The Nigerian educational system is humanistic, nationally centered and open to all cultural, ethnic and tribal influences. The policy of Nigeria is to realize mass and practical education. However, the present system is highly selective and academically oriented. This study is done while education in Nigeria is in a period of revolution. Radical changes have been taken to keep up the national demand for progress and power. Dyslexia, one of the leading causes of reading difficulties, is a term still unknown to some educators in Nigerian schools. This stems mainly from the fact that Nigerian public schools lack sufficient personnels trained in the area of Special Education in general and Remedial Reading in particular.

The purpose of this qualitative study was to learn more about leadership from the perspectives, norms, and values of a selected group of African American women leaders. I sought to develop a more inclusive view of the realities of leadership, and a better understanding of the impact of the interlocking status of race, gender, and social class on the practice, pursuit, and perceptions of leadership by these women. This study is grounded in a Black women's standpoint, and places Black women's experiences at the center of analysis. In answer to the question "How do we know the world?," the standpoint suggests that Black women know the world as survivors and not as victims, as mothers, and as "other mothers." In answer to the question "What is the nature of reality?," Black women's standpoint embraces a reality that is defined by complexity and contradiction, by an acknowledgment that racism is a constant that must not become an excuse for giving in or giving up: that reality is self, internally defined. In answer to the question "How do Black women gain knowledge about the world?," the standpoint suggests that knowledge is gained through real life experience, by paying attention to the past and to the present, to the margins and to the center, to the pieces and to the whole, and by listening and responding to our own and each other's authentic voices (Collins, 1990). Of the seven women selected for the study, four are positional leaders: a high school principal, a senior level community college administrator, a state legislator, and the executive director of a large philanthropic foundation. Also participating were three non-positional leaders who work within their communities in different roles described in the study. I interviewed each respondent using a modified open interview schedule. Interviews lasted between one-and-a-half and three-and-a-half hours. Common themes emerging from the interviews included: (a) development of psychological and emotional resilience, (b) experiences of racism and sexism, (c) cultivation of a spiritual or religious life, (d) construction of a positive sense of self, and (e) a construct of connected leadership.

The P.S.U. Educational Center is an attempt to facilitate the access of Portland's inner city residents to higher education. It is an attempt to overcome the bitterness, defeatism and mistrust that many of these people feel toward education. In its four year history the Center has grown rapidly. The number of people served by the Center per term has risen from 15 in 1969 to 1,300 in 1972. Course offerings have increased from 5 to nearly 30. The Center offers both college credit and other types of courses at nominal fees. An evaluation of the Center--based in part on a student survey conducted in January, 1972--indicates that while the Center has been 2 substantially effective in meeting its objectives it is also reaching a large number of people with advanced educational and occupational achievements than would normally be expected. But this is not an overwhelming trend. The Center is also reaching those of poverty backgrounds and limited education. Racially, the Center serves all ethnic groups. The actual count of students responding to an ethnic identification item on a questionnaire distributed during winter term, 1972 are: American Indian, 2, Oriental, 5, Negro/Black American, 146, Spanish Surnamed, 1, Caucasian, 87. The majority of those registering at the Center do so for the purpose of earning college credit. In conclusion this thesis makes recommendations for the additional funding of the Center, for changes in the policy of the State Board of Higher Education that would allow for the provision of salaried teaching personnel from the various departments within the University, for the commitment of such personnel to the Center, for larger and more adequate physical facilities for the Center, for the elimination of the G.E.D. program, for the stabilization of the fee arrangement, for a survey to determine if the center is doing its best to reach the people who could most benefit from its services, for the granting of legitimate status to the Ed Center, and for the institution by the Admissions office of P.S.U. of an active program to recruit students from the Center to the main campus of the University.

The purpose of this descriptive study was to determine the accuracy and practicality of May's Poor Reader (PR) scoring system for the informal reading inventory (IRI), an individual assessment device designed to determine a student's instructional reading level. The PR is a qualitative scoring system developed by Frank May that examines only two miscues (defaults and meaning-denigrating substitutions) in arriving at an estimate of instructional reading level. The predictor variable, PR, was compared for accuracy and practicality with five other predictor variables consisting of four traditional quantitative scoring systems and an additional qualitative system of May's; PR was also compared with four criterion variables: (a) a scoring system created by Frank May on the basis of research concerning miscues and informal reading inventories, a system that requires the use of a context scale and a graphophonic scale, (b) the judgments of tape recordings made by an experienced and knowledgeable reading coordinator, (c) the judgments of ten reading teachers of the students under their tutelage, (d) and a silent reading score on Form B of the same IRI. The comparisons were made through the use of Chi square tests of significance in which each of the six predictor variables was compared with each of the four criterion variables as to accuracy of agreement with the criterion variables. Examination of the results showed that there were no significant differences between the instructional estimates made by the PR scoring system and two of the four criterion variables, the research based scoring system and the experienced reading coordinator. This was also true for May's third qualitative scoring system called the CGQ. All other differences in the estimates of instructional level were highly significant--with the four traditional predictor variables and with two of the four criterion variables (p < .01). The main implications drawn from this study were: (1) Classroom teachers and reading teachers may wish to make use of May's PR scoring system for the IRI as a quick and qualitative way of estimating students' instructional reading level. (2) Since the PR scoring system met the criteria established for a qualitative IRI scoring system, researchers may wish to use this system in studies of informal reading inventories.

