Education Commons^™

The Primary Dilemma: Determining And Overcoming Barriers To A Focus On Prekindergarten Through Grade 3, Sarah Turner Lukas, Sarah Turner Lukas

Dissertations

In 2017, reporters of national data in regard to reading ability among American, fourth grade students indicated low proficiency and achievement gaps. These results were also consistent within the state and district under study. There is a need to increase the focus on prekindergarten and primary grade education taking place prior to the grades in which federally mandated, accountability assessments for student learning take place. The purpose of this study is to determine the potential barriers to a paradigm shift at the state and district levels from a focus on state-assessed grade levels to prekindergarten and primary grade levels. The …

How Elementary Teachers Demonstrate Leadership In The Classroom To Increase Science Learning, Dipsy Anais Etanislao Gonzalez

Dissertations

In the DR, the need of producing drastic changes in students’ outcomes fostered the adaptation of a professional development (PD) program to improve the public education system. In 2013, the National Institute for Teacher Preparation chose the School Centered Continuous Teacher’s Preparation (EFCCE, acronym in Spanish) PD program to help teachers with the needed transformation. This program aimed to form knowledgeable and skillful teachers who exhibit instructional leadership in the classroom.

This qualitative, multiple instrumental case study involved 10 Dominican science elementary teachers who had completed the EFCCE program and who had self-identified as a teacher actively implementing engaging science …

A Narrative Inquiry To Explore The Connection Between Gender And Discipline In Grades Pre-K–8, Nicole Salazar

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Because behavioral discipline can impact children’s development, it is important to ensure that educators work in fair and unbiased ways with all children, across gender, race, and other groups. Biased disciplining of children’s behavior in classrooms can occur as micro-aggressions (McCabe, 2009), sometimes counter to what educators may believe about their own behavior. As a means of raising awareness of gender-biased treatment in classrooms, this thesis involved narrating – a dynamic activity that elicits accounts of events – and thus as a means of reflecting on behavior in everyday practices. Educators anonymously completed a questionnaire requesting narratives of various disciplinary …