<p> Over the past two decades public schools have faced an unrelenting demand for reform. In response to this call for change, researchers have identified two strategies that hold great promise &ndash; organizational mindfulness and teacher collaboration. Despite the volume of work that has focused on these areas, little has been done to investigate their overlap. This study discusses development of the Teacher Instructional Practice and Sentiments (TIPS), an 18-item survey to measure teacher practices and beliefs that reflect mindful collaboration for improving instruction. Teacher responses to the TIPS were gathered and analyzed from a representative statewide sample of elementary school teachers in Washington State. Findings examined survey items which were aligned to the five cognitive processes of HRO theory: preoccupation with failure, reluctance to simplify, sensitivity to operations, commitment to resilience, and deference to expertise. An exploratory factor analysis was complete using Principal Components Analysis with varimax rotation which revealed three factors underlying mindfulness in schools. The first factor, Mindful Focus on Students, includes items such as understanding a student&rsquo;s home situation, as well as making accommodations for struggling learners. The second factor, Mindful Focus on Relationships, deals with interactions between teachers, students, parents, and the community. Finally, Mindful Focus on Instruction includes &ldquo;checks for understanding&rdquo; and brainstorming with colleagues on strategies to get students to standard. As an alternative to forcing the current labels of HRO theory on education, consideration should be given to application of these school-specific categories. They simplify the process of evaluating mindfulness in schools, and simplify the variables requiring investigation. Use of the TIPS survey to understand the extent to which mindfulness and teacher collaboration are evident in schools is recommended.</p>

<p> Urban public education is currently being remade to reflect corporate values and management structures. Charter CMO&rsquo;s particularly are constructed by policy as the most viable solution for &ldquo;turning around failing schools.&rdquo; To date, there are few, if any, insider accounts from charter management-operated (CMO) schools in the research literature. This project brings critical practitioner inquiry into this under-explored space in order to better understand the ways teachers and staff within one specific CMO-operated charter elementary school resist the dehumanizing forces of whiteness and deficit notions of teaching, learning, students, as well as the communities in which they serve. Using critical organizational theory and collaborative inquiry, as well as a narrative inquiry methodology, this project looks at the experiences of teachers and staff members as they enacted the &ldquo;no excuses&rdquo; philosophy over the course of one school year. First, the no excuses philosophy and management practices of College Prep Elementary School (CPES) will be explored. This includes narratives from staff members as they interpret their experiences being trained in the no excuses philosophy and how their views changed throughout the year. Then, the emotional reactions of the teachers and staff members will be more thoroughly analyzed as important intersections of identity and politics. Next, I explore stories of institutional microaggression and deficit shared by Staff of Color to gain a better understanding of the ways whiteness exists in schools. Finally, the inquiry group theorizes culturally competent school leadership, arriving at three main themes all resonating with the ethic of care: care for students, care for families and community, and care for teachers. In the final chapter, implications for policy and practice are shared, as well as the limitations of this study.</p>

<p> The United States is losing millions of students from its educational systems each year, leading researchers to exclaim that reducing the dropout rate is the top priority for educators throughout the country. As educators wrestle with the charge to educate and prepare every child to be successful in a global society, they seek answers about those students who are faced with serious adverse conditions leaving them statistically at risk of failure. While the national statistics for high school dropouts are high and deserve much concern, there are many students who are conquering the challenges that have caused many to drop out, and instead, are succeeding in their educational endeavors. The intent of this study is to share with professionals in the educational community effective strategies that will foster resiliency, grit, and growth mindsets in at-risk students. This study uses research and real life experiences of at-risk students succeeding in school to provide effective strategies for fostering resilience with students in danger of failing school. </p><p> This mixed-methods study identified effective strategies and programs that fostered resiliency in at-risk students who were academically successful in high school. The qualitative and quantitative data indicated that schools can become havens for implementing strategies and programs that will support at-risk students to overcome the adverse conditions that they experience. The study identified protective factors that are both external and internal to the individual at-risk student, and when fostered, lead to academic success. The four major themes that emerged as critical to the development of resilience, grit, and growth mindsets in at-risk students are involvement, high expectations, positive reinforcement, and fortitude. When these critical components are effectively nurtured, at-risk students have shown to overcome the challenges they face, and attain academic achievement.</p>

