Every year thousands of students make preparations to pursue a college degree. Many are high school seniors, but a large percentage of the population are nontraditional age students who are years removed from a formal classroom setting. Included in the list of preparations is an examination whose results will be used to determine each individual’s readiness to be academically successful at the collegiate level. These examinations assess student’s abilities in the areas of reading, English composition, and mathematics. The results of these examinations show that at the community college level more than half of these students will need remediation in one of these subject areas. Mathematics is most often the area where deficiencies are identified. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to determine if there are significant differences between 4 mathematics learning support models based on student performance in 2 college level mathematics courses at a 2-year community college in Tennessee. The subjects of this study were students who were enrolled in MATH 1530, Probability and Statistics, or MATH 1630, Finite Mathematics, from the fall 2011 semester through the spring 2016 semester. Students with ACT, SAT, or ACT Compass exam scores meeting or exceeding established benchmark scores were excluded from the study. Each record also included the learning support model each student participated in, the final letter grade for the course, grouped ACT mathematics subscores, age grouping, and enrollment status. The results of the study indicated significant differences in student success between learning support models for all research questions involving MATH 1530, Probability and Statistics. Comparisons between ACT mathematics subscore groupings, age groupings, and enrollment status also indicated significant differences in student success. In each case, the current corequisite learning support model proved to be the least successful in preparing students for success in MATH 1530. Three of the 8 research questions involving MATH 1630, Finite Mathematics, also indicated significant differences in student success between learning support models, with the current corequisite learning support model proving less successful in preparing students for success in MATH 1630.

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between instructional environment and student engagement during reading instruction. Environment is composed of three key elements: teacher attributes, instructional methods, and the physical classroom setting (Blair, Rupley, & Nichols, 2007; De Naeghel, Van Keer, Vansteenkiste, & Rosseel, 2012; Guthrie, Hoa, Wigfield, Tonks, & Perencevich, 2006; Housand & Reis, 2008). This study examined a first, second, and third grade classroom in one East Tennessee school. Qualitative data was collected using a combination of instructional observation and teacher interviews in order to examine existing practices for successfully engaging young readers. Teachers for each of the classrooms were interviewed; following the interview, each teacher’s classroom was observed three times to examine the teacher’s attributes and most frequently used instructional methods, the physical classroom setting, and the expressed level of engagement of the student body in the classroom. The findings indicate that environment in terms of teacher attributes, instructional methods, and physical classroom setting affects student reading engagement; classrooms with high levels of organization, novel reading areas, and opportunity for students to select reading material were found particularly effective for reading engagement.

A qualitative investigation was conducted to explore teacher perceptions of Professional Learning Communities on the instructional climate at Flintville Elementary School in Lincoln County, Tennessee. Participants in the study included five teachers, the evaluation supervisor, and one parent from Flintville Elementary School. Through the analysis of interviews and a review of documents collected from Professional Learning Communities (PLC) meetings in grades Pre-K through 8, the investigator was able to extract meaning and code the data into categories that led to an understanding of the perceptions being researched. Professional Learning Communities at Flintville Elementary School have changed the instructional climate concerning teacher collaboration and teamwork as well as attitudes of teachers regarding students. The data from the interviews and documented PLC meetings indicated that teachers were working together to develop and analyze common assessments, cultivate individual student growth and success, and reach the standardized testing goals for the school. As a result of PLCs, teachers were having professional conversations on improving student achievement and increasing teacher effectiveness, which indicated a climate change. Teachers were also using PLC meetings as a source for developing in-house professional development activities. Teachers were developing skills in the school based PLC meetings that would allow them to conduct professional development activities. The results of this study were intended as a reference for schools that may be involved in the future implementation of Professional Learning Communities as a tool for changing instructional climate and as a way to improve student achievement through collaboration among teachers.

Research has shown that teacher workload is intensifying and teachers are increasingly leaving the profession prior to having taught for 35 years. The purpose of this mixed method, sequential, phenomenological study was to determine (a) how workload intensification impacts teacher performance and well-being, (b) whether or not workload intensification was a primary factor in teachers’ choosing to leave the profession early, and (c) a formula for maximizing teacher performance and well-being. Apple’s workload intensification thesis was the theoretical framework for this study. Quantitative data obtained via a survey (N=484), together with qualitative data collected via four focus group sessions and individual interviews with 15 teachers who had left the profession early, were utilized to determine if there is a problem with workload intensification in this east coast Canadian province. Quantitative data were analyzed using the chi-square test to determine the relationship between the independent variable (workload intensification) and each of the two dependent variables (performance and well-being). Qualitative data were analyzed to determine emergent themes with respect to workload intensification. Findings from this study indicated that there is a significant relationship between the independent variable and each of the two dependent variables. Qualitative data substantiated the quantitative findings that indicated (a) the presence of a problem with workload intensification and (b) that workload intensification is a primary factor in teachers’ choosing to leave the profession early. Recommendations include having administrators address identified current teacher workload issues. Positive social change may result if administrators utilize the derived formula for maximizing teacher performance and well-being when assigning teaching and nonteaching duties to teachers.

