<p> This study investigated the relationship between attention to student thinking during lesson planning and the level of cognitive demand at which tasks are implemented for six pre-service teachers enrolled in a teacher education program that focuses on attention to student thinking during planning and instruction. Lesson plans were examined for attention to student thinking using two coding schemes, and samples of student work were examined to assess the level of cognitive demand at which tasks (associated with the enacted lesson plans) were implemented during instruction. Other planning related data sources were qualitatively drawn upon to support the extent to which pre-service teachers focused on student thinking with regard to planning. </p><p> One of the lesson planning coding schemes provides numerical scores indicating different degrees of attention to six elements of student thinking. The level of cognitive demand of task implementation for each lesson was able to be coded as high or low. In particular, the quantitative analysis suggested a trend that as overall attention to student thinking during lesson planning increases the odds of high level task implementation become greater compared to the odds of low level task implementation. Given a small sample size the quantitative results need to be considered within their limitations.</p><p> Qualitative analysis examining attention to student thinking during planning and task implementation supports the quantitative trend. In particular, the qualitative analysis suggests three findings. The first finding is that the two pre-service teachers who demonstrated the most attention to student thinking with regard to planning were the only pre-service teachers who implemented all of their tasks at a high level of cognitive demand. The second finding is that when receiving specific planning based support for a lesson as part of a university assignment, all the pre-service teachers were able to implement the task at high level of cognitive demand. The third finding is that a large majority of lessons using tasks accompanied by detailed planning support sources were implemented at high levels of cognitive demand.</p>

<p> A significant issue facing high schools is preparing students for their transition to college. High school students who are the first in their family to attend college have more difficulties preparing for this transition. Studies have explored the transition experiences of first-generation college-going students participating in partnership programs, showing that not all program components strengthen the transition experience for this population (Domina &amp; Ruzek, 2012; Jordan, 2006; Watt et al., 2008). Since participation in these programs may contribute to a successful transition experience, it is crucial to expand our understanding of how participation helps these students overcome the numerous challenges in the transition process (Barnett et al., 2012; Choy, 2001).</p><p> This qualitative study involving interviews of 20 first-generation students examined how a district-level high school to community college readiness partnership program facilitated a successful transition from high school to community college for first-generation college-going students. The study drew on a conceptual framework involving cultural capital (Bourdieu &amp; Passeron, 1977) beyond the &ldquo;deficit&rdquo; model (Ovink &amp; Veazey, 2011), social capital (Coleman, 1988), and ecological systems theory (Bronfenbrenner, 1977).</p><p> Participants described both partnership program components and individualized attention through human resource relationships as being pivotal contributors to their positive transition experience. Although participants stated that the partnership program addressed many barriers to support their successful transition to community college, their transition experience remained challenging at times. Participants shared that their parents&rsquo; inexperience with the college process gave them a feeling of &ldquo;being on their own&rdquo; during the transition from high school to community college. As a whole, however, participants stated that they had a successful high school to community college transition because the partnership program gave them the background knowledge they needed. In addition, participants shared that with guidance from the partnership program, they felt more prepared than they would have had they not participated in the partnership program.</p><p> Based on participants&rsquo; transition experiences, this study offers a deeper understanding of the aspects of the partnership program that support a successful transition experience, with implications for existing and future programs, as well as policy.</p>

The effectiveness of school-based health education in changing behaviour and health outcomes is limited. This in part can be attributed to the types of classroom exchanges taking place within health education lessons. There is an evident need to examine the potential link between pedagogy and health education. This study comprises a social ecological examination of the implementation of the Welsh Government’s Personal and Social Education (PSE) policy, which seeks to promote health behaviours alongside social and economic wellbeing. A socio-ecological (SE) perspective aims to understand the different influences on practice and take into account individual, social and organisational level influences on implementation. An exploratory case study is used to examine practice in four systematically selected secondary schools from two local authorities in Wales (FSM entitlement >20% and <10%). Methods incorporate analysis of national and local policy documents, interviews with implementers at local authority (n=5) and school level (n=11), lesson observations (n=12 lessons) and pupil focus groups (n= 23 pupils). The findings suggest that a lack of clarity about how PSE should be implemented in schools seems to lead to uncertainties among implementers. These uncertainties are exacerbated by a focus on graded performance that has shaped school staff beliefs and organisational arrangements. A performance focus also re-emerges in classroom practice that is mainly characterised by a transmission of facts although some competency-focused classroom exchanges are apparent. There is some limited evidence of pupils’ understanding and generalising health knowledge and self-reported self-regulation of health behaviours.

