Educational Leadership Commons^™

Social Capital And Cultural Identity For U.S. Korean Immigrant Families: Mothers' And Children's Perceptions Of Korean Language Retention, Su-Jin Sue Jung

Dissertations and Theses

Through increasing immigration, the U.S. society is becoming more linguistically and culturally diverse. Yet, as many U.S. language minority groups seek to assimilate, they face many challenges. One challenge is that their home language does not match the dominant language, English, that their children are learning at school. For Korean communities, maintaining Korean language presents a problem for families, especially for the mothers and children. The purpose of this study was to explore the U.S. Korean immigrant mothers' and children's perceptions of and experience with maintaining the Korean language and the effect that has on the development of social capital …

Evaluating An Assessment Instrument For The Oregon Environmental Literacy Plan, Susan Mae Duncan

Dissertations and Theses

This mixed methods study evaluated the validity, and reliability of an instrument designed to assess a middle school student's proficiency in systems thinking as described in the 2010 Oregon Environmental Literacy Plan. In Stage 1, a forum of middle school students, formal, and non-formal educators used the Delphi technique to reach consensus regarding which skills were important to include in a scoring guide for systems thinking. In Stage 2, the scoring guide was field tested by formal and non-formal educators using a sample of students' work. The two groups' scores were compared using Cohen's kappa to make inferences regarding inter-rater …

Women As Transformational Leaders: Learning To Lead In The Community College, Jennifer R. Grove-Heuser

Dissertations and Theses

Community colleges face a growing crisis in leadership and a critical aspect of this crisis is a shortage of leaders. The representation of women leaders in community colleges has increased more than other sector of higher education. This upswing suggests that community colleges are the most likely place for women to achieve executive leadership status. Yet, community college history is grounded in male dominance and women leaders remain marginalized in the community college system. The purpose of my study was to examine some of the factors that contribute to women executive leaders' success specifically: (a) how women experience their leadership …

The Impact Of Daily 5 And Cafe Literacy Framework On Reading Comprehension In Struggling Fourth Grade Readers: A Case Study, Sandra Lee Duty

Dissertations and Theses

For decades, struggling readers have been a central focus of American public schools. In the United States, many students who struggle with reading comprehension are not receiving high-quality instruction that ensures comprehension of text. Elementary teachers are faced with the challenge of how to structure and organize literacy instruction that ensures growth in reading comprehension for struggling students.

The purpose of this case study is to explore the impact of a reading framework on fourth grade struggling students’ reading comprehension, attitudes and engagement. This case study looks specifically at the impact of the Daily 5 and CAFÉ literacy framework that …

Regenerative Change: Engaging At The Intersection Of Inner And Outer Work Through Contemplative Learning, Heather L. Burns, Celine Fitzmaurice

University Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

This article explores the intersection of the inner and outer work of regenerative change making through contemplative practices at Portland State University. It describes contemplative strategies employed with graduate students and university faculty including classroom practices and a professional development retreat series for faculty. The authors discuss the importance of inner work in fostering transformative teaching and learning, and explore the connections between inner work, contemplative practices, and transformative learning theory.

Service-Learning And The Hungry And Homeless: Tangible Sensibilities Of Care Among Young Urban Adolescents, Dilafruz R. Williams

Educational Leadership and Policy Faculty Publications and Presentations

For over 20 years, Sunnyside Environmental School in Portland, Oregon has adopted service-learning as an instructional approach to engage young people with local communities. This report explores the voices of sixth through eighth graders illustrated by their Reflection Journals as they interacted with hungry and homeless individuals in the community. The human-scale connections resulted in tangible sensibilities of care evident in students’ reflections: dispelling stereotypes as students became open-minded, making a noticeable difference however small, developing compassion through new understandings, and taking action to correct social injustices in the communities where they live.

The Effects Of An Overnight Environmental Science Education Program On Students' Attendance Rate Change For Middle School Years, Jennifer Elizabeth Basham

Dissertations and Theses

Programs that engage middle students in participatory, real-world, and hands-on field based instruction can be a powerful asset to the educational experiences for students; motivating and inspiring some to appreciate and value school in a different way. Overnight environmental science programs have a unique opportunity to support students by creating experiences where students can participate in learning in vastly different ways from what they may engage with in the traditional 4-walled classroom, while concurrently developing a relationship with the natural world. Decreasing educational budgets and increased need to substantiate educational programs in terms of their impact on students has added …

Effective Technology Implementation In Schools: Differing Perceptions Of Teachers, Administrators, And Technology Staff, Joseph Stephen Morelock

Dissertations and Theses

This study examined the connection between perceptions of teacher self-efficacy, professional development, and leadership practices and attitudes as it relates to successful implementation of technology for student learning in K-12 schools. As external pressures exhort schools to transform the learning environment and to include more meaningful applications of technology in the learning experiences for all students, issues which create barriers to a successful implementation of new practices must be examined.

