Teacher Education and Professional Development Commons^™

Pursuing A Common Goal: Measuring The Comfort Level Of Educational Diagnosticians To Manage A Caseload Of Students With Visual Impairments, Jerry Mullins M.Ed., Michael P. Munro M.Ed.

Journal of Human Services: Training, Research, and Practice

This study was conducted to measure the level of comfort and knowledge that educational diagnosticians possess regarding the unique learning needs, assistive technology, special accommodations, agencies, required visual impairment related Individual Educational Plan documents, and special evaluation considerations appropriate for students with a vision loss. Teachers of students with visual impairments were surveyed to gauge their perception of educational diagnosticians’ knowledge of the field of visual impairment and diagnosticians were also surveyed to determine their comfort level in the management of a caseload of students with visual impairments. Research question were based on how TVIs rated the comfort level and …

Examining Pre-Service Teacher Candidates’ Sources And Levels Of Knowledge About Autism Spectrum Disorders, William H. Blackwell Ph.D, Mary E. Sheppard, Donna Lehr, Shuoxi Huang

Journal of Human Services: Training, Research, and Practice

This study was designed to identify what pre-service teacher candidates knew about autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and how they had acquired that knowledge in order to design more effective preparation courses. Teacher candidates (N=87) from three teacher preparation programs completed questionnaires during, or prior to, their first special education course. The findings indicate a relationship between sources of knowledge about ASD and actual levels of knowledge. Based on the findings, the authors argue that there is a need for coursework that focuses on effective intervention strategies and utilizes direct opportunities for teacher candidates to work with students with …

Exploring The Facilitators And Barriers Of Cognitive Engagement Among Ninth Grade Students In Accelerated Curricula, Kai Zhuang Shum

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Cognitive engagement has been linked to positive outcomes such as academic achievement (Eccles & Wang, 2012). However, students’ level of cognitive engagement tend to decline as students move into middle childhood and adolescence (Archambault, Janosz, Morizot, & Pagani, 2009; Wang & Eccles, 2012a; Wiley & Hodgen, 2012). In addition, two out of three high school students nationwide reported feeling bored at school because the academic tasks are not interesting or relevant (Yazzie-Mintz, 2006). In regard to this matter, researchers have examined factors that relate to cognitive engagement. Most of the existing research is quantitative in nature and only involves students …

An Alternative To Acetolysis: Application Of An Enzyme-Based Method For The Palynological Preparation Of Fresh Pollen, Honey Samples And Bee Capsules, Jennifer M. K. O'Keefe, Carol L. Wymer

Faculty Research at Morehead State University

Acetolysis has been widely used for the preparation of modern pollen samples since its introduction by Erdtman. It has several disadvantages in both safety and resultant changes to the size and, in some cases, structure of pollen grains. The enzymatic technique introduced by Schols and colleagues is tested on a fresh pollen sample, a honey sample and a bee pollen capsule. The technique increases processing time, but is completely non-toxic, easy to complete and comparable in cost to acetolysis. Even very fragile grains are not damaged by this technique.

Leading Students To Empower Their Peers In Undergraduate Research, Aubrey A. Kuperman, Colleen Smith, Tracy Baker, Jodiene Johnson

Florida Statewide Symposium: Best Practices in Undergraduate Research

UCF and FAU’s offices of undergraduate research have three separate opportunities for current undergraduate researchers to assume a leadership role and assist their peers in getting started in research. This presentation will lay out the three models, at each institution, for student leadership in undergraduate research: peer mentors/ student teaching assistants, student assistants who host peer mentor advising hours throughout the academic year, and student councils who focus on outreach across campus and serve in an advisory capacity. This session will provide an overview of these programs on the two campuses.

