This qualitative intergenerational study explores the life of the author and his family of educators. The study goes back four generations to look at the influence that family, social norms, opportunity, religion, and other factors played in a disproportionate number of family members entering and spending their careers in Texas public schools. While each participant followed their own unique path into the field of education, family influence remained a signficant factor for each participant. The family of colleagues provided instructional and emotional support to participants once they entered the field as well as serving as a recruiting tool to those who were not yet educators. This study also follows the author's journey toward a greater understanding of himself as the origins of his perceptions and beliefs are uncovered through the storytelling of family members. He is able to explore his thought process as he uses the study's findings about his family to trace back the origins of influences on his ways of thinking, feeling, and decision making. The author also explores how this knowledge will help to guide his future decisions as a public school administrator for the benefit of the students, staffs, and communities he serves.

Many scholars have equated the 20th century with the 17th century as an era that brought forth a new paradigm or pattern of thought and belief. The 17th century saw the emergence of the modern paradigm. It is postulated that placing the innovations and discoveries of the 20th century in proper context results in the emergence of a new framework for thought, understanding and the creation of meaning. This new framework is characterized as the postmodern paradigm. The goal of this Dissertation is to perform a critical examination of the intellectual innovations of the 20th century and the first decade of the 21st century in order to derive an epistemological basis for the design of learning experiences: curriculum and instruction. The methodology of the Dissertation is influenced by postmodern thought in the sense that it is structured as a heterachy consisting of the analysis of systems of thought in diverse domains, and is relationally connected in the Conclusions chapter in order to create an emergent structure which represents a synthesis of these diverse domains. The methodology also borrows an idea from Einstein of relating not only the conclusions between domains but also relating the frameworks or contexts within which those conclusions were derived. The domains investigated include psychology, neuroscience, philosophy, linguistics, education, physics and mathematics. The Dissertation characterizes human activity as the equilibration of a nonlinear systemic relationship between the motivated goals, mental organizations and behavioral actions of the individual. Goal influences the context in which meaning is created. Context, in turn, controls the nature of the metrics employed in the meaning creation process, the type of relationships that can be created, the nature of the meaning that can be constructed, the depth and breadth of the meaning constructed and the logical level of the meaning. Additionally it was found that context is necessary for the creation of meaning, must allow for an unambiguous description of phenomena, cannot possess the quality of logical necessity and does not control the nature of relationships actually existent within the "thing in and of itself." Context is not a static entity. When elements are placed into relationship, a context is emergent. With phylogenetic and ontogenetic progression, a context can be expressed as an emergent pattern with time. The creation of meaning can be defined as the construction of a stable equilibrated relationship between elements representative of objects and events of consideration. Meaning is imparted by and derived through relationship. Equilibration occurs within the context of the aggregate of an individual's mental organizations. As this is an open system subject to adaptational ontogeny, we can consider these equilibrations as nonlinear self organizations. The structure emergent through the relationship of the aforementioned knowledge domains implies the following: 1) Similarity is the fundamental mental construct. 2) The teleos of human cognitive function is rule (concept, theory) building. 3) The human mind can be characterized as a language-enabled rule builder connected to a statistically driven, associational mechanism. 4) The predicate for human logic and deduction is the semantic expressed in stabilized relational structures. The Dissertation makes the hypothesis that there are four forms of mental representation: connected actions or motor/procedural sequences (algorithms), physical images, connected physical images summarized through concrete rules and words expressing abstract rules or metaphorical forms of relationship. These representations are an articulation of the neurological structures that enable them. The type of representation determines the form of thought and problem-solving process that can be undertaken. While developmental, these forms of representation persist throughout life. They are variously invoked contingent upon the individual's perception of the requirements of a mental task. The Dissertation presents a model for the design of rule-based (concept, theory) learning. It affirms the principles of postmodernism and a constructivist paradigm for teaching. Research, which is felt to support the hypotheses of the Dissertation, is cited. The Dissertation also concludes that the most effective instructional strategies will be the ones most congruent with and supportive of the mind's natural and inherent mechanisms for creating meaning from experience.

Throughout history science and religion have been in conflict. Many of the theories of science do not agree with the religious beliefs of pre-service teachers. Those teachers who will be teaching in the science classroom, must be able to present science without prejudice of personal religious beliefs. Are pre-service teachers prepared for science/religion conflicts? How much conflict do pre-service teachers have between science and religion? This study suggests that pre-service teachers may have a high degree of conflict between science and religion, and that they have received no educational experience on how to deal with this conflict. Such conflict poses a potential problem when presenting science in the classroom, in that non-science information may not be separated from the science presented.

