<p> This mixed methods case study examined the systems thinking component of collaboration through coteaching at inclusive public school environments to facilitate the needs of special education students who are presently segregated at nonpublic schools. This study first analyzed qualitative data in the form of interviews from a sample population of 5 district representatives to disclose the chief reasons for such failure on the part of a plethora of public school districts in southern California to facilitate the needs of their students (characterized with emotional disturbance and/or another disability who also display behavior issues) in inclusive and collaborative environments. Secondly, this study used quantitative data in the form of surveys to investigate the preliminary openness of collaboration through coteaching from a sample population of 51 teachers who currently instruct (or had experience instructing) students at a nonpublic school campus. And lastly, this study investigated whether that same sample population of teachers felt that a coteaching model/approach at inclusive and collaborative school campuses are feasible for the students they currently teach (or had experience teaching) at nonpublic school environments. The findings from this study are three-fold: First, the qualitative interviews exposed that there are considerable deficiencies among certain school districts in southern California in the effort to educate all students with disabilities on public school campuses. The following themes were developed from the responses of the district representative participants: (a) inadequate support for teachers in coteaching classrooms, (b) negative aspects of segregated placements, and (c) positive aspects of segregated placements (please note that subthemes also emerged from each of the three areas). Second, the findings from the quantitative portion revealed that participants&rsquo; age, gender, educational background, and years of teaching experience did not influence openness to coteaching and coteaching responsibilities. Next for the quantitative portion, the study uncovered that participants&rsquo; responses were almost evenly split regarding the feasibility of coteaching models, however slightly more participants felt that the coteaching model was not a feasible alternative to nonpublic school placements. Lastly, the study also uncovered that the nonpublic teacher participants indicated that the most beneficial model out of all the coteaching options presented in the survey (to best facilitate their nonpublic/segregated students in a public school settings) is that of team teaching. Consequently from this study&rsquo;s findings, it appears that until certain individual school districts substantially increase their teacher and auxiliary staff supports, shift monetary spending, and provide strong leadership to enhance collaboration among its special and general education teachers, nonpublic school placement for some students with ED and behavior issues may be an appropriate placement.</p><p>

Twenty-eight blind or low-vision and fourteen matched-sample sighted students attending public post-secondary institutions in the Atlanta metropolitan area were interviewed in this descriptive research to determine their academic information needs and their information-seeking behaviors. Thirty-six of the forty-two students discussed an academic information need related to a writing assignment, five students discussed an academic information need that was based on something other than a writing assignment, and one student did not have any academic information need. The academic information needs were analyzed in terms of variables such as type of vision, conditions of visual impairment, secondary school attended, gender, year in college, full or part-time status, major or program of study, and familiarity with the library. / The students' information-seeking behaviors were analyzed based on which of ten potential sources of information they used to satisfy their academic information need. For all students, the most frequently used information source was the library. Few students sought information from social services or governmental agencies. / The blind or low-vision students discussed their dependency on and the qualifications they sought in readers. Additionally, they identified areas in which librarians could improve service or assistance for blind or low-vision students. / The study concludes with some of the researcher's observations related to working with blind or low-vision college students. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 53-07, Section: A, page: 2142. / Major Professor: Gerald Jahoda. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1992.

Questionnaires about services, materials, and special equipment for library services to visually disabled children were went to children's librarians of all public libraries designated as subregional libraries by the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, Library of Congress (NLS), and to children's librarians of a sample of public libraries that are not subregional libraries. / The findings of the survey showed that the proportion of libraries offering general services such as storytelling, film programs, arts and crafts programs, and puppetry to visually disabled children is higher in public libraries that are not subregional libraries than in public libraries that are NLS subregional libraries. The proportion of subregional libraries is higher than nonregional public libraries in offering special services such as, training in use of equipment, retrieving materials from the stacks, recording of material, brailling of material, providing large print typing, and delivering material and equipment by mail. Also, the proportion of NLS subregional libraries is higher than public libraries in collecting materials such as talking books, talking magazines, braille books, braille magazines, large print books, large print magazines, print/braille books, and scratch and sniff books. The special equipment such as magnifying devices, cassette players, large print typewriters, low vision reading devices (closed-circuit television systems), and brailling devices are available in more subregional libraries than public libraries. Few libraries in both groups own special equipment such as the Kurzweil Reading Machine, the Optacon Reading Machine, voice synthesizers, and computer (Braille) output devices. While the proportion of large- and medium-size libraries collecting materials and special equipment is higher than the small-size libraries, there is no relationship between the size of a library and its offering general and special library services to visually disabled children. The services, materials, and special equipment for library service to visually disabled children was not significantly different among libraries in the Northeast, the Midwest, the West, and the South. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 48-12, Section: A, page: 3001. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1987.

Governments and the public are scrutinizing the quality of higher education and demanding greater accountability. Due to the fact that much of quality improvement pertains to eliminating waste, increasing efficiency, and reducing costs, it has become an attractive topic in education. An important element of the quality improvement movement is the quadratic loss function formulated by Dr. Genichi Taguchi. Taguchi asserts that any deviation from an optimal value (target) incurs a loss that results in increased quality costs. / In response to apparent deficiencies in the performance of entering college freshmen and in an attempt to provide high quality postsecondary education in 1988, the Arkansas State Board of Higher Education implemented a state-wide developmental education program for postsecondary institutions. Thus, the main purpose of this study was to use Taguchi's quadratic loss function in exploring the impact the implementation of the Arkansas State Board of Higher Education standards had on quality costs and the educational progress of the students identified as being below the standards. After this study was conducted, it was found that the overall expected losses were reduced for all mandatory developmental students as compared to their voluntary remedial counterparts. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 55-12, Section: A, page: 3810. / Major Professor: Craig F. Johnson. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1994.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Curriculum and Instruction, 2006. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-03, Section: A, page: 0904. Adviser: Genevieve Williamson. "Title from dissertation home page (viewed March 16, 2007)."

