The purpose of the study was to reveal the mechanisms by which a university supervisor leads five student-teachers to reflective professionalism in dialogue journals used during the final field experience of a two year graduate teacher preparation program for teachers of children who are Deaf and Hard-of Hearing. The participants in the study were four female and one male student-teacher in their final semester of preparation, and one female university supervisor. The data comprised of dialogue journals exchanged between the student-teachers and their supervisor during the nine-week field experience. The intention of the dialogue journal assignment was to develop a relationship which would facilitate educational dialogue and promote reflection. The supervisor intended that the student-teachers use the dialogue journals to examine problems of practice and professionalism and to integrate theory and practice. The results showed that the concerns of the student-teachers clustered into four themes, completion of requirements, competence in practice, caring in field experience relationships, and practical and ethical conflict resolution. In addition, the supervisor met her objectives of forming educational relationships and providing a model of teacher-like thinking and problem solving through use of a variety of strategies, both direct and indirect, within a collegial milieu. The essential effect of the supervisory strategy-use was to differentiate student-teacher perceptions of their experiences such that problem-solving was facilitated. In addition reflection was promoted. Three types of reflection were identified. Reflection-in-action resembled Donald Schon's category of that name. Reflection-on-belief produced ethical development, and reflection-on-context produced critique of the contexts of teaching. When overwhelmed, student-teachers ruminated rather than reflected. The supervisor responded by scaffolding a reflective pathway to empowered problem-solving. It seemed that the student-teachers were inducted through these means to the profession of teaching. The conclusions are that dialogue journals provide unparalleled opportunities for thoughtful reflective conversation, providing as they do, built in wait-time. In addition they provide teacher educators with opportunities to be directly involved in the education of children through problem-solving with the student-teachers, thus maintaining their credentials as authentically experienced teachers.

The purpose of the present study was to explore the broad query of prospective teachers' understandings about special education. The study, which employed qualitative methods, involved two undergraduate prospective teachers as participants. Both participants were engaged in an initial field experience as part of their elementary teacher preparation program. The study was designed to gain a sense of the ways in which the prospective teachers describe special education. Additionally, particular disability categories and inclusion were considered as part of the study. The participants both anticipate having students with special needs in their respective future classrooms. Several intriguing findings and implications resulted from addressing the two research questions, which examined the special education understandings of prospective teachers. The study was intended to contribute to the knowledge base of special education understandings and extend the existing valuable body of work in the area of teacher beliefs.

This study examined the effects of a beginning teacher induction program on the attainment of the Arizona Teaching Standards. Quantitative and qualitative perspectives were utilized. Quantitatively, a survey asked teachers to rate their perceptions of their level of attainment of the Arizona Teaching Standards as a result of being enrolled or having been enrolled in a beginning teacher induction program. Further, school-level administrators were surveyed on their perceptions of how well these groups of teachers had attained the Arizona Teaching Standards as a result of having been enrolled in a beginning teacher induction program. Qualitatively, the researcher interviewed school-level administrators to gather their perspectives on the quality of the beginning teacher induction program being utilized. The analysis of the data indicated that the new teachers at the elementary, middle, and high school levels felt strongly that the beginning teacher induction program assisted them in attaining the Arizona Teaching Standards. Additionally, first-year, second-year, third-year, and fourth-year teachers agreed that the beginning teacher induction program assisted them in attaining the Arizona Teaching Standards. It appeared that, as a whole group, beginning teachers agreed that the beginning teacher induction program had aided in their attainment of the Arizona Teaching Standards. Further, elementary school administrators, middle school administrators, and high school administrators were in agreement in their perceptions that the beginning teacher induction program assisted beginning teachers in the attainment of seven of the Arizona Teaching Standards. Also, the analysis demonstrated that at the elementary-level, teachers and administrators differed in their perceptions on two standards. There were no significant findings when comparing the teachers and administrators at the middle school level. However, when comparing teachers and administrators at the high school level, the analysis provided significant findings on eight of the Arizona Teaching Standards. Finally, it appeared that school-level administrators agreed that elements of effective beginning teacher induction were present in the program being utilized in the district of study.

Although master's degree programs in English as a Second Language (ESL) in the United States show a great variety in terms of the name of the degree, the length of the program, and the focus of the studies, among other things, a strong connection between language and culture is presumed to be central in second language teaching. However, a survey of four-semester programs shows that only 47 (51.6%) require a course on culture suggesting that it is not recognized universally as a priority. In the academic institutions where there is a course on culture, future ESOL teachers are learning under the implicit ideologies of their instructors as well as those of the institution they are attending. These ideologies respond to imperatives at the national and international level (Kramsch, 1993). The ideologies are rarely clearly articulated in the programs or the courses per se, and it is common to find that in the foreign language classroom many teachers are not entirely aware of the cultural nature of their discourse. The purpose of this investigation is to find out what systems, beliefs, and values underlie the courses that deal with 'culture' in four leading Master's programs in the United States, taken as representative of the field. These are investigated under four subcategories: (1) the purpose of each program, implicit or explicit, (2) the views on the teaching of English held by both faculty and future teachers of English, i.e., the students in the program, (3) the content of the course that deals with culture, and (4) the concept of culture adopted in the program and the course. The findings are analyzed in the light of the theories of Symbolic Violence of Bourdieu, Critical Pedagogy, in particular the works of Freire, Apple, and Pennycook, and Phillipson's theory of Linguistic Imperialism. The primary hoped-for application of these results is to help university teachers and future teachers of English as a second language become more aware of the inherently ideological nature of the field and help them reflect on how their own ideologies may have an effect on those they teach.

