Elementary and Middle and Secondary Education Administration Commons^™

The Impact Of A Professional Learning Community On Student Achievement, Brandon S. Carter

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Professional learning communities (PLC) have the potential to strengthen students' academic achievement. An academic pyramid of interventions, one aspect of PLCs, may be especially helpful in schools where subgroups of students are underperforming relative to other students on standardized testing. This quantitative, one-group, pretest-posttest study examined the impact of implementing an academic pyramid of interventions as part of a PLC on middle school student academic achievement. The 100 students from grade 7 and 8 who participated in the study were identified by teachers as being at-risk for success on the Criterion Referenced Competency Test (CRCT). The reading and math test …

Dialogue Within Professional Learning Communities And Its Impact On The Professional Growth Of Teachers In The Elementary School Setting, Melanie Spradley

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The implementation of professional learning communities is a professional development practice that uses collaborative interactions within a constructivist framework to increase teacher and student learning. The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to explore the question of how the dialogue of grade level meetings within professional learning communities impacts the professional development of teachers using the constructivist theory of learning as the conceptual framework. The researcher gathered data through hour-long interviews over a 4-week period with 6 learning community participants, one from each of the 6 grade levels at the elementary school research site. A thematic analysis of the …

The Relationship Of Self -Evaluation, Writing Ability, And Attitudes Toward Writing Among Gifted Grade 7 Language Arts Students, Lisa Dement

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Previous research has indicated that literary skills performance in reading and writing for middle school students has declined. There remains an important gap in the current literature regarding the decline in literary skills, which is a good predictor of the potential for students to drop out of school. The goal of this study was to determine if the use of self-evaluation influences students' writing ability and their attitudes toward writing. Using a quasi-experimental nonequivalent control group design, and over the course of 10 weeks, the researcher administered a writing pre- and posttest, as well as a pre- and posttest Writing …

The Effects Of Teacher Race In The Elementary School On Student Achievement Test Scores, John Stortz

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The racial and gender composition of elementary school teachers does not match those of the students and this may be contributing to an inequity of achievement scores between African American and European American students. This ex post facto causal comparative study compared three levels of elementary school diversity personnel staffing on Grade 4 African American student Criterion-Referenced Competency Test (CRCT) scores and differences between male African American scores and female African American scores in a suburban Atlanta county. Nine intentionally selected elementary schools were chosen representing 3 racial diversity personnel staffing levels including 39% to 50%, 25% to 27%, and …

The Principal's Role In Affecting Student Reading Achievement, Kathleen J. Beecher

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

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Backbone Of Classroom Instruction, Bilqees Patel

Institute for Educational Development, Karachi

No abstract provided.

Leadership-Influenced Practices That Impact Classroom Instruction Related To Writing: A Case Study Of A Successful Elementary School, Barb Johnson

Dissertations

This research studied the practices of educators at an ethnically diverse suburban elementary school which had demonstrated success in the area of student writing, even among at-risk students. The overall research goal was to examine to what extent and how leadership-related practices impacted classroom instruction in a manner that helped produce successful writing scores. A case study approach was used to explore four key leadership-related practices (supervision, curriculum, professional development, and knowledgeable leaders) and their impact on classroom literacy-based instructional strategies.

The study participants included two leaders and fourteen teachers from a single elementary school located in a metropolitan Michigan …

A Spring Board To Fly, Aafiyat Nazar

Institute for Educational Development, Karachi

No abstract provided.

It Pays For Teachers To Learn Again, Asghari Ummulbanin

Institute for Educational Development, Karachi

No abstract provided.

Children’S Hopes And Fears, Bernadette L. Dean, Shazia Solangi

Institute for Educational Development, Karachi

No abstract provided.

A Study Of Career Preparation Activities Used In Michigan’S Public High Schools, Brian L. Pyles

Dissertations

This study assessed the status of Michigan's Career Pathway high schools 2 years after state Career Preparation funding was terminated early, in order to determine the institutionalization of Career Pathway activities. In particular, this study examined the use of Career Pathway curriculum guides, Educational Development Plans (EDPs), student Career Pathway designations, student career assessments, work-based learning activities, alternative scheduling, college credits earned in high school, instructional strategies, teacher professional development, and Career Pathway high school planning committees. This study also ascertained the perceived helpfulness of having students declare a Career Pathway and using EDPs as a guide in the selection …