Housing Diversity In Children’S Literature, Carla Earhart

Charleston Library Conference

Previous studies have examined diversity in children’s literature: Gender diversity, racial diversity, religious diversity, and diversity in family composition. This project examines an often overlooked diversity issue in children’s literature: Housing diversity. In the stories they read and the accompanying images, children need to see a variety of housing environments and need to see the settings and the people portrayed in a positive manner.

Renting an apartment is an increasingly popular housing option for many families. However, many children’s books glamorize living in a traditional house. Using a rubric designed by the course instructor, students in a university immersive learning …

Infografis: Kata-Kata Bijak Tentang Relasi Antar Sesama, Rebecca Vukovic

Teacher Southeast Asia

Dalam survei tahunan Teacher, kami bertanya pada para pembaca: “Melihat kebelakang tentang seluruh pengalaman Anda sebagai pengajar, jika diberikesempatan, saran apa yang ingin Anda berikan ke sesama pengajar?” Berikut adalahbeberapa respon yang masuk dalam topik tentang hubungan antar sesama.

Virtual Faculty Learning Communities: Making An Impact From A Distance, Angela Atwell, Cristina Cottom, Sara Ombres

Publications

Faculty Learning Communities (FLCs) are well-known effective faculty development experiences. However, how can you facilitate an FLC with a group of faculty that aren’t available at the same time or even in the same location? To solve this problem, we began facilitating virtual FLCs with remote adjunct faculty in 2016 through a grant funded research project. In this interactive session, we will share what worked well, what didn’t, what we wish we had known from the beginning, and what we plan to do moving forward. Participants will leave with a framework they can implement!

Providing Access For Students With Moderate Disabilities: An Evaluation Of A Professional Development Program At A Catholic Elementary School, Matthew P. Cunningham, Karen K. Huchting, Diane Fogarty, Victoria Graf

Journal of Catholic Education

After a significant policy change led to the admittance of students with moderate disabilities, St. Agnes School (SAS; pseudonym)—a Catholic PK-8 school in Southern California—implemented an 18-month professional development (PD) program to improve teachers’ inclusive classroom practices. Grounded in the theoretical framework of Universal Design for Learning (UDL; Center for Applied Special Technology, 2015b), the PD program included cyclical, one-on-one instructional coaching sessions that were led by trained UDL coaches and consisted of lesson demonstrations and personalized feedback. While SAS teachers held state credentials, most had very little training to work with students with special needs prior to this PD; …

Open Educational Resources Workshops: Instruction, Interaction, Incentive, Elaine M. Lasda, Julie Cuccio Slichko Dr.

Open Access Day

Open educational resources (OERs) are a viable alternative to costly textbooks because they improve economic accessibility to higher education, course completion rates, and student learning outcomes. Through SUNY’s Innovative Instruction Technology Grant program, the University Libraries and Information Technology Services have partnered to create a model for professional development in facilitating the adoption of OERs in online courses. Details of this model will be discussed, and the Fall 2017 program faculty cohort will be announced.

Understanding And Applying Emotional Intelligence: A Qualitative Study Of Tampa Veterans Administration Hospital Employees, Brenda Webb Johnson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Emotional intelligence (EI) has not been studied extensively within the Veterans’ Health Administration (VHA). The VHA is the largest healthcare organization in America with over 360,000 employees and the organization invests heavily in competency development. The Tampa VA is a level 1 facility with over 5,000 employees in the Tampa Bay area. The facilities Education office offers competency development through soft skills training, leadership development, and contracted courses that include emotional intelligence for leaders.

