The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) has declared reading failure a national public health issue. Approximately 15-20 % of the US population displays one or more symptoms of dyslexia: a specific learning disability that affects an individual's ability to process language. Consequently, elementary school teachers are teaching students who struggle with inaccurate or slow reading, poor spelling, poor writing, and other language processing difficulties. However, studies have indicated both preservice and inservice teachers lack essential knowledge needed to teach struggling readers, particularly children with dyslexia. Few studies have sought to assess teachers', either preservice or inservice, knowledge and perceptions about dyslexia in conjunction with knowledge of basic language concepts related to reading instruction. Thus, the purpose of this dissertation was to examine elementary school preservice and inservice teachers' knowledge of basic language concepts and their knowledge and perceptions about dyslexia. Three separate studies were conducted, all addressing the overarching question: Are elementary teachers (K-5) prepared to teach struggling readers? In study one, research that has addressed teacher knowledge of basic language concepts was reviewed systematically. In studies two and three, a basic language constructs survey was used to assess the self-perceptions/knowledge of basic language concepts and knowledge/perceptions about the nature of dyslexia of preservice, first year, and more experienced teachers involved in teaching reading in grades K-5.

Approximately 80% of students with learning disabilities (LD) experience difficulties learning to read (Shaywitz, Morris, & Shaywitz, 2008). Many schools have begun offering intensive summer reading programs in an effort to enhance the reading of students with and at risk for LD. Yet, remarkably little is known about the teachers who staff these programs and are tasked with teaching students with some of the most significant reading needs. For this reason, this study investigated the relationship between characteristics of summer reading teachers, their knowledge of reading, and the code-focused reading instruction they provided in the classroom during an intensive summer reading program for students with and at risk for LD. Data for this study were collected by the Iowa Reading Research Center as part of its Intensive Summer Reading Program (ISRP) study. In total, 74 teachers participated in this study. In addition to completing the Teacher Knowledge of Early Literacy Skills test, each teacher’s classroom was observed one day each week during the ISRP study. Findings of multiple regression analysis indicate that summer reading teachers certified in special education spent 4.1% less of their overall instructional time on code-focused instruction in comparison to general education teachers. Additionally, summer reading teachers who scored higher on the TKELS spent less time on code-focused instruction. Finally, years of teaching experience and years of experience teaching students achieving below grade level were not useful in predicting variation in the amount of code-focused instruction teachers provided during the intensive summer reading program.

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This study investigates developments in the practice of teachers who have engaged in a series of workshops on the integration of new technologies into their work in the English for Academic Purposes (EAP) classroom. It looks specifically at developments in actions and knowledge during and after a teacher education programme, and how these developments shape or reshape teachers' specific professional practice of using technology in EAP teaching. Added to this, it explores ways in which teachers articulate their sense of EAP as a subject and EAP teaching as a profession, and tries to situate technology's role within that. Drawing on a theoretical framework of Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) (Mishra & Koehler, 2006; Koehler & Mishra, 2009), and second-generation Activity Theory (Engeström, 1987), this story of development unfolds through a case-study narrative over the bounded timeframe of eighteen months. The setting is a university language centre in the United Kingdom, where the workshops took place, and three teachers have been selected as cases to represent the story of developments, and changes in practice occurring in line with the delivery and aftermath of this teacher education programme. Significant changes were noted in the teachers' specific professional practice of using technology in their teaching, and the study suggests that as technology becomes embedded in EAP teaching, there is an associated re-thinking of practice in other areas, particularly the role played by, and nature of, EAP content. As such, this supports one of the central arguments for the development of TPACK, in that the introduction of technology to existing conceptualisations of Pedagogic Content Knowledge (PCK) (Shulman, 1986) has demanded that teachers question their existing pedagogy, and lay the foundations for development in their practice as a whole (Mishra & Koehler, 2006, p. 1063). This study then is a story of development and teachers' personal reflections on practice, giving shape to a final report that hopes to make a contribution to understanding, defining, and opening the way for further research into EAP practice in the digital age.

This project is framed by a dilemma: representations of teaching practice are critical in teacher education, and yet the representations we rely on dangerously oversimplify teaching. My central questions emerge from this dilemma. In telling stories about teaching, how messy can the story be before it becomes unintelligible? Why does messiness matter and what does it produce for teachers-to-be? After examining both canonical accounts of teacher knowledge and emergent research that is productively disrupting the field, I draw on the work of Karen Barad to help me imagine both a new way of telling teaching stories, what I call diffractive storytelling, and a new way of thinking about their use in teacher education. In particular, I take up Barad’s concept of apparatus to consider what knowing is made possible by traditional teacher stories, what knowing is foreclosed, and what these possibilities and limitations mean for teacher education. Finally, I turn to other apparatuses at work in teacher education, especially standardized assessments such as edTPA, the new performance-based assessment of teacher readiness being implemented across the country. I argue that attending carefully to the apparatus-ness of the instruments used in teacher preparation allows us to contest the naturalization of narrow conceptions of teaching practice and sustains the paradox of holding to standards while resisting standardization.

