This two-year action research project discusses the transitions that English Language Learners (ELLs) experience in moving from remedial second language learning to content-area courses. Two cohorts of twenty-seven ELL students from Asia, Africa, and the Middle East—fifteen students in 2015-16 and twelve in 2016-17— participated in a U.S. History course while attending the pseudonymous West Ackerly High School. Absent a pedagogical bridge connecting ELL instruction with social studies practice, I created a curriculum that emphasized the democratic principles embedded in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution—concepts that general education students have known almost from birth—as an entry point for ELL students who lacked any knowledge about these documents. I followed this introduction with thematic choices about immigration, imperialism, Westward Expansion, the Civil War, Reconstruction, civil rights, and current events. We examined the social construct of race, and how it weaves through American society. My combined roles of practitioner and researcher created a unique awareness of the principles of second language instruction, especially best practices and co-teaching strategies that merged language learning and content instruction. I then evaluated students’ critical thinking and teachers’ methods of working with ELL students, experienced the value associated with co-teaching, and developed practical techniques to bring content knowledge into the ELL curriculum as a way to aid students in their transitions. In two journal articles (Chapters Three and Four), I combine “scholarship and story,” reminiscent of Ladson-Billings’ The Dreamkeepers (2009), in a personal scholarly narrative about co-teaching U.S. History. Both Ladson-Billings’ narrative and the stories about the West Ackerly immigrant students describe the struggle that children of color experience. My reflections about co-teaching revealed innovative ideas that emerged from our practice, helped us better understand the backgrounds of our students, explored best practices for ELL instruction, and showed how an adapted mainstream U.S. History curriculum could work for second language learners. The second article describes Socratic Seminar techniques that contribute to students’ learning and discourse development, with scaffolded instruction that incorporates the application of Common Core principles based on the work of Zwiers, O’Hara, and Pritchard (2014). I describe a thematic approach to U.S. History instruction that avoids “covering” all the material while highlighting what students need to know in order to function in American society. Hopefully, this work will bring greater awareness of the struggles experienced by ELL students in their academic and cultural transitions. In the end, I hope secondary teachers and administrators will understand that ELL students require extensive skill development around reading, writing, and research in order to transition into—and then successfully navigate—content-area classes.

The purpose of this study was to determine how transition specific professional development influenced secondary special educators’ knowledge and perceived self-efficacy regarding the use of evidence-based transition practices. Past research has suggested that secondary special educators enter the profession with limited knowledge and skills to provide effective evidence-based transition practices to students with disabilities. Based on Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory, and Desimone’s framework for effective professional development, this study identified how different variables related to professional development can influence teacher self-efficacy in terms of delivering evidence-based transition practices. Specifically, a correlational research design was used to investigate teacher self-efficacy to deliver evidence-based transition practices when (a) the amount of professional development (b) type of professional development, and (c) location of the professional development are factors. Descriptive statistics, an analysis of variance (ANOVA), and a multiple linear regression analysis were performed. Results indicated the amount of professional development received had a significant effect on teachers perceived efficacy, compared to location, and type of professional development received. Further, results of teachers perceived effectiveness, changes made as a result of the professional development, and other factors related to professional development are reported. Limitations and implications for teacher professional development research, practice, and policy are discussed.

High school writing teacher self-efficacy has suffered because the workload and emotional energy of grading papers is arduous, and despite their efforts to provide formative written feedback, many teachers believe students ignore or misunderstand it. Although audio feedback holds promise for improving the clarity of instructor feedback and the self-efficacy of writing instructors in higher education, its usefulness for improving high school teacher self-efficacy has remained unexplored. This multiple case study investigated how high school teachers believed Kaizena, a digital audio feedback technology, influenced their writing instruction and self-efficacy. Participants, who were drawn from the global Kaizena user base, included a user group of 3 United States teachers and a user group of 3 international teachers to determine how both groups used Kaizena and whether differences in use occurred in either environment. Data sources included individual teacher interviews, participant journals, and artifacts such as teacher-created writing assignments and rubrics. Data analysis included both single case and cross case analyses. Single case analysis included coding and categorizing of interview and participant journal data and content analysis of artifacts. Cross case analysis included identifying emerging themes and discrepant data. Results indicated that all 6 teachers both believed they gave more high quality, personalized feedback to students in less time with the audio feature of Kaizena than with written feedback and did, in fact, provide documents confirming this higher quality. As a result, using Kaizena positively influenced their self-efficacy. This study contributes to positive social change by providing insights into a feedback tool that could improve high school writing instruction.

