Adult and Continuing Education and Teaching Commons^™

Uncovering Best Practices For Professional Learning: A Focus On Dialogic Discourse, Belinda Jaquez

Dissertations

The education system rests in a paradox with an ever-changing world and classrooms frozen in time. Though technological advancements, societal changes, and policy reforms are continuously reshaping the world, classrooms have remained anchored in traditional teaching and learning practices. This study examined the relationship between professional learning programs and the quality of classroom instruction with a focus on implementing more collaborative and dialogic approaches to both student and professional learning. This research involved a multifaceted program evaluation of the learning environment centered on the learning experiences of both students and teachers. A utilization-focused evaluation approach was implemented to ensure the …

Administrators’ And Teachers’ Perceived Importance Of The Holistic Framework For Professional Development Elements: Survey Research, Adrianna Cate

Dissertations, Theses, and Projects

This study researched the six elements of the Holistic Framework for Professional Development (HFPD) to understand administrators’ and teachers’ perceived importance and how demographic variables impacted those perceptions. This was done to contribute to the current gap in the literature regarding how to design and carry out effective professional development. The quantitative survey research utilized exponential, non-discriminative snowball sampling to recruit participants. Fifteen administrators, 64 teachers, and six participants working in ‘other’ roles in their school participated. These participants were citizens of fifteen different countries and worked across eleven countries worldwide. Even given this diverse sample, the results of this …

Teacher Initiated Collaboration In Community: A Case Study Considering Communities Of Practice At A Title I Middle School, Katherine Stewart

Dissertations

This qualitative case study investigates how faculty members in a Title I middle school engage in collaborative practices to enhance professional growth without formal professional learning. Framed within a descriptive lens (Merriam, 1998) and informed by Brown and Duguid's Community of Practice (CoP) framework (1991), the study addresses two research questions: (1) How do teachers collaborate to improve their practice outside formal professional learning? (2) In what ways do these methods reflect the elements of CoP: working, learning, and innovating? Through data analysis, the study reveals that teachers predominantly collaborate on student behavior and classroom management, with curriculum being a …

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 …

Using Coaching Strategies To Support Parents When Promoting Social Communication In Individuals With Disabilities, Molly Baldridge

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

The purpose of this practitioner’s piece was to provide educators with a research-based coaching model that will increase opportunities for meaningful collaboration with parents or guardians in order to promote family-centered and socially meaningful child outcomes for their children with autism or other intellectual disabilities. The training model was based on Lane et. al.’s (2016) brief coaching method approach. Other suggested components to parent training included cultural competency, goal setting, planning for generalization, following up and asking for feedback, and troubleshooting any problem behaviors.

Seeking An Intentional Crossroads: Working Towards An Understanding Of Community Building In Hawai’I Public Libraries, Vanessa Irvin, Nicholas Cho, Sarah Nakashima

Collaborative Librarianship

Public libraries in Hawai’i serve one of the most diverse populations in the United States. With 51 branch locations across six islands, Hawaii's public libraries are central hubs for citizens, where community building can take place. This paper seeks to explore ways in which community building takes place at public libraries in Hawai’i. Through on-site visits at public libraries, observations of training sessions of participants of a Hawai’i-based public library professional development program (Hui ‘Ekolu), and informal interviews with local public library patrons, key themes, reflections and analysis convey a common question across all groups: “What is a Native Hawaiian …

The Experiential Journey Of Teacher-Scholars: “If You’Re Not A Teacher, You Just Don’T Get It”, Ashleigh L. Pelafigue

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The Center of Graduate Schools (2015) published a report detailing applications, enrollment, and trends in graduate schools across the nation showing that approximately one third of all first-time graduate school applicants in master’s degree programs utilizing the GRE assessment identify their career path in either business or teacher education. The purpose of this study was to examine the lived experiences of classroom teachers who concurrently pursued graduate studies to earn a master’s degree in education and to understand how adult learning provided opportunities for personal growth and the attainment of professional goals. Individual interviews and two focus groups were conducted …

College Instructors' Perceptions On Coteaching, Theresa Da Costa

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Coteaching is a teaching strategy that requires 2-teachers to collaborate in developing a course syllabus, selecting materials, and assessing students' work. The research problem, addressed in this study, was an appeal to educate the diverse adult population whose needs could not be addressed through traditional instructions at Rex College. Because of a high number of enrolled adult students, coteaching at Rex College was used to improve student success for academically underprepared students in a Set for Success program. The purpose of this study was to examine the coteaching strategies used at Rex College so that teaching guides and/or professional training …

Literacy Training In An Urban High School Professional Learning Community, Vicki Sandra Ross-Norris

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The purpose of this study was to explore the essence of professional learning experiences shared by teachers who participated in a professional learning community (PLC) at a New York City high school in the South Bronx. Guided by Hord's PLC characteristics and Bruner's constructivism theories, this phenomenological study addressed the research questions of what PLC practices urban high school teachers employ to support the academic-literacy achievement of their students of low social economic status (SES); the role of administration in the PLC process; and the roles of a shared mission, values, vision, norms, and collaborative knowledge on the functioning of …

Strategies For Developing Interpersonal Communication Skills For Business Students, Sharon A. Pope

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Strategies for Developing Interpersonal Communication Skills for Business Students

by

Sharon A. Pope

M.B.A., Cleveland State University, 1995

M.S.H.P/A., University of Cincinnati, 1983

B.Ed., University of Toledo, 1981

Doctoral Study Submitted in Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Degree of

Doctor of Education

Walden University

December 2015

Research has shown that interpersonal communication skills (ICS) are important for employment success, particularly if they are learned by students during college. A private university in Ohio identified the need to enhance students' ICS; however, the university's faculty lacked strategies to teach those required skills. The purpose of this qualitative case study …

A Reflective Conversation: Community And Hei Perspectives On Community-Based Research., Niamh O'Reilly, Catherine Bates

Staff Articles and Research Papers

This paper is a reflective correspondence between a community partner and a community-based research coordinator in a higher education institute (HEI). We asked each other questions about our experience of collaborating on two community-based research (CBR) projects, in order to share our learning from our collaboration, and to relate this to the wider context in order to develop recommendations for others – community partners and HEI staff – who would like to initiate CBR projects in the future.

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 …

Metaconversations: Ongoing Discussion About Teaching Research Writing, P. S. Mcmillen, E. Hill

Library Faculty Research

This article is a follow up to an earlier publication that developed the rationale for using conversation as a metaphor to teach research writing. We presented this proposed teaching approach at several conferences, including WILU in May 2005 at Guelph, Canada. The discussions with participants in these presentations validated the tenets of the conversational metaphor for research writing. Here we provide a description of the research activities in the presentations, the subsequent responses by participants, and our thoughts on these responses. This dialogue between participants and the authors/presenters constitutes the metaconversation about teaching research writing.

Nsu Communiversity Continuing Education Opportunities 2000, Nova Southeastern University

Abraham S. Fischler College of Education and School of Criminal Justice College Archive

No abstract provided.