Teacher Education and Professional Development Commons^™

Exploring The Relationship Between Reported Instructional Leadership Behaviors And High-Quality Professional Development Factors, Shelby Lea Daeschner

Theses and Dissertations--Education Sciences

With the reauthorization of the 2015 Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), a focus has been placed on the principal as an instructional leader to improve school culture and student achievement. Professional Development (PD) can improve teacher capacity and student outcomes through long-term, job-embedded, coherent, collaborative, and focused activities. This correlational study explored the relationship between principals’ reported behaviors and rankings of the importance of high-quality PD factors. Through a self-reported survey, elementary school principals across the United States were asked to report the frequency of instructional leader behaviors as measured via the Principal Instructional Management Scale (PIMRS) and rank the …

An Investigation Into The Relationship Between Teacher Grit, Technology Self-Efficacy, And Technology Integration, Joshua Jeremiah Shiloh Marsh

Theses and Dissertations--Education Sciences

The use of educational technology applications has grown tremendously in the last decade. Instructors are now equipped with hardware and software applications previously unavailable, such as mobile and interactive technologies. These tools can have tremendous impact on students’ learning and teacher practices. Teachers can improve their assessment capabilities through technology integration, provide better learning opportunities for students with learning disabilities, and promote deeper learning practices. Due to these benefits, budgets at the federal, state, and local levels of the United States now have specific allocations regarding technology-related purchases. Nevertheless, barriers remain regarding the effective integration of technologies in public schools. …

How Do Parents Of Typically Developing Children Perceive And Interact With Children With Exceptionalities?, Zurisaday N. Decker

Theses and Dissertations--Early Childhood, Special Education, and Counselor Education

The purpose of this study was to examine how parents with children displaying typical development, perceive and interact with children who have exceptionalities or disabilities and explore parents’ openness to having discussions about exceptional children in inclusive classrooms. Given that parents function as foundational sources of knowledge to children in their early childhood years, understanding parents’ perceptions of and interactions with children with disabilities may help to understand how these parents’ children will, in-turn, perceive and interact with classroom peers with disabilities. This line of inquiry is supported by Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory, which views microsystems such as the family, …

Undoing The Traditions Of Grading And Reporting, Thomas R. Guskey

Educational, School, and Counseling Psychology Faculty Publications

One silver lining from the ongoing public health crisis might be the lasting impact of two modified approaches to grading and reporting of the past year.

The Past And Future Of Teacher Efficacy, Thomas R. Guskey

Educational, School, and Counseling Psychology Faculty Publications

Knowing how the concept of teacher efficacy has evolved in education research shows us good ways to raise teachers' confidence now.

Learning From Failures: Lessons From Unsuccessful Grading Reform Initiatives, Thomas R. Guskey

Educational, School, and Counseling Psychology Faculty Publications

This article describes accounts of grading reform initiatives that while well-intentioned, met with staunch opposition and eventually were abandoned. The implementation strategies employed by the leaders of these reform initiative are explored, along with reasons these strategies failed to result in meaningful and enduring change. Alternative grading reform strategies with supporting evidence are offered, justification for their use explained, and new directions for grading reform initiatives recommended.

Action Research As Professional Development: Creating Effective Professional Development In Every Classroom, Lori A. Cambareri

Theses and Dissertations--Educational Leadership Studies

Professional development is a critical component of teacher professional growth that directly influences increased student learning and achievement. As professionals, teachers continue to develop their knowledge and skills with the aim of improving their teaching to assure that students can learn better. A huge investment in time and resources is invested in teacher professional learning every year. However, teachers report, and research supports, that teacher professional development often does not meet teachers’ needs and does not perform its integral function of creating a sustained change in teacher behavior that leads to a corresponding positive change in student achievement. This problem …

An Explorative Study Of Kentucky Teacher Leader Graduate Programs: Response To Policy Change, Bailey M. Ubellacker

Theses and Dissertations--Education Sciences

Teacher leadership is a growing practice for supporting K-12 teachers and students. Recent policy regulations in the Commonwealth of Kentucky mandated a change in the professional standards used by approved graduate programs that prepare teacher leaders. To support this foundational change, program leaders designed programmatic goals, curriculum, structure, and tasks to align with the Teacher Leader Model Standards that emphasize promising research-based practices. The programs support development of teacher leadership through pedagogical approach, requirements, and programmatic structure.

