In a co-teaching model of student teaching, mentor teachers are presented with opportunities for professional growth because extensive collaboration occurs with the teacher candidate throughout the process. Despite the proliferation of co-teaching programs, mentor teachers often lack formal training for their role. Further, insufficient evidence fails to show how collaboration between mentor and candidate contributes to professional growth for the mentor. The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine such growth in 9 mentor teachers who hosted teacher candidates during 1 semester of student teaching to determine how a co-teaching model affected mentor teachers' own teaching and mentoring skills. Professional growth was examined through Wenger's 4 components for situated learning. Research questions focused on mentor teachers' initial expectations about their roles, their identity and growth, and the application of their learning and growth when teaching. At the end of student teaching, mentor teachers participated in a series of 3 interviews based in phenomenological techniques. Their responses were coded using an inductive approach. Identified themes included mentor teacher experience, communities of practice, actions during student teaching, and mentor teachers' reflection on the role. Key findings were that all mentor teachers reported that they grew in practice, but not all developed their coaching and mentoring skills, and some focused on transmission of content and skills rather than candidate transformation. The findings of this study may influence positive social change to ensure that educator preparation assures quality and supports continuous improvement to strengthen P-12 student learning through mutually beneficial partnerships.

Algebra test scores of the Maldivian students from grade 6 through 12 are the lowest compared to any other area of mathematics. Algebra is a fundamental topic in mathematics and lays the foundation for mathematical reasoning and complex problem-solving. Research shows that strengthening algebra instruction could improve student achievement. This concurrent mixed methods study examined the algebraic content and pedagogical knowledge of 5 sixth grade mathematics teachers who teach in 5 different schools across the Maldives. Shulman's major categories of teacher knowledge and Ball, Thames, and Phelps' domains of mathematical knowledge for teaching guided this study. The research questions examined the relationship between teachers' perceptions of their mastery of algebraic content and pedagogical knowledge, and what teachers actually know about algebraic content and pedagogy. Purposive sampling was used to select the 5 participants. Quantitative data were collected using the Diagnostic Teacher Assessments of Mathematics and Science - Middle Mathematics Teacher Assessments and qualitative data were gathered through lesson observations, interviews, and analysis of teachers' lesson plans and notes. All participants believed that they were proficient in both algebraic content and pedagogical knowledge. However, the results of this study showed that all participants lacked both algebraic content and pedagogical knowledge. Findings of this study were used to inform and design mathematics professional development to meet the needs of the participants. This mathematics professional development is expected to improve the instructional delivery of algebra through enhanced algebraic content and pedagogical knowledge. This could positively contribute to the improvement of student achievement in algebra.

The sustainability of improved pedagogy gained through professional development (PD) of mathematics teachers has undergone little empirical study. In a midsized urban school district in the Northeastern United States, all high school mathematics teachers attended a 3-year mandatory PD program. Although an external evaluator studied this program immediately after completion, there had been no longitudinal study of the perceptions of its participants regarding the sustained benefits of the program. This qualitative study offered a follow-up study of the participants in the Math and Science Partnership (MSP) PD program to provide insight to administrators regarding the sustainability of benefits gained through the MSP program. The conceptual framework for the study consisted of Desimone's model for evaluating PD and Kleining's framework of systematic exploration and inquiry. The participants (N =7) were asked about their perceptions of the value, applicability, longevity, and efficacy of their MSP PD and their suggestions to improve the program. Data were organized and analyzed using Patton's semistructured systematic framework to reveal general consensus as well as anecdotal evidence. The perceptions of the mathematics teachers provided pertinent information that administrators could use to determine the format of future PD. Teachers participating in this study indicated that having a college professor present a combination of content knowledge and pedagogy skills made the MSP program highly effective and long-lasting. Using this feedback, district leaders could institute improved PD, giving their teachers the skill and knowledge to lift their students academically. Closing the mathematics achievement gap may open employment and college opportunities to students which allow them to escape poverty and lead more successful lives.

Thesis (M.Sc. (Curations)) --University of Limpopo, 2015 / The purpose of the study was to determine the experiences of professional nurses with ethical dilemmas at the Witbank hospital Nkangala district Mpumalanga province. The objectives of the study were to describe the experiences of professional nurses with ethical dilemmas in nursing practice and to determine supportive measures to help professional nurses to deal with ethical dilemmas encountered in nursing practice. The research question was: what are the ethical dilemmas that professional nurses experience in nursing practice? Kohlberg theory of moral development was used as a theoretical framework. A qualitative exploratory, descriptive and contextual research design was used to describe the experiences of professional nurses with ethical dilemmas in nursing practice. Purposive sampling was used to sample fourteen (14) professional nurses. Data was collected using semi-structured interviews. Open-coding method of data analysis was used and four themes and sub-themes emerged. The study found that professional nurses experience ethical dilemmas related to death and dying, distribution of both human and material resources, respect of patients’ autonomy and the nurses’ rights. The study recommends continuous ethics education and the inclusion of ethics in nursing curricula, creation of a supportive working environment, knowledge and understanding of the pledge of service, Inter- disciplinary teams to discuss ethical issues, availability of ethics experts and ethics mentors in the wards.

