Public schools are in crisis, as educators and legislators seek to provide high quality education to diverse students in a measurement-driven environment. The public educator's moral imperative is to assure that all children are literate when they leave school so they can thrive in our democracy (Dewey, 1944; Freire, 1998a; Giroux & Giroux, 2004). Yet, the achievement gap persists, as poor African-American and Latino students under-perform as compared to white middle-class students (Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995). Additionally, public school teachers are predominately middle-class and White, while they teach increasingly diverse children of poverty. In legislation, student assessment, teacher licensure, and research-based curricula have taken center stage. Teacher evaluation is noticeably absent (Danielson, 2002; Iwanicki, 1990; No Child Left Behind Act, 2002). Teacher evaluation is static and mired in politics; it has not historically helped improve school (Peterson, 2000). Investigating teacher evaluation's potential as an overlooked tool to improve teaching for all teachers and students in public school is urgent in this climate. As Stronge and Tucker (2003) asserted, "Without capable, highly qualified teachers in America's classrooms, no educational reform process can possibly succeed" (p. 3). This problem-based learning dissertation addresses a real problem in practice: how to make teacher evaluation meaningful for high-performing teachers. This study explores Wood's (1998) call for a move from traditional to transformative evaluation. Ten high performing teachers field-tested a self-evaluation handbook. They explored study options designed to help them critically reflect on their own teaching, connect with students, reflect, and set new goals. This work shows promise to help teachers and students engage in a more democratic, caring and loving public place we call school. This work is timely. After all, "When all is said and done, what matters most for students' learning are the commitments and capacities of their teachers" (Darling-Hammond, 1997, p. 293).

Communication deficiencies within interdisciplinary teams are known to reduce the effectiveness of those teams by causing erroneous behaviors (Alvarez & Coiera, 2006; Reader, Flin, & Cuthbertson, 2007). Also, many design defects have been attributed to communication breakdowns across disciplines (Chen & Lin, 2004). As the number of interdisciplinary teams in industry grows in order to adapt to dynamic business environments of the twenty-first century, providing an appropriate environment to improve interdisciplinary team effectiveness is critical for many organizations. In spite of its importance, little is known about what kind of environments support interdisciplinary team interactions. There were three objectives of this dissertation: 1) to investigate the influence of physical environment on the effectiveness of interdisciplinary engineering design teams, 2) to investigate the influence of interaction strategy design support on the effectiveness of interdisciplinary engineering design teams, 3) to construct behavioral indicators of successful interdisciplinary teamwork to design testing and design guidelines for interdisciplinary team collaboration spaces. To achieve these goals, the study was conducted in two phases. In Phase 1, the researcher conducted a direct observation of industry teams operating in the novel design space, the Kiva, at a design-consulting firm based in Pittsburgh, PA. The observation data provided 1) a list of significant participant behaviors to be examined and 2) interaction strategy design support (ISDS) procedures to be used during phase 2. Phase 2 was a laboratory-based 2x2 experimental study with physical room condition (Kiva vs. conference room) and interaction strategy design support (present vs. absent) as independent variables. The dependent variables were categorized as team process and output that measured team effectiveness. Overall, a significant interaction effect between the physical conditions and interaction strategy design support was found from all dependent measurements except for product evaluation. A significant main effect of physical conditions and interaction strategy support were found to a lesser extent. Based on the findings, testing methodology guidelines and design guidelines were developed. / Ph. D.

Tornadoes are one of the most frequent and destructive disasters in the United States. Like other environmental calamities, tornadoes too act as push factors for migration. The objectives of this study are to define tornado hot spots in the US, to analyze migration effectiveness in the tornado hot spots and non-hot spots, and to explore how tornado and other socio-economic factors influence migration decision. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were used. Internal revenue service migration data, SPC tornado data, and Census Bureau data were used in the study. The results indicate that there are significant differences between migration patterns in the tornado hot spots and rest of the country: tornado hot spots are losing population to other regions. The results also indicated that along with the traditional socio-economic push and pull factors of migration, tornado occurrences also influenced people’s migration decision in the United States.

The demand for Community College Baccalaureate (CCB) degrees is rising due to increasing costs of educational obtainment resulting in decreased access. Also, universities are not always accessible geographically or academically to many students. Many students are limited in time and financial resources, and have family and job responsibilities, limiting their ability to relocate to a university. The focus of this study was to explore the perceptions of students regarding the need for the CCB, the effectiveness of the CCB, reasons why students would choose the CCB, and the fields of CCB degrees students would choose. Specifically, this study compared the results among student survey respondents based on their primary campus attended, age, gender, race/ethnicity, number of dependents, and employment status as well as their need for the CCB. All full-time and part-time students from a rural community college in Northeast Mississippi were asked to participate in the survey. Approximately 30% of respondents indicated that their only realistic option to obtain a bachelor’s degree would be through their local community college. A majority of respondents perceived the CCB to be effective. And, respondents indicated that the factors that influenced their choice of the CCB were cost, location, work responsibilities, family responsibilities, admiration for current school, and familiarity for current school. The specific degree fields that respondents indicated they would choose if they were to obtain a CCB, from greatest interest to least, were: health professions, business, education, public administration/social work, “other”, liberal arts and sciences, and psychology. When testing the differences in perception of effectiveness of the CCB between demographic groups, the CCB was perceived to be more effective by respondents who were older, had 1 dependent or 5 or more dependents, and who saw the CCB as their only option. When testing the differences in perceptions of reasons to choose the CCB, respondents who were older indicated more reasons for choosing the CCB.

