Teacher Education and Professional Development Commons^™

Triumph Through Tragedy, One Student At At Time, Chanel M. Schwenck

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

The EF-4 tornado that struck Mayfield, Kentucky on the evening of December 10, 2021 caused tremendous destruction to the entire community of Mayfield. Two education professors at a neighboring university sought to help students in the Mayfield Independent School District and were able to do so via funding from a KEEP mini-grant. 81 of their college students were trained in Response to Intervention (RtI) practices and provided individual and small group instruction to students in Mayfield for 2 hours a week for 17 weeks during the 2022-2023 school year. Altogether, struggling students in Mayfield received 1,377 hours of RtI instruction …

Decolonization Of The Writing Classroom: Creating Space For Decolonial Theory, Tools, Anti-Racist Pedagogy, And Methods To Improve The Emerging Bilingual Student Experience, Desiree L. Brown

Masters Theses (Archived)

In this thesis, the author addresses the colonial roots of the secondary writing classroom and the origin of standard academic English which enables strict standardized testing and writing assessment requirements that in-turn incite linguistic violence towards emerging bilingual students. The author frames her study within the framework of April Baker-Bell and Asao B. Inoue through a reflective/reflexive study of her teaching in a ninth grade writing classroom in a primarily Hispanic school district in South Texas, which is assessed by the state of Texas through STAAR. This study seeks to identify instances of linguistic violence being perpetuated in the writing …

Supporting Mental Health In Children By Providing Basic Skills And Knowledge Of Mental Health To Middle-School Teachers, Mariaelena Falcon

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) Projects

Background: Mental health first aid training in middle school is an effective way to help teachers gain the necessary knowledge and confidence needed to support students with mental health distress and provide early interventions.

Local Problem: Lack of mental health training may result in teachers facing challenges in identifying and addressing mental health issues among their students. Specific problems resulting from this include limited awareness, insufficient skills, and strategies to effectively communicate and engage with students in mental health distress, and stigma surrounding mental health may make teachers uncomfortable discussing mental health.

Methods: The project will take place at Harper …

Inclusive Education For All: Identifying Teacher Beliefs About Working With Students With Disabilities, Chelsea Sharek

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to investigate the beliefs K-12 teachers have when working with students with disabilities in a rural Pennsylvania school district. This study aimed to identify if teachers’ personal beliefs created biases about their students and school systems; thus, forming barriers and preventing an inclusive education when working with disabled students. Instrumentation for this quantitative study is the Multidimensional Attitudes Towards Inclusive Education Scale (MATIES) survey. Findings suggest that some teachers at Sunnyside School District (pseudonym) hold personal beliefs that could create biases about their students and school system that may form barriers when working with …

P-12 Teachers' Perceptions And Knowledge About Students' Mental Health And Their Willingness To Provide Mental Health Supports Within Their Classroom, Tamara Engel

Dissertations, Theses, and Projects

P-12 students are experiencing higher rates of mental health needs, which generates a growing concern among teachers, parents, and educational leaders. Students with mental health challenges may struggle socially, emotionally, behaviorally, and academically and become at a risk for lower academic achievement, reduced graduation rates, and increased school suspensions and expulsions. While most of the literature is qualitative and has consistently identified schools as the ideal location to provide targeted mental health supports to students, teachers have reported having insufficient knowledge, skills, and resources to provide these supports to students. This correlational study aimed to move forward the quantitative methodology …

Letter From The Editor In Chief, Jeffrey Lee

Transform

The TRANSFORM journal is a space for leaders, mentors, researchers, and practitioners of transformational leadership to be seen, heard, and valued; it is a place for making connections. Relationship-building is central to transformational leadership at all levels of an organization; this fundamental truth is a trending topic in literature. Otherwise, however, leadership can be an isolating experience.

As an ethnographer, I believe the best way to launch an academic, peer-reviewed journal is to do what I do best: storytelling. I want to share my thoughts on transformational leadership through a story in the form of a letter to my younger …

College Preparedness. Narratives Of Transitions From High School To College., Chelsey Luann Vincent

Theses and Dissertations

Despite many theories on student success as well as many resources to help students make the transition from high school to college, many students do not persist in or graduate from college. The purpose of this dissertation is to provide insight into what takes place when students leave P-12 institutions and enter institutions of higher education by using focused narrative inquiry. This study took place at a large research university in the south. The study included 4 participants at various parts of their transition journey. Participants in the study responded to written prompts. Follow up interviews were conducted, and a …

Influential Experiences: Practices Of Teaching And Learning Successes To Increase Pre-Service Teachers’ Self-Efficacy, Amanda L. Steiner, Jennifer Lemke

Journal of Curriculum, Teaching, Learning and Leadership in Education

Teaching is a complex yet rewarding career; still, 40% - 50% of teachers leave the field within the first five years of their career (Ingersoll & Strong, 2011). Teacher preparation programs are often criticized for the lack of connection between theory and practice. Pre-service teachers who have more pedagogical courses and field experiences built into their coursework display higher levels of self-efficacy in their first year of teaching (Boyd et al., 2009; Clark, 2016). Through the lens of Bandura’s four sources of self-efficacy, this case study examines what experiences are most influential in developing pre-service teachers’ self-efficacy.

