Faculty of humanities/Arts School of Human and Community Development 0318144e khoza-hr@rau.ac.za / It has been established that South African schools often experience vastly different matric success rates, even in schools from the same areas, with similar resources (Snyman, 1998). This study was conducted to compare teacher stress, professional commitment and school climate in schools with different matric success rates, in an attempt to uncover some of the reasons behind differing pass rates. The sample consisted of teachers from four high schools with different matric pass rates. The schools were selected from twelve high schools in the same rural area, same education district and circuit. The two high schools which performed very badly were matched with two high schools which produced a hundred percent pass rate in their recent matric results. A questionnaire was used as a data collection instrument. The questionnaires consisted of the Job Stress Survey, Professional Commitment Scale, as well as the Organisational Climate Index. The research questions for the study were: (i) Do teachers from schools with different matric success rates perceive the same sources of stress? (ii) Are teachers in schools with different matric pass rates experiencing the same levels of stress? (iii) Is there any difference between teachers’ perceptions of school 6 climate in schools with different matric pass rates? (iv) Do teachers in schools with different matric success rates differ in terms of their levels of professional commitment? The results indicated similarities in terms of the levels and sources of stress among the teachers from the two school types, as no significant differences between the schools were found. However, the teachers in schools with excellent matric pass rates have higher levels of commitment, and perceive their schools more favourably than the teachers in schools with poor matric pass rates. Significant correlations were also found to exist between teachers’ professional commitment and organisational climate. These findings indicate that there is a need in South Africa to seek out ways of improving the climate of the schools as well as teachers’ professional commitment in order to produce quality education.

Internationally, governments have recognized the significance of continuing teacher professional development in their attempts to reform their educational systems. However, not many have the resources and capacity to support teachers in this endeavor (Nelson & Slavit, 2008). Teachers‟ initiatives at their own professional development therefore become important steps towards realizing the goal of continuing teacher professional development and reforming the education sector. Using a case study approach, the study aimed to explore the use of cluster teaching as a form of teacher professional development in one cluster in Mpumalanga. It focuses on teachers‟ experiences of cluster teaching. Interviews and observations provided most of the data for this case study and analysis was ongoing during the data collection process. The views of participants and what I observed is presented before the analysis and interpretation is done. The argument developed in this study is that every form of teacher professional development is best suited for a particular purpose with particular kinds of teachers and hence, the need for as many forms as possible to meet the different purposes that PD has. Cluster teaching as a form of PD serves the purposes of helping teachers improve on their subject content and pedagogical knowledge and to have a positive impact on their attitudes and culture while at the same time helping to improve the performance of learners. When teacher-initiated, it acts as an effective form of teacher professional development and accountability and covers up for the lack of district support and poor resources in some schools. Such cluster teaching therefore becomes a productive way of improving teachers‟ professional practices in their own contexts.

Thesis advisor: Lillie Albert / Enrollment in a Catholic elementary school has been shown to have a negative impact on student achievement in mathematics (Elder & Jepsen, 2013; Lubienski & Lubienski, 2006; Reardon et al., 2009). A child's mathematics achievement in early elementary school affects on her academic future beyond mathematics alone (CBMS, 2012). The importance of young students' experiences coupled with evidence of a negative impact of Catholic school enrollment on mathematics achievement indicates a need for changes in the mathematical instruction provided in Catholic elementary schools. Professional development can provoke change in mathematical instruction (National Mathematics Advisory Panel, 2008). This study examined the use of the Student Participation in Meaning-Making and Reasoning (SPMMR) domain of the Mathematical Quality of Instruction (MQI) tool as an analysis framework in a video-based professional development for teachers of grades K-3 in an urban Catholic school. First, I designed and delivered a professional development program featuring the MQI SPMMR domain and facilitating connections between the professional learning environment and the elementary classroom. Second, I investigated the experience of teachers in the PD program, as well as its impact on their lesson planning and reflection practices. Findings showed that participants incorporated elements of the SPMMR domain into their work in the classroom with evidence of an increased attention to elements of SPMMR in lesson planning, instruction, and reflective practices. This can be helpful for professional development providers and Catholic school leaders as they plan professional learning opportunities for teachers. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2015. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Teacher Education, Special Education, Curriculum and Instruction.

