This dissertation explores what cooperating secondary science teachers attend to during observations of pre-service teachers as they enact lessons in their classrooms and how they make sense of what they see. This study applies the teacher noticing framework, recently used in research with mathematics, to the secondary science context and uses it to describe teacher attention. The study also aims to determine if cooperating teachers use the act of noticing to engage in pedagogical reasoning and draw connections to their own teaching practice. As an interpretive qualitative study, the format for data collection and analysis utilized a case-study methodology with cross-case analysis, and used semi-structured interviews, lesson debriefs, collected artifacts, and classroom observations. Data on the four study participants was collected over the 2011-2012 school year. Findings support several conclusions. First, the cooperating science teachers in this study regularly engaged in reflection and pedagogical reasoning through the act of noticing. Second, the cooperating teachers made regular connections to their own practice in the form of vicarious suggestions, reflective questions, comparisons of practice, and perspective shifts. These connections fostered the emergence of "pivotal moments" or times when the cooperating science teacher self-identified a desire to change their current practice. Third, cooperating teachers used observations of pre-service teachers in their classrooms as a form of professional experimentation and built knowledge in practice through the experience. Lastly, the findings suggest that observations of pre-service teachers be added to the list of professional development activities, like video analysis and lesson study, that help teachers reflect on their own practice. For science teacher educators, this study demonstrates the importance of attending to field experiences as a learning opportunity for the science cooperating teacher. It provides a new way of looking at classroom observations as professional development opportunities and it recommends that teacher preparation programs reconceptualize the tasks they ask cooperating teachers to engage in. Suggestions include designing observation tools that direct teacher noticing toward student learning in science, viewing cooperating science teachers as learners, including metacognitive activities for cooperating science teachers, and reorienting lesson debriefs toward a notion of classroom inquiry. / text

The purpose of this study is to investigate the factors that are related to students&rsquo / science achievement in TIMSS-R. Basically instructional activities, affective characteristics of students and socioeconomic status (SES) were taken as the variables of the model proposed within the Linear Structural Modeling (LSM) framework. This study examined the TIMSS data for Turkish students with the sample size of 7841 through the analysis of Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). Resulting path diagram showed that the largest relationship existed between science achievement and SES of students. It was also observed that students&rsquo / enjoyment of science did not seem to have a significant contribution on science achievement. In addition, science achievement had a negative relationship with the classroom activities considered as student-centered. On the other hand, the activities considered as teacher-centered had a positive impact on the science achievement scores of the TIMSS tests. It was also observed that science achievement and perception of success/failure in science were highly related with each other. The results were interpreted within the framework of Turkish educational system, and some suggestions for future research studies were proposed.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2008. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 69-05, Section: A, page: 1714. Adviser: Walter Feinberg. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 142-152) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

Thesis (Ed. D.)--Illinois State University, 1976. / Title from title page screen, viewed Dec. 2, 2004. Dissertation Committee: Elwood Egelston (chair), Ronald Laymon, Thomas Fitch, Ronald Halinski, Louise Dieterle. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 75-78) and abstract. Also available in print.

Thesis (M. S.)--Public Policy, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2006. / Dr. Monica Gaughan, Committee Member ; Dr. Donna Llewellyn, Committee Member ; Dr. Gordon Kingsley, Committee Chair. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ed. D.)--Illinois State University, 1993. / Title from title page screen, viewed March 8, 2006. Dissertation Committee: Larry D. Kennedy (chair), Robert L. Fisher, George Padavil, Kenneth H. Strand. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 117-123) and abstract. Also available in print.

Thesis (M.A.) -- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 97-109). Also available via Internet from the University of North Carolina Libraries Electronic Thesis and Dissertation web site.

Since the introduction of chat technology there has been resistance within education to fully engage with it partly due to policy making that has left teachers disempowered (UCLAN 2002:66). Unlike other innovative technologies, its use has been limited. Pastoral support has developed significantly in education but in some instances, like chat rooms, has been viewed with scepticism. One reason for this scepticism may be that a clear measurable link between support and achievement is not easily proven. However, there is widespread acceptance that academic success is not the only measure of intelligence (Gardner 2006) and that supporting and understanding how young people communicate with each other and feel supported is an important research area for development. This research uses exploratory case study to consider the introduction of a bounded bespoke chat system into a sixth-form college. A range of sources are considered including semi-participant observation, chat transcripts and observational diaries. It is shown that the introduction of such a system can be managed effectively and be useful for students. The research reveals there are critical drivers for its successful introduction. The first relates to the role of the moderator, including perceptions about them and their impact on rules and boundaries for behaviour. The study shows that finding moderators with the appropriate level of skill is challenging. It also shows that students access support online in different ways compared to offline and that the use of topics can influence their behaviour. Anonymity, gender, the use of „text speak‟ and participant consciousness all affect communication. Future research is proposed into the specific impact of the gender of the moderator on chat usage, the impact of an individual institutional culture on the willingness of learners to use chat, attitudes of stakeholders towards chat and the purpose of "lurking" in bounded environments.