Impact Of School Leaders’ Actions On Teachers And Their Practices, Dinara Metova

Dissertations

School leaders play a vital role in teachers' performance; while some leaders create an environment conducive to learning, collaboration, and achievement, others inadvertently contribute to teacher attrition and educational disparities. The purpose of this study is to determine the impact of school leaders' actions on teachers and their practices. The context of this inquiry includes two stakeholder groups: 582 school leaders and 1,054 teachers from all 50 states who are members of Facebook Educator Groups. I implemented a mixed methods design by researching scholarly articles and using qualitative and quantitative survey data to find the most effective school leader practices …

Educator Perceptions Of The Care And Instruction Of Trauma Exposed Students In A Small, Urban, Christian School., Mitzi L. Phelan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

It is the endeavor of this research project to investigate how a gap in understanding and communication of an advisory program’s fundamental purpose could potentially impact the thoughts and beliefs of teachers in shaping their perceptions of an advisory program’s efficacy. To this end, the purpose of this phenomenological study is to explore the lived experiences of twelve teacher-advisors in two high schools in Shelby County, Kentucky to understand their concepts of an advisory program’s efficacy. Using convenience sampling, twelve teacher-advisors participated in semi-structured interviews, providing insight into three research questions regarding teachers’ beliefs, intentionality, and challenges of implementing a …

The Use Of The South Carolina School Improvement Model - Quick Cycles In Sixth-Grade Science Classrooms, Jennifer Gnann

All Dissertations

Using data to make informed decisions about instruction strengthens a teacher’s delivery of content within the classroom. However, many teachers have not been taught how to properly use a model of rapid improvement cycles to analyze data and apply it to their classroom instruction. I modified the South Carolina School Improvement Model so that it could be used in short cycles to see how teachers used it to plan for, monitor, and adjust instruction in their classrooms.

I conducted a single case study over a six-week period in which I instructed two sixth-grade science teachers on how to use the …

Parent Choice: Learning Pods Or Public Education During Covid-19 Pandemic, Shari Kinney

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this phenomenological qualitative study was to examine the decision-making process of K-12 parents living in the Appalachian Highlands who chose to remove their children from traditional public schools to join learning pods (sometimes referred to as pandemic pods) during the COVID-19 pandemic. In order to answer this overarching question, the researcher focused her study on two areas: first, what were the possible push factors that influenced parents to remove their children from public schools, and secondly, what were the pull factors that lead parents to choose learning pods over other school choice options. Through the data collected …

Analyzing The Impact Of An Informal Mathematics Teaching Experience On Preservice Teacher Mathematics Teaching Self-Efficacy, Kayla Fruth

Honors Projects

A teacher’s sense of efficacy is their belief in their capability to successfully accomplish a specific task. Teachers with a high sense of efficacy exert more effort, persistence, and commitment to teaching, which leads to higher student achievement and attitudes. The purpose of this study is to determine how participation in an informal mathematics teaching experience impacts preservice teachers’ sense of mathematics teaching self-efficacy. This research was conducted at one informal mathematics teaching experience, during which, all participants completed pre-surveys and post-surveys rating their mathematics teaching self-efficacy using the MTEBI. Later, some participants were interviewed to gain insight into their …

K–12 Teachers Perspectives On Mobile Technology Integration: A Qualitative Study, Steven Justin Bingham

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Theses and Other Student Research

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to develop an understanding of mobile technology integration in K-12 classrooms from the perspective of classroom teachers during the 2022-2023 school year. The increase in mobile technologies being utilized in schools made it imperative to understand how mobile devices are being integrated into the classroom from the teacher’s perspective. The central research question was, how do teachers at K-12 schools in the Midwest describe their perception and usage of mobile technology integration in teaching and learning?

