<p> The current recommendation by The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) is that communication in the target language should comprise at least 90% of instructional time in the second language classroom (ACTFL, 2012). This constructivist mixedmethod study contributes to the literature on the oral skills of practicing high school teachers and the oral skills training they receive in teacher preparation programs. Data for the study were collected in two phases, from nine face-to-face interviews, and from electronic survey respondents. Surveys were sent out to two hundred four teachers and responses were received from sixty-eight. </p><p> Identified themes that emerged from interview participants&rsquo; experiences were: 1) use of target language vs. English in class, 2) challenges target language teaching presented for teachers, and 3) teachers&rsquo; responses to these challenges. A twenty-one question electronic survey was created based upon these themes and sent out state-wide to high school Spanish teachers. </p><p> In a significant finding, while participants indicated an overall feeling of being sufficiently proficient in their own oral skills and supporting use of the target language as much as possible in classroom activities, slightly more than one-half of teachers surveyed reported they were not adequately prepared to teach in a Standards-based curriculum which emphasizes the use of target language. Findings also indicated that consideration should be given to providing additional professional development opportunities regarding knowledge of and implementation of the Standards, as well as creation of further opportunities for target language maintenance for currently practicing teachers and additional opportunities for pre-service teachers in their university programs to improve their oral proficiency. In addition, this study revealed that, in this state, the taking and passing of the Oral Proficiency Interview or not needing to do so did not significantly impact the amount of target language used in class by teachers or student. Regarding length of teaching career and use of Spanish in class, this study showed a higher use of the target language by both teachers newer to the profession and those more senior teachers with less Spanish use in class reported by teachers who had been teaching between six and ten years. </p><p> Suggestions for future research were offered such as expanding studies to include middle school and elementary school levels, conducting similar studies with teachers of other languages than Spanish, and investigating other state&rsquo;s teachers&rsquo; perspectives. Further data could provide more in-depth insights if the amounts of target language spoken for the various purposes were broken out into percentages by each level of language taught by instructors.</p><p>

<p> The purpose of this quantitative study was to compare the perception of teacher self-efficacy of traditionally and alternatively certified teachers in a suburban school district with a graduation rate of 99%. A school district with a graduation rate of 99% is worthy of further study to see if there is a statistical difference in the self-efficacy of its professional staff who are traditionally and alternatively certified. Through a study on licensure and worker quality comparing alternative routes to traditional teacher routes, alternatively certified teachers have stronger pre-service qualifications than do traditionally prepared teachers with the least restrictive alternative pathway attracting the most qualified teachers (Sass, 2014). Teacher quality and effectiveness have been studied to determine their relationship to and impact on student achievement. The researcher surveyed 82 teachers who were certified through traditional teacher preparation programs and through alternative preparation programs. The results of the this study did not show a significant difference in the teacher self-efficacy of traditionally and alternatively certified teachers nor did it show a statistical difference in the Teacher Self-Efficacy Scale (TSES) score of those with three or more years of experience and who had previous work experience with children and adolescents. The researcher used two surveys to gather data&mdash;a demographic survey created by Thompson (2003) and the TSES, a Likert-type scale, created by Schwarzer, Schmidtz, and Daytner in 1999. The TSES identifies jobs skills and groups in four major areas: (a) job accomplishment, (b) skill development on the job, (c) social interaction with students, parents, and colleagues, and (d) coping with job stress (Schwarzer, 1998; Schwarzer et al., 1999).</p><p> Keywords: self-efficacy, traditionally certified, alternatively certified. </p>

