In this study I present case studies of the art classes at three private schools in the Midwest. The schools include a Catholic school, a Mennonite school and a Transcendental Meditation school. In the study I spent time observing art classes at each school for eighteen weeks totaling an average of thirty hours in each school. At the schools I observed the art classes and interviewed the art teachers, administrators and students in order to be able to describe the history and philosophy of each school as well as the art teaching and learning that occur in the art classes. The purpose of the study is not to determine which school is best or if they are better than public schools, but to present descriptions of art classes in nontraditional settings. Accomplishing this inquiry presented the possibility of drawing out unique or innovative teaching practices that could be implemented in any art classroom to improve the quality of education.

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Curriculum-Based Measures in writing (CBM-W) assesses a variety of fluency-based components of writing. While support exists for the use of CBM measures in the area of writing, there is a need to conduct further validation studies to investigate the utility of these measures within elementary and secondary classrooms. Since only countable indices are used in CBM-W, this study explored the possibility of using an assessment that measured writing quality in conjunction with the CBM metric. To accomplish this, three pieces of data were used in this study. The CBM metrics of total words written, words spelled correctly, correct word sequences, percentage of words spelled correctly, and percentage of correct word sequences were scored from a timed writing passage that second grade students completed. Scores from the district writing assessment that classroom teachers rated using an analytic rubric that focused on quality were also analyzed. Last, a validated writing assessment, the TOWL-3, was used as the criterion measure. Using correlation and regression methods, results indicated that correct word sequences was the best predictor performance on the TOWL-3. Even though the teacher writing assessment correlated with the TOWL-3 at the significant level, adding it to the scores from the CBM-W measures did not significantly increase the validity.

Research studies have investigated issues in the teaching of writing, particularly at the elementary and university levels. Studies of out-of-school writing done by adolescents have focused on digital contexts and social media. This study examines the intersections of the out-of-school and in-school writing worlds of three high school writers: a poet, a novelist, and a contest essay writer. I use data gathered over seven years from the student writers and four of their English language arts teachers. Research questions focused on how notions of student writers and the teaching of high school English might be informed by the ways student writers described their out-of-class writing and motivation for writing, how their teachers developed and implemented their philosophies and practices in teaching writing, and how the student writers developed their internally persuasive discourses about writing. In analyzing case study data to answer these questions, I used constant comparison analysis and narrative inquiry analysis, drawing upon theories of heteroglossic discourses, figured worlds, and writing identity. My findings show that in the intersections of out-of-school and in-school writing experiences, students select some writing practices and discourses from their teachers to adopt or adapt, such as developing writing processes, participating in writing communities, and caring about writing. They complicate their definitions of writing, however, as they create figured worlds of writing in which they explore identity, navigate and negotiate complex emotions, and receive recognition. The students illustrate their dialogism with writing discourses in stories of improvisation in which they find power and enact resistance. I argue that writing teachers need encouragement, education, and agency to entertain more complex perceptions of student writers and teaching writing to support students for future personal, academic, career, and public discourse worlds.

How do elementary educators approach cultural diversity within international school settings? How do North American teachers negotiate the tensions and experiences they have as cultural agents living abroad while valuing the cultural identities of the students they serve? This study describes how international teachers' unique positions, experiences and perspectives affect their attention to cultural diversity within their classrooms. Sociocultural theory frames this study with emphasis on personal and professional identities, narrative inquiry and culturally responsive teaching. I interweave narrative inquiry and ethnographic research methods as theoretical and methodological frameworks. I interviewed and observed the 3 North American educators in their elementary classrooms in an American school in China over several weeks. Data collected in this study included interview transcripts, artifacts from the school and classrooms, photographs and field notes. I also weave my own stories from my experiences as an international teacher throughout the study. The Atlas TI qualitative computer program assisted the constant-comparative analysis process. Grounded and axial coding revealed a pattern across participants' stories and approaches to cultural diversity. All three teachers authored stories from their cross cultural experiences that informed their identities as educators. The teachers questioned their cultural agent role, reflected on their responses and took action in their teaching to be culturally responsive. The approaches each teacher implemented to be responsive to the cultural worlds in their classroom related to their cultural agent identities in their personal stories of cross-cultural experiences. Findings indicated that teachers were more likely to be culturally responsive in their teaching when they implemented a constructivist educational philosophy in their classrooms. This study reconceptualized cultural responsiveness to include the diverse cultural worlds of the student, teacher and international school setting.