Middle school literature advocates interdisciplinary team organization as a structure that enhances student learning and teacher satisfaction. In an interdisciplinary team, teachers responsible for different content areas collaboratively plan the instructional program for a shared group of students. Yet, fewer than fifty percent of the nation's middle schools use an interdisciplinary team structure, and research indicates that teams are fragile and temporary. Few studies were found that described interdisciplinary team organization at the team or individual teacher level. The purpose of this case study is to describe the structure, dynamics, and outcomes of interdisciplinary teams of teachers in middle schools. The collection, analysis, and evaluation of data focused on four areas: (a) team structure including goals, roles, and leadership; (b) team dynamics ("teamness"), including collaboration, cohesion, and communication; (C) teacher affective outcomes of satisfaction, efficacy, and stress; and (d) teacher behavioral outcomes of curriculum and instruction and counseling and discipline. The researcher collected data from five sources of evidence including documents, structured interviews, key informant interviews, direct observation, and questionnaires. Two middle schools that were implementing interdisciplinary team organization for the first year were selected for the study. Their differences in demographics, teaming structure, and district/school history allowed for a basis of comparison and contrast. The data were organized and presented in four case studies of interdisciplinary teams and two cross-case analyses, providing a descriptive account of the experiences of teachers involved in an interdisciplinary team structure. The results of the study indicated that: Structural variables affected team planning. The level of teacher collaboration on teams was a developmental process. Teachers derived professional benefits and personal satisfaction from teaming and experienced a reduction of stress. Barriers of time and training impeded team effectiveness in the area of developing and implementing interdisciplinary curriculum. Further research on effective team practices is warranted, particularly on the effects of group process training and the developmental nature of team collaboration. In addition, further research is recommended on the effects of an interdisciplinary team structure on student learning outcomes and on teachers' day-to-day instructional practices in the classroom.

This document has been written to serve two distinct but related purposes. First, it is an attempt to describe a set of educational experiences which will be developed by a consortium of county-wide agencies to meet the existing as well as the emerging needs of learners in Rockland County, New York. To this end, a theoretical operational construct is explicated and the implementation strategies and tactics which are felt to insure a high degree of success for the program relative to realities extant in Rockland County are outlined. Second, an extended rationale reflecting the status of the American society, the value systems operating within that society, the history and current condition of the United States educational institution, and a preview of what the future needs of the United States may be, have been addressed and documented so that the system of alternative education suggested by the design of the consortium can be seen in its widest context. Without detailing the particular design outlined within the dissertation it should be noted that educational policy of the future must place the role of education within the broad context of societal goals. This demands a structure which encourages a unified approach that utilizes the expertise and the commitment of all people living in the society. To this end, a process has been established to aid a community design and implement a system of education which will be responsive to their ideals and their desires. The first step is to have the neighborhood, the city, the county, or whatever group is being involved in the project, to fully analyze their problems. They must then develop a set of approaches, priorities and goals that constitute their responses to local conditions. Finally, the concerned citizens must create an administrative structure that will pull together the various elements in the society to attack problems in their full breadth. Naturally, cooperation among all the society's institutions is needed to solve basic problems. The schools must learn to work not only with other elements of local government, but also with the larger community in order to enhance their key role.

College students are faced with stressors which can negatively impact memory function, thereby, negatively affecting academic performance. This study used a field experiment design to investigate the effects of brief mindfulness on levels of distress and memory functioning between first-year community college students engaging in a brief mindfulness intervention (n = 29) and a control group (n = 28) by using ANCOVA, MANOVA, correlations, and descriptive statistics. Research questions examined whether a brief mindfulness intervention lowered levels of distress in a treatment group. Second, the study examined whether the intervention of brief mindfulness in a treatment group improved memory function. Finally, the findings of this study answered if changes in levels of distress mediated the effects of exposure to mindfulness on memory function. Using the Brief Symptom Inventory, changes pre to postintervention levels of distress were examined. Distress levels decreased in treatment and control groups following 15 minutes of relaxation (MBSR and unstructured). Differences in memory function were examined using the WMS-IV. Positive correlations between the ability to recall visual and verbal materials on a delay in both groups were found. The findings of this study contributed to positive social change by emphasizing the high levels of distress community college students experience. These findings support the importance of implementing brief stress reduction opportunities in a classroom setting, whether structured stress reduction, such as mindfulness based stress reduction (MBSR), or unstructured relaxation-time, as a supportive measure to encourage healthy coping skills in handling stress, thereby improving memory and the projection of improving physical and mental well-being, as well as, educational outcomes.

