Thesis advisor: Lauri Johnson / This qualitative case study examined the perceptions of teachers and leaders in one Massachusetts school district about the actions of school leaders that engaged teachers in the reflective process. Utilizing Lave and Wenger's (1991) "Communities of Practice" as a framework enabled the researcher to examine the extent to which a social process of learning existed and whether the district's current structures and conditions engaged teachers in the reflective process. The findings from this study drew upon interview, observation, and document data to explore teacher and leader views regarding specific leadership actions (or inactions) that supported and facilitated teacher engagement in the examination of their practice and whether teachers viewed those actions as impacting their ability to reflect. Results indicated that school leaders implemented anticipatory and ongoing actions to create necessary preconditions, which fostered teacher reflection. Data revealed a district belief that reflective dialogue in pairs (teacher to teacher or teacher to administrator) or in groups (faculty meetings, grade level or departmental meeting) was important to educator growth. Administrators' actions, which engaged teachers in a reflective process, were perceived to be those associated with being an instructional leader. Recommendations include helping district leaders understand the role and design of collaborative reflection as well as the role of the principal in order to plan and implement effective professional learning, which develops reflective practitioners. / Thesis (EdD) — Boston College, 2014. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Leadership and Higher Education.

Thesis advisor: Vincent Cho / One mechanism for supporting teachers during the implementation of school and district reform is the provision of professional development. By offering meaningful professional development opportunities, leaders can influence teacher efficacy, thus potentially improving teacher practices. As social-emotional learning (SEL) becomes more prevalent in public schools, it is incumbent upon district and school leaders to understand how professional development opportunities can support teachers during SEL implementation. This qualitative study explores one district’s approach for professional development in the area of SEL, with the goal of understanding how professional development may influence teacher efficacy. Data were gathered through semi-structured interviews, focus group interviews, and a document review. Findings revealed a variety of professional development activities occurred during SEL implementation. However, district and school leaders, as well as teachers reported their dissatisfaction with these professional development offerings. Without the presence of satisfactory SEL-related professional development, teachers could not relate the influence of the professional development to their efficacy. Teachers described their most meaningful professional development experiences as those including the opportunity to collaborate with each other. Therefore, one recommendation of this study is to increase the amount of collaborative opportunities provided to teachers. In addition, leaders can promote the use of SEL practices through professional development experiences that introduce techniques directly related to teachers’ classrooms and context. This type of professional development also has the potential to increase teacher efficacy. / Thesis (EdD) — Boston College, 2018. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Leadership and Higher Education.

