The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the relationship between participation in CTE programs and students’ graduation rates and rates of CTE students’ entrance into postsecondary education or employment after graduation. Possible differences between students’ enrollment in urban and rural school districts and their graduation, participation, and secondary placement rates were also considered. Publicly available data on high school students in the state of Tennessee were analyzed to compare the graduation rates of CTE participants with the graduation rates of non-CTE participants in the state as a whole and in nine selected urban school districts and nine selected rural school districts for the school years 2009-2010, 2010- 2011, and 2011-2012. Research cited in this study indicated that CTE participation could increase students' graduation rates. Some research also indicated that rural students were more likely to complete CTE concentrations than urban students and that other differences might exist in the CTE experiences of urban and rural students. Six research questions were created and their null hypotheses tested with a series of z-tests. Analysis of publicly available data for the selected school systems and for the state as a whole found slightly higher rates of graduation among CTE concentrators than among non-concentrators and higher rates of CTE participation among rural than urban high school students, but these differences were not statistically significant. Differences between urban and rural schools systems' graduation rates and their rates of postsecondary placement of CTE concentrators in education, the military, or employment were also found to be statistically insignificant.

Since the beginning of her teaching career, the writer has cherished the hope that the day would come when opportunity and freedom would be given whereby the classroom teacher might saturate her teaching, and that without fear, with those values that exalt and refine the life of each youth that she endeavors to guide. That day has dawned! During recent years seminars, workshops and conferences have been held and the Kentucky program for Moral and Spiritual Education has been recognized as providing a formula which is acceptable to public schools. It is true that spiritual values have always been taught but from many sources there has come the conviction that the confused and complex scenes about us today call for a rededication to those early values our forefathers of the New World cherished. The challenge is ours. In accord with the foregoing statement it is therefore appropriate and timely that some phase of "Spiritual Values" should be selected as a topic for this particular study. It has been the author's endeavor to offer suggestions and to present fine practices whereby the program may be made more effective. Therefore, it is with pleasure that this paper is presented as a means of further guidance and emphasis on these very important aspects of our educational responsibility.

I shall approach this study, both from a survey of the vocation that the students have followed when out of school, and by what they have recommended to be offered in high school. By listing the subjects most needed when out in life, and also a list of the subjects that they would take, should they have their high school days to go over again, should help us to determine just what curriculum to offer.

In order to educate my students in my first year of teaching, I embarked upon a research project that would allow me to get to know their strengths and needs in addition to identifying my own possible biases and pre-conceived educational ideas. My research spreads from my own life to the lives of three focus students from various populations: one English learner, one student who receives special education services, and one student who has had significant life experiences that might contribute to his academic work. I interviewed all three students and their families to develop an action plan to help support their work this year. In an effort to better understand their lives, I also researched the school itself and the surrounding city by interviewing community members and referencing statistics online. Ultimately with all of this information I was able to create an action plan for each student using educational strategies from various sources that supported their academic growth this year.

Understanding the practical implications of work-based learning opportunities (WBLOs) is complex. Although WBLOs are not new learning environments, understanding and clearly defining them is increasingly necessary. In Kentucky, WBLOs are part of the political discourse in post-secondary education. The Council on Postsecondary Education (CPE) and local/regional economic and workforce development agencies have incorporated strengthening and growing WBLOs into their strategic plans. By interviewing students that have completed WBLOs at three colleges in the Kentucky Community and Technical College System (KCTCS), this study intended to explore student perspectives of WBLOs by asking the following research questions: 1) What role do WBLOs play in transmitting dominant workplace cultural capital and how has that transmission impacted student career pathway decisions? 2) What impact do WBLOs have in developing workplace expectations post-graduation? The dissertation is produced in three manuscripts, including a companion piece written in collaboration with Lauren McCrary, examining faculty perspectives of WBLOs in Kentucky. The second manuscript is an essay addressing the concept of workforce mis-alignment between the skills possessed by post-secondary graduates and the need of industry. The third manuscript is a review of the research, which was conducted to explore student perspectives of WBLOs in relation to the research questions.

Increased metacognition, social-emotional growth, and career viability are all researched benefits of including the arts as part of core content instruction, with even greater impact for struggling students, English Language Learners, and students with special needs. Some turnaround schools that are federally funded School Improvement Grant (SIG) schools are beginning to implement an arts-rich method of school reform by teaching core content both through and in the arts. This approach is most often presented as a choice in the high-stakes testing environment of turnaround schools. Since teachers have the most direct impact on students, yet a relatively low amount of authorship in the way school reform is approached, their voice and experience is highlighted in this phenomenological study. The participants are from three public turnaround schools in the South. The researcher used traditional research methods layered with an arts-based research approach mirroring the techniques used in an arts-rich classroom. The researcher found that participants experienced their work as a vocational calling, used methods of engaged pedagogy, and experienced a number of roadblocks to their work. They swiftly moved through these roadblocks to create pathways leveraging the arts to change their curriculum and classroom contexts, applied the arts as an access point for content areas, and then experienced the use of an art-rich classroom as a contagious practice. Potential implications for this study include a scalable model for turnaround schools, investment in engaged pedagogical practice for turnaround schools, and increased agility for teachers to become curriculum bricoleurs.

