Thesis (Ph.D.) - Simon Fraser University, 2004. / Title from title screen (viewed on January 14, 2008). Theses (Faculty of Education) / Simon Fraser University.

Thesis (Master)--University of the Free State, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 79-81).

Thesis (Ed. D.)--Miami University, Dept. of Educational Leadership, 2005. / Title from second page of PDF document. Document formatted into pages; contains [2], iv, 177 p. Includes bibliographical references (p. 170-174).

After a review of K12-University partnership models, research into the current local and national education reform context, and an in-depth analysis of contextual factors in the launching of an initiative, the author proposed a program design for K12-University partnerships that included five essential components necessary for successful implementation. These components, also termed leverage points, were: clarity of the problem, outcome planning, a theory of change, clear stakeholder enrollment and commitment, and flexibility. Actively acknowledging and factoring in the fluid nature of public education initiatives, the author framed this program design within that of the emergence principle of complexity theory, which drove the rationale for flexibility in the model. The study then turned to a deep review of the successes and lessons learned from a K12/University partnership that was launched without the benefit of this program design. Finally, the study analyzed this specific K12/University partnership through the lens of the five essential components and made recommendations about the efficacy of this specific model. In the current national climate of declining resources and the need for more effective and innovative partnerships in the K12 and University settings, this program design offered a roadmap for local partnerships throughout the country to positively impact the student success.

操太聖. / 論文(哲學博士)--香港中文大學, 2003. / 參考文獻 (p. 233-247). / 中英文摘要. / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, MI : ProQuest Information and Learning Company, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / Cao Taisheng. / Zhong Ying wen zhai yao. / Lun wen (zhe xue bo shi)--Xianggang Zhong wen da xue, 2003. / Can kao wen xian (p. 233-247).

A sociocultural theoretical lens is used to study university and school collaboration, and the ways in which a context for teacher learning is created in this process. It also examines the results of teacher learning. Using qualitative data gathered in the two projects, the study confirms that collaboration can offer a supportive context for teachers to learn. / As an area of inquiry, teacher learning has grown increasingly important in the field of teacher development and school improvement. It is commonly believed that teacher development is a form of professional development; and professional development implies 'learning' by teachers. Even though opportunities for teachers' professional development have increased in recent years, there has been little advancement toward a commonly shared understanding of the vital aspects of professional development: What are the essential factors for success? What do teachers really learn from professional development? Based on the idea of facilitating school improvement and teacher development more effectively, several important university-school collaborative projects were introduced and launched in Hong Kong and Beijing in the last decade. / During the process of appropriation, teachers master and own the necessary cultural tools, and then aquire about new knowledge and skills that enhance understanding on practice. During the process of collaboration, which is established on the principles of trust and equality, university faculties provide teachers with cultural tools, which is essential for teacher change. Only when the cultural tools are appropriated by teachers as agents can real change take palce. / From the institutional perspective, school organization, education policy, and social culture are important factors that have a strong impact on teachers. This study finds that teachers can construct a new understanding on the major subject that they teach, their relationship with the student, and their role and identity as a teacher. This is accomplished through a reflection on the moral dimension of teaching, an exercise that involves both the teachers and univerisy faculty. / Key words. teacher learning; teacher professional development; university-school collaboration; sociocultural theory; teacher professional identity / This study aims to delineate teacher learning in the context of university and school collaboration. The two projects under investigation are based in Hong Kong and Beijing. While the two projects have different missions, the participants in both projects share a common belief that collaboration should enhance teacher capacity and ultimately help to improve students' learning. / 鍾亞妮. / Adviser: Lo Nai-Kwai-Leslie. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 69-08, Section: A, page: 3114. / Thesis (doctoral)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 242-258). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts in Chinese and English. / School code: 1307. / Zhong Yani.

This document is a portfolio about portfolios and a narrative about narratives. It is a meta-portfolio and a meta-narrative. It breaks new ground by providing a conceptual framework that supports assessment processes and phenomena across multiple environments. It is a portfolio, a narrative for learning. The fundamental premises initially established in this study are constantly revisited throughout the document. These premises focus acutely on the value and worth of the portfolio authors as they negotiate their learning and develop their understandings of assessment and reflection. As the study encounters new environment it investigates the parallels between the established methodologies of assessment and equates them with the new situation. Research, literature and practice support these methodologies. Investigations into the constructs of narrative process and phenomenon led to the development of a conceptual framework that was synonymous with portfolio process and phenomenon across pre-service teacher education, primary school education and teacher professional development. Alignment of this framework with the Doctorate of Education portfolio showed a further equivalence. As well as the possibilities of the framework being useful in the development of portfolios in different environments the symbiotic nature of narratives and portfolios has subsequently shown that learning is not only demonstrated by the evidence in the portfolio but that learning occurs in the telling of the story: in the presentation of the portfolio. / Doctor of Education

