<p> Once viewed as a way to establish educational placement, high-stakes testing is used to establish benchmarks for success within school systems. Within a local Utah school district, raising these benchmarks has been deliberated due to a steady decline in Grade 8 language arts scores, which has heightened concerns among local school administrators and teachers. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to examine the perceptions of teachers on how to improve declining Grade 8 language arts test scores. Based on the theoretical concepts of constructivism, 3 research questions were created to examine the underlying factors of the steady decline in Grade 8 language arts test scores, teachers&rsquo; perceptions of decline in Grade 8 test scores, and current instructional practices used by teachers to prepare students for high-stakes testing. Through semi-structured interviews, data were collected from a sample of 7 language arts teachers who held an academic degree in language arts area and were a faculty member at the selected school. Comparative analysis and the open coding process were used to find themes in the data. Specific themes included the need for change, different influences, and varying instructional practices to increase test scores each academic year. An individualized instructional curriculum might help increase test scores. A 3-day, in service workshop focused on helping teachers recognize current issues with test preparation and offered methods to help improve student learning through multiple intelligence-based instruction. This study contributes to social change within local Grade 8 language arts classrooms by providing information to educators on how to increase high-stakes test scores on an annual basis and increase overall student achievement. </p>

<p> This dissertation is a qualitative study in which I, the researcher and public school teacher, seek through writing the self in a narrative and evocative autoethnography to explore three emergent themes: My family&rsquo;s six year and six month circumnavigation, spirituality, and important literature that I have shared with other readers that direct our hearts toward God. Insomuch as the title posits living to remember God, my hope is to make the interior mind visible to my reader as I explore what embracing this position has meant to me; I hope in making myself vulnerable to speak to our human experience of love so that other educators may come to understand the need we have in our American public school classrooms to be guided by agape.</p>

This is a study to ascertain the current qualifications and status of the industrial arts teachers employed in the elementary, junior, and senior high schools in the state of Texas. The purpose of this study is threefold: 1) to hypothesize that the qualifications and status of Texas industrial arts teachers have improved within the last fourteen years; 2) to hypothesize that those industrial arts teachers who were active in professional organizations have higher academic qualifications and status than those teachers who were not active in professional organizations; and 3) to hypothesize that industrial arts programs under the guidance of those teachers who were active members of professional organizations had a more complete industrial arts program and offer a wider selection of courses than those not.

The purpose of the study was to establish relationships pertaining to the use of practices involving the prevention or correction of discipline problems between academic and industrial arts teachers.

<p> This narrative inquiry explored the ways in which four mid-career English teachers construct themselves as W/writers and how those writerly identities are performed in their pedagogy. I curated data collected from extended interviews, journals, personal and professional writings to build narratives of these teachers-as-writers. Through these narratives and metaphorical thinking (Lakoff &amp; Johnson, 1980), I analyzed the wholeness of each participant&rsquo;s experience with writing.</p><p> Then, in stage two of the study, I used data collected from teaching observations to build a continuum of process &mdash;> product, employing Goffman&rsquo;s (1974) frame analysis to place the teachers within that continuum. This continuum represented the stable thread that continued through the teachers&rsquo; personal and professional identities and led to three insights: (1) Those teachers who identified as Writers were more comfortable teaching writing processes (2) The desire to be seen as a &ldquo;kind of W/writer or teacher&rdquo; brings risk writing instruction and (3) Agency provides Writers a way to mitigate the risk of teaching writing.</p><p>

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2002. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 179-188).

Orientador: Mirian Celeste Ferreira Dias Martins / Banca: Luiz Guilherme Vergara / Banca: Luiza Helena da Silva Christov / Resumo: A presente pesquisa trata dos materiais educativos, elaborados por instituições culturais, e a utilização dos mesmos por professores de Arte da Rede Estadual de São Paulo, especificamente da Região de Barretos. O corpus do estudo foi composto pelos materiais educativos arte BR/Instituto Arte na Escola, Lá Vai Maria/Centro Universitário Maria Antonia e Bem-vindo, professor!/Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo. Estes foram selecionados por terem sido enviados às escolas por meio da Diretoria de Ensino. Este estudo tem por finalidade responder: Os materiais chegam até os professores?; Quais são os "entraves" para este recebimento?; Como o professor utiliza estes materiais? Foram utilizados como instrumentos de coleta de dados um "auto-retrato" e uma "autobiografia" com o objetivo de traçar o perfil dos participantes para posterior aprofundamento do estudo por meio da realização de grupos focais com um intuito de ouvir o professor diretamente sobre as suas práticas com os materiais educativos, angústias e necessidades. Esta pesquisa reafirma a importância dos materiais educativos para a atuação do professor de Arte e lenvanta, vários assuntos abordados nas discussões dos Grupos Focais, mostrando o quanto é essencial para estes poder falar, e colaborar com as pesquisas do ensino e da aprendizagem da arte, como parceiros abertos a ouvir, falar, escutar, refletir e criticar. O materias são fundamentais como instrumentos na formação do professor, mas tambem são indispensavéis as oportunidades para compartilhar idéias, o contato com seus pares e assim poder tatuar na sua "pele pedagógica" experiências significativas com a arte que possibilite a ampliação do seu universo cultural e de seus alunos. / Abstract: The present searching treats about the educational materials elaborated by cultural institutions and their usage by arts teachers from São Paulo State Net, mainly Barretos Região. The corpus (body) of studies was composed by the educational materials such as arte br - Instituto Arte na Escola, Lá Vai Maria (There Goes Mary)Centro Universitário Maria Antonia e Bem-vindo professor!(Welcome Teacher!) Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo. These materials were selected for having being sent to school throughout the Teaching Directory. This study hits as goal to answer: Do the teachers reach the teachers? What are the "trobles" for collection data were an "Autoportrait" and an "Autobiography" whit the goal of drawing the participants'profile for deepening the stud by means of, the performance held in Focused Groups whit the intention of listening to the teachers straight away, on their practice whith the educacional materials, anguish and needs. This searching refirms the importance of the educacional materials for the arts teachers acting and rise several matters treated by them in Focused Groups, showning how much is essential for the arts teacher taht he/she can speak and whit the searching of teaching and learning arts, as partners ready to listening, speaking, hearing, reflecting and criticizing. The materials are basically tools, in the formation of the teacher, but also are essentials the opportunities of sharing ideas, keeping in touch whith the colleagues and thus tatooing on the "pedagogical skin" meningful experiences with arts that make possible the spreading of the cultural universe and of his students. / Mestre

