This dissertation study compared the three most common pathways of traditional preparation for novice middle level teachers (elementary, middle level, and secondary) and attempted to answer the central question of which group felt best prepared for middle level teaching. Selected novice teachers from each of the three pathways were interviewed and asked to reflect on their preparation program. All participants were graduates of the same large, urban, public university. Data were collected using an interpretivism paradigm and analyzed using the constant comparative method. The state has recently redesigned its certification structure and teacher education institutions have redesigned their programs to reflect these changes. This study sought to discover if the restructuring resulted in greater feelings of preparedness among novice teachers. This study was exploratory, but initial findings indicate that there was very little difference in feelings of preparedness among the three pathways for teaching at the middle level with respect to program components and understanding of the needs of middle level adolescents. There was limited difference among the three pathways with respect to content preparation. This poses an interesting policy question: If the state’s intent in restructuring the certification tiers was to ensure more prepared teachers for the middle level and this exploratory study shows little difference in feelings of preparation, was the decision to restructure teacher certification a worthwhile endeavor? The study offers possible programmatic changes to increase feelings of preparedness as well as ideas for further research around this topic. / Educational Administration

This study incorporated an intervention that combined discussion and sentence writing to promote vocabulary development. Fourth grade students were assigned to either an intervention or control condition. Teachers in the intervention classrooms used a word learning protocol that was designed to provide students with student-friendly definitions and a minimum of 15 exposures to each target word through both receptive and expressive tasks. These tasks called upon students to begin to make connections between spontaneous and scientific concepts to support their word learning. Teachers in control classrooms followed instructional routines as specified in their school’s reading series. Multiple choice assessments from the district adopted reading series for vocabulary and comprehension along with a researcher-developed sentence writing task were used to measure growth in word knowledge. On the multiple choice vocabulary assessment, the intervention group outperformed the control group on one of the three weekly assessments from the reading series. There were no differences in comprehension scores on weekly reading tests across groups. On the sentence writing task, results indicated that the intervention group outperformed the control group with the intervention group showing a statistically significant difference in the rate at which they learned words. / Literacy & Learners

Young people tend to witness and experience the ubiquitous nature of conflicts that emanate from dominant socio-political, economic, and cultural forces and often tend to shape school practices. In this study, I listened to the voices of students who attend schools that aspire to resist this socialization for conflict through their focus on peace education. The research questions that guided my study are, ‘In this world of conflict, how are young people imagining, engaging, and enacting a peaceful world?’ which is complemented with a question on, ‘How are middle school students interacting with notions of peace and conflict as they make meaning of their social worlds?’ Inspired by a methodological approach of youth participatory action research (YPAR), 12 students across two schools in New Delhi, India, participated in a YPAR process across 13 virtual sessions, which were held twice weekly. Guided by a critical peace education and critical hope framework, I found that despite living in a world that is embedded in conflict, these young people move beyond despair and offer hope and possibilities for imagining, engaging with, and enacting a peaceful world. With an orientation to peace, these young people illuminate their imaginations of peace, which help us to think about ways in which we can live as peaceful beings characterized by harmonious co/existence with the self, one another, and the environment. Living in this world of conflict, these young people do demonstrate an awareness of existing conflict, and their engagement with conflict also tends to take them back to a place of peace. Starting from and returning to a place of peace could contribute towards building a peaceful world.

Pressures from education reforms have contributed to the need for music educators to embrace new and diverse instructional strategies to enhance the learning environment. Music teachers need to understand the pedagogy of teaching and learning and how these affect their praxis. The purpose of this multiple case evaluative study was to investigate the instructional methods used in 10 middle school general music programs to assist students in obtaining the National Standards for Music Education. Bloom's revised taxonomy was the theoretical framework used to evaluate the teaching praxis of the participating teachers. The research questions for the study addressed the effectiveness of the instructional strategies in the music classroom and how they align with the National Standards Music Education and Bloom's Revised Taxonomy. Data were collected from an open ended survey, individual interviews, and unobtrusive documents from 10 general music teachers from suburban, rural, and urban school districts. A line-by-line analysis was followed by a coding matrix to categorize collected data into themes and patterns. The results indicated that standards-based metacognitive instructional strategies can assist music teachers in their classrooms and unite cognitive, affective, and kinesthetic experiences applicable beyond the music classroom. It is recommended that music teachers use alternative teaching techniques to promote and connect critical thinking skills through musical learning experiences. Implications for positive social change include training music educators to create learning environments that support and motivate students to learn and achieve academic success.

