Even though the United States (U.S.) spends, on average, more money per student than most Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, it continues to lag behind its international peers in mathematics achievement. This study, which responded to the call for educational reforms that improve the mathematics achievement of U.S. students, aimed to examine the issue of student help-seeking behaviors and teacher instructional practices as they interact to affect student mathematics achievement. The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) defines student help-seeking behaviors as the ways in which students have a propensity to depend on the knowledge and intellect of others, including both their peers and teachers, when attempting to solve problems. Because mathematics is perhaps the most difficult school subject, student help-seeking behaviors should be a critical component of mathematics learning and teaching. Unfortunately, the research literature is barren concerning this important educational issue. This study attempted to produce the first wave of empirical evidence and open up an avenue for future research in this less-charted academic field, with the ultimate goal being to use students’ help-seeking behaviors to improve their mathematics achievement. Using the U.S. sample of 15-year-old students from PISA 2012 (the most recent PISA assessment in which the main area of focus was mathematical literacy), this study intended to determine whether students’ help-seeking behaviors play a significant role in their mathematics achievement, whether this relationship varies from school to school, and whether teacher instructional practices contribute to the school-level variation. Due to the multilevel structure of the data, with students being nested within schools, a two-level hierarchical linear model (HLM) was employed in the analysis of the data. Multiple measures of mathematics achievement were used as the dependent variables for separate analyses. Student help-seeking behavior was used as the key student-level independent variable, while three teacher instructional practices were used as the key school-level independent variables. In addition, several student and school background characteristics were used as control variables. The findings from this study indicate that student help-seeking behavior has a statistically significant effect on all measures of student mathematics achievement, even after controlling for various student background characteristics. On the other hand, the study did not find statistically significant evidence that the effects of student help-seeking behavior on any measure of student mathematics achievement vary from school to school. Overall, the issue of student help-seeking behaviors should be considered a worthy topic to pursue in future educational research. From a practical standpoint, since students’ mathematics achievement is positively associated with their help-seeking behaviors, efforts should be made to educate mathematics teachers on how to encourage their students to be more proactive in seeking help in the learning of mathematics.

This project study addressed the lack of inclusion of discipline literacy pedagogy in secondary classrooms in a rural school district in eastern North Carolina. Discipline literacy practices are recommended in the Common Core Standards for History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects. The district had implemented content area reading strategies across content areas, yet no significant progress in secondary students' reading abilities had been demonstrated in statewide or national assessments. The conceptual framework that drove this study was disciplinary literacy, founded by the literacy research of Shanahan, Shanahan, and Zygouris-Coe. Within a qualitative case study method, this investigation of 8 secondary science teachers' experiences teaching literacy during content instruction focused on practices of embedding science-specific reading strategies into lessons and factors that influence teachers' decisions to participate in professional development to advance their learning of discipline-specific literacy methods. Data were collected and triangulated using a focus group and 8 individual interviews. Data from both methods were analyzed into codes and categories that developed into emergent themes. Findings from the focus group and individual interviews revealed that the science teachers possessed limited knowledge of science-specific reading strategies; used random, general literacy practices; and had completed inadequate professional development on science-related topics. Positive change may occur if district leaders support teachers in expanding their knowledge and application of discipline literacy strategies through participation in discipline literacy-focused professional development. The study may provide educators and researchers a deeper understanding of disciplinary literacy and increase research on the topic.

Teachers are an essential link between the curriculum and student achievement. Teachers make instructional decisions that (1) determine the success or failure of a curricular intervention and (2) can result in either alignment or disconnect between the written and enacted curricula. Despite overwhelming evidence linking the success or the failure of a curricular intervention to the classroom teacher, little is known about the instructional decisions teachers make when using a standards-based curriculum. The use of standards-based curriculum is becoming common, therefore, it is essential to know how teachers are using it. This study focused on three questions. First, can the factors that influence instructional decisions be consolidated into manageable, representative, and useful categories? Second, what instructional decisions did six science teachers in a rural central Texas school district make when using the standards-based curriculum, CSCOPE? Finally, what steps did one district take to select and adopt the SBC, CSCOPE? This study found that the factors that influence instructional decisions could be clustered into four categories: (1) working conditions, (2) pedagogical content knowledge, (3) prior experiences, and (4) beliefs. Further, that teachers made instructional decisions both to use CSCOPE as intended and to modify CSCOPE lessons. Modifications to CSCOPE were made despite (1) an administrative mandate not to modify CSCOPE, (2) good administrative support, and (3) the stated intention of these teachers to adhere to CSCOPE. Teachers omitted, replaced and/or supplemented lessons and/or parts of lessons in order to (1) accommodate the needs of their students and (2) prepare students for the state assessment. Finally, several steps taken by Bluecat ISD administrators assisted teachers in using CSCOPE as intended. This study makes three contributions to the educational literature. First, no useful categorization exists of the factors that influence teachers‟ instructional decisions. Chapter II provides an initial categorization of these factors that is manageable, representative, and useful. Second, administrators need to be able to anticipate how teachers may use a standards-based curriculum. Chapter III identifies the instructional decisions made by these six science teachers. Chapter IV identifies the measures put in place to support teachers as they adjusted to CSCOPE.