School leaders at an urban high school in the U.S. Midwest encouraged teachers to use formative assessment to help students meet learning goals; however, several years later, they found inconsistent implementation. Without a clear understanding of teachers' formative assessment practices, leaders could not establish needed supports for its consistent use in the classrooms. The purpose of this bounded qualitative case study was to examine teachers' formative assessment use to check for student understanding and to adjust instruction. Black and Wiliam's formative assessment theory formed the foundation of this study. Research questions focused on teachers' perceptions of formative assessment and usage of formative assessment for instruction. Ten state certified high school teachers, who had at least a bachelor's degree, passed basic skills and subject area examinations, and taught within their majors or minors, were purposefully selected to provide data. Data were gathered from observations, interviews, and teacher logs and were analyzed inductively using open and axial coding strategies. Results showed teachers collected and used formative assessment to modify instruction and determine student understanding from a limited number of students. Furthermore, they lacked the knowledge, skills, and strategies to implement formative assessment to help all students meet learning goals. Based on the findings, 3 professional development (PD) sessions were created to help school leaders provide support for teachers' consistent formative assessment implementation. These endeavors may contribute to positive social change when administrators provide teachers with PD to increase teachers' knowledge and skills using formative assessment, and, ultimately, to meet student learning goals.

The Common Core State Standards recommend that all educators prepare students with the literacy skills needed for college and careers. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to examine 7th and 8th grade content area teachers' perspectives towards teaching literacy. The research questions addressed teachers' capabilities in the role of literacy instructor as well as the actual application of literacy. The conceptual framework included Bruner's constructivist, Bandura's self-efficacy, and Knowles's andragogy theories. These theories informed the investigation of adult learners' perspectives regarding the way they learn and gain confidence to provide literacy instruction. Eleven English, math, science, and social studies teachers participated in this study through interviews. Data were also gathered via classroom observations and lesson plans. A qualitative data analysis software program was used to manage the qualitative data. Inductive and deductive coding were used to analyze the data and identify themes. The findings of this study indicated that teachers felt unprepared to teach reading. While teachers saw value in literacy, their perspectives were affected by their commitment to content instruction and time constraints to meet disciplinary curriculum requirements. This study affects positive social change by providing increased understanding of literacy instructions in the content classroom. These findings can facilitate communication between teachers and other stakeholders regarding school literacy initiatives. Further, the findings informed creation of a professional training program to provide teachers with on-site support for literacy integration.

Student engagement is a determinant for students' academic success, readiness for higher education, and social agency. The purpose of this qualitative, case study was to explore ninth grade students' perceptions of the contextual and psychological factors that influence the development of student engagement profiles. The ecological systems theory was used as the framework for the study. Through purposive sampling, 15 participants were selected, and 5 groups of 3 were formed based on participants' engagement profiles as identified by cooperating teachers' categorization and the results of the Student Engagement Instrument. Using semi structured interviews, data were gathered for the 4 research questions. Iterative content analysis of interview data identified 7 emergent themes that underscored the relative importance of parental support, teacher's mood and behavior, peer relationship, and a sense of justice and safety in the classroom as factors that promote multidimensional engagement patterns. These findings may influence students, parents, teachers, counselors, administrators, community members, and organizations to create spaces, and develop practices and policies that would provide environments and relationships that enhance students' emotional, behavioral, and cognitive engagement with school and schoolwork, especially for students who might be on the verge of disengaging from school.

