Thesis (M.S.)--West Virginia University, 2007. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains xiv, 164 p. : col. ill. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 128-130).

Thesis (Ed.D.)--Baylor University, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 93-96).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1994. / Vita. Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 222-227). Also available via the Internet.

The prime concern of the study is with the development and evaluation of a short in- service course suitable for teachers in Higher Education. The aim of the course is to introduce and allow tutors to practice the pedagogic skills relevant to encounters with students engaged in independent and individualised modes of teaching and learning such as assignments, projects, contract learning, practical work and research. The study is firmly grounded in principles reviews of staff development, theories derived from thorough of instruction, and microencounter theory and techniques. In exploring this novel area of study, the new generic term, microtutoring, is defined. The research approach is firmly based in the descriptive, case study, course evaluation tradition with some experimental research integrated within the overall design. A detailed description is given of the development of observable skills and the design of instruments for their detection and measurement. The clustering of skills into the meaningful and highly relevant dimensions of structure, directness, centredness, control, cognitive level and appropriateness is described. A full account is given of the formative evaluation of the course and the data and results derived from summative evaluation are processed and discussed. Further development and research in relation to both course and skills is identified and prioritised. Experimental results suggest that it is possible to cause significant changes to the tutorial skills, dimensions and style of a tutor in a predetermined direction. It also seems that these changes are independent of the extent of prior teaching experience possessed by the tutor.

This thesis is about the influence of the teacher development centres (TDCs) as a support strategy for the professional development (PD) of primary school teachers in Malawi. PD of teachers is becoming an integral part of educational reforms in many countries. However, supporting and sustaining PD especially in poor countries is quite challenging. Many countries have adopted the use of teacher centres (TCs) as a support strategy for the PD of teachers and the TDCs in Malawi are an adaptation of the TCs from developed countries such as Britain where the concept of TCs was first hatched. The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of the TDCs as a support strategy for the PD of primary school teachers in Malawi. The issues investigated included: activities which take place at the TDCs; teacher involvement in the PD activities at the TDCs; teacher changes in their professional practices as a result of their involvement in the PD activities at the TDCs; and factors which affect the sustainability of the TDCs in providing support for the PD. I develop an adult learning approach to a study of the influence of the TDCs as a support strategy for the PD of teachers and I demonstrate how the theories of adult learning can be used to investigate how teachers learn with the support of the TDCs. The study was conducted in four TDCs in Zomba rural and Zomba urban in the South East Division in Malawi. I used both quantitative and qualitative approaches, which involved the use of questionnaire surveys and semistructured interviews to collect data. A total of 586 teachers were involved in the questionnaire surveys. A total of 16 teachers and 22 other key education personnel who were strategically linked to the establishment of the TDCs for TPD in Malawi were involved in the semi-structured interviews. To increase the validity of the data and the findings, I used both methodological and data source triangulation. The findings of this study indicated that there were a variety of activities taking place at the TDCs and that some of them were of little relevance to TPD. The majority of teachers were involved in the TDC activities and that some teachers noted in themselves some transformation. However, the findings also revealed that teacher involvement in the TDC activities was constrained by limited access to the TDCs due to the long distances which some teachers had to travel to the TDCs; teachers’ desire for workshops and monetary gains due to poverty; ineffective management of TDCs due to variations in the composition of the TDC committee members whereby some members had little formal education; limited coordination of the TDC activities due to lack of training of the TDC coordinators in TPD and the TDC coordinators had too many roles and responsibilities which were in conflict with those of the coordination of the TDCs; inadequate resources in the TDCs to support teachers in their PD; and lack of clear policy guidelines in the operations of the TDCs. In light of the findings of this study, it was concluded that the TDCs as a support strategy for the PD of teachers were implicit because they did not exert much influence on TPD. However, to have an explicit support strategy there was the need for a clear policy that would guide the operations of the TDCs in Malawi.

Considering the increasing number of Chinese scholars being sent to foreign countries to study as visiting scholars as well as limited research focusing on examining their intercultural competence development while sojourning abroad, it is important to examine their perceptions of the factors affecting their intercultural competence development during their sojourning abroad. A mixed-methods design was employed for this study. Quantitatively, using generalizability theory (Cronbach, Gleser, Nanda, & Rajaratnam, 1972) as a theoretical framework, this study examined differences in 85 Chinese visiting scholars’ ratings of the factors affecting their intercultural competence development during their sojourning abroad across sex (i.e., male and female), age (i.e., younger than 40 years old, 40-50 years old, and older than 50 years old), country of study (i.e., the United States and the United Kingdom), and length of study (i.e., 3-6 months, 7-12 months, and more than 12 months). Qualitatively, this study used ten semi-structured interviews (i.e., 5 interviews with Chinese visiting scholars studying in the United States and 5 interviews with Chinese visiting scholars studying in the United Kingdom) to gain Chinese visiting scholars’ perceptions of the factors affecting their intercultural competence development during their sojourning abroad. Results show that there were significant differences in the ratings of certain factors in terms of their impact on the development of intercultural competence as evaluated by the 85 Chinese visiting scholars across sex, country of study, age, and length of study. Further, the variables sex, country of study, age, and length of study did generate different results in terms of the sources of rating variation of the impact of the factors on Chinese visiting scholars’ intercultural competence development. Furthermore, both Chinese culture and the host country culture affect Chinese visiting scholars’ intercultural competence development while they are studying abroad. Finally, Chinese visiting scholars’ study abroad experience continues to impact their interpersonal communication after they have come back to China. Important educational implications for Chinese visiting scholars as well as American and British professors and administrators are discussed.

