Researchers have concluded that parental involvement is necessary for students' success in school because parent involvement in school activities can positively affect children's learning and school experiences. Parent presence and participation is lacking in an urban school district in western Tennessee. The purpose of this study was to investigate parents' participation in school activities, the current level of parental involvement, and teachers' perceptions related to ways to engage parents more effectively in participating in school-related activities. A conceptual framework of Epstein's model for parental involvement and Hoover-Dempsey's model of the parental involvement process guided this study. The research questions focused on primary teachers' perceptions about parental involvement, the influence of parental involvement, and ways to engage parents in school activities. A case study design was used to capture the insights of 7 participants through 1-on-1 interviews, reflective journals, and artifacts in the form of parent contact logs. Emergent themes were identified through an open coding process and the findings were developed and validated through member checking and triangulation. The findings revealed that primary teachers want to engage parents in school activities, that teachers believe parent involvement is a positive motivator for students, and that teachers need more strategies to effectively engage parents. A project was designed to provide strategies to meaningfully engage parents in school activities. This study may influence positive social change by supporting teachers' and administrators' efforts to improve engagement with parents in school-related activities.

On average, teachers in the United States are absent for 9.6 days of student instruction per school year, while in this study's rural Northeast Ohio school district, teachers averaged 16.2 absences in the 2015-16 school year. Teacher absence is a concern because the classroom teacher is often considered the most crucial school-related influence on student achievement. Guided by Bowlby's attachment theory, the purpose of this study was to examine the possible predictive relationships between teacher absences for sick/personal and professional leave as well as other teacher-related variables, including teaching experience, teacher education level, and teacher evaluation results, with the outcome variables of student achievement in 4th through 8th grade English language arts and math. In this quantitative correlational study, data from 36 4th through 8th grade English language arts and math teachers were examined using simple and multiple linear regression models. Results indicated that none of the 5 teacher-related variables were significantly predictive of student achievement. Despite these non-significant results, the district's Board of Education expressed concerns about the public's perception of the district's teacher attendance rate. To address the Board's concern, a 3-day professional development program was created for the Board, administrators, and teachers to collaborate and recommend strategies to increase teacher attendance. The knowledge gained from implementing this project will promote positive social change by offering this and other school districts a variety of options to support the consistent attendance of teachers, which may, in turn, enhance student-teacher relationships, student-teacher engagement, and potentially student achievement over time.

Navajo students who attend residential schools that are located off the reservation and hours away from their homes, communities, and tribes may experience issues with development of a meaningful cultural identity. The purpose of this study was to better understand and identify key themes related to how Navajo students' cultural identity may be affected while living in an off-reservation residential hall. Phinney's ethnic identity development theory was used to explain the psychosocial process of developing industry and identity in adolescents. The primary research question addressed how former students' experiences of living in an off-reservation residence hall affected their development of cultural identity. A qualitative case study design was used. A purposeful sample of 12 Navajo former students who lived in a Bureau of Indian Education off-reservation residential hall between 2010-2014 was interviewed. The interviews were coded, and 7 themes related to loss of native language ability, yearning for native language and culture, tutoring, supportive teachers, responsibility and independence, generational legacy, and culture were identified. Based on the findings, a professional development plan was developed to train board members, administrators, and staff at the study site about how to promote students' development of positive cultural identity while living in a residential hall. With this knowledge, residential hall leaders and staff may be better able to ensure that Navajo students in their charge achieve successful educational outcomes and retain their tribal culture, practices, and language, to ensure that Navajo students can achieve successful educational outcomes and a positive cultural identity.

School leaders are expected to make decisions that improve student mathematics achievement. However, one difficulty for school leaders has been the limited amount of research concerning content-specific (e.g., mathematics) school leadership and its effects on student achievement. School leaders do not make decisions in isolation; rather, they make decisions as part of a complex adaptive system (CAS), as proposed by complexity theory. The purpose of this study was to explore the role the school leader plays in students’ mathematics achievement through the lens of complexity theory. The researcher collected survey data from K-12 school leaders and conducted focus group interviews to answer the research questions. The researcher found a significant regression equation predicting the school-wide average SAGE mathematics proficiency scores based on several characteristics of the school leader and student demographics. Distinctive patterns emerged in the decisions and actions made by school leaders based on school-wide SAGE mathematics proficiency. Results suggest that the school leaders’ first role in promoting higher student mathematics achievement is to directly and indirectly facilitate a shared vision of mathematics education between stakeholders in the CAS. The school leader’s second role is to actively work to recruit and retain the highest quality teachers possible.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate effectiveness of the facilitators of a stepfamily education course, based upon facilitator self-report as well as participant report. Agencies in northern Utah that provide services to low-income minority families were used to recruit a sample of 152 facilitators and 1,134 participants of which 519 of the participants were male and 613 of the participants were females. Additionally, 21 of the facilitators were male and 131 of the facilitators were female. Requirements for participants included having been previously married with no children or having children from a previous relationship that formed a current stepfamily. Intervention theory states the implementation of protective factors, such as preventative education, lessens the impact of risk factors in participants' lives. A self-report measure was used at the completion of the 12-hour course. Participants and facilitators were asked about the effectiveness of the facilitation with regard to facilitation skills and methods used. Participants and facilitators consistently reported that they did find the facilitation to be effective. Participants and facilitators agreed that facilitators explained course material clearly, answered questions well, stimulated conversation, cared about group members, and drew upon personal experiences effectively.