Thesis advisor: Elizabeth Twomey / This case study evaluated the impact of implementing a Professional Learning Community (PLC) model on the role of teacher-leaders in a suburban school district. The study seeks to understand how the role of teacher-leader has traditionally been viewed by teachers and administrators and what, if any, changes have occurred in that role since PLCs were first implemented. Finally the study looks for signs that the initiative may be sustainable over the long-term by examining the changes that the PLC initiative had on the attitudes of both principals and teacher-leaders. This qualitative case study was conducted by a senior administrator in the school district, acting as participant-observer. Data collection instruments included pre- and post-study interviews, document review, researcher-observation of relevant events and the results of several surveys conducted by others during the implementation of the initiative. The study concludes that the role of teacher-leaders changed during the course of the PLC implementation with teacher-leaders becoming more active in school improvement efforts. The study also found that Principals were more willing to distribute leadership to teachers and teacher-leaders after the Professional Learning Community initiative and teachers and teacher-leaders became more committed to working on school improvement efforts as well. Using current research into the topic of sustainable change, the study suggests that these three findings are indicators the Professional Learning Communities may represent a sustainable concept to drive educational improvement efforts over the long-term. / Thesis (EdD) — Boston College, 2009. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Administration and Higher Education.

O autor realizou um levantamento sobre as condições do exercício da Odontologia, na cidade de Manaus AM, entre 175 cirurgiões-dentistas, residentes no município de Manaus, inscritos no Conselho Regional de Odontologia Seção do Amazonas, e com clínica particular que compõem o setor privado não organizado de prestação de assistência odontológica. O método adotado foi a utilização de um formulário, preenchido pelos profissionais em atividade em Manaus, em julho de 1984, tomando-se como base as atividades realizadas na última semana, considerando-se última semana aquela em que o profissional não se afastou nenhum dia do consultório, isto é, trabalhou todos os dias da semana. Os dados obtidos foram tabulados e analisados, tendo sido pos sível, pelos resultados, conhecer os aspectos pessoais, familiares, educativos, profissionais e econômicos dos profissionais investigados. / The author has carried out a survey on the conditions presented by the practice of dentistry in Amazonas city, State of Amazonas, Brazil, among 175 dentists living in Manaus-AM, enrolled at the Regional Council of Odontology - Amazonas sector -, as well as those having private clinics, the latter comprising the non-organized private sector of the dental profession. It has been used the form methodology, being the forms filled in by the professionals who were in activity in Manaus-AM, in july 1984, taking as a basis the activities carried out on the last week, being the last week that in which the professional was not absent from his office, that is, he worked all weekdays through. Data collected were computed and analysed what made possible the knowledge of the personal, family, educational, professional and, economical aspects of the professionals under research.

This thesis seeks to elaborate the inner qualities of integrity and presence in professional practice. It is offered as a contribution to the growing body of literature that shifts the emphasis in professional development from the transfer of skills and knowledge to the transformation of practice. Professional education has been viewed as the acquisition of the knowledge and skills required to address the presenting problems of daily practice. It has been assumed that the answers to these problems can be identified, codified and passed on to others, resulting in a kind of professionalism by protocol. But, as Dreyfus & Dreyfus (2005) have pointed out, there is a qualitative shift in the practice of experts when compared to novices and beginners. The expert evidences a deliberative skill that does not rely on the application of protocols but on extensive case by case experience. Indeed professionalism may be understood as the quality of practice that is evident at the very moment when protocols no longer apply (Coles 2002).Professional practice is not a simple concept as Kemmis (2006) has shown. The thesis contributes to this field by suggesting that professionalism is acquired through prolonged inquiry into the contingencies of quotidian practice and that this shapes the inner qualities the practitioner brings to their practice. It is offered as a first person inquiry (Reason 2001) that probes fractals of my own professional practice over a five year period. In telling my personal story, I give an account of an emergent methodology that engages with action research and narrative inquiry. A narrative mode of knowing (Bruner 1986) notices the complex, many sided and sometimes conflicting stories of professional life resulting, not in a set of propositional claims, but in an account that provides the reader with the imaginal space to enter the process and participate, with me, in making sense of professional practice.

