Education Commons^™

A Qualitative Case Study Of Natural Storytelling Strategies Used At The Nantahala School., Nancy J. Reeder

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative case study identifies what 8 teachers naturally do with storytelling at a K-12 school in western North Carolina. Through observations, interviews, field notes, document reviews, and artifact reviews, I used the constant comparison analysis method to discover themes from their formal and informal storytelling strategies. From these themes, I created a framework of 7 suggestions to enhance storytelling awareness. They are: sharing personal stories, developing voice control and body expression, connecting story to school culture, modeling well-developed stories with beginnings, middles, and ends, introducing stories with a pause, expressing the word "imagine" often during instruction, and finally, making …

Addressing The Lack Of Male Elementary School Teachers: Factors That Influence Grade-Level Preference, Michael David Patrick

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this study was to determine which, if any, specific factors are deterring male teachers from pursuing elementary education. The number of male elementary teachers in America's public school systems had continued to decline, and this survey sought to discover what specific factors had contributed to this. This study surveyed 231 male public school teachers from six different school districts in Tennessee, Georgia, and Missouri. Male participants recorded their viewpoints regarding male elementary teachers while at the same time they provided personal information concerning factors which contributed to their own personal grade level selection. Participants were surveyed to …

Are National Exit Examinations Important For Educational Efficiency?, John H. Bishop

John H Bishop

“This paper analyses effects of national or provincial exit examinations on education quality. On theoretical grounds, the paper argues that such examinations should increase high school achievement, particularly in examination subjects, and that teachers and students and parents and school administrators should focus more on academic achievement when making school-quality decisions. On the negative side, exit examinations may lead to a tendency to concentrate on learning facts, rather than understanding contexts.”

Secondary Education In The United States: What Can Others Learn From Our Mistakes?, John H. Bishop , Ferran Mane, Michael Bishop

John H Bishop

Secondary schools are the least successful component of the U.S. education system. Students learn considerably less than in other industrialized nations and dropout rates are significantly higher. This paper provides an explanation for this failure, describes the standards based reforms strategies that many states are implementing to attack these problems, and evaluates the success of these efforts.

The Role Of End-Of-Course Exams And Minimum Competency Exams In Standards-Based Reforms, John H. Bishop, Ferran Mane, Michael Bishop, Joan Moriarty

John H Bishop

[Excerpt] Educational reformers and most of the American public believe that most teachers ask too little of their pupils. These low expectations, they believe, result in watered down curricula and a tolerance of mediocre teaching and inappropriate student behavior. The result is that the prophecy of low achievement becomes self-fulfilling. Although research has shown that learning gains are substantially larger when students take more demanding courses2, only a minority of students enroll in these courses. There are several reasons for this. Guidance counselors in many schools allow only a select few into the most challenging courses. While most schools give …

Incentives For Learning: Why American High School Students Compare So Poorly To Their Counterparts Overseas, John H. Bishop

John H Bishop

[Excerpt] The scientific and mathematical competence of American high school students is generally recognized to be very low. The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reports that only 7.5 percent of 17 year old students can "integrate specialized scientific information" (NAEP 1988a p.51) and 6.4 percent "demonstrated the capacity to apply mathematical operations in a variety of problem settings." (NAEP 1988b p. 42) There is a large gap between the science and math competence of young Americans and their counterparts overseas. In the 1960s, the low ranking of American high school students in such comparisons was attributed to the fact …

Using Robotics To Equip K-12 Teachers: Silicon Prairie Initiative For Robotics In Information Technology (Spirit), Alisa Gilmore, Bing Chen, Neal Grandgenett

Teacher Education Faculty Proceedings & Presentations

The Silicon Prairie Initiative for Robotics in Information Technology (SPIRIT) is a unique collaborative effort between the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) College of Engineering, the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO) College of Education, and the local Omaha Public Schools (OPS) system. With funding from an NSF ITEST grant, from 2006 – 2008 the initiative recruited and trained 97 math and science middle school teachers through summer workshops and follow-up sessions during the school year, with the goal of equipping teachers in hands-on engineering design principles and providing curriculum development support for STEM instruction. The centerpiece of the training was …

Instructional Architect Teacher Professional Development Handouts, Mimi Recker, Andrew Walker, M. Brooke Robertshaw, Linda Sellers, Heather M. Leary

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Research

Three handouts for the teacher professional development workshops on the Instructional Architect (IA). Starting spring 2009 the face-to-face workshop was changed to be three different days of learning about how to use the IA, inquiry based and problem based learning, evaluation of IA projects with a rubric, and creating IA projects.