The implementation of learning styles models in the classroom remains a heavily debated topic in education. Notable problems with utilization of learning styles in the classroom include a lack of empirical research support and potential maladaptive effects on student learning and motivation. The primary research questions focused on the presence and quantity of learning styles discussion in the text, which definitions, models, and recommendations were presented, and which of the cited references were based on empirical data. The answers to these questions were compared between educational psychology and introduction to education textbooks. A content analysis of introduction to education (n = 10) and educational psychology (n = 10) textbooks was conducted. Eighty percent of the textbooks included a discussion of learning styles. Half of the textbooks defined learning style as a preference or approach and the other half as an individual process or style. One-fourth of the textbooks recommended matching instructional methods to learning styles. One comparison of text types, the number of empirical references cited in the text, was statistically significant. Given that most textbooks do not recommend matching instructional methods to learning styles, future research should examine the source of teachers’ beliefs that student learning is improved with the matching of learning styles to teaching approach.

This paper explores educator perceptions of gifted and talented (GT) English language (ELL) students. This study identifies barriers for identification and service for GT/ELL students and highlights ways to support students through current efforts for students who fit these criteria. Educators from two elementary schools were interviewed in this qualitative study. The schools were chosen due to their high population of ELL students. The roles of professional development (PD) and best practices for identification of underrepresented students are discussed. Five main themes emerged from interviews of educators that work with GT/ELL students. The themes are obstacles, perception, referral, professional development, and, modification.

This study concerns itself with, "The Status of Industrial Arts in the State of Kentucky." This study is divided into the following three divisions: The distribution of students by grades, who are taking industrial arts. Important factors in the organization of industrial arts work. The type and scope of industrial arts subjects or activities being taught.

When 32 elementary education students, 16 of whom were enrolled in an off-campus block of laboratory experiences with handicapped, took the Rosenzweig Picture-Frustration Study and the Kuder Occupational Interest Survey, Form DD, there was no evidence that the professional semester affected self-confidence or social adjustment as measured by the number of extrapunitive and need-persistence reactions, respectively, on the P-F Study. The t test was used to compare the mean number of those responses made by members of the two groups. There was considerable evidence, however, that the number of subjects who gave elementary education the same or an even higher rank following the professional semester was too great to be attributed to chance when compared by means of chi square to the number and direction of rank changes made by members of the control group on the same occupational survey. The support which this study has given to actual classroom experience as a cause of increased professional commitment is sufficiently great to imply that other students might profit if their programs contained periods of time spent in daily contact with learners before their student teaching experiences begin.

Because of the fact that so little has been done to create a scientific, objective basis for a sound course of study in penmanship, it has long been the desire of the writer to develop some ideas that presented themselves several years ago. It has occurred that there is a real need for a basis of fact, rather than mere personal opinion, in the teaching of penmanship. While the great pen artists and the great penmanship teachers of the past and present have wrought exceedingly well and have made a wonderful contribution to the improvement of handwriting pedagogy, there still remains much to be accomplished in this field. Heretofore, penmanship texts have often been based too much on the personal opinion of the author concerning the order in which the letters should be presented. In too many cases this order appears to be a haphazard arrangement with no particular plan or purpose except to get all of the capital and small letters in the course somehow. But this order of presentation, and there are practically as many orders of presentation as there are authors, has been governed principally, in the writer's opinion, by the authors' ideas concerning the relation of one letter to another in form and possibly somewhat by their opinions relative to the difficulty of the letters. The easiest letters were presented first and the more difficult ones followed, being arranged in a progressive manner in the order of their difficulty. Little, if any, thought has been given apparently to the relative importance of the letters from the standpoint of the frequency with which they are used. As far as the writer knows, no attempt has been made to determine the frequency with which the small and capital letters are used. It is his belief that this information will be helpful to teachers of penmanship in placing the emphasis in their teaching more nearly where the need for such emphasis is greatest. Consequently, it is this problem which has been chosen as the field of investigation for this study. To this task the writer dedicates his best efforts to contribute something worth while, if he may, to the teaching of penmanship, without expecting the contribution to be in any manner revolutionary.