The purpose of this study was to measure the quantity, quality, and types of collaboration amongst K-12 music teachers in the state of Iowa. Survey responses (N = 97) were analyzed and grouped according to teacher characteristics. This sample of music educators reported the least collaboration on post-instruction, evaluative activity, such as reviewing assessments, data collection and analysis, and peer-observation. Respondents rated other parts of the collaborative process, such as group dialogue, decision-making, and action-taking, more highly. Teachers with a higher level of education reported more collaboration than less educated counterparts, while band teachers reported lower levels of collaboration quality compared to their choral and general music peers. Respondents also indicated that collaboration tends to increase with job continuity, but declines somewhat after teachers reach 25 years in the same school. Middle school teachers indicated the highest levels of collaboration, while K-12 teachers reported the lowest. Further, those teaching in larger schools recorded higher levels of collaboration than their smaller school colleagues. These results suggest that this group of K-12 music teachers in Iowa engage in moderate levels of collaborative activity overall and moderate to low levels of evaluative activity. Demographic results also reveal strengths and weaknesses of various subgroups’ collaborative habits. Researchers have found that high quality teacher collaboration improves teaching and learning outcomes. These results have implications for administrators providing professional development, preservice teacher educators, professional organizations, and current practitioners in the field who desire to implement more and higher quality collaboration for the purpose of instructional improvement.

This study focused on investigating the background, experiences, challenges and training of current online language teachers. An online survey was sent and completed by a total of 264 current online language teachers consisting of a total of 40 questions. Findings show online language teachers are highly experienced in face-to-face classrooms as reported by their years of experience and level of their advanced degrees but typically have less than five years of experience teaching online. They also teach in a variety of contexts including grade levels from early childhood education to adult education; in twenty different countries around the world; as well as twenty languages from commonly taught to less-commonly taught languages. The majority of respondents reported participation in some form of training for teaching online with just over half indicating they had participated in training focused on teaching language online. The area respondents reported having the most training in was technology with assistive technology and professional practice as areas where they report the least amount of training. The most common provider of training was an employer with formats that ranged from a one-time session to ongoing training. Data suggest the practice areas current online language teachers struggle with most in teaching language online are: technology, student autonomy and online language pedagogy. Preferences for professional development in meeting challenges were primarily dependent on if a respondent expressed having a challenge ‘to a great extent’ or ‘to some extent’ with respondents in the former generally preferring structured and the latter unstructured professional development. In suggesting recommendations for training individuals to teach language online, respondents reported that online pedagogy and online language pedagogy should be covered in formal teacher preparation programs in addition to the typically covered areas of technology and facilitation. Relationships across grade levels and languages taught are presented using chi-squared and Fisher’s exact tests of significance, independent sample t-tests as well as binary linear regression are utilized in exploring the strength of the relationships among the variables in the present study. The study concludes with a discussion of the educational and theoretical implications and directions for future research.

Deanne R. Murray at Utah State University conducted a qualitative case study aimed at examining the understanding and practice of historical thinking of three fifth-grade teachers. These three teachers had each been a participant for 3 years in a federally funded Teach American History (TAH) grant project aimed at increasing teachers' historical knowledge and classroom practices. This TAH project in Utah was particularly focused on teachers learning to use cultural tools in socially mediated settings with the ultimate goal of improving their students' performance in history. This study sought to understand the development of these three teachers' historical thinking through their participation in this TAH project and explore how this development influenced their teaching of history to their students. It was the aim of the researcher to probe the understanding of these three teachers regarding historical thinking after 3 years of professional development. If we are interested in strengthening the historical thinking competence of students in our schools, it makes sense to begin by gaining a better understanding of teachers' professional development experiences that are intended to foster historical thinking. This study required the collection of data from teacher interviews, teacher observations in the TAH setting, teacher lesson reflections, and teacher analysis of their students' work and understanding of historical thinking. Teacher participation in this study was voluntary and uncompensated and no outside funding was used during this study. The researcher, Deanne R. Murray, volunteered her time and resources for the study to fulfill the requirements of a Doctor of Philosophy in Education degree.