One of the key thrusts in Singapore’s Thinking Schools, Learning Nation (TSLN) educational vision, launched in 1997, is the emphasis on critical thinking in schools. This entails pedagogical changes and challenges for teachers, especially, in terms of their knowledge, dispositions and practices of critical thinking, which are argued to be fundamental in fulfilling the TSLN thrust. Although TSLN is now 10 years into its implementation, to date, there has been little research undertaken to determine the efficacy of the implementation of the critical thinking policy thrust through the perspectives and voices of both teachers and students — the key stakeholders of education and the ultimate agents in the successful implementation of educational initiatives. Therefore, in gaining an in-depth understanding of teachers’ and students’ perspectives of the implementation of critical thinking from the ‘swampy lowlands’, a qualitative case study approach was used. Six government school teachers and their students participated in the case study and data were gathered through lesson observations, interviews, and the analysis of documents. / Findings suggest that a multitude of interrelated systemic and contextual factors, which are predisposed by underlying ‘technocratic and instrumental rationalities’ that govern Singaporean education, remain major barriers to the realisation of TSLN’s critical thinking thrust. The study found that there are gaps and uncertainties in the teachers’ knowledge base of critical thinking and that the incorporation of critical thinking as part of their pedagogy and classroom practice is marginal. Student data corroborate the general lack of emphasis and the limited role of critical thinking in the classroom and they indicate that the hegemony of both school curricula and high stakes examination perpetuate rote learning and didactic pedagogies. / Implications of the study suggest the need to reorientate teacher education and professional development programmes with the explicit aim of transforming teachers’ knowledge base and dispositions to engage with the pedagogical changes that TSLN’s critical thinking policy thrust necessitates. However, to effect deep change and realize the core aspiration of ‘thinking learners’, there must not only be restructuring; reculturing also needs to occur across and beyond the educational system. Importantly, such changes need to be primarily informed by the reconceptualisation of teachers — from mere ‘technicians’ to ‘transformative intellectuals’ — and teachers’ work — from ‘technical work’ to ‘intellectual work’. It is also vital that teachers who are entrusted with the task of developing ‘thinking learners’ under TSLN teach curricula and work in school contexts that explicitly encourage, value and reward critical thinking.

This dissertation describes the results of two studies that examined preservice and inservice teachers' knowledge of social and emotional learning (SEL) and its impact on academic achievement. Components of SEL, such as self-efficacy and self-regulation, play an important role in academic attainment and can be especially beneficial to young readers. One hundred and seventy inservice and 155 preservice teachers completed surveys that measured their overall knowledge of SEL concepts and perceptions regarding their preparedness for teaching SEL, its importance, and implementation. The descriptive results indicated both inservice and preservice teachers had some underlying knowledge regarding SEL, but performed poorly in identifying definitions of fundamental SEL terms. The large majority of preservice and inservice teachers felt SEL was important to academic achievement, but seemed conflicted about the role of SEL in classroom instruction. Responses from inservice and preservice teachers indicate they may feel underprepared for teaching SEL in their classrooms. Multiple regression analyses revealed preservice teachers' responses to items on the perceptions scales predicted overall knowledge scores. Analysis of Variance results indicated there were no differences by demographic variables on overall teacher knowledge scores and responses to perceptions scales. The results are consistent with previous findings on teachers' perceptions of SEL's importance. Implications for teacher preparation programs and classroom instruction are discussed along with directions for future research.

This project examined the life narratives of four veteran teachers, each of whom began their careers before the onset of the Standards Era and were still teaching in 2013. Seeking to surface both their ways of resilience and negotiations of their identities as teachers through their decades-long careers, the question is positioned in the neoliberal turmoil of high-stakes accountability, national curriculum standards, and widespread, large-N assessment, to determine if resilient, long-career teachers exhibit particular characteristics and support systems that enable their accomplished status. Using the postmodern, interpretivist methodologies of portraiture and oral history, richly contextualized narratives for each teacher were crafted as an initial analysis. A secondary analysis revealed three manifestations of identity: the socially constructed identity, the bureaucratically informed identity, and the emotionally shaped identity. Findings suggest that having a fully developed and robust set of identities might encourage teacher resilience and longevity, supporting existing bodies of research, and that storytelling is an important aspect of identity development and maintenance. An additional finding was the absence of adversity through veteran teachers’ careers, which pushes against current research on resilience, as it positions resilience against adversity. An interesting question remains, which is in what ways might these veterans have renamed themselves—through the development of multiple and fluid identities—and renamed the challenges and disruptions of their world of work so that they might continue in the classroom. As school leaders typically rely on the knowledge base of seasoned veterans—to inform curriculum development, novice teacher support, and professional learning communities—it seems important to consider the power of storytelling in those venues. In conclusion, the author suggests that the addition of research from the field of knowledge creation, usage, and stewardship could be useful to future research of veteran teachers and the ways their professional knowledge might be better leveraged for improved educational outcomes. / text

