Atlantic Avenue Elementary School (AAES) experienced reading achievement gaps between high-performing students and below-basic students within the school reading curriculum and balanced literacy framework. Vygotsky's theories of scaffolding and zone of proximal development served as the framework guiding this project, which used a qualitative case study design to explore reading teachers' perceptions of the ways in which they were addressing this reading achievement gap. Individual interviews, classroom observations, and lesson plans were the sources of the qualitative data collected from 6 reading teachers. The data were coded manually using emerging and constant-comparative strategies to identify common themes. The themes that emerged from the findings were the need for (a) balanced literacy instruction, (b) reading instruction to be taught at individual ability levels, (c) enrichment of students' background knowledge, (d) meaningful reading assessments to drive instruction, and (e) sustainable and informative professional development (PD). A teacher-informed PD plan was developed in the form of a professional learning community. The potential positive social impact of success of this PD at AAES could benefit similar schools in the district, state, and nation.

This qualitative case study explored U.S. middle school teachers' professional development needs in Information, Communication, and Technology (ICT) literacy integration. Past literature has suggested that teachers should improve classroom practices that promote ICT literacy, but few studies have addressed educators' specific training needs. This study was designed to identify the unique professional development needs of academic teachers in a Midwestern middle school using focus groups and interviews to explore teacher perceptions of current technology usage as well as the barriers and/or facilitators of ICT literacy integration. The conceptual framework was based on Knowles's theory of adult learning, which suggested that adult learners are motivated when they understand the real applications of new information. Methodological triangulation was obtained using 3 teacher focus groups and 2 interviews with 17 academic teachers, 1 administrator, and 1 resource teacher. Transcription documents from the focus groups and interviews were color-coded to identify emerging themes. The findings revealed that the participants believed that their students currently use technology to access information, but rarely evaluate the validity of digital information. To address this deficit, a professional development plan was created with the goal of increasing teachers' ICT literacy integration skills in the area of information evaluation. This plan was designed to improve methodological practices and lead to better classroom instruction, creating positive social change by making educators better-equipped to meet the needs of their students. The local community will also benefit as students leave school better prepared to meet the demands of a technological workforce.

Bullying has become a serious concern in many American public middle schools in recent years. Inadequate professional development (PD) in bullying prevention and response strategies has compounded this problem. The overarching purpose of this study was to increase understanding of the growing problem of school bullying. Bronfenbrenner's socioecological theory, which states that environment and relationships influence student behavior, served as the conceptual framework for this qualitative study. Guiding research questions, grounded in socioecological theory, were used to examine middle school teachers' views of PD and their perceived skills in responding to or preventing bullying. Through purposeful sampling, 8 middle school teachers in a community in rural Alabama were interviewed over a 3-week period. Each had at least 1 year of teaching experience in the local rural setting. To authenticate study findings, discipline referrals and state incident reports spanning the 2 previous years were assessed for teacher management of bullying. Data were analyzed using open coding to identify and categorize the patterns and themes that emerged. Results indicated that the teachers perceived that PD would give them the strategies to recognize and manage incidents of school bullying. These results supported and informed the PD project for middle school teachers. This study contributes to social change by providing professional development that will help teachers to either prevent or manage school bullying appropriately, a benefit to children and communities.

n/a---Introduction--- This thesis deals with an investigation od a Professional Development Scheme which gave three Teaching Service teachers working experience in one of Australia's largest research organisations, a Canberra hotel, and an ACT office furniture business (one of the largest manufacturers of its kind within Australia) during the September school vacation of 1988.-----Aim----The aim of the thesis is to analyse and evaluate the effectiveness of the Professional Development Scheme in the context of the relationship between the school and the world of work.