<p> This hermeneutic phenomenological study sought to investigate the nature of graduate experience of Kenyan international students in the Twin Cities area in Minnesota. International students seek high education in the United States for various reasons including; access to quality education, research infrastructure, employment, prestige, and exposure. A review of literature showed that Kenyan students while appreciative of the opportunity to study in the US face challenges not limited to; cultural conflicts, discrimination, emotional stress, and financial difficulties. A purposeful sample was employed to collected data from 21 participants using interviews and focus groups. </p><p> From the data analysis five themes emerged, namely; (a) Positive educational experience reinforced by enabling environment, (b) Graduate experience enhanced by favorable opportunities, (c) Hardships and struggles impede graduate experience, (d) Strong social relationships foster academic performance, and (e) Nurturing resiliency and discipline for educational success. The findings suggested that despite the many challenges, availability of strong supportive relationships and abundance of university resources significantly influence the transformative graduate experience for Kenyan students in the United States. Moreover, the findings raised awareness and demonstrated the need for stakeholders such as: educators, faculty members, counselors, recruiters, and university administrators to address the unique needs of Kenyan students, and other subgroups of international students, in the U.S. higher education system.</p>

<p> This study examined leaders&rsquo; roles in fostering collective genius innovation within one private elementary school, including managing the paradoxes of innovation. Based on content analysis of eleven participants, this study found that teamwork, clear student learning outcomes emphasizing individualized learning, design thinking, and a growth mindset, all impacted willingness to innovate. To develop conditions for collective genius, leaders again focus on teamwork as well as being relational. In terms of their management of the six innovative paradoxes, the school leaders tend to balance their affirmation of the individual and the group, support staff and parents, focus on experimentation and learning, improvisation, patience, and bottom-up initiatives. </p>

<p> Despite the expressed need for bicultural teachers, research on teacher attrition has demonstrated that a growing number of bicultural educators are leaving the classroom. Bicultural male teachers, in particular, experience high rates of teacher attrition. Schools, unfortunately, are contexts in which Latino male teachers are constantly experiencing dilemmas related specifically to both their gendered and racialized positionality as males of color.</p><p> Grounded in Antonia Darder&rsquo;s critical bicultural framework, this autoethnographic study explored the complex factors that drive Latino male teachers out of the classroom, through an in-depth and grounded examination of a Latino male teacher who left the classroom. The study contributes to the conversation on bicultural teacher attrition, gendered relations, and their relationship to both teacher preparation and the education of bicultural students.</p><p> Furthermore, the study explored how racism, sexism, classism, trauma, and heteronormativity mitigate the experiences of Latino male teachers, and how these manifest themselves through the hidden curriculum, asymmetrical relations of power, gendered essentialism, policing of behavior, the culture of silence, conditions of isolation, and disabling cultural response patterns. The implications of such factors in the life of one Latino male teacher are carefully analyzed and discussed, in an effort to consider their significance in rethinking teacher preparation programs, with respect to the needs of Latino males. Moreover, the study offers an engagement with critical autoethnography as a significant tool of reflection in the educational process and emancipatory process of bicultural teachers.</p>

<p> Experiential learning theory, student driven learning methods, and brain research related to learning and memory support the use of experientially based learning activities in a traditional classroom. It is the author&rsquo;s opinion, however, that teachers rarely make use of such activities, termed Learning Games in this paper, as a means to help students learn, retain, and recall material presented in the classroom. Reasons include a lack of training and a perceived limit of time for the inclusion of experientially based teaching techniques. Others argue that experiential learning resembles unguided learning and places undue demands on student working memory that can hinder effective learning. This paper presents support for the use of Learning Games, activities developed by the author based on research and the value of &lsquo;fun&rsquo;, &lsquo;play&rsquo;, and &lsquo;games&rsquo;, to enhance the learning process. Significance of the study is to increase the acceptance of experiential learning in a traditional classroom, to dispel preconceived notions, and to expand on a teacher&rsquo;s diversity of teaching techniques to offer more opportunities for student learning. A mixed methods research design is used to evaluate student preference to experiential learning pedagogy to that of traditional classroom instruction. The results showed no significant difference in student preference between experiential and traditional pedagogy. Possible reasons include factors related to the school&rsquo;s culture and traditions, student demographics, teacher inexperience, and classroom environment. Heuristic inquiry reveals the researcher&rsquo;s teaching philosophy and methods incongruent to the research setting.</p>

