A current national priority is improving secondary school mathematics performance. National initiatives have attempted to help improve student achievement through curricular changes and stringent testing requirements; yet, these initiatives fail to consider the importance of student-teacher relationships in student motivation and achievement. High school students' trust in their mathematics teachers can lead to better relationships and increased feelings of competence, or mathematics self-efficacy, which is consistently linked to achievement. Student trust is based on perceptions of a teacher's competence, benevolence, openness, reliability, and honesty. The aim of my study is to determine the effect of trust in a teacher on student mathematics self-efficacy over the course of a school year, accounting for differences between individual students. The sample consisted of 230 ninth through twelfth grade students (57% girls) from a large high school in central Texas. Students reported their trust in their math teachers and their math self-efficacy at 4 time points. Growth curve modeling was utilized to model the effect of trust on self-efficacy over time. The results indicate that trust predicted self-efficacy over the course of the school year such that for a one point change in trust there was a corresponding .4 point change in self-efficacy. Gender was also a significant predictor of self-efficacy, with girls reporting lower self-efficacy on average. However, girls did not report lower trust, and the relation between trust and self-efficacy was not moderated by gender. Inasmuch as future studies should seek to expand on these findings, this study is an important first step into investigating the link between trust in teachers and self-efficacy. The results of this study serve to inform teachers, researchers, and policy makers of the importance of recognizing student-teacher relationships as an important factor in building student confidence and motivation. / text

New evidence suggests that African American children’s mistrust of European American teachers plays a role in sustaining racial achievement gaps. However, racial mistrust may also play a protective role for stigmatized children by facilitating perceptions of discrimination in the event that they encounter racially biased feedback. The present study investigated the relations among African American children’s racial mistrust, perceptions of discrimination, and academic achievement. Participants included 67 elementary school-age children (ages 6-11 years) who completed two lab sessions assessing their mistrust of European American teachers, attributions to discrimination during a mock drawing contest designed to appear racially biased, and semester grades. I predicted that racial mistrust (1) is present among many African American children at the beginning of formal education, (2) predicts perceptions of discrimination, and (3) shows a quadratic relationship to African American children’s academic achievement, such that extreme (very high and very low) levels are associated with negative academic outcomes, whereas moderate levels are associated with positive academic outcomes. Contrary to expectations, results showed that African American children expect European American teachers to be biased in favor of African Americans. Specifically, African American children expect European American teachers to show more warmth than punitiveness across their interactions with African American and European American students, but they expect the warm-punitive differential to be even more pronounced with African American students. In addition, young African American children appear highly unlikely to attribute negative feedback from European American teachers to racial discrimination, even when such a bias appears likely. Finally, neither the expectation of racial bias nor perceptions of racial discrimination predicted African American children’s academic outcomes in this study. The implications and limitations of these findings are discussed in the concluding chapter. / text

During the past fifteen years there has been increasing interest in the role of reflection in professional development, especially amongst teacher educators. Yet although many preservice programs now place considerable emphasis on encouraging and assisting student teachers to reflect on their practice, reflection remaings a problematic notion. There is little consensus, for example, about what constitutes reflection, how it might be identified, and whether it can be promoted. This thesis reports a longitudinal study conducted over four years which explored the above issues within the context of an early childhood teacher education program, in Sydney (NSW), Australia. The specific purpose of this study was to investigate changes in student teachers' reflection on their professional development and practice during their enrolment in the Guided Practice component of their preservice program. A strength of this study is its focus on reflection as a multidimensional phenomenon involving far more than the processes of analytical thought typically addressed by most previous research in this area. Drawing on an eclectic range of literature, this thesis argues that emotion, imagination, intuition, and contemplation can also play an integral role. As such, it asserts that reflection can be seen, in effect, as a complex and holistic search for meaning. Conceptualising reflection in this holistic manner raises numerous methodological challenges. These challenges and the methodological decisions made in response to them are outlined prior to developing profiles of the participants' reflection. These profiles indicated that there was little consistent change in the reflection of eight of the 18 participants. For four student teachers, on the other hand, there was some change, while for six, there was considerable change. Several factors which appeared instrumental in hindering or promoting these student teachers' reflection are identified. These include commitment (or lack of) to teaching and to reflection; an epistemological perspective of received or constructed knowing; and the extent to which the learning environment was perceived as supportive. The study concludes with a discussion of some of the implications for teacher educators and for those intending to undertake further research into reflection.