The data collection consisted of semi-structured interviews with fourteen participants from one school district in the …

K-12 Teachers' Perspectives On Mobile Technology Integration: A Qualitative Study, Steven Justin Bingham

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to develop an understanding of mobile technology integration in K–12 classrooms from the perspective of classroom teachers during the 2022-2023 school year. The increase in mobile technologies being utilized in schools made it imperative to understand how mobile devices are being integrated into the classroom from the teacher’s perspective. The central research question was, how do teachers at K–12 schools in the Midwest describe their perception and usage of mobile technology integration in teaching and learning? The data collection consisted of semi-structured interviews with fourteen participants from one school district in the …

Psychological Capital: A Bridge Between Openness To Experience And Teacher Effectiveness During Distance Learning, Annisa Nabila Ramadhani Yunandar, Rose Mini Agoes Salim, Shahnaz Safitri

Psychological Research on Urban Society

Distance learning as an impact of COVID-19 pandemic becomes a challenge for teacher effectiveness. The current study examined the role of psychological capital as a mediator of the relationship between openness to experience and teacher effectiveness. This study involved 172 senior high school teachers in Jabodetabek as respondents who are currently conducting distance learning. Respondents are 117 female teachers (68%) and 55 male teachers (32%) who have teaching experience in the range of 5 months to 35 years (M = 161.34, SD = 121.8). The mediation analysis results revealed a significant indirect effect between openness to experience and teacher effectiveness …

From We To Me: Moving Towards An Examination Of Self Identity In An Online, Global, Collaborative, Learning Environment, Danielle P. Espino, Eric Hamilton, Kristina Lux, Seung B. Lee

Education Division Scholarship

This paper reflects on previous work using QE to examine patterns of discourse of adolescent learners in a virtual, global, collaborative informal learning setting. The collective impact of involvement in the project on participants’ experiences was observed in various reflective interviews over the last five years. The deep reflection of this work resulted in a research shift from the general impact on the participants to a shift towards examining how such experiences shape self-identity, such as recognizing identity congruence, relational self, and overcoming negative identity fostered by master narrative frameworks. An initial examination of pre-assessment interviews indicates that younger students …

Can A Modified Model Un Support Civic Empowerment?, Leora Mincer, Jennifer Leger, Lucy Wilson

SPACE: Student Perspectives About Civic Engagement

No abstract provided.

Historical Inquiry Deliberation (Hid): The New Republic Lesson Plan, Rhonda Kemp Webb

Teaching Social Studies in the Peach State

The following lesson plan is an example of adapting the Structured Academic Controversy (SAC) format for engaging students in the deliberation of the multiple perspectives for a current societal issue to instead create a procedure for evaluating a historical event or decision. The sample lesson included here for engaging students in this process is entitled “Historical Inquiry Deliberation: The New Republic” and requires students to deliberate the following question:

Which of the competing visions for America’s future was the best approach for the nation at the early stage of its development in the late 18^th century?

• Manufacturing: The US …

Building Civil Discourse In Social Studies Through Historical Inquiry Deliberation (Hid), Rhonda Kemp Webb

Teaching Social Studies in the Peach State

This article calls for an increased emphasis on social studies in education and highlights an effective strategy for developing civil discourse skills through what I call Historical Inquiry Deliberation (HID). As social studies educators, we want our students to become engaged in their communities and become the problem solvers of the future. Utilizing the Structured Academic Controversy (SAC) approach builds student confidence, discussion skills, and understanding of the power multiple perspectives can bring to solving a problem. Adapting this technique for analyzing historical content can allow for a collaborative twist to the widely utilized Document Based Question assignment. The article …

The Shared Experiences Of Educators In Grades 7–12 Who Implement Lessons In Social–Emotional Learning Curriculum, Heathre C. Palige

Doctor of Education Program Dissertations

Social–emotional learning (SEL) is used in public school classrooms throughout the United States. The problem that this researcher addressed in this study was that minimal understanding exists of the lived experiences of teachers who implement SEL in Colorado public schools in Grades 7–12. The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to explore and to provide a clearer understanding of the lived experiences of six educators who implement SEL in Grades 7–12 in Colorado public schools. The study fills a gap in literature in understanding the experiences of teachers who use SEL in middle and high school. The literature review …

Review Of Inju$Tice, Inc.: How America’S Justice System Commodifies Children And The Poor, Thomas Hansen

The Councilor: A National Journal of the Social Studies

Book review of this title explaining the corruption and the lack of ethics in Ohio and some other states involved in juvenile justice system, foster care placement, fines, fees, and jail.

Students’ Perceptions Of Threats To Their World' Future: An Introduction To Iccs And Global Lesson Plan, James A. Duplass, Reinis Alksnis, Ireta Čekse,

The Councilor: A National Journal of the Social Studies

This article explains the scope and value of the only international assessment (IEA The International Civic and Citizen Education Study, IEA ICCS) of “Civic Understanding” and a uses data from the international comparative study to create a global education lesson plan for U.S. social studies teachers to have their students consider their perceptions of threats to their world as compared to students in other countries. The lesson would most likely be used with middle and high school students.

