Many secondary students with autism (SWA) included in the general education (GE) classroom demonstrate academic and behavioral challenges. Most GE teachers who have inclusive SWA in their classes receive little or no training on evidence-based practices to address these challenges. The purpose of this qualitative bounded case study was to explore secondary GE teachers' perceptions of and experiences with the academic and behavioral challenges of inclusive SWA. Theoretical frameworks of the weak central coherence theory for autism and executive dysfunction grounded the study. Data from 6 purposefully chosen secondary GE inclusion teachers, who educated SWA and students with autism spectrum disorder from one middle school setting, were collected using individual semistructured telephone interviews and independent participant journals. Criteria to be a participant included teachers who had taught more than 5 years, earned a master's degree, and taught inclusive SWA. The data were thematically analyzed using a segmenting-and-labeling open coding process. Participants revealed that secondary inclusive SWA had low cognitive processing, difficulty understanding content and maintaining an adequate pace while working on tasks, and demand of teacher attention. Furthermore, SWA demonstrated behavioral challenges controlling emotional outbursts, being organized, and socialization with peers. It is recommended that GE teachers have paraprofessionals with SWA preparation, opportunities for multilevel collaboration, and increased autism-specific training to assist in meeting academic and emotional needs of SWA. These actions could contribute to positive social change through assisting GE teachers in planning and improved instruction and postsecondary outcomes for secondary inclusive SWA.

To study present school system of Spencer County and to devise a plan of reorganization of present system in order to provide a well rounded educational opportunity for the boys and girls of Spencer County, Kentucky. The consideration of this problem are: Comparison of teacher qualifications in the types of schools. Computation of enrollment, average daily attendance of the various types of schools. Determination cost per pupil and total cost of operation of present school system and reorganized school system as salary of teacher, maintenance, transportation and needed buildings. Provision for free transportation of all high school pupils.

The goal of this study was to investigate the interaction between professional development and professional capital within international schools in Asia. The researcher employed a multi-site case study to inform the research goals. A conceptual framework based on Hargreaves and Fullan’s (2012) professional capital theory was used to guide the study’s methods and data collection. The data were collected in two phases. The first phase consisted of a digital survey that was distributed to ten international schools associated with the East Asia Regional Council of Schools (EARCOS) and the Office of Overseas Schools (OSS). The survey was analyzed to identify the experiences and perceptions of professional development within international schools. The second phase was comprised of semi-structured interview data from twelve international educators to explore the relationship between professional development and professional capital. The findings of this study helped outline themes of how a professional development fosters professional capital within the international schools. Specifically, international educators use professional development to increase human capital through their experiences to improve personal practice, while developing, retaining, and attracting educators to the international schools. Social capital is impacted through the amount of time international educators allocate to collaborative and networking experiences with other international educators within their field through professional development. By increasing decisional capital, international educators develop expertise with effective professional development guided through the support of mentors by increasing decisional capital. The findings suggest professional development within the international schools studied is connected to an increase in professional capital. The findings also suggest international educators need to maintain a level of autonomy in regard to decision making to continue to increase professional capital within international schools. Suggestions for a refinement of the theory of professional capital leadership include a balanced approach to professional development where teachers use their human capital and school leaders use their social capital collectively to make professional development decisions.

