigation examined the perceptions and current technological literacy of individuals enrolled in a university-level Administrative Leadership Program. Research focused on the …

School-Based Mentoring: An Effective Intervention With Students At Risk For Ebd, Paul Caldarella, Shauna Valentine, K. Richard Young, Michael Adams

Faculty Publications

EBD Students experience fewer positive outcomes, more frequent removal from class, and less academic instruction than any other group of students with disabilities; Years of academic failure and peer rejection before evaluations and diagnoses are begun. (Lane, Gresham, & O’Shaugnessy, 2002;Jolivette, Stitchter, Nelson, Scott, & Liaupsin, 2000)

Crazy About Teaching, Kausar Waqar

Institute for Educational Development, Karachi

No abstract provided.

Motivating Students: Identifying And Motivating Reluctant Learners To Reach Their Academic Potential, Kim Yeager

All Graduate Projects

Motivation plays an important role in determining how well a child will perform in school (Philips & Lindsay, 2006). Regardless of how intelligent or capable a student may be if the student is not motivated to do well then their academic performance will be less than it could have been with some motivation. Teachers need to understand why some students are motivated to try hard in school and why some students are not. This understanding will lead teachers to understand why their students are not reaching their academic potential. The purpose of this project was to design a guide that …

Staff Perceptions Of Structure, Process, And School Readiness Outcomes In Private South Florida Child Care Centers, Deborah Mazzeo

Graduate Student Dissertations, Theses, Capstones, and Portfolios

The quality of child care centers and school readiness outcomes continue to be important topics in the State of Florida since policymakers, school districts, and child care centers, in August 2005, began to implement the Voluntary Prekindergarten Program. The problem area of child care is whether various characteristics of child care center programs result in different outcomes for children's development.

Qualities of child care centers can be attributed to structure and process variables. A theoretical framework that is grounded in Bronfenbrenner's ecological theory is discussed. The structure-process-outcome model of quality and Spady's outcome-based education model were combined to explain the …

The Virtual Teacher's Lounge: How Teachers Meaningfully Connect Through Online Networks, Randall S. Dunn

Faculty Publications and Presentations

This study seeks to illuminate an understanding of naturally forming online communities of professional educators in the context of off-line communities. Essentially, an online discussion forum for educators is evaluated for the purpose of determining whether the forum provides a “space” conducive for the development of a community of professional educators as benchmarked against an understanding of offline community formation and existence. The primary approach to this study is qualitative in nature with some quasi-statistical support to elucidate analysis and conclusions. The study employs the use of QSR NVivo 7 to collect, catalogue, and analyze discussions from this online forum, …

Teacher-Involved Conversations With Young Children During Small Group Activity, Tonia Renee Durden, Julie Rainer Dangel

Nebraska Center for Research on Children, Youth, Families, and Schools: Faculty Publications

This qualitative study examines the conversations of two preschool teachers with two- and three-year-old children during small-group activity settings in two high-quality child development centers. Using interviews, observations and videotaping of small-group activities, the conversations are characterized in terms of the kind and function of language, the usage of cognitive demands and the reciprocal nature of these conversations. The findings indicate that teachers use declarative statements primarily to manage instruction and encourage language development. While teachers control most conversations, teacher–child reciprocity is evident and more genuine in authentic, teacher-guided activities. In both classrooms, the language during small-group activities is characterized …

National Board Certification: A Scholarly Endeavor, Kathryn Loveless

All Graduate Projects

If today's students are going to succeed they need quality teachers. To atiract and retain those teachers, we need to have a system to recognize and reward those teachers. The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) was created to fill that need. This study presents the historical development of the Natio1ial Board Teacher Certification program, research on its effects on student learning, and the personal certification experience of a teacher practitioner. The high standards set by the NBPTS are commendable and worthy of being replicated in teacher training programs. These standards set the ground work for what teachers should …

Promoting Student Collaboration In A Detracked, Heterogeneous Secondary Mathematics Classroom, Megan Staples

CRME Publications

Detracking and heterogeneous groupwork are two educational practices that have been shown to have promise for affording all students needed learning opportunities to develop mathematical proficiency. However, teachers face significant pedagogical challenges in organizing productive groupwork in these settings. This study offers an analysis of one teacher’s role in creating a classroom system that supported student collaboration within groups in a detracked, heterogeneous geometry classroom. The analysis focuses on four categories of the teacher’s work that created a set of affordances to support within group collaborative practices and links the teacher’s work with principles of complex systems.