This project study addressed the low rate of general education teachers volunteering to coteach inclusion classes at a large urban high school in southeastern Georgia. This low volunteer rate caused administrators at this school to assign general education teachers, who did not opt in, to coteach inclusion classes. Teachers' efficacy was negatively impacted when they were required to teach classes that they did not volunteer to teach. The model of cooperative teaching advanced by Bauwens, Hourcade, and Friend's work served as the conceptual framework for this intrinsic case study. The purpose of the study was to examine how general education teachers described coteaching inclusion classes, and how they demonstrated effectiveness of cotaught classes. Qualitative data consisted of personal interviews with and classroom observations of 10 general education teachers, as well as lesson plans received from 2 of the participants. The typological analysis revealed that general education teachers perceived a need for training regarding coteaching, increased use of coteaching models in the classroom, development of coteaching partnerships, and administrative support. Based on the results of this study, a coteaching professional development was created that focuses on coteaching methods, strategies, and models for general education teachers involved in coteaching. The recommended professional development may contribute to positive social change by improving teachers' coteaching performance and increasing teachers' efficacy to impact the academic environment of students in cotaught inclusion classes.

Teachers are faced with numerous interruptive bullying behaviors in middle school classrooms, which brought the quality of education into question. Bullying victims have shown decreased rates of academic success, measured by lower grades, compared to those not involved in bullying. The purpose of this basic interpretative qualitative study was to explore the phenomenon of classroom bullying from the perspectives and experiences of 10 middle school teachers. The research questions examined teachers' experiences in witnessing bullying in their classrooms and the strategies they used to identify and effectively avert bullying in school. Bandura's theories of moral disengagement and social learning theory of aggression informed and provided a framework for the research process. Information was gathered from 10 purposefully selected middle school teachers through personal interviews. Data analysis included coding, categorizing, and thematic analysis. The resulting themes revealed that teachers and school counselors played the most important role in bullying prevention. Physical, verbal, and cyberbullying were perceived as the major types of bullying in the middle school. Teachers reported that more bullying professional development was needed. Given the negative short and long term outcomes associated with bullying, the bullying phenomenon merits serious attention for preventive intervention. Social change will be realized when teachers become more knowledgeable of specific school bullying policies and are able to respond effectively to bullying incidents in schools. Subsequently, students will be able to enter peaceful, productive classrooms and schools.

Local middle schools have begun implementing a no-zero policy, which compels teachers to assign grades no lower than 50% even if a student did not turn in assignments for grading. In the study setting, high school teachers are struggling to motivate students who have attended a middle school with a no-zero policy in place. High school students who have attended a middle school with a no-zero policy show signs of learned helplessness. The purpose of this study was to examine the differences in core course grades between high school students who attended a middle school with a no-zero policy (NZPMS) and high school students who attended a middle school without this policy that would compel the assignment of F grades if earned by the student (FPMS). The theoretical framework is Seligman's theory of learned helplessness. The sample included 1,396 students in a high school who attended either of the two middle schools. Comparisons between mean high school mathematics, science, and English grades were compared using a one-tailed t-test. Effect sizes were measured using Cohen's d. The findings indicated statistically significant small to medium differences in students' core course grades. Students who had attended the NZPMS earned lower high school core course grades in mathematics, science, and English than students who had attended FPMS. Professional development activities were created to train teachers and administrators at the NZPMS about the negative effects of awarding students with passing grades without expanding any or only minimal effort. Positive social change could occur for students' academic careers and professional lives if the no-zero policy is rescinded.

Identifying at-risk students and precursors to high school dropout has been an ongoing concern for schools and communities. Dropouts are at a high risk for a lifetime of challenges such as low income, unemployment, lack of healthcare, and incarceration. Motivation and self-esteem have been shown to be influential on a student's decision to drop out of high school. The purpose of this quantitative study was to evaluate the connection between self-esteem, motivation, and on track for high school graduation and identify areas of need in order to improve academic and social success for students. The research was based on social learning theory, attribution theory, and self-determination theory, which provided a foundation to understand the role of motivation and self-esteem. The research questions addressed self-esteem, motivation, and other demographic variables as predictors of being on track for high school graduation. A secondary data analysis was used to evaluate anonymous student responses to the Academic Motivation Scale and Student Self-Esteem Scale as well as demographic information for 165 students in 12th grade to determine possible predictors of being on track for high school graduation. A significant correlation was indicated between self-esteem and motivation, and self-esteem was shown to be a significant predictor of being on track for graduation using a multiple regression analysis. A logistic binary regression was used to examine additional possible predictors and grade point average was shown to be a significant predictor of being on track for graduation. This research helped identify academic barriers and influences on graduation rates, and can be used for identification of at-risk students and improving high school graduation rates.