Using a mixed methods design this study investigates in-service K-12 foreign language teachers’ beliefs about technology and factors that influence its implementation in instruction. The study employs an Explanatory Design using a two-phase approach, where qualitative data is collected and analyzed to elaborate on the quantitative data results. A total of ninety-nine in-service K-12 foreign language teachers from across the state of Iowa responded to the Modified Technology Implementation Questionnaire about their technological beliefs and barriers to technology integration within classroom practices. The results of the instrument were tabulated using a hierarchical multiple regression to uncover factors impacting technology integration. To further enhance the quantitative findings, ten teachers were purposefully sampled from the same participant pool for follow-up interviews. Follow-up interviews with participants were conducted using thematic analysis. The findings from this study suggest that both internal and external variables impact teachers’ uses of technology. Some of the more contextual factors were time, resources, support, professional development, class sizes, and scheduling conflicts. In addition to contextual factors, teachers’ more internal factors about technology further impacted its incorporation. The study uncovered three main internal elements: beliefs, perceived benefits, and teaching style as factors making a difference in the utilization of technology. The internal factors were more influential than external factors in their ability to be successful with technology integration. The conclusion includes recommendations and implications for administrators, professional development coordinators, teachers, and teacher preparation institutions.

This qualitative study was designed to explore undergraduate second language writers’ perceptions of and experiences with source-based writing and plagiarism. Grounded Theory (GT) was employed to systematically collect and analyze data throughout the study. By adopting Activity Theory (AT) as a theoretical framework, I was able to identify and analyze points of contradiction and tension that arose within the activity systems of my participants. The findings that emerged from GT showed that my participants were concerned with adapting to their new academic communities, and the L1 communities from whence they came played little to no role in hindering that adaptation. The findings that emerged from AT revealed that several of the struggles my participants faced with their source-based writing assignments stemmed not from a lack of understanding of plagiarism-related variables (e.g. paraphrase), but how these variables functioned within a larger systemic context (e.g. how paraphrase might differ across disciplines or assignments). This study provides the impetus for further investigation into how extant university policies, procedures, and guidelines affect students’ ability to construct meaning of source-based writing and plagiarism. Additionally, this study has the potential to open conversations regarding how universities can play a more positive and active role in students’ efforts to become new members of the academic community.

There is a struggle within the field of world language teaching to design culture curricula that promote respect, acceptance and understanding of world cultures, positioning those cultures as different but equal to the cultures of students. The purpose of this paper is to (1) provide background about the history and current practices of culture education in world language classrooms, (2) explain critical literacy as a theory, its possibilities for instructional methodology, and how critical literacy can address the struggle in world language education and help teach students a deep, complex understanding of culture, (3) outline an adapted culture curriculum that uses critical literacy as a bridge to understanding culture, highlighting the practices, goals and purposes of the adapted curriculum, and (4) provide support for the adapted curriculum in current research and national standards for education. This paper will demonstrate that the ultimate goal of culture curricula is instilling in students the ability to look at a person from any culture with curiosity and respect, without superiority or inferiority, and that critical literacy is a tool for achieving that goal. Building on and extending current practices in culture education, critical literacy provides students the opportunity to come to their own understanding of new cultures through thoughtful inquiry and exploration that emphasizes deconstructing preconceived notions about culture, moving beyond surface knowledge of the target culture to becoming thoughtful, respectful world citizens.

Previous research indicates that the implementation of a new curriculum is affected by several factors, including teachers' orientations toward the role or purpose of curriculum, differences in individual teachers' practices and beliefs, and aspects of the implementation of a published writing program, Being a Writer, in their school district. Data sources included transcripts of interviews with the focal teachers and district administrators, classroom observation field notes of writing instruction, and related documentation including the Being a Writer program. Results indicated that teachers' beliefs about how children learn to write, the district expectations for classroom implementation of curriculum, and the teachers' abilities to describe their own visions or goals for writing instruction all have considerable impact on how the program is implemented and the role the published curriculum plays in the classroom. The implications of my research include the importance of ongoing professional development opportunities for teachers to develop their beliefs about how children learn to write, and the need for teacher education programs to provide experiences that enable future teachers to develop their own goals or visions for students in their classrooms.

This mixed-method study used a survey and semistructured interviews to learn how new Arizona community college teachers learned to teach, how available certain learning experiences and effective professional development activities were, how valuable teachers perceived those learning experiences and activities to be, and if there were any factors that underlie how new community college teachers learned to teach. The survey questioned whether 26 learning experiences were available to new community college teachers, and whether they had participated in professional development activities conducted using critical reflection, peer group conferencing, professional development cases, and active learning. All of these activities were available to the majority of new teachers except for professional development cases, which were available to only 38% of respondents. The perception of these community college teachers was that active learning, critical reflection, and peer group conferencing were more valuable than other more typical faculty development activities. The researcher expected that professional development cases would be rated more highly than typical faculty development activities; however, the survey respondents who reported participating in professional development cases rated them as equally valuable to other faculty development activities, but not higher. The researcher discovered six factors that underlie the process new Arizona community college teachers used to learn to teach. They were guidance from others, receptive communications, formalized teacher training, personal resources, experimentation and reflection, and student perspective. The process that new Arizona community college teachers used to learn to teach can be explained by the adult learning theory of transformative learning. They valued learning experiences that were reflective and applicable to the classroom. They benefitted from professional development activities that used the principles of transformative learning theory such as active learning, critical reflection, and peer group conferencing. Learning to teach was a process that included challenging and changing their assumptions about what happens in a community college classroom. They adjusted their assumptions and their teaching behaviors with time and experience.