by Kan Hee Anthony Tyen. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1997. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 367-394). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / Abstracts in English and Chinese.

This dissertation examines the acquisition of design techniques among Antwerp trained avant-garde fashion designers by focusing on the aesthetic, communicative, and moral aspects of creativity in design. This required drawing on 15 months of fieldwork in design classes and studio workspaces where student designers are socialized into particular ways of conceptualizing, translating, and constructing design forms. In analyzing these exchanges this dissertation develops methodological and analytical frameworks for ethnographically investigating the practice of design, itself. As such, this thesis develops a number of conceptual tools for describing how designers organize sociality through material and aesthetically designed forms. Thus, this dissertation offers new ways of understanding how the social effects of design forms are linked to the cultural theories and practices that produce them, while also describing the social life of Antwerp trained fashion designers.

Next Generation Science Standards and the Framework for K-12 Science Education encourage teachers to not only change the content of their teaching, but also the way that they deliver it. In order to promote these modern teaching practices, professional development (PD) experiences for teachers need to develop new approaches that enhance the transfer of the PD context into the teachers’ classroom practice. In this research study, professional learning communities (PLCs), defined as collaborative groups of teachers who make their practice visible within their professional learning, are analyzed in a formally instituted series of teacher professional education offerings. Moreover, the setting included a professional learning community composed of teacher-facilitators who were actively engaged as facilitators of other PLCs. The goal of this design experiment was to both explore PLCs as PD models within science education as well as to begin to develop tools for PD that allow teachers to work from within the context of their own classroom. The sources of evidence used in this study included teacher and student produced artifacts and interviews, and written transcripts of the sessions were also examined. All data were primarily explored using methodology taken from grounded theory. This approach facilitated identification of emergent themes that particularly addressed some of the ways that researchers and teacher leaders can work together in the future to make certain that PD and the teachers’ classroom practices are more coherently connected. The following themes were identified: refining the focus of professional learning communities to allow for investigations of student learning in the classroom, especially with an eye towards supporting transparency of practice through artifacts, and the usefulness of cycles of inquiry as a construct for planning professional learning communities. Furthermore, it became clear that there is a need for explicit norms to frame the classroom around what constitutes acceptable explanations and justifications for productive classroom experiences. Among other findings, it is recommended that borrowing from and adapting the work of scholars in sociomathematical norms around the use of explanations can be the basis for a possible framework for improving future studies of teacher professional practice.

<p>Numerous studies have shown multiple benefits gained through professional development for teachers, which address increasing pedagogical content knowledge, increasing student achievement and increasing teacher job satisfaction (Banks, 2008; Colbert, Brown, Choi &Thomas, 2008; Dash, de Kramer, O’Dwyer, Masters & Russell, 2012). However, barriers to professional development, including cost, time and access, make face-to-face professional development sessions difficult to meet teacher needs (Carr, 2016). Online professional development can help to address these barriers, while meeting the needs of teachers. Employing best practices established through both online learning pedagogy and professional development techniques, teachers can increase their pedagogical content knowledge and opportunities for collaboration using online platforms. This study demonstrated, using a blend of qualitative and quantitative assessments that online professional development was comparable in effectiveness to face-to-face professional development in preparation for teaching an introductory logistics course and the Manufacturing Skills Standards Council Certified Logistics Associate certification exam. </p>