Teacher Education and Professional Development Commons^™

A Survey Of The State Of Teacher Effectiveness In Four South Jersey High Schools, Maryanne A. Knudsen

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to investigate teachers' subjective perception of their teaching effectiveness and the factors that facilitate and/or inhibit their sense of efficacy in four South Jersey high schools. In addition, two problems were examined as to the impact of class size on teaching efficacy and does experience in teaching affect a teacher's sense of effectiveness?

The sample was selected from high school teachers in a two county area in southern New Jersey. Teachers were given a questionnaire to complete which was designed to identify important attitudes toward teaching efficacy. A total of 275 questionnaires were distributed …

The Woman High School Principal In Tennessee: A Qualitative Study, Doris W. Vanhuss

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this qualitative study was to give an indepth and insightful description of the personal and professional worlds of the women high school principals of grades 9-12 in Tennessee in 1993. Specific areas which were addressed in the study included: (1) personal background information, (2) career paths and goals, (3) personal influences upon the women (4) possible barriers, (5) the role(s) of the woman high school principal, and (6) job demands. The data were gathered through a demographic questionnaire and the process of the long interview with open-ended questions with all seventeen of the women high school principals …

Perceptions And Hiring Practices Of Tennessee Superintendents And Directors Of Schools Relating To The Desired Technological Skills Of High School Principals, J. M. Reed

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to reveal what technological skills are inquired about by superintendents/directors of schools in the state of Tennessee when hiring high school principals. The study further reveals perceptions that superintendents/directors of schools have for the desirability of high school principals to possess technological skills and their perceptions of how capable current high school principals are for possessing those skills. The study was based on a total population of 139 school superintendents in the state of Tennessee. Surveys were mailed in early Nov, 1995. One hundred-two surveys were completed and returned. Findings were divided into two …

The Status Of Automated Accounting Instruction In Secondary Schools In Illinois, Bradley Donnald Kilcullen

Masters Theses

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to find characteristics of schools that teach automated accounting in Illinois. A survey instrument was developed which requested information about school size, computer facilities, demographics about the instructor, and other items that may be useful in finding information about the instruction of automated accounting.

Procedures

This study was conducted in high schools randomly selected in the state of Illinois. Accounting teachers from 250 selected schools were surveyed from the population of 760. Two mailings of the survey instrument were delivered. 151 responded to the first mailing while 28 more responded to the second …

The Power Of An Idea..., Illinois Mathematics And Science Academy

IMSA History

It is our privilege to share with you the First Decade Report of the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy, an educational laboratory engaged in serious inquiry about critical issues of teaching and learning.

Ten years ago, IMSA opened its doors with 210 students, 12 faculty members, 21 courses, no residence halls, no computers, no external programs, many unanswered questions and an uncertain future. During our early years, we faced many challenges; these strengthened our resolve and deepened our commitment to transform teaching and learning in mathematics, science and technology.

While IMSA is still a very young enterprise, in ten short …

Use Of Reflective Journal In An In-Service Teacher Education Programme: Some Implications For School Improvement, Shahid Siddiqui, Muhammad Memon

Institute for Educational Development, Karachi

A considerable amount of research conducted in Europe and elsewhere except in Pakistan indicates that the in-service teacher education programmes facilitated in the implementation and institutionalization of change at school level geared towards the school improvement process (Dalin et.al, 1992). In the past, the in-service education programmes for teachers in Pakistan received little attention of the government since its focus was on the quantitative expansion rather than qualitative augmentation of education. The teachers who attended in-service education programmes found their experiences as a ‘luxury activity’. Most of them seemed to be interested in their traveling and daily allowances (T.A./D.A.) rather …

Multi-Grade Teaching As An Instructional Strategy: Problems And Prospects, Muhammad Memon

Institute for Educational Development, Karachi

No abstract provided.

A Study Of Secondary School Principals' Perceptions Regarding Current Teacher Evaluation Procedures In Three Midwestern States, Beth A. Saiki-Olsen

Masters Theses

In recent years, new methods of evaluating teachers have been introduced and recommended by educational experts.

This study was conducted to determine the methods and procedures currently used in three midwestern states to evaluate secondary education teachers and to investigate secondary school principals' perceptions regarding those methods and procedures.

The study, which took place during the spring of 1996, included a survey of a random sample of 300 secondary school principals in Illinois, Iowa and Indiana through the National Association of Secondary School Principals.