Even though the United States (U.S.) spends, on average, more money per student than most Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, it continues to lag behind its international peers in mathematics achievement. This study, which responded to the call for educational reforms that improve the mathematics achievement of U.S. students, aimed to examine the issue of student help-seeking behaviors and teacher instructional practices as they interact to affect student mathematics achievement. The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) defines student help-seeking behaviors as the ways in which students have a propensity to depend on the knowledge and intellect of others, including both their peers and teachers, when attempting to solve problems. Because mathematics is perhaps the most difficult school subject, student help-seeking behaviors should be a critical component of mathematics learning and teaching. Unfortunately, the research literature is barren concerning this important educational issue. This study attempted to produce the first wave of empirical evidence and open up an avenue for future research in this less-charted academic field, with the ultimate goal being to use students’ help-seeking behaviors to improve their mathematics achievement. Using the U.S. sample of 15-year-old students from PISA 2012 (the most recent PISA assessment in which the main area of focus was mathematical literacy), this study intended to determine whether students’ help-seeking behaviors play a significant role in their mathematics achievement, whether this relationship varies from school to school, and whether teacher instructional practices contribute to the school-level variation. Due to the multilevel structure of the data, with students being nested within schools, a two-level hierarchical linear model (HLM) was employed in the analysis of the data. Multiple measures of mathematics achievement were used as the dependent variables for separate analyses. Student help-seeking behavior was used as the key student-level independent variable, while three teacher instructional practices were used as the key school-level independent variables. In addition, several student and school background characteristics were used as control variables. The findings from this study indicate that student help-seeking behavior has a statistically significant effect on all measures of student mathematics achievement, even after controlling for various student background characteristics. On the other hand, the study did not find statistically significant evidence that the effects of student help-seeking behavior on any measure of student mathematics achievement vary from school to school. Overall, the issue of student help-seeking behaviors should be considered a worthy topic to pursue in future educational research. From a practical standpoint, since students’ mathematics achievement is positively associated with their help-seeking behaviors, efforts should be made to educate mathematics teachers on how to encourage their students to be more proactive in seeking help in the learning of mathematics.

The teacher-student relationship is multidimensional and fluid. This is especially true for students who come from disadvantaged backgrounds. Educational leaders in the public school setting cannot control which students enroll at their school sites. The only thing teachers, as educational leaders in K-12 public education, have complete control over is the environment they create in their classrooms. Among those student groups most reflecting few gains on state and federal reports of proficiency data are students who typically come from backgrounds besieged with challenges or from historically underserved and marginalized communities. In this transcendental phenomenological study, the phenomenon investigated was how secondary teachers described their experiences in building relationships with students identified as at promise. A secondary public school setting was the focus of this study. The intent of this study was to understand the essence of the lived experiences of teachers as they described their experiences in building relationships with at-promise youth. Teachers must leverage themselves in the quest to form positive and strong relationships with their students. In shifting the adverse narrative about the political identity used to categorize these students, the antipathetic mindset related to these students in public schools too shall shift. Research has demonstrated that at-promise students respond best in school settings that provide a culture where teachers intentionally construct a caring interaction laden with respect and recognition. It is important to foster agency in at-promise students through the understanding of the social, political, and economic structures that served to impact their generational past, inform their present, and prepare their future. This research study focused on the complex dynamic of the teacher-student relationship. This research investigation connected the important role teachers play in the lives of their students, teacher mindset about at-promise student success, and how strong and positive teacher-student relationships have the potential to encourage agency in at-promise students through meaningful recognition of their promise for academic success over their presupposed risks. This study’s findings highlight the critical need for teachers to create intentional opportunities to foster strong teacher-student relationships with at-promise students.

The purpose of this study is to identify the perception influenced by phenomena impacting core-subject teacher perceptions of career technical education (CTE). Studies show that CTE is highly successful at preparing California’s students for college and career (Friedman, 2006). However, some educators see “CTE maintain less value in helping to encourage student success” (Shanklin, 2014, p. 3). The phenomenological study examined the perception influencing lived experiences with focus groups and one-on-one interviews. Core-subject teachers participated in these face-to-face interviews. Findings show that core-subject teachers are biased against CTE. Analysis of the survey results determined perception influenced by phenomena experienced by core-subject instructors included perfectionistic characteristics among parents, a society obsessed with outdoing the other person and very little evidence of educational reforms. The study asked questions to raise the teachers’ perceptions of the rigor and relevance in CTE, to identify support that teachers give students applying to CTE instead of college, and how do teachers support the integrated curriculum. Future results will see educational leaders and teachers improve the perception of CTE using new training. A policy change would allow English Language Learners exiting an English Language Development centered schedule on being eligible for CTE at any age. Essential to the future of CTE are (1) lengthening the school day to accommodate a more diversified schedule and (2) eliminating the requirement to stay in one industry sector for up to four years.