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In IT Security world, there is lack of available, reliable systems for measuring securitylevels/posture. They lack the range of quantitative measurements and easy and fast deployment,and potentially affects companies of all sizes.Readily available security standards provide qualitative security levels, but not quantitative results– that would be easily comparable. This deficiency makes it hard for companies to evaluate theirsecurity posture accurately. Absence of security metrics makes it complicated for customers toselect the appropriate measures for particular security level needed.The research question for this research project is – “How is it possible to calculate IT securityeffectiveness?”.The aim of this research is to use this reference model to calculate and to optimize majoruniversity’s and a small CSP-s (Cloud Service Provider) security posture and their spending’s onsecurity measures. Aim is to develop a reference model to support IT Security team and businessside to make reasoned and optimal decisions about IT security and all that with a reasonablenumber of manhours.In this Graded Security Expert System (GSES) aka Graded Security Reference Model (GSRM) thequantitative metrics of the graded security approach are used to express the relations betweensecurity goals, security confidence and security costs.What makes this model unique, is the option to use previous customers security templates/models– cutting the implementation time from 500+ manhours to as low as 50 manhours. The firstcustomers 500+ manhours will also be cut down to 50+ manhours on the second yearimplementing the expert system.The Graded Security Reference Model (GSRM) was developed using a combination oftheoretical method and design science research. The model is based on InfoSec (info security)activities and InfoSec spendings from previous year – cost and effectiveness – gathered fromexpert opinionsBy implementing GSRM, user can gather quantitative security levels as no other model, or astandard provides those.GSRM delivers very detailed and accurate (according to university’s IT Security Team)effectiveness levels per spendings brackets.GSRM was created as a graded security reference model on CoCoViLa platform, which is unique asit provides quantitative results corresponding to company’s security posture.Freely available models and standards either provide vague quantitative security postureinformation or are extremely complicated to use – BIS/ISKE (not supported any more).This Graded Security Reference Model has turned theories presented in literature review into afunctional, graphical model.The GSRM was used with detailed data from the 15+k users university and their IT security team(all members have 10+ years of IT security experience) concluded that the model is reasonablysimple to implement/modify, and results are precise and easily understandable. It was alsoobserved that the business side had no problems understanding the results and very fewexplanatory remarks were needed.

Adverse events and medical errors plague the healthcare system. Hospital acquired infections and teamwork are some of the biggest contributor to these adverse outcomes. In an effort to mitigate these problems, administrators and clinicians alike have developed mechanisms, such as telemedicine. However, little research has been conducted investigating the role of telemedicine on teamwork -- a fundamental component of quality patient care. The purpose of this study is to gain a better understanding of the impact of telemedicine on teamwork behaviors and subsequent teamwork attitudes and cognitions during a common medical task, rounds within the Trauma-Intensive Care Unit. To this end, rounds were conducted with and without telemedicine. During this 60 day period, 16 clinicians completed three surveys and 34 rounds were video recorded. The results of this study suggest that the relationships between teamwork attitudes, behaviors, cognitions, and outcomes are differential impacted under conditions with and without telemedicine. More specifically, telemedicine is associated with an increase in attendance and communication density. Meanwhile, it does not significantly impact teamwork attitudes or cognitions. The primary implications of these findings indicate that telemedicine is not the solution for improving all teamwork elements but yet it is not a complete detriment either

Federal, state, and local government agencies are promoting merit pay systems that are tied to student achievement. The main problem facing governments, school districts, and educators is that money is hard to come by in the current market and choosing where to spend merit pay monies to receive a maximum rate of return on the investment realized in increased student achievement is difficult to determine. This study did explore the student achievement results of third, fourth, and fifth grade state certified, graduate degreed, and National Board Certified teachers in Brevard and Seminole County Public Schools as compared to those of other teachers within and across these schools. The goal of this study was to determine the effectiveness of state certified, graduate degreed, and National Board Certified teachers. For this study teacher effectiveness was defined by their students' Lexile Framework for Reading scores from the 2008-2009 school year. The hypothesis is that the Lexile Framework for Reading data demonstrated that there was a statistically significant difference between the learning gains of the students between groups. Overall, the findings indicate that there was a statistically significant difference between the learning gains of the students between groups; however, that change could not be attributed to the factor of teacher category. Specific teacher education levels or certifications did not make any difference in the learning gains as measured by the Scholastic Reading Inventory (SRI), among 3rd, 4th, or 5th grade students in Brevard or Seminole County Public Schools.