Low health literacy (LHL)--when patients do not understand their treatment or medications--has been linked to poor healthcare outcomes. Nurses need to know how to assess health literacy (HL) and teach pediatric patients and their families to help ensure that patients and family members can understand and follow health education messages. Evidence-based HL tools were obtained from a literature search and used to create a nursing staff education program on pediatric patient HL assessment and education. The project answered the practice-focused question that asked whether a staff education program on HL assessment and management would improve nursing knowledge of HL for pediatric patients and families. Piaget's theory was used to guide the development of the education program on age-specific literacy needs; Kotter's theory of change was used to inform the plan for using HL assessment, which was presented to 34 participants in the local practice setting. Participants were randomly chosen from local professionals in nursing education and participation was voluntary. A panel of 3 experts, including a nurse expert on HL, reviewed and approved the education program, quiz questions, and participant survey. Pretest results (N = 32) showed a mean score of 6.53, and the posttest mean score was 7.66. Results of the paired t test showed significant improvement (t = -4.378, p = .000) in participant knowledge of HL after the education program. The project findings can promote positive social change through improvement in nurses' knowledge about HL and health outcomes for pediatric patients.

Educators in a rural charter middle school in the United States were challenged with the reliable assessment of student thinking skills even though the development of higher order thinking was an espoused goal for the school. The purpose of this study was to validate a new rubric based on Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy (BRT) to reliably assess student levels of thinking as reflected in the students’ written work. A quantitative, nonexperimental design was used. The focus of the research questions was on the BRT rubric’s reliability and validity. Interrater reliability was assessed using Krippendorff’s alpha. Validity was explored by assessing the relationship between the BRT scores collected in this study to the original teacher scores of students’ archived writing samples. Reliable, unrelated scores would have suggested that the two processes were scoring different constructs. The convenience sample of 8 volunteer teachers scored papers using the new BRT rubric. Each teacher scored 52 writing samples, 2 each from 26 students in the 7th grade. The Spearman correlation coefficient between the BRT and original teachers’ scores was not statistically significant. The teachers’ original scores could not validate the BRT as a measuring tool. Also BRT measure failed to demonstrate evidence of reliability (Krippendorf’s α = .05). A position paper was created to present the results of this study and to explore possibilities for improving the assessment of thinking. Positive social change may be encouraged by the use of a reliable and valid scoring process to quantify levels of thinking. A reliable scoring process for levels of thinking could lead to more balanced curricula, instruction, and assessment ultimately providing a base for customized student learning experiences.

An Evaluation of Math Assessment Policy Process in a Southwestern School District by Alicia Taber O'Brien EdS, Walden University, 2011 MA, Western Governors University, 2004 BS, New Mexico State University, 1994 Doctoral Study Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Education Teacher Leadership Walden University September 2015 This project study addressed the lack of evaluation of a math assessment policy in a rural elementary school district in the southwestern United States. This district implemented a math assessment policy in the spring of 2005, yet no evaluation had been conducted to determine whether the policy and its continued implementation were meeting the intended outcomes. Two conceptual frameworks that drove the study were Sabatier's theories of policy process and Bardach's eightfold path to policy analysis. Using interviews of the district's 3 K-12 math teachers and 5 administrators who had proximity to the math assessment policy, this case study explored how the math assessment policy was implemented, as well as whether the policy had met the goals it was originally created to address. Data were deconstructed by coding and then reconstructed in order to create a thick description of the findings. A review of local media documents was also used to illustrate the community's response and reaction to the local district's assessment policies. The 5 themes that developed from analysis of the interview data focused on uncertainty in the ranks, sharing power, collaborating among the mathematics disciplines, policy evolution, and policy outcomes. The results presented in the evaluation report showed that administrators believed the policy was achieving its goals but teachers did not. The evaluation included an executive summary with recommendations to facilitate better communication about the policy throughout the district. Positive social change implications resulting from the evaluation of the math assessment policy include changing the decision-making process at the local district from a top-down model to include more input from practitioners in order to create policies that maximize student success and teacher support.