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Teachers Appraisal Of Their Relationship With Instructional Coaches And Interpretation Of The Instructional Coaches Role, Sandra Lawson Higgins

Dissertations

The need for high quality teachers has increased over the past years with the new mandates for college and career ready students. School administrators are providing job-embedded professional development to ensure quality teaching is taking place in classrooms. Instructional coaching is a form of job-embedded professional development that is being used to offer an opportunity with support for teachers to implement best learning practices into their classroom teaching.

This quantitative non-experimental research study used survey methodology to collect data from the two districts that participated. This study involved asking teachers to report if the relationship between the coach and the …

A Tradesperson’S Transition To Vocational Technical (Vt) Teaching, Susan J. Sylvia

Educational Studies Dissertations

This qualitative study examined survey and interview data collected from tradespeople who transitioned to vocational technical (VT) teaching in regional vocational technical schools in Massachusetts. This study included two research questions that inquired about how tradespeople’s prior experiences, beliefs, and thoughts influenced or inspired them to pursue a transition to vocational technical (VT) teaching and about how their anticipated transitional experiences aligned with their actual transitional experiences. The survey phase included 170 respondents. Survey responses provided an overview of participants, which was integral in identifying four interview participants who were digitally recorded during one-to-one interview sessions. A multiple Case Study …

Bearing Witness To My Creativity: Exploring My Artist Identity Through A Practice Of A/R/Tography, Tamara K. Doleman

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

This master’s project follows the personal journey of a creative studies master’s student as she engages in an a/r/tographical process paired with a weekly practice of mindfulness, meditation and Lectio-Divina to explore and restore her artistic practice. The author shares creativity routines, her sketchbook, mini artworks, ideas, culminating collaborative artwork and key insights that enabled her to consolidate her seemingly disparate roles of artist-researcher-teacher. Insights made over the course of the investigation have resulted in the realization that creative expression is a dynamic construct that expands, contracts and evolves in relationship and in response to its host’s experiences.

Technology In The Second Language Classroom, Sylvie Carrier

All Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the history and effectiveness of technological tools present in a second language classroom. Comparing research from the beginning of the 20th century to today’s research shows the progression and current use of technology used in the foreign language classroom. Results demonstrate that while several technological tools could improve the teaching and learning of a foreign language, other tools need more studies with measures of outcome data to prove their capability to increase students’ learning. This study found two factors required for a successful implementation of these tools in the foreign language classroom. First, professional technology training for …

Examining The Integration Of Technology In The Early Childhood Classroom, Kerri Lynn Willmann

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Reading achievement scores in the United States are low and educators need more strategies to support young students in literacy. It is important to identify the technologies and implementation strategies that educators find beneficial for literacy instruction. The purpose of this qualitative study was to investigate perspectives on instructional technology and literacy strategies intended to promote student-centered learning opportunities. The conceptual framework was Bloom's mastery learning, Bransford's anchored instruction, and Piaget's constructivist theory. Each theorist encouraged exploration and hands-on interactive learning opportunities. The research questions addressed how teachers perceive the implementation of technology tools to enhance literary performance and engagement …

Understanding Rural Appalachian Ohio Educators' Perceptions Of Students Of Poverty, Angela Dawn Hicks

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

In a rural elementary school, characterized by high poverty levels in Appalachian Ohio, school personnel were concerned that student literacy and math proficiency levels remained low during 2005-2015 and teachers had not been able to close the achievement gap between economically disadvantaged students and non-economically disadvantaged students despite a focus on literacy and math professional development (PD) provided by the district. Administrators were concerned that teachers' perceptions, and beliefs about students of poverty might contribute to students' underachievement. The purpose of this study was to understand teachers' perceptions of students living in poverty. Guided by Gorski's equity literacy theory, research …