<p> Literature that depicts females in restrictive roles may limit girls&rsquo; aspirations and success. Previous studies of award-winning books for young children have found gender-stereotypical role portrayal to be common. The purpose of this qualitative content analysis was to identify the archetypal roles assigned to female characters in picture books read aloud by teachers in the preschool classroom. The conceptual framework for this study was derived from feminist theory and Jungian archetypes. Data were collected in the form of teachers&rsquo; logs of books they read aloud over a 2-week period. Data were analyzed by employing the 3-read method developed by Madsen, which was revised to assign Jungian archetypes to each female character in a sample of 20 books. According to study results, female characters were portrayed as passive and often silent. Most of the female characters in these books were assigned archetypes typified by low personal agency, passivity, and service to others (orphan, innocent, and caretaker) and none were assigned archetypes associated with innovation (magician, jester, and creator). Of the 106 female characters portrayed in this sample, only 26% were verbal, and of those who spoke, 46% were limited to the one or two words needed to ask for assistance or to offer to serve. Female characters who did advance the plot through dialogue were often in animal form. Gender stereotypes still exist in children&rsquo;s picture books, as evidenced by objectification of females, female servitude, and lack of positive agentic female roles. This study has potential to elicit positive social change, benefiting both boys and girls, through increased awareness of archetypal role portrayal of female characters in picture books and teachers&rsquo; increased care in selecting read-aloud books with regard to the gender-based messages they send.</p>

<p> Bullying behaviors among primary school-aged children are underreported, which communicates to the children that the issue is not important to the adults who should be promoting a safe and healthy environment. The purpose of this qualitative, hermeneutic phenomenological study was to explore the perceptions and lived experiences of a purposeful sample of 15 fourth- and fifth-grade elementary teachers concerning the possible effect of Bernstein&rsquo;s Artful Learning&trade; Model strategies (an arts integration program) on bullying behaviors of fourth- and fifth-grade students at an arts magnate school. Face-to-face interviews were conducted with a purposive sample of 15 fourth- and fifth-grade teachers, using an interview guide with open-ended questions, about their perceptions of bullying at the research site and the effects of Bernstein&rsquo;s Artful Learning&trade; model on bullying behaviors. The study results indicated use of the model has the potential to help deter bullying behaviors. Participants believed the model&rsquo;s community-building component and strategies helped decrease bullying and aggressive behaviors. This study provides educational leaders with a demonstration the efficacy of an arts-integration program in deterring bullying behaviors among elementary students.</p>

<p> In my dissertation, I set out to explore the following research question on bridging: <i>How does ownership evolve as learners engage in a guided inquiry-based science learning environment focused on design and technology usage?</i> My dissertation explores a case study of four learners involved in an afterschool program called Kitchen Chemistry (KC). KC is a nonformal learning environment in which learners engage in scientific practices within the context of cooking. Learners engage in inquiry practices through the development of their own scientific food investigations. In my study I examined how four focal learners come to develop a sense of ownership of science learning as they each develop their own personal food investigations. Using Wenger's (1998) framework of identity formation in communities of practice (imagination, engagement, and alignment), my study shows that a learner's identity and social dynamics from home, school, and informal learning shape and fashion what he or she chooses to own, how ownership is expressed, and how that ownership can both support and hinder a learner's science learning.</p>

<p> Progress monitoring has been shown to be effective for gauging student growth in the area of mathematics. Likewise, self-graphing has been shown to improve student achievement in education. The present study investigates the effectiveness of progress monitoring as an intervention with a self-graphing component for second-grade students in the area of mathematics. This research examines the impact of progress monitoring on increased math skills, accuracy, and generalization to universal screening assessments. While results were variable, students' accuracy improved upon implementation of progress monitoring. All-together, results suggest that progress monitoring with self-graphing can be an effective intervention.</p>

<p> The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of an adaptation of Peer-Assisted Learning Strategies (PALS) in mathematics on achievement and anxiety of third grade students. Four intact classrooms were randomly assigned to experimental or control condition groups. Experimental teachers implemented one of three interventions: PALS, a relaxation technique (RT), or PALS+RT twice weekly for 12 weeks. Outcome measures included AIMSweb's curriculum based measure for math computation (MCOMP) and the Revised Children's Manifest Anxiety Scale, Second Edition (RCMAS-2). Within the classrooms, baseline, pre-test, and post-test data were collected on 79 students. The study did not reveal statistically significant results, however, results indicated that students in the PALS+RT group made the greatest gains in math achievement and students in the RT group had the greatest reduction in anxiety. The results suggest that PALS can be adapted to include a brief relaxation technique and that relaxation techniques may be beneficial in reducing student anxiety symptoms.</p>

<p> As digital media makes its way into elementary school classrooms, urban school culture moves slowly to join in. The move to integrate new technologies into schools is both enabled and constrained by factors such as the need for students and teachers to be seen as people who are "successful" in both public and social terms. The purpose of this dissertation was to explore the complexities for elementary children learning to write in the digital age. I used a case study approach, examining the language choices of eight third and fourth grade students (4 girls and 4 boys) who attended an urban elementary school in a large southeastern city in the United States. I analyzed how the students' language choices contributed to the construction/negotiation of their writer identities and the degree to which these constructs/negotiations were enabled/constrained by what the participants imagined was/not possible from their positions as students while composing with varying technologies. I conclude that it is not only the young writers who imagine what is/not possible from their position as students, it is also those who guide, or "authorize" student writing, including teachers, administrators, and parents. This constructing/negotiating, authorizing/guiding all take place as students seek to maintain membership (textually) within their school world while endeavoring to cultivate new memberships within expanses or publics that coexist alongside their schools. The young writers highlighted in this study, working against from within the school district's accountability and efficiency agenda show that being a "successful" student writer can mean more than their merely reproducing what is expected of them.</p>

