This experimental study explored the optimal use of hypertext for instruction by investigating the following questions: What are the effects of cognitive load of learning on learning outcomes and efficiency? Are there interactive effects between cognitive load and aptitude on students' learning outcomes and enjoyment of instructional method? / Seventy-nine ninth-grade students from a north Florida urban research school participated in this research. Six students participated in one-to-one evaluation of the materials, and 73 participated in the experiment. / The independent variables were cognitive load of learning and learning aptitude. Cognitive load was manipulated with learning guidance and access constraint to create two treatment groups--Hierarchical hypertext and prototype hypertext. Learning aptitude was chosen to be prior achievement in science, the subject area of the instructional treatment. Subjects' science scores on the Comprehensive Tests of Basic Skills were used as prior achievement data. / The dependent variables were general, intentional, and incidental learning outcomes, learning efficiency, and enjoyment of instructional method. Learning outcomes were measured with a multiple choice posttest, and enjoyment was measured with a questionnaire with an eight-point scale. / The experiment was a posttest-only, equivalent-groups design. Subjects of the same sex were pair-matched based on prior achievement and randomly assigned to the treatment groups. After subjects finished the hypertext instruction, they took the posttest and then answered the questionnaire. The results were analyzed with interval estimation. / Except results on enjoyment, most results are not statistically significant at the.05 alpha level. But the pattern of most results is consistent with theoretical predictions. Hierarchical hypertext was more effective for all categories of learning outcomes than prototype hypertext, but the advantage decreased with increasing prior achievement. Also hierarchical hypertext was more efficient for low aptitude students, but was less efficient for high aptitude students. Low aptitude students preferred hierarchical hypertext, and high aptitude students preferred prototype hypertext. Implications of learning path data collected for educational research are also discussed. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 50-03, Section: A, page: 0670. / Major Professor: Marcy Perkins Driscoll. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1989.

A need exists to establish congruency between teaching, learning, assessment, and curriculum. From a constructivist perspective, all learning experiences are perceived differently by individuals. As a result, these learning experiences should be evaluated via multiple modes of assessment. Portfolios are vehicles that can be used to represent a diversity of learners. / As a teacher-researcher in my classroom, I conducted a study to observe the influence of portfolio assessment on the students in my Advanced Placement Biology classes. The participants in this study were a culturally diverse group of 33 high school juniors and seniors. The students and myself negotiated the curriculum, while the students designed their own portfolios and submitted them each six weeks grading period. / Through numerous interviews, dialogues, questionnaires, student perception papers, my own journaling, and peer reviews, five learner outcomes emerged under the social constructivist theoretical framework I used to interpret and analyze my data: (1) Students can become self-directed learners through the use of portfolios. (2) Portfolio assessment involves peer evaluation, which can enhance interactive communication, group functioning, and consideration for other students' research. (3) Portfolio assessment gives students the opportunity to become potential quality researchers. (4) Through the use of portfolios, students' thought processes involved integration of information to assess and resolve scientific issues that were critical to their lives. (5) Portfolios give students the opportunity to demonstrate understanding that contributes to their community. / As a result of my construction of this dissertation, I concluded portfolios are a viable alternative assessment strategy to represent learning experiences, provided the students are a continual part of the negotiation process within the culture of the classroom. Portfolios show what the students can tangibly do. / As other teachers begin to take risks by becoming researchers in their classrooms, I feel it will empower them and give them a sense of ownership they can convey to their students. Students, teachers, administrators, and parents will become aligned in their mission for reform. This will continue to raise our high standards for learning. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 56-04, Section: A, page: 1302. / Major Professor: Nancy T. Davis. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1995.

This interpretive study focuses on issues relevant to teacher-learning and enhancement of science education at a developing Professional Practice School (PPS) site (Holmes, 1990; Levine, 1992). In a previous study undertaken at the same school, (Dana, 1991/1992), action research resulted in the emergence of teacher-voice. Teachers desiring to continue their professional development collaborated with the researcher to develop the Southside PPS. / The researcher met with a group of 9 teachers in the first year, 1991-1992, and thereafter began working with various other teachers until May, 1994. The study is based on use of qualitative data sources including: transcripts of afterschool meetings, school documents, interviews, field notes, and the researcher's personal journal. Narratives provide a context (Connelly & Clandinin, 1994) for holistic representation of the research experience and have been deconstructed to render six thematic findings. / The six themes relate issues relevant to the sociocultural context of teaching at the school, conditions for teacher-learning, and teachers' personal and social practices of science. Teachers' dialogue about teaching and learning revealed a strong orientation for feminine epistemology (Harding, 1987). A situation which could have served as a science experience involving inquiry about educational practices (e.g. evaluation) denied teachers' ways of sense-making. In terms of school-wide science practice, events such as the annual Science Fair and teaching science from kits were perpetuating teachers' senses of disenfranchisement from science. Current perspectives of science are, for the most part, grounded in traditional views of Western science and may exclude those with other epistemological and ethical orientations in science learning. / One implication of the study calls for science educators to be aware of their own lenses for framing science as they endeavor to enhance science education. Secondly, consideration for how teachers construct themselves as knowers and co-learners may be a critical beginning point from which educators can begin to negotiate their science practices and construction new visions for science teaching. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 56-01, Section: A, page: 0153. / Major Professor: Kenneth G. Tobin. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1994.