By the time students transition from elementary to middle school, many do not demonstrate mastery of recalling basic math facts. This 8-week quasi-experimental quantitative study, based in cognitive development and theories of the construction of memory, used a 3-level independent variable experimental design to determine if there was a relationship between teachers' implementation of timed drill practices and the students' level of automaticity with regard to basic multiplication facts in 9 sixth-grade, regular education math classes. The control group received no intervention, the first treatment group received weekly timed drill practice for 3 minutes, and a second treatment group received daily timed drill practice for 3 minutes. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) procedures were used to measure the differences in pretest and posttest scores among the 3 treatment groups. Although no significant difference was found among the 3 groups' pretest performance, a significant difference among posttest performance was found. Scheffe' post hoc analysis revealed that the students who were administered daily timed practice drills performed statistically higher on the posttest than did the control group and first treatment group. Similarly, students in the weekly timed practice drill group had statistically significant higher gain scores than did students in the no treatment group. This study may lead to a shift in teachers' thought and practice regarding use of timed practice drills with the result of an increase of automaticity of basic math facts. Improved automaticity may lead to positive social changes including superior performance in math for regular education students that can lead to an increased sense of self-efficacy and higher graduation rates.

According to IDEA and NCLB requirements, students with disabilities are held to the same standards established for nondisabled students. The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the impact of a special education inclusion program for middle school students with mild to moderate learning disabilities. Student outcomes were measured based on the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program (TCAP) test scores for reading/language and mathematics. The theoretical foundation for this study was Vygotsky's social development theory applied to special education inclusion programs to support learning within the general curriculum for students with mild to moderate learning disabilities. An independent samples t test was used to measure the difference in the means of the TCAP scores for 2 cohorts of Grade 6, 7, and 8 students with disabilities (one group taught before the implementation of an inclusion program and one group taught after the implementation of an inclusion program). The findings indicated that inclusion had a significant positive impact on TCAP scores in both reading/language and mathematics. The implications for positive social change generated by this research include a better understanding of the impact of an inclusion program on the TCAP scores of students with mild to moderate learning disabilities at one middle school in Tennessee. Effective IEP decisions have implications for social change because positive educational experiences for middle school students with mild to moderate disabilities increase the likelihood such students will graduate from high school to enter higher education or the work force.

