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The purpose of the study was to investigate the level of use of English as a second or subsequent language strategies and research-based practices in the instruction of ELL students in Northeast Tennessee. The study sought to ascertain the perceptions of educators in Northeast Tennessee about teaching practices and beliefs in regard to the instruction of ELL students and to determine to what level these educators include ESL strategies and ESL research-based practices when teaching ELL students. Participants in the study consisted of regular classroom teachers, English as a second language teachers, and principals from districts identified as ELL low density districts and ELL high density. A survey instrument was used to collect the data. The survey instrument was developed using a framework based on published research on proven practices identified and delineated in the literature review. The survey consisted of 45 questions and encompassed five dimensions: (a) instructional practices, (b) ESL strategies, (c) principles for building English language learners responsive learning environments, (d) staff development, and (e) instructional strategies. The survey used a 5-point Likert scale with 3 open-ended questions. Findings from the Research-Based Practices Survey were analyzed by using descriptive and inferential statistics. The study used 2-way ANOVAS to analyze the data and answer the research questions. The finding of the study revealed significant difference in the mean scores for staff development between administrators and ESL strategies as a function of density and significant difference in the mean scores for staff development between administrators and all teachers (ESL teachers and regular classroom teachers) as a function of density.

This dissertation reports the results of an exploratory case study utilizing quantitative and qualitative methodologies intended to ascertain the extent and differences of implementation of research-based instructional practices, learned in an intensive 26-month professional development, in their urban classrooms. Both the extent and differences in the implementation of practices were investigated in relation to the lesson design and implementation, content, and classroom culture aspects of research-based practices. Additionally, this research includes the concerns of the teachers regarding the factors that helped or hindered the implementation of research-based practices in their classrooms. Six graduates of the Master of Chemistry Education Program who were teaching a chemistry course in a high school in the School District of Philadelphia at the time of the study (2006-8), were the case. The teachers completed a concerns questionnaire with closed and open-ended items, and rated their perceptions of the extent of implementation of the practices in their urban classrooms. Additionally, the teachers were observed and rated by the researcher using a reform-teaching observation protocol and were interviewed individually. Also, the teachers submitted their lesson plans for the days they were observed. Data from these sources were analyzed to arrive at the findings for this study. The research findings suggest that the group of teachers in the study implemented the research-based practices in their classrooms to a low extent when compared to the recommended practices inherent to the MCE Program. The extents of implementation of the practices differed widely among the teachers, from being absent to being implemented at a high level, with inconsistent levels of implementation from various data sources. Further, the teachers expressed the depth of knowledge (gained in the MCE Program), formal laboratory exercises and reports, administrative support, self-motivated students, and group/collaborative work as several factors that enabled or would have enabled the implementation of practices. Among the many factors that hindered the implementation of the practices in their urban classrooms were, the core curriculum and pacing schedule, followed by test preparation, administrative paper-work, large class-size, students not prepared for student-centered work, poor math and reading skills of students, students' lack of motivation, unsupportive department head, unresponsive administration, and lack of resources. / CITE/Mathematics and Science Education

By augmenting an existing static medium (a graphic organizer) with attributes such that learners were able to sort or rearrange information in multiple ways, two new types of “dynamic” graphic organizers were created. An experiment was performed to investigate the effectiveness of these dynamic graphic organizers as instructional tools. One-hundred-sixty-one students were recruited for participation in the study from a two-year community college and a four-year public university in the southeast United States. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three graphic organizer treatment groups: static, sortable, and shuffle-sortable. Response accuracy and response latency measurements for three types of mental tasks (factual, comparative, and inferential) were compared across the three treatment groups. A multivariate analysis of variance showed no significant difference between the three graphic organizer types for response accuracy. A within-groups analysis of variance showed no significant differences in response accuracy between mental tasks within the static or sortable treatment groups. However, analysis of variance indicated that accuracy for inferential judgments was lower than that for factual judgments in the shuffle-sortable group. With respect to response latency, a multivariate analysis of variance revealed no significant difference between the three treatment groups. A within-groups analysis of variance showed significant differences in response latency between factual and inferential judgment-making for both the sortable and shuffle-sortable treatments. The sortable treatment had the most pronounced differences in latency between mental tasks, whereas no significant differences in response latency were observed within the static treatment. Participants in the two dynamic treatments reported much higher percentages of affirmative responses to the question, “Did you think your graphic organizer was an effective instructional tool?” with 82.7% and 81.5% responding “yes” for the Sortable and Shuffle-sort groups, respectively, and only 60.0% responding “yes” for the Static group. The graphic organizers in the study are known as adjunct displays and therefore each was associated with an accompanying text passage. Participants had the capability of viewing the accompanying text passage at will within the constraints of a five-minute graphic organizer study period. Analysis of variance revealed that participants in the shuffle-sortable group spent significantly less time viewing the text passage than participants in the static group, possibly because the overhead associated with the shuffle-sortable graphic organizer’s user interface controls consumed time or mental resources that would have otherwise been used to view the text. The results of this study suggest that dynamic graphic organizers are equivalent to traditional static graphic organizers, at least for the educational subject matter used in this study (comparative text comprising 204 words describing six fictitious species of fish, their attributes, and the relationships between these attributes) for measures related to accuracy. Additionally, participants in the two dynamic graphic organizer treatments took advantage of the affordances offered by those treatments (88.5% of the Sortable group sorted, 75.9% of the Shuffle-sort group sorted, and 88.9% of the Shuffle-sort group shuffled). This study may benefit both instructional designers and educational researchers as new curricula are designed and new instructional tools are studied, respectively.

Transition education should be grounded in quality research. To do so, educators need information on which practices are effective for teaching students with disabilities transition-related skills. The purpose of this systematic literature review was to identify evidence-based and research-based practices in secondary special education and transition for students with disabilities. This systematic review resulted in the identification of nine secondary transition evidence-based practices and 22 research-based practices across more than 45 different transition-related skills. The range of effects for each of the secondary transition evidence-based and research-based practices identified are also included. Limitations and implications for future research, policy, and practice are discussed.

The purpose of the study was to investigate the level of use of English as a second or subsequent language strategies and research-based practices in the instruction of ELL students in Northeast Tennessee. The researcher sought to ascertain the perceptions of educators in Northeast Tennessee about teaching practices and beliefs in regard to the instruction of ELL students and to determine to what level these educators include ESL strategies and ESL research-based practices when teaching ELL students. Participants in the study consisted of regular classroom teachers, English as a second language teachers, and principals from districts identified as ELL low density districts and ELL high density districts. A survey instrument was used to collect the data. The survey instrument was developed using a framework based on published research on proven practices identified and delineated in the literature review. The survey consisted of 45 questions and encompassed 5 dimensions: (a) instructional practices, (b) ESL strategies, (c) principles for building English language learners responsive learning environments, (d) staff development, and (e) instructional strategies. The survey used a 5-point Likert scale with 3 open-ended questions. Findings from the Research-Based Practices Survey were analyzed by using descriptive and inferential statistics. The study used 2-way ANOVA to analyze the data and answer the research questions. The finding of the study revealed significant difference in the mean scores for staff development between administrators and ESL strategies as a function of density and significant difference in the mean scores for staff development between administrators and all teachers (ESL teachers and regular classroom teachers) as a function of density.

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