The purpose of this study was to better discern ten Tampa VA medical center employees understanding and application of EI competence within their personal and professional …

Utilizing Principal Coach Reflections To Co-Develop An Effective Coaching Strategy In A Large Urban School District, Harrington Gibson, Gloria Mcdaniel-Hall

NCE Research Residencies

Our Educational Leadership (EDL) program collaborated with a large urban district to provide coaching support for 15 principals. Principals were identified by their supervisor based on specific coaching needs. This collaboration allowed program faculty to design a coaching strategy. Utilization-focused program evaluation (Patton, 2008) was used to examine coaching practices that acknowledged the context, challenges and opportunities present in the district. Our interviews revealed the need for specific attention focusing on the first-hand experiences principals’ encounter in the field. The importance of relationship building and trust informed a consultee-centered approach. A cycle of inquiry allowed for collaboration and refinement of …

Building Partnerships And The Adaptive Cycles Of Teaching Curriculum, Ruth Freedman, Debbie O'Connor

NCE Research Residencies

This paper reports research on the development of ongoing partnerships in relationship to the Adaptive Cycles of Teaching. Sustained, reciprocal partnerships with K-8 schools are a vital component of the National College of Education (NCE). For the Adaptive Cycles of Teachings, it is particularly important to supporting our teacher candidates through learning the core practices. ACT model offers a mechanism for initiating, deepening, and extending partnerships. The focus on a core set of high leverage practices allows us to support both teacher candidate learning and improve student learning progressions in partner school classrooms. Building partnerships with public schools is key …

Normalizing The Need For Help: What All Teachers Need, Nancy Gropper

Occasional Paper Series

Gropper recalls her need for support when she first joined the graduate faculty at Bank Street College as a Supervised Fieldwork advisor. She explores the connections between her own most recent experiences as a newcomer and what all new teachers need in order to succeed - teacher support. This article describes critical components of a teacher support program, referencing the methods of the New Educators Support Team (NEST).

Learning To Keep My Heart Open, Marika Paez

Occasional Paper Series

Paez's first year of teaching was a great challenge, but she recalls one moment when her second-grade class helped her learn that the job of a teacher requires much more than to be an organized dispenser of curriculum or an efficient manager of individuals. Rather, it requires being a person who can stay in the moment, listen carefully, respond authentically, and thoughtfully guide students closer to becoming their own best selves.

Wrong Place, Right Time, Rachel Mazor

Occasional Paper Series

Mazor recounts working in the three distinctly different environments during her first year of teaching: sixth-grade math, pre-school social studies, and first-grade reading. Each of these experiences taught her specific skills that she later applied to assignments; additionally, each experience helped her develop her own style as a teacher.

Perceptions In A Changing World: Teachers' Attitudes Toward The Implementation Of Educational Innovations, Joy Jones

Doctor of Education in Teacher Leadership Dissertations

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study is to examine teachers’ attitudes toward the implementation of educational innovations - with an explicit focus on social and emotional learning (SEL) and new teacher mentor (NTM) programs. Because teachers are primarily responsible for absorbing new information and implementing educational programs directly to students, their attitudes may influence how the program is perceived, the program’s delivery, and may also impact the program’s outcomes. Support for novice teachers is often regarded as necessary and warranted in many schools, and researchers unfailingly reveal findings that demonstrate the effectiveness of SEL; specifically in traditional school settings (Slaten, …

Turning Teens Into Fossilphiles: Citizen Science And Advanced Visualization Of Paleontology Collections, Khai Button, Lynn Cross, K. Ren Rende, Patricia G. Weaver, Jacob A. Van Veldhuizen, Lisa L. Herzog, Lindsay Zanno

Teacher Education Faculty Publications

In 2016, the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences (NCMNS) received funding from NSF’s Collections in Support of Biological Research Program to launch a new citizen science initiative—FossilPhiles—aimed at improving publically accessible natural history specimen data. The FossilPhiles project supported NCMNS’ ongoing efforts to digitize paleontology collections and provide STEM opportunities for historically underrepresented student populations by engaging middle and high school students in authentic data collection.