This thesis investigates potential connections between the development of social capital and education outcomes in English secondary schools, and particularly the influence of leadership on these. The investigation is underpinned by four themes emerging from a review of literature as gaps in current knowledge: • how social capital is activated and developed, and the role of school leadership; • whether the development of social capital can be separated from socio-economic status; • understanding the role of young people in relation to social capital in a school • examining the balancing and reconciliation of competing stakeholder demands. The resulting enquiry adopts a long-term case study approach, over two years, in three schools. It uses mixed methods, including semi-structured interviews with a range of internal and external stakeholders, attitudinal surveys, and scrutiny of relevant school documents. Drawing on grounded theory, the research methodology takes as its starting point each head’s own perception of their intent, and seeks understanding of the process and effects of change in their context. The analysis is influenced by insights from complexity theory in rejecting simple models of linear causation, drawing instead on concepts of emergence, connectedness and feedback to aid understanding. Empirical findings, whilst showing clearly the importance of context, also indicate some common strands of importance across each case. These suggest emergent new insights into the nature and place of students as leaders, blended models of connected leadership that extends beyond the school, and a more organic model of organisational growth. Those findings are crystallised into a possible theoretical model for a next stage of school improvement. This addresses the importance of families and communities in supporting the personal and social development of young people and enhancing their motivation for learning. These conclusions are, at this stage, necessarily tentative and opening up avenues for further enquiry, for which suggestions are offered.

This thesis focuses on the application of the model of instructional leadership at high-performing secondary schools in England and Greece. This helped the researcher to develop a model of instructional leadership in a centralised context. A qualitative multiple case design allowed detailed data to be collected on four high performing secondary schools, using the interpretivist paradigm. The enquiry was conducted using mixed methods, including semi-structured interviews with various data sets (stakeholders) within and outside the school, observation of leadership practice and meetings, and scrutiny of relevant macro and micro policy documents. The three-layer comparative framework designed to identify the similarities and differences in leadership variables within and across the countries, shed light on the cross-case analysis of the case studies within a centralised (Greece) and a partially decentralised (England) education context. The empirical lessons from this study show that instructional leadership is implemented in different ways in diverse contexts. The findings from the two Greek case study schools are interwoven with the official multi-dimensional role of Greek headteachers, which leaves little space for undertaking instructional leadership dimensions. In the absence of such official instructional leadership 'actors', teachers' leadership has been expanding, and the research identifies aspects of informal collaborative leadership practices in Greece. In contrast, the decentralization of school activities creates the platform for the emergence of shared and distributed leadership within the English context, while various school actors have direct and indirect involvement in pedagogical leadership for school improvement. This cross-country comparative study provides new evidence about how instructional leadership is contextually bounded and inevitably influenced by the extent and nature of centralisation or decentralisation in the education system.