The Role Of An Educational Website In Providing Better Opportunities For Kabul Education University, Siddiqullah Barikzai

Master's Capstone Projects

Technology has played an important role in improving and expanding education worldwide. Website is a part of technology through which institutions and companies can easily and cheaply share and advertise their profiles with rest of the world.

Kabul Education University (KEU) where I used to teach is a newly established (2003) university in Kabul (the capital city); it trains professional teachers for secondary schools. The university did not have a website till recently (June 2009), while all other public universities in Kabul had it. So, I developed a website for it due to the demand of the university administrators, teachers, …

Education Faculty Math Curriculum And In-Service Teachers Needs, Sayed Sarwar Yaqubi

Master's Capstone Projects

This study accomplished as an education master thesis and addresses the following issue- the education faculty math curriculum in Jowzjan University in Afghanistan and the in-service teachers’ needs. I conducted this study on third-year in-service teachers who are studying at the Jowzjan University in Afghanistan. This study was conducted as qualitative study; there were 11 participants from the third-year in-service teachers. The methodology system was interview with participants. Because of the lack of time I did just one time interview with the participants. There were not class observation and group discussion. The finding from this study revealed some important and …

Integrating Learning Technologies With Experiential Learning In A Postgraduate Teacher Education Course, Roisin Donnelly

Articles

This paper discusses how a Postgraduate Certificate Course in Third Level Learning and Teaching for academic staff in the Republic of Ireland has adopted a particular approach in teacher education. As an important aspect of the successful integration and use of learning technology is the way in which it effectively reflects and articulates a given learning model, this course has its theoretical basis on the Kolb Experiential Learning Cycle (Kolb, 1983). The work illustrates that no one technology can support all types of third level learning and teaching; an effective approach is to combine a range of technologies. The self-study …

An Instructional Challenge Through Problem Solving For Physics Teacher Candidates, Samson Nashon, David Anderson, Wendy S. Nielsen

Faculty of Education - Papers (Archive)

The teaching of science, especially at pre-college and teacher education levels has undergone tremendous transformation over the years: from teacher-centred transmission to student-centred approaches rooted in constructivism. Whereas constructivism has been charged with all manner of shortfalls, it still can be of benefit to the way physics instructions are organized and implemented. In this paper, the importance of learners' prior knowledge in understanding physics concepts is discussed. This study comprised a case of two cohorts of physics teacher candidates who had strong content knowledge of physics, but lacked pedagogical knowledge as demonstrated by their struggles to implement appropriate grade-level strategies …

Effectiveness Of Teacher Preparation Programs As Perceived By First Year Teachers, Loren Harriet Brevik

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

High rates of teacher attrition, particularly among those within their first years of teaching, have prompted studies aimed at identifying issues and recommendations for analyzing and improving teacher preparation programs. This study used a mixed methodology to investigate effectiveness of teacher preparation programs as perceived by first year teachers. Preliminary focus groups were formed to promote conversation and identify perceived strengths and weaknesses of preparation programs. Feedback from the focus groups combined with topics from extant literature resulted in a survey instrument that was administered to novice teachers as they completed their preparation/certification programs and began their first year of …

One Teacher's Response To Literacy Learning And Teaching Using Technology, Lisa K. Kervin, Pauline T. Jones

Faculty of Education - Papers (Archive)

The federal government’s pledge for increased access to computers for students has been held up as “groundbreaking reform” as “digital schools” become a reality for more students. However, access to technology remains uneven across schools, student competency levels differ and teacher expertise varies considerably. Incorporating new technologies such as laptops, wireless connectivity, smartboards and mobile communication devices into interactive practices frequently requires rethinking configurations of curriculum, bodies and space.

Teachers are experts in pedagogy, but not necessarily in technology. It is vital that teachers are acknowledged for the considerable knowledge they have about their profession – what constitutes ‘good’ pedagogy, …

Jupiter As Everyman: Michael Reisman And The Scholar As Teacher, James E. Baker

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

These are Chief Judge Baker’s remarks reflecting on the scholarship of Professor Michael Reisman in the field of national security law. Chief Judge Baker comments that Professor Reisman is a prolific writer and Scholar-Teacher dedicated to the study of force, minimization of suffering, and the advancement of human dignity and the law. He discusses how Professor Reisman’s work is distinctive in that it identifies and incorporates the critical influence of process, both formal and informal, in decisionmaking, which sometimes overshadows substance.