Researchers are finding that the No Child Left Behind legislation's mandatory testing provision has resulted in many schools reducing art instruction (Abrams, Madaus, & Pedulla, 2003). In addition to the reduction of art instruction in formal curricula, incorporation of art into classroom teaching strategies has also declined (Barksdale-Ladd & Thomas, 2000). While many schools neglect art to focus on subject areas addressed by No Child Left Behind mandated tests, others have embraced the arts as an instructional strategy to improve test scores (Rabkin & Redmond, 2006). Mississippi's Whole Schools Initiative, a school improvement program that infuses art throughout the curriculum, has stimulated and enriched student learning when it is seriously and systematically implemented (Corbett, Morse, & Wilson, 2004). This study investigated the process through which art infusion is taking place in a Mississippi Whole Schools Initiative model school. The research design was descriptive. The participating school was purposively selected. The emerging analysis of collected data directed the selection of key informants. Observations, interviews, informal conversations, and an examination of documents and other artifacts were used to collect data. The study found the following: (a) the school's staff felt art infusion is a more effective way to teach because it motivates students, involves parents and the community, addresses student learning styles and multiple intelligences, and enhances staff morale; (b) the site administrator was particularly concerned with hiring staff, staff development, planning, finances, and parental and community support; and (c) staff development, planning, specialists, artists in residence, fund raising, resources, parental and community support, classroom management, and instructional strategies are particularly important areas in infusing art throughout the curriculum. Recommendations are the following: (a) making Mississippi educators aware of the potential of art infusion as a school improvement strategy, (b) including art infusion instruction strategies in teacher education programs, (c) including art infusion strategies in local school district's professional development plans (d) employing at least one certified art teacher in every Mississippi public school, (e) increasing funding for Mississippi schools addressing school improvement through art infusion, and (f) conducting further research on specific strategies for enhancing instruction through art infusion.

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for social studies are based on critical thinking and literacy skills. These new mandates are expected to lead to curricular and instructional changes within social studies classes. This qualitative study explored how the CCSS might have impacted the curricular and instructional decision-making of middle school social studies teachers and ultimately how the CCSS might affect a teacher’s gatekeeping role. As the CCSS initiative is fairly new, there is little research on the instructional practices being used to support the needs of teachers implementing these new standards in their classrooms as well as the processes, challenges, and successes teachers experience in addressing the CCSS in their classrooms. This study fills the gap of information lodged between a policy mandate and implementation in the classroom by contributing to the literature in the area of social studies education and the types of instruction social studies teachers may use to achieve the goals within the CCSS. Data gleaned from this study demonstrates that the CCSS had an influence on teachers’ instructional and curricular decision-making. CCSS influenced teachers’ decision-making in three domains: teacher beliefs ((individual teacher’s beliefs regarding the CCSS, including his or her personal beliefs regarding the CCSS and self-confidence to teach the skills associated with the CCSS), student assessment (the connection between standardized assessments and the CSSS), and best practices (recommended best practices by CCSS that were already being used in the classroom). As a result, teachers increased the number of the types of instructional strategies that focused on the critical thinking skills advocated by CCSS such as analyzing primary and secondary sources and using evidence from multiple sources to complete a Document Based Question (DBQ). The study also revealed that teachers felt inadequately prepared to fully implement the CCSS in their classrooms due to insufficient teacher education geared to CCSS, resources, and inconsistencies of the focus of the CCSS within participants’ Professional Learning Communities.

This study is survey research on the reported instructional strategies of college mathematics professors. I modified an Approaches to Teaching Inventory (ATI-R) that contained likert scale, demographic and rank order items in order to characterize the instructional strategies of college math professors.

Within the current national atmosphere of accountability and high-stakes testing, many teachers are changing their instruction to return to more traditional strategies that emphasize rote memorization. As a result, classroom curriculum and student learning are narrowing. This study sought to explore the potential of graphic organizers as an instructional strategy to expand student content knowledge beyond rote memorization to include more organized, complex, meaningful learning. For the purpose of this study, graphic organizers are described as visual displays of concepts, their component parts, and the relationships among their parts. This study was conducted over a six week period in a third grade classroom in a rural elementary school in Virginia. Ten focus students were identified for in-depth data collection on their learning process as recorded during science instruction. Although existing research strongly supports graphic organizer effectiveness as an instructional strategy toward general student achievement, little is known about the type of learning they support or the process by which students' knowledge develops. Thus, this research utilized qualitative methodological strategies in order to investigate this process. Data collection methods included field notes, student artifacts, and participant interviews. Constant comparative methodology was employed to analyze data. The theoretical framework of constructivism, espousing that newly acquired information is connected to prior knowledge forming complex, organized networks of conceptual understanding, guided this qualitative study. Findings resulted in emergent themes including student motivation, simplicity, efficiency, visual hierarchical organization, reconstructing knowledge, and cooperative socialization. Documentation of the learning process as opposed to a comparison of pre/post measurements clearly indicated that student thinking gradually became more complex and organized in nature. As students worked with graphic organizers, and participated in study activities, their knowledge moved from a form of listing facts to resemble more complex, interconnected networks. Implications of this study for practice include appropriate instruction and practice for students with graphic organizers as a strategy and a tool, value as an assessment tool, and potential for use with complex classroom populations. Suggestions for future research are given for teacher training on how to use graphic organizers effectively, interdisciplinary use of graphic organizers within one context, potential benefit for struggling and diverse learners, a continuing focus on process as opposed to product, and an examination of the connection between graphic organizer activities and sorting. / Ph. D.

