<p> As education evolves in the 21st century and students learn to develop knowledge from the ground up, educators step into the role of facilitator. Critical to this paradigm shift is a connection with places that develops knowledge from local experiences into broad global understanding. This thesis explores the literature on how people develop a connection with place, the importance of learning about the world through appropriate developmental stages, and the relevance of place-based education as part of learning in the 21st century. Through qualitative research methods&mdash;including surveys, interviews, and focus groups&mdash;this thesis demonstrates the ways in which educators in an elementary school in Albuquerque, New Mexico develop a personal sense of place. It also asks how an educator&rsquo;s understanding of place is integrated into her or his teaching practices and addresses where there is room for place-based education principles in a wide range of classrooms. The findings of this study suggest that through relationships to place and people, young learners can develop a sense of belonging that drives a love of and responsibility for places on both local and global scales.</p>

<p> The purpose of this study was to research the gap between teachers and leadership. There is a disconnection in addressing characteristics that are represented by the transformational, transactional, or laissez-faire teacher leaders. This study was focused on teachers and the type of leadership they are more inclined to display (transformational, transactional, or laissez-faire) in the classroom. The types of leadership were correlated with certification type, years of experience, and self-efficacy (personal and teaching). The 241 participants in the study were from two academically successful school districts in Texas as determined by the Academic Excellence Indicator System. The findings of the study did not produce statistically significant results between teacher leadership type and certification type nor years of experience. Leadership type and teacher and personal self-efficacy, demonstrated statistical significance. Recommendations for future study are made. </p><p> <i>Keywords:</i> teachers, leadership, transformational, transactional, laissez-faire, certification type, years of experience, self-efficacy.</p>

<p>The purpose of this study was to explore the lived experiences of accomplished teaching practitioners by tracing the development of the teaching expertise of participants using a narrative inquiry frame. This allowed time and space for participants to engage in making meaning of the memories of lived teaching experiences. This perspective took into account the influence of the cultures and contexts in which the teacher was situated prior to, during, and after engaging in the National Board process. The implications of the study indicated engaging in continuous reflection enabled teachers to mitigate problems by framing and reframing practices. Educators at all levels may do well to pause, reflect, and reconsider the how the structures of public school might be altered so that teachers have the spaces they need to learn to teach in ways that ensure all students, particularly those with a support system that is significantly different from the backgrounds of their teachers, are provided with an equitable education. School leaders might choose to consider how the disparate cultural history of teachers and students influences the teaching practices in their school and community context, which may diminish the likelihood of equity, access, and fairness for learning by all students. Emphasis on creating pathways for culturally diverse future educators will continue to be of concern as our knowledge of the growing diversity of our students depends on constructing understandings of their actual, not perceived, educational needs. </p>

<p> Four decades of university-based teacher education reform has failed to yield favorable outcomes in teacher effectiveness in P-12 schools. A rising tide of reform and criticism from governmental agencies and neo-liberal reformers has resulted in one-dimensional, structural approaches to impacting teacher effectiveness, based on the assumption that teacher effectiveness is universal across all school contexts. This study suggests that for university-based teacher education programs to impact teacher effectiveness, particularly in high-needs, high-minority schools, they must: a) define teacher effectiveness, b) contextualize the impact of high-needs, high-minority schools on teacher effectiveness, and c) provide the knowledge, structure and disposition to be effective teachers in the high-needs, high-minority context. To meet this task, this study boldly employs a post-modern theoretical positioning of the university-based teacher educator, one with professional experience or service in high-needs, high-minority schools, as the leading change agent in impacting teacher effectiveness in high-needs, high-minority schools. </p><p> Through a qualitative research design, this study utilizes phenomenology to uncover the lived experiences of qualifying teacher educators, those with experience and service in high-needs, high-minority schools, to define teacher effectiveness, effective teacher characteristics, and the uniqueness of the high-needs, high-minority urban school context. Through semi-structured, open-ended interviews, the lived experiences of qualifying teacher educators were gathered and analyzed using the Stevick-Colaizzi-Keen method of analysis to describe the shared experience of teacher effectiveness in high-needs, high-minority urban schools. </p><p> Findings suggest three themes that align respectively with each research question. When determining the effectiveness of teacher educators for preparation of pre-service teachers to enter high-needs, high-minority schools, <i> dispositions matter.</i> When conceiving teacher effectiveness within high-needs, high-minority urban schools, <i>responsiveness matters</i>. When reflecting on what makes the high-needs, high-minority urban learning environment different from what is thought of as the traditional school environment, findings suggest that <i>people matter.</i> What emerges as the composite experience of effectiveness in the high-needs, high-minority urban schools, is the significance of the <i>counter-narrative</i> focus. </p>

