Since 2007, many U.S. music education programs have been negatively affected by budget reductions at the local, state, and national levels. Although researchers have studied the effect of budget reductions on music education, they have not widely examined the perspectives of teachers who have experienced these reductions. The purpose of this study was to explore elementary music teachers' personal and professional experiences with budget reductions, and the perceptions of how their programs, students, schools, and communities have been affected by the budget reductions. The philosophies of Kodaly and Richards served as a conceptual framework for this qualitative case study. The primary research questions asked participants about their experiences with and perceptions of the effect of budget reductions on music programs at their schools and on their students. Interviews were conducted with 9 elementary music teachers. Data were analyzed using pattern coding to identify key themes. The 6 key themes identified were love for music and teaching music; pride in music programs and curricula; belief in the benefits of music education for all students, especially for low income students; senses of loss; adaptation and coping with loss; and sense of the future. Based on the findings, a professional development program was developed to assist music teachers to learn strategies to support music programs and become effective music education advocates. This project study may foster positive social change by encouraging teachers to collaboratively advocate for music education in communities and devise strategies that will allow for the sharing of scarce resources.

This program evaluation study addressed a critical deficiency in early childhood math proficiency for a local urban school district. To strengthen students' skills in mathematics, the district adopted the Common Core State Standards and piloted an inquiry-based instructional program called My Math. The purpose of this project study was to determine the extent to which My Math met the goals of improving Grades K-2 students' math proficiency. The conceptual framework was based on theories of multiple intelligences, social learning, and foundations of social development. The National Program Evaluation Standards were used to guide the program evaluation. The research questions centered on the implementation of My Math in terms of usability, lesson coherence, support provided by program materials and effectiveness of materials in enhancing students' mathematical processes based on teachers' perspectives. Data were collected from 57 teachers who completed an electronic survey and from 6 teachers who participated in focus groups and interviews. Survey data were descriptively analyzed and interview and focus group data were coded for development of common themes. Teacher participants reported gains in students' mathematical processes after using the My Math program. The program evaluation report reflected support for My Math as an effective instructional program for Grades K-2 along with recommendations for supplementation of the program with additional resources to address individual needs among students. Positive social change at the local level includes enhancing students' learning and achievement in mathematics, and assisting other districts in understanding the benefits of the My Math program on student achievement for early childhood students.

Dynamics between student teacher ethnicity and the practices of culturally plural curricula seeks to improve student performance and strives to minimize the achievement gap. This quantitative study explored whether there was a significant difference in the North Carolina Final Exam history-social science test performance between (a) African American and Hispanic students taught by a teacher from a different ethnic makeup and (b) African American and Hispanic students taught by a teacher from a similar ethnic makeup in 8th grade of social science classes. Student's performance is a key factor in evaluating the credibility of a school which is crucial to all stakeholders. The theoretical framework for this study centered around Tillmans' theory of culturally sensitive education which focused on variations of academic achievement based on student's engagements with teachers who share their cultural background or teachers who teach curricula that reflects their own cultures. Data were collected from a purposeful sampling of depersonalized archival records of 2,000 8th grade African American and Hispanic students who took the North Carolina Final Exam for Social Sciences. Data were analyzed using causal-comparative approach and focused on the fixed factor of race with 3 covariates and teacher race as the dependent variable. Results indicated that there was a significant difference in the students performance depending on the ethnicity of their teacher. Students with a teacher of their ethnic background, performed better compared to having a teacher from a different ethnic background. This study contributes to social change through the understanding of how teacher diversity and the need for relational teaching can promote greater academic achievement within their classrooms.