O autor traça um perfil do setor saúde, em um contexto da crise do Estado, que sob a ordem mundial de globalização da economia está associada, no Brasil, a reforma neoliberal. Fatos geoeconômicos e político- institucionais, são confrontados com as múltipras determinações históricas e culturais que configuram a pós-modernidade. O estudo do inter-relacionamento das áreas de educação, saúde e trabalho, com suas singularidades, revelou, ao longo do tempo, a reprodução de modelos de desenvolvimento para a instituição e para os profissionais, ou a emergência de situações determinantes de novos modelos. Através de pesquisa qualitativa, realizada durante 1995, como um estudo de caso, busca-se compreender e interpretar no conflito de cotidiano, a realidade e as representações imaginárias dos profissionais, acerca do trabalho, num serviço básico e regionalizado de saúde de Niterói, na área metropolitana do Rio de Janeiro. A análise dos documentos escritos e de conteúdos de discursos colhidos nas entrevistas dos indivíduos e no grupo focal, apóia-se, fundamentalmente, numa linha de pensamento hermenêutica-dialética. Os resultados revelaram dimensões do dia-a-dia da \"equipe\" de saúde, que permitiram a criação de novas categorias analíticas, em especial àquelas inerentes à ação comunicativa entre os sujeitos sociais, à mudança de paradigmas da atenção à saúde e à articulação intra e intersetorial. O autor, através das falas dos servidores e das suas próprias análises, tenta apresentar a lógica do desenvolvimento institucional e profissional. O processo de formação dos profissionais se dá no cotidiano, que ora promove, ora oculta, um desenvolvimento educacional latente, que mantém uma relação intrínseca com o poder simbólico e as condições materiais, do trabalho e de vida dos participantes da investigação. O autor conclui que determinadas questões, de ordem sócio-econômica e antropológico-cultural, desempenham relevante papel no enfrentamento, ou na superação, de problemas vivenciados pelos profissionais e pela comunidade, no espaço das instituições,e assim, podem ampliar as bases de luta por uma vida melhor. / The author outlines a profile of the health sector in a context of the State crisis, that, under the world order of economical globalization, is associated, in Brazil, with a neoliberal reform. Geoeconomic and politicoinstitutional facts are confronted with the multiple historical and cultural determinants that configure postmodernity. The study of the interrelation of the education, health and work areas revealed the reproduction of models of development of institution and professionals, or the emergence of situations that determine new models. By means of a qualitative research - performed in the year of 1995, as a case study - the author tries to understand and interpret the reality and the imaginary representations, concerning their own work, of the professionals; the research was conducted in a basic, regionalized, health service, in Niterói, in the metropolitan area of Rio de Janeiro. The analysis of written documents and of the contents of the speeches obtained through interviews of individuais and of the focal group, relies, in essence, in an hermeneutic-dialectical line of thought. The results of the study revealed dimensions, in the conflict of the quotidien activities of the health \"team\" that permitted the creation of new analytical categories, in special those inherent to the communicative action of the social actors, to the changing of paradigms in the field of health care and to the articulation inside and outside this field. According to the author, the process of formation of the professionals occurs through quotidien activities that reveal, or occult, a latent educational development and that maintain an intrinsical relationship with the symbolic power and with the material conditions, of work and life, of the participants. In the conclusions, the author indicates socioeconomical and anthropological situations that perform a relevant role in the confronting, or in the superation, of problems that professionals and community face in the space of the institution, and that may, so, amplify the foundations of the continuous effort towards the improvement of life.

Este trabalho investiga o desenvolvimento profissional do(a) professor(a) de Geografia e a apropriação do conceito de lugar. Entende-se que lugar é o campo das relações de força, onde ocorre a história e que o meio onde os alunos vivem é, para eles, a referência na perspectiva da compreensão do mundo e da sua transformação. A pesquisa foi realizada em duas escolas públicas no município de Santana de Parnaíba que, nas últimas décadas, apresenta um intenso dinamismo relacionado ao processo migratório, sendo área de expansão urbana da Região Metropolitana de São Paulo. A escolha das escolas foi devido a localizarem-se em lugares com diferentes características socioculturais e apresentarem o Índice de Desenvolvimento da Educação Básica (IDEB) bem diverso. Teve base no método dialético segundo Henry Lefebvre (1969), em que o desafio é revelar o sentido das ações humanas, ao questionar todo pensamento, conhecimento, atitude e objetivo. Diante da complexa problemática da realidade em que se encontra a educação pública brasileira, devido, em geral, à péssima qualidade das escolas de Educação Básica, a pesquisa, inicialmente, se desenvolveu no Colégio Municipal Alfazema com a intenção de colaborar no desenvolvimento profissional dos professores. Realizou-se com os profissionais e não sobre eles, tomando-se o cuidado de não sobrepô-los e, assim, possibilitar a transformação da prática docente ao visar a um trabalho em equipe integrado com a comunidade escolar. Na continuidade, a pesquisa foi desenvolvida no Colégio Municipal Tulipa, para se compreender o reconhecimento do conceito de lugar no desenvolvimento profissional dos professores de Geografia. Considerou-se que, ao se estudarem os processos históricos, sociais, culturais e naturais do lugar, permite-se uma compreensão crítica do espaço geográfico, essencial para o conhecimento da realidade em que se localiza a escola e, assim, para a contextualização do conhecimento e o trabalho com a diversidade sociocultural dos alunos. / This study investigates the professional development of Geography teacher and the appropriation of the concept of place. It is understood that place is the field of relations of force, where history happens and the environment where the students live is, for them, the reference in the perspective of understanding the world and its transformation. The research was carried out in two public schools in the district of Santana de Parnaíba which, in the last decades, presented an intense dynamism related to the migratory process due to be an area of urban expansion of the Metropolitan Region of São Paulo City. The choice of the schools was made according to the location, places with different sociocultural characteristics, that presents a very diverse Basic Educational Development Index (IDEB). It was based on the dialectical method according to Henry Lefebvre (1969), which says that the challenge is to reveal the meaning of human actions by questioning every thought, knowledge, attitude and aim. When faced the complex problem of brazilian´s public education, due in general to the poor quality of Basic Education Schools, the research initially was developed in the Alfazema Municipal School aiming to collaborate with the professional development of teachers. It was made with the professionals and not about them, taking care not to override them, so the transformation of the teaching practice became possible, integrating team work and school community. Following up, the research was also developed at Tulipa Municipal School, to understand the perception of the concept of place in the professional development of Geography teacher. It is understood that studying the historical, social, cultural and natural processes of place allows a critical understanding of geographic spot, and it is essential to understand the reality of school´s location, for the contextualization of knowledge and the work of sociocultural diversity of students.

