Birth to three early intervention is unique time in the life of a family of a child with a disability in that confidence and competence of the parents can be addressed as part of the intervention goals and objectives. Locus of control is a quality measure of a parents perception of their ability to be their childs teacher, advocate, and champion and is associated with confidence and competence. The purpose of this dissertation was to examine the association of locus of control orientation using Rotters Locus of Control Scale (Rotter, 1966) with perception of family status as it relates to the child with the disability at entry and exit of birth to three early intervention using the Family Outcomes Survey (Bailey, 2006) in two groups of mothers at entry and exit of services. Analysis indicated there was no difference in locus of control between the two groups. Further, locus of control was not associated with the Family Outcomes Survey. The Family Outcomes survey demonstrated differences between the two groups and additional association with the socioeconomic proxy of type of insurance, length of time the family took part in early intervention, and the reason the child qualified for early intervention.

This study was designed to better understand how children begin to make the transition from seeing the natural world to scientifically observing the natural world during shared family activity in an informal learning environment. Specifically, this study addressed research questions: 1) What is the effect of differences in parent conversational style and disciplinary knowledge on childrens observations of biological phenomena? 2) What is the relationship between parent disciplinary knowledge and conversational style to childrens observations of biological phenomena? and 3) Can parents, regardless of knowledge, be trained to use a teaching strategy with their children that can be implemented in informal learning contexts? To address these questions, 79 parent-child dyads with children 6-10 years old participated in a controlled study in which half of the parents used their natural conversational style and the other half were trained to use particular conversational strategies during family observations of pollination in a botanical garden. Parents were also assigned to high and low knowledge groups according to their disciplinary knowledge of pollination. Data sources included video recordings of parent-child observations in a garden, pre-post child tasks, and parent surveys. Findings revealed that parents who received training used the conversational strategies more than parents who used their natural conversational style. Parents and children who knew more about pollination at the start of the study exhibited higher levels of disciplinary talk in the garden, which is to be expected. However, the use of the conversational strategies also increased the amount of disciplinary talk in the garden, independent of what families knew about pollination. The extent to which families engaged in disciplinary talk in the garden predicted significant variance in childrens post-test scores. In addition to these findings, an Observation Framework (Eberbach & Crowley, 2009) that hypothesizes how everyday observers become scientific observers is proposed.

Museums provide supportive spaces for families to practice talking together. Although studies have shown that families engage in rich learning conversations within museum settings, it is not yet known whether the rehearsal of such talk carries beyond the museum walls and into the home. This study was designed to test one way that a museum visit might facilitate learning conversations at home: By centering talk around everyday objects. The study took place within a travelling exhibition called How People Make Things and in participants homes. Twenty-nine parent-child pairs were assessed jointly and individually before a visit to the exhibition, immediately after the visit, and two weeks later at home for evidence of changes in four areas of learning talk: content mentions, process explanations, prior references, and open-ended questions. Additional data was also collected during the families visit to the exhibition, through parent self-reports, and during a scavenger hunt activity at home. Findings show that families content talk immediately after the visit and two weeks later at home was significantly greater than before the visit. Families also gave more process explanations two weeks after the visit than they had before or immediately after the museum visit. In addition, families used significantly more references to prior experiences immediately after the visit than they had before the visit. The number of open-ended questions families asked immediately after the visit decreased significantly compared to before the visit. A series of regressions looking for possible predictors of family content talk revealed that what families talked about during the museum experience significantly predicted how families talked about content immediately after the visit. Furthermore, what families talked about immediately after the visit, as well as their everyday conversations around objects in-between visits, led to an increase in the amount of learning conversations they had together at home. An examination of changes in childrens content understanding suggests that families talk about content after their visit to the exhibition, as well as how they discussed content before their visit, resulted in a delayed payoff in which children demonstrated an increased content understanding two weeks later at home.