<p> In this era of educational accountability, educators, parents, and patrons are interested in finding the most efficient and effective route toward increasing student achievement. Research has shown a highly effective teacher in the classroom as the central component on this path to improved student learning. As school districts restructure their hiring practices to ask teachers to join the principal in selecting the best teacher candidate to hire, new questions arise as to their role on the hiring team. This qualitative research study used an online survey to gather 146 elementary teachers&rsquo; perspectives from both a large and small school district in the Pacific Northwest. The study also included four consecutive focus groups, one group consisting of three elementary teachers from the small school district and three groups consisting of a total of 10 elementary teachers from the larger school district, to dig deeper into the practice of distributed leadership as it pertains to the hiring process. This study is based on the theoretical framework of distributed leadership and an extensive study of distributed leadership as a practice of educational reform. It contributes to literature regarding teachers&rsquo; perspectives pertaining to their experience and role in the hiring process using a distributed leadership practice in selection of a high quality teacher. The results of this study extend previous findings regarding the degree in which teachers and administrators are involved in the hiring process, and the findings of former studies indicating the relationship between school-based hiring and an effective teacher selection. The outcomes of this study explore teachers&rsquo; views as to their role on a hiring team. Additionally, findings offer principals and district hiring personnel insight into elementary teachers&rsquo; experiences as a part of the hiring team and explore teachers&rsquo; perceptions regarding the practice of distributed leadership in hiring a quality teacher. </p>

<p> Beginning teacher attrition is a problem that exacerbates the inequity of opportunities for all students, especially for those in schools that are already challenged by poverty. This study makes use of the <i>Beginning Teacher Longitudinal Survey</i> (covering the period between 2008 and 2012) and U.S. Census data to identify which teachers leave and to explain why. Beyond that, it also offers a look into the characteristics of those teachers who stay at the same school for five years. The empirical investigation is embedded in a conceptual framework that draws from motivation and identity theories and brings in insights about the importance of geography and of neighborhood effects from works on poverty and education.</p><p> The study utilizes a dataset with survey responses from approximately 1,800 full-time teachers from a sample designed to represent the overall population of beginning teachers in the United States. By combining individual-level longitudinal data with information about communities, it makes an important contribution to the study of new teacher placement, attrition, and retention. The evidence is presented using a variety of descriptive and inferential statistics, and the analysis includes factor analysis and logistic regression models. </p><p> The results show that indicators of leaving the profession before the fifth year become apparent early on, as factors measured at the end of year one have significant effects on early career outcomes. Most prominently, higher degrees of burnout reported by teachers, which includes factors such as decreased enthusiasm and increased fatigue, are associated with increased risks for leaving the profession without the prospect to return to it and with transferring to a different school district. Several other factors on the individual and school-level emerge as relevant to career outcomes. Teachers who have Highly Qualified Teacher credentials and report a supportive school climate are at less risk to leave the profession. On the other hand, teachers with alternative certification and master&rsquo;s degrees are more likely to move to a different school or districts in the first five years.</p><p> In terms of socio-geographic factors that help explain teacher retention and attrition, the only significant variable in the regression models used in the analysis is the percentage of White residents at the Census tract of the Year 1 school. When everything else is held constant, decreasing this percentage from 100 to 0 increases the predicted probability of leaving the profession by approximately 20%. Considering that a vast majority of beginning teachers both in the sample and in the overall population are White, this findings fits in with theories about &ldquo;the pull of home&rdquo; and cultural habitus. The magnitude and significance of this finding suggest that it warrants further exploration, as racial composition of the communities is likely a measurement proxy for complex processes of inequality.</p>

<p> The purpose of this quantitative study was to compare the perception of teacher self-efficacy of traditionally and alternatively certified teachers in a suburban school district with a graduation rate of 99%. A school district with a graduation rate of 99% is worthy of further study to see if there is a statistical difference in the self-efficacy of its professional staff who are traditionally and alternatively certified. Through a study on licensure and worker quality comparing alternative routes to traditional teacher routes, alternatively certified teachers have stronger pre-service qualifications than do traditionally prepared teachers with the least restrictive alternative pathway attracting the most qualified teachers (Sass, 2014). Teacher quality and effectiveness have been studied to determine their relationship to and impact on student achievement. The researcher surveyed 82 teachers who were certified through traditional teacher preparation programs and through alternative preparation programs. The results of the this study did not show a significant difference in the teacher self-efficacy of traditionally and alternatively certified teachers nor did it show a statistical difference in the Teacher Self-Efficacy Scale (TSES) score of those with three or more years of experience and who had previous work experience with children and adolescents. The researcher used two surveys to gather data&mdash;a demographic survey created by Thompson (2003) and the TSES, a Likert-type scale, created by Schwarzer, Schmidtz, and Daytner in 1999. The TSES identifies jobs skills and groups in four major areas: (a) job accomplishment, (b) skill development on the job, (c) social interaction with students, parents, and colleagues, and (d) coping with job stress (Schwarzer, 1998; Schwarzer et al., 1999).</p><p> Keywords: self-efficacy, traditionally certified, alternatively certified. </p>