Teacher Education and Professional Development Commons^™

To Choose Or Not To Choose: Establishing A Correlation Between Choice, Collaboration, And Classroom Engagement, Krisandra Johnson

Networks: An Online Journal for Teacher Research

Not all 8th-grade students have an outspoken passion for reading; however, most of them do like choices. This action research study establishes a correlation between offering choices in the English Language Arts classroom and increased affective, behavioral, and cognitive engagement. The participants for this research were an 8th-grade class at a Midwest, urban public school. Providing students with reading choices, assignment options, opportunities to collaborate with peers, and multiple assessment forms to choose from demonstrated an increase of not only effective engagement but also cognitive and behavioral. From observations and student data, collaboration, the researcher determines that collaboration is a …

De Bono's Six Hats Thinking Strategy For All Content Areas, Jamie Mahoney, Lynn Patterson, Carol Hall

Kentucky Teacher Education Journal: The Journal of the Teacher Education Division of the Kentucky Council for Exceptional Children

Problem-solving and collaboration require people to compromise, negotiate, and brainstorm to understand, create, manage, judge, and be intuitive and remain positive and calm while working as a team to address problems. Teachers can teach students to collaborate and problem-solve in any content area using de Bono's Six Thinking Hats Strategy. Using de Bono's strategy, university students in this study explored learning hats and ways to apply learning hat properties to collaborate and problem solve in group activities. Researchers employed a mixed-method study enlisting both general education and special education pre-service undergraduate and in-service graduate teachers to discover personal thinking hat …

Uncommon And Non-Traditional Urban Relationship Strategies: From Relationship Loss To Relationship Recovery, Lasonya L. Moore

Journal of English Learner Education

With increasing student diversity across our nation, there is a growing need to scale up educational innovations related to building holistic relationships. Many students in K-12 public schools enter educational settings with uncommon and nontraditional ways of building and developing longitudinal relationships that allow students to thrive and not just survive. Specifically, teachers/educators feel ill-equipped and ill-trained to adequately support the increasing number of English learners(ELs) and Exceptional education students (specifically Students of Color (SOC) with emotional and behavioral disorders) identified in inclusive classrooms. Thus, there remains an urgent need to share uncommon and non-traditional strategies to develop and build …

Integrating Interprofessional Education Into Teacher Preparation Curriculum: Reimagining Partnerships From The Inside Out, Jennifer Lauren Rogers Edd

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This mixed-methods program evaluation sought to identify elements of collaboration within interprofessional education experiences and provide suggestions regarding the future implementation of interprofessional education experiences into the identified teacher preparation program. Program suggestions were informed by the perspectives of current teacher preparation faculty, recent teacher preparation graduates, and other professional stakeholders. Other professional stakeholders are those who have a vested interest in a program. Quantitative data, in the form of descriptive statistics, was collected through a needs assessment tool completed by teacher preparation faculty participants and the Texas Education Agency Principal Survey completed by administrators overseeing first-year teachers who were …

Coequal Responsibility For Feedback And Trust In Teacher Professional Development, Stefanie Whitney

Doctorate in Education

Instructional feedback offers a critical contribution to teacher professional development aimed at improving student learning outcomes. The most influential feedback comes from principals who have developed strong collegial relationships with teachers through observation-based understanding of their instructional practices, intentional interpersonal connection, and collaboration on shared goals. In essence, collegial relationships between principals and teachers nurture the development of trust, an essential element in the process of giving and receiving feedback. Unfortunately, instructional feedback has historically been delivered through teacher evaluations, which attempt to serve two contradictory purposes: To evaluate for retention and to nurture professional development. These dual purposes have …

Professional Learning Community: Perspectives Of Rural School Teachers And Leaders, Brenda Olivia Martinez

