While the goal of mathematics education reform is to improve the mathematics achievement of all students (NCTM, 2000), at the core of these efforts is the teacher (Garet, Porter, Desimore, Birman, & Yoon, 2001). Educational change ultimately rests on the teachers who directly impact the students. Teacher leaders with expertise in all the dimensions of mathematics education can provide school-based professional development needed to support and maintain the teacher change process. The focus of this self-study is a critical examination of the influences on my development as an elementary mathematics teacher leader and on the strategies I develop as I coach teachers to improve, and change their practice. "Reciprocal Mathematics Coaching" was designed as a process to promote collaborative, job-embedded professional development. This model provided a means to meet each teacher's individual goals along a professional development continuum. Findings from the study indicate that teacher leader coaching interventions ranged along a continuum from the support of surface features of the curriculum, to co-teaching, and then to critical colleagueship in pursuit of a deeper pedagogy. Expected teacher outcomes occurred, but practice of reform-based instruction would require a longer time frame and the establishment of peer coaching support. My teacher leadership evolved from my approach to visualizing mathematics; elementary subject specialization; experience from teaching special education and regular education; beliefs in personalizing learning for students and teachers; self-reflective practice and practitioner research; and professional empowerment through collegial collaboration. Through "Reciprocal Mathematics Coaching", I came to learn how the pervasiveness of the affective domain impacts teachers even as they choose to improve their practice. Negative memories from their own mathematics education continue to influence their teaching. Formal teacher leadership can facilitate steps toward effective teacher growth and change. The strength of teacher leadership emanates from the nexus of teacher knowledge domains (Hill & Ball, 2004; Shulman, 1986;) situated within a learning community of reflective practice (Senge, 1990; Sergiovanni, 2000).

This study investigated the effects of Picture Rehearsal with and without covert reinforcement on the turn-taking behavior of four children diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder and placed in a public school. A counterbalanced multiple baseline design across participants was used to examine treatment effects. Data were analyzed using visual analysis and statistical analysis. Visual analysis included an inspection of adjacent phase changes in means, levels, trends, and latency of change. A time-series analysis was used to identify statistically significant trends in the data. Results indicated that the Picture Rehearsal with the covert reinforcement condition was more effective at increasing turn-taking behavior than the Picture Rehearsal without the covert reinforcement condition. These results offer some support for covert conditioning; however, conclusions are limited by a number of factors. Additional research is needed in order to obtain more reliable conclusions.

This study was a test of the relative importance of theory versus facts among six and nine year old children in explaining how something works. In learning science for young children, there is a misconception in understanding of theory and facts. Children learn by reconstructing their misconceptions of theory based on their everyday experience. Their ability was measured by examining the drawing of a pencil sharpener in the act of sharpening a pencil. The research design has four treatments: Treatment 1 (Think), Treatment 2 (See), Treatment 3 (Do) and Treatment 4 (Speak and Do). One hundred and sixty preschoolers and one hundred and sixty third graders were randomly assigned to perform four groups of treatments. The participants in each group of treatments had to explain how the pencil sharpener works by using drawing and words spoken (orally) describing what they see and think. The results of this study were not confirmed, but the ad hoc findings demonstrated that when showing the representation of functional relations of a system, children expressed their understanding better in words than in drawing. However, children are better able to represent the details of objects and the relationship between two objects of a working system by using the medium of drawing rather than the medium of words. These findings also suggest that third graders can make more improvements in representing the details of a working system than preschoolers can.

This qualitative, exploratory case study focused on the design and implementation of a human rights curriculum in a fourth grade, public school classroom. Based on a review of the literature on human rights education, a curriculum incorporating a month long unit, democratic classroom practices, and social action projects was designed and carried out with a group of eighteen, White fourth graders. The study examined students' responses in terms of their thinking about human rights, themselves, and others; their peer relations; and their involvement in social action projects. Data collection methods included participant observation, interviews, audiotaping and videotaping classroom events, and document analysis. Feedback from the students, parents, and teachers in the school helped to establish reliability and confirmability. The major finding of the study was that students' personal experiences, developmental levels, and family and cultural backgrounds strongly influenced their ideas, interests, and subsequent learning about human rights. Most students were able to develop a basic understanding of human rights concepts. Effective teaching techniques were simulations, using children's literature, role play, and action projects. Though the students' peer relations did not change appreciably, most of the students developed a greater interest in human rights issues and learning about different others as a result of the human rights curriculum. The democratic classroom practices and the social action projects gave many students opportunities to become empowered in their own learning. The implications of this study are relevant for teaching at the upper elementary level. It is important for teachers to become aware of children's pre-existing knowledge and attitudes and provide them with with meaningful experiences to build upon or change their thinking. In teaching about human rights and other cultural issues, educators need to be aware of their own biases and teach in ways that reduce rather than increase stereotypes and prejudice. An integrated, comprehensive, and developmentally appropriate approach to human rights instruction will maximize students' learning.