This dissertation reports the findings of a study on teacher narratives recorded at a German Studies department over the course of one semester. Specifically, the study investigated co-construction of narratives among four groups of TAs during their weekly coordination meetings, focusing on the larger social processes and the local participation frameworks established in the process of co-narration. Furthermore, it explored the images of teachers and students, and the themes co-constructed in the narratives. The study involved fifteen TAs and one supervising faculty member. Narratives emerging in the course of their meetings were identified. For this purpose, a typology was developed which took into consideration not only past time narratives, but also those tellings which focused on anticipatory, hypothetical or generically occurring events. After emerging themes were tabulated, the co-constructed social projects and participation frameworks were explored using a microethnographic approach. Student and teacher images were investigated based on the evaluative devices employed. The results indicated that narratives were mainly told during the meetings to accomplish the sharing of experiences, the requesting and giving of advice, as well as the shaping of policies. The main themes addressed in the course of the tellings concerned grading and test-taking issues. TAs co-constructed themselves as group members as well as autonomous individuals. While generally displaying alignment with colleagues who were challenged by their students, the TAs also occasionally identified themselves as student spokespersons in opposition to their peers. When seeking advice, TAs were mostly reluctant to acknowledge their peers as givers of advice, and instead turned to the faculty member for help. TAs were generally portrayed in the narratives as competent speakers of the foreign language; understanding, engaged, communicative teachers; and facilitators for opportunities for learning. Students, in the majority of the narratives, were portrayed as lazy, cheating or unreasonable. This dissertation took into account the practices of co-construction which are at work when teachers narrate their professional experiences. So far, research on teacher narratives has mainly focused on data collected in contexts constructed by researchers. The contribution of this study is thus as research on naturalistically occurring teacher narratives.

There is a growing interest in the study of the moral qualities of teachers. Many studies emphasize empirical techniques without attention to the philosophical features of moral conduct or focus on the philosophical features without connections to the actual conduct of teachers. This dissertation combines philosophical and empirical inquiry to study the moral conduct of teachers. Using Fenstermacher's distinction among teaching method, style, and manner, the technical and personality characteristics of teachers are distinguished from teacher conduct that expresses moral virtue. This conduct is known as the manner of the teacher. This dissertation investigates how manner may be made explicit, as a philosophical concept and an object of empirical inquiry. The philosophical part examines the conceptual nature of moral action in the classroom, using an Aristotelian ethics as the framework for analysis. The empirical part is a case study of three classroom teachers, whose moral conduct is examined using the Aristotelian framework. This dual philosophical/empirical approach permits inquirers to observe and analyze selected moral dimensions of teaching, then draw conclusions about how the teachers express moral virtue. The empirical part is a qualitative study of three teachers, each interviewed and observed over a one year period. Case studies illustrating the teachers' expressions of moral virtue were developed, followed by a cross-case analysis that revealed common and distinct elements in the teachers' manner. The cross-case analysis suggests that the teachers express virtues in similar ways according to the Aristotelian framework and in particular ways according to their individual style. Further, teachers express more than one virtue simultaneously. The main conclusion one may draw from this study is that it is possible to systematically observe and describe manner in teaching. Suggestions for further research include (1) situations in which the expression of one virtue appears to conflict with another, (2) the difficulties of analyzing the intellectual virtues, and (3) clarifying the relationship between manner and teachers' context, content, and students. A significant implication of this study is that it is possible to attend to manner in ways that permit the development of moral virtue in teaching.

Fifteen undergraduate music education majors enrolled in an introductory music education course at a major university in the Southwestern United States participated in this study. Students constructed concept maps on the topic teacher effectiveness as a measure of their cognitive schemata. They completed two microteaching lessons in two different settings which were videotaped and subsequently analyzed using the Survey of Teaching Effectiveness and a time sampling procedure using criteria from teacher intensity research. Following their microteachings students constructed a second concept map on the same topic. Students were interviewed to explore the nature of their thinking about effective teaching. Quantitative analyses were conducted using data from the concept maps and both measures of teacher effectiveness. Results of a dependent t-test showed no significance difference between map scores either for total score or component scores of extensiveness and coherence. Spearman Rank Correlations were calculated between map scores and subjects' scores on both the STE and TI measures. No significant correlations were found to exist. Qualitative analyses were completed based on data from concept maps, self-evaluations, and interviews. Frequency responses by categories and data source indicated subjects' responses fell into two main areas: teacher effectiveness and skills and strategies. Within these two areas four sub-categories were targeted for further analysis: knowledge, teacher traits, delivery and instructional skills. Frequency responses for all but delivery skills were quite high. The following conclusions were drawn: (1) Preservice teachers have a clear picture of what it means to be an effective teacher. They describe an effective teacher as knowledgeable, possessing a variety of personal characteristics, and engaging in specific teacher actions. (2) Preservice teachers' cognitive structure does not change after the completion of two microteaching experiences. There is some indication that changes in the content of their thinking arise following their microteachings. (3) There is no relationship between preservice teachers' cognitive structure and their ability to demonstrate effective teaching behaviors. However, qualitative analyses suggest a possible connection between the content of their thinking and their ability to teach effectively. Implications for education and future research are discussed.