This naturalistic inquiry explores the lived experience of five teachers through the first of a two-year professional development (PD) focused on environmental systems, outdoor education, pedagogical content knowledge, and building a community of practice. Qualitative data include participant interviews, participant journals, and researcher field notes. Thematic analysis of the data was conducted utilizing a variation of the constant comparative method (Glasser & Strauss, 1967) as modified by Lincoln & Guba (1985). Data are presented categorically and the relationships between themes are explored. Finally, the data are alternatively presented in the form of a creative dialogue, which summarizes the most salient aspects of the data. Implications for PD are discussed and include the suggestion that PD providers consider offering multiple opportunities for participants to re-enter the system, thus increasing the chances for positive outcomes associated with building a community of practice. These outcomes include networking, the application of newly acquired knowledge, and receiving continuous support from the professional community.

Over the next five years, schools will be expected to replace more than 60% of key leadership in independent schools. This is just one example of the growing evidence of shortages of persons filling key leadership positions. Based on this increasing concern, there is a need to develop a strategy to ensure the efficacy of prospective heads and their educational enterprises but also to ensure that the leaders of independent schools have the specific training, better understanding of issues critical to independent school leadership and opportunities to advance their careers. While the evidence exists on the effectiveness of some preparation programs for public school administrators, there is little literature and scholarly inquiry specifically focused on preparing independent school leaders. Educational leadership programs can be designed specifically and established for independent school leaders. The intent of this study is to present a framework for designing leadership development programs for independent schools and address the needs of the leaders within those schools.

In an effort to increase biological and general scientific literacy to meet the needs of an increasingly scientifically literate society, this study evaluated the attitudes and self-efficacy of 128 students in a non-majors college biology course in an urban private university in North Texas. The students used the Attitudes Toward Science Inventory (ATSI) for attitude and the Biology Self-Efficacy Scale (BSES) for self-efficacy at the beginning of the semester and again after ten weeks of instruction. Data from the ATSI and the BSES were analyzed to determine a relationship between attitude and self-efficacy and to evaluate changes due to instruction. Correlations were significant and t-tests reflected an increase in positive attitudes and a decrease in self-efficacy after instruction.

The Breakthrough Collaborative has its roots in a program started in 1978 at San Franciscos University High School. The program functioned on its own until 1990 when its educational model was replicated and was transported to multiple sites across the country. The program has a dual mission, point academically gifted, disadvantaged middle school students to enroll and thrive in top high school programs and ultimately to college as well as encouraging young people to pursue careers in education. The development of the model as well as an investigation into the core components of the model (academic rigor, students teaching students, and experience) are investigated to understand how they came to be and why they are important to the model.

This research focuses on inservice science teachers conceptions of nature of science (NOS) before and after a two-week intensive summer professional development program that included explicit NOS instruction. It combines this explicit approach to NOS instruction with reflective, dialogue about the interventions used throughout the professional development. It addresses the seven commonly-held tenets of NOS that are deemed significant to K-12 science teachers. Finally, it borrows qualitative methodologies for analyzing the Views of Nature of Science Questionnaire and associated interviews to gain a richer understanding of the teachers NOS understanding before and after the interventions. By using this approach to data analysis, this research better describes the ways in which teachers conceptions of NOS aspects align with and/or deviate from the desired understanding put forth in the professional development. This description of their understanding avoids reducing the participants diverse and complex conceptions of these tenets into simple informed or naïve categories. It is through this more detailed analysis of the participants data that this research examines inservice science teachers conceptions of nature of science before and after engaging in an explicit, long-term, professional development intervention.

This collective case study prompted teachers to reflect on their students' engagement in the outdoor setting, and highlights the strengths and weaknesses of their experiences to identify how student engagement may be maximized in the outdoor setting to increase overall knowledge and understanding. Ten teachers were recruited from schools in partnership with REAL School Gardens non-profit organization. Data were collected through interviews using a semi-structured format and were audio recorded for analysis. Key terms and phrases that related to student engagement, as well as the outdoor settings were identified and used for creation of the word or phrase table. From here the author performed a cross-case analysis where common themes from the tables were detected as well as interpreted. Participating teachers found that overall their students seemed to be more engaged outdoors than indoors. This may have been because it was easier for teachers to identify outdoor engagement. While a positive view of the outdoors was consistent with all teachers, the reasons why were not the same.

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