In this study, 114 kindergarten through third grade teachers were surveyed using The Survey of Preparedness and Knowledge of Language Structure Related to Teaching Reading to Struggling Students to investigate how teachers perceived their preparedness to teach emergent and struggling readers, their knowledge level in the areas of phonemic awareness and phonics, their certainty of their knowledge level, and the extent they were able to define and apply this knowledge. Two groups of schools were compared. In one group, 60 teachers were using a school-wide, code-based reading program (CBRP), and in the other group 54 teachers were not (NCBRP). Both groups averaged 63% on the survey, and no significant differences existed between the two groups on levels of preparation or knowledge base. CBRP teachers believed they possessed more knowledge than the NCBRP teachers, although, they did not. The majority of teachers did not possess the necessary code-based reading knowledge, concepts, or skills to teach beginning and struggling readers. Thus, teacher preparation programs continue to fall short in providing teachers with adequate training on English language structure.

Orientador: Samuel de Souza Neto / Banca: Marcos Garcia Neira / Banca: Flavia Medeiros Sarti / Resumo: O presente trabalho investigou a manifestação dos saberes docentes na prática pedagógica de professores de Educação Física, tendo como objetivo averiguar na docência de professores de Educação Física iniciantes e experientes a mobilização dos saberes docentes, considerando o processo de construção do conhecimento. Neste contexto foi considerado como objeto de estudo aspectos das trajetórias sociais desses professores, trazendo subjacente a elas a perspectiva de um habitus, como uma identidade que vai se constituindo. Tratou-se de um estudo de natureza qualitativa, do tipo descritivo, que teve como técnicas: observação, fonte documental e entrevista semi-estruturada. Os participantes foram quatro professores de Educação Física, classificados em iniciantes e experientes de acordo com o tempo de docência na área, sendo o trabalho de campo realizado em escolas públicas da rede municipal de uma cidade do interior do estado de São Paulo. Os dados foram apresentados em três eixos temáticos - "A escola como espaço social de formação, produção de sentidos e reprodução de estruturas pedagógicas"; "Entre o habitus de aluno e o habitus de professor: a manifestação dos saberes docentes", "O habitus profissional do professor de Educação Física Mediante tais eixos, constatou-se que na constituição docente as vivências percebidas na socialização primária com a Educação Física escolar e o esporte influenciaram a escolha pela profissão. Contudo, o ingresso no magistério foi principalmente justificado pela estima aos professores universitários, pelas disciplinas específicas do curso e pelos estágios. Na constituição do habitus professoral, as ações didáticas, a hexis corporal, e a postura revelaram um habitus social e uma manifestação plural dos saberes docentes (profissionais, disciplinares, curriculares e experiências)... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: In the current study researched the expression of the teachers knowledges in pedagogic practice of Physical Education's teachers, proposal orientated by the aim of discovering the mobilization of that teachers knowledges among beginners and experts Physical Education's teacher, considering the process of construction of the knowledge. In this context, as object of study, it was relevant the social aspects in the life of the teachers, not ignoring the underlying perspectives of a habitus related to the continuous process of construction of the educational identity. This study had a qualitative and descriptive nature, and the manipulated techniques were the observation, the research in documental sources and the semi-structured interviews. The participants were four teachers, classified in beginners and experts, in agreement with period of teaching in the area. The fieldwork took place at public schools of a municipal district of São Paulo. The information came in three thematic lines, that is: "The school as social space of formation, production of senses and reproduction of pedagogic structures"; "Between student's habitus and teacher's habitus: the expression of teachers knowledges"; and "The professional habitus of the teachers of Physical Education". By such lines, it was verified that in the educational constitution the existences noticed in the primary socialization with the school physical education and the sport influenced the choice for the profession. However, the entrance in the teaching was mainly justified for the esteem to the academicals teachers, for the specific subjects of the course and for the apprenticeships. In the constitution of the professorial habitus, the didactic actions, the corporal hexis, and the posture revealed a social habitus and a multiple manifestation of teachers knowledges. About the time of career in the teaching, it was... (Complete abstract click electronic access below) / Mestre