This study used the capability approach as a lens to understand teacher quality from both the perspective of educational leaders and practicing teachers in a rural community in central Malawi. The overarching question of this research study was “How can the capability approach inform our understanding of teacher quality from both the perspective of educational leaders and practicing teachers?” The focus questions to guide this research were: What do national educational leaders value in a quality teacher? What do rural, Malawian, female teachers value in teaching? How do these teachers pursue and achieve what they value in teaching? This study included qualitative data collection and analysis of two specific contexts: the official context of educational leadership and educational policy in Malawi and the teacher context of daily life working in a rural school in Malawi. The official context was concerned with the larger field of educational policy that impacts education in rural Malawian communities. These data were collected through document review and semi-structured interviews with educational leaders at primary schools, secondary schools, school zone leaders, and teacher training college staff. Additional data about the official context were collected via review of documents regarding the official definition of quality teaching. The research site for investigating the teacher context was a rural community in the central region of Malawi. Data were collected through interviews and observation of female, primary school teachers from four school sites within a single school zone. The discussion and analysis of the data collected in both research contexts include the values of teacher participants, the ability of the teachers to achieve their valued functionings, common constraints experienced by teachers, as well as comparison of the valued functions of teachers to the valued teacher functions defined by official documents and educational leaders. The discussion and conclusions from this research include policy recommendations regarding teacher quality and thoughts on the further application of the capability approach to understanding teacher quality.

This article focuses on lessons learned from district implementation of Utah Senate Bill 64 passed in 2012, which requires large-scale reform in evaluating teacher quality. This statemandated reformation effort requires all principals to evaluate teacher performance using new state teacher standards adopted in 2011. District implementation efforts used effective professional development that included peer collaboration and practicum experiences as evidenced by successfully certifying all principals in the evaluation of teacher performance. Twenty-seven principals representing nine districts were selected for this qualitative study. Data was collected during a one-on-one interview with each principal to gather insights about district efforts to prepare them individually to effectively evaluate teacher performance. In addition, data were coded and analyzed for evidence of change knowledge principles. The central lesson learned is that sustainable and continuing teacher quality improvements require a continual collective capacity vision and approach at all levels of the educational system. Certifying principals in the use of an improved teacher evaluation tool through effective professional development efforts is one step in achieving improvements in teacher quality. Consideration of the following four components of change knowledge principles foster and strengthen district efforts when implementing strategic targets for the continuation of teacher quality improvements: (a) expand teacher quality improvements to include both individual and collective capacity building opportunities; (b) create a plan of action that builds on efforts to comply with state law and expands implementation efforts to use the evaluation tool for improved student learning through continual teacher quality improvements; (c) provide professional development that includes strategic opportunities for principals to build their capacity in their critical role and responsibilities to continue teacher quality growth; (d) provide supports in the context of a principal's school through practicum experiences that foster the acquisition and sustainability of skills that support teacher quality improvements.

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This study provides a descriptive analysis of the distribution of National Board Certified Teachers (NBCTs) in Virginia, which offers financial compensation to these educators regardless of teaching assignment. Most localities provide additional incentives to recruit and retain NBCTs, again, not targeted or structured in any way. Given the impact of high quality teachers on student learning and the well-documented disparities in access for subsets of the student population, it is important to obtain a baseline measure of NBCT distribution in Virginia upon which leaders might build a plan for reform. Three research questions were addressed: How are NBCTs distributed across Virginia with regards to divisions' ability to pay? In school divisions with a high concentration of NBCTs, what incentive structures do these divisions offer to either support teachers while they apply to NBPTS or to recruit and retain previously successful NBCTs? What are the characteristics of the schools in which NBCTs serve with regards to the race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status of their student populations? The researcher determined NBCTs were distributed unequally across Virginia's divisions and schools based on divisions' ability to pay and student demographics. Formal support structures were found in most high concentration divisions. / Ed. D.