<p> The purpose of this research was to determine the effectiveness of a teacher training program in distance education (EAD) offered in a private institution of a higher education system located south of Puerto Rico. In order to achieve the objectives, the research was carried out with the application of Stufflebeam CIPP Model for program evaluation, specially focused on process and product phases.</p><p> The sample was composed of professors who participated in the Training Program. These participants were given a questionnaire designed for this research and related to the two stages: process, product and effectiveness of the program, as well as their satisfaction on aspects related to the training received. A Likert scale was used to identify the responses.</p><p> The research was framed in a quantitative and non-experimental methodology that was based around three research questions. The data obtained with the administration of the questionnaire were analyzed through the program SPSS 21. These data were analyzed and calculated through the descriptive statistics with the calculation of the frequency measurements.</p><p> After analyzing the data obtained and based on the results obtained and reported the highest percentages in the scale of "Totally agree" and "Agreed" it was shown that in the opinion of the participants, the training program for the teacher training in DE is effective with respect to the purpose of their design and participants are satisfied with the training received. The data collected in this study may support educational institutions to design training programs for professional development.</p>

<p> This qualitative descriptive study explored the experiences of three Kuwaiti pre-service teachers with guided reflection and the extent to which video technology facilitates reflection. The data sources were semi-structured and video-elicited interviews, field notes, and researcher reflective journals. The study was guided by two research questions: In what ways does video elicitation facilitate Kuwaiti pre-service teachers&rsquo; reflections? What do Kuwaiti pre-service teachers reflect about? I used Rogoff&rsquo;s Sociocultural Theory (2003; 1995) as my conceptual lens for this study which stresses the importance of cultural contexts in all areas of education. I developed a concept I call &ldquo;third-eye&rdquo; thinking to define a multifaceted approach to education and reflection. I also developed a concept I call &ldquo;cultural spheres of influence&rdquo; to describe the multitude of cultural influences that shape individuals and groups in unique ways. This study also depended on guided reflection to complement the process of video elicitation. The findings of my study indicated that video elicitation provided concrete material as a basis for reflection. My findings showed that Kuwaiti early childhood pre-service teachers reflected on various topics including: teaching tools and materials, strategies and techniques, everyday problems and challenges, classroom dynamics and management, and evaluators and the evaluation process. This research contributes to the existing body of literature by giving reflection a new culturally-rooted definition based on its application by Kuwaiti pre-service teachers and through a careful consideration of the cultural spheres of influences that shaped who the participants were and what they brought to the reflective process. </p>

<p> The current qualitative study focused on understanding the process of learning to teach. Using interviews of teacher educators, the study explored the importance of a set of teaching activities developed as part of the Teacher Self Efficacy Survey (Tschannen-Moran &amp; Woolfolk Hoy, 2001) as well as the inclusion of instructional and assessment strategies for the teaching activities and the quality of beginning teacher performance of the activities. </p><p> Data were collected from interviews of 15 teacher educators. A process of open, axial, and substantive coding was applied to the data to inductively identify and categorize data relevant to the purpose of the study and to allow comparisons among and between categories. </p><p> Findings suggested that teaching activities are critically important to and a comprehensive description of effective teaching, and that beginning teachers struggle with differentiation and applying their learning to their practice. Further, findings suggested that the source of beginning teacher struggles was found within the teacher education program, within school contexts, and between the two institutions. In addition, findings suggested that beginning teachers perform the student engagement activities and those related to instructional strategies more proficiently than classroom management activities, and that all three teaching activity categories were included in the curriculum, but to different degrees and not all as part of curriculum design. A variety of pedagogies were used to prepare preservice teachers; however, there was no reported knowledge of assessment instruments used to measure preservice teachers&rsquo; readiness for teaching and to obtain data on the performance of their graduates. Lastly, this study revealed that teacher education program leaders were reluctant to participate in a study that sought to draw direct connections between the skills taught in the program and how well beginning teachers perform them. </p><p> Based on the findings, the researcher recommends further studies to determine the viability of the teaching activities as a comprehensive and accurate definition of effective teaching. Further the researcher recommends that teacher education programs and school districts adopt the teaching activities as a consistent framework for providing preservice education, for setting school district expectations, and for conducting teacher evaluations.</p>