Self-efficacy beliefs, a component of Bandura's social cognition theory, provided the basis for this study of teachers' participation in professional learning. Training and positive experiences increase teacher efficacy, or the level of effort and persistence educators are willing to exert as they teach. The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the relationship between teachers' participation in differentiated instruction (DI) in-service opportunities and teachers' knowledge and frequency of use of DI. It was hypothesized that middle school teachers' levels of DI training would be related to teachers' knowledge and use of DI in the classroom. An anonymous survey was used to collect data from 79 teachers. Regression analyses revealed that teachers' levels of DI training were not positively related to teachers' knowledge of DI, but there was a positive relationship between teachers' familiarity and use of content, process, product, and DI strategies. Teachers' education levels influenced their use of DI; however, teachers' experience levels did not. ANOVA was used to compare teachers' use of DI across grade levels, and results indicated that grade levels taught did not affect teachers' use of DI. Descriptive analyses indicated that most teachers were familiar with DI and used many of the DI techniques often; however, most reported that they learned how to differentiate using methods other than staff development. Many teachers reported that they would be willing to participate in future DI training. DI staff development is recommended as a way to educate teachers in additional DI methods. Implications for positive social change include increased DI training opportunities for teachers that can result in increased self-efficacy and instructional changes that can help improve student achievement.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the initial on-site supervision experience of school counseling interns. Current counseling supervision research has failed to address dynamics specific to the context of school counselor training and professional development. This gap in the research suggest that examining the phenomenological experience of what constitutes school counselor trainee growth in the context of on-site counseling supervision was worthwhile. An emergent qualitative research design was utilized to clarify and elaborate on data while pursuing lines of inquiry grounded in the experience of three school counseling supervisory dyads (supervisee-supervisor), a university internship supervisor, two additional supervisees, and three additional supervisors. During the course of an academic school counseling internship experience, data was collected through multiple taped on-site school counseling supervision process observations, participant semi-structured interviews, and reflective participant and researcher journals. Utilizing a constant comparative method of data analysis, results indicated an emerging model of on-site school counseling supervision which, (a) progressed sequentially through a series of four developmental phases (contextual orientation, establishing trust, conceptual development, and clinical independence), (b) focused on twelve dimensions of supervises learning specific to each phase of development (contextual urgency, site disparity, ethical awareness, accessibility, support, collegiality, thematic observations, reflective modeling, illustrative examples, self assessment, self generation, and professional risk taking), and (c) illustrated a reflective cycle of supervisor-supervisee interaction focused on the supervisee transforming dissonant internship counseling experiences into professional schemas. Presented as an emergent model and specific to the investigated context, the results suggest that developmental principles of counseling supervision are applicable to school counseling, and that the supervision relationship illustrated pedagogical interventions and processes congruent with reflective learning theory. It is recommended that counselor education programs provide preliminary exposure to the school counseling context and relevant counseling models while maintaining ongoing follow-up and support with on-site school counseling supervisors. Furthermore, research is needed to more fully examine instructional strategies in the context of school counselor preparation and on-site supervision. / Graduation date: 1998

Middle school is a critical time in students' learning of mathematics, something a Learning Management System (LMS) is designed to help parents support. What remains unknown is how parents use an LMS to monitor their children's progress in mathematics. This qualitative case study explored how parents from one midAtlantic middle school with 543 students used an LMS, EdLine, to support their children's autonomous achievement in mathematics. Expectancy-value theory and social cognitive theory made up the conceptual framework used to evaluate study findings. A criterion-based process was used to select nine middle school parents from grades 6, 7, and 8 as participants. Data sources included structured interviews and follow-up questions, EdLine spreadsheets, and parent reflective journals. Data were analyzed through a priori codes based on the literature review. Themes that emerged from the analysis included reoccurring learner autonomy and parents benefiting from their ability to use EdLine to monitor grades, check progress, and provide strategies to support mathematical achievement. Parents indicated they could encourage their children, teach them, and expect them to use EdLine to monitor and manage their grades and achievement in mathematics. This research contributes to positive social change by explaining how administrators can help middle school parents use an LMS to become engaged with their children's mathematics studies and set expectations for their mathematics task completion and achievement.

No Child Left Behind (NCLB) mandates that students be measured yearly on standardized state tests, rather than on classwork, to show adequate academic growth. During the 2007--2008 school year, 38% of eighth graders in one state failed the math portion of the Criterion Referenced Competency Test (CRCT). The purpose of this quasi-experimental, pretest-posttest control-group study was to determine if there was a significant difference in CRCT scores between at-risk eighth-grade math students receiving instruction in (a) the Remedial Education Program (REP) and in (b) the regular program. The theoretical base for this study included Piaget's concrete operational theory, constructivist theory, and behaviorist theory. In this causal-comparative experimental design, analysis of covariance was used to assess differences in eighth grade CRCT scores, controlling for seventh-grade test scores. Of the 50 students in this study, 25 received instruction in the REP model and 25 in the traditional model. Results indicated that the group that received the REP program instruction had significantly higher eighth-grade CRCT scores than the regular instruction group. Implications for positive social change include better understanding the most effective type of math instruction for at-risk students that can result in increased math achievement.