Doctor of Philosophy / Curriculum and Instruction Programs / Debbie Mercer / The Professional Learning Community (PLC) is a model of collaborative professional development that involves teachers and administrators working together on an ongoing basis to develop shared visions, plans, goals, resources, and ideas in order to increase student learning. Research indicates that students in schools with teacher PLCs are significantly more academically successful than students in schools that do not have PLCs. The teachers in PLCs also report positive benefits. There are six equally important dimensions of an effective PLC: shared and supportive leadership; shared beliefs, values and vision; collective learning and application of learning; supportive conditions (both structural and relational), and shared personal practice (Hord & Sommers, 2008). The purpose of this study was to explore perceptions of kindergarten teachers through the use of a survey and to further explore how two kindergarten teachers in Dammam describe their experiences of the conditions needed for implementing PLCs in their schools through personal interviews. The design of this study was mixed methods research conducted via a survey (questionnaire) and personal interviews. The data analysis suggests that the overall PLC dimensions in kindergartens in Dammam are somewhat supportive of PLCs. In the quantitative analysis, the mean scores ranged from 2.88 for Shared and Supportive Leadership to 3.15 for Shared Personal Practice (on a scale of 0-5). In the qualitative analysis, the participants’ descriptions of their experiences indicated that Shared Values and Vision was the weakest dimension. Keywords: professional learning community, kindergarten, conditions for PLC, Dammam, Saudi Arabia

Due to the current practices of street design in countries with hot and humid climates that prioritise air-conditioned cars as the favoured mode of transport, the physical and spatial characteristics of the street space have failed to retain much or any user-friendliness for walking or for sustaining street life. Moreover, particularly in Saudi Arabia, the increasingly sedentary lifestyle is leading to significant health problems and prevalence of lifestyle diseases. However, there has been limited research conducted on the use of urban streets under hot and humid conditions, and even less is known about the impact of certain sociocultural aspects in, for example, Muslim countries, on the design of streets for walking. Such a situation poses challenges to the urban space researcher and designer interested in gaining a better understanding of how walking can be restored into the street space. This thesis contributes to the advancement of knowledge in this area by integrating three influential factors connected to walking in a single study; an approach which has not been elaborated previously. This thesis aimed to broaden the understanding of pedestrians’ requirements, attitudes and preferences in order to identify ways in which the neglected street space can be reclaimed for walking under hot-humid climatic conditions and to inform decision-making into improved street design. The scope of this research centred on combining an understanding of pedestrians’ thermal comfort in a hot and humid urban environment, that of the city of Dammam in Saudi Arabia, where the problem is particularly acute, coupled with exploration into the socio-cultural aspects through which behaviour such as undertaking increased physical activity is governed. The research postulated an interactive relationship between the existing conditions of the street space and these two factors. Owing to the multifaceted nature of the factors affecting an individual’s choice to walk, there are few accepted theoretical frameworks, hence studying the cause-and-effect relationship between street design and walking is challenging. Following the literature review and analysis of existing street characteristics; the strategy of mixed-method data collection combining participant observation with interviews and a questionnaire was conducted. The findings revealed the dual impact of key street characteristics on pedestrians’ reluctance to walk on streets and this led to two levels of simultaneous interventions being suggested: physical and spatial. The analytical process (1) identified the upper thermal comfort limit for pedestrians by application of the Physiological Equivalent Temperature index, ‘PET’, through use of the RayMan Software; (2) revealed that physical proximity to other people while on the street is the most sensitive socio-cultural issue in the outdoor spaces of Saudi, particularly between the opposite sexes, and that the existing pavements are generally too narrow to accommodate the preferred personal distance; (3) identified appropriate design interventions at the microscale of the street space to introduce improved shading and create air movement to reduce the impact of solar radiation and humidity and thus to contribute towards encouraging more use of streets for walking; and (4) marking the pavement to indicate distance walked along with high quality streetscape elements was shown to attract pedestrians effectively. Such findings have significant implications for restoring the place of walking on streets in hot and humid cities and the research concludes by emphasising: (1) it is the design of the street space in climatically responsive and socio-culturally compatible ways, rather than the configuration of the urban form that is most associated with increasing physical activity; (2) there is a crucial need to redistribute the street space away from cars and towards pedestrians by widening the existing pavements both for satisfying the average personal comfort distance between pedestrians and for incorporating appropriate streetscape elements.