Esta tese de doutoramento trata da integração da teoria piagetiana com a Ciência da Computação, mais especificamente, a análise de ferramentas computacionais do ponto de vista da lógica operatória. Para isso, foi preciso investigar, em primeiro lugar, a teoria do sujeito individual, no que se refere a função simbólica e reinterpretar estes conceitos no objeto. Neste caso, o objeto e a ferramenta computacional de uso individual. Portanto, somente a partir deste estudo foi possível construir o modelo geral de interação de um sujeito qualquer com uma ferramenta computacional, para depois analisá-la operatoriamente. Em um segundo momento, introduziu-se a teoria do sujeito coletivo que, para caracterizá-lo, foi necessária a compreensão de alguns conceitos relevantes da teoria em questão envolvidos nas noções de interação interindividual e cooperação. A partir de então, foram construídos os modelos interativos mais simples de um sujeito coletivo com três tipos de ferramentas computacionais de uso cooperativo. Para isso, foram abordados alguns aspectos relativos a Computação Cooperativa ou CSCW - Computer Supported Cooperative Work. Da mesma forma que ocorre no nível individual, foram analisadas operatoriamente ferramentas computacionais de uso cooperativo. / This thesis integrates the piagetian theory with Computer Science, more specifically, the computational tools analysis, from an operatory-logical point of view. For that, it was necessary to investigate, in a first step, the individual subject theory, in relation to the symbolic function and to interpret this concept in the object. In that case, the "object" is a computational tool for individual use. After this study it was possible to construct the general interaction model of any subject with a computational tool and to analyse it in an operatory form. In a second step, we introduce the collective subject theory. For that it was necessary to comprehend some relevant concepts of the theory in question involved in the notions of interindividual interaction and cooperation. After that, it was constructed the simplest interactive model of a collective subject in interaction with three types of computational tools for cooperative use. For that, some concepts related to CSCW or Computer Supported Cooperative Work were reported. In the same way that occurred in the individual level, the computational tools for cooperative use were analysed in an operatory form.

Esta tese de doutoramento trata da integração da teoria piagetiana com a Ciência da Computação, mais especificamente, a análise de ferramentas computacionais do ponto de vista da lógica operatória. Para isso, foi preciso investigar, em primeiro lugar, a teoria do sujeito individual, no que se refere a função simbólica e reinterpretar estes conceitos no objeto. Neste caso, o objeto e a ferramenta computacional de uso individual. Portanto, somente a partir deste estudo foi possível construir o modelo geral de interação de um sujeito qualquer com uma ferramenta computacional, para depois analisá-la operatoriamente. Em um segundo momento, introduziu-se a teoria do sujeito coletivo que, para caracterizá-lo, foi necessária a compreensão de alguns conceitos relevantes da teoria em questão envolvidos nas noções de interação interindividual e cooperação. A partir de então, foram construídos os modelos interativos mais simples de um sujeito coletivo com três tipos de ferramentas computacionais de uso cooperativo. Para isso, foram abordados alguns aspectos relativos a Computação Cooperativa ou CSCW - Computer Supported Cooperative Work. Da mesma forma que ocorre no nível individual, foram analisadas operatoriamente ferramentas computacionais de uso cooperativo. / This thesis integrates the piagetian theory with Computer Science, more specifically, the computational tools analysis, from an operatory-logical point of view. For that, it was necessary to investigate, in a first step, the individual subject theory, in relation to the symbolic function and to interpret this concept in the object. In that case, the "object" is a computational tool for individual use. After this study it was possible to construct the general interaction model of any subject with a computational tool and to analyse it in an operatory form. In a second step, we introduce the collective subject theory. For that it was necessary to comprehend some relevant concepts of the theory in question involved in the notions of interindividual interaction and cooperation. After that, it was constructed the simplest interactive model of a collective subject in interaction with three types of computational tools for cooperative use. For that, some concepts related to CSCW or Computer Supported Cooperative Work were reported. In the same way that occurred in the individual level, the computational tools for cooperative use were analysed in an operatory form.