There is a growing population of English language learners (ELLs) in elementary schools across the United States, and a current academic achievement gap between ELLs and non-ELLs. Researchers have found that integration of Web 2.0 tools has benefitted ELLs in language learning settings, outside of the general classroom. The research problem addressed in this study, based on TPACK, explored general education teachers' experiences with integrating Web 2.0 technology to support academic language acquisition by ELLs and revealed the successes and challenges the teachers encountered. The 6 female participants in this qualitative interview study were required to have experience (a) as a general education classroom teacher for at least 1 year (b) using Web 2.0 technologies in the classroom to support ELLs, and (c) teaching ELLs within the elementary classroom environment. Qualitative analysis of transcripts from 1-on-1 interviews involved a coding and recoding process, revealed that the teachers saw Web 2.0 technologies as effective in supporting student learning, building class community, and differentiating instruction. Challenges and needs they experienced included lack of access to technology, needs for professional development, and administrative support. Further research could explore integration of specific Web 2.0 technologies. Results of the study may lead to better informed decisions by policy makers and leaders about professional development, support needs, and language services. Addressing the technology needs of educators may potentially lead to equity for ELL students in general education settings that would empower ELLs to experience successful academic transitions through schooling, while decreasing the academic achievement gap.

The International Baccalaureate (IB) standards recognize reflection as an integral part of the framework and the fabric of the Primary Years Programme school, as it is embedded in the foundational standards and practices of the inquiry-based IB teaching model. However, teachers in an IB Primary Years Programme school located in the southeast United States struggled with being reflective practitioners. Guided by John Dewey's reflective thought, the purpose of this bounded qualitative exploratory case study was to examine teacher perceptions of reflection practices in an IB Primary Years Programme school. Research questions were drafted to ask about teachers' perceptions of their reflective practices, how teachers' perceived reflective practices aligned with IB's teaching model, and beliefs about the school-based support and resources teachers needed to implement reflective practices. The selection criteria included teachers with at least 2 years of teaching experience who had been to at least 1 outside IB training. Ten teachers, chosen through purposeful sampling, completed a 2-week reflective journal and participated in a semistructured interview. Based on the open-coding and inductive analysis patterns emerged, leading to themes; including lesson reflections, planning, time, and training. Based on the findings, a project, a white paper, includes recommendations to address the teachers' perceptions of reflective practices that will be presented to the school as well as the district. This improved instructional change may provide positive social change in the culture of reflection for teachers and help them and to better differentiate instruction for students.

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This project appears to be the first to determine growth rates for writing using Curriculum-Based Measurement-Written Expression (CBM-WE). Growth rates, or the amount of change over time, help educators track how much progress can be expected given typical instruction. CBM-WE probes were administered to a sample of 1,004 students in first through fifth grades within a school district. The writing probes were scored using production-dependent variables: Total Words Written (TWW), Words Spelled Correctly (WSC), and Correct Word Sequence (CWS). Data were analyzed by grade level and gender. Results are presented as weekly growth rates. Growth rates were calculated from fall to winter, winter to spring, and from fall to spring. This study found higher growth rates in the lower grades and the lowest growth rates in fifth grade. Negative growth was found when examining winter to spring scores for students in third through fifth grades. Girls typically showed more improvement than boys. Results will be beneficial for educators to understand and monitor elementary student progress in written expression.