This project study addressed the lack of inclusion of discipline literacy pedagogy in secondary classrooms in a rural school district in eastern North Carolina. Discipline literacy practices are recommended in the Common Core Standards for History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects. The district had implemented content area reading strategies across content areas, yet no significant progress in secondary students' reading abilities had been demonstrated in statewide or national assessments. The conceptual framework that drove this study was disciplinary literacy, founded by the literacy research of Shanahan, Shanahan, and Zygouris-Coe. Within a qualitative case study method, this investigation of 8 secondary science teachers' experiences teaching literacy during content instruction focused on practices of embedding science-specific reading strategies into lessons and factors that influence teachers' decisions to participate in professional development to advance their learning of discipline-specific literacy methods. Data were collected and triangulated using a focus group and 8 individual interviews. Data from both methods were analyzed into codes and categories that developed into emergent themes. Findings from the focus group and individual interviews revealed that the science teachers possessed limited knowledge of science-specific reading strategies; used random, general literacy practices; and had completed inadequate professional development on science-related topics. Positive change may occur if district leaders support teachers in expanding their knowledge and application of discipline literacy strategies through participation in discipline literacy-focused professional development. The study may provide educators and researchers a deeper understanding of disciplinary literacy and increase research on the topic.

La présente recherche collaborative vise à décrire (1) la mise en œuvre de pratiques en contexte d’atelier d’écriture de deux enseignantes vietnamiennes de français langue étrangère au deuxième cycle du secondaire bénéficiant d’une formation continue sur ce dispositif ; (2) les effets de leurs pratiques d’atelier d’écriture sur le développement de la compétence à écrire en français langue étrangère de leurs élèves ; et (3) les répercussions de leur participation à cette recherche collaborative sur le changement de leurs pratiques d’enseignement de l’écriture. Afin de répondre à ces objectifs, nous avons observé chacune des enseignantes à deux reprises, l’une au début et l’autre, à la fin de l’expérimentation. Elles ont de plus décrit leur mise en œuvre de l’atelier d’écriture lors d’une entrevue téléphonique qui se déroulait toutes les deux semaines au cours de cinq mois. D’autre part, nous avons évalué la performance en écriture en français langue étrangère des élèves (n=33) de ces deux enseignantes au prétest et au post-test au moyen d’une épreuve de production écrite. Enfin, nous avons mené une entrevue semi-dirigée avec les enseignantes au début et à la fin de la recherche pour collecter les changements qu’elles ont apportés dans leurs pratiques d’enseignement de l’écriture et identifier les éléments du dispositif de recherche facilitant ces changements. Nos résultats indiquent que durant la recherche, les enseignantes ont mis en place l’atelier d’écriture dans leur classe. Au moyen d’observations directes en classe à l’aide du modèle du multi-agenda de Bucheton et Soulé (2009), nous avons remarqué une amélioration dans la qualité de leurs pratiques de tissage, de pilotage, d’étayage et d’atmosphère à la fin de l’expérimentation. Les pratiques déclarées, quant à elles, permettent de constater que les enseignantes ont organisé l’atelier d’écriture sur une base régulière et ont respecté presque pleinement les principes de ce dispositif présentés lors de la formation. Du côté des élèves, ils ont amélioré significativement la qualité de leurs productions écrites sur le plan du contenu, de l’organisation, de la structure des phrases, du choix des mots, de la voix d’auteur et des conventions linguistiques au post-test. De plus, leurs productions écrites étaient plus longues et meilleures en ce qui concerne la complexité lexicale ainsi que syntaxique. Finalement, les enseignantes ont déclaré apporter des changements dans leurs pratiques d’enseignement de l’écriture, et ce, grâce à la formation que nous avions organisée pour elles, à notre soutien durant leur expérimentation et à leur observation mutuelle de la mise en œuvre de l’atelier d’écriture. / The purpose of this collaborative research is to describe (1) the implementation of writing workshop practices by two Vietnamese teachers of French as a foreign language at the upper secondary level who received in-service training on this device; (2) the impact of their writing workshop practices on the development of their students’ competence in writing French as a foreign language; and (3) the repercussions of their participation in the collaborative research on the change in their writing teaching practices. Our results indicate that during the research, teachers implemented the writing workshop in their classrooms. Through direct classroom observations using Bucheton and Soulé’s (2009) multi-agenda model, we noted an improvement in the quality of weaving, piloting, scaffolding, and atmospheric practices implemented by the teachers at the end of the experiment. The reported practices show that the teachers implemented the writing workshop on a regular basis and complied almost fully with the principles of this device presented during the training. On the students’ side, they significantly improved the quality of their written productions in terms of content, organization, sentence fluency, word choice, authorial voice and linguistic conventions on the post-test. In addition, their written productions were longer and better in terms of lexical and syntactic complexity. Finally, the teachers reported making changes in their practices of teaching writing, thanks to the training we had organized for them, to our support during their experimentation, and to their mutual observation of the implementation of the writing workshop.

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