This research uses a mixed methods approach to explore the both the preparation for and perceptions of graduate consultant writing center work. A review of literature shows a gap in both the knowledge surrounding graduate writing consultant education and the long-term outcomes or transfer of writing center training and work to post-graduate careers. The survey instruments in this study draw from two established studies, the Peer Writing Tutor Alumni Research Project and the National Census of Writing, while a request for curricular artifacts draws on case study research conducted by Jackson et al. Findings indicate that graduate consultants are being prepared for their work in writing centers, but that directors are not intentionally including discussions of how that work may transfer into academic careers, particularly those in writing center leadership. Despite this, current and alumni graduate consults report both immediate and long-term transfer of writing center experiences, skills, and knowledge into their occupations. The transfer of learning is perceived as being most profound for those who have remained in the academy as either professors or administrators. This research has implications for graduate students, directors, and institutions, and I conclude with an analysis of how directors can be more intentional in their work with graduate consultants in order to better prepare a new generation of writing center administrators who are aware of the academic, political, and scholarly opportunities that are possible through writing center careers.

Calls for more effective and modern teaching practices, higher research outputs, leaner administrative processes, greater community engagement, and more student-centred approaches to the business of higher education have intensified the challenges of working in a university. These challenges have added considerable complexity to the roles of academic staff, many of whom are facing increasing demands for which they are ill equipped to deal in terms of their formal education. To succeed in the highly competitive and changing environment that is higher education today, universities need to ensure that the requisite capabilities are developed in their academic staff. The key question underpinning this study is: how can the provision of professional development for academic staff be optimised to enhance university performance? The focus of the research is on identifying the ways in which higher education institutions provide formal offerings of professional development to academic staff, how they are organised to do this, who is entrusted with the task, and what are the strengths and limitations of the approaches taken. The research is informed by literature concerning higher education management, academic development, and strategic human resource management. Taking a critical realist ontological perspective, case studies of professional development provision in two Irish universities are presented. Findings reveal that while effective professional development is an espoused priority it is not a managed priority. While there is some evidence of good practice, the fragmented organisational structures in place for delivery of professional development reveal an absence of coordination and gaps in provision. The connection between professional development and organisational performance is loose. Recommendations are made on how the provision of professional development for academics can be managed to enhance university performance. A framework for designing performance-led professional development activities that aligns organisational and individual goals is proposed. An organisational structure that takes a more conscious approach to the management of the full range of professional development provision is put forward.