Teach for All is an umbrella organisation developed by the founders of Teach for America and Teach First. Operating through sister organisations in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America and South America, Teach for All promises to develop solutions to educational problems in diverse settings through training teachers according to common principles to work in schools in areas of disadvantage. For the first time, therefore, there exists a single international organisation offering a model of teacher education which claims to be transferable to any context in the world. This study, through a focus on Teach South Africa in the Global South and the UK’s Teach First in the Global North, seeks to examine these claims. In particular it investigates the extent to which the teacher training model has been transferred, established and embedded in what are culturally, economically, politically and historically very different nation states. CEOs, middle managers and teachers of the respective organisations were interviewed and Teach for All, Teach First and Teach South Africa web-sites were analysed, in order to gain an understanding of how the principles, aims and ethos are embodied within the organisation’s different settings. I argue that, while pervasive neoliberal ideologies along with a specific organisational discourse combine to create a set of circumstances in which Teach for All believes it can establish 'country proof’ sister organisations anywhere in the world, the North in fact maintains and strengthens its privilege and power base in these relationships and they are not necessarily supportive of teacher development needs in the Global South.

Formal placements on initial teacher education programmes focus on the students’ learning and, in some contexts, co-operating teachers are involved formally as mentors in this process. Traditionally in Ireland, the location of this research, co-operating teachers had no formal or recognized role on placement. However, recent policy changes (Teaching Council, 2011) recognize the significant contribution which co-operating teachers can make to the student on placement. In the context of this policy change, this research examines how a co-teaching model of placement promotes the learning of the student teacher and of the co-operating teacher, thereby redefining the roles assumed by both on traditional placements. Following a case study approach in the qualitative paradigm, this research documents the experience of four co-teaching partnerships, each comprised of a final year student teacher and an experienced teacher. Data gathered included semi-structured interviews, planning templates, reflections and vignettes and these were analysed to determine how co-teaching compared with formal placements as a learning to teach experience, how each co-teacher learned from the other and how each co-teacher considered they contributed to the others’ learning. The research concluded that professional dialogue between students and co-operating teachers was enhanced when the placement model promoted and expected such dialogue, as opposed to leaving it at the participants’ discretion. The students to a greater extent than the teachers, were able to articulate the professional knowledge which they developed in the course of co-teaching. In light of the policy focus on the role of the co-operating teacher, the implications of these findings, at an immediate practice level and at a national policy level are considered and areas of further research are also identified.

The purpose of this study was to explore the extent of e-space community framework in developing metacognitive strategies of pre-service teacher trainees towards ICT competency in contemporary learning technologies. The e-space community framework used in this study created a virtual community of practice (VCoP) that has the possibilities of developing the trainees’ metacognitive strategies in learning technologies. The framework looks at extending Vygotsky’s concept of Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) upon the VCoP. Evidence has shown that ZPD has the potential of helping a learner learn better by seeking guidance from surrounding peers. It is argued that the combination of ZPD and VCoP has the advantages of making teaching and learning more engaging and effective. The study proposed the use of an e-space community as the mediator to develop metacognitive strategies in learning technologies. The concept of e-space community is congruent with Wenger’s concept of Communities of Practice (CoPs), where people of the same interest do and learn better via regular interaction. It is also parallel with the earlier mentioned concept of ZPD as discussed by Vygotsky. The research used an explanatory mixed-method approach on 38 pre-service teacher trainees, where a pre-test, a mid-test and a post-test with a treatment intervention were supported by interviews. The quantitative findings of this study revealed that e-space community in this study gave very little impact on the development of the pre-service teacher trainees’ metacognitive strategies towards ICT competency in contemporary learning technologies. This was supported by the qualitative findings that concur with the fact that the participants did not prefer the official e-space platform chosen for this study and were more drawn to more convenient external platforms. The study has implications on how any official e-space platform of an institution should be designed and deployed in order to create more appeal and attract the targeted CoP to use and gain benefits from the intended objectives towards ICT competency.

A pervasive audit culture within English Further Education (FE) Colleges from 1992 has meant that the content of continuous professional development (CPD) for further education (FE) teachers has been largely determined by the themes and concerns of inspection. Viewed through the lens of Jürgen Habermas’s theory of ‘communicative action’, it is argued that FE teachers’ practice has been dominated by external and internal structural constraints, exacerbated by the workings of hegemony by which teachers have been made complicit. It is shown that audit-driven management practices have focussed on an instrumental approach to CPD, developing teachers’ performative skills and neglecting more embedded improvements to practice. My starting premise was that this trend could be understood using the Habermasian term, ‘colonisation of the lifeworld’; this premise is reflected in FE literature where the compromised agency of teachers is the dominant discourse. The fieldwork identified the key constraints and enablers in maintaining teachers’ lifeworld and the possibilities for developing empowering forms of CPD to overcome victimhood and re-invigorate professionalism. Qualitative data was generated by interviews with seventeen teachers and one focus group within one large FE College. The key finding is that CPD could be used as a site for what Habermas terms ‘ideal speech conditions’: Habermas’s theory of communicative action is used to support the argument that CPD’s transformative impact is realised if teachers engage in authentic discussions about practice and are empowered to determine their own practice change.