Five students were chosen from area schools with underserved populations to digitize highly significant or visually impactful vertebrate, invertebrate, and paleobotanical fossil specimens (e.g., type specimens, rare collections, specimens of high public interest). …

Everyone Is An Academic English Learner: Interactive Support In Mainstream Classrooms, Kyongson Park

Purdue Journal of Service-Learning and International Engagement

This article is a report on an English language learner (ELL) teacher’s mainstream class observations, coteaching experiences with a local language arts teacher, and surveying with students for a semester. As Short and Echevarria (2016, p. 2) state, “academic language is a second language for all students,” and every student is an academic English learner. This study examines how teachers bridge the gap between theory and practice by taking on multiple roles in classrooms and providing diverse support (Gottlieb, 2015). The implemented project focused on creating an autobiographical book with students themselves as centerpieces. The main purpose was to provide …

A Little Birdy Told Me: Educators’ Experiences With Twitter As A Professional Learning Network, Valerie King

Doctor of Education in Teacher Leadership Dissertations

This study reveals educators’ experiences with using Twitter as a professional learning network. The context of this study is framed by the notion of ubiquitous learning woven into the underpinnings of social learning theory, adult learning theory and connectivism. Current traditional professional learning does not adequately address the needs of today’s educators. There is growing evidence to suggest that teachers are more isolated and lacking the collaboration necessary to encourage and sustain best practices in the classroom. This research investigates the topics of traditional professional learning, online learning and social networks to lead to a keen understanding of the nuances …

Staying Connected: Measuring The Impact Of Technology Integration On Student Engagement And Achievement At The Middle Level, Jaclyn M. Swayne

CUP Ed.D. Dissertations

Knowing how technologies impact student engagement and achievement is vital. The present study validated and added to the existing knowledge in determining to what extent specific levels of technology integration impact student engagement. It also addressed how specific levels of technology integration impact student achievement in middle level English Language/Arts and mathematics classrooms using 1:1 tablet technology. The descriptive study with statistical analysis provided quantitative evidence to educational leaders on the extent to which increasing levels of technology integration can increase student engagement. This evidence was generated using classroom observation data and Fisher’s exact cross-tabulation analysis. The study also provided …

Dialogic Ground: The Use Of 'Teaching Dilemmas' With Prospective Teachers, Heidi L. Hallman, Thompson Deufel

Journal of Inquiry and Action in Education

This article describes a method of storytelling that can assist novice teachers in moving toward “re-seeing” their stories of teaching not just as narratives of experience, but as sites for work to be done. The assignment novice teachers undertook as part of a methods class in the teaching of English language arts has the potential to be a catalyst for problem solving and decision making as teachers. We argue that telling one’s teaching stories in such a fashion helps novice teachers discover the layered and context-specific nature of schools and classrooms, as well as assists them in moving toward envisioning …

The Impacts Of Preservice Action Research In A Rural Teaching Residency, Ann K. Schulte

Journal of Inquiry and Action in Education

Preliminary data was collected as part of the program assessment of a yearlong teaching residency program in rural California where preservice teachers conducted action research as the culminating activity for a Masters degree. Focus groups and survey data from program graduates were analyzed and compared to findings from the research literature. Themes from the data indicate that the residency program prepared graduates to feel confident about their ability to reflect on their teaching and to collaborate with other professionals. Graduates report that having conducted action research in their preservice program had many benefits to their experiences as a teacher of …

Assessing Teacher Concerns Regarding Response To Instruction And Intervention, Darlene Mckinney, Donald Snead

Journal of Inquiry and Action in Education

All individuals go through a process of change when implementing a new innovation. This descriptive study determines there is a difference in the stages of concern regarding Response to Instruction and Intervention (RTI²), Tennessee’s design model for Response to Intervention, (RTI) for 87 teachers from 8 different schools in a county in Middle Tennessee. The Concerns Based Adoption Model (CBAM) and the Stages of Concern Questionnaire (SoCQ) were used to gather results for this study. These differences in the stages of concern are described between faculty position sub-groups, teachers receiving Teacher Effect Data and those teachers not receiving …

Improving Performance On Task Three Assessment: Strategies And Supports, Terryl Rock, Norma Hogan