The research study provided a cultural description and interpretation of how Teachers Network Learning Circle’s participants related, worked and learned with each other, and how they developed and changed within a predominantly symmetrical or consensual power relationship. The participants, consisting of six Singapore primary teachers at grade 4, were engaged in group discussions that were spread over a period of one year to complete an action research project which is integrated in day-to-day work. Teachers Network Learning Circle, a formal professional development platform, employs distinctive tools for dialogue and inquiry based on the principles of voluntary participation, reflection, change and trust. The fundamental reason for choosing this site is its potential to empower and emancipate teachers evident from not only the principles and practices it espouses, but also its vision and mission that is consistent with its motto “For Teachers, By Teachers”. The literature on education change and reforms has point towards teacher empowerment for successful education change. In this regard, investing in teacher professional development and professionalism is important. The literature also point towards embracing a sociological perspective evident in the notions of community and socio-cultural theory, and bringing to bear emotions, values and identity in teacher learning – and thus investing in the ‘whole person’ (Day, 1997). As power underlies all social relations and activities including teachers’ learning, the research study took into consideration the perspectives of critical theory of Habermas, Brookfield and Mezirow. The findings of the study found that symmetrical power relation contributed to teacher development and change. First, it had contributed to a collegial collaborative relationship that took into account of emotions, moral, identity development and group solidarity. Second, it had contributed to the consciousness, critique and co-construction of professional knowledge. Third, it had empowered participants insofar as it built participants’ capacities to act successfully within an existing system and structures of power. The symmetrical power relation was undergirded by rules and principles of democratic participation as outlined by Habermas’ discourse ethics. The findings also revealed the importance of support given by the school principal and Teachers Network personnel in protecting democratic spaces, or Habermas’ concept of the lifeworld, from the system imperatives of power and money.

The arts have the power to expand cognitive potential through the development of higher order thinking skills, the use of the imagination, forms of self-expression and pathways to self-knowledge. When teachers are educated to integrate the arts in their classrooms, the result is transformation of the learning environment. In this qualitative case study I examined teacher experience in the Higher Order Thinking (HOT) Schools Arts Integration (AI) Professional Development (PD) program. While my research was informed primarily from the perspectives of arts specialist teachers, classroom teachers, and teaching artists, it also includes the voices of other stakeholders in the HOT educational community including administrators, HOT program directors, and parents. I obtained data through questionnaires, interviews, and observations in which I documented teacher experience during various forms of HOT AI PD and their implementation in the classroom. Teachers reported professional growth and described how HOT AI PD had transformed their teaching practice. This was accomplished through experiential and ongoing PD that teachers found inspiring and relevant to their teaching. The various forms of PD included a weeklong residential summer institute with professional teaching artists and various presenters, weekend mini-institutes to reinforce the summer institute content and to share best practices, administrator PD, and various one-day events on different topics. The HOT Schools program is a supportive network providing help and guidance throughout the school year. Emergent themes were related to teacher benefits, student benefits, PD strategies, and how the HOT program builds community. Teachers expressed satisfaction with hands-on PD strategies focused on student-centered learning, with emphasis on process rather than product, encouraging deep learning through the arts. Participants’ narratives highlighted the effectiveness of PD strategies utilizing teachers as instructors for their peers, and collaborative residencies with professional teaching artists in the schools. Teachers enjoyed enhanced collegiality resulting from collaborative work when creating arts-integrated curricula, and arts specialists teachers appreciated the respect they received from classroom teachers who recognized the value of the arts as modes of inquiry. Teachers demonstrated enthusiasm for the program and expressed how they had experienced professional renewal and satisfaction in their teaching as a result of their participation in HOT AI PD.

This thesis addresses four research questions: 1. Are counsellors changed by their clients? 2. If so, how do they make meaning of any change? 3. How does the academic literature explain these changes? 4. How do counsellors ensure change is positive?Previous research has largely focused on the negative effects of clients' stories on counsellors. The potentially positive impact is relatively unexplored - despite the fact that research suggests that it is possible for people who directly experience a wide range of traumatic experiences to grow as a result (Tedeschi & Calhoun, 1996). Moreover, a handful of research studies has suggested that it is possible to experience these changes vicariously (Manning-Jones, deTerte & Stephens, 2015). This thesis describes a qualitative research study carried out with eight counsellors who worked either in a hospice (counselling clients experiencing bereavement or illness) or in private practice (counselling clients who had experienced sexual violence). Narrative inquiry and autoethnography were used to collect and analyse counsellors' stories of being changed by their clients and re-presented as poetic representation, visual art and polyvocal texts. The results show that counsellors do indeed share stories of being changed: sometimes for the worse but often for the better. These changes are in the areas of self-perception, interpersonal relationships and life philosophy and are largely consistent with conceptualisations of vicarious posttraumatic growth. However, what drives change is different. In hospice counsellors, mortality awareness is the driver for change; whereas human cruelty and brutality is the driver in counsellors who work with clients who have experienced sexual violence. Counsellors draw on a number of alternative discourses to make meaning of their experience and this reflects different counselling modalities. The counsellors' stories of change may represent personal growth or reflect western metanarratives linked to a quest for identity. These findings are discussed in relation to the training and supervision of practitioners.

