The purpose of this study was to determine the self-reported level of integration of instructional tasks related to the creating and responding standards in the wind band curriculum and factors negatively or positively related to their integration. The researcher collected data via an online questionnaire pertaining to the integration of Standards and possible correlated factors suggested by the relevant literature. The factors examined in this study included personal demographics, school demographics, state attributes, valuing, competing populations, and three channels of influence (curriculum, teacher development, and assessment and accountability) suggested by the National Research Council in their publication Investigating the Influence of Standards (2002).Results indicated that Standards 6 and 7 are integrated at the highest level and Standards 3 and 4 at the lowest level while Standards 8 and 9 occupy a middle tier. The researcher utilized a phi co relational test for all factors in association to high and low integration of each of the six Standards under review. Chapter 4 reported 138 significant relationships from the following categories of responses.Personal Demographics 1School Demographics7Valuing31Competing Populations16Framework (83 18CurriculumTeacher Development25Assessment/Accountability40Total: 138 / School of Music

In AP Biology, the course goal, with respect to scientific acts and reasoning, has recently shifted toward a reform goal of science practice, where the goal is for students to have a scientific perspective that views science as a practice of a community rather than a body of knowledge. Given this recent shift, this study is interested in the gaps that may exist between an individual teacher’s instructional goal and the goals of the AP Biology course. A Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) methodology and perspective is used to analyze four teachers’ knowledge, practice, and learning. Teachers have content knowledge for teaching, a form of knowledge that is unique for teaching called specialized content knowledge. This specialized content knowledge (SCK) defines their instructional goals, the student outcomes they ultimately aim to achieve with their students. The study employs a cultural-historical continuum of scientific acts and reasoning, which represents the development of the AP Biology goal over time, to study gaps in their instructional goal. The study also analyzes the contradictions within their teaching practice and how teachers address those contradictions to shift their instructional practice and learn. The findings suggest that teachers have different interpretations of the AP Biology goals of science practice, placing their instructional goal at different points along the continuum. Based on the location of their instructional goal, different micro-communities of teachers exist along the continuum, comprised of teachers with a shared goal, language, and culture of their AP Biology teaching. The in-depth study of one teacher’s AP Biology teaching, using a CHAT perspective, provides a means for studying the mechanisms that connect SCK to classroom actions and ultimately to instructional practice. CHAT also reveals the nature and importance of contradictions or cognitive dissonance in teacher learning and the types of support teachers need to recognize contradictions and to internalize and set their instructional goal, facilitating their learning. Without recognition of contradictions, some of these micro-communities are not aware that their instruction is not in line with the AP Biology goal of science practice. An in-depth look at teacher learning revealed the criticality of reflective practice and the need for an “expert” within a teacher’s community to facilitate = learning and develop SCK to incorporate science practice in classroom instruction.