This descriptive case study examined the nature of talk a literacy coach used during coaching conversations to guide collaborative inquiry to support teachers needs. The study provided a rich description of the type of talk used in the coachs conversations with three kindergarten classroom teachers by analyzing the content of conversation, levels of support provided by the coach to scaffold teacher understanding about instructional practices, and the types of questions posed by the coach to prompt teacher thinking about instructional practices. Analysis of data revealed that the literacy coach was intentional in the approaches she used to differentiate her conversations with teachers. Moreover, the coach exemplified the characteristics that enabled her to hold effective coaching conversations: content knowledge, effective listening abilities, and skillful questioning techniques. Specific factors that influenced the nature of the coaching conversations included the relationships between the coach and teachers, teachers experiences and their knowledge of literacy instruction and assessment, and the teachers willingness to be coached. Analysis showed that both the content and scaffolding support differed in the coaching conversations between the literacy coach and teachers. Furthermore, student data provided the basis for the job-embedded professional development or coaching. It served as the impetus for the conversations held between the coach and teachers.

The goal of this study was to create an evaluation tool that would be the new standard for evaluating clinical competencies of interns in the field of orientation and mobility (O&M). Using results from previous research in this area, specific competency skills were identified and the O&M Clinical Competency Evaluation Matrix (CCEM) was developed. O&M university faculty were surveyed to gather content evidence. After revisions were made to the O&M CCEM, the evaluation tool was piloted with O&M clinical internship supervisors and validity and reliability evidence was examined. The combination of all the validity evidence supported the intended inferences. The content evidence showed that experts in the field agreed that the O&M CCEM as a whole was representative of the content area. The internal structure evidence showed that scores on the O&M CCEM could be interpreted as measuring clinical competency in relation to standard teaching skills, O&M specific skills, and advanced O&M instruction skills. The external structure evidence showed that scores on the O&M CCEM are related to scores on the ACVREP evaluation form. The practicality evidence showed that the tool is useful for measuring clinical competence. In addition, the internal consistency reliability evidence showed that there was consistency in ratings within dimensions and the inter-rater reliability evidence showed there was moderate consistency in ratings between supervisors.

Although researchers have identified the positive relationship between students academic literacy learning and dialogic discussiontalk about texts in which students build on and transform each others ideasthis pattern of discourse occurs rarely in most secondary English classrooms. Promising research on the varied multimodal literacies in which adolescents are engaged in their out-of-school lives suggests that these literacies may inform academic literacy practices such as dialogic discussions of literature, but little is known about how such literacies might be leveraged to make academic literacy instruction more effective. This dissertation study identified ways in which students out-of-school and multimodal literacies could be leveraged to shape their participation in dialogic discussions of literature in one secondary English classroom. To that end, this study comprised an empirical investigation of students participation in dialogic discussion after completing either collaborative multimodal or collaborative unimodal projects, and traced focal students participation across small group and whole class discourse contexts to investigate whether and how student learning was facilitated through multimodality. Drawing on classroom discourse analysis and ethnographic data collection techniques, this comparative study of two sections of one 12th-grade English course explored the centrality of semiotic mediation and transmediation as these processes supported students participation in dialogic discussions. Findings support the use of collaborative multimodal instructional activities to facilitate students internalization of dialogic discourse norms and scaffold students participation in discussions across discourse contexts.

This study examines the life histories of three African American social studies teachers, focusing on the evolution and changes in their identities, perspectives, and attitudes related to their profession and instructional practice. In addition, the study addresses the significance of the teachers racialized experiences as African Americans and how these experiences influence their use of culturally relevant pedagogy and other culturally responsive instructional strategies to teach their African American students. In the context of this study of three African American social studies teachers, critical race theory is used to acknowledge the teachers life experiences with racism and the ways in which the teachers combat and address racism and oppressive mainstream educational ideologies, by sharing their counter-stories of experience in educational scholarship and their daily classroom teaching. A life history methodological approach was used to collect and interpret meaning from the narrative life stories of the three African American social studies teachers. The themes that emerge from the teachers life stories focus on the teachers beliefs and practices of culturally relevant pedagogy; the teachers beliefs and practices of African-centered pedagogy; and the teachers emancipatory teaching regarding racism in society and education. The results of this study have implications for the practice and research of African American teachers philosophies and pedagogies; practice and research of culturally relevant teaching in social studies; and social studies teacher education.