ETSU Faculty Works

In this session presenters will demonstrate specific strategies and supports that have helped our teacher candidates
improve their performance on Task Three: Assessment. Topics include helping teacher candidates:

• Identify and state objectives clearly and effectively.
• Align standards/objectives, instruction, and assessment.
• Develop deeper understandings of evaluative criteria, cognitive feedback, and helping their students to use feedback.
• Organize and display assessment data.
• Conduct meaningful analysis of assessment data
• Use assessment data to modify instruction and to plan next steps

Examples of strategies/activities/supports, as well as guidance for others to develop their own will be provided.

Reading With Understanding: A Global Expectation, Mary Shea, Maria Anne Ceprano

Journal of Inquiry and Action in Education

Abstract:

This article outlines the complexity of reading with understanding, what is required for full and deep comprehension, the state of affairs with regard to reading comprehension in developed countries, possible etiologies for low performances, and suggestions for instruction in specific skills and strategies to improve students’ demonstrated achievement in daily lessons as well as on global assessments. Recognizing the commonality of this concern among nations, a need to examine universally accepted tenets for successful reading comprehension as well as local etiologies that impede it becomes increasingly important. Such tenets are skills and strategies that address all of Irwin’s micro …

Principal’S Coalition Building And Personal Traits Brings Success To A Struggling School In Malaysia, Mohammad Noman, Rosna Awang Hashim, Sarimah Shaik-Abdullah

The Qualitative Report

This paper presents findings from a single site case study of a school in a rural part of Malaysia. Based on data collected through semi-structured interviews of the principal, teachers, students and parents, and observations, document scanning and field notes, the study attempts to identify the context under which the school operates, the core practices of the school principal and the enactment of these core practices. The data analysis was carried out through data reduction resulting in initial themes which were further refined several times until consensus was achieved. The themes were then discussed under the light of theories resulting …

A Qualitative Case Study Of Teachers’ Perceptions And Practices In Social Justice Education And The Perceived Implications For K‒2nd Grade Children, Tina M. Lageson

CUP Ed.D. Dissertations

This qualitative case study explored the perceptions and practices of three teachers who teach social justice concepts in kindergarten and 2nd-grade classrooms in an urban school district in the Northwest region of the United States. The research sought to answer the following central questions: (a) What do teachers perceive about how instruction on social justice concepts impact early grade learners in classroom settings? (b) What do teachers perceive about how this instruction influences learner perceptions regarding their role in society? Through a three-phase data collection approach that included teacher and parent interviews, teacher observations with observation debrief, and student artifact …

Re-Thinking Apprenticeship In Art Education, Kelly Nicole Denisson

Teacher Education, Educational Leadership & Policy ETDs

Many students face isolation and meaningless experiences in their day-to-day routine in schools. The increasing focus on standardized tests and academic performance reinforces competition and extrinsic rewards for learning. This diminishes opportunities for creative thought, development of communities, and genuine meaningful connection to content, leaving students feeling disconnected to learning and their peers. Art education has long been an outlet in which to collaborate, embrace diversity, and transform throughout the learning process. This study uses the Arita Tradition of Porcelain, its instructional practices, community of practice, and studio classroom environment as a model for apprenticeship in art education. Participant experiences …

Influencia Del Inbound Marketing En La Intención De Compra De Los Leads, Denise A. Soto, Allen Kevin Zapien

Adventist Online Learning Conference / Conferencia de Aprendizaje en Línea

La llegada de la internet ha revolucionado la manera en que las empresas se comunican con los consumidores, así como también la forma en que ellos dialogan con la marca.

El inbound marketing es una metodología que combina técnicas no intrusivas de marketing para ofrecer valor con contenido de calidad, de manera que los consumidores se acerquen y se los pueda acompañar en su proceso de compra (Samsing, 2016). ¿Cómo esta estrategia puede ayudar en el reclutamiento de estudiantes?