One hundred and fifty-six principals responded to the survey which found that although principals agreed that …

Passages: A Case Study Of An Iowa Female Secondary Principal, Victoria L. Robinson

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

The purpose of this exploratory case study was to identify and describe one female Iowa secondary principal's career path to the principalship in an Iowa public high school. Several factors were considered in the selection of the participant including: demographics, administrative experience, and her willingness to spend time in the interview process. To provide semi-structure to the interviews and in turn suggest the conceptual frame for analyzing the data, the following questions were formulated:

1. What were the experiences which served as perceived barriers in the career path to the high school principalship for one Iowa female high school principal? …

Using Motivational Theory With At-Risk Children, Rachel M. B. Collopy, Theresa Green

Teacher Education Faculty Publications

Rawsonville Elementary is a neighborhood school near Detroit, where the automotive industry is the major employer. Recent layoffs have affected many families in the area, and more than half of the school's 480 students receive reduced or free lunch. Of the district's six elementary schools, Rawsonville has been identified as most in need of Chapter 1 services. For years, the school improvement team had worked hard to improve student motivation and learning. Yet, something was still missing. The number of at-risk and underachieving students entering the school continued to increase.

At the same time, a group of researchers at the …

An Extended Year Program For At-Risk Middle School Children, Karen Patrice Flanigan

Masters Theses

At the beginning of this century only 6% of the American population even received a high school diploma. Now that diploma is so necessary that our society can no longer support or afford any undereducated citizens. Every year there is less and less room for them in the work force.; The states and school districts are reacting to this by trying to identify these at-risk children and to pose interventions to keep them in school. This is one account of an extended year program that was implemented for at-risk middle school children. The research focuses on the characteristics of these …

Machiavellian Attitudes Acknowledged By Principals Of Tennessee Secondary Schools, George M. Williams

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to determine the level of Machiavellian attitudes acknowledged by secondary school principals as measured by the Mach V Attitude Inventory Scale. The data were collected from an ex post facto survey of 169 public and nonpublic secondary school principals, grades 9-12. Principals completed the Mach V scale and a 13-item demographic survey. Sixteen research questions were formulated to examine the relationship among the variables which produced seventeen null hypotheses. Of the seventeen null hypotheses, four were found to be significant and thirteen were nonsignificant. A review of the descriptive data indicated that the majority …

An Analysis Of Curricular Options Currently Used In High School Resource Rooms For Students With Learning Disabilities In Virginia, Dana Harrison

Theses & Honors Papers

This study examined the curricular approaches for students with learning disabilities in high school resource rooms in the state of Virginia . Sixty-five resource room teachers participated in the study. Subjects completed a 25 item likert-type scale survey which reflected the five basic ·curricular opt ions for students with learning disabilities. Subjects were required to indicate the extent to which he or she emphasized the statement in the classroom. Descriptive Statistics, an Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), and a Tukey Test of Multiple Comparisons were used to analyze the data. The results of the ANOVA revealed that Curricular Options (the Within …

An Analysis Of The Expressed Needs For Vocational Education In Secondary Schools In Barbados, Jonathan H. Lewis

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the views held by administrators, teachers, students, and parents regarding the expressed needs for vocational education in secondary schools in Barbados.

The survey method was used to gather the data. All respondents were asked to complete a 42-item questionnaire. The population sample was 762, which was made up of 122 administrators, 224 teachers, 274 students, and 142 parents. The data were analyzed using the t-test and one-way analysis of variance.

The major findings in the study were: (1) All groups were homogenous in their response and expressed a strong need for all …

Vision And The Ideal Teacher: Implications For Educational Practice, Rosalind Victoria Aaron

Dissertations

Purpose. The purpose of this study was to describe how and why teachers with a vision of an ideal teacher have chosen teaching as their profession and to articulate how that vision has influenced their educational practice.

Procedure. This study was conducted in the classroom setting using qualitative methods. The qualitative techniques were informal and formal interviews, non-participant observations, and personal journal entries.