It’s been more than a decade since the National Institute of Mental Health (NAMI) initiated its public campaign, ‘Real Men Real Depression.’ Despite increased awareness, research and relevant studies indicate that African American / Black men continue to underutilize mental health treatment while still having the highest all-cause mortality rates of any racial/ ethnic group in the United States. When reading this statement, one must question what impact that the beliefs about ‘social workers’ through the lens of Black males in the United States, may play. This very simply, yet flammable, question not only seems pertinent but also seems to warrant further exploration due to the research that shows that service access and help-seeking by African-American males across the lifespan is significantly lower than that of their non-Black counterparts. That same research seems to make assumptions about why this is, however it is only responsible and ethical, given the National Association of Social workers’ (NASW) Code of Ethics calling for cultural competence in practice, that we challenge and test the rationales being offered. This study was exploratory in nature, employed a snowball sampling methodology, and utilized an electronic survey offered through social media and promoted by word of mouth, targeting Black males over the age of 18, to assess their overall knowledge about being a social worker, and their beliefs and perceptions about social workers and how they believe social workers perceive them. The goal of this study was to begin to explore the reasons for overwhelming statistics that speak to the fact that Black males do not access mental health services, especially those provided by social workers. A total of 59 were started, and 43 completed, by the target respondents, which included a 5-item scale, to assess basic knowledge about social workers, a 10-item scale to assess the general beliefs about social workers, and 13-item scale to assess the beliefs about the perceptions of social workers about Black males. Univariate and bivariate analyses were performed using SPSS, and the results revealed that although there was a moderate level of general knowledge about social workers, the general belief of the respondents were primarily negative, with their beliefs about how social workers see Black males was just slightly more positive. These results seemed to be across the board and were not shown to be correlated with level of education, income, or whether they has received direct services provided by social workers or had no affiliation with such services. What did seem to have some relevance was an overall negative belief about social workers, and a level of suspicion and distrust for how their information would be used, as evidenced by 16 respondents who started the survey but would not completed it. In keeping with the NASW Code of Ethics, recommendation are provided to helps clinicians and those social workers providing direct service, be informed of the suspicions and apprehensions among this population, while encouraging the importance of continuous learning and increasing of cultural competence, awareness and humility. Lastly, recommendations for future research are also provided for the same purposes.

University branch campuses play a vital role in today’s higher education field. Branch campuses help facilitate the delivery of knowledge, development, and learning opportunities to populations that may not have any other prospect in regard to pursuing their educational goals. Branch campuses have also become a new way for institutions of higher education to collaborate and work together to serve students’ interests. Yet, despite enrollment growth across thousands of higher education branch campuses that exist in the United States, the literature on branch campuses is scant. Furthermore, branch campuses, like their main campus counterparts, have a responsibility to ensure that their students are successful and reach their learning objectives. One of the ways in which branch campuses are promoting student persistence is through the use of High Impact Practices (HIPs). HIPs have helped shape education policy at colleges and universities since they were first introduced a decade ago. While there is still active debate on their effectiveness, they have become an established part of the curriculum as colleges and universities invest in resources to implement and institutionalize these practices. Given the lack of literature examining HIPs at university branch campuses, this phenomenological study sought to examine what branch campus students experience in relation to HIPs, and how these experiences influence student persistence. Additionally, this study uncovered other experiences that influence the persistence of branch campus students and assists in providing a fuller understanding of the branch campus student experience.

Professors who manage large classes are unrealistically expected to grade each student fairly and accurately. Even with all of the technological advancements that have occurred in the past thirty years, very little progress has been made in classroom management, and as a result, professors are not equipped with enough tools to successfully manage large class sizes. Because radio frequency identification (RFID) technology is making its way into student issued identification cards, there is an opportunity to use it as a tool to aid professors in the classroom. The focus of this paper is to discover the most effective system that can be implemented as a classroom management instrument. Through multi criteria analysis, several different infrastructures are examined and compared to determine the best alternative. The result of an effective system leads to a reduction in time spent taking attendance, an increase in student performance, an increase in the fairness and accuracy of recording classroom participation, and an enhanced professor-student relationship.

Faculty-led short-term international service-learning (STISL) experiences are thought to have great potential in developing students' global citizenship through combining study abroad and community service pedagogies. However, thorough investigation of the pedagogical strategies employed in STISL courses to achieve such outcomes has yet to be conducted. This qualitative narrative inquiry of STISL faculty at 7 different institutions across multiple academic disciplines and country service sites sought to fill that void. Data reveal a new conceptualization of STISL teaching, learning, and service success that involves culturally contextualized solidarity, global civic engagement, and global competence, which culminate into students' global agency. Emerging from the data, the Van Cleave Pedagogical Design framework for Global Agency illuminates the interactions of five interdependent learning dimensions: academic, professional, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and intercultural. Course, program, and policy implications are explicated across pre-departure, host-country, and re-entry experiences.