Though attention to academic language is a key component of the Teacher Performance Assessment and the new Common Core Standards, little has been researched regarding how pre-service teachers build academic language knowledge and integrate it into their practice teaching experience. This study focuses on the construction and delivery of academic language knowledge to pre-service teachers in a one year immersion teacher preparation program. It studies the pre-service teachers' use of academic language knowledge in their planning, teaching, and assessment throughout a practicum and clinical experience, as well as their use of academic language knowledge as part of reflective practice. Through analysis of classroom observation notes, interviews, and artifacts, the data show that after receiving instruction on academic language concepts in the areas of content-area terminology and language use, reading, and writing, pre-service teachers consciously integrated an attention to the terminology and language use of their content area into their practicum experience. However, faced with understanding themselves as teachers while navigating their mentor teacher's expectations, learning the curriculum they are teaching, and developing classroom management skills, etc., attention to academic language instruction in reading and writing was limited. Recognition that content-area terminology and language use is key to accessing content, though, influenced reflection on how content knowledge is accessed. This conscious understanding of the role terminology and language use plays in accessing content knowledge opened the door for a deeper reflection on the role academic language plays in the classroom. And, during their post-practicum clinical experience, these pre-service teachers were able to more knowledgeably reflect on how to integrate specific content-area reading and writing instruction into curriculum. These conclusions suggest that an introduction to academic language concepts and practices can reveal "blind spots" that enable pre-service teachers to better address content-area literacy in their future practice. They also suggest that more focus in academic language instruction in teacher education programs could help pre-service teachers more efficiently learn the complexities of their new role.

Over the past decade, politicians, businesspersons, and educators have pushed for “higher,” “tougher,” and “world-class” standards for K–12 students. This standards movement includes state standardized, curriculum-based tests. Massachusetts recently developed the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS). MCAS is considered a high-stakes test because a passing score determines graduation for students, and sanctions and rewards for teachers and schools. The experiences of 16 Massachusetts English teachers in teaching under the MCAS high-stakes testing requirement were explored using a qualitative research method known as in-depth interviewing from a phenomenological perspective (Seidman, 1998). These participants taught a variety of students in a range of Massachusetts public schools. Over the course of three 90-minute interviews, each participant established context through life histories, detailed their current teaching experiences, and made meaning of these experiences. Using an inductive process of analysis, data were reduced and coded; essential features, relationships, and patterns were explored. The findings were organized into three major themes. This study found that teachers narrowed their curriculum, changed instruction, and designed classroom assessments to match the content and skills that MCAS tests. Teachers associated both gains and losses with these changes. Moreover, this high-stakes test both enhanced and undermined their professional identities. MCAS and related professional activities empowered teachers; MCAS also disempowered teachers by imposing policies that controlled curriculum and instruction, threatened sanctions, and damaged reputations. Teachers voiced their socio-political analysis of the theories that underpin this high-stakes testing movement, the motives behind MCAS, and the current state of education. The findings reveal that the line between educational reform and improved education is neither unidirectional nor linear. Rather, it is a complex web of influences, motives, and actions. How policy winds its way into practice depends on the varied contexts in which teachers perceive and experience reform. This study suggests implications for policymakers, politicians, teachers, teacher educators, and researchers. Among other things, it makes a plea to policymakers and legislators to define what they mean by standards, re-examine the narrow content of the test, and include teachers as legitimate participants in making policy decisions that affect them and their students.

The current case study evaluates a program of professional development aimed at engaging two groups of elementary teachers in communities of practice (CoPs) focused on improving teachers' vocabulary instruction and students' vocabulary learning. The professional development program took place over five months in the 2008-2009 school year. The purpose of the evaluation was to evaluate the merit and worth of the professional development program and identify changes that could be implemented by the primary evaluator in future efforts to develop and refine an effective method for teaching teachers about vocabulary instruction. An explanatory case study design was used to achieve a deep understanding of the program using both quantitative and qualitative data analyses. The evaluation measured aspects of collaborative practices engaged in by teachers over the course of the program, as well as teachers' instructional practices and students' learning before and after program implementation. Evaluation questions were designed to explore the theory that teacher collaboration leads to increases in teacher knowledge and skills, which in turn lead to increases in teachers' classroom use of new knowledge and skills, which ultimately lead to increases in student achievement. Overall, the evaluation was successful in that it was able to clearly describe the collaborative practices engaged in by teachers, provide evidence of teacher and student learning, and provide extensive insights into changes and improvements that were then implemented in an extension to the CoP in the same district during the subsequent school year. Additionally, the evaluation uncovered key variables that may act to impede teacher collaboration.