Thesis advisor: Patrick Proctor / This study aimed to explore middle leadership from a single K-12 district. To accomplish this, an exploratory, embedded single case study (Yin, 2018) was utilized. The district was the case while one elementary, middle, and high school were embedded “sub-units” in the case. A principal, middle leader, and 2 middle leader colleagues further represented each school. This method was employed in order to illuminate how middle leadership was experienced through multiple perspectives and contexts but within the same district. This dissertation also took a narrative approach, beginning in understanding the conditions that led to the creation of middle leadership roles, to the selection, conceptualization, and evaluations of middle leaders. Then, middle leaders were asked about how the district can further support their roles. Results indicated that external (standardized tests, changes in standards or curriculum) and internal (desire for district consistency and cohesion) and factors influenced the creation of middle leadership positions. Middle leaders were selected based on their teaching and leadership experiences. However, conceptualization of middle leaders in the district extended beyond teaching. In addition to teaching, middle leaders were also conceptualized as strategic planners, people with good interpersonal and communication skills, managers, coaches, and evaluators. Evaluation of middle leaders were based on state-based evaluation frameworks for teachers or administrators that showcased a misalignment of responsibility and evaluation processes. To support their roles in the district, middle leaders suggested a combination of internal and external support. Internally, they suggested the creation of a within-district, middle leader-specific professional learning community in order to have opportunities to share best practices and collectively think about problems and solutions. Externally, they would also appreciate the district’s support in attending formal professional development such as courses or certification programs. These results indicate that there is a need for middle leadership-specific classes, programs, and evaluation frameworks and that middle leaders would also benefit greatly in the creation of mentorship programs or professional learning communities. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2020. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Teacher Education, Special Education, Curriculum and Instruction.

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The National Writing Project (NWP) conducts four and five-week professional development summer workshops that K-16 expert teachers consistently praise as transformative. The central question posed in this dissertation focuses on whether the NWP workshop, based on a teachers-teaching-teachers design, could also serve as an effective professional development vehicle for transforming and preparing graduate student instructors (GSIs) to teach first-year composition. This question arises out of the need for knowledge-building graduate student preparation programs that keep pace with the increased demands of the first-year composition course and of the first-year composition students. Methods used to explore the feasibility of the NWP to prepare GSIs involve an analytic autoethnography and two survey research instruments. In the autoethnography, the researcher views the various processes experienced throughout the NWP workshop through the twin lenses of Transformation Learning (TL) theory and constructivist learning pedagogy. In the survey research, the researcher investigates the GSI participants' and local site directors' perceptions concerning the value and benefits of the NWP workshop to prepare GSIs for teaching writing. The researcher's analytic autoethnography reveals the transformative effects of the NWP experience on the teacher-frames of the researcher and of those peers attending the same NWP institute, while the surveys of the GSI participants and the local site directors reveal similarly positive effects of NWP pedagogy for preparing GSI for teaching writing. Based on these findings, combined with foundational support from the NWP meta-analysis of student writing outcomes of NWP participating teachers generated by the Local Sites Research Initiatives (LSRI), along with the independent Inverness Associates' studies focusing on the perceptions of teachers involved in the NWP's New-Teacher Initiative (NTI), the researcher recommends a pilot project involving a NWP designed pre-semester workshop for graduate student instructors prior to teaching first-year composition.

This purpose of this study examined the effectiveness in technology integration among Texas educator preparation pathways and identified successful approaches in developing the technology competencies of preservice teachers. Existing data collected by the Texas Education Agency's Exit Survey by preservice teachers completing an educator preparation program was used to conduct a quantitative study. Data was imported into SPSS to conduct statistical analysis. The findings are discussed and recommendations for future research are provided to inform future development of technology integration in educator preparation programs.

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This study sought to determine to what extend completers of School District A’s Preparing New Principals Program (PNPP) are prepared to meet the 2011 Florida Principal Leadership Standards (FPLS). Major questions addressed (a) the perception of principals regarding how well prepared completers of School District A’s principal preparation program were to meet the 2011 Florida Principal Leadership Standards, (b) if the perceived importance of the 2011 Florida Leadership Standards varied by leadership level, (c) if the perceived importance of the 2011 Florida Leadership Standards varied by a school’s free/reduced lunch percentage, and (d) the 2011 Florida Principal Leadership Standards perceived as the most beneficial to increasing student achievement. This mixed method study employed an online survey. The participants in this study included 46 supervising principals of Preparing New Principals Program completers from an urban school district in central Florida. Findings indicated that principals believed that Preparing New Principals Program completers were prepared to meet the 2011 Florida Principal Leadership Standards. Principals also believed that the following experiences would enhance the program: (a) more meaningful experiences that require participants to solve identified deficiencies, (b) an 18 to 24 month principal internship as opposed to the current eight-week principal internship, and (c) differentiating principal preparation based on participants’ experiences and school district needs.