Thesis (M.A.T.) -- School for International Training, 2006. / Advisor -- Susan Barduhn Includes bibliographical references (leaves 74-76).

This study explored the extent of agreement between principals and teachers relative to the teachers' style, the extent of agreement between principals and teachers relative to the most effective match between teachers and students with various characteristics, and how classroom placement decisions are made. Participants consisted of 25 principals and 61 teachers. Principals and teachers completed the Teaching Style Inventory (Grasha, 1996) as a description of the teacher's teaching style. Then, participants reviewed three vignettes of students with varying characteristics and completed a Teaching Style Inventory, to identify the style they thought appropriate for each student. An additional 5 principals and 5 teachers were interviewed to explore the class placement process used in the participants' schools. Results revealed that principals and teachers were not in agreement in their ratings of teacher style, with principals rating teachers significantly higher on the delegator style, than teachers rated themselves. Principals and teachers also did not agree with each other in their ratings of the teacher styles needed by the students. Significant differences were found in the ratings depending on who completed the measures (principal or teacher). In interviews, class placement decisions were reported to be based on students' academic and social-emotional/behavioral skills, need for supplemental support services, and parent feedback, but not teaching style, as anticipated. Teaching style, however, was considered as a part of the conceptualization of the term "match". Implications are discussed relative to the class placement process and educator evaluation systems.

It is undeniable that schools and classrooms must function according to some conception of authority, but contemporary educational theory often overlooks this concept. This ‘forgetting’ of authority can lead to misconceptions about the concept itself or to conflating it with other concepts such as autonomy, agency, self-regulation, or power. In turn, these misconceptions can then diminish the role that students play in education by ignoring or overlooking any authoritative aspect of it. The authority relationship between student and teacher in educational theory—and in classrooms—then often defaults to an unbalanced binary structure in which teachers hold authority but students do not. To rectify this problem, authority and its importance in the classroom must be remembered and reconsidered. This thesis undertakes a critical analysis of authority to state its complex features clearly. Moreover, this analysis will show how authority is distinct from importantly related concepts like autonomy, agency, self-regulation, and power. The analysis then moves to examine the education models of Peters, Dewey, and Neill, with the purpose of highlighting the prevalence and importance of authority in education. With these distinctions and boundaries drawn, the final section of this thesis will describe the strengths of an authoritative student role in epistemic, political, and moral realms, positioning student-held authority alongside the socio-critical theory of Freire, Apple, and Giroux. / Graduate

