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Full-Text Articles in Teacher Education and Professional Development
Promoting Inclusion In A "Struggling School": Supporting Co-Teachers Through Critical Appreciative-Inquiry Based Professional Development, Louis Olander
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
This dissertation explores the extent to which the beliefs and practices of teachers who work in a “struggling” school can be shifted towards inclusiveness through an action research based professional development program. The school was struggling in that it was charged with the education of children who are marginalized by a range of social forces while simultaneously accountable to institutional priorities. Broadly speaking, these institutional priorities preferred behaviorist punishment and technocratic approaches to meeting student needs, devaluing and decontextualizing students’ proficiencies as test scores and special education labels, in turn impeding inclusive change. Over the course of four months, an …
Early Childhood Education Trainers' Knowledge And Use Of Andragogical Principles, Kimberly Thornton
Early Childhood Education Trainers' Knowledge And Use Of Andragogical Principles, Kimberly Thornton
Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies
Early childhood education (ECE) teachers often lack the experience and skills to provide children with supports necessary to foster academic and social skill development. Professional development can improve ECE teachers' skills, but ECE trainers often lack understanding of adult learning principles, known as andragogy. Knowles' conceptual framework of andragogy was used to explore the knowledge and use of andragogical principles of 8 ECE trainers selected via criterion-based purposive sampling. The research questions focused on ECE trainers' knowledge and use of andragogical principles. Three cases, each consisting of 2 or 3 live professional development trainings for early childhood educators, were used …
Special Education Teachers' Perceptions Of Professional Development Around Assessment, Mary Sue Durr
Special Education Teachers' Perceptions Of Professional Development Around Assessment, Mary Sue Durr
Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies
The significance of professional development (PD) is acknowledged in research studies as essential to implementing rigorous state standards. Although the literature recognizes that PD is a crucial component in improving teachers' knowledge and skills, some teachers at a midsized urban public elementary school in the southern United States did not see the benefit of attending PD. The purpose of this study was to explore elementary special education teachers' perceptions of PD around assessment. Guided by a framework based on Chen and McCray's whole teacher approach to teacher PD, this basic qualitative study was designed to understand how these elementary special …
A Survey Study Of Elementary Teachers' Perceptions Of Student Classroom Behavior, Duane L. Davis
A Survey Study Of Elementary Teachers' Perceptions Of Student Classroom Behavior, Duane L. Davis
Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies
In a midwest, rural, and high-poverty elementary school, teachers expressed concerns about difficult student behaviors in their classrooms. It was important to address the problem because student misbehavior disrupts the learning of all students in the classroom. To provide information to the school that could inform possible interventions, a survey was conducted that measured the perceptions of 24 classroom teachers about concerning student behaviors, their methods of dealing with such behaviors, their needs for further support, and their confidence in dealing with difficult student behaviors. The conceptual frameworks that guided this study were the behaviorist theories of Watson and Skinner. …