The purpose of this study was to investigate perceptions of self-initiated professional development of English language teachers at English Language School of BaSkent University. Within this framework, teachers&amp / #8217 / attitudes towards their professional development, their perceptions of major professional development activities, and the factors that hinder change and growth in teachers were investigated. The data collection instrument used was a questionnaire administered to 110 English language teachers at BaSkent University. The questionnaire consisted of both open-ended and close-ended items and the data collected were analyzed descriptively to understand the general trends and differences among teachers. The data analysis revealed that the teachers agreed with most of the concepts that reflect the importance of professional development. In addition, they were aware of the importance of major professional development activities for their growth. However, peer observation and action research, which are developmental activities, were not favoured as much as the other activities. In addition, it was found that the teachers did not make use of the activities as much as they gave importance to. Furthermore, teachers showed significant differences in importance given to and making use of the activities by the background variables. Female teachers, young teachers and the teachers who do not have much experience seemed to give more importance to and actualize some of the professional development activities more than the other teachers. Meanwhile, it was also noted that the listed factors that hinder growth were all found important by the teachers. The most important impediments to growth were indicated as excessive workload, lack of self-motivation and lack of institutional support for professional development.

Third grade teachers participated in a study that examined the ways teachers learn new skills for reading instruction and transfer their learning into the classroom on a daily basis. A review of literature included identification of a purpose for teacher learning, how teacher self-perception influenced use of new knowledge and teacher skills, and improved reading achievement. The teachers discussed challenges and barriers for their learning and implementation of new learning, which included reflection of how each has evolved as a reading teacher. Teachers expressed interests for new learning in reading instruction and self-awareness necessary for improvement in their practice.

Abstract This research attempted to understand the experiences of a cohort of informal and formal science educators and informal science institution (ISI) community representatives during and after completion of a pilot graduate certificate program. Informal science educators (ISEs) find limited opportunities for professional development and support which influence their contributions to America's science literacy and school science education. This emergent design nested case study described how an innovative program provided professional development and enabled growth in participants' abilities to contribute to science literacy. Data were collected through interviews, participant observations, and class artifacts. The program by design and constituency was the overarching entity that accounted for members' experiences. Three principal aspects of the ISI certificate program and cohort which influenced perceptions and reported positive outcomes were (1) the cohort's composition and their collaborative activities which established a vigorous community of practice and fostered community building, mentoring, and networking, (2) long term program design and implementation which promoted experiential learning in a generative classroom, and (3) ability of some members who were able to be independent or autonomous learners to embrace science education reform strategies for greater self-efficacy and career advancement. This research extends the limited literature base for professional development of informal science educators and may benefit informal science institutions, informal and formal science educators, science education reform efforts, and public education and science-technology-society understanding. The study may raise awareness of the need to establish more professional development opportunities for ISEs and to fund professional development. Further, recognizing and appreciating informal science educators as a diverse committed community of professionals who positively influence science education for everyone is essential.

In recent years, experts and organizations involved in mathematics education have emphasized the importance of collaboration between mathematicians and mathematics teacher educators as a means of improving the professional preparation of mathematics teachers. While several such collaborative endeavors have been documented in the extant literature, most research reports have focused on the products, rather than the process, of collaboration. The purpose of this interpretative phenomenological case study is to gain an understanding of the lived experiences of a mathematician and a mathematics teacher educator as they engaged in a team-teaching collaboration within the context of prospective secondary mathematics teacher preparation. Participants in this study are a mathematician (Dejan) and a mathematics teacher educator (Angela) who worked together to plan, implement, and assess prospective secondary mathematics teachers enrolled in a mathematics content course (Geometry) and a mathematics methods course (Teaching Senior High School Mathematics). I employed interpretative phenomenological analysis (Smith, Flowers, & Larkin, 2009) as the methodological framework. Consequently, I attempted to make sense of Dejan and Angela's experiences as they engaged in active reflection on those experiences. I also utilized the situated learning perspective (Lave and Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 1998) as a theoretical lens to guide the design and interpretation of this study. I assumed that learning, meaning, and understanding are situated in communities of practice, and therefore, to understand the meaning-making of Dejan and Angela during their team-teaching experiences, I paid particular attention to their understandings and identities as members of their respective communities of practice in mathematics and mathematics education. The themes that emerged from my analysis illustrate (a) how crossing community boundaries led to Dejan and Angela's increased awareness of their practice, (b) the roles of coach and student taken on by Angela and Dejan throughout the collaboration in an effort to increase Dejan's awareness of the needs of PSMTs, and (c) the influence of mutuality as a driving force in the instructors' collaborative experiences. In using the situated learning perspective as an interpretive lens to describe and explain Dejan and Angela's meaning-making throughout their collaboration, I demonstrate (a) the importance of the dual processes of participation and reification to facilitate learning and meaning between instructors, (b) the ways in which a lack of shared history can hinder communication between collaborators, (c) the influence of a community's "regime of mutual accountability" on collaborators' decision making and interactions, and (d) the value and complexities of brokering and crossing boundaries.