Since the early 1960s the government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) has had several urban development strategies that have been designed to spearhead development through the deployment of internationally recognised architects and urban planners. The adoption of this strategy has opened debate on the paradigm shift away from restrictive planning regulations at both national and regional levels. The process has enabled foreign policies and ideas based on internationalisation to drive the new urban centre developments in Saudi cities including Riyadh and Dammam. In 2008, this key shift saw the traditional restrictive urban development strategies, which prescribed – among other things – the number of storeys a building could have, being replaced by a strategy permitting an unlimited number of storeys. This dissertation examines the role played by international firms of architects and developers in shaping how architecture is practised in the Kingdom. The process has led to the adoption of modern architectural styles and has advanced a modernised planning approach, whereby traditional architectural structures and the use of local materials have gradually been replaced by modern styles, high-tech buildings and the use of new foreign materials, causing the loss of historic buildings throughout the country. This is seen by many to constitute an injury to national culture and could lead to cultural conflicts that may be exacerbated by the possible importation of planning principles and regulations. A chronological review of internationalisation and how international architectural practices have been mobilised to work in the KSA reveals the impact of this process on the Kingdom’s urban development. While this may be desired by the authorities, it has been argued that the process does not seem to provide any clear strategy for the implementation of the desired sustainable urban centre development in the KSA. Hence, in the absence of clear directives, international architectural firms operate their own set of sustainability criteria to deliver the desired urban centres in the Kingdom. There has been little or no research into the mobilisation of international firms and foreign policies, nor into the impact of internationalisation on the development of planning codes, the modernisation of urban centres and the sustainability approach espoused by the KSA’s planning development strategy. This study investigates the impact of the participation of international firms in Saudi Arabia’s urban development. Government planning regulations and master plans are reviewed and a case study is conducted to identify the factors behind the engagement of international firms in the delivery of two capital projects: the King Abdullah Financial District in Riyadh and the Central Business District in Dammam. The study also explores the concept of sustainability and the engagement of foreign firms from the perspectives of various stakeholders through face-to-face interviews and a structured questionnaire. It establishes how the role of internationalisation as a driver of policy mobility has impacted on the new sustainable urban centres and in addition, how internationalisation has been operationalised through the notion of sustainability. Although planning codes and regulations may have been developed with good intent by the international firms concerned, their implementation has not yielded the desired result of delivering sustainable urban centres in the KSA. Thus, there is a conflict between a rapid urban development which seeks to integrate historical and traditional contexts on one hand, and the continual import and impact of globalised morphologies on the other. This leads to clear demarcations in urban evolution, making this conflict one of the key characteristics of emerging urban centres in the KSA.

The exposed Tertiary carbonates of the Dammam Dome present an opportunity to study fractures in outcrops within the oil-producing region of Eastern Saudi Arabia. The study focuses on: 1) the characterization of fractures, 2) interpretation of their fracturing mechanism, and 3) the implications for the deep carbonate reservoirs of the Dammam Dome. The characterization of the outcrop fractures is integrated with structural analysis of the near-surface horizons mapped from reflection seismic and well data. Fractures are observed within all exposed carbonate units, but predominantly within the widely exposed Middle Rus unit. The fractures are opening-mode, bed-bound joints that form orthogonal sets (NW-SE and NE-SW trending joints). The trends of through-going, primary NW-SE trending joints do not correlate with the trends of remote regional stress associated with compression of Zagros uplift, suggesting they did not develop due to that orogenic event. The primary joints also seem to have developed independently of the observed karst features and interpreted near-surface faults. The analysis of joint pattern and their spacings generally seem to reflect the fold growth of the strata, position on fold and mechanical stratigraphy. The study results provide a first-order conceptual fracture model for the subsurface reservoirs to guide future development.