<p> <b>Purpose.</b> The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to understand the lived experiences of student leader employees in relation to retention through the lens of development via engagement at a small, non-profit private university in Southern California. </p><p> <b>Methodology.</b> This study used a phenomenological approach to understand the lived experiences of student employee leaders. The researcher interviewed ten full-time undergraduate student employees who had been working in their leadership role for at least one year. The students interviewed were juniors and seniors. </p><p> <b>Findings.</b> The student employee leaders reported building strong relationships with their supervisors and peers as a result of on-campus employment. Students reported that their place of employment was a safe place for them to be and that they enjoyed the convenience of flexible hours and financial stability. The student employee leaders in this study felt supported and connected due to the people they have encountered throughout their employment at the institution. The student employee leaders also faced challenges and growth through their experiences working on campus. Lastly, students learned skills through various training methods. </p><p> <b>Conclusion.</b> The student employee leaders in this study reported that their relationships with supervisors and students contributed to their decision to remain at the institution. The students interviewed in this study also felt that what they learned in their place of employment could have longer implications in applying what they are learning to their future careers. </p><p> <b>Recommendations.</b> It is essential for student employees on campus to gain valuable experiences while working during college to engage and develop students to prepare for the future. Universities should emphasize for students to work on campus to help them build transferable skills and engage students in meaningful work to make the best of their time while in college.</p><p>

<p> Educational reform movements set ambitious goals for student learning. Numerous factors contribute to students achieving these goals. It has been widely understood that &ldquo;the increasing emphasis on quality of teaching and learning has placed new demands on staff development, and the search for models and methodologies which are promising for professional development of academic staff has become an important agenda in itself&rdquo; (Ho, A.,2001 P.35). Effective changes in practice require a great deal of learning on the part of teachers and an even greater amount of support and guidance from administrators (Borko, 2004, Putnam &amp; Borko, 2000).</p><p> Problematic practices in hiring and staffing make it difficult, albeit impossible, to provide an equal distribution of qualified teachers in high poverty districts and schools serving minorities. Contributing to the problem of teacher inequality and underqualified teachers is the phenomenon of out-of-field teaching- a term in reference to certified or qualified teachers who were teaching a subject in which they had no formal qualification or training (Hobbs, 2013). These teachers often receive little training and support and therefore find it difficult to experience success.</p><p> Through qualitative interviewing this study seeks to explore the perceptions of out-of-field teachers and mentors and understand how they make meaning of their experiences. Five themes emerged from the study: ineffective training and professional development, desire for success, buy in, time, and support. </p><p> Teachers and mentors want professional development that is meaningful to the work they do in the classroom. Educators, especially those teaching out-of-field, need training that is intense, focused and content oriented. Buy in is vital to any professional training. Out-of-field teachers want to be included in the decision-making as to what professional development they receive.</p><p> From this study, it was learned that it is a teacher&rsquo;s priority to make sure they are teaching content standards from day-to-day. The participants identified a lack of support as an inhibitor to that implementation. This concern for the lack of professional support among the participants bares out much of the research (Borko, 2014. Hobbs, 2015, Darling-Hammond, 2002, Ingersoll, 1999). Out-of-field teachers are highly committed to the students and communities they serve. With focused and intense training, close monitoring, time to observe skilled content area teachers, and strong support from building and district administrators, out-of-field teachers can become effective educators when teaching outside their area of expertise.</p><p>

<p> Teacher preparation colleges and universities have been studied to determine best practices and respond to educational reform. Education as a whole has been criticized for the rate at which reform occurs. Technology in education has its roots in the early 1990s, but best practices to provide professional development to current teaching staff and in the teacher preparation programs continue to evolve.</p><p> This study shows the outcomes of a unique school-university partnership preparing pre-service teachers to purposefully integrate technology in their future classrooms. Six Duquesne University interns were followed through their university technology integration course and during their semester internship at a Pittsburgh area school district with technology rich classrooms. This investigation is distinctive as the interns were embedded field experiences focusing on technology prior to their student teaching experiences. In documenting the interns&rsquo; stories, their narratives further inform the effect of such opportunities and advance school-university partnerships for the purpose of better preparing teachers for today&rsquo;s technology-rich classrooms and reduce or eliminate the Second Level Digital Divide.</p>

Thesis (Ed. D.)--West Virginia University, 2002. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains vii, 113 p. Vita. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 80-100).

<p> The attrition rate of teachers in an urban/suburban school district in a northeastern state caused schools to fail to attain annual yearly progress. To reverse this problem, administrators must understand the importance of their leadership and teacher efficacy and the need to nurture teachers to increase student performance. The purpose of this sequential mixed-methods study was to determine whether a relationship existed between leadership and efficacy. Total-population sampling was used to obtain 19 elementary and middle teachers who completed two surveys to examine the relationship between principals' behaviors (human relations, trust/decision making, instructional leadership, control, and conflict) and teacher efficacy (student engagement, instructional strategies, and classroom management). Survey data were analyzed using Pearson's product-moment correlations. In addition, face-to-face interviews were conducted with 3 teachers who had 5 or fewer years of teaching experience. These data were analyzed using thematic analysis. Quantitative findings indicated significant relationships between instructional leadership with teacher engagement and conflict with teacher engagement. Themes, based on the integrated model of teacher efficacy, revealed connections with the principal and support, guidance, and structure provided by the principal. Principals must focus on leadership behaviors that may increase teacher efficacy. These endeavors may contribute to positive social change when school leaders support teachers, who, in turn support students in their educational challenges to increase academic performance.</p>