Teachers have long struggled to be recognized as professionals and to achieve autonomy. Key obstacles that influenced their perception of powerlessness, such as professional isolation of teaching staff, low teacher participation in decision making, and systems of supervision irrelevant to instructional improvement, were even scrutinized in national reports. The criteria suggested for the selection of a teacher supervision training model was based on a sound theory of education supported by research. It provided teachers the latitude for decision making that was congruous with the professional treatment of inservice teachers and that was acceptable to teachers receiving supervision. The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of peer clinical supervision on teacher empowerment. The participants were 21 urban elementary school teachers located in southeast Washington, D.C. They along with their principal volunteered to be trained in clinical supervision using an adaptation of Cogan and Goldhammer's Five-Step Clinical Supervision Model. Pre- and post program questionnaires, a perceptual inventory, interviews and field notes were used to report the study's findings. The study concluded that training in peer clinical supervision had a positive impact on teacher empowerment when the results were associated with the six Empowerment Indicators: (1) increased receptivity toward supervision, (2) increased receptivity toward change, (3) decreased feelings of isolation, (4) increased evidence of collegiality, (5) increased participation in the decision-making process at the building level, and (6) increased peer classroom observations. Appendices present an outline of the training model used for this study with sample instruments.

Elementary preservice teachers often struggle with their relationships with their students. Research suggests that they have internalized robust teaching scripts that limit their learning of progressive pedagogical methods. As a result of these scripts and relational patterns learned in their family of origin they become progressively more authoritarian and controlling under the situational pressures of traditional classrooms. From the perspective of narrative psychology our sense of self is constructed from meanings that we attach to critical early childhood events, the stories we tell about ourselves, and the way we habitually position ourselves towards others. This critical phenomenological study explored with preservice teachers the ways in which the meanings they attached to early childhood events influence who they become as teachers and how they relate to students. Fourteen preservice elementary school teachers selected from a teacher education program shared their life stories during an interview prior to a two-day orientation circle meeting at the beginning of their prepracticum semester. Participants met in two support circles meeting four times during the semester. The interviews and circle meetings were tape-recorded. The data were analyzed to identify their stories and the way they navigated the discourses of power in their narratives and any emerging cultural themes. The data from five of the participants were analyzed in detail using Stanton Wortham's tools to determine how they were positioning themselves within their narratives and in the storytelling event. All the participants identified critical early childhood events that influence how they construct themselves as students and teachers. They employed the same discipline practices that they experienced in early childhood. Binary opposites of culturally valued concepts were used in self-construction. Their narratives revealed multiple, interwoven, mutually supportive, conflicted and contradictory stories and clashing societal discourses as they struggled to become teachers in relation to students. Implications for teacher education included using circles along with written collaborative autobiographies and case studies of young students to identify and critically analyze the discourses that interpellate themselves and their students. Further research is required to follow students through two years of teaching. More diverse groups should be studied.

Despite current research evidence connecting family involvement to students' academic learning, non-mainstream families' funds of knowledge are insufficiently valued as relevant to public schools' curricula and academic genres, a practice that limits diverse families' inclusion as equal partners in their children's education. This two-year-long ethnography (2005-2007), grounded in sociocultural and sociohistorical theories, investigated the struggles and possibilities that two elementary teachers and their students' non-mainstream families faced while trying to reach common understandings about working collaboratively to develop home-classroom partnerships at a time of a national educational reform under the politics of high stakes accountability of the NCLB Law of 2001 and a state local policy of English-only education in Western Massachusetts. Focusing on a third grade teacher and her English Language Learners (ELL) Latino students and on a regular kindergarten teacher with half of the students of Latino origin, the study explored the evolution of participants' assumptions about non-mainstream students and their families, the participants' co-construction of social and literacy practices, and the dialogical practices conducive to partnerships for fostering home-school partnerships and improving diverse students' literacy development. Findings suggest that: (1) some specific social and literacy practices co-constructed through dialogical interactions between urban school teachers and Latino families positively influenced home-classroom partnerships that worked for nonmainstream families; and (2) the participant teachers' critical reflections on their own assumptions and ideologies brought them new understandings about Latino families' funds of knowledge and child socialization practices, helping them to know the whole child and to better provide academic support for ELL students. Implications for practitioners point at the importance of gaining an in-depth understanding of building relationships with non-mainstream families in urban schools to implement home-school partnerships that work for all families. Implications for state agencies, stakeholders, and administrators are: (1) a need to redefine the field of family involvement for a comprehensive action plan for involving non-mainstream families as equal partners in their children's education; and (2) the need for serious commitment towards supporting urban teachers by allocating time and funds for professional development.