This research represents an autobiographical case study of my practical knowledge and conceptual change as an environmental educator. My purpose for this work is to chronicle a personal evolution of metaphor in my teaching practice and to document the effect on the implemented curriculum. / My research is a story of my work as a cooperating teacher with two student interns whose experiences and questions served as catalysts for my change process. The interns provided a "mirror for reflection" on my practice thus promoting a "re-viewing" of my life history and a reevaluation of my beliefs on teaching and learning. The Reflective Cooperating Teacher Model is introduced in this work which facilitated my reconceptualization of previously unknown interests and beliefs through the construction and analysis of narrative in the research text. / A variety of strategies were utilized to collect and organize the field texts for this study including the use of journals, planning books, audio-tape transcripts, observational notes, and autobiographical texts. Document analysis was performed on Q. S. R. NUD$\cdot$IST 3.0.5 (1994) software. / Throughout this research, I was able to resolve many of my personal conflicts in teaching and learning by using constructivist theory to make sense of the way I had constructed myself as a learner while a teacher and a graduate student. Through the use of personal experience methods, several thematic patterns were explored including the evolution of metaphor in my practice, the influence of role models in my education, the importance of having a passion for one's discipline and work, and the influence of stress on the development of survival strategies in teaching and learning. The understanding and resolution of these issues and others through interpretive autobiography facilitated a reconstruction of my environmental education curriculum to one that is driven by authentic science practice in which the processes and spirit of science rather than the products become the curriculum. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 56-11, Section: A, page: 4361. / Major Professor: Nancy T. Davis. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1995.

This interpretive case study identifies constructs which teachers and researchers may find useful in reporting and reflecting on teachers' knowledge bases, their interpretations of classroom roles and relationships, and curriculum implementation as individual change in practice is attempted. This study was undertaken in collaboration with a chemistry teacher at an urban high school in the southeast. Transcripts and field notes from participant observation in the teacher's classes were primary data sources. The following interpretations emerged from the analyses of the data: (1) Visual images serve as referents for a teacher's thoughts and actions. Metaphor provides a way for teachers to talk about and construct meanings for actions based on the images. (2) A teacher's personal epistemological perspective influences her/his beliefs about what counts as knowledge and the roles of language, power, and learning in the classroom. (3) Teachers adopt taken for granted roles and approaches to teaching that school cultural myths suggest. Taboos and customs associated with the myths constrain teachers from exploring alternative roles or practices. (4) Metonymic conceptual models preconceputally structure teacher learning and constrain change. / This study characterizes teacher learning and change as a process, the meaning of which, is socially negotiated. The extent to which desired changes may be implemented depends upon the meanings that teachers, students, and other members of the school community have for teaching and learning processes. Whether teachers are able to identify constraints and overcome them within the social context of the school may determine the extent to which change is possible. / The results of this study suggest that teachers need assistance in examining their practices in order that they may understand better the influence of cognitive and social factors on their enactment of salient teaching roles. Identification of constraints may be a first step in facilitating change. Further research including collaborative studies of change is needed to increase our understanding of how cognitive constraints influenced by school myths and teachers' personal histories may be overcome. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 52-03, Section: A, page: 0869. / Major Professor: Kenneth G. Tobin. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1991.