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study addressed rural school administrators’ and teachers’ perceptions about the implementation and participation in professional learning communities (PLC) to impact teacher growth, increase student achievement, and improve instructional practices. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the perceptions of rural administrators and teachers about PLCs within a rural West Texas school district. Research protocols were polished through a pilot study group that provided input to refine the survey and interview questions. The researcher administered a survey for all participants, conducted a one-on-one interview with administrators, and interviewed teachers in focus groups. Findings indicated that collaboration, implementation factors, and …

Collaboration With Community Partners To Enhance Clinical Practice, Susan Keesey, Christina Noel, Nancy Hulan, Pete Hoechner

Kentucky Teacher Education Journal: The Journal of the Teacher Education Division of the Kentucky Council for Exceptional Children

Teacher preparation programs are shifting focus to models that integrate pedagogy and coursework into an applied clinical teaching model. Research clearly supports this change to help new teachers prepare for the demographics of today’s classrooms. Teacher preparation is improved through the implementation of high-leverage practices, the key skills new teachers are expected to know and apply. This article highlights a collaborative professional development day designed to strengthen the clinical partnership by developing a shared vision and common language by incorporating high-leverage practices.

Collaborating Online: Tools For Improving Teacher Preparation In Literacy, Jennifer Van Allen, Lenora Forsythe

The Language and Literacy Spectrum

Teacher preparation programs face the continual challenge to provide experiences that foster collaboration between teacher candidates and go beyond the boundaries of particular programs and classrooms. Collaborative learning structures improve learner achievement, attitudes, engagement, satisfaction, and retention rates when interactions between learners are facilitated and fostered. These structures have the potential to foster genuine collaboration in which groups create products and processes that change individuals’ understandings and actions as well as those of the collective group. In this format, learning occurs not only from the instructor but from other classmates as well. Many agencies and professional associations are calling for …

Co-Teaching As A Vehicle To Inclusion In A Diverse Suburban Middle School: A Case Study, Luis Correa

Dissertations

Many school districts across the United States have adopted, or are considering adopting, full inclusion to meet academic and social-emotional needs of increasingly diverse student populations. Co-teaching has become a popular approach for districts committed to inclusion. This study is about a Midwestern school district which more than 10 years ago committed itself to inclusion and co-teaching. The primary research question was: How do we make co-teaching more effective in the Fairview School District? A survey was sent to 120 co-teachers from three middle schools about their experiences with co-teaching in the areas of sharing responsibilities, co-teaching relationships, planning time, …

Examining Efl Learners’ Reading Comprehension: The Impact Of Metacognitive Strategies Discussion And Collaborative Learning Within Multimedia E-Book Dialogic Environments, Abrar H. Alsofyani

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

For most English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners, both reading and comprehension skills are challenging to acquire. EFL students find reading challenging due to their inability to comprehend and interpret text information, which may lead, at times, to demotivation and loss of interest. The current study intends to explore how Saudi EFL learners may better tackle reading comprehension challenges by examining the utilization of metacognitive reading strategies through discussion and extensive collaborative learning activities within a multimedia e-book dialogic environment. Accordingly, the study investigates the impact of teaching metacognitive strategy-based discussion and collaborative learning on students’ application of the …

A Program Evaluation Of Professional Learning Communities To Support Professional Development And Student Learning, Tiffany Scott

Dissertations

For this program evaluation, I examined the effectiveness of Professional Learning Communities (PLC) with regard to how it supported professional development for teachers and student learning at Sunshine Elementary School (pseudonym). The literature reviewed argues that PLCs are viable venues to develop teacher competencies as well as improve student-learning outcomes when implemented with fidelity. The methods in this study included surveys and interviews from teachers, coaches and administrators. There was also a review of the student achievement data to examine results against the perceptions of the study participants. The results indicated areas that were working well, and areas that were …

Facilitating Collaboration Through A Co-Teaching Field Experience, Mark S. Montgomery, Adam Akerson

