Education Commons^™

Hidden Teachers: Stories Of Adult Basic Math And Numeracy Educators In The United States, Brooke Istas

Teaching and Learning Theses and Dissertations

This study is a narrative identity analysis using life history methodology. Thirty-eight Adult Basic mathematics and numeracy teachers shared their mathematical journey and their classroom perceptions, beliefs, knowledge, and practices. Their stories were summarized and analyzed using narrative identity analysis. There were four themes that emerged from their stories that revealed their mathematical self-identity and four themes that described their mathematics instruction. The stories of ABE math instructors’ math journey were linked to theories, studies, and research in the fields of psychology, anthropology, sociology, and education.

How Middle School Students Describe And Explain Their Elementary Science Experiences, Tryna Knox

Teaching and Learning Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to elicit students' voices to examine elementary science experiences to better understand foundational learning. The grounding philosophy and framework of phenomenology guided this work as I sought to capture the lived elementary science experiences of students. I administered a handwritten science autobiography to 52 middle school students at a private middle school in a suburban southwestern community. Utilizing a hermeneutic analytic approach, I learned that middle school students describe and explain elementary science experiences in many interesting ways. For example, students shared a preference for participating in hands-on, active, or engaged learning experiences over …

Exploring The Use Of Mixed-Reality Simulations As A Tool In Teacher Training To Support Language For Academic Purposes, Ann Marie Wernick

Teaching and Learning Theses and Dissertations

Applying a three-paper structure, this dissertation explores three ways in which mixed- reality simulations were used as a tool in teacher training to support the development of language for academic purposes. This dissertation explores how teachers reflect, reason, and notice their practice when integrating academic language with content using mixed-reality simulations. This is taken up through analyzing trends that emerge in debrief conversations after instructional activities are enacted in mixed-reality simulations (MRS). Learning through the activity of teaching has potential to help teachers integrate their understandings of rigorous content instruction with equitable English Learner instruction (Von Esch & Kavanagh, 2018). …

“Brute Force Teacher”: Outlasting The Turbulent Cycle Of Teacher Turnover, Anne Marie Light

Education Policy and Leadership Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to debunk negative stereotypes that surround educators in urban schools and depict how high-performing veteran teachers became the resilient educators they are now. Teachers are the greatest determiner of student success (Marzano et al., 2001). Therefore, understanding our highest-performing teachers in our schools is imperative. Skaalvik and Skaalvik (2011) found that a staggering percentage of the teachers who entered the field left within their first three to five years of teaching. Understanding our highest performing teachers with five plus years of experiences through research is necessary.

This generic qualitative study utilized Polidore’s Theoretical Model …