Conclusions. The findings of the study revealed that the three teachers do have visions, which they clearly articulated. Their visions resulted from their interaction with others, but specifically with some of their former teachers. As new ideas, …

Differential Outcomes Of Various Models Of Work Experience, Peter Sinclair

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

In Western Australia an increasing number of secondary school students participate in work experience programs. Different models of work experience are becoming more common. The Ministry of. Education promotes the use of four such models. The purpose of this study was to examine the outcomes of work experience, as perceived by secondary school students in selected Government Schools, to see if there were any differences according to the model of work experience used. These perceptions were further examined to see if there was a significant difference in perceived outcomes according to other independent variables of student gender, year level, geographic …

Teaching Thinking Skills In The Content Area: A Workshop For Secondary School Teachers, Evelyn Ryan

Critical and Creative Thinking Capstones Collection

This thesis presents a curriculum for a workshop on teaching thinking skills in the content area designed for secondary school teachers. In-service time for the workshop is twenty hours. The first fifteen hours are scheduled for one week in the summer. Two follow-up sessions, each two and a half hours in length, are scheduled during the school year. The purpose of this curriculum is to establish a foundation for skillful thinking-purposeful thought that is aware not only of its objective but of its own processes. In order to accomplish this purpose the workshop has two goals. The first goal is …

Identification Of Tennessee Teacher And Principal Beliefs About National Standards And National Goals In Education, Shirley R. Ellis

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine the beliefs of Tennessee principals and teachers in relation to national standards and national goals. This was a descriptive study, which utilized a survey methodology. The population under study was limited to 232 principals and 268 teachers randomly selected from the 1992-1993 membership of the Tennessee Education Association. The instrument, developed by the researcher for this study, was the National Standards/National Goals Questionnaire. The 32 item instrument was designed to determine the level of belief of national goals and national standards. Descriptive statements were used to analyze the data gathered from the …

Occasional Papers: On Collaboration In Education, Janice Rowan

Hollybush Series

Volume 4 of The Hollybush Series contains 11 faculty essays on collaboration in education, with artwork from students at John Fenwick School and Elmer School.

Faculty authors are: Jane Sullivan, Carl Calliari, Sharon Davis-Bianco, Donna Hathaway, Jody Blohm, Christine Johnston, Gary Dainton, Charles Ivory, Christy Faison, Peggy Beck, David Kapel, Carol Sharp, Janet Moss, Edith Thompson, and Brenda Benson-Burrell.

Taking Charge: Second Graders Negotiate Ownership Of Their Expressive Writing, Susan Douglas Fleming

Educational Studies Dissertations

This ethnographic study of a single, second grade, public school classroom explores students' ownership of their writing as they negotiate their dual roles of active writer and compliant student.

Writing process advocates such as Calkins (1987), Graves (1983), and Murray (1968, 1985) stress the need for student writers to assume ownership of their work by writing from personal experience and by making the decisions governing direction of the text. This involvement encourages awareness of self as learner and as person, and stimulates cognitive and identity development. Robert Brooke (1991), in a study of college students, points out that the power …

Spreading Technology Around: An Investment In Tomorrow, Domenick Pinto, Babu George

School of Computer Science & Engineering Faculty Publications

Sacred Heart University, a private, liberal arts university in southwestern Connecticut has, over the past fourteen years through the Faculty of Science, Mathematics, and Computer Science established partnerships with various educational institutions and school systems for both teacher and student enhancement in the science and technology areas. Those who have benefited include teachers grades K-12, senior citizens, corporate and municipal employees in the community, and students in inner city, private, and suburban settings in grades 2-12.

This paper was presented at the 1994 CAUSE Annual Conference held in Orlando, FL, November 29- December 2, and is part of the conference …

An Assessment Of Vocational Technical Education Students' Literacy Levels And Awareness Of Employer Expectations, Toni Woolfork

Dissertations

This is a correlational study designed to determine the readiness of high school students to pursue employment upon graduation. The study consisted of 137 subjects in grades 10-12, enrolled in 11 vocational education classes within the Kalamazoo Public School System in Kalamazoo County. Subjects were administered both a literacy instrument designed to measure literacy levels; and a self-awareness inventory, designed to obtain demographic information and to assess each subject’s knowledge or awareness of employer expectations as well as skills necessary for the workplace. Each teacher also complemented an inventory, which allowed the researcher to determine the similarities between subject’s and …

Student Held Misconceptions Regarding Area And Perimeter Of Rectangles, Susan M. Carle