This study examined the responses of teachers, school and district administrators, and technology support personnel in a stratified random sample from 37 school districts in the state of Oregon to …

Principal Leadership Practices In High Poverty K-5 Model Schools In Oregon, Janice Marie Adams

Dissertations and Theses

Children living in poverty in the United States face some of life's greatest challenges, including achieving academic success in school. Evidence is also emerging of a growing income disparity in America that affects families, communities and local labor markets in ways that can undermine the effectiveness of schools serving disadvantaged populations (Duncan & Murnane, 2011). Evidence exists, however, that high academic performance is within the reach of all children in high poverty schools, and that principal leadership is a contributing factor.

This study examined principal leadership practices in three high poverty K-5 elementary schools in Oregon identified as Model schools …

Going Deep: Reflections On Teaching Deep Ecology In Costa Rica, Heather L. Burns, Jeffrey Briley

Educational Leadership and Policy Faculty Publications and Presentations

Sustainability education aims to help learners understand their interconnectedness with all life, to become creative problem solvers and active citizens, and to engage personally and intellectually in shaping our common future. Experiential learning and critical pedagogy are central to providing opportunities for learners to engage in transformative sustainability learning. The short-term study abroad course, Theory and Practice of Sustainability in Costa Rica, provides one example of sustainability learning through the lens of deep ecology. This short term study abroad course was designed to create sustainability learning that is transformational, thematic and co-created, focuses on multiple perspectives and questions dominant paradigms, …

School Reform And Coaching: Identifying Structures For Successful Implementation Of A Data Informed Decision-Making Program, Kristan D. Parman

Dissertations and Theses

During the past 50 years, the landscape of education shifted from a rank order model to a system where all students are expected to achieve at a minimum level. This led to reforms in the way schools operate and teachers teach. One change to teaching is the use of data to inform instructional practices and student groupings. The need for teachers to increase their data use and change their instruction has prompted the need for professional development practices to be more effective. Coaching has been shown to be an effective professional development strategy to help teachers transfer new skills into …

Leadership And Decision-Making Skills Of High Poverty Elementary School Principals In An Era Of Reduced Resources, Kevin Eugene Spooner

Dissertations and Theses

Recently, a great deal of interest has been generated around the role of principal and its effectiveness, especially its impact on improving teacher instruction and student learning. Waters, Marzano, and McNulty (2003) concluded that one quarter of all "school effects" on achievement can be attributed to principals. While there is general agreement on the principal's importance and affect, do we understand how principals have adapted to changes in schools with reduced resources and increased learning needs of students? How have principals made decisions in an environment where resources have been reduced over time? Given the stories of retired principals from …

The Scholarship Of Student Affairs Professionals: Effective Writing Strategies And Scholarly Identity Formation Explored Through A Coaching Model, Lisa Janie Hatfield

Dissertations and Theses

Student affairs professionals work directly with university students in various programs that provide services to these students. From these experiences, they collect daily valuable insights about how to serve students successfully. Yet, in general, they are not publishing about their work even though dissemination of such knowledge through publication could positively impact programs and services across many institutions. My dissertation explored what happens when mid-level student affairs professionals pursue scholarly writing during a structured program intended to help participants produce manuscripts for publication. In working with five professionals in student services at a large urban institution in the Pacific Northwest …

Leadership For Sustainability: Theoretical Foundations And Pedagogical Practices That Foster Change, Heather Burns, Heather Diamond-Vaught, Corin Bauman

Educational Leadership and Policy Faculty Publications and Presentations

Sustainability education has a significant role to play in changing the leadership paradigm and fostering leaders who are capable of working collaboratively to address complex sustainability challenges. Leadership for sustainability denotes a new and expanded understanding of leadership that signifies taking action based on sustainability values, leading from a living processes paradigm, and creating an inclusive, collaborative and reflective leadership process. This paper examines and weaves together literature on leadership, leadership development, and sustainability education to suggest best practices in leadership development. A variety of suggested pedagogical practices that foster the development of leaders include: observation and self-awareness, reflection, the …

Peripheral No More: Repositioning Narratives For Empowerment And Change In Sustainability Education, Rell G. Ohlson

Leadership for Sustainability Education Comprehensive Papers

The field of sustainability education challenges dominant modes of thought, with a particular emphasis on the need for diversity and "multiple perspectives" in order to confront complex issues (Capra, 2005; Sterling, 2001; Wheatley, 2006). If this is the case, why are certain perspectives still missing and what narratives have been given prominence? This comprehensive paper examines the problems of a dominant narrative in sustainability education. In order for sustainability education to be truly transformative and empowering for students, leaders, and their communities, the narrative of sustainability must be repositioned from a dominant, white, middle-class context to one that affirms, values …

