Education Commons^™

Is There More Than One Way? Examining Alternative Pathway Teacher Effectiveness Through The Experiences And Perceptions Of Principals In Urban, Low-Socioeconomic Schools In Oklahoma, Julianne Hennessy Denton

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Teacher quality continues to be recognized as one of the strongest predictors of student success and school improvement. The quality of an educator is also critical to being able to address the growing achievement and opportunity gap in schools and communities that are marked by concentrated poverty. Therefore, principals are under significant pressure to recruit, train, support, and retain highly qualified teachers, so all students have access to quality education. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to generate knowledge of alternative pathway teachers’ effectiveness in the classroom from an administrative point of view, specifically in urban, low socioeconomic, …

Teacher Perspectives On The Use Of The Australian Professional Standards For Teachers As Part Of Their Evaluation Process, Damien Barry, Donna Pendergast, Katherine Main

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

Teacher effectiveness has a powerful impact on student performance and a teacher evaluation process that supports professional growth can be a key lever for improving teaching quality. The purpose of this study was to examine teacher perspectives on the use of the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers, when used as part of their evaluation process, and, to determine what other factors may need to be considered in the design and implementation of such a process. A single case study of a school in Victoria, Australia was conducted, using a pre and post interview approach with six teachers. Responses were analysed …

Case Study Of A Principal-Directed Mentorship Program For Untrained Primary School Teachers, Joycelyn Archibald Pennyfeather

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Issues relating to teacher quality are being discussed internationally. Locally, teachers in St. Kitts and Nevis are hired to teach without any formal training, resulting in poor quality teaching. The problem studied was the poor-quality performance of first-year teachers in a rural primary school of St. Kitts and Nevis. One school principal introduced a mentoring program in an effort to improve teacher quality. The purpose of this study was to explore educators’ perceptions of the implementation of that principal-directed mentoring program and make suggestions for its improvement. Guided by Chinnasamy’s concept of mentoring as andragogy in action, this study examined …

The Invisible Schism: Teachers’ And Administrators’ Differing Perceptions Of Education Reforms, Sarah Melvoin Bridich

Educational Leadership and Policy Studies: Faculty Scholarship

This study examined teachers’ and administrators’ perceptions of education reforms, focusing on a state legislated education bill that altered teacher evaluations. A mixed-method design, including an electronic survey, was used to gather perceptions of Colorado Senate Bill 10-191: Great Teachers and Leaders Act from teachers and administrators in the Rockies School District (RSD), as well as these two groups’ general perceptions of teacher evaluations, education reforms, and change. Results revealed that teachers collectively hold similar views of education reforms, as do administrators; however, how each group perceives these elements of education policy and reform differs significantly. Both teachers and administrators …

Measuring Teacher Conscientiousness And Its Impact On Students: Insight From The Measures Of Effective Teaching Longitudinal Database, Albert Cheng, Gema Zamarro

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

Although research has been unable to find strong links between observable teacher characteristics and a teacher’s ability to improve student achievement, it has generally not considered the role that teacher non-cognitive skills play in affecting student outcomes. In this article, we validate several novel performance-task measures of teacher conscientiousness based upon the effort that teachers exert completing a survey and use these measures to examine the role that teacher conscientiousness plays in affecting both student test scores and student non-cognitive skills. We conduct our analysis using the Measure of Effective Teaching Longitudinal Database where teachers were randomly assigned to their …

Comparisons Of Student Perceptions Of Teacher's Performance In The Classroom: Using Parametric Anchoring Vignette Methods For Improving Comparability, Hana Vonkova, Gema Zamarro, Vera Deberg, Collin Hitt

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

Self-reports are an indispensable source of information in education research but might be affected by reference group bias if the frame of reference (i.e. implicit standards), used to answer the questions, differs across students. The anchoring vignettes method was introduced, in other areas of social science, precisely to correct for this source of bias. However, studies that make use of this approach in education are rare and more research is needed to study its potential. This paper uses data from PISA 2012 to investigate the use of the parametric model of the anchoring vignettes method to correct for differential implicit …

Teacher Allocation Policies And The Unbalanced Distribution Of Novice And Senior Teachers Across Regions In Turkey, Murat Ozoglu

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

Policies toward fostering a more balanced distribution of teacher quality have garnered considerable attention from researchers and policymakers around the world. This attention has been motivated largely by the widely acknowledged educational goal of providing quality education for all children. Equipped with similar policy concerns, this study examines the initial assignment of novice teachers and voluntary transfer of senior teachers to determine whether there is any kind of sorting pattern in the allocation of novice and experienced teachers to schools across regions, particularly across provinces, in Turkey. Using the entire initial teacher assignment and voluntary teacher transfer data in between …

Disentangling Disadvantage: Can We Distinguish Good Teaching From Classroom Composition?, Gema Zamarro, John Engberg, Juan Esteban Saavedra, Jennifer Steele