This study examined the use of an intervention, Contrastive Analysis (CA), with fourth-graders’ writing in a Central Appalachian elementary school. The purpose was to improve the use of Standard English in students’ writing in Appalachia by decreasing the number of vernacular features typically used in the writing. The researcher collected data through Consent and Assent Forms, interviews with the fourth-grade teacher, classroom observations and an accompanying CA observation evaluation rubric, pre- and post-writing prompts, selected writings and Writer Self-Perception Scale (WSPS), as well as communication data. Data analysis was accomplished for both the prompts, writing pieces and the WSPS scores. The primary results of the study indicated that the students’ use of vernacular features did in fact decrease after the implementation of CA. An approach that takes into account the vernacular or nonstandard dialect from the home speech of children, CA is utilized to help them perform better in writing in school. The CA approach has been used successfully with African American students primarily in large urban areas. The research results indicate that lessons from CA may be “customized” and used successfully with students who are speakers of Appalachian English. During the eleven-week study, the fourth-grade teacher implemented the intervention and a fifth-grade teacher also led a non-intervention group. A comparative analysis was done to determine whether membership in the fourth grade intervention group was a significant factor in lowering non-standard features in writing. This was a descriptive case study. At the beginning and end of the study, teachers of the fourth- and fifth-grade groups administered pre- and post-tests to their respective groups in the form of writing prompts. The researcher and a second reader did vernacular counts of the writings of both groups. A comparative analysis of the frequency of vernacular features (VFs) in the writing of the fourth-grade group showed decreases greater than the fifth-grade group in three of four categories of vernacular features in writing. The categories were: regularization of past-tense verbs, multiple negation, subject/verb agreement, and pronominal difference. There was only a 1% greater decrease of VFs for the fifth grade in the fourth category. A scale of self-efficacy in writing, the Writer’s Self-Perception Scale (WSPS), was also administered by the teachers pre- and post-study to both groups of students. The difference between the fourth- and fifth-grade pre- and post-WSPS scores was not statistically significant. The findings of the study are important because they show that the use of the CA approach, when used with students from the Appalachian subculture who are speakers of Appalachian English, does make a difference in their rate of usage of Standard English in writing.

In the past decade, mathematics performance by all students, especially minority students in low socioeconomic schools, has shown limited improvement nationwide (NCES, 2011). Traditionally in the United States, mathematics has consisted of arithmetic and computational fluency; however, mathematics researchers widely believe that this method of instruction does not enhance the development of mathematical reasoning and ignores the research on students’ mathematical development (Blanton & Kaput, 2005; Stigler & Hiebert, 1999). Recommendations by the mathematics community are to broaden and strengthen teacher content knowledge in mathematics and to provide the pedagogical tools needed by teachers to extend their students’ thinking and reasoning (Darling-Hammond, Wei, Andree, Richardson, and Orphanos, 2009; Mewborn, 2003). The purpose of this quantitative study was to investigate the relationship between the teachers’ levels of noticing, the levels of cognitive demand in their enacted tasks, and their levels of mathematical knowledge for teaching in two urban high-need low performing elementary schools. The 54 elementary teachers participated in a long-term mathematics professional development program aimed at developing teachers’ mathematical knowledge for teaching and recognizing and fostering students’ early algebraic reasoning. The data for this dissertation included teachers’ self-selected video segments, written video reflections, and mathematical knowledge for teaching levels from the second year of the professional development. Relationships were explored between mathematical knowledge for teaching, teachers’ levels of noticing, and the levels of cognitive demand represented in mathematics lessons. The findings indicated shifts in teachers’ cognitive demand of enacted tasks and noticing over the course of the second year of professional development. Correlation results indicated significant relationships between teachers’ cognitive demand, teacher noticing, participation, and teachers’ mathematical knowledge for teaching. Moreover, the results showed that the teachers in the K-3 cohort benefited more from the professional development than their 4-6 cohort counterparts when it came to mathematical knowledge for teaching, noticing, and cognitive demand levels.

This study examined the effects of preprinted response cards on disruptive behavior and rates and accuracy of responding of elementary-aged students in an inclusive education setting with or at risk for Individualized Education Plans (IEPs). An alternating treatments design with an additional baseline phase was used across three teacher recommended students. During baseline, the teacher conducted a group language arts routine as normal, posing questions to the class and prompting them to raise their hands to answer. During the intervention phase, preprinted response cards (two sets: one true/false and one A/B) were passed out to the class to utilize during the group language arts routine to answer questions. The response card intervention was alternated with the baseline phase in each observation session. The results showed that disruptive behavior decreased substantially across all three students during the response card condition. Additionally, rates of responding and accuracy of responding increased across all three participants during the response card condition. Results indicate that the preprinted choice cards could serve as an effective classroom management strategy in inclusive education settings.