School Culture And The Affective Learning Needs Of Latino Long-Term English Learners, Maureen Ray

Dissertations and Theses

The US Department of Education projects that by the year 2030 the total English Learner (EL) population in US schools will exceed 40 percent. Currently, by the time ELs make it to high school, after 6 or more years in English Language Development (ELD) programs, the majority (59 percent), are Long Term English Learners (LTEL). LTEL students represent a variety of ethnicities and language groups, but the focus of this qualitative study is LTEL students who identify as Latino LTEL. The purpose of this qualitative study was to describe and explain recently graduated Latino LTEL's perceptions of the impact of …

A Grateful Recollecting: A Qualitative Study Of The Long-Term Impact Of Service-Learning On Graduates, Ann Fullerton, Vicki L. Reitenauer, Seanna Kerrigan

Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

Service-learning practitioners design community engagement activities to affect students in powerful and even transformative ways. This qualitative study explores the long-term impacts (3-16 years after graduation) of participation in a senior-level service-learning course. Through interviews with 20 randomly selected participants, the researchers explored whether and in what ways graduates continued to experience impacts from the course, including those that have become interwoven with other life experiences or have catalyzed altered perspectives and/or actions. Graduates were first asked to identify their most significant learning experiences in college in order to gauge the relative importance, if any, of the service-learning course in …

“Contagious Co-Motion”: Student Voices On Being Change Agents, Vicki L. Reitenauer, Tetiana Korzun, Kimberly Lane, Melinda Joy Roberts

Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

Designed in response to students’ requests for a capstone where they could form their own individual partnerships in the communities of their choosing, Effective Change Agent offers a structure for community-based learning that allows for high levels of student choice-making and agency. In this article, the authors describe the course; connect it to literature on grassroots change-making, integrative learning, and service-learning; and, through the inclusion of student authors, allow the sharing of insights in the students’ own voices.

To This Day: College Graduates On The Lasting Significance Of Relationality And Experiential Learning, Ann Fullerton, Vicki L. Reitenauer

Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

In the past twenty years, much research has been conducted into the effects of community-based learning and service-learning on students, but studies into the long-term impacts that persist after graduation have been fewer in number. In this article, the authors share perspectives from Portland State University alumni on the lasting significance of their participation in a community-based learning course that has been operating continuously for more than two decades and the key features of significant learning experiences more generally.

From The Whiteboard To The Web: Equipping Administrators To Recruit, Hire, And Induct Top Quality K-12 Online Teachers, Daniel Keith Huld

Dissertations and Theses

Online learning is taking our nation by storm and changing the face of education forever. By 2014 we are projected to have 10 million students taking at least one online class (Nagel, 2009). The online revolution is one of the greatest changes the field of education has seen in the last 25 years (Greenway & Vanourek, 2006). This major shift in education also represents a major shift in how our teachers are prepared and what great teaching looks like in online settings.

The online classroom is distinctly different than the brick-and-mortar classroom, and success in the classroom does not necessarily …

Teachers Teaching Teachers: A Sustainable And Inexpensive Professional Development Program To Improve Instruction, Carol L. Campbell

Dissertations and Theses

School districts face tremendous budget challenges and, as a result, professional development has been "trimmed" from many school budgets. (Habegger & Hodanbosi, 2011). School administrators responsible for planning professional development face a daunting task and often focus on PowerPoints, district mandated training, one-shot presentations, and workshops that are delivered by expensive experts. These types of activities lack teacher collaboration, time for sharing of ideas and opportunity for reflection and analysis (Torff & Byrnes, 2011, Coggins, Zuckerman & Mckelvey, 2010).

The problem addressed in this study is that teacher professional development is usually planned by school administrators who are provided little …

Understanding Male Nursing Student Perceptions Of The Influence Of Gender: A Qualitative Case Study Approach Of Students, Faculty, And Administration In A Pacific Northwest Nursing Program, Jennifer Anne Anderson

Dissertations and Theses

In contemporary American society, the nursing profession is predominantly made up of white women. Currently, males make up only 6.8 percent of the three million nursing professionals in the U.S. and they are considered gender minorities within the nursing profession and within nursing education. As gender minorities, male students are identified as experiencing nursing programs and the practice of nursing differently than their female counterparts. The purpose of this single instrumental, within site case study was to explore the learning environment for male nursing students and to investigate the nature of the interactions between nursing faculty and male undergraduate students …

Bridging The Future To Postsecondary Readiness, Brian Patrick Sien

Dissertations and Theses

Continuing education advances society. For every student, our educational system should provide a seamless transition from one level to the next until a degree or certificate is earned that reflects a mastery of skills needed to secure employment. This helps prepare each individual for a successful life after exiting the educational system and greatly benefit our society. Today, however, many students graduating from high schools are not ready for a postsecondary education. Transitioning students from high school to college is a complex process that requires many different approaches. Students making this transition are finding it more difficult to enter and …