Networks: An Online Journal for Teacher Research

This article describes an action research project in which two teacher educators implemented a co-teaching field experience with pre-service teacher candidates acting as co-teachers to facilitate collaboration among peers. The goal of the action research was to better meet the needs of pre-service teacher candidates and continually develop their ability to grow as reflective and collaborative future teaching educators. To increase collaboration, co-teaching models were implemented in an early field experience. Teaching activities and assignments provided opportunities for collaboration as co-teachers and as members of a teaching community. Data collection and observations indicate peer-to-peer co-teaching helped create a collaborative atmosphere …

Teacher Perceptions Of Professional Learning Communities On The Instructional Climate At Flintville Elementary School In Lincoln County, Tn, David Golden

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A qualitative investigation was conducted to explore teacher perceptions of Professional Learning Communities on the instructional climate at Flintville Elementary School in Lincoln County, Tennessee. Participants in the study included five teachers, the evaluation supervisor, and one parent from Flintville Elementary School. Through the analysis of interviews and a review of documents collected from Professional Learning Communities (PLC) meetings in grades Pre-K through 8, the investigator was able to extract meaning and code the data into categories that led to an understanding of the perceptions being researched.

Professional Learning Communities at Flintville Elementary School have changed the instructional climate concerning …

Shared Focus/Collective Responsibility: The Lived Experience Of Educators As Members Of A Data Team In A Connecticut Public High School, Abbie-Jean M. Lareau

Doctoral Dissertations

ABSTRACT SHARED FOCUS/COLLECTIVE RESPONSIBILITY: THE LIVED EXPERIENCE OF EDUCATORS AS MEMBERS OF A DATA TEAM IN A CONNECTICUT PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL This study explores the experiences of five high school English Teachers in a Connecticut public school acting as an Instructional Data Team as prescribed by the Connecticut Accountability for Learning (CALI) model. Data Teams are teams of educators that participate in collaborative, structured, scheduled meetings, which focus on the effectiveness of teaching as determined by student achievement. Data Teams adhere to continuous improvement cycles, analyze trends, and determine strategies to facilitate analysis that results in action. Data Teams can …

Fostering The Mobilization Of Knowledge From Professional Development To The Classroom, Robert J. Williams

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This study examined the extent to which professional knowledge, acquired from professional development programs in education, was mobilized in elementary school classrooms. The author investigated the alignment of participants’ perceptions and actions with the aims of professional development providers, studied teachers' in-depth experiences of that professional development, and noted the key aspects of professional development that related to knowledge mobilization. The project acquired data from four elementary school teachers employing semi-structured interviews, multiple classroom observations and teacher-generated and published documents. Participants’ perceptions of professional development were influenced by the following factors: impact on income, personal/professional growth and professional collaboration. Additionally, …

Enhancing Teacher Learning From Guided Video Analysis Of Literacy Instruction: An Interdisciplinary And Collaborative Approach, Carrie Eunyoung Hong, Irene Van Riper

Journal of Inquiry and Action in Education

The technological infrastructure for the use of instructional and professional videos is common in today’s educational venues. However, there has been a dearth of awareness and training to help teachers critically analyze and effectively utilize video recordings of authentic classroom instruction for their professional development. This self-study examined the teaching and learning process, particularly knowledge and lessons that we, as teacher educators, learned from commentary regarding video analysis and pre- and post- surveys completed by the candidates in a graduate level special education course. The investigation explored the extent to which the guided video analysis process facilitated the candidates’ learning …

The Nature Of Teacher Learning In Collaborative Data Teams, Robert Michaud

The Qualitative Report

As data teams have grown in popularity in recent years, they have been increasingly looked to by educational researchers because of the tantalizing prospect of combining teachers’ on the job professional development with increased and effective data use to drive instruction. Data teams have been increasingly implemented within schools by educational leaders attempting to take advantage of what teachers learn from each other in the context of a data team. Many conceptual models of data team function have been proposed, but few empirical studies have examined how teachers learn from collaborating with each other in a data team. This paper …