Published Article / Worldwide, including in South Africa, involvement in research is making increasing quality demands on higher education institutions in terms of sustaining high-level research capability and involvement on an efficient and effective basis. These are complex issues, particularly when concerns such as the quality of postgraduate training, lengthy postgraduate completion rates and the high percentage of suspension of postgraduate studies are present. These are just some of the issues leading to this improvement-oriented study investigating new-generation postgraduate students at a case-study university of technology. The research methodology applied in this study was primarily a qualitative research method, supported by a quantitative research element.

ITC/USA 2007 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-Third Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 22-25, 2007 / Riviera Hotel & Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada / As the frequency spectrum becomes more crowded each day, preparation for placement of tracking ground station in tracking environment gains more importance. Existence of high power weather ground radars, airport approach equipment, and various other RF sources in the environment necessitates the test teams to be more cautious. This paper discusses, implemented design changes to an S-band antenna system to reduce the in-band interfering power, calculation of the effects from nearby interferers, analysis of the environment during placement of the mobile ground system by Honeywell telemetry teams.

In the past four decades considerable efforts have been taken by higher education to understand learner’s differences and learning. Learners have different levels of learning ability associated with their different learning motivations, attitudes and thoughts which are built through years of studying at university. The more the researchers understand the learner's differences the better results they will achieve in covering all levels of learning abilities providing the effective learning for learners. The focus of this study is about studying learning thoughts of academic learners which are scientifically called as the epistemological beliefs. Studying the epistemological beliefs from different angles is important to explore its vital role in learning development. The main aim of this study is to investigate the general and specific epistemological beliefs of undergraduates who study information literacy modules as part of information science. The study focuses on the influence of the independent variables (gender, major and academic level) and the interactions between the independent variables and information literacy on undergraduates’ epistemological beliefs. Two questionnaires are used to measure the general and specific epistemological beliefs of the undergraduates; the Schommer Epistemological-Beliefs Questionnaire (SEQ) and the Discipline-Focused Epistemological Belief Questionnaire (DFEBQ). The participants in the study are undergraduates from the College of Education at Kuwait University. SPSS is used to test the internal consistency of the data against the questionnaires. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) is used in order to analyse the data. The study confirms that undergraduates hold both general and specific-domain beliefs while they hold more general beliefs in their first year in the college they develop toward more specific domain beliefs in the fourth year. A final result shows that the undergraduates specific domain beliefs – rather than their general beliefs – are more affected by the variable of previous knowledge of information literacy, as well as a clear impact of the interaction between the independent variables but is not so clear on the general beliefs.

Technological innovation in mobile devices has upgraded the potential uses of the devices for living and learning. Mobile learning provides opportunities for mobile users to learn at any time in any location. A certification that confirms computing and Internet technology skills and knowledge provides more opportunities to students in higher education for their future careers. Students can attend a training course to better prepare for a certification exam. However, most students spend their time preparing for and reviewing their regular courses and have less time for the training course. The problems of time limitation and space restriction cause students' insufficient learning toward the preparation for the certification exams. Mobile learning may augment the face-to-face training course to solve these problems. The purpose of this study was to investigate undergraduate students' perceptions and the effectiveness of instruction using mobile devices to prepare for a standard certification exam in a blended certification-training course. Participants were randomly assigned to two groups: the experimental group received the treatment and the control group was treated as usual in a face-to-face class. Using a mixed-method research design, a pretest and a posttest collected data from all the participants and a survey and interviews gathered information from the students of the experimental group. The results showed a significant difference between the experimental and control groups in the posttest scores. In the pretest, the experimental and control groups did not differ significantly, which means that they were at the same level before the intervention. Then in the posttest, the experimental and control groups were significantly different, meaning that the treatment was instrumental in the difference. Further, the results revealed that learning via mobile devices provided the students more learning opportunities and improved interaction with other students; though using short message service for learning had positive effectiveness, multimedia messaging service may supplement it to demonstrate manipulation. Suggestions of experts familiar with the field and review of literature can assist development of using short message service messages for preparation of various certification examinations. Using mobile learning in an institute with integrated planning may decrease cost by sharing of resources.