The purpose of my study was to explore and investigate how children respond to the use of a new learning center, which is focused on the concept of multiplication, and to the use of specifically designed learning games. The literature review presented supports the view that a structured approach to games, one where learners' tactics are specified and guided, does have a significant educational effect. This study was meant to be another test of the assumption that games are a valuable addition to our repertoire of methods for teaching and was based on the belief that games can generate enthusiasm and excitement; and students can become strongly motivated by the use of games. The study is significant because very few studies have dealt, empirically, with students "playing" educational games in the classroom. Through my in-depth study, I intended to find out what happens to students when they play; what they think; how they get involved in the game; and how an educational game, as part of a learning center, can be included in the classroom. Mainly, I would like to emphasize in my study the unique part played by the educational game in the curriculum. The effectiveness of the use of the new learning center, in terms of construction of personal knowledge, and construction of social knowledge, was demonstrated. Playing with the games appears to have increased the students' involvement in the process of social interaction which resulted in them creating a microcosm of society, and also creating their own knowledge of the concept of multiplication. The results also indicate that playing, as a part in the learning process, appears to have had a great impact on the students' academic performance, in terms of their math and social skills. This study has demonstrated that an inclusion of educational games can provide an important form of interaction needed in the classroom.

The purpose of this study was to first identify and describe the literary response behaviors exhibited by pre-schoolers in a literature rich setting. Next, the study examined these response behaviors as indicative of the characteristics of theorist Michael Benton's 'secondary world' of literary response (1983) and of psychologist D. W. Winnicott's 'third area' of play (1971). Finally, the study considered the possibilities inherent in these secondary worlds for the creation and exploration of meaning on the part of pre-schoolers. This study utilized ethnographic methods of participant observation, in-depth interviewing, informal conversations, field notes and videotaping. Validity was established and checked through trianglization using the adults in the setting and two outside readers. The findings of this study are culture specific. This ethnographic study offers ways of thinking about, considering and discussing how young children use their experiences of interacting with books and responding to books to create meaning for their lives. Response behaviors were identified, described and organized into three general categories: (1) Individual/dyadic response behaviors involving one child/book(s), two children/book(s) and a child/adult/book(s), (2) Communal response behaviors involving several children/book(s) or several children/adult/book(s), and (3) Guided/directed response behaviors which always involved several children, an adult and book(s), and, in addition, had a specific goal or objective. Response behaviors in each of these categories covered a broad range of activities and formed an integral part of the living and learning experiences of the pre-schoolers in this day care setting. Both physically and humanly this setting was an organized and supportive environment which expected and encouraged interactions with and response to books. Within this setting, reliable and trustworthy relationships were formed which both allowed and encouraged the creation of secondary worlds. Such secondary worlds were intermediate between inner psychic reality and outer shared reality, were dependent upon individual contributions and provided place and opportunity for the creation of meaning. The pre-schoolers used these secondary worlds to explore self identity, emotions, competency development and to expand and integrate their ways of being in the world.

This study tested the effectiveness of an inservice training program for (1) teaching telecommunication skills to teachers who were relatively inexperienced in the use of computers, and (2) assisting teachers in designing and implementing telecommunications activities in their curriculum. Nine elementary teachers participated in an innovative telecommunications project between two local schools. Three of the teachers completed the four session model training program in which they learned the skills necessary for using a telecommunications Bulletin Board System. During the six-week initial implementation phase, a coaching strategy was employed, in which the teachers were observed and assisted while practicing telecommunications. The teachers developed a degree of expertise in using telecommunications and they were able to implement this technological innovation in their curriculum as indicated by the activities and impact upon student learning. During the first cycle of use the teachers were becoming stabilized in the use of telecommunications as they began to refine integration of this media in new areas of their curriculum. The coaching the teachers received was evaluated as being most helpful in assisting teachers in the implementation process. Perceived future barriers to implementation relate to the lack of phone lines and the scarcity of support assistance in the schools. This study has considerable implications for policy makers responsible for the incorporation of technological innovations in school curricula. The results indicate that teachers given an extensive system of training and implementation support are able to effectively integrate telecommunications activities in their curriculum.