The emergence of online learning environments and advances in web-based technologies enable teachers to interact and exchange ideas and experiences in online communities. However, these rapid technological advances also cause such online communities to disband quickly, before they have the opportunity to evolve into a community of practice, in which a group of teachers build a shared history, a shared repertoire of resources and activities, and mutually engage in collaborative professional development, over time. Moreover, rapid advances in technology necessitate on-going collaboration among teachers so that they develop meaningful technology integration practice. While such collaborations have taken place in face-to-face settings, how this might be achieved through participation in an online teacher community of practice has been under-researched. Therefore, the present study examines one long-standing, globally-distributed, online community of practice created by English language teachers, called "Webheads in Action", whose shared domain of interest centers on exploring the pedagogical uses of web-based technologies in English language teaching. The study employs netnography, or online ethnography, in which the researcher collects data through participant observation, interviews, and archiving, all of which is conducted completely online. The aim of this study was to understand the broader culture of learning, collaboration, and mentoring in this online language teacher community by exploring and analyzing its shared repertoire of resources, and activities; ways members engage in the collective development of this technology integration practice; and the role of participation in such an online community of practice on developing language teachers' technological pedagogical content knowledge when designing instruction. The data for this study comes from various sources of data collected through online participant observation in this community's activities over a year, reflective observational fieldnotes, online interviews, and archived data. Throughout my online fieldwork, I participated in this online community's activities both synchronously and asynchronously. At the same time, I took reflective observational fieldnotes of my participation and observations during these activities, as well as community's spaces and email communications. As for archival data, I archived the email communication that occurred during my time in the field, as well as screenshots of the community spaces and platforms. I conducted in-depth interviews with four key people in this community in order to better understand the organization and background of this community and its activities, and interviewed five individual members in order to learn about their stories with and as Webheads. Through qualitative data analysis procedures, namely coding, categorizing and finding themes, the study provides a rich and thick description as well as an analysis of this community and its culture in the light of my experiences and observations, as well as the experiences of others. The study reveals insights as to the culture of teacher learning in an online community of practice and the mediation of technological pedagogical content knowledge in online communities of practice. Limitations of the study and suggestions for future research are also presented, as well as an in-depth discussion of how ethnographic fieldwork practices are adapted in netnography with online communities of practice.

Bullying has become a serious concern in many American public middle schools in recent years. Inadequate professional development (PD) in bullying prevention and response strategies has compounded this problem. The overarching purpose of this study was to increase understanding of the growing problem of school bullying. Bronfenbrenner's socioecological theory, which states that environment and relationships influence student behavior, served as the conceptual framework for this qualitative study. Guiding research questions, grounded in socioecological theory, were used to examine middle school teachers' views of PD and their perceived skills in responding to or preventing bullying. Through purposeful sampling, 8 middle school teachers in a community in rural Alabama were interviewed over a 3-week period. Each had at least 1 year of teaching experience in the local rural setting. To authenticate study findings, discipline referrals and state incident reports spanning the 2 previous years were assessed for teacher management of bullying. Data were analyzed using open coding to identify and categorize the patterns and themes that emerged. Results indicated that the teachers perceived that PD would give them the strategies to recognize and manage incidents of school bullying. These results supported and informed the PD project for middle school teachers. This study contributes to social change by providing professional development that will help teachers to either prevent or manage school bullying appropriately, a benefit to children and communities.