Thesis PlanB (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Stout, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references.

This study was designed to compare the effects of a multisensory art criticism approach with a traditional (visual) art criticism approach in interpreting a work of art. Parade (1960) by Jacob Lawrence was the artwork chosen for the study. Two groups of visually impaired and blind high school participated in this study. Group 1 received the multisensory instruction, which included music, and tactile stimuli, and then the traditional instruction. Group 2 received the same exercises but in the opposite order. All students (N = 18) completed two assessments on their knowledge and interpretation of the work on Likert-type affective scales. Assessment 1 came after the first treatment for each group and assessment 2 came after the second treatment for each group. Results implied that there was an interaction between scores based on which method was presented first. The scores indicated that multisensory instruction is more effective after traditional instruction is presented.

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to examine the beliefs and practices of itinerant teachers of deaf and hard of hearing (d/hh) students about literacy development. The study examined the match between the itinerant teachers' beliefs and their practices match and the effects of the itinerant setting on beliefs and practices. These are important questions in the field as so many d/hh students are currently enrolled in public school settings. Five itinerant teachers participated in the study and met the following criteria: spend 70% or more of their time providing itinerant services and who serve two or more elementary schools, provide itinerant services to elementary age d/hh students, have at least five years of teaching experience with two or more years spent as an itinerant, and located within a 150 mile radius of Tucson, Arizona. A series of three interviews and four observations were completed with each teacher. The qualitative analysis program QSR Nudist 4 (2000) was used initially to analyze all of the data from the interviews and observations. This was followed by at least four readings of the original transcripts, once for each research question. Conclusions were drawn and similar patterns, phrases, ideas and themes were labeled and indexed. The teachers believe that d/hh students develop literacy in similar ways to hearing children if they have a strong language base. They also find it valuable to have a broad knowledge of literacy development for hearing children in order to identify gaps that d/hh students might have. The teachers use a combination of service delivery models, pull-out and in-class. The teachers use a combination of meaning-centered and skills-based models and a wide variety of practices for developing literacy. The majority of the teachers' beliefs match their practices. A number of specific effects of the itinerant setting affect the teachers' practices including: support from team members, space, consistency of student sessions, isolation, availability of resources, time, student teacher ratio, ownership of students and programming, and flexibility. Importance of the findings and their implications are discussed.

<p> Co-teaching has been utilized as a method of academic intervention used in K-12 classrooms over the past fifteen or more years. This method has consistently involved the pairing of a special educator with a general educator through a variety of co-teaching models. Co-teaching is meant to be used in inclusive environments, where students with and without disabilities are taught together. Co-teaching is a commitment from both educators who participate voluntarily, develop a professional relationship with one another, allow time for planning of classroom objectives, and obtain sufficient training. Multiple benefits to carefully implemented co-teaching in the K-12 environment have been documented in research studies. However, few studies contain information about co-teaching in higher education, particularly in the field of education. This research hopes to gain an understanding of how the pairing of a K-12 special educator and special education professor can bridge educational theory and practice to, hopefully, produce pre-service educators that have more competence about the realities of the teaching world. Results under analysis include measuring attitudes about special education inclusion and overall academic growth for pre-service educators after exposure to knowledge from two working professionals in a co-teaching and traditionally taught classroom environment. </p>

This investigation analyzed the use of an individualized learning program to improve academic performance. College freshmen student athletes were matched on standardized test scores and randomly assigned to two groups. One group participated in the Individualized Learning Program, and a second group served as a comparison group who participated in a traditional study hall program. All students were pre-tested using the Nelson Denny Reading Test, the Mather-Woodcock Group Writing Test, and the Learning and Study Strategies Inventory (LASSI). Students in the Individualized Learning Program received an academic plan that was based on the student's strengths and weaknesses. Based on their individualized assessment from the pre-test, each student received metacognitive strategy instruction in reading, writing, time management, note taking, study strategies, and/or test taking strategies. The students who participated in the traditional study hall program completed six hours of supervised study and had access to content tutoring. A post-test was conducted and gain scores were analyzed using a multivariate analysis of covariance. Controlling for differences of a covariate (motivation) between the two groups, no significant differences were found. Some qualitative differences were found in that the students in the Individualized Learning Program improved in targeted areas of strategy instruction, but not at a statistically significant level. A secondary analysis examined the effects of a decline in motivation and determined that motivation was significantly related to some of the different sub-tests of the LASSI. Several factors may have impacted the results in this investigation, specifically, limited statistical power due to substantial student attrition, the use of a matched pairs design, and the use of self-report tests. Additional confounding factors included student participation in (a) freshmen study skills seminar, (b) English composition courses, (c) required study halls, and (d) available tutoring services. Finally, this investigation excluded students who scored below the 25th percentile on the SAT, even though this group may have benefited the most from an individualized program. Future research needs to address these factors.