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

This paper focuses on the use of teacher value-added estimates to assess the distribution of effective teaching across students of varying socioeconomic disadvantage. We use simulation methods to examine the extent to which different commonly used teacher-value added estimators accurately capture both the rank correlation between true and estimated teacher effects and the distribution of effective teaching across student characteristics in the presence of classroom composition effects. Varying the amount of teacher sorting by student characteristics, the withinteacher variability in classroom composition, and the amount of student learning decay, we compare aggregated residuals, teacher random effects, and teacher fixed effects …

Rethinking Teacher Quality: Narrow Versus Broad Conceptions Of Capability, Anthony Costa

Master's Theses

This paper examines the prevailing notion of teacher quality today. While there is wide agreement that teachers are the primary factor in schools determining student achievement, there is disagreement about which attributes constitute a high-quality teacher. Different approaches to improving teaching spring from different conceptualizations of capability. Since teacher quality consists of particular abilities that allow teachers to excel in their work, we need to understand how the abilities of high quality teachers are acquired, maintained and expanded, or, conversely, how these abilities are unrealized, arrested and diminished. The Strategic Management of Human Capital (SMHC) project represents the dominant approach …

Teachers' Perspectives And Suggestions For Improving Teacher Education To Facilitate Student Learning, Dina Linkenhoker

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this transcendental phenomenological study is to give teachers a voice to express their self-efficacy beliefs, their opinions about the content and the effectiveness of their teacher preparation programs to facilitate student learning, and to hear their suggestions for improving teacher education to enable future educators to achieve that goal. The advent of the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act in 2002, referred to as No Child Left Behind, has reframed the debate on teacher quality. Across the board, from scholars to government officials to private foundations, there is a call for reform of schools of …

Evaluating The Impact Of The Beginning Teacher Induction Program On The Retention Rate Of Beginning Teachers, Adriane Lenette Watkins Mingo

Education Dissertations and Projects

This dissertation examined the Beginning Teacher Induction Program of a rural school system in North Carolina. The effects of mentoring, induction sessions, administrative support, ongoing staff development, and other support offered at the system level to beginning teachers were carefully analyzed.

The researcher used eight themes based on the objectives of the school system's Beginning Teacher Support Program: improving beginning teachers' skills and performance; supporting teacher morale; communications; collegiality; building a sense of professionalism and positive attitude; facilitating a smooth transition into the first and second years of teaching; putting theory into practice; preventing teacher isolation; building self-reflection; and retaining …

Teacher Effectiveness In Urban High Schools, Richard Buddin, Gema Zamarro

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

This research examines whether teacher licensure test scores and other teacher qualifications affect high school student achievement. The results are based on longitudinal student-level data from Los Angeles. The achievement analysis uses a value-added approach that adjusts for both student and teacher fixed effects. The results show little relationship between traditional measures of teacher quality (e.g., experience and education level) and student achievement in English Language Arts (ELA) or math. Similarly, teacher aptitude and subject-matter knowledge, as measured on state licensure tests, have no significant effects on student achievement. Achievement outcomes differ substantially from teacher to teacher, however, and the …

Teacher Qualifications And Middle School Student Achievement, Richard Buddin, Gema Zamarro

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

This research examines whether teacher licensure test scores and other teacher qualifications affect middle school student achievement. The results are based on longitudinal student-level data from Los Angeles. The achievement analysis uses a value-added approach that adjusts for both student and teacher fixed effects. The results show little relationship between traditional measures of teacher quality (e.g., experience and education level) and student achievement in reading or math. Similarly, licensure test scores in general aptitude, subject-matter knowledge, and reading pedagogy had no significant effects on student achievement. Teachers with elementary school credentials had slightly better success in the classroom than did …

Investing In Teacher Quality, Stephen Dinham, Lawrence Ingvarson, Elizabeth Kleinhenz

Dr Elizabeth Kleinhenz

No abstract provided.

Connecticut Blueprint For A Nclb “Housse” In Educational Technology, Antoinette P. Bruciati

Education Faculty Publications

According to the United States Department of Education, teacher quality is one of the most critical aspects of the teaching and learning process. The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) has required that state agencies assume the responsibility for increasing student achievement and ensuring teacher quality by the end of the 2005-2006 school year. The NCLB outlines minimum qualifications that are needed by teachers who work on any facet of classroom instruction and authorizes state administrators to establish the criteria through which an experienced teacher will meet the subject matter competencies in a specific content area. This paper …

Teacher Pay And Teacher Quality, Dale Ballou, Michael John Podgursky

Upjohn Press

Ballou and Podgursky offer solid economic analysis on issues surrounding the debate over whether increasing salaries for teachers leads to a more qualified teaching workforce. The authors find little evidence to support the link between increased salaries and teacher quality, then address two questions: (1) What went wrong? and (2) Which reforms are likely to meet with increased success?