No Child's Intelligence Left Behind: The Impact Of Instrumental Enrichment Training On Teacher Belief Systems, Jeanne Marie Zehr

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This mixed methods research project provided quantitative and qualitative assessments on the impact of Feuerstein's Instrumental Enrichment (F.I.E.) training on the belief systems of American educators, specifically on the extent of belief in the modifiability of intelligence. The two-way ANOVA conducted for the quantitative research portion of the study compared the results of five groups of educators with various training experiences with Instrumental Enrichment. The second independent variable, years of experience in teaching, had three levels: 0 to 5, 6 to 30, and 31 +. The dependent variable consisted of epistemological belief in learning ability on a continuum from na'ive …

Least Common Multiple Of Teacher Leadership Styles: Implication For Classroom, Khalid Mahmood

Book Chapters / Conference Papers

In a school, a teacher, as a leader, interacts directly with the students to develop their cognition for a desired outcome. At the same time s/he also forms a caring relationship with them not only to guide them academically but also socially and spiritually. Students also have certain capacity for their own learning. This capacity to large extent influences by teacher’s role in the classroom. Hence three factors have major influence to shape effectiveness of a classroom. In the study reported in this paper, combinations of these factors were sought and presented in three dimensional models. Eight different combinations (models) …

Developing Teachers’ Skills In Thar Desert Area, Sindh, Pakistan, Saeed Nasim, Parvez Pirzado

Book Chapters / Conference Papers

This paper aims to present AKU-IED’s experiences about working in the Thar Desert Area of Sindh. AKU-IED aimed to develop teachers’ skills and to help them provide quality education to the children of the said underprivileged and remote area of Pakistan.

Women In Educational Leadership: A Comparison Of Kenyan And Pakistani Women Educational Leaders, Jane F. A. Rarieya

Book Chapters / Conference Papers

Though literature on educational leadership is expansive, most of it is related to the social and organisational structure of educational systems in the western world, thereby giving an impression that western models of leadership are universal. Hence, there is need to study school leadership in non-western countries because perspectives of educational leadership have been taken almost exclusively from western literature and practice. Women in educational leadership are in a minority in Pakistan and Kenya, as is the case in many parts of the world. Whilst a number of writers have attempted to identify and categorise some of the internal and …

School Improvement In Multi-Grade Situation (Sims): An Innovation Of The Pdcc, Jalal Wali Khan

Book Chapters / Conference Papers

Professional Development Center, Chitral (PDCC), since its establishment in Chitral, is committed to work with its partner education providers for the improvement of quality of teaching and learning in schools. PDCC believes that effective teaching and learning in primary, acts as a foundation stone for higher education, but currently it does not happen in majority of our primary schools. Multi-grade situation in primary schools is one of the many reasons of low quality education. School Improvement in Multi-grade Situation (SIMS) was piloted in five schools aiming to improve the current Multi-grade Teaching (MGT) situation in schools. This study intended to …

Action Research—A Means Of Continuous Professional Development In A Rural Context: Possibilities And Challenges, Razia Fakir Mohammad, Roshni Kumari

Book Chapters / Conference Papers

This paper presents our findings from a research initiated to support teachers’ continuous development through action research in the rural context of a developing country. The study investigated the experiences of seven teachers and teacher educators from the rural context of Pakistan, who spent nearly six months undertaking action research projects as part of a follow-up strategy for a university based teacher education programme. After the completion of the university-based programme, the participants had gone back to their respective institutes and were expected to initiate action research projects in order to implement new knowledge/learning. It was also a strategy to …

Status Of Teachers And Teaching: Conclusions, Implications And Recommendations, Anjum Halai

Book Chapters / Conference Papers

No abstract provided.

Perspectives On Teacher Status: Issues And Challenges, Nilofar Vazir, John Retallick

Book Chapters / Conference Papers

No abstract provided.