<p> This mixed method study examines teachers' and administrators' perceptions of what contributes to the growth of the students in the educational disabilities subgroup in reading within the context of Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) mandated by NCLB in New Hampshire until June, 2013. This study researches effective reading instruction for students identified with reading disabilities, and the factors within a school that support it, that help that group become proficient in reading. Using the New England Common Assessment Program and AYP data as criteria, four schools that had made AYP in 2011 and 2012 were selected. Participants were 68 special education and regular education teachers and five administrators. Data were collected by 15 initial interviews with special educators, administrators, and reading specialists. Fifty-three classroom teachers were then surveyed. QSR NVivo analyzed qualitative data while quantitative data were analyzed with SPSS software. Analysis yielded six key factors: highly trained teachers, high expectations of success, what the district provides both in resources and organization, collaboration/communication, what to do when students don't make progress, and delivery of instruction. The study yielded a list of the most used direct instruction programs, while small group instruction in the classroom or resource room was the preferred method of instructional delivery. A framework for decision-making was suggested, which included core curriculum, programs, time x intensity, progress monitoring, and tuning-up (CPTPT).</p><p> Key Words: reading instruction, students with disabilities, elementary education, Response to Intervention.</p>

<p> Technology is increasingly present in American homes and offices and in nearly every form of American entertainment. As a result, U.S. society has become dependent on technology. Most Americans' daily routine consists of frequent interactions with electronic gadgets, interfaces, and computers in order to purchase goods online, meet people, and work. Therefore, to some extent, U.S. schools should mimic the current social environment by using technology as an educational tool. The global environment demands that students have 21st-century technology skills. Today's students learn using different modalities that require various accommodations in the classroom setting. Teachers play a pivotal role in fully preparing and engaging students. Thus, it is important to identify what factors influence teachers' decision to integrate current technology educational tools in the classroom. </p><p> The purpose of this study was to determine the strength of the relationships, if any, between teachers' demographics, use of current technological tools, attitudes, professional development, and rate and stage of technology adoption/integration. A survey instrument created by Buckenmeyer was modified and updated to reflect the technologies used in the classroom. Five elementary urban public schools and 133 teachers in Newark, New Jersey, participated in the study. Their responses were used to determine the relationships between various factors and the rate and stage of technology adoption/integration. </p><p> Significant correlations were found between technology adoption/integration and each of the categories&mdash; especially teachers' beliefs and attitudes and professional/staff development. Various items in each category were found to be significantly correlated with technology adoption/integration, including teachers' belief that they are better teachers with technology and addressing students' learning styles. Additionally, mean scores showed strong agreement with the desire to participate in professional/staff development workshops on how to integrate current technology educational tools into the instruction, especially into the new English language arts and math curricula in Newark Public Schools. </p><p> Based on the strength and significance of the correlations and mean scores, there were three recommendations for stakeholders regarding the factors that influence teachers' decision to integrate current technology educational tools into the classroom: (a) improve teachers' belief in and attitudes toward the use of current technology educational tools; (b) provide continuous, technology-infused professional development opportunities that align with the current literacy and math curricula; and (c) provide current technology educational tools such as hardware, learning software, and Web 2.0.</p>

<p> This teacher research study examined the pedagogical practices and conditions for learning that supported the literacy learning of the children in my kindergarten classroom during the 2006-2007 school year. An additional focus was to determine the meaning-making strategies employed by effective young beginning readers in this classroom. </p><p> The participants were 21 children, 12 girls and nine boys, who were students in my kindergarten. They were also representative of the primarily Caucasian population within a school district on eastern Long Island that included a small percentage (less than 5%) of other ethnic groups. </p><p> Data collection included ethnographic observations (kidwatching), along with still and video, digital photography. These data were examined within the literacy events in the classroom that included reading to children, reading with children, and children reading by themselves or to others. Portions of the video collection included the children reading the morning message with me. Video of children reading to me was also transcribed and examined using miscue analysis to determine the meaning-making strategies used by five effective young beginning readers. </p><p> Findings indicate that the tenants of whole language, along with Cambourne's (1988) conditions for learning, were in place and supported the pedagogical practice during the literacy events studied. Miscue analysis of the readings done by the children indicated that the children avoided any reliance on the surface features of text (phonics) and employed complex, meaning-making miscues to produce a reader's text that also maintained a high syntactic and semantic relationship with the author's text. </p><p> The implications are that similar literacy development could be realize for children within other classrooms where this pedagogy and conditions for learning are in place.</p>

<p> The purpose of this qualitative study was to investigate teachers' perceptions about the impact of the McREL Teacher Evaluation System on their professional growth. The sample comprised 15 teachers of students in Kindergarten to Grade 4 in a suburban New Jersey school district who participated in Year 1 implementation of a new standards-based teacher evaluation model. Participants were asked to explore the professional teaching standards in the McREL Teacher Evaluation System. The conceptual framework included adult learning, critical thinking, and reflective practice. The themes that emerged defined a new teacher-driven interpretation of leadership and a collective responsibility to a shared vision of student learning. The study highlighted the expectations of meeting the learning needs of a more diverse population of students; applying content knowledge, specifically the Common Core State Standards; facilitating learning through various instructional strategies and modalities that cultivated critical thinking with colleagues and contemporary students; and engaging in reflection of teacher practice as a significant catalyst for growth. The study also emphasized the need for strategic systems of strong organizational support as essential to a successful implementation process.</p>