Learners’ Physical Science performance in South Africa has been under discussion for several years, the challenge being that it has been exacerbated by continuous changes in the curriculum. Systems that have been put in place have yielded insufficient satisfactory solutions to both underperformance in the subject and sustainable good performance. Although interventions by curriculum policymakers have been ineffective, the issue at hand remains that teachers need to implement good teaching practices in order to ensure that all learners receive quality education. Physical Science teachers are custodians of a subject that may address scarce skills in the education system, so the quality of teaching must be optimised. Teachers need to implement intervention processes put in place by other stakeholders to reduce the negative perceptions that most people have about Physical Science. This study investigates how various factors related to the quality of teachers may affect the performance of Grade 12 learners in this subject. Since past studies have presented a broad spectrum of these factors, this study has categorised them as those directly related to teaching and those indirectly related to teaching. As a basis for data collection the researcher first established the overall status of the Physical Science teachers and investigated how the factors identified affect teaching. A mixed method approach was followed, and given the breadth of the study, available raw data was collected through questionnaires, interviews and observations. Data collected on factors indirectly related to teaching showed that these factors affect factors directly related to teaching and both of them affect the performance of the teacher, and consequently those of learners. These findings revealed that the performance of Physical Science cannot be based on one factor only, but on a combination of factors that are interrelated and should be integrated for effective teaching practices. Recommendations have been made to the National and Provincial Department of Education, District offices, school management teams and Physical Science teachers to reinforce other strategies that have been in place in order to improve or sustain good performance of the subject and to close gaps that have not been identified as possible intervention strategies. They include upgrading qualifications with the current content and methodologies to match the changing curriculum, restructuring workshops so that they are informed by the teacher’s needs, stabilising the curriculum to avoid many changes in short periods of time, retraining of teachers, relevant appointment of Heads of Departments (HoDs) into subject management positions, utilisation of support groups by teachers, proper management of the subject, proper screening of Physical Science learners and provision of teaching and learning resources. / Science and Technology Education / M. Ed. (Natural Science Education)

Tittle: Students' perception survey of teacher quality in lower and upper secondary school Author: Jan Juříček Department: Department of Education Supervisor: PhDr. RNDr. Hana Voňková, Ph.D., Ph.D Abstract: The aim of " Students' perception survey of teacher quality in lower and upper secondary school" is to inform readers about the concept of getting feedback for teachers from their students. The feedback is based on four surveys, namely I Know My Class, My Student Survey, 7C, and YouthTruth. We also present the advantages and disadvantages of this kind of a feedback. The summary of available information about surveys dealing with students' feedback for teachers and the analyses of those surveys belong among the main points of the theoretical part. The aim of the empirical part is to compare the key categories among the surveys and to generalise the basic educational themes and issues the surveys are dealing with. Another goal is to examine, whether the content of the surveys is similar and can be compared to our educational reality. We will analyse this through the comparison of the surveys' key categories and the proposed Czech and German teacher standards. We also compare the content of the surveys with the Czech general didactics literature. Final step is to present the surveys and their topics to...

The dissertation explores teacher professional development as a strategy for improving school performance. The theoretical part defines school quality, teacher quality, and instruction quality. It further talks about teacher professional development, specifically strategies that involve teacher's reflective practices and teacher collaboration. The practical part of the dissertation examines the characteristics and impact of a five year support model of school based teacher professional development. The process was closely observed through case studies of four subjects in a particular school. The findings reveal that the implemented model contributed to the changes in the principal's leadership style, school culture and climate the most. KEYWORDS Teacher professional development, school quality, teacher quality, instruction quality, teacher collaboration, teacher coach, team teaching.

