Academic entitlement is a concern in higher education because of the potential societal and market driven influences on credible scholarship. Most of the research has focused on negative attitudes and behaviors attributed to students. The considerations of tenured professors who interact with academically entitled students and strategies for effective classroom management has not been fully explored. Constructivism provided the theoretical framework for the qualitative case study. Data were collected from open-ended, semistructured interviews with a purposeful sample of 10 tenured professors from a state college in the Southeastern United States to explore (a) the meanings participants attributed to academic entitlement, (b) how those meanings affected their decision-making, and (c) the ramifications of those decisions for classroom management. Data were analyzed through descriptive, InVivo, and patterns coding. Findings indicated that although academic entitlement is a consequence of cultural practices, professors can alter the perception of academically entitled students with an adherence to robust classroom policies and self-reflection to mitigate enablement of the behavior. Findings were used to create a professional development mentorship program for new full-time professors designed to promote self-reflective practices and individualized management considerations to cultivate classroom management skills and improve student learning and retention. New faculty without exposure to academic entitlement might face unanticipated challenges when managing classrooms. An awareness from the experiences of colleagues who instructed academically entitled students will benefit new educators by providing insights to promote stronger classroom management and result in culturally positive social changes.

Student test scores related to mathematical word problems have been declining in a rural school district in western Louisiana. Word problems constitute a major component of the Algebra 1 End of Course examination, which students must be able to pass to graduate. Mathematics teachers have struggled to find appropriate strategies to teach students to answer constructed response questions (CRQs) effectively. The purpose of this study was to investigate the perceptions of math teachers about effective teaching strategies for improving student performance on CRQs. Guided by Piaget's constructivist theory, which is characterized by an emphasis on learner control of the learning process through active engagement and activation of prior knowledge, this study investigated teachers' perceptions and practices in relation to teaching the skills needed for CRQs. The research questions focused on math teachers' perceptions of current teaching practices, instructional effectiveness, and professional development needs. A case study design was used to capture the insights of 8 participants through semistructured interviews and observations. Emergent themes were identified from the data through a code-recode approach, and findings were developed and validated through triangulation and member checking. The key results were that math teachers expressed a need to collaborate with their colleagues to develop effective strategies that would incorporate literacy and hands-on learning. A project was designed to engage teachers in collaboration and planning to prepare students to think critically and problem solve. This study may promote positive social change by providing teachers with the tools necessary to improve students' thinking skills, problem-solving skills, and learning strategies.

A reliance on a teacher-centered model of instruction presented the foundation for my research. I chose to investigate constructivist theory and to implement constructivist teaching practices within my art education classroom to determine if constructivist teaching practices would facilitate a shift to a more student-centered learning environment, and to determine if constructivist strategies positively impact student learning. I collected my raw data using autoethnographic recording, documenting my results over a two month period in January and February of 2007 from my experiences as an art educator at a public, Metro-Atlanta elementary school. A positive impact on student learning was observed and the constructivist teaching strategies did produce student-centered learning environments. Based on my experiences constructivist teaching strategies may be beneficial to the creation of student-centered learning environments and assist in broadening student inquiry and investment with lessons.

As universities transition from instructor-driven to student-centered learning environments, the institutional learning structure is being redesigned to emphasize active learning. Instructional technologies, employing active learning models, have been a critical component in the redesign. The active learning model suggests that the student engages in various activities, and uses various strategies, to gather information and achieve understanding. Technology-driven learning environments therefore often instill activities that direct the student's learning. Use of on-line technologies, such as the Internet, is one method for creating active learning activities that direct the student's learning. This experiment explores how active learning activities, specifically how a student engages in research by accessing on-line information, affects their understanding of the material. The experiment is a 2 (Task Complexity) x 2 (Data Resource) design testing a student's (N=194) ability to synthesize information as they traversed through a specified set of resources. The findings indicate that students who access topic-specific resources engage in more research activities than students who access broad-topic resources. Furthermore, the findings indicate that students who access topic-specific resources will synthesize the relevant material into a more clear and concise response than students who access broad-topic resources. Suggestions and further research are posited to further understand how instructors can engage use of on-line resources, specifically the Internet, and instructional technologies, such as Distance Learning, to facilitate student learning.