Using a qualitative, multi-site case-study approach, this dissertation explored Kentucky teacher leadership graduate programs to understand how teacher leaders were formally prepared. Program …

New Teacher Induction: Improving Teacher Self-Efficacy, William Jesse Bacon

Theses and Dissertations--Educational Leadership Studies

Induction programs are comprehensive initiations or introductions to a position that provides beginning teachers with the necessary tools for starting their teaching careers, as well as specific guidance aimed at helping them meet performance standards. Induction programs may include mentoring, assistance in planning, professional development, and evaluation. Other terms used for induction include support, orientation, training, internship, assistance or assessment programs, retention programs, beginning teacher program, transitional program for existing teacher, cohort program, phase-in, professional development, and workshops. School districts across the country have turned to effective induction programs in response to rising teacher attrition rates. Comprehensive induction programs that …

Complexity Leadership: The Role Of Teaching And Learning Center Leaders In Online Learning At Small, Private Colleges, Tyler D. Watts

Theses and Dissertations--Education Sciences

As online learning continues to grow and became an integral component of many higher education institutions (Allen & Seaman, 2017), the role of leadership in guiding those online learning initiatives differs from institution to institution. At small, private colleges and universities, where online learning is seeing greater enrollment and growth (Clinefelter & Magda, 2013), teaching and learning centers (TLC) often have involvement in guiding and shaping online learning initiatives. This study investigated the role of TLC leaders in leading online learning initiatives. The value of this study is an examination of leadership during a period of transformation and change that …

At The Heart Of Policies And Programs: Community College Faculty Members And Peer Mentors As Human Levers Of Retention, Kimberly Russell

Theses and Dissertations--Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation

Student attrition prior to the completion of a credential is an issue that has increasingly demanded the attention of stakeholders in higher education, particularly in the community college sector, in which less than half of all students complete a credential after six years. The costs of student attrition are high and widespread, ranging from the financial costs for institutions and federal and state governments to the personal and monetary costs paid by those students whose personal and professional goals are not achieved. With the ever-increasing focus on accountability for institutions of higher education and the growing movement toward performance-based funding, …

The Relationship Between Professional Development And Professional Capital: A Case Study Of International Schools In Asia, Dana Specker Watts

Theses and Dissertations--Education Sciences

The goal of this study was to investigate the interaction between professional development and professional capital within international schools in Asia. The researcher employed a multi-site case study to inform the research goals. A conceptual framework based on Hargreaves and Fullan’s (2012) professional capital theory was used to guide the study’s methods and data collection.

The data were collected in two phases. The first phase consisted of a digital survey that was distributed to ten international schools associated with the East Asia Regional Council of Schools (EARCOS) and the Office of Overseas Schools (OSS). The survey was analyzed to identify …

Against The Clock, Trey Conatser

Greater Faculties: A Review of Teaching and Learning

In The Slow Professor, Maggie Berg and Barbara K. Seeber's thoughtful contribution to the conversation on academic labor is to challenge what often goes without saying: that it's good to be more efficient, to be faster, to manage as many tasks as possible at once. How can we practice slowness and pleasure in thoughtful ways for the good of our disciplines and colleagues and, more importantly, for those whom our decisions and actions affect profoundly?

Why Black Lives (Must) Matter At Uk, Nicole Martin

Greater Faculties: A Review of Teaching and Learning

As a university committed to creating inclusive learning environments, we must remember that our pedagogical practices and philosophies are not crafted in insolation from our social, political, and cultural environments. The psychic and emotional injury spurred by the events of the summer of 2016 will continue to reverberate across campus as we move into the fall semester. When we boldly address the lingering effects of trauma through our pedagogical practices, we demonstrate how the campus actively creates space for the civic development of students, staff, faculty, and administration.