This article, which appeared in the January '72 edition of The School Counselor, talks about what counselors have done, doing, and what the author, a school counselor, thinks they should be doing. He discusses some factors operating to narrow the counselor's role: the student stereotype of counselors as "schedule-changers," the administrative view of counseling as a clerical function, the "psychiatric myth" which casts any person in a helping profession in the role of dream analyst and explorer of the dark unconscious. The writer sees counseling as the major pupil personnel service available on the school campus. Counseling should be concerned with helping the student replace maladaptive behaviors with adaptive ones. He feels the action-counselor must base his/her approach on learning principles. The author explores behavior-modification as a counseling technique in relation to student socio-economic and cultural levels, its empirical relation to learning principles, and compatibility with the educational setting. The writer further details the responsibility of the administrator in facilitating counseling success. "An Applied Systems Approach to Career Exploration" – The author here describes in detail a systems approach to a traditional counseling service: that of providing career guidance and information to the high school student. The writer, a practicing counselor, outlines some of the "pre-system" problems which must be overcome in instituting any guidance system which has the aura of social technology. The career-exploration service is integrated into four phases of personal exploration undergone by the student with the aid of the counseling department. The writer outlines how the system helps the student in: Phase 1: selection of a post-graduate goal. Phase 2: self-evaluation. Phase 3: study of career goal requirements. Phase 4: the projected high school program. The author discusses the benefits of the systems approach in terms of increased counselor effectiveness, possibly because of the altered counselor role; the involvement of the academic departments in the counseling function; and the possibility of providing more in-depth information to greater numbers of students. In addition, the writer's plan integrates the parent in the goal-setting and planning process. Many parents have felt isolated from the school environment in the post-Sputnik educational era. In the middle-sized suburban high school which serves as the case study, career planning is something the student, not the counselor, does. "Counseling Where It's At" The author-counselor underlines the necessity for a change in counselor "style"--both in personal presentation and availability. He then goes on to describe a variety of counseling programs whose keynote is authenticity. He describes the creation of "critical incidental” rap groups where real cops and real students are able to dialogue about student friction in the community; and members of the two generations can talk to one another across the "gap" with the aid of the counseling staff. The writer also describes a change in the structure of the counseling department's use of personnel. An intake process has been established which permits the counselee almost immediate contact with a counselor. This differential use of counselors is an attempt to meet each counselee's specific needs and expectancies of counseling by having an intake counselor screen the student's entering concern and then helping the counselee match his need with the appropriate counselor or intervention approach. "Counselor Power" In this article the writer details the establishment of a program using lay counselors--the high school students themselves--to provide information and referral services on campus. The writer describes the training given these students in detail and outlines some of the specific services, such as student-to-student help and information, the club can provide to the school and the community. In addition to some of the obvious benefits of such a service, the author also observes the "training-as- a-treatment mode" effect on members of the student club. Conclusion In conclusion, the writer, a counselor, sees authenticity, humanizing uses of social technology, and full use of the total school population in the counseling role as keynotes for the counseling profession in this decade.

In this study the writer is endeavoring to define, organize and present a comprehensive course of study in business law, in order to create a definite interest in the subject on the part of the student and to facilitate the task facing the teacher in his presentation of the course. The materials and suggestions in this study could be of interest to anyone who is concerned with the teaching of business law and who is interested in improving the high school course of business law.

The problem involves the following divisions: To build a course of study in shorthand with all the units developed To suggest means of evaluation of the course of study

When the time came to choose a thesis subject, I immediately said Objective Tests Applicable to Collateral Reading. Having been told "nothing has been done along that line - almost nothing at all," I decided to extend my investigations to include any and all tests in high-school literature - tests for comprehension and appreciation, survey and achievement tests, and tests designed for collateral reading. Each phase of the study has been interesting, but I fear that I have remained somewhat partial to the unit first begun and have perhaps given it a bit more consideration than the other divisions have received.

The problem is to determine which is more effective in teaching social science, the unit procedure or the traditional procedure, the assign-study-recite-test.

This study does not attempt to decide which is the better method of presenting grammar to the high school pupil; that is a question which would require much more extensive research to answer. We are interested primarily in determining and evaluating the success in college formal grammar of students who have had formal grammar in high school as compared with the success of those who have not had high school formal grammar. The study, therefore, is an attempt to show the differences existing in preparation for college formal grammar on the part of the students who have had high school formal grammar and those who have not.