<p> Research suggests that instructional interventions can impact student learning most effectively when teachers receive support for implementation (Danielson, Doolittle, &amp; Bradley, 2007; Songer, et al., 2002). This is particularly true for interventions targeting struggling students within Response to Intervention structures (Akerson, Cullen, &amp; Hanson, 2009; Harris, Graham, &amp; Adkins, 2015; Martin-Kniep, 2008;). Professional learning communities (PLCs) provide one structure to provide teachers with the needed instructional support to implement instructional interventions (Akerson et al., 2009; Danielson et al., 2007; Martin-Kneip, 2008; Pease-Alvarez &amp; Samway, 2008). Implementation literature largely examines two aspects of these PLCs in relation to teacher&rsquo;s practice: 1) teachers&rsquo; fidelity in implementing the curricular intervention, and 2) how intervention training within the PLC impacts on students&rsquo; academic performance. Absent from the current research is an examination of the ways in which teachers develop their capacity within PLCs, particularly when that PLC directly supports teachers&rsquo; implementation of a curricular intervention. Drawing on data from a large-scale evaluation study of an early literacy intervention, this dissertation explores how teachers describe the ways in which their capacity is built within a PLC. Using a critical feminist framework, this study examines interview transcripts, program artifacts, and analytic memos to surface the themes and discourses used by teachers to forward a theory of how PLCs can influence teachers&rsquo; practice.</p><p> This study found five key features of this intervention&rsquo;s PLCs that teachers described as developing their capacity: 1) theoretical texts directly connected to teachers&rsquo; practice; 2) a resource-orientation to students; 2) a developed sense of personal responsibility for students&rsquo; progress; 4) informal collaboration with colleagues outside the PLC space; and 5) peer observation with direct, non-evaluative feedback conversations. These features, when situated within existing literature, provide the groundwork for greater research around PLCs and how they can serve as a support of teachers&rsquo; capacity-building and implementation of instructional interventions.</p>

In response to increasing attention to the issues of teacher quality, quantity, and the mandate for highly qualified teachers, alternative approaches to teacher certification have become widespread. Alternative certification allows individuals who typically posses an undergraduate degree in a field other than education to participate in shortened training and/or on- the- job learning experiences that lead to full certification. The number of alternatively certified teachers in urban hard to staff schools is growing. There are many debates as to the effectiveness of alternative certification. At the core of the arguments are issues surrounding teacher pedagogy, classroom management, and knowledge of the teaching and learning experience in general. This study sought to determine public school principals' perceptions of alternatively certified teachers. The study asked principals to compare alternatively certified teachers to those teachers who have participated in a traditional university based teacher education program. Both groups of teachers had one to three years of experience in the classroom. Survey research was used to compare the effectiveness of alternatively certified teachers to traditionally certified teachers based upon principals' perceptions. There were five survey domains, including (1) content knowledge, (2) classroom management, (3) instructional planning, (4) human relations skills, and (5) professionalism. Results of this study indicated that principals perceived that alternatively certified teachers were perceived as slightly less effective than traditionally certified teachers. Teachers trained in the traditional teacher education programs were viewed as more effective with regard to content knowledge, classroom management, instructional planning, and professionalism.

<p> This qualitative case study took place in a racially, ethnically, culturally, and linguistically diverse community. It involved interviewing 11 teacher volunteers from a high school in a culturally diverse community in New York, each at different stages of their teaching careers, to obtain their perceptions about the value of implementing culturally responsive teaching (CRT) in their instruction to enhance the learning opportunities of students from culturally diverse backgrounds. The broad objective of this inquiry was to seek ways of establishing a pedagogy appropriate for students from diverse backgrounds. The specific aim was to use teachers&rsquo; perceptions about implementing CRT techniques in their instruction to effectively satisfy the learning, academic achievement, and socioemotional health of their culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students. Participants responded to interview questions by completing and returning the interview questionnaire they were given. Five participants further participated by explaining more fully how they believed the CRT techniques they employed in delivering classroom instruction enhanced opportunities for the CLD students. The data collected from the responses of all participants were examined and sorted according to similarities and differences. The analysis of responses received by all teachers revealed they all agreed that CRT methods were the best approach for reaching and engaging CLD students in the classroom and thereby maximizing opportunities for them to attain success in their academic achievements, and for addressing their socio-emotional health. In addition, all teachers expressed support for more professional development (PD), especially in CRT on-going programs to enable them to be better educators of CLD students. The findings of the study implied that not all teachers were adequately trained to effectively teach students from diverse backgrounds. It is recommended that schools&rsquo; governing bodies institute PD programs with the specific aim of engaging all teachers in compulsory on-going involvement in the acquisition of skills required for addressing the needs and interests of CLD students. Schools&rsquo; officials should also create regular in-house workshops and lectures to keep teachers current with new CRT techniques recommended by the on-going research in the field.</p>