<p> School officials in a large district adopted a research-based teacher evaluation system, the Framework for Teaching (FFT). Despite a 4-year phase-in of the FFT, teachers&rsquo; evaluation ratings increased while student achievement results decreased. This disparity impacted the school district&rsquo;s growth targets as set by the State Department of Education. If target growths are unmet, school administrators must relinquish school operations to the state. A bounded, qualitative case study was designed to explore administrators&rsquo; and teachers&rsquo; perceptions of the FFT and its influence on school administrators&rsquo; assessment of teachers&rsquo; instructional practices. Social constructivist and andragogy theories formed the study&rsquo;s conceptual framework. A purposeful sample of 6 K-12 district administrators, who reviewed teacher performance, and 12 K-12 district teachers, who were evaluated using the FFT, volunteered to participate in semi-structured interviews. Qualitative data were analyzed using open and axial coding. Key results included concerns with lack of time for conferences during the evaluation process, administrators&rsquo; skills to provide quality feedback to teachers, and their lack of content knowledge to improve teaching and learning in specific content areas. It was recommended that teachers receive evidence- based, constructive, and individualized feedback from the school administrator. Based on the findings, the Feedback Institute was developed to engage school administrators in professional development to learn how to provide substantive feedback using protocols and structures to support teacher growth and to use content specialists to address gaps in administrators&rsquo; content knowledge. These endeavors may contribute to positive social change by restructuring the teacher evaluation process to improve instructional practice, and, thus, enhance school improvement and student learning.</p>

<p> This study examined the construct of teacher buy-in (TBI) during a grading policy reform effort in a high school. The purpose of this study was to identify and describe teachers' perceived value to the grading reform. Additionally, the researcher studied teacher behavior by identifying the teachers' actual practice of the policy. The study finally compared the identified reported values of the participants with their actual grading practices to determine the convergence of values and practice. </p><p> The research provided empirical evidence for a new way to study TBI and its relationship to a reform implementation. This study addressed a school-site policy reform effort and described TBI contributing to, and perhaps challenging, current practices in school reform and teacher grading policies. This study described the extent to which teacher bought into the grading policies and provided a framework for studying TBI and grading policies in the context of Standards-Based Reform in the future. The findings and discussion highlight how grading policies are a critical element of the student evaluation process in the increasing movement towards national learning standards and testing. </p>

<p> The notion of building sustainable schoolhouses is catching hold amongst school professionals and designers. But gaps exist in the understanding of what that means. </p><p> This dissertation emerges from a problem of practice identified from an educator's practitioner perspective, involving lack of clarity around the notion of sustainability as central to a school design and construction initiative. The study revolves around the central design question, "What is a pattern language appropriate for the development of a sustainable schoolhouse?" It goes further, to analyze the gaps and overlaps in three professional groups of experts and their understanding of design patterns for inclusion in the pattern language. The conceptual framework uses a broad-based definition of sustainability. The review of literature relies on a framework utilizing a twin focus&mdash;on design and on sustainability&mdash;to finally examine sustainable design. The study uses a multi-pronged, three round Delphi Method process to elicit design patterns from experts in three professional groups associated with building sustainable K-12 school facilities: educators, designers, and ecologists. It employs a <i>W</i> coefficient of concordance to seek objective accord amongst members of the three professional groups in terms of their respective selection of design patterns for inclusion, and subsequent ordinal rankings of the design patterns. The products of the study are: a Master Pattern Language consisting of 44 design patterns, three professional-group sub-lists that illustrate key similarities and differences between and amongst the professional groups, and a statistical analysis of the relative concordance within each professional group. The dissertation then provides analysis of the findings in light of the potential utility of the results, especially as potential tools for future school design efforts. </p>

<p>Lao American college students' holistic identity development was examined in this study. The research utilized modified grounded theory methods to generate a model of holistic identity development for Lao American students whose families immigrated to the United States after 1978 as a part of the third wave of Laotian immigrants. Chickering and Reisser's (1993) psychosocial identity development theory and Kodama, McEwen, Liang, and Lee's (2002) negotiating identity and development task model for Asian Americans were utilized as an <i> a priori</i> theoretical foundation. Interviews explored participant perceptions and lived experiences as related to the elements of these two theories. Grounded theory development techniques were utilized in the analysis to explore the nature and interactions of various elements of the <i> a priori</i> theories. Data were collected using one exploratory focus group followed by in-depth interviews. Each participant was a child of parents who were refugees; all but one was born in the U.S. Findings center around three themes related to Lao American college students' holistic identity development: (a) the enmeshment of purpose and identity, (b) the influence and integration of family and culture influences, and (c) the fluidity of community influence. The dissertation concludes with a discussion of implications for theory, policy, and practice. </p>

<p> This quantitative study took place at a private international school in East Asia. The purpose of the study was to investigate United States college admission trends comparing International Baccalaureate Diploma Program candidates and International Baccalaureate non-Diploma Program candidates from the same school. Descriptive data was collected for the Classes of 2007-2012 and the two groups were compared based on the number of college acceptances for each group by year and as a whole, and the eventual collegiate success of the two groups once they matriculated to college, as measured by college persistence and graduation rates. The results of this study show there was a statistically significant difference between the mean number of college applications and the mean number of college acceptances per group, but there was not a statistically significant difference between the college acceptance rates for the two groups of students. There was a statistically significant difference between the matriculation rate of diploma and certificate students, but there was not a statistically significant difference between the graduation rates for the two groups of students. The information analyzed provides school stakeholders valuable data to explore the final educational outcomes for its graduates and determine if there is a significant difference in the college success of the two groups.</p>