The aim of this research was to create a reliable and valid measure of teacher self-efficacy in relation to the use of technology for student-centred learning. This study introduces two scales, the Student-Centred Use of Technology Teacher Efficacy Scale (SCUTTES) and the Student-Centred Use of Technology Teacher Outcome Expectancy Scale (SCUTTOES) for development. This study focused on the initial stages of development which involved the comparison of the two scales with an existing measure of efficacy, the Teachers' Sense of Efficacy Scale (TSES) as a preliminary test for validity. The surveys were distributed to teachers in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia, and the responses were analyzed for reliability, validity, and factor structure. The instruments were found to be valid measures, although further testing with larger sample sizes is recommended. Based on the results, a professional development program is suggested to raise teacher efficacy for the use of technology in student-centred learning.

The purpose of this study was to explore the selected middle years teachers’ experiences of promoting student learning in student-centered classrooms, and how these recalled experiences might affect their own future teaching and assist other teachers to promote student learning. Based on social constructivism as the epistemological foundation, I chose Appreciative Inquiry (AI) as the research methodology. AI values people’s positive experiences and emphasizes the importance of the positive core of change (Cooperrider & Whitney, 2000). In total, there were 53 middle years teachers in China and Canada who responded to an online survey. Four Chinese education experts were interviewed online, and 12 Canadian education experts participated in an interpretation panel. The findings showed that both Chinese and Canadian participants believed that engaging students in their learning was the core of creating student-centered classrooms. They regarded group study as the most popular instructional strategy that was used to promote student-centered learning. Most participants stated that they had changed or planned to change their teaching practices because they had positive teaching experiences in student-centered classrooms. Chinese participants stated that they had shared their positive teaching experiences with other teachers at three levels: school divisions/districts, schools, or grades/subjects. The main activities for communication among Chinese teachers included group discussion, collective lesson planning, and classroom visits. Canadian participants reported that they usually shared their educational ideas and teaching experiences with other teachers in both formal and informal ways, such as chatting with each other during breaks, developing learning projects together, and communicating with each other through school networking websites. In addition, findings also showed that most Chinese middle years teachers teach a single subject, but many Canadian middle years teachers teach multiple subjects. Based on this research, I suggested that teachers should apply multiple instructional strategies in their classrooms, serve students, and collaborate with parents/families. School boards and schools should make more efforts to encourage their teachers to communicate with each other, formally and regularly by providing policy, technical, and financial supports for relevant programs and activities. Teachers should choose either a single subject or multiple subjects to teach according to their own willingness and abilities. Future researchers may benefit by using Appreciative Inquiry to explore people’s positive experiences in education, and should be more open-minded by conducting cross-cultural and inter-cultural research to facilitate educators to communicate with each other and learn from each other.

If today’s adolescents are not becoming critically literate, then the nearly infinite number of texts with which they engage, are being accepted blindly or simply ignored. There are adolescents who do question texts, but what are the meanings they make from them. This research focuses on the question, “How do adolescents use critical literacy to navigate/negotiate the texts in their lives?” Through classroom observation and interviews with the students as informants, I collected qualitative data that I used to develop a Critical Engagement Continuum. The Continuum provides a framework how adolescents engage with a variety of texts, from critical thinking to critical literacy. Conclusions show that most participants’ comments fell towards the critical thinking end of the continuum and few made mention of any social justice issues or transformative thinking which categorizes the critical literacy end. Recommendations are made for teachers looking to develop a critically literate classroom. / Graduate

Thesis (Ed. D.)--University of North Texas, Aug., 2007. / Title from title page display. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ed. D.)--University of Washington, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 101-105).

Thesis advisor: Robert E. Yager. Includes bibliographic references (p. 190-197).