Critical and Creative Thinking Capstones Collection

Students enter the classroom with individual schemas, based on their experiences and ideas, which influence the reception, interpretation, and recollection of new information. Effective teachers must understand the implications of these existing schemas. As an experienced classroom teacher, the author finds students often manipulate and apply new information well in class, only to forget or alter the material a few weeks later;. When misconceptions are woven into schemas, they interfere with reception of information. This thesis examines specific student-held misconceptions about the area and perimeter of rectangles and the process of their identification and eradication. Identification of the misconception is …

Reading: The Conferences, Kathryn Kinnucan-Welsch

Teacher Education Faculty Publications

The theme of this issue of Reading Horizons is exemplary practice, and as I recall, several of the sessions from the annual conference of the International Reading Association it becomes clear how central the concept of teacher as professional is to exemplary practice. One session in particular — Teacher Preparation and Staff Development: Lessons from New Zealand — presented by Debra Elliot and colleagues provided some food for thought in considering the teacher as professional. In discussing current models of student teaching, which is of course a critical component to the development of the teacher as professional, Stephanie Steffey from …

Concerns Of Young Adolescents As They Transition From The Elementary School To The Middle Level School, Kenneth L. Brighton

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Major changes in life can be problematic for individuals at any age. But for young adolescents who suddenly discover that almost every aspect of their being is in a state of flux, the transition from the elementary school environment to the middle school setting can be an additional source of anxiety. This study identified the specific concerns that young adolescents held as they anticipated promotion to the middle level, the validity and longevity of those concerns, and the differences in how sixth grade students cope with the transition compared to seventh grade students making the same transition to the middle …

Teacher As Researcher: A Two-Tiered Model, Barbara B. Nelson

Critical and Creative Thinking Capstones Collection

This thesis focuses on an investigation I undertook to enhance my effectiveness to teach mathematics, a subject to which I was assigned, but for which I had not been formally trained. It describes my attempt to construct knowledge through the clinical interview method as to how middle school students construct knowledge about integers and think about the knowledge they are constructing. On one level, I was attempting to learn how students come to understand the concept of integers; on a level, I was creating an understanding of how a teacher can construct knowledge about the construction of knowledge. This two-tiered …

Thinking About Grammar In The Middle School: A Study And Recommendations, Jennifer Ault Simmons

Critical and Creative Thinking Capstones Collection

The study involved 53 sixth graders in a small, rural town in southeastern Massachusetts. Its purpose was to identify some of the grammatical concepts held by these students. The survey is presented. Briefly, these students lack understanding of basic grammatical concepts (such as the subject/verb relationship and subject versus object). These and other misconceptions indicate that students do not understand the role of word function in language. A central finding about students' attitudes toward grammar study is that students do not realize that they have intuitive knowledge of their native language. Although students are not sure what grammar is, most …

Using Stress Management To Promote Critical Thinking, Robert L. Schoenberg

Critical and Creative Thinking Capstones Collection

This paper examines the effects of distress upon critical thinking and offers a variety of stress management techniques to enhance critical thinking skills. A major theme throughout this paper is that one cannot think clearly when one is distressed. The harmful effects of distress upon critical thinking are discussed in the content of the works of several authors in the field of stress management and cognitive psychology. Several different types of stress reduction techniques are presented and discussed. The critical thinking skills of metacognition, frame of reference and methodological believing are reviewed with a focus on how stress management can …

Human Services Training In Tribal Colleges, Richard H. Dana, Rodger Hornby

Regional Research Institute for Human Services

Tribal colleges are providing interdisciplinary education and professional training for human services occupations at the undergraduate level. These programs also promote cultural competence as a result of required courses in tribal languages, history, culture and law. The Sinte Gelska University program is described as an example of the role of tribal college education in emphasizing cultural identity using a culture-specific instructional style and teaching method. These programs in tribal colleges will augment the availability of competent service to native Americans.

A Gender Analysis Of Teacher Feedback In Coeducational Secondary Physical Education Lessons, Paul R. Watson

Theses : Honours

The purpose of this study was to examine whether the verbal feedback distribution patterns of teachers in coeducational secondary physical education lessons were gender equitable. Previous literature indicated that inequality in verbal interaction and feedback existed in coeducational secondary physical education classes. This inequality tended to favour males to the disadvantage of females.

Fourteen lessons by male teachers and fourteen lessons by female teachers were video-recorded. The study utilized a modification of the systematic behaviour observation instrument developed by Siedentop (1983). Data obtained were categorized for analysis and interpretation. Statistical procedures were applied to establish the significance of the findings. …