The Effectiveness Of Mentoring-Based Professional Development On Physical Education Teachers' Pedometer And Computer Efficacy And Anxiety, Jeffrey J. Martin, Nate Mccaughtry, Pamela Hodges Kulinna, Donetta Cothran, Roberta Faust

Kinesiology, Health and Sport Studies

The purpose of our study was to examine the impact of mentoring-based professional development on physical education teachers' efficacy. Experienced mentor teachers were paired (n = 15) with inexperienced protégé teachers (n = 15) at the beginning of a yearlong intervention study. It was hypothesized that teachers would increase their efficacy to use pedometers and computers to enhance instruction, and reduce their computer anxiety. Repeated-measures ANOVAs for mentors and protégés revealed a variety of significant main effects. We found increases in computer and pedometer efficacy. A second set of repeated-measures ANOVAs based on mentors', protégés', and control groups' …

Assessment Of Adult Esl Learners’ Preferable Learning Styles : Implications For An Effective Language Learning Environment, Kayoko Yamauchi

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

This research was conducted to investigate how adult ESL students learn effectively according to their learning preferences and their cultural/educational backgrounds. A total of 117 respondents in this study were categorized in three types: 58 language-based ESL students (L-B ESL students), 48 content-based ESL students (C-B ESL students), and 11 ESL teachers at Marshall University. In 2008, during the fourth week of September, the Productivity Environmental Preference Survey (PEPS) and a demographic questionnaire were administered to both L-B ESL students and C-B ESL students at Marshall University, Huntington, West Virginia. Descriptive statistics, including correlation analysis, were used to describe and …

A Descriptive Study Of The Impact Of Planning Time On The Utilization Of The National Council Of Teachers Of Mathematics Process Standards Within The Algebra 1 And Applied Mathematics Subject Fields, Kerri Colleen Lookabill

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Planning practices are necessary requirements for effective instruction. Their importance is illustrated in the guidelines produced by several national organizations such as The Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (INTASC), The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS), and The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM). Planning time is considered important by teachers at the grassroots level in order for them to develop thought-provoking lessons that allow students to make connections and form meaning as well as to reflect on previous lessons in order to make improvements for subsequent lessons. Collaborative planning is also considered important; however, it …

Teacher Perception About Implementation Strategy Of B.Ed Teaching Practice In Real School Classrooms: Issues And Challenges, Wasim Qazi, Khalid Jamil Rawat, Muhammad Yousuf Sharjeel, Shila Devi

Curriculum and Instruction Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Teaching practice is the core component of all pre-service teacher education programs. Through teaching practice, a novice teacher is assumed to have inculcated a supposedly viable pedagogic experience to transfer the core competency of the subject knowledge to students in real classroom situation. This study encompasses the challenges and issues that the novice teachers experience at post-training level of their B.Ed programme of studies. The investigations also enlighten the gaps that the trained teachers have shared with the researchers. The study highlights the extent to which the on-training components of teaching practice is reflected in the attitude of the trained …

A Synthetic Teaching-Learning Model: A Contextualized Study, Wasim Qazi

Curriculum and Instruction Faculty and Staff Scholarship

The paper aims at institutionalizing instructional technology with a view to improving the quality of education. The conceptual framework developed in this paper reviews the existing status of training programs in light of the suggested initiatives of education sectors reforms (Ministry of Education, Government of Pakistan -August-2003). It has been argued that major purpose of imparting professional training to teachers and administrators should be directed towards improvement of quality of education. In stating the problem the malaise underlining the teaching-learning process has been identified as a core issue. The teaching-learning process which is the hallmark of quality of education has …

More Than A Native Speaker: A Teacher Training Program For Native English-Speaking Teachers In Korean Hakwons, Sunhee Kim

MA TESOL Collection

This paper describes a teacher training program for native English-speaking teachers who teach children at hakwons (private English-teaching institutions) in Korea. The emphasis on English as a necessary skill in the global economy has caused a kind of ‘English fever’ to sweep the nation. A massive number of native English speaker are being rushed to Korea to teach English in hakwons. The majority do not have a background in teaching English. This has caused widely publicized discontent among stakeholders such as parents and difficulties for the teachers. This paper outlines a teacher training program specifically designed to provide basic teaching …