The study examined the 23 most frequently cited areas of concern to new teachers from the existing literature, how frequently these topics were discussed during the induction mentoring process, and if their discussion improved participant satisfaction with the outcomes of the process. Additionally, it examined several characteristics of mentors and inductees to learn whether they effected the discourse between mentors and inductees during the induction process. A questionnaire based on the research literature in the area, was distributed to all members of inductee mentor pairs in the school district studied. A total of 272 questionnaires were returned in scorable condition, yielding a return rate of 96.4 percent. Data from the survey was used to answer a total of six research questions. Major conclusions were that there is: (1) a limited interaction between the length of time that a mentor has been teaching and the frequency of discourse. (2) A substantial interaction between the length of time that an inductee has been teaching and the frequency of discourse. (3) A minor interaction between the educational background of the mentor and the frequency of discourse. (4) A minor interaction between the educational background of the inductee and the frequency of discourse. (5) Frequent discussion of all 23 of the topics by the majority of induction mentoring pairs. (6) Significant interaction between the frequency with which the various topics of the study were discussed and the participants' satisfaction with the outcomes of each area of the induction mentoring process.

This study investigated the principal's perceived effectiveness of preservice teaching education and training in the state of Arizona. An in-depth interview methodology was used to explore, describe, and analyze the perceptions of twelve principals serving in K-12 schools located in Southern Arizona. The following questions guided this study: What attitudes, skills and knowledge competencies do principals want new teachers to demonstrate and how do these perceptions compare with profiles developed in the literature? What type of course work do principals want in teacher preservice training programs and how do these perceptions compare with those currently offered in Arizona Colleges of Education? What strengths have principals observed in new teachers and which of these strengths do they attribute directly to preservice training programs in Arizona? What weaknesses have principals observed in new teachers and which of these weaknesses do they attribute directly to preservice training programs in Arizona? What recommendations do principals have for improving preservice training programs in Arizona Colleges of Education? This study was limited in terms of generalizability because only the perceptions of 12 principals serving schools in Southern Arizona were utilized. Qualitative data was collected utilizing individual in-depth interviews with the 12 principals selected for this study. Response data gathered in this study were analyzed inductively in an attempt to develop and identify significant themes, concepts, and dimensions describing the principal's perception of the effectiveness of preservice teacher training. The following findings emerged from this study relative to the principals' perceptions of preservice training: principals have a specific profile of the competent new teacher and this profile parallels the research; principals want teachers to take course work in classroom management, communication and methodology with a emphasis on theory to practice methods; principals characterized new teachers as enthusiastic and strong in content knowledge; principals characterized new teachers as weak in classroom management skills and their ability to deliver instruction; principals recommended that schools of education become more practitioner focused, provide earlier and longer field service, provide immersion type student teaching experiences, and become less isolated and more interdependent in their relationship with K-12 schools.

The purpose of this study was (a) to determine if there was a significant relationship between the interpersonal communication skills of music education students and teaching effectiveness, (b) to determine if there was a significant relationship between the interpersonal communication skills of music education students and conducting/rehearsal technique, and (c) to determine if there is a significant difference between the conductor and ensemble perception of the conductor's interpersonal communication skills. Subjects were 30 music education students who had taken at least one semester of conducting instruction. Subjects completed three 10-minutes micro rehearsals with an ensemble. Each micro rehearsal was videotaped. Upon completion of the third micro rehearsal, members of the ensemble completed the Questionnaire on Teacher Interaction for each subject to determine the subject's perceived interpersonal communication style profile. Each subject completed the Questionnaire on Teacher Interaction using his/her ideal responses to determine an ideal interpersonal communication style profile. Three judges evaluated videotapes of the first and third micro rehearsal for each subject using the Survey on Teaching Effectiveness to determine teaching effectiveness and the Conductor Observation Form to determine conducting effectiveness. Data were analyzed using two Two-way Analysis of Variances with Repeated Measures to determine if significant differences existed between interpersonal communication skills, teaching effectiveness, and conducting effectiveness. A quotient of agreement was calculated to determine the degree of association between ideal interpersonal communication styles and perceived interpersonal communication styles. Eleven subjects were identified as having helpful/friendly interpersonal communication styles, 11 subjects were identified as having understanding interpersonal communication styles, and 8 subjects were identified as having strict communication styles. Significant (p ≤ .05) differences were found to exist between interpersonal communication skills, teaching effectiveness, and conducting effectiveness. A low (quotient of agreement = .10) degree of association was found between ideal interpersonal communication styles and perceived interpersonal communication styles.