Toward Assessment Leadership: Study Of Assessment Practices Among School And Classroom Leaders, Carrie Elizabeth Eubank Morris

Theses and Dissertations--Education Sciences

Traditionally, models of instructional leadership espouse data-informed decision making in response to student assessment outcomes as one of the core school leader behaviors. In recent years, rising expectations from accountability policies and related assessment practices have myriad implications for school districts, specifically in the areas of standards-driven reform, student assessment systems, and professional development models. As a result, demands on schools to collect and use student assessment data to inform curricular and instructional decisions has expanded. While principals are typically held responsible for school improvement efforts, more contemporary models of instructional leadership incorporate teachers as classroom-based leaders of assessment practices …

Guage Impact With Five Levels Of Data, Thomas R. Guskey

Educational, School, and Counseling Psychology Faculty Publications

Effective professional learning evaluation requires consideration of five critical stages or levels of information (Guskey, 2000a, 2002a, 2005). These five levels represent an adaptation of an evaluation model developed by Kirkpatrick (1959, 1998) for judging the value of supervisory training programs in business and industry. The five levels in this model are hierarchically arranged, from simple to more complex. With each succeeding level, the process of gathering evaluation data requires more time and resources. And because each level builds on those that come before, success at one level is usually necessary for success at higher levels.

An Exploration Of Teacher Retention In Rural School Districts In Eastern Kentucky, Jeremy Watts

Theses and Dissertations--Education Sciences

Teacher retention rates are staggeringly low across the United States. Nearly 20% of public school teachers leave their position from one year to the next, a majority of schools have a turnover rate of 50% every three years, and over 50% of teachers leave the education field within the first five years of employment. This retention problem impacts all type of public school systems—urban, suburban, and rural school districts.

This study examined teacher retention in elementary and secondary schools in three rural school districts in eastern Kentucky. Review of district and school documents about teacher retention informed the selection of …

The Phenomenon Of Teacher Leadership And Cross-Cultural Confusions: What Teachers' Narratives Reveal About School Leadership And Intergroup Communication, Jennifer M. Green

Theses and Dissertations--Educational Leadership Studies

English Language Learners (ELLs) comprise the largest growing subgroup of students in the United States, yet for decades this special population has persistently underachieved as compared to White non-Hispanic students in the public school system. Throughout the nation, ELLs receive an array of services from English as a second language pull-out to sheltered content instruction to dual language education. Much debate has centered on instructional programs for ELLs and the language of instructional delivery. The purpose of this study was to explore the phenomenon of teacher leadership during the adoption and implementation of a one-way dual language education program at …

Relationship Between The Emotional Intelligence Of Teachers And Student Academic Achievement, David Allen Rust

Theses and Dissertations--Educational Leadership Studies

Linda Darling-Hammond (1997) states that the classroom teacher is the most influential variable influencing student achievement outside of the child’s home environment. Many studies have attempted to identify the specific attributes of teachers who are more effective than others. During the last decade, research has shown that teachers who work to develop relationships, while delivering relevant and rigorous instruction, demonstrate greater student achievement.

Additional studies from the world of business tell us that those individuals with increased levels of emotional intelligence are better leaders, managers and salespersons, and are more frequently hired into those positions by large corporations. They are …

Identifying Risk And Protective Factors Of Preparatory And Non-Preparatory Students In Agricultural Education Programs Of A Rural Kentucky High School, Randy J. Adams

Theses and Dissertations--Community & Leadership Development

Today there is an increased demand for secondary agriculture education programs to prepare students to be college and career ready through a program of study. The purpose of this study was to identify risk and protective factors of preparatory and non-preparatory students within an agriculture education program at Anderson County High School in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky. The results of this study did not determine that there was a difference in risk and protective factors between preparatory and non-preparatory students within agriculture education courses. The study concluded that students among both categories were equally exposed to risks such as family conflict and …