The purpose of this study was to determine the extent to which sustained teacher professional development in science education affects the classroom instruction of elementary school teachers in third through sixth grade over a 3-year period. The teachers in the study were all elementary endorsed and prepared to be generalists in the content areas. Science reform has led to more content-specific science standards that are difficult for most elementary teachers to address without professional development. Recent studies on improving elementary science instruction suggest the need for professional development to be long term, embedded in teaching practice in the classroom, and rooted in research on how children learn science. The researcher examined changes in classroom instruction over a 3-year period of teachers who participated in a professional development program designed to meet the elementary science education reform based on recommendations from the National Research Council’s report, Taking Science to School: Learning and Teaching Science in Grades K-8. The data that were analyzed to determine the effects of the professional development came from classroom observations of two sets of teachers, one of which was the control set (n = 20). The other was the experimental set (n =22). Classroom observations were administered one time each year over 3 years of treatment to determine whether sustained professional development in science impacted teacher practices in the classroom. This study suggested that classroom science instruction did significantly change through sustained professional development intervention. It also suggested that teaching practices improved in the areas of talk and argument, investigation and inquiry, modeling and representations, alignment with science core concepts, and addressing science misconceptions. Furthermore, findings indicated that teachers who received sustained professional development were more likely to have higher overall effective science instruction scores.

Using advanced technologies can help increase the availability of educational offerings; however, the steps taken in this direction must be appropriate for the target population and the specific content taught. As such, understanding factors that lead to health educators' intentions and behavior related to computer-mediated instruction for continuing education is an important step in developing and marketing appropriate computer-mediated instruction programs (Hoffman & Novak, 1994). Using the theory of planned behavior (Ajzen, 1988) this study explored the relationships between health educators' perceived behavioral control, attitudes, and subjective norms related to computer-mediated continuing education programs and their intentions to use, and previous experience with, computer-mediated education. Employing a cross sectional survey design, data were collected from 504 members of the Society for Public Health Education (SOPHE) (40% response rate) using an online survey instrument. Logistic regression was used to investigate the associations between attitudes, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control, and intention related to using computer-mediated continuing education programs and a proxy measure representing their computer-mediated continuing education behavior. Perceived behavioral control and attitudes were found to have significant associations with computer-mediated continuing education behavior, with intention partially mediating the association with perceived behavioral control and fully mediating the association with attitudes. When studying a subset of the group composed of respondents with a positive intention toward computer-mediated continuing education programs, respondent characteristics and barriers identified as distinguishing between individuals with positive and negative behaviors included perceived behavioral control, presence of a license or certification, a lack of programs, a lack of relevant topics for programs, and a lack of technical support for programs. These results suggest that for health education and health promotion professionals to engage in computer-mediated continuing education programs, more programs, especially ones that address topics relevant to their current functioning, need to be created and made readily available. Also, ensuring that appropriate technical support is available to assist participants, and informing potential participants of the availability of this technical assistance, may encourage more health educators and health promotion professionals to follow through on their intentions to participate in computer-mediated programs.

The purpose of this intrinsic case study was to explore the roles, responsibilities, and perceptions of writing coaches, a form of embedded professional development, which had the opportunity to assist teachers in deepening their pedagogical knowledge of writing instruction. Furthermore, this inquiry sought to describe middle school teachers' (N = 235) perceptions of how writing coaches may have impacted their beliefs and pedagogy with regard to writing instruction. At the time I conducted this case study, no extant literature existed to describe the roles, responsibilities, or perceptions of writing coaches, and this inquiry sought to fill that void. In an intrinsic case study, the researcher's own interests guide the inquiry. Qualitative data from interviews, observations, and archival data informed the inquiry. Furthermore, a non-experimental quantitative survey complemented the qualitative data. I analyzed qualitative data as I collected it through constant-comparative analysis beginning with open coding of individual cases, proceeding to axial coding across site cases, and finishing with selective coding across site cases, at which point I integrated relevant empirical research. I reported descriptive statistics for the non-experimental quantitative survey data. The findings of this inquiry do not generalize to other populations, but the results of data analysis may inform future study and practice. I uncovered teachers regarded the writing coaches in this inquiry positively, but did not explicitly communicate any change in beliefs or practice with regard to writing instruction. Furthermore, I discovered although writing coaches are deemed "coaches," they spend more of their time performing responsibilities which categorize them as teachers and administrators. A posteriori data trends revealed writing coaches faced many challenges: high-stakes testing, unclear roles and responsibilities, balance of their many roles and responsibilities, micromanagement, and inability to impact teacher practice. Lastly, I outline a model, which requires future testing under experimental conditions, to explain how the challenges writing coaches face may serve to lower their loci of control, perceptions of effectiveness, and job satisfaction. The themes I discovered through data analysis led me to make recommendations with regard to future research and practice. This inquiry described three writing coaches' roles, responsibilities, and perceptions, but future study, both qualitative and quantitative, is needed to more fully describe and explore the phenomenon. The model I developed through qualitative data collect and analysis would require testing in inquiries with an experimental design. I recommend future research in the causal cascade to discover how the efforts of writing coaches and other academic coaches may impact teacher pedagogy and practice and eventually student learning. Furthermore, I endorse future studies into academic coaches' loci of control and challenges. Although this study sought to explore the roles, perceptions, and perceived impact of writing coaches, it truly became a study of the challenges perceived by writing coaches and the factors which may contribute to job dissatisfaction and perceived ineffectiveness. For this reason, I make specific recommendations to support writing coaches in their attempts to perform their jobs excellently.