<p> The purpose of this phenomenological study was to examine the experiences of teachers who effectively promoted student creativity and maintained high levels of work engagement. Creativity is considered a skill crucial for future success but is often misunderstood. High-stakes accountability in modern education has increased focus on test scores, reduced emphasis on creativity development at the school level, and negatively affected teacher work engagement. </p><p> In-depth interviews and written responses were used to generate an understanding of how teachers who foster student creativity and maintain high levels of work engagement experience modern education. Fifteen participants from 14 schools in three school districts across northern Georgia shared their experiences. </p><p> Findings indicated that teachers can foster student creativity in the current high-stakes accountability environment when they focus on establishing meaningful relationships with students and colleagues, exhibit adaptability in the classroom, and maintain confidence in their educational identity. The participants in the study also were driven toward self-improvement, found intrinsic value in their approach to curriculum and instruction, were supported by administration, focused on social and emotional aspects of education, provided students with ownership in the learning process, made learning relevant, and established structure and safety for students within a flexible approach to learning. Future implications for practice include placing an increased focus on creativity development in schools because this focus has the potential to increase student learning in addition to boosting creativity.</p><p>

<p> Educational reform movements set ambitious goals for student learning. Numerous factors contribute to students achieving these goals. It has been widely understood that &ldquo;the increasing emphasis on quality of teaching and learning has placed new demands on staff development, and the search for models and methodologies which are promising for professional development of academic staff has become an important agenda in itself&rdquo; (Ho, A.,2001 P.35). Effective changes in practice require a great deal of learning on the part of teachers and an even greater amount of support and guidance from administrators (Borko, 2004, Putnam &amp; Borko, 2000).</p><p> Problematic practices in hiring and staffing make it difficult, albeit impossible, to provide an equal distribution of qualified teachers in high poverty districts and schools serving minorities. Contributing to the problem of teacher inequality and underqualified teachers is the phenomenon of out-of-field teaching- a term in reference to certified or qualified teachers who were teaching a subject in which they had no formal qualification or training (Hobbs, 2013). These teachers often receive little training and support and therefore find it difficult to experience success.</p><p> Through qualitative interviewing this study seeks to explore the perceptions of out-of-field teachers and mentors and understand how they make meaning of their experiences. Five themes emerged from the study: ineffective training and professional development, desire for success, buy in, time, and support. </p><p> Teachers and mentors want professional development that is meaningful to the work they do in the classroom. Educators, especially those teaching out-of-field, need training that is intense, focused and content oriented. Buy in is vital to any professional training. Out-of-field teachers want to be included in the decision-making as to what professional development they receive.</p><p> From this study, it was learned that it is a teacher&rsquo;s priority to make sure they are teaching content standards from day-to-day. The participants identified a lack of support as an inhibitor to that implementation. This concern for the lack of professional support among the participants bares out much of the research (Borko, 2014. Hobbs, 2015, Darling-Hammond, 2002, Ingersoll, 1999). Out-of-field teachers are highly committed to the students and communities they serve. With focused and intense training, close monitoring, time to observe skilled content area teachers, and strong support from building and district administrators, out-of-field teachers can become effective educators when teaching outside their area of expertise.</p><p>