O autor traça um perfil do setor saúde, em um contexto da crise do Estado, que sob a ordem mundial de globalização da economia está associada, no Brasil, a reforma neoliberal. Fatos geoeconômicos e político- institucionais, são confrontados com as múltipras determinações históricas e culturais que configuram a pós-modernidade. O estudo do inter-relacionamento das áreas de educação, saúde e trabalho, com suas singularidades, revelou, ao longo do tempo, a reprodução de modelos de desenvolvimento para a instituição e para os profissionais, ou a emergência de situações determinantes de novos modelos. Através de pesquisa qualitativa, realizada durante 1995, como um estudo de caso, busca-se compreender e interpretar no conflito de cotidiano, a realidade e as representações imaginárias dos profissionais, acerca do trabalho, num serviço básico e regionalizado de saúde de Niterói, na área metropolitana do Rio de Janeiro. A análise dos documentos escritos e de conteúdos de discursos colhidos nas entrevistas dos indivíduos e no grupo focal, apóia-se, fundamentalmente, numa linha de pensamento hermenêutica-dialética. Os resultados revelaram dimensões do dia-a-dia da \"equipe\" de saúde, que permitiram a criação de novas categorias analíticas, em especial àquelas inerentes à ação comunicativa entre os sujeitos sociais, à mudança de paradigmas da atenção à saúde e à articulação intra e intersetorial. O autor, através das falas dos servidores e das suas próprias análises, tenta apresentar a lógica do desenvolvimento institucional e profissional. O processo de formação dos profissionais se dá no cotidiano, que ora promove, ora oculta, um desenvolvimento educacional latente, que mantém uma relação intrínseca com o poder simbólico e as condições materiais, do trabalho e de vida dos participantes da investigação. O autor conclui que determinadas questões, de ordem sócio-econômica e antropológico-cultural, desempenham relevante papel no enfrentamento, ou na superação, de problemas vivenciados pelos profissionais e pela comunidade, no espaço das instituições,e assim, podem ampliar as bases de luta por uma vida melhor. / The author outlines a profile of the health sector in a context of the State crisis, that, under the world order of economical globalization, is associated, in Brazil, with a neoliberal reform. Geoeconomic and politicoinstitutional facts are confronted with the multiple historical and cultural determinants that configure postmodernity. The study of the interrelation of the education, health and work areas revealed the reproduction of models of development of institution and professionals, or the emergence of situations that determine new models. By means of a qualitative research - performed in the year of 1995, as a case study - the author tries to understand and interpret the reality and the imaginary representations, concerning their own work, of the professionals; the research was conducted in a basic, regionalized, health service, in Niterói, in the metropolitan area of Rio de Janeiro. The analysis of written documents and of the contents of the speeches obtained through interviews of individuais and of the focal group, relies, in essence, in an hermeneutic-dialectical line of thought. The results of the study revealed dimensions, in the conflict of the quotidien activities of the health \"team\" that permitted the creation of new analytical categories, in special those inherent to the communicative action of the social actors, to the changing of paradigms in the field of health care and to the articulation inside and outside this field. According to the author, the process of formation of the professionals occurs through quotidien activities that reveal, or occult, a latent educational development and that maintain an intrinsical relationship with the symbolic power and with the material conditions, of work and life, of the participants. In the conclusions, the author indicates socioeconomical and anthropological situations that perform a relevant role in the confronting, or in the superation, of problems that professionals and community face in the space of the institution, and that may, so, amplify the foundations of the continuous effort towards the improvement of life.