Learners’ Physical Science performance in South Africa has been under discussion for several years, the challenge being that it has been exacerbated by continuous changes in the curriculum. Systems that have been put in place have yielded insufficient satisfactory solutions to both underperformance in the subject and sustainable good performance. Although interventions by curriculum policymakers have been ineffective, the issue at hand remains that teachers need to implement good teaching practices in order to ensure that all learners receive quality education. Physical Science teachers are custodians of a subject that may address scarce skills in the education system, so the quality of teaching must be optimised. Teachers need to implement intervention processes put in place by other stakeholders to reduce the negative perceptions that most people have about Physical Science. This study investigates how various factors related to the quality of teachers may affect the performance of Grade 12 learners in this subject. Since past studies have presented a broad spectrum of these factors, this study has categorised them as those directly related to teaching and those indirectly related to teaching. As a basis for data collection the researcher first established the overall status of the Physical Science teachers and investigated how the factors identified affect teaching. A mixed method approach was followed, and given the breadth of the study, available raw data was collected through questionnaires, interviews and observations. Data collected on factors indirectly related to teaching showed that these factors affect factors directly related to teaching and both of them affect the performance of the teacher, and consequently those of learners. These findings revealed that the performance of Physical Science cannot be based on one factor only, but on a combination of factors that are interrelated and should be integrated for effective teaching practices. Recommendations have been made to the National and Provincial Department of Education, District offices, school management teams and Physical Science teachers to reinforce other strategies that have been in place in order to improve or sustain good performance of the subject and to close gaps that have not been identified as possible intervention strategies. They include upgrading qualifications with the current content and methodologies to match the changing curriculum, restructuring workshops so that they are informed by the teacher’s needs, stabilising the curriculum to avoid many changes in short periods of time, retraining of teachers, relevant appointment of Heads of Departments (HoDs) into subject management positions, utilisation of support groups by teachers, proper management of the subject, proper screening of Physical Science learners and provision of teaching and learning resources. / Science and Technology Education / M. Ed. (Natural Science Education)

A Five-pillar conceptual framework -good social environment, focused instruction, well-trained and regularly supervised teachers, family background and language of learning and teaching- is used in this dissertation as a theoretical construct through which to make sense of persistent learner performance disparities between former white and former black schools in the South African public education system. This is a largely qualitative research project which employs a case study approach within a study area comprised of four purposive sample schools. The study is exploratory in nature in that it seeks to investigate why former white schools continue to perform better than former black schools despite massive educational changes made since 1994. I argue in this dissertation that teaching and learning processes between former white and former black schools are still fraught with huge inequalities, hence learner performance disparities. In other words, despite the investment, inputs and strategies since 1994, the education system in historically black schools is not working largely because of issues of classroom practice. A multi-method approach for data collection purposes was used in this study: testing, interviews, observations, intensive literature review and documentary analysis. Learner focus groups, maths teachers, teacher union representatives and school principals formed the backbone of research respondents in this project. The results show immense and unrelenting prevalence of inequalities and variations between former white and former black schools in terms of almost all aspects of teaching and learning processes. The essence of the results is that for the South African education system to achieve equitable learner performance across all schools, it must first achieve equity in terms of teaching and learning processes and needs.

Comparative analyses of district-run public schools and charter schools are limited to performance outcomes. There is a dearth of research on how the school-types vary on factors consequential to performance such as school climate. Public-private distinctions, such as in organizational autonomy, value orientations, funding structures, and management practices, could result in school climate dissimilarities between district-run public schools and charter schools. The aim of this dissertation is to assess the influence organizational factors have on school climate and determine if school-type affects school climate. Student and staff school climate survey data from the Miami-Dade school district were utilized for this dissertation. Structural equation modeling was employed to test theoretical models of students’ and staffs’ perceptions of school climate using data from 2001-2002 through 2015-2016 academic years. Within-between effects panel regression was utilized to test the effect of school-type on school climate constructs over time using data from 2005-2006 through 2015-2016 academic years. The structural equation results demonstrate that milieu, ecology, culture, and organizational structure influence students’ and staffs’ perceptions of their schools’ climates. Ecology has the strongest association with students’ perceptions of school climate. Job satisfaction, a part of milieu and culture, has the strongest association with staffs’ perceptions of school climate. The results indicate that the theoretical models of school climate employed by this study are sound. The within-between effects panel regression results demonstrate that characteristics inherent to school-type have a plausible influence on students’ perceptions of school climate, but not for staff. Charter school students rated their school climates more favorably than traditional public schools, but when other factors are controlled, traditional public schools and magnet schools had more favorable ratings. Public-sector values, collective bargaining, and school district oversight may be beneficial to schools’ climates. This dissertation underscores the impact management and funding structures have on school climate. The author recommends that the school climate concept and evaluations of schools’ organizational practices be incorporated into school improvement policies. The milieu, culture, ecology, and organizational structures of schools should be reviewed when assessing school quality.