Teacher Mentoring Programme: A Vehicle To Support Professional Development For Improving The Quality Of Education In Districts Of Sindh And Balochistan Of Pakistan, Rakhshinda Meher, Asghari Ummulbanin, Ghazala Mursaleen

Book Chapters / Conference Papers

In general practices it is noticed that there is greater improvement in teacher’s performance if they refresh themselves by attending different professional development programmes. They start rethinking about their role as effective teacher and how to support novice teachers. In order to support the novice teachers and develop them professionally there is a need of quality teacher education programme. Literature reveals that “Teacher mentoring programs have dramatically increased since the early 1980s as a vehicle to support and retain novice teachers. The vast majority of what has been written about mentoring focused on what mentors should believe and do in …

The Principalship: A Study Of The Principal's Time On Task From 1960 To The Twenty-First Century, Jacqueline A. Mcpeake

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

The purpose of this study was to examine legislative and societal developments in the United States in relation to changes in educational administration and determine the existence of bifurcation points of change. The effects of legislative and societal changes on the tasks on which administrators focus their time were evaluated. The administrators were surveyed to determine if changes in time on task have occurred to meet the demands of current legislative priorities and if any demographic relationships existed. The study’s population consisted of 1950 (N=1950) administrators in public elementary, middle and high schools in the Southern Regional Educational Board 16 …

Quality In Education: Teaching And Leadership In Challenging Times. Vol. 2, Sajid Ali, Meher Rizvi

Books

No abstract provided.

Quality In Education: Teaching And Leadership In Challenging Times. Vol. 1, Sajid Ali, Meher Rizvi

Books

No abstract provided.

From The Co-Editors

Journal of Science Education for Students with Disabilities

No abstract provided.

New Jersey Public Middle School Grades 7-8 Non-Tenured Teacher Perceptions Of Instructional Strategies That Impact Student Engagement, Jeanette M. Baubles

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

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An Examination Of Perception Toward Merit Pay In A Southern School District, Carol Lynn White Payne

Dissertations

The use of merit pay systems has been a part of educational history for one hundred years. States across the country have utilized different forms o f merit pay systems to increase student achievement. Career ladder merit pay systems may base teacher salary on the attainment of additional degrees, additional responsibilities and an increase in student achievement. School-based performance awards may reward all staff members of a school based on achievement of goals set by the school board. Individual teacher financial awards may be based on administrative evaluations, student achievement, attainment of additional degrees, and participation in professional development sessions. …

Learning To Use Innovative Pedagogy: The Experience Of A Primary Science Teacher In Pakistan, Nelofer Halai

Institute for Educational Development, Karachi

This study examined the experiences of primary science teachers when they weThis study examined the experiences of primary science teachers when they were exposed to a new and innovative teaching strategy and the process that they followed in using the strategy in the class- room for the first time. Four primary science teachers, among the 22 participants of an 8-week Certificate in Education (Science) in Karachi, were observed and interviewed after the four-day teaching session where they were instructed how to use "Discrepant Events" to teach science content. Only the case of Farhana Batool, a teacher in a private school, …

How Teacher Attitudes And Administrator Behaviors Affect Levels Of Technology Integration In The Classroom, Sheri Leigh Bradshaw

Dissertations

Multiple linear regression analysis was conducted to evaluate how well teachers’ attitudes predict levels of technology integration into the classroom. This study also investigated whether perceived support from the administrator as the instructional leader was related to teachers’ levels of technology integration into the classroom. The population for this study included identified school districts in rural North Georgia. Utilizing the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) for the 2002-2003 school year, the researcher identified 5 peer districts: Franklin County, Gilmer County, Stephens County, Union County, and White County. All middle and high school teachers within a district were invited to …

Superintendents ’ Perceptions Of Clinical Supervision Practices In A District-Wide Implementation Program, Myrna Rae Ladner Bourgeois

Dissertations

In 1990 a new idea swept through the educational industry. Forty-nine school districts in Pennsylvania instituted a new form of organizational management called clinical supervision. In effect, this was a change in the relationship between administration and teachers concerning instructional behaviors. Formerly, when teachers were supervised and evaluated by administrators, they felt intimidated. They also felt their privacy was being invaded. Clinical supervision is an attempt to organize the methodology of teacher supervision while improving instruction. The purpose of this study was to provide data to the participating school districts for use in developing supervision, evaluation, and involvement training modification …

School Web Sites And Teacher Employment Interest, David Theodore Freeman

Dissertations

The Internet has changed the way many organizations, including public and private schools, recruit and select employees. It has also changed the way many people research and pursue employment opportunities, including those seeking positions in education. The school Web site is often the medium of first contact between a school or school district and a potential employee. That first contact can influence the potential employee’s decision to actively pursue employment with a school or a school district.

This research measured the reactions o f preservice teachers who visited three grade-level appropriate school Web sites of “poor,” “average,” and “best” distinction. …