Guiding The Work Of Professional Learning Communities: Perspectives For School Leaders, Daniel Paul Draper

Dissertations and Theses

Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) are groups of educators committed to working collaboratively in ongoing processes of collective inquiry and action research to achieve better results for the students they serve. PLCs operate under the assumption that the key to improved learning for students is continuous job-embedded learning for educators (DuFour, DuFour, Eaker, & Many, 2006). Researchers and practitioners agree that PLCs are critical to the overall success of schools. The problem is that implementing PLCs with fidelity to an inquiry process is a real challenge. Most school districts do not have a systematic or comprehensive approach to guide their PLC …

Gender Representations In U.S. Ed.D. Dissertations: A Feminist Content Analysis, Debora Kay Nelli

Dissertations and Theses

Educational access, achievement and opportunity for students and educators in U.S. educational institutions is influenced and often limited by gender. Although the U.S. Glass Ceiling Commission reports that the gender equity values, beliefs and commitments of institutional leaders are a key factor in reducing institutional gender inequities (U.S. Dept of Labor, 1995), very little is known about the current preparation or evaluation of educational leadership values, especially at the doctoral level (Hess & Kelly, 2007, Grogan & Andrews, 2002; Levine, 2005; Murphy & Vriesenga, 2004).

This study utilized feminist content analysis as a conceptual framework and research methodology to examine …

A Missing Piece In The Sustainability Movement: The Human Spirit, Deborah S. Peterson

Educational Leadership and Policy Faculty Publications and Presentations

The sustainability movement, committed to the health of our natural world, is making a critical contribution to society. While many agree the sustainability movement should focus on the natural world, recent articles call for an additional focus on human welfare. This article proposes that a missing piece of the sustainability movement is a discussion of the role of the human spirit. By focusing narrowly on an examination of the state of the natural world, we are neglecting to incorporate the deep and enduring power of the human spirit to transform our natural and human-made environment and to support change agents …

Building Communities As A Necessary Tool For Sustainability, China G. Ageros

Leadership for Sustainability Education Comprehensive Papers

From ten thousand years ago back to the beginning of human existence, people lived in small communities of hunter-gatherers; tight knit communities who depended upon each other for their very survival. There was no ownership of land, homes, crops or animals, every thing they did have was communally held and shared in a term Ryan & Jetha (2010), call “fierce egalitarianism” (p. 9), sharing was mandatory. Humans have been around in our current manifestation for roughly two hundred thousand years and the earliest evidence of agriculture is from approximately ten thousand years ago (Ryan & Jetha, 2010), or five percent …

Leadership For Sustainability: Pedagogical Practices That Empower Learners To Become Leaders, Heather Burns, Jr Wolf

Educational Leadership and Policy Faculty Publications and Presentations

Higher education is recognizing the need to prepare leaders who can take action to address complex and pressing sustainability challenges. Increasingly, this need is being addressed through the addition of sustainability programs and courses. However, academic courses often focus on sustainability content or issues and don’t necessarily foster the practices, ways of being, and skills needed to be an effective sustainability leader. According to a recent action research study of sustainability leadership development at Portland State University, sustainability leadership identity and skills can be developed through a combination of reflective practice, community building, and experiential learning. This session will provide …

The Retention Puzzle Reconsidered: Second Year Student Attitudes And Experiences With Advising, Michael Edward Walsh

Dissertations and Theses

College student retention has been described as a puzzle because retention rates have stagnated, and in some cases declined, despite over seventy years of research into the problem. The magnitude of the problem is that 50 percent of college students will leave their institution before obtaining a degree (Braxton, Hirschy, & McClendon, 2011). In an effort to improve retention rates, colleges and universities have concentrated their attention on first year students. But this concentrated strategy may have simply transferred the retention problem into the second year where retention rates for many schools are as low as first year rates (Amaury, …

Short-Term International Service-Learning: Faculty Perceptions Of And Pedagogical Strategies For The Design And Implementation Of Successful Learning Experiences, Thomas Jacob Van Cleave

Dissertations and Theses

Faculty-led short-term international service-learning (STISL) experiences are thought to have great potential in developing students' global citizenship through combining study abroad and community service pedagogies. However, thorough investigation of the pedagogical strategies employed in STISL courses to achieve such outcomes has yet to be conducted. This qualitative narrative inquiry of STISL faculty at 7 different institutions across multiple academic disciplines and country service sites sought to fill that void. Data reveal a new conceptualization of STISL teaching, learning, and service success that involves culturally contextualized solidarity, global civic engagement, and global competence, which culminate into students' global agency. Emerging from …