Partnerships With Cultural Organisations: A Case For Partnerships Developed By Teacher Educators For Teacher Education, Narelle Lemon, Jacolyn Weller

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

New ways of working in teacher education are currently being highlighted, especially in relation to partnerships. One type of partnership that is under utilised is that with cultural organisations. This paper reports on two projects where the authors work with pre-service teachers in partnership with a wildlife sanctuary and a national gallery. Common project elements included research into the value for pre-service teachers in professional engagement of their own teaching and insight into ongoing professional development. The data showed that ownership, empowerment, and meaning can be experienced by stakeholders. The research not only challenges new ways of working with partnerships …

Communication: The Key To Collaboration Between Special And General Education Teachers, Alexandra Slatoff

Dissertations, Masters Theses, Capstones, and Culminating Projects

Teachers often do not communicate with one another when working to meet the needs of their students. The purpose of this study is to examine and analyze the need, nature and manner by which general and special education teachers communicate and collaborate to address the educational needs of their students.

A review of the educational literature reveals that a burden is placed on the educational community given the often conflicting statutory obligations to: fully include special needs students in the general classroom, comply with State mandated general education curriculum requirements and implement instructional guidelines required by Individual Educational Plans (IEP) …

Using Existing Programs As Vehicles To Disseminate Knowledge, Provide Opportunities For Scientists To Assist Educators, And To Engage Students In Using Real Data., Steven Smith, Kristin Wegner, Benjamin D. Branch, Bridget Miller, Darrell G. Schulze, Ann M. Bessenbacher

Libraries Faculty and Staff Presentations

Many national and statewide programs throughout the K-12 science education environment teach students about science in a hands-on format, including programs such as Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE), Project Learning Tree (PLT), Project Wild, Project Wet, and Hoosier River Watch. Partnering with one or more of these well-known programs can provide many benefits to both the scientists involved in disseminating research and the K-12 educators. Scientists potentially benefit by broader dissemination of their research by providing content enrichment for educators. Educators benefit by gaining understanding in content, becoming more confident in teaching the concept, and increasing …

The Perceptions Of Elementary Principals About Their Role In The Establishment Of Collaborative Workplaces In Their School Buildings, Bradley Sullivan

Department of Educational Administration: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The purpose of this case study was to develop an understanding of the elementary principal’s perceived role in creating and sustaining a collaborative workplace environment within their school. Collaboration among education professionals, when used effectively, is one strategy that has demonstrated improvement of instruction and student learning. As such, in this context the role of the principal becomes more complex and challenging. This study examined the perception of the elementary principal’s role regarding the establishment and perpetuation of a collaborative workplace environment for teachers that is focused on improving student learning within their buildings.

In-depth interviews were conducted with 12 …

Teacher Collaboration As Professional Development In A Large, Suburban High School, Marlie L. Williams

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This qualitative study explored the impact of teacher collaboration in a professional learning communities (PLC) school on teacher self-efficacy. Through the collection and analysis of personal interview data from 20 teachers in a large, suburban Midwestern high school, the impact of structured teacher collaboration was evaluated for its impact on changes in teachers’ instructional practices, their feelings of responsibility for student learning, positive adult interdependence, and changes in teacher self-efficacy. Experts in educational professional development identify the importance of sustained, collegial learning. This study explored the structure of one high school’s professional collaboration model, the measures in place for goal-setting, …

Building Leadership: The Knowledge Of Principals In Creating Collaborative Communities Of Professional Learning, Chad M. Dumas

Department of Educational Administration: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Research literature is replete with the importance of collaboration in schools, the lack of its implementation, the centrality of the role of the principal, and the existence of a gap between knowledge and practice--or a "Knowing-Doing Gap." In other words, there is a set of knowledge that principals must know in order to create a collaborative workplace environment for teachers. This study sought to describe what high school principals know about creating such a culture of collaboration.

The researcher combed journal articles, studies and professional literature in order to identify what principals must know in order to create a culture …