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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University OF MICHIGAN.

Thesis (Educat.D.)--Fairleigh Dickinson University, 1975. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 37-07, Section: A, page: 4310.

Thesis (Educat.D.)--Fairleigh Dickinson University, 1979. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 40-08, Section: A, page: 4309.

abstract: The spectacular geological panoramas of Grand Canyon National Park (GCNP) motivate the curiosity of visitors about geology. However, there is little research on how well these visitors understand the basic geologic principles on display in the Canyon walls. The new Trail of Time (ToT) interpretative exhibit along the South Rim uses Grand Canyon vistas to teach these principles. Now being visited by thousands daily, the ToT is a uniquely valuable setting for research on informal learning of geologic time and other basic geologic concepts. At the ToT, visitors are not only asked to comprehend a linear timeline, but to associate it with the strata exposed in the walls of the Canyon. The research addressed two primary questions: (1) how do visitors of the National Park use elements of the geologic landscape of the Grand Canyon to explain fundamental principles of relative geologic time? and (2) how do visitors reconcile the relationship between the horizontal ToT timeline and the vertical encoding of time in the strata exposed in the Canyon walls? Semi-structured interviews tracked participants' understanding of the ToT exhibit and of basic principles of geologic time. Administering the verbal analysis method of Chi (1997) to the interview transcripts, the researcher identified emergent themes related to how the respondents utilized the landscape to answer interview questions. Results indicate that a majority of respondents are able to understand principles of relative geologic time by utilizing both the observed and inferred landscape of Grand Canyon. Results also show that by applying the same integrated approach to the landscape, a majority of respondents are able to reconcile stratigraphic time with the horizontal ToT timeline. To gain deeper insight into the cognitive skills activated to correctly understand geologic principles the researcher used Dodick and Orion's application of Montangero's (1996) diachronic thinking model to code responses into three schemes: (1) transformation, (2) temporal organization, and (3) interstage linkage. Results show that correct responses required activation of the temporal organization scheme or the more advanced interstage linkage scheme. Appropriate application of these results can help inform the development of future outdoor interpretive geoscience exhibits. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.S. Geological Sciences 2011

Teacher evaluation systems have gone through widespread changes in recent years. These new systems have the potential to influence early-career teachers’ career trajectories because of their increase in rigor and ties to formal and informal consequences. In this paper, I investigate the impact of receiving a higher evaluation rating on early-career attrition and movement among districts and schools in a medium-sized state in the United States. Using a regression discontinuity design that takes advantage of the cut scores between each pair of evaluation ratings, I find that receiving a higher rating slightly increases the probability that early-career teachers will move to different districts. I do not find any effect of receiving a higher rating on the probability of a teacher leaving teaching in the state or moving among schools within a district. I find similar effects of ratings on teacher attrition and movement among schools for early-career and experienced teachers. When I apply the regression discontinuity to three cut scores simultaneously, I find that early-career teachers who received a higher evaluation rating were more likely to move among districts than experienced teachers who received a higher rating. Additionally, I do not detect any differences in the impact of teacher evaluation ratings on early-career teacher turnover based on school context. Finally, while on average early-career teachers moved to schools that were similar to those they left, I find that teachers who received higher ratings were more likely to move to schools with slightly higher percentages of low-income and non-white students. / Quantitative Policy Analysis in Education

African Americans have a long history in the United States of being asked to live within, and flourish in spite of, a racist society. Throughout this history, African Americans built education institutions – often referred to as emancipatory schools – with the primary goals of (1) “freeing” African Americans psychologically and (2) equipping African Americans with tools to fight for their economic, political and social freedom. As racism persists, disseminating these tools to African Americans remains necessary today. Yet, there is currently no emancipatory, comprehensive school model for African Americans outside of the limited offerings of Afrocentric schooling. In fact, recent educational interventions we have chosen to focus on diligently prepare African Americans to succeed in spite of their racially unjust world. This dissertation builds on historical efforts and offers a theoretical model for African American education that re-prioritizes cultivating the skill and will for enacting social change (transformation) in addition to the capacity to thrive within existing constraints (navigation). Revisiting emancipatory schools as a viable pathway for educating might shift this landscape and prepare more African Americans to forge radical change. Drawing on cross-disciplinary scholarship, including psychology, sociology, political science and education, this dissertation suggests that five pillars must serve as the cornerstone of new emancipatory practice. These pillars are: a) a sound racial identity, b) critical consciousness, c) collective obligation, d) a liberation centered academic achievement identity and e) activism skills. Many of these pillars are staples of critical education but they are not always fully explained as a set of liberation tools and traditionally do not serve as the cornerstone of whole-school comprehensive practice. Using both theoretical and empirical literature, this work describes each of the asserted pillars, outlines their demonstrated impact on the lives of African Americans and explains how all five pillars are interconnected and should be cultivated together in a whole-school setting to achieve the intended outcome of preparing African Americans to fight for their racial liberation. / Education Policy, Leadership, and Instructional Practice

This capstone shows how I framed and enacted a collective impact strategy to build a campaign for African-American male achievement in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The project was anchored in TandemED, an initiative developed by me and my fellow Ed.L.D. cohort member, Brian Barnes. A core element of TandemED is creating targeted partnerships that are constructed by establishing integrated missions and collaborations within communities between individuals, families, organizations, and institutions and using these partnerships to implement a collective impact strategy. Therefore, my approach in Pittsburgh drew heavily on the science and art of creating and sustaining positive relational ties or social capital, while also having an appreciation for how these ties and capital are shaped by racial inequalities. As the extant literature suggests, a focus on race and its effects, more so than any other dimension of inequality, is pivotal to efforts designed to positively shape the challenging contours of life Black males in the U.S. almost unilaterally experience regardless of class. This approach makes sense because institutions and organizations that serve Black males (e.g., schools, nonprofits, local, state, and federal programs) often lack the capacity to redirect and innovate and frequently reflect siloed efforts that do not integrate economic, social, and educational programs and policies in ways that can lead to transformative change and the development of Black males. More importantly, the success of African-American males is inextricably linked to the success (e.g., social, economic and cultural) of the nation as a whole (American Psychological Association Task Force on Resilience and Strength in Black Children and Adolescents, 2008). In considering these issues, I developed and implemented a theory of action which involved building relational ties among institutions, organizations, families, and individuals in communities that extended to the creation of a collective impact strategy and actionable recommendations for advancing a new narrative for success for African-American males and the communities they live in.

This capstone explores my efforts to lead the implementation of new learning structures for internally funded innovation projects at Teach For America (TFA), a nationwide non-profit organization with a twenty-five year history in the educational sector. My initial Theory of Action for the development of learning processes was informed by an approach to evaluation called Developmental Evaluation (Patton, 2011) based on the Adaptive Cycle of ecological change (Gunderson & Holling, 2002), and research on organizational learning (Argyris, 1999). Major activities in my strategic project were initial exploration and project scoping, the development of individual project learning plans, and engaging in reflective stepback meetings with project grantees and their national learning partners. In order to make inferences about the nature of learning that occurred as a result of the newly developed processes, I collected and coded data on leading indicators of desired capabilities and routines. Early results suggest that the entirety of new learning processes were not associated with leading indicators of desired learning behaviors. There was, however, suggestive evidence that certain, structured, interactions were associated with higher rates of desired behaviors. My explanation for the results includes partial implementation of the initial strategy, and a postulation that the organization’s default culture was previously organized for efficiency at the expense of learning (Edmonson, 2008). Suggestive bright spots in the results and future implications for both the site and the sector are informed by Edmonson’s research on learning organizations, open innovation strategy, and developmental evaluation.