Grounding History Instruction: Engaging Place And Scale Through Iterative Local Inquiry Design, Megan Vangorder

The Councilor: A National Journal of the Social Studies

Teaching local history is often an afterthought in the high school history classroom. It is difficult to find enough instructional time to incorporate local stories and there are often gaps in resource development and approach from a local lens. This article seeks to help teachers articulate a locally driven inquiry approach. Using Illinois as the local framework and the C3 Inquiry Design Model as the tool, teachers can begin to map out how to implement the competing mandates to promote disciplinary skill development, demonstrate content expertise using state mandated units of study, drive student-oriented history, and foster civic competence all …

Exploratory Case Study Of Online Teacher Professional Development At A Faith Based School Through The Lens Of A Community Of Inquiry Framework, Ericka Heide Hamilton

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

As online education continues to expand, a need has arisen for online teacher professional developments (OTPDs) that are tailored to fit the individualized needs of teachers. This qualitative, exploratory case study explored one faith-based, virtual school’s OTPD program within a community of inquiry framework. This study used purposive sampling to describe six teacher participants’ perceptions of the design and implementation of their OTPD as well as the pedagogical changes resulting from effective OTPD. Data were collected using two focus group discussions, a community of inquiry survey, and end-of-the-year teacher self-evaluations. Data analysis revealed three themes to answer the three research …

Public-Private Partnerships (Ppp) In Technical Education: The Case Of Egypt’S Applied Technology Schools (Ats), Youstina Magdy

Theses and Dissertations

Technical education is a form of education that gained momentum in the 1800s and was considered as a parallel distinct model to general education by the post-war period. Public-private partnerships (PPPs) were one of the scaling up and enhancement efforts of technical education. In Egypt, the technical secondary education system has various school models; however, it was until 2018, when we first see the implementation of an PPP model with the establishment of the Applied Technology Schools (ATS). ATS schools aim at supplying the labor market with experienced skillful competent graduates in the demanded sectors in the Egyptian labor market, …

Assessing The Effectiveness Of A Transdisciplinary Culturally Relevant Stem Curriculum Intervention On High School Chemistry Students’ And Teachers’ Learning Experiences, Rachel Sparks White

Teaching & Learning Theses & Dissertations

Within traditional secondary science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education, students in the United States and many other nations are taught and assessed in discipline-specific silos through separately required standards and skills. The integration of curriculum across the STEM disciplines is essential to increase student learning and create relevance in the classroom, yet teachers find this approach to be challenging due to the lack of resources and traditional training methods. In Spring 2023, the CReST (Culturally Relevant STEM) research team conducted a mixed methods study in a mid-Atlantic US high school using a uniquely designed transdisciplinary and culturally relevant six-instructional …

Using L1 Student Narratives And Peer Teaching To Increase Secondary Education Mathematical Understanding, Marco Antonio Martinez Leandro

Teacher Education, Educational Leadership & Policy ETDs

This phenomenological study research presents an option to use both discourse in the native language and technology as an alternative to improve the understanding of mathematics in secondary education. 13 students whose native language is Spanish attended a high school in a large urban school district in the Southwest of the United States, participated in this study.

The study's main objective was to observe the effects of using students' discourse in their language and the support of technology to increase their academic literacy in mathematics. Solution-based pedagogy was central to helping students achieve the Development of Academic Literacy in Mathematics …

The Rise Of Critical Race Theory: Current Perspectives And Policies On Crt In Education, Nate Scholten

Journal of Multicultural Affairs

In this policy brief on Critical Race Theory (CRT), I operationalize the theory, trace its origins in legal scholarship, discuss its rise within the field of education, and highlight current policies that have responded to this rise. While many see CRT as a helpful lens to view seemingly unnoticeable manifestations of oppression and injustice, others view the use of the construct as divisive, unnecessary, and detrimental to teaching and learning. After detailing the discourses on either side of this debate, I conclude this brief by drawing on Kumashiro’s (2004) notion of teaching for discomfort and the approach of action civics …

The Level Of Inclusion Of Transitional Services Competencies In Special Education Programs In Saudi Universities, Turki A. Alquraini Prof., Mona M. Alkhudaydi, Amjad F. Almawash, Maryam A. Alhusayani, Meaad A. Almoutairi, Lamia S. Alhusayani, Amaal D. Bin Jabaan

International Journal for Research in Education

The study aimed to identify the level of inclusion of transitional services competencies in special education programs in Saudi universities from the point of view of faculty members. In addition to studying the differences between the responses of faculty members according to the variables: the date of establishing the program, the number of courses related to transitional services, and the availability of specialists in this field. The sample consisted of 164 faculty members in special education programs in 22 Saudi universities. Results indicated that the inclusion of transitional services competencies in the special education programs in Saudi universities came to …