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<p> Teacher preparation programs are making concerted efforts to prepare practitioners to transform urban education. Current studies rely heavily on self-reported data with little to no inclusion of the voices of teachers or perceptions of principals. This qualitative case study aimed to fill that gap by exploring how alumni of one social justice&ndash;themed University Teacher Preparation Program (UTPP) defined and implemented socially just teaching practices in urban elementary classrooms. Participants included six teacher alumni in their first, second, or third year of teaching, two supervising principals, and one UTPP staff member. Methods included semistructured interviews, full-day classroom observations, and a review of program documents. The study was guided by 12 characteristics of socially just teaching outlined in a new practice-based conceptual framework. Major findings combatted current critiques of social justice education and highlighted the importance of relationships, collaboration, craft, and selection in teacher preparation. Minor findings revealed the impact of school culture, critical reflection, and teaching experience on social justice pedagogy. Recommendations include a need for UTPP to pay greater attention to the craft of teaching for social justice, develop assessment literacy in preservice candidates, and model activism inside and outside the classroom.</p>

<p> A great deal depends on preparing high quality teachers, and reformers of teacher preparation have recently drawn attention to the need for clearer delineations of effective practice, what it takes to be a teacher, and standards of preparation. Taken together, these reform proposals arguably frame a professional ideal for teaching. How this ideal and other ideals are established as desirable for beginning teachers during preparation remains relatively unexplored. In this study I thus tease out the desired ideals of teaching in two alternative residency-based teacher preparation programs, City Teacher Prep (CTP) and a Montessori teacher training program (MONT). Drawing from literature in the humanities and the learning sciences, I develop a conceptual framework of desire as socially constructed and conveyed to beginning teachers through <i> orienting narratives</i> that serve to direct them toward desired objects of teaching. I also postulate that beginners develop desires by making <i> heartfelt investments</i> in those objects. I use a constructivist grounded theory approach to collect and analyze observation and interview data. My findings reveal differences in the desired objects at each program suggestive of a tension between a professional ideal and vocational ideal of teaching. I also find evidence of <i>standing</i> desires for leadership among beginners at both programs that could result in their eventually leaving teaching. Through this investigation, I illuminate the conceptual features of desire and show how it can inform our understanding of teacher preparation.</p>

This case study explored the negotiation of identities of American-born Mexican descent high school students in a US-Mexico border region. These students resided mostly with their parents and families on the Mexican side, and having legal American status, crossed the border daily to attend high school on the U.S. side. This qualitative study was informed by social and historical perspectives, and emphasized the identity of border crossers, examining the question of how they positioned themselves when faced with Americanization on the U.S. side and Mexicanization on the Mexican side. The study included a total of 19 participants: 3 students of primary focus, and 16 secondary participants (6 other high school students, 6 educators and 4 parents.) This sample of convenience was recruited at Isler High School, the researcher's place of work. Interviews were conducted with each participant, and the three focus students kept a month-long journal. Finally, some students in the secondary group provided valuable information through focus group discussion. Using Gee's (2001) theoretical framework that proposes four perspectives for viewing identity (Nature, Institution, Discourse and Affinity), the researcher found that the focus participants, each one bilingual, considered English an instrument to become American and be recognized as such. However, each "confessed" to code-switching, but preferred to avoid it. The three focus students self-identified as either Mexican or Mexican and American. One strongly rejected the possibility of being ascribed the identity of a Chicano. The study showed that student border crossers are perfectly fluent in both English and Spanish, contrary to commonly held belief, and that they identify with Mexico, but also with the United States.

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