Innovative Learning Environments are increasingly built and implemented in schools, but are not necessarily being used according to designers' intentions. The goal of this study was to examine teacher perceptions of the innovative learning spaces they were charged with using and to determine if they were being used effectively and as designed. The research was guided by three basic questions: what were the teachers' perceptions of these spaces, was the teacher pedagogy need to change to accommodate the space, and did the teacher feel support by campus leadership. The fourth research question centered around the goals and vision of the design team that created the innovative learning space. The crux of the issue was that the districts vision for the space came to fruition once the teachers were in the actual space with the students. This qualitative study interviewed seven teachers in the educational setting and separately interviewed the design team. The results indicated that some of the teachers were unaware of the definition of an innovative space and believed that they were utilizing the space in ways that met the designs of the campus leadership. Furthermore, teachers felt the new designs caused a classroom management issue as well as safety and security concerns. The design team felt that teachers needed more training on how to use the innovative spaces and that they were not being used as intended. To inform future school and district policies as well as educational leadership practices, more work is needed around what types of training might be more effective in helping teachers make a pedagogical change if assigned to an innovative learning environment.

Research has shown a link between urban students' success in U.S. schools and the level of parental involvement. However, urban parents have historically low levels of engagement in their children's education. Increased involvement of urban parents in their children's education can increase student success in urban schools. The purpose of this generic qualitative research study was to understand the experiences of urban parents of children diagnosed with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) who have participated in an online training program to learn about their children's learning disability. Self-efficacy, andragogy, experiential learning, and sociocultural theory were used as conceptual foundations to guide the research. The research question was what are the experiences and perspectives of urban parents of children diagnosed with ADHD who participated in an online training program designed to develop their understanding of their child's learning disability. Participants in this generic qualitative study were 8 parents who participated in an online training program for parents of children with ADHD. Data sources included semi-structured interviews. Data were analyzed using thematic inductive data analysis to identify patterns and themes. The key findings indicated that parents found the online training program helpful in understanding their children's specific learning needs and supported them to become more involved in their children's education. This study contributed to social change by providing insights into an innovative learning environment that advanced urban parent learning and fostered parental involvement in urban schools. Educational leaders can use this knowledge to encourage productive parental outreach programs for urban parents.

Recent advancements in instructional technology and interactive learning space designs have transformed how undergraduate classrooms are envisioned and conducted today. Large number of research studies have documented the impact of instructional technology and interactive learning spaces on elevated student learning gains, positive attitudes, and increased student engagement in undergraduate classrooms across nation. These research findings combined with the movement towards student-centered instructional strategies have motivated college professors to explore the unfamiliar territories of instructional technology and interactive learning spaces. Only a limited number of research studies that explored college professors’ perspective on instructional technology and interactive learning space use in undergraduate classrooms exist in the education research literature. Since college professors are an essential factor in undergraduate students’ academic success, investigating how college professors perceive and utilize instructional technology and interactive learning environments can provide insights into designing effective professional development programs for college professors across undergraduate institutions. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate college professors’ pedagogical reasoning behind incorporating different types of instructional technologies and teaching strategies to foster student learning in technology-infused interactive learning environments. Furthermore, this study explored the extent to which college professors’ instructional decisions and practices are affected by teaching in an interactive learning space along with their overall perception of instructional technology and interactive learning spaces. Four college professors from a large public Midwestern university who taught undergraduate science courses in a classroom based on the ‘SCALE-UP model’ participated in this study. Major data sources included classroom observations, interviews and questionnaires. An enumerative approach and the constant comparative method were utilized to analyze the data. According to the results obtained, all the participating college professors of this study employed a variety of instructional technologies and learning space features to actively engage their students in classroom activities. Participants were largely influenced by the instructional technology and the learning space features at lesson planning and execution stages whereas this influence was less notable at the student assessment stage. Overall, college professors perceive technology-infused interactive learning environments to be advantageous in terms of enabling flexibility and creativity along with easy facilitation of classroom activities. However, they felt challenged when designing effective classroom activities and preferred continuous professional development support. Overall, college professors’ pedagogical decision making process, their perceived benefits and challenges seemed to be interrelated and centered on the learners and the learning process. Primary implication of this study is to implement effective professional development programs for college professors which enable them to familiarize themselves with student-centered pedagogy and effective classroom activity design along with the novel trends in learning space design and instructional technologies. Furthermore, higher education institutions need to devise incentives and recognition measures to appreciate college professors’ contributions to advance scholarship of teaching and learning.