The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine the instructional conditions and practices described as successful for teachers in the Algebra I inclusive classroom. In the southeastern suburban school district used for this study, students who began their freshman year of high school in fiscal year 2000 faced new mathematics requirements for high school graduation, including taking Algebra I and passing an Algebra I end-of-course standards-based test. The new mathematics requirements presented a daunting challenge to general and special educators as increasing numbers of students with disabilities began to receive their instruction in the general education classroom. This school district targeted schools based on student performance on standards-based end-of-course tests and provided extra support and resources to enhance teaching and learning; however, other schools in the district had to reach the same goal -- improved student achievement -- without the extra resources. Based on a comparative case study of three separate inclusive classrooms from three separate schools, findings were presented through a discussion of the theoretical framework. The theoretical framework for this study included theories from Skinner (1953) and Gagné (1985). Data were collected through interviews with teachers and their students with and without disabilities, through observations in classrooms, and by review of student data. Four major domains were addressed in this study. Those domains included instructional conditions, climate and planning, and instructional interventions, the use of time and teacher adaptations and accommodations. This study supported the notion that an affective classroom climate coupled with collaborative planning among team teachers, general educators and special educators who co-teach in the inclusive classroom, promotes an instructional environment conducive to learning. The effective use of time along with teacher adaptations and accommodations appeared to keep students engaged in the learning process. However, other influences, including insufficient teacher training, negative student behaviors, and inappropriate student placement, were found to affect student achievement in the inclusive classroom. / Ed. D.

Using a multiple gating procedure, five elementary principals were identified as special education leaders. This descriptive study uses a multiple-case study design to explore principal’s (a) understanding and perceptions of instructional strategies associated with improved outcomes for students with learning disabilities (LD), and (b) their instructional leadership practices utilized to promote educators’ instruction of students with LD. Findings reveal that the majority of participants (n = 4) expressed at least a moderate understanding of effective instruction for students with LD, perceived implementation of these practices as necessary (n = 5), but reported mixed perceptions regarding feasibility. As expected, the five participants also described different levels of utilizing instructional leadership practices to promote educator’s instruction of students with LD. However, the two participants with advanced special education degrees were distinct from the others with respect to their combined high understanding, positive perceptions, and instructional leadership practices utilized to promote educators’ instruction of students with LD. Overall propositions indicate: (a) principals in this study who possessed higher understanding of effective instructional practices for students with LD and were interested in improving this understanding, were more apt to engage in instructional leadership practices to promote effective instruction for students with LD, (b) principal’s prioritization of developing a collaborative vision and practices among educators to promote effective instruction of students with LD may be beneficial to improving instruction for students with LD, and (c) principal’s intentional interaction and support with both general and special educators may lead to higher levels of collaboration among educators as well as more effective instruction for students with LD. / text

The purpose of this study was to compare the effectiveness of the two instructional strategies for six phonic word-attack skills objectives and to focus on the following specific questions: (a) When student teachers use a basal-reader-oriented strategy (Treatment I) for teaching phonic word-attack skills, what will be the effects on elementary pupil achievement of these skills? (b) When student teachers use a systematic instructional strategy (Treatment II) for teaching phonic word-attack skills, what will be the effects on elementary pupil achievement of these skills? (c) How will the effects of these strategies compare? Written criterion-referenced phonic word-attack skills pre-tests were administered to approximately 110 third and fourth grade pupils. The validity of the criterion-referenced tests was judged by a team of reading specialists from North Texas State University. The reliability coefficients of the tests ranged from .57 to .93 and all were significant at the .01 level. This report concludes that when elementary pupil achievement of phonic word-attack skills is used as the criterion for student teacher effectiveness then training in the conscientious application of systematic instructional procedures incorporating research validated learning principles is a more effective procedure than requiring student teachers to follow the recommended procedures in basal readers. It also concludes that the ability of student teachers to affect the learning of phonic word attack skills by elementary students increases with practice; however, this ability appears to increase at a greater rate for those trained in systematic instructional procedures than for those who are trained to use the basal reader.

The problem in a suburban school district in a northwestern state is that fewer socioeconomic disadvantaged and minority students are graduating high school and attending post-secondary education than their White and economic middle-class counterparts. The disparity continues to expand the achievement gap between minorities and Whites within the education system and continues a cycle of poverty for the poorest and minority students. Bandura’s self-efficacy theory guided the study. The purpose of this bounded qualitative exploratory case study was to explore the advancement via individual determination (AVID) instructional strategies high school graduates used in their transition to post-secondary education. The research questions addressed which instructional strategies the AVID graduates learned and how they used the strategies in post-secondary education. The participants were 13 AVID high school graduates from a suburban northwestern school district who entered post-secondary education in 2014–2018. Data collected through one-on-one interviews were analyzed thematically using descriptive and axial coding to allow themes to emerge using the constructs of the framework. AVID students suggested that focused notetaking, collaboration, and self-regulatory behaviors assisted them in their academic success. Based on the findings, a 3-day professional development was created for high school teachers to design content area lessons featuring student collaborative groups, self-reflection, and notetaking strategies. This endeavor may contribute to positive social change when administrators provide teachers with grouping, social emotional, and instructional strategies for AVID enrollees, which may result in increased AVID graduates and post-secondary students.

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