This dissertation reports on a study of the four most widely-used10th grade literature textbooks in terms of the opportunities they provide for students to engage in coherent English language arts curricular units in which the texts, questions, and tasks provide opportunities for students to develop their own text-based interpretations and arguments, engage in focused inquiry about individual texts, and build conceptual understanding of overarching unit or text-specific concepts/questions. Data included the texts, questions, and tasks in two units per textbook, a short story unit and persuasion unit. Data analysis focused on (a) how the texts, questions, and tasks in each unit were structured to provide coherent learning opportunities that allow for students to build conceptual understanding of unit and text-specific concepts/questions, and (b) the extent to which texts and post-reading questions and tasks provide opportunities for students to develop their own text-based interpretations and arguments. The findings from this study show that despite all units including texts, questions, and tasks that cohere around overarching unit or text-specific concepts/questions, units are not structured to provide students with coherent learning opportunities that will allow them to build their conceptual understanding of unit or text-specific concepts/questions. This is due to the plethora of questions and tasks that are unrelated to the unit or text-specific concept/question or to each other. Additionally, findings show that many of the texts, especially in the persuasion units, do not provide opportunities for readers to develop multiple text-based interpretations and arguments about the ideas, arguments, characters, and events. Finally, findings show that the majority of post-reading questions in all four textbooks are recitation questions that have or assume one correct response. The findings from this study suggest that preservice and inservice educators must prepare teachers to use and modify literature textbooks in ways that are shown to improve student learning. Moreover, time must be provided in schools for teachers to work with colleagues to design instructional units that modify rather than rely on textbook units. Finally, findings from this study suggest that research is needed on how teachers use and what teachers learn from textbooks.

The important role of beliefs in the learning and teaching of mathematics has been largely acknowledged in the literature. Pre-service teachers, in particular, have been shown to possess mathematical beliefs that are often traditional in nature (i.e. viewing teachers as the transmitters of knowledge and students as the passive recipients of that knowledge). These beliefs, which are formed long before the pre-service teachers enter their teacher education programs, often provide the foundation for their future teaching practices. An important role of teacher education programs, then, is to encourage the development (or modification) of beliefs that will support the kind of (reform) mathematics instruction promoted in these programs. In this dissertation I explored the impact of different experiences within teacher education programs, particularly those related to mathematics courses, on the mathematical beliefs of pre-service elementary teachers. This exploration was structured around 3 interrelated strands of work. The first strand drew from the existing literature to illuminate the concept of beliefs and identify ways in which teacher education programs may influence and promote change in the beliefs of pre-service teachers. This review also highlighted the need to further investigate the role and impact of mathematics courses for pre-service teachers. The second strand introduced an analytic framework to examine the different views about mathematics promoted in textbooks used in mathematics courses. The findings demonstrated that the linguistic choices made by textbook authors may promote different views about mathematics and, as a result, create different learning opportunities for pre-service teachers. These findings may have several implications for textbook authors and those in teacher education programs who make decisions about textbook adoption. Finally, the third strand investigated the impact of the curriculum materials and instruction in a research-based mathematics course on the beliefs of 25 pre-service elementary teachers. The findings showed that while beliefs are often highly resistant to change, it is possible to motivate change during a single mathematics course. Specifically, the nature of the curriculum materials and the role of the teacher educator in the course were found to have an important impact on the mathematical beliefs of the pre-service teachers.

An increased emphasis on the use of technology and the focus on multiliteracies in the classroom has great implications for both teachers and students regarding the expectation that all students will become skilled and critical users of computers and other technology for literacy-related tasks. Students who are braille readers use assistive technology not only to engage in literacy tasks (such as creating print documents) but also to access the general curriculum. For all of its acknowledged importance, there is little research on the ways that technology has changed the reading and writing practices of students who use braille, nor is there much research on how assistive technology is learned by students with visual impairments. A mixed methods study was conducted to investigate current use of paper braille and assistive technology among students aged 16-22 who read braille, and the students' attitudes toward braille and technology as tools for classroom learning in high school and college. The first phase of the study consisted of 12 semi-structured interviews of students around the United States. These interviews were coded for themes, and quotes from the interviews were used to create a Likert-scale survey. In the second phase of the study, 77 students participated in the survey, indicating their agreement or disagreement with the statements on the survey. Survey data were analyzed for frequencies and percentages of responses, and relationships between variables such as grade level, age, primary medium, and other factors were explored. Results of the study indicated the changing nature of how students use various tools and select approaches to completing their class work, and the importance for students of being able to make choices regarding tools and strategies. Implications for teacher preparation and suggestions for future research are discussed.