Background: In the past few decades, organizations has shifted towards digitalization. Making it necessary for employees within an organization to acquire the necessary digital skills to cope with digitalization. These skills are necessary for employees to carry out their daily activities without setback. It is therefore important for an organization to provide a channel or an avenue for employees to acquire these skills without stress or difficulty.     Purpose: The purpose of the thesis is to explore an innovative strategy for digital skills development for employees, which can foster communication and collaboration and improve employees work performance within the organization.   Method: A qualitative study was used to conduct the research. The authors used semi-structured interviews to collect data from employees of the municipalities being studied. The interviewees were employees from Nässjö, Jönköping and Habo municipalities. From the interview findings an analysis was performed comparing the findings between the three municipalities.   Conclusion: The results outline some of the benefits of using innovative learning systems for digital skills development of employees and how these leaning systems can improve employees’ performance. Organizations should make it a priority to continually reinvest in developing employees’ digital skills in the public sector and need to be aware about the barriers to adopt innovative learning methods. Some of these barriers are lack of training programs, lack of managerial support among others. A coherent strategy is needed to address these barriers and facilitate skills development process. Further research regarding other alternative methods to improve employees’ digital skills that were not discussed in this research can be explored by other researchers using larger samples, different theories and data collection methods.

The Framework for 21st-Century Learning (The Framework) is focused on the mastery of core subjects and been found to be essential to student success. Teachers in a suburban school district in Ohio were struggling to address the challenges associated with the implementation of The Framework. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to examine how teachers implemented the program in their classrooms. Vygotsky's theory of cognitive development guided the exploration of how elementary teachers were implementing critical elements of The Framework to scaffold literacy instruction. A qualitative case study design was used to allow the researcher to examine the ways elementary teachers were addressing the challenges of The Framework. Nine elementary teachers (grades K-3) with varying levels of experience from 2 elementary schools similar in demographics in a school district were selected to participate in the study. Each completed a questionnaire pertaining to The Framework and was observed in the classroom using a checklist based on The Framework, guided by Vygotsky's sociocultural theory of learning, and focused on best-practice literacy principles. Axial coding was used to identify patterns and themes from the questionnaires, observations, and public documents. Results indicated that educators were implementing The Framework, but were using outdated terminology, were creating misconceptions and confusion about some literature principles, and were not using student-driven assessment strategies. The findings informed creation of a professional development project that will provide elementary teachers in the district with support while integrating The Framework. This study affects positive social change by providing increased understanding of literacy instruction to enhance student learning within The Framework.

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What are the modern architectural trends in foreign and domestic learning enviroments? That is the main question of this thesis that is trying to merge both architectural and pedagogical points of view. Even though this topic is becoming more and more actual, it can still be hardly found in czech literature. This thesis analyses new trends in school projects and how they align to the schools educational concept. The theoretical part explains the terms of educational enviroments, educational concept and shows the main architectural trends in school designs. The analytical part presents ten foreign schools looking into the alignment between architectural concept and educational concept. In the research section nine recently built school projects are presented, eight czech and one austrian primary schools are investigated via interviews and observations. The research comes to a conclusion that according to the new changing educational reguirements, most of the examined school projects implements some new features like relaxation places for pupils and places for improving students social and personal skills. Just few of the examined architectural projects are taking into consideration the educational concept, mostly it is the educational concept that is subordinated to the school building project....

The purpose of this thesis is to examine methods, forms, and processes for presenting the lives and work of the Czech catholic poets Jan Zahradníček, Bohuslav Reynek, and Josef Kostohryz during high-school literature lessons. Furthermore, the objective is to propose ways of introducing the young generation of readers to catholic poetry as a source of existentialist questions pertaining to life and existence, deep personal experiences, and spirituality regardless of their individual religious beliefs and preferences. Since this thesis is primarily intended to serve as a tool for high-school teachers, the text contains an extensive section that describes the general aspects of the proposed didactic approach, where the aim is to facilitate orientation in the proposed concept on the one hand, and, on the other hand, to define the foregoing aspects because they constitute the basis of the concept. The concept chosen as a means for achieving the objectives of the thesis is based on the principles, teaching methods, and forms of innovative learning. Innovative learning is based on the constructivist model and on an approach to teaching literature that is based on readership, interpretation, and creativity, where focus concentrates on the active and independent work of students, receptive and productive...