Education Commons^™

An Analysis Of Reading Instruction For Fifth Grade Students With Disabilities Served In Inclusive Elementary Classrooms, Elizabeth Dragone

Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative case study was designed to identify and analyze instructional strategies used by fifth grade teachers to meet the needs of students with disabilities receiving reading instruction in inclusive settings. Seven participants in a large suburban school system were chosen through purposeful, criterion-based sampling. Semi-structured interviews were used to gain information about how teachers use data related to student readiness, interests, and learning profiles to design differentiated instruction. Observations were used to gain information about how the teachers implemented differentiated content, process, and products in the classroom. As more students with disabilities are served in inclusive settings, teachers are …

Orchestrating Student Discourse Opportunities And Listening For Conceptual Understandings In High School Science Classrooms, Melissa Grass Kinard

Middle-Secondary Education and Instructional Technology Dissertations

Scientific communities have established social mechanisms for proposing explanations, questioning evidence, and validating claims. Opportunities like these are often not a given in science classrooms (Vellom, Anderson, & Palincsar, 1993) even though the National Science Education Standards (NSES, 1996) state that a scientifically literate person should be able to “engage intelligently in public discourse and debate about important issues in science and technology” (National Research Council [NRC], 1996). Research further documents that students’ science conceptions undergo little modification with the traditional teaching experienced in many high school science classrooms (Duit, 2003, Dykstra, 2005). This case study is an examination of …

Teacher Perceptions Of The Benefits Of Teacher Collaboration And An Analysis Of Indicators Of Potential Teacher Attrition, Thomas Owen Moore

Theses and Dissertations

Teacher collaboration is being implemented in many schools for a number of reasons with various claimed benefits. Collaboration is being heralded by many as a fix for many of the problems affecting teachers. This study shows that teachers believe that collaboration improves their ability to teach subject content, improves teaching methods, improves teacher's ability to manage students, and provides benefits to teachers in general. The majority of participants in this survey, whether currently participating in collaboration or not, indicated that they agree that collaboration provides these benefits. This study also examines four potential indicators of teacher attrition: administrative support, teacher …

The Professional Learning Community Model Of Continuous School Improvement And The Effect On Job Satisfaction, Professional Collaboration, And Implementation Of Best Practices, Danielle Sullivan Tormala

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine whether a greater number of years of participation in the Professional Learning Communities Project positively impacts professional staff perceptions of job satisfaction, professional collaboration, and implementation of best practices as defined by the ¿Critical Issues for Team Consideration¿ (DuFour et al., 2006, pp. 100-101). A total of 223 participants completed the self-reporting survey out of a total 481 eligible teachers, school administrators and other staff members. Participants were divided into groups based on the number of years their respective schools had been involved in the PLC Project for a between-groups approach to …

Teacher Inquiry Group: The Space For (Un)Packing Representations Of Discourses Of Achievement Gap And The Possibility Of An Institutional Transforming Practice, Floris Wilma Ortiz-Marrero

Open Access Dissertations

This dissertation explores implications about teacher inquiry group (IG) practices through the representations of achievement gap (AG) discourses. The study draws from the challenges, struggles, and accomplishments of a middle school inquiry group of teachers and staff that worked collaboratively, as an institutionalized practice, with the intention to develop recommendations for closing the AG. After five years of collaborative work, the group did not get to develop an action plan. This longitudinal, ethnographic, qualitative study unveils multiple and contested representations of AG discourses and unpacks three assumptions about teacher inquiry group practices as a strategy for institutional and/or individual change: …

Higher Education And The New Capitalism: Social Enterprise Partnerships And The Opportunity For Community Colleges, Rosanna S. Diaz

Dissertations

In the current economic climate, driven by their mission of open access, affordability, and a desire to help all of their constituent communities, community colleges are under increasing pressure to service a rapidly expanding and increasingly diverse group of students with fewer and fewer resources. Declining budgets and a burgeoning enrollment spurred by the recent economic downturn have forced community colleges to become more entrepreneurial in the ways that they develop new programs and find alternative revenue streams. (Wiers, 2007; Dingfelder, 2007).

A critical concern for community colleges is that the business paradigm that fuels the increasing pressure to produce …

The Effectiveness Of Principal Preparation Program Type For Administrative Work, Ernest Adkins

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

As result of the disparity in the academic literature about principal preparation, this studywas designed to investigate the perceived effectiveness of principal preparation program type foradministrative work. The literature provided four categories for program type includinguniversity-based, district-based, third-party professional development organizations, andpartnership programs. The following facets of educational leadership were examined todetermine if working administrators felt prepared by their preparation program for administrativework: vision, culture, management, collaboration, integrity, and context.

The survey study asked a sample (n=600) of administrators (N=30,230) 93 questions on theSchool Administrator Preparedness Survey. The data were analyzed using ANOVA to determineif differences exist in the means …

Building Collaborative Capacity Across Institutional Fields: A Theoretical Dissertation Based On A Meta-Analysis Of Existing Empirical Research, Vivian Hernandez Carrasco

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This Dissertation study folds the existing empirical literature across a broad spectrum of disciplines with the experience of a national collaboration between Fortune 500 corporations, government agencies and the United States Army to explore the capacity and key competencies required to support successful interorganizational collaboration (IOC) at the individual and organizational level. It explores the evolution of collaboration and maps the continuum of related concepts, illustrating their distinction in a spectrum of IOC. It presents the collaboration process as a dialectic model within a Systems Psychodynamic Perspective, detailing the necessary ingredients for increasing collaborative capacity within individuals and organizations. The …

Dispositions Related To Successful Co-Teaching Teams At The Secondary Level: A Case-Based Study Of Three Secondary Co-Teaching Teams, Zabrina U. Cannady

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to explore the dispositions of successful co-teachers in the Houston County school district in order to gain insight into the establishment of successful collaborative relationships. Data for this study was collected through multiple observations and follow up/exit interviews with six teachers participating in the co-teaching model in the Houston county school district. Findings indicated the presence of dispositions identified in the literature as essential for successful co-teachers, to include positive attitude, empathy, insight, and the use of pedagogical strategies. In addition to the four observed categories, the participants also identified administrative support, creativity in …