This thesis critiques authoritarian school policies and the pedagogic industry that overauthoritarianism has spawned to manage pupil behaviour. The overarching paradigm has been behavioural, centred on rewards and punishments. As a secondary school teacher I was deemed to be highly effective as an educator and disciplinarian by all objective measures, a no-nonsense, assertive persona championing authoritarian authority. I became disillusioned with this pedagogy of coercion and reached a point of professional ‘living contradiction’. I realised for the first time that the authoritarian teacher might actually be part of the problem, not the solution to poor discipline. I wished to develop a pedagogy in tune with my espoused values, developing positive teacher-pupil relationships which, I felt, might encourage both motivation in schoolwork and the development of pupils’ self-control and self-discipline. This thesis is an account of my intellectual and pedagogical journey to replace my authoritarian pedagogy with a way of teaching and learning based (in both directions) on respect, manners and friendly school relationships which is co-constructivist, encouraging pupils to be deeply involved in their own learning. I evidence the effect of this on classroom behaviour. I defend my relational pedagogical approach through a review of research literature alongside a three year action research with sixteen of my own classes, interrogating my performance to ask ‘Can non-authoritarian teachers contribute towards a well-ordered class of self-disciplined pupils?’ The reconnaissance stage locates this question in the context of my own educational history, the auto-biographical reflection validated through critical friends. The data collection phase used a range of instruments and reflective processes exploring how I wrestled with pedagogical issues when adopting a non-authoritarian approach, how I learned to be authoritative rather than authoritarian, and how I learned to deal with uncooperative pupils in new ways. In order to extend my new approach more broadly in the school, I worked with six volunteer colleagues, both experienced and newly qualified and I evaluate short and long term effects. I conclude by showing that effective pedagogy comes from positive teacher-pupil relationships which provide an effective solution to most low-level pupil indiscipline by establishing a culture and climate of cooperation and co-construction of learning.

<p> The current study explored the dimensions and roles of trust in effective instructional leadership through a triangulation of data gathered from 78 survey responders and 35 interview participants along with a review of pertinent literature. The interviews and written free-responses related effective instructional leadership to three clear dimensions of trust identified within an effective teacher&rsquo;s classroom: personal, intellectual, and behavioral. The grounded theory that arose from the current study, regarding the role of trust in effective instructional leadership, was that trust is a catalytic medium, i.e. an activator and enabler, through which: relationships are created respectfully, planning is conducted purposefully, interventions are developed intentionally, and by which student cooperation and engagement are increased significantly, thereby giving evidence of effective instructional leadership. Furthermore, how effective teachers utilized the dimensions and representations of trust appeared to be generally related to: (1) accepting the greater responsibility in demonstrating trust, (2) giving trust to students in order to receive it back from them, and (3) intentionally building trust with students in order to earn their trust. Though trust is a somewhat nebulous term that is difficult to define and measure, the current study revealed its representations, i.e. roles, can in fact be identified with the potential for teaching its replication to educators in an effort to improve effective instructional leadership related to student cooperation and engagement.</p>

<p> This applied dissertation was designed to provide a better understanding of the effectiveness of out-of-class safety net corrective instructional activity practices conducted beyond regular classroom instruction for lower secondary level (9th- and 10th- grade high school) students within mastery learning educational environments. The study was designed to shed light on the impact and implications of these practices on Bloom&rsquo;s vanishing point (Bloom, 1971) and Arlin&rsquo;s leveling effect (Arlin &amp; Westbury, 1976). Seven mastery learning structured international schools in geographic proximity, of similar size, and utilizing the same program of study were used in this study. Three of the schools that employed a safety net program were the basis of this study, and the four schools that did not have in place a safety net program were used as a control for this observational research. </p><p> Normed Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) RIT scores (Northwest Evaluation Association, 2005), grade point averages, and safety net program data were used in a series of case-control tests to determine the effectiveness of out-of-class corrective instructional activity safety net programs for above-average and below-average achieving students. The mean study and control group RIT percentile ranking scores for the students was nearly 1 standard deviation above the averages reported by the Northwest Evaluation Association (2005), so these relative comparisons involved bright students. This large volume of data enabled analysis of the effects of out-of-class safety net activities on school-wide and individual improvement in literature, writing, mathematics, and comprehensive results. </p><p> Series of conclusive nonparametric analysis were used instead of normal distribution tests because of the out-of-bounds skewed nature of the data. Analysis of the data suggested that safety netting programs benefit all students, irrespective of whether or not students received out-of-class corrective instructional activities. The MAP RIT scores of below- average achieving students were not affected by attending a school with a safety net program but their GPA results improved in all subjects. Arlin&rsquo;s leveling effect (Arlin &amp; Westbury, 1976) most likely accounted for improvement of MAP RIT scores for above- average students who attended a school with a safety net program but their GPA results were not affected. These contrasting benefits masked the school-wide test results, which suggested that a school district might not realize an overall increase in MAP RIT and GPA results when adopting a safety net program. Students identified in need of safety netting services benefited by having been placed in the program up to twice in any respective course, but a point of diminishing returns was reached when a student fell 3 or more units behind in a course in relation to the progress of the class.</p>