This study aims to explore how the art student teaching seminar can serve as a space for inquiry and reflection, and how student teachers process their experiences, negotiate personal meanings, and understand teaching complexities through inquiry based methods. The overarching question in this research study asked: How might participation in an inquiry based seminar impact the meaning student teachers make from their practicum experiences? In order to address this main question, I employed three sub-questions: How do art student teachers perceive and describe their teaching field experiences in a seminar space? What kinds of inquiry activities can facilitate reflection with art student teachers? How do art teachers relate to and value inquiry based methods of reflection?I approached these questions through a constructivist framework that supports the idea that individuals actively construct and reconstruct their own understandings, meanings, and ultimately knowledge of the world through experience and reflection upon these experiences. Utilizing a case study methodology I designed a multi-case qualitative study that aimed to interpret the student teacher seminar through the experiences of four art student teacher participants. I was the facilitator of the student teaching seminar course at a large, public university in the Southwestern United States and the art student teachers and I met roughly every two weeks, over the course of a 16 week semester, on the university campus. I implemented a scaffolded, inquiry based curriculum which offered a variety of methods aimed to encourage inquiry and promote reflection amongst student teachers. Research data consisted of seminar audio recordings, participants' written journal entries, participants' artworks, and my reflective researcher notes. Employing narrative data analysis I constructed a case for each participant using the assignments as both chronological organization and categorical scaffolding for the arrangement and presentation of the data. I then compared the individual cases to identify similarities and differences within the whole. My analysis of research findings indicated the following: First, student teachers identified personal concerns related to affective awareness, vulnerability from uncertainty, desire for efficacy, and identity confusion during their student teaching experiences. Second, written forms of inquiry produced evidence of open-mindedness and responsibility amongst student teacher participants, while artistic forms of inquiry yielded evidence of wholeheartedness and self-knowledge amongst student teacher participants. Third, the data indicated that although benefits could be located in written inquiry, participants attached little value or meaning to this method; whereas, artistic inquiry was perceived as an especially impactful and meaningful method of inquiry by student teacher participants. Overall, the student teaching seminar served as a space where student teacher participants shared stories, described contexts, identified issues, navigated tensions, and exhibited personal and insightful developments that demonstrated reflective learning connected to self-understanding and personal growth. Implications for the research suggest that facilitators of such a course should have a concentrated awareness of the constraints of the seminar structure; approach problem exploring rather than problem solving techniques with teacher candidates; and that there is an acute need for supportive and safe spaces for student teachers to process their experiences through multiple methods. This study generated detailed insight into art student teachers' unequivocally unique, yet fundamentally shared journeys, in processing, negotiating, and ultimately understanding their practicum experiences. Keywords: student teacher, seminar, inquiry, reflection, artmaking, art education

DEd (Curriculum Studies) / Department of Curriculum Studies

With the advent of No Child Left Behind legislation in 2002 and its mandates for annual yearly progress for all students, many districts and schools in Texas have had difficulty elevating African American and Hispanic students’ scores. The current study examined these students’ achievement on the annual Texas high-stakes measure as a function of a numerical construct that aligns the race/ethnicity of students when the teacher race is White. Earlier studies have shown that racial/ethnic compatibility between students and teachers improves student achievement in the primary grades. The study, which was set in 10 north Texas school districts and 30 high schools, middle schools, and elementary schools, examined African American and Hispanic students’ achievement on the Texas state assessments in reading and mathematics over a 10-year period. District performance data came from 4,664,192 African American, Hispanic, and White students and 222, 834 White teachers. Campus level data encompassed 188,839 10th graders, 93,573 eighth graders, and 40,083 fourth graders, and 20,471 White teachers. Analysis revealed that, as the ratios of African American and Hispanic students to White teachers increased, the percentages of these two student groups passing the Texas assessments decreased. These patterns differed for White students whose passing percentages increased as these students’ numbers increased relative to White teachers in all settings except in elementary schools. These preliminary findings suggested that racial alignment at the high school and middle school levels might elevate African American and Hispanic achievement. Implications may lead to shifting focus on teacher quality and class size as the primary determinants of student achievement. Findings need validation with further study using larger data sets and sequential grade levels. If validated through further studies involving larger samples, contiguous grade levels, and more sophisticated statistical analysis, this study’s findings may have implications for teacher education curriculum, recruitment of minority teacher candidates, workforce retention, and state policy on class size limits.

For some time the writer has observed the keen, creative sensitivity with which children respond to their world . She has also observed , however, that many teachers and parents seem to be quite unaware of this sensitivity. An illustration of this lack of awareness is the following experience : One day a nursery school teacher had a painful headache; in fact, it was suggested that she go home for the remainder of the day . Instead of going home , however , she decided to stay , thinking that her headache would soon abate. The teacher was sitting on a chair observing the children, unaware that one child seemed also to be closely observing her . At the conclusion of a ten or fifteen minute period of this mutual observation , the little boy approached the teacher and said , "You don ' t feel well , do you?" The teacher looked astonished but replied ; "Oh yes , I feel all right."