published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

The concluding chapter explores implications of the research findings for the accessibility of teachers' craft knowledge, wider issues about the conditions necessary for the potential of school-based initial teacher education to be realised, and future research in the field.

The problem of this study is to analyze the effectiveness of the cooperative agreement section of Senate Bill 8 and its impact on the student teaching program in Texas. The purposes of the study are (1) to analyze the data available from the Texas Education Agency concerning the cooperatively developed in-service improvement program for supervising teachers, (2) to survey the public school personnel charged with the responsibility of developing and implementing section three of Senate Bill 8 in order to determine the effectiveness of this bill, and (3) to interview college personnel who are involved in developing and implementing section three of Senate Bill 8.

The problem of this study was to determine the difference in attitude and anxieties toward the teaching profession of beginning teachers entering public education in Texas who have been through a semester-long intern program as opposed to those who have gone through a traditional eight-week student teaching program. Purposes of the study were to provide assessment data for planning and delivering preservice training experiences to prospective teachers, to compare similarities and differences in the attitudes of prospective teachers who have been through the intern program with those who have been in traditional student teaching, and to provide useful information to colleges and universities concerning the effectiveness of their teacher education programs. The targeted study groups were 22 fall semester interns and a comparison group of 27 fall semester traditional student teachers. All participants were seeking secondary certification. The study was conducted in the fall of 1994. The groups were matched according to gender, chronological age, race designation, grade-point-average, and level of family income. In summary, the findings of this study indicate that only two of the six research questions proved to be statistically significant. It is interesting to note, however, that individually a significant percentage of both of the groups showed a reduction in anxiety and a significant percentage of both groups showed a reduced positive attitude toward teaching as a profession. It is only for the student teachers, however, that the results were statistically significant for both tests.

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Linguistics / Master / Master of Arts in Applied Linguistics

Five field workers and their coordinator of the National Professional Diploma in Education (NPDE), an in–service upgrading course for under-qualified teachers in KwaZulu–Natal, South Africa, were interviewed to find what meaning and practices informed them in carrying out their work with teachers. This study was conducted within the interpretive paradigm and was qualitative in nature. Hence, data was collected using semi–structured interviews. No attempt has been undertaken to generalize the findings as the participants were few. This study is warranted and the findings have relevance for future research. The key findings of the study are as follows. a) Guidelines for supervision – NPDE field workers and the NPDE coordinator revealed that the time frame for one day workshops was too short and this did not allow field workers the opportunity to address critical issues pertaining to the supervision process. b) Responsibility towards the NPDE students revealed that the NPDE field workers were not directly involved in choosing the number of NPDE students they had to assess and supervise. c) Professional development with regard to classroom observation – a lack of professional development revealed that fieldworkers had to rely on their own knowledge and reading to prepare themselves to supervise and assess the NPDE students. d) The role of the NPDE field workers in assessing and supervising the NPDE students – the inappropriate title was key element that emerged from the finding. e) Supervision out of class – revealed that this was done once the classroom assessment. f) Collaborative partnerships between students and field workers – partnerships formed seemed to be the key element that emerged from the finding. The partnerships formed was based on love, trust and understanding. g) Experiences of the NPDE field workers – The data revealed that field workers experiences during their supervision and assessment of the NPDE students were very enlightening. / Thesis (M.Ed.) - University of KwaZulu-Natal, Edgewood, 2011.

Recent calls for reform in teacher education have included improving the clinical experience of preservice teachers (Boyer, 1983; The Holmes Group, 1986). Research on student teaching indicates that the role of the cooperating teacher is of critical importance to the clinical experience (Tabachnick, 1980; Haberaan, 1978). Problems exist, however, in communication gaps between higher education and the public schools (O'Shea, 1984); in the selection of cooperating teachers (Griffin, 1981); and in their preparation for assisting novices in the development of knowledge about teaching and learning (Griffin, 1983; Kleinsasser, 1988). Early clinical supervision models (Cogan, 1973); Goldhammer, 1969) have been presented through top-down approaches. Literature on teachers as a cultural group (Lortie, 1975) provides some insight into why such approaches have not been successful and why cooperating teachers have not come to see themselves as teacher educators. / Ed. D.

The purpose of the study was to determine the validity and reliability of a revised observation and evaluation instrument of middle and secondary pre-service clinical teaching to be used as part of the clinical supervision cycle and for formative purposes. The North Texas Appraisal of Classroom Teaching (NTACT) serves as a performance assessment tool utilized by a south-central university-based educator preparation program for the evaluation and supervision of pre-service teachers during their last semester of their program. The researcher piloted and field-tested a redesigned observation and evaluation instrument (NTACT-V2) on observer participants with varying educational experiences in the south-central region. To accumulate evidence of validity and reliability, this study employed methods of factor analysis and generalizability study for developing a valid and reliable instrument to guide the refinement process of the NTACT observation and evaluation instrument. Some of the significant conclusions reached in this study were (a) the NTACT-V2 is a practical, user-friendly classroom observation and evaluation instrument; (b) the instrument refined and developed in this study exhibits appropriate content, face, and criterion validity as determined by a panel of experts and an extensive review of the literature; and, (c) a variety of observers can use the evaluation instrument with relative ease while achieving a high degree of reliability.