<p>ABSTRACT Title of Document: HIGH SCHOOL LEADERS? PERCEPTIONS OF PRACTICES THAT INCREASE GRADUATION RATES FOR AFRICAN AMERICAN MALES Linda Snyder Jones, Doctor of Education, 2015 Directed By: Dr. Dennis Kivlighan Department of Counseling, Higher Education and Special Education Research indicates there are significant differences in the academic performance of minorities and whites, particularly at the high school level. On average, Latino and African American high school students read and perform math on the same level as 13-year-old white students and trail their white peers by an average of 20 test points on math and reading assessments (Wiltz, 2012; Education Week, 2011; Education Trust, 2003). White and Asian students are still twice as likely as Black and Hispanic students to take classes that are considered academically challenging. Fewer than 10% of African American students participated in rigorous courses in 2009 (Education Week, 2011; NCES, 2009). Moreover, data show 54% of African Americans graduate from high school, compared with more than 75% of white and Asian students. Educational disparities are especially apparent between African American males and other groups regarding graduation rates. A report by the U.S. Department of Education (2013) shows that graduation rates are at their highest with 76.8% graduation rate in 1973 compared to 81% graduation rate in 2012(NCES, 2009, NCES, 2013). Despite this increase, one million students failed to graduate in 2013 most of whom were minorities (Richmond, 2013). The Schott Foundation for Public Education (2012) documented that in public education, of all ethnic/racial or gender groups, African American males have been least likely to secure a diploma four years after beginning high school. The major research questions guiding this study were: (1) What practices do school-based leaders use to improve the high school graduation rates of African American males? (A) Are there other strategies school-based leaders might consider implementing to continue raising the graduation rates for African American males? Using qualitative methods and an ethnographic case study design, semi-structured interviews were conducted with six high school-based leaders-- two principals, two assistant principals, one guidance counselor and one alternative-1 teacher. Findings revealed seven major themes and three minor themes. Major themes included: student/teacher relationship, mentoring programs, academic support, making school connections, data monitoring/assessment, teacher expectations and teacher professional development. Minor themes were comprised of: student self-esteem, parent involvement and funding for programs.

School effectiveness in areas of social deprivation is a fundamental issue for every society, because it is related to social justice, equity and development, which are important matters for every developed or developing country. Social justice in education means that any student, whatever their social background, has equal access and opportunities to receive an education of quality. It is often considered that schools in the poorest neighbourhoods provide a lower quality of education than institutions in more advantaged areas. Nevertheless, taking into account all the barriers that some schools have to face, there are some institutions that seem to make a difference. They have demonstrated that it is possible to be more successful in terms of educational outcomes, despite the impact of their student intake from disadvantaged backgrounds. This study intends to contribute to the school effectiveness field through the study of effective secondary schools from two important regions in Chile, which are characterised by their disadvantaged student intake. The main aim of this research is to gain greater understanding of the particular characteristics of effective schools in challenging contexts and the influences of these particular features on the students’ academic outcomes. A sample of schools was selected after the analysis of the students’ academic achievement demonstrated in their results in a national examination over a period of 3 years. The sample only considered schools with a student intake characterised by high social vulnerability. These schools were analysed using case studies and a mixed methods research approach. The intention was to explore the school processes that support effectiveness and to generate some illuminating findings, in order to contribute to educational policy and practice.