The purpose of this study was to examine one middle school's school improvement efforts over an eight year period of time (1986-94). This study builds on an earlier one in which I examined the factors that impacted my personal change as a teacher (Eubanks, 1992). As a participant in the everyday culture being examined, I continued that study with a more broad focus during the next two years. An emphasis on the school culture and the players that impacted it permeates this paper. / Of the seventeen participants in the study, fourteen were mathematics and/or science teachers at the school. The principal and two former assistant principals also participated in the research. Data were collected through personal interviews and by document analysis. At the close of each interview, the participants suggested other individuals who they thought had contradictory opinions. These individuals were also interviewed to provide contrasting points of view. / After transcribing and analyzing each interview, preliminary findings were shared with the participant in the interview for further comments or suggestions. Similarly, during the writing stage for this paper, four participants in the culture critiqued chapter drafts and made suggestions for improvement or clarification. Additionally, a reader from outside the school culture also read and critiqued early drafts. / During the interviews, the principal used two metaphors to describe the school as it attempted change: the king and his court, and the commander and the crew. He believed that each of these metaphors represented a chronological time period during which the principal saw himself using a certain leadership style. Accordingly, these metaphors are explored separately, then contrasted later to reveal their different foci. / Four elements of school culture identified through this study are used to frame the data presented. Leadership opportunities, professionalism, communication, and power are examined individually from the principal's perspective and teachers' perspective. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 56-02, Section: A, page: 0504. / Directors: Nancy T. Davis; Kenneth L. Shaw. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1994.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2006. / Printout. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 275-281) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

Due to discipline specific shortages, web-based learning has been proposed as a convenient way to upgrade the content knowledge of instructors interested in learning to teach science. Despite quantitative evidence that web-based instruction is equivalent to traditional methods, questions remain regarding its use. The efficiency and practicality of this approach with teachers in particular has not been extensively studied. This investigation examines learning in an online biology course designed to help teachers prepare for science certification exams. Research questions concern flow teachers learn biology in the online environment and how this setting influences the learning process. Quantitative and qualitative methodologies are employed in an attempt to provide a more complete perspective than typical studies of online learning. Concept maps, tests, and online discussion transcripts are compared as measures of assimilated knowledge, while interviews reflect participants' views on the course. Findings indicate that participants experienced gains in declarative knowledge, but little improvement with respect to conditional knowledge. Qualitative examination of concept maps demonstrates gaps in participants' understandings of key course ideas. Engagement in the use of online resources varied according to participants' attitudes towards online learning. Subjects also reported a lack of motivation to fully engage in the course due to busy teaching schedules and the absence of accountability.

This paper explores the impacts of an induction program on three beginning secondary science teachers. These teachers participated in a beginning teacher support program, the goal of which was to help bridge the gap between preservice experiences and traditional in-service education opportunities. The goal of the support program was to provide needed support, encourage the implementation of inquiry-based methodologies, and dispose teachers to reflect upon their teaching experiences. The study describes these beginning teachers' beliefs about teaching and learning and explores how these conceptions, along with instructional practices, developed during the induction period. Descriptions of each teachers' development were enriched through attention to individual personal backgrounds and professional contexts. Descriptive case studies were based on a framework established by the data collection, which then guided comparison of individual experiences and contexts across cases. There were several conclusions. First, development of beliefs about teaching and learning varied across cases over the span of the induction period. Second, the differing degree of inquiry-based implementation can be attributed to the context in which each teacher worked. Finally, the differing degree of impact of the program from one individual to the next can be explained in part by the beliefs about teaching and learning that participants brought to the program, as well as the context in which each participant worked.

The purpose of this study was to explore teacher leaders' experiences as they attempted to establish collaborative structures and relationships resulting in improved science instruction at their schools. Teacher leaders were middle school science facilitators, full-time classroom teachers who acted as liaisons between the science teachers at their schools and a change initiative funded by the National Science Foundation. This was a qualitative study, using interviews to create a case study. The researcher used a three-part interview design developed by Seidman (1991). Six research questions served as a framework for the data analysis. Participants identified the following as factors which contributed to their success: support from the principal, other science teachers, central staff personnel, and the district-wide group of science facilitators; professional development; and the successful completion of a scope and sequence for science instruction. Factors identified as hindering their success were: lack of support or conflict with the principal; resistance to change; time constraints; a district policy which limited meeting time; teacher and administrator turnover; tension between the middle school and junior high school models; and personal doubts. From descriptions of their understanding and exercising of leadership, the researcher concluded that teacher leaders had become empowered. The school culture was seen to have a great effect on teacher leaders. The contrasts between a school with a positive culture and another school in disarray were presented. Structures such as summer institutes and release time during the school day were identified as critical for giving teachers the time needed to establish more collaborative working relationships. Once greater trust and understanding were present, teachers were better able to examine their teaching practices more critically. Participants identified mentoring of new members, a continuing role for science facilitators, and central support as necessary for ensuring the sustainability of the changes made during the years of the grant initiative. The researcher concluded that teacher leaders can be a powerful force for bringing about change in schools when provided with training and time during the school day to work with colleagues.