The Framework for K-12 Science Education, the foundation for the Next Generation Science Standards, identifies scientific explanation as one of the eight practices "essential for learning science." In order to design professional development to help teachers implement these new standards, we need to assess students' current skill level in explanation construction, characterize current teacher practice surrounding it, and identify best practices for supporting students in explanation construction. This multiple-case study investigated teacher practice in eight high school science inquiry units in the Portland metro area and the scientific explanations the students produced in their work samples. Teacher Instructional Portfolios (TIPs) were analyzed with a TIP rubric based on best practices in teaching science inquiry and a qualitative coding scheme. Written scientific explanations were analyzed with an explanation rubric and qualitative codes. Relationships between instructional practices and explanation quality were examined. The study found that students struggle to produce high quality explanations. They have the most difficulty including adequate reasoning with science content. Also, teachers need to be familiar with the components of explanation and use a variety of pedagogical techniques to support students' explanation construction. Finally, the topic of the science inquiry activity should be strongly connected to the content in the unit, and students need a firm grasp of the scientific theory or model on which their research questions are based to adequately explain their inquiry results.

At public high schools in Cayman, teachers need to improve their productivity and efficiency by using technologies that are simple and portable like their personal devices. Studies about bring your own device (BYOD) initiatives have revealed conflicting outcomes, and are lacking in the Caribbean and especially in Cayman. The purpose of this quantitative study was to determine the main factors related to teachers' willingness to adopt BYOD in public high schools in Cayman. The theoretical framework was the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT). This study employed a cross-sectional survey design using a modified UTAUT instrument, which captured quantitative data from 82 participants. The use of hierarchical multiple regression to analyze the data revealed that teachers' BYOD adoption could expand by increasing facilitating conditions, performance expectancy, effort expectancy, and decreasing perceived risk. This study reduces the gap in the literature about the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology and BYOD in the Caribbean and the Cayman Islands. It also provides evidence that perceived risk can increase its explanatory power of the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology. The study also contributes to a positive social change by revealing critical issues that administrators should address when devising BYOD policies and planning educational technology integration.

Differentiated instruction offers opportunities to improve student academic performance, specifically in students with learning disabilities. However, teachers' perceptions of which differentiated-instruction program works best to support differently abled students were unknown. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore teachers' perceptions on whether face-to-face instruction using response to intervention or computer-based learning using TenMarks works best in improving the academic performance of students who are differently abled in mathematics, specifically geometry. Constructivism, social disability theory, and Bandura's social learning theory formed the study's theoretical framework. Research questions guiding the study focused on teachers' perceptions of the advantages and challenges of traditional face-to-face instruction versus TenMarks when educating differently abled students. Data were collected through one-on-one interviews and member checking using a purposeful sample with six high school mathematic teachers. Thematic data analysis followed an open coding process to identify emergent themes. The findings showed that teachers perceived advantages and challenges with both instructional models. Further, teachers believed combining the two approaches would be most beneficial as the strengths and weaknesses of the two approaches are complementary, which correlates with disability's social and critical models. This study contributes to positive social change through school administrators and teachers in guiding school policies and practices related to differentiated-instruction approaches in classrooms that include differently abled students.

Male students appear not ready for middle school by exhibiting lower grades, learner disengagement, and/or behavior problems. The age in which male students initially enter school has not been fully investigated as a possible systemic issue of a lack of male student longitudinal success and learner engagement. The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the differences between how academically redshirted male students performed academically and behaviorally compared to their non-academically redshirted grade mates at Grades 6-8. This study drew from the theories of early childhood constructivists: Piaget, Vygotsky, and Montessori. The research questions addressed the academic and behavioral differences between redshirted and non-academically redshirted students throughout Grades 6-8. Academic data, through numerical average and GPA, and behavioral data, through the total number of behavioral violations, from 1 archived school year were gathered for all male students in grades 6-8 (N=109). Students were grouped academically redshirted or non-academically redshirted based on age of school entry. A series of independent t tests were performed on all academic and behavioral data for each of the respective grades and sets of student data. Findings revealed differences in how redshirted versus non-academically redshirted students performed; however, these findings revealed no statistically significant difference. The results of this study provided evidence to support a correlation between when male students formally enter school and male academic and behavioral success. These findings lead to positive social change for school communities, specifically parents/guardians and school officials, by providing necessary data to drive decisions regarding school entry age and its longitudinal effects at the middle school level.