What Helps Law Professors Develop As Teachers? -- An Empirical Study, Gerald F. Hess, Sophie M. Sparrow

Law Faculty Scholarship

The overall goal of this article is to provide concrete suggestions for how law schools can improve teaching and enrich law student learning. In doing so, it reviews and analyzes the data collected from two national surveys about the kinds of faculty development activities that are most effective in improving law professors’ teaching. One survey was designed to quantify how many law teachers engaged in twenty-two types of teaching development activities over the previous five years and to assess the effectiveness of each of those activities. The other survey focused on the effectiveness of a national conference on teaching and …

Catalogue 2008-2009, Bank Street College Of Education

Graduate School of Education

This course catalog from a past academic year is a resource for referring to previous course offerings, degree requirements, institutional policies, and more.

Building Assignments That Teach, Mary-Ann Winkelmes

Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education: Archives

We have come to take assignments for granted as a necessary part of undergraduate education, largely because they provide the basis for a student's grade. But assignments can accomplish much more. In addition to helping students learn course content, assignments can enable students to practice the most essential skills of a discipline. Further, assignments can offer an opportunity for students to become better evaluators of their own academic work.

Thoughtfully structured assignments offer teachers an opportunity to build students’ mastery of essential disciplinary skills alongside their content knowledge; to improve students’ ability to evaluate their own academic work; and even …

Beyond Writing: Integrative Learning And Teaching In First-Year Seminars, David H. Krause, Robert C. Lageaux

Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education: Archives

Campuses across the country continue to establish first-year seminars that promise students integrative and transformative learning experiences necessary for the twenty-first century. This trend inevitably challenges faculty members to teach in ways that transcend or subvert both their disciplinary expertise and their familiar, comfortable ways of teaching. These challenges become especially visible in the design and evaluation of assignments. At Columbia College Chicago, for example, where the majority of students aspire to careers in the arts, media, and communication, teachers have been negotiating the place of writing in a required firstyear seminar in liberal learning. These negotiations play out differently …

Role-Play: An Often Misused Active Learning Strategy, Stephanie Nickerson

Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education: Archives

Role-play is a special kind of case study, in which there is an explicit situation established with students playing specific roles, spontaneously saying and doing what they understand their “character” would, in that situation. Role-plays differ from other case studies in the immediacy of the experience. Students find themselves in the role-play. In a case study, they read about situations and characters. One of the reasons role-play can work so well is because of the power of placing oneself in another’s shoes. This provides opportunities for learning in both the affective domain, where emotions and values are involved, as well …

Increasing The Success Of Online Students, Ivan Harrell Ii Phd

Inquiry: The Journal of the Virginia Community Colleges

In this article, the author presents ways that colleges can use student readiness, orientation, and support to increase the likelihood for success of their online students.

What Would Freud Say To Voltaire? The Use Of Dialogues In Survey Courses, Linda Simmons

Inquiry: The Journal of the Virginia Community Colleges

In this essay, the author argues that assigning dialogues in survey courses is a viable alternative to traditional research-based essays.

Po? Pow? What! A Class Project To Study Linguistic Variation In English, Bruce Sofinski

Inquiry: The Journal of the Virginia Community Colleges

This article explains how a final class project in an American Sign Language course teaches teamwork, critical thinking, and research methodology.

Study Of Achievement Gaps In The Seventh Grade Special Education Population On Cats Assessment In All Content Areas, Brandy M. Lain

Morehead State Theses and Dissertations

An applied project submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Education Specialist at Morehead State University by Brandy M. Lain in 2008.

Kentucky Youth At Risk Transitions: A Report To The Commonwealth, Doris E. Pierce, Norman Powell, Amy Marshall, Ronnie Nolan, Elaine Fehringer

Educational Leadership and Policy Studies Faculty and Staff Research

In the Commonwealth of Kentucky, there are over 22,000 youth being educated in programs that are funded, operated or contracted by state agencies. These state agency children come from a variety of socioeconomic backgrounds and bring a multiplicity of social, psychological, behavioral and educational problems that challenge teachers and staffs. These particular Kentucky students, more than any others, are at the greatest risk of not making successful transitions into adulthood. It is critical that all such young people be afforded the highest quality of transition planning and support so that they can become successful and productive adults. This report is …