This interpretive study investigated South Australian participants' perceptions of their experiences of professional development and partnership through the Innovative Links Between Universities and Schools for Teacher Professional Development Project (Innovative Links Project). The researcher was one of the academic participants. Data were collected in the final eighteen months of the project using participant observation, the researcher's journal, interviews, document review and a written questionnaire. The data analysis revealed findings about three phases of the project: the initiation phase; the implementation phase; and the reviewing outcomes phase. The findings for the initiation phase were: 1. Many teachers in the selected schools, and teacher educators at the university, did not have the opportunity to participate in the project. 2. Most participants were motivated by personal reasons and a commitment to organisational and/or partnership goals. 3. Participants varied in the extent to which they knew about and had the opportunity to interpret project expectations at the local level. The findings for the implementation phase were: 1. There was wide variation in the extent to which participants valued professional discourse, critical reflection, action research and professional reading and writing as processes for school reform. 2. Some participants found it difficult to learn project processes quickly. 3. Most participants were not able to manage the demands of the project without extending their hours of work and workloads. 4. Some relationships developed within the project were undemocratic and inequitable in some respects. 5. Only some aspects of the contexts in which participants worked supported achievement of the project expectations, while others proved to be a hindrance. The findings about the reviewing outcomes phase were: 1. Participants learnt about improved teaching, learning and educational reform from working together, but some opportunities for reciprocal learning were missed. 2. Participants' ability to translate learning into educational improvement was impeded by contextual constraints. 3. Many participants found it difficult to determine whether improvement had occurred. 4. Most participants found that working in the partnerships enhanced their relationships and professional standing with other participants, but not with non participants. The findings illuminated four areas of complexity in the research and development partnerships that were studied. Firstly, the extent to which the implicit assumptions underpinning project expectations were congruent with the reality of the conditions impacting on participants influenced their achievement of the expectations. Secondly, the interaction of a complex array of personal, structural and cultural conditions supported or hindered participants' ability to achieve the project expectations. Thirdly, participants' experiences, and the conditions that influenced them, changed as they moved through the different phases of initiation, implementation and reviewing outcomes. Finally, the key challenges that were evident in the research and development partnerships were: developing equitable ownership within each organisation and the partnerships; managing the affective dimensions of research, development and partnership; reconceptualising and restructuring educators' work; reconciling disparate constructions of learning, teaching, research and reform; and facilitating reciprocal learning for teachers and academics. The areas of complexity illuminated by the study suggested a series of recommendations for ways that future school/university research and development partnerships might be improved. / thesis (PhD)--University of South Australia, 2002.

This document is a portfolio about portfolios and a narrative about narratives. It is a meta-portfolio and a meta-narrative. It breaks new ground by providing a conceptual framework that supports assessment processes and phenomena across multiple environments. It is a portfolio, a narrative for learning. The fundamental premises initially established in this study are constantly revisited throughout the document. These premises focus acutely on the value and worth of the portfolio authors as they negotiate their learning and develop their understandings of assessment and reflection. As the study encounters new environment it investigates the parallels between the established methodologies of assessment and equates them with the new situation. Research, literature and practice support these methodologies. Investigations into the constructs of narrative process and phenomenon led to the development of a conceptual framework that was synonymous with portfolio process and phenomenon across pre-service teacher education, primary school education and teacher professional development. Alignment of this framework with the Doctorate of Education portfolio showed a further equivalence. As well as the possibilities of the framework being useful in the development of portfolios in different environments the symbiotic nature of narratives and portfolios has subsequently shown that learning is not only demonstrated by the evidence in the portfolio but that learning occurs in the telling of the story: in the presentation of the portfolio. / Doctor of Education

The aim of this study is to problematise the social practice of school-university collaboration in the context of assessment reform in Hong Kong English Language teaching. Hong Kong’s education system has been undergoing major reforms since 1997 and collaboration between tertiary institutions and schools has been negotiated in education policy discourse as a way to improve teaching and learning. In the key policy documents shaping professional development practices for Hong Kong teachers, school-university collaboration is neatly packaged as achievable and unproblematic. In reality, however, school-university collaboration is frequently characterised by tensions and complexities. The objective of this research is to critically examine how particular worldviews about school-university collaboration and partnership are negotiated, reproduced and/or contested in one particular sociocultural context, that of secondary English language teaching in Hong Kong. Drawing on the work of Michel Foucault and the concepts of discourse propounded by Norman Fairclough, a theoretical framework was constructed to examine how collaborative practices in this case study were constituted through discourse. Textual data were collected from the case study. Critical discourse analysis (CDA) was used to examine how teacher-researchers and university facilitators co-constructed and negotiated systems of beliefs and knowledge, interpersonal relations and intrapersonal subjectivity whilst engaged in collaborative action research (CAR). The analysis of the textual data (emails, interviews, transcripts of face-to-face meetings) revealed collaborative practices were mediated through language (verbal and non-verbal). The study also indicates that the collaboration enacted in this case study was highly complex and ambiguous because the practice was predominantly shaped by social, political, ideological and pragmatic factors in the wider sociocultural context, including changes in the assessment of speaking skills of senior secondary students in the English language education curriculum. The discourse of collaboration was thus problematised to identify how all these factors shaped the construction of beliefs, interpersonal relations and identity in the practice of collaborative action research. The study concludes with an examination of the contribution that critical discourse analysis research can make in problematising the practice of school-university collaboration, and how this knowledge may be able to improve the planning and facilitation of future practices. While the existing literature about collaborative action research provides educators with information on how it is implemented in a Western sociocultural context, there are fewer studies which examine the notion of school-university collaboration in a more critical light, for example, by exploring how systemic and contextual factors in society play a significant role in shaping and constraining what people do through collaboration. This case study offers an insight into the complexities of constructing collaboration between two different institutional cultures in a non-Western sociocultural setting. The implications for policy, professional development and research in teacher education are also highlighted. The analysis of the textual data (emails, interviews, transcripts of face-to-face meetings) / published_or_final_version / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy