<p> This quantitative study focused on educators entering the classroom as teachers both pre- NCLB and post-NCLB enactment. The specific problems explored in this study was the motivational levels and job satisfaction factors of pre-No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and post-No Child Left Behind (NCLB) public school educators; how motivation and job satisfaction influenced educators&rsquo; decisions to remain active in the classroom within an instructional capacity. The participants in this study were public school teachers employed by a mid-sized school district. The research instrument used as part of this study was Mertler&rsquo;s (1985) Teacher Motivation and Job Satisfaction Survey (TMJS); one of the few motivational/job satisfaction surveys specifically developed for application within the education profession. SurveyMonkey supported the survey, data collection, and statistical analysis. The application of a chi-square, one-way ANOVA, Pearson Correlation, Stepwise Multiple Regression, frequency distribution tables, and descriptive statistics allowed for the identification of a relationship, if one existed, between pre- NCLB and post-NCLB educators motivation factors and job satisfaction levels and teachers choosing to remain actively engaged in teaching within the classroom. The research revealed, while there was no significant differences between pre-NCLB and post-NCLB educators&rsquo; motivational levels, job satisfaction factors between the two groups were statically significant different.</p><p>

<p> This study accessed the relationship between race, socioeconomic status, age and the race implicit bias held by middle and high school science teachers in Mobile and Baldwin County Public School Systems. Seventy-nine participants were administered the race Implicit Association Test (race IAT), created by Greenwald, A. G., Nosek, B. A., &amp; Banaji, M. R., (2003) and a demographic survey. Quantitative analysis using analysis of variances, ANOVA and t-tests were used in this study. An ANOVA was performed comparing the race IAT scores of African American science teachers and their Caucasian counterparts. A statically significant difference was found (<i>F</i> = .4.56, <i>p</i> = .01). An ANOVA was also performed using the race IAT scores comparing the age of the participants; the analysis yielded no statistical difference based on age. A t-test was performed comparing the race IAT scores of African American teachers who taught at either Title I or non-Title I schools; no statistical difference was found between groups (<i>t</i> = -17.985, <i> p</i> &lt; .001). A t-test was also performed comparing the race IAT scores of Caucasian teachers who taught at either Title I or non-Title I schools; a statistically significant difference was found between groups (<i> t</i> = 2.44, <i>p</i> > .001). This research examines the implications of the achievement gap among African American and Caucasian students in science.</p><p>

This study investigated the conditions for developing science teachers’ Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK). It also explored the opportunities offered by two strategies to enhance science teachers’ ability to design technology-based inquiry activities for science learning: Experiencing Inquiry Model (EIM) and Metacognitive Scaffolding (MS). These strategies were adopted to support the processing necessary for developing teachers’ knowledge and for negotiating the integration of computer technology in science instruction. Situated Cognition Theory was used as a theoretical framework for learning, and TPACK was used as a conceptual framework for technology integration. 33 science teachers from four intermediate and high schools participated in the study. 17 and 16 teachers were conveniently assigned to EIM and MS, respectively. The study employed a mixed method of quantitative and qualitative evidence. As per the quantitative method, a quasi-experimental design that employed the 2 Teaching Strategy (EIM or MS) × 2 Time (pre- and post-intervention) of learning split-plot factorial design was applied in the study. Concurrently with the quantitative data collection, the qualitative evidence was collected from the researcher’s logbook, participants’ written documents, and interviews. The findings suggested that there were no significant differences between EIM and MS for developing the knowledge components embodied in TPACK. Nevertheless, the participants who learned through the MS strategy outperformed their counterparts in designing technology-based inquiry activities for science learning. The latter result suggested that teachers who received metacognitive scaffolding were more equipped to connect curriculum goals with technology and instruction.

Many African-American congregations in urban settings have established after-school tutorial programs as a means of assisting students toward better academic performance. While there is some consensus that church sponsored tutoring programs in the Black community are welcome and should be encouraged, to date the research documenting what is actually taking place in these programs and what the responses are of those affected by the programs is generally sparse. Descriptive case studies of tutoring activities sponsored by two churches, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Church of Springfield, Massachusetts and the New Covenant Presbyterian Church of Miami, Florida, form the basis of this study. These free tutoring programs are an attempt to offer remediation to inner-city youngsters within the context of volunteer staffing patterns based upon the caring tradition of the African-American church. Background information was gathered from church and tutoring program records, giving attention to program purpose, evolution, and organization. Interviews and questionnaires were used to gather data on the perceptions of those involved with these tutorial efforts (students, tutors, and parents) concerning the program's effectiveness in helping students academically. A telephone survey of twenty other churches located in differing urban areas was taken regarding their tutoring experiences and these responses were compared with the perceptions of individuals involved in the case studies. The Martin Luther King, Jr. Church program's fifteen year history betrayed a continual metamorphosis in the program while the New Covenant tutoring experience was much more brief, slightly more than a year. Similarly, among the churches programs surveyed, some tutorial programs had long histories and others were new. The perception was widespread among persons involved with the twenty-two programs that these activities were of positive benefit to the students involved. Among community-based organizations, many Black churches have long histories and extensive resource networks within their neighborhoods which make them reliable community alternatives for the establishment of relatively low-cost remediation programs that could prove highly effective. Follow-up research documenting actual impact on academic performance is needed.

This is a report of an ethnographic study of a graduate-level Methods course for ESL/Bilingual teachers at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. The course is organized around task-based, small group, collaborative learning. One of the intriguing aspects of the course is the opportunities it provides for students to learn about Whole Language teaching and collaborative learning both by studying about these topics as part of the course content and by experiencing them as students within the class. This study researched the enactment of collaborative learning by investigating the discourse of one of the course's small groups. My research questions revolved issues of voice--the conditions in which students are both able to speak and to be heard--in the small group. The structure and distribution of voice among group members was a primary research focus. A theoretical framework was developed which allows the concept of voice to be operationalized for purposes of discourse analysis. Voice emerges out of the social interactions of participants engaged in an institutionally situated activity and cannot be reduced solely to the characteristics or performance of an individual (cf. McDermott, 1986). The structure of the group's collaborative dialogue, a set of communal norms operating within the group, and the social context created within the course are investigated through a micro-analysis of the group discourse. The findings reveal a set of norms operating within the small group: active participation, students viewing one another as "resources," and the privileging of members' personal knowledge. These norms, among others, created the social conditions necessary for a truly collaborative dialogue. However, these norms also proved problematic as they fostered a set of communal tensions related to the educational ramifications of muting the instructor's voice and the ways that the discourse structure positioned a Japanese member of the group. Her minimal participation in the group's early meetings, the negotiations which took place to ensure that she would have a voice, and her own revealing views of collaborative dialogue provide rich insights into the complex nature of multicultural, collaborative learning.

In spite of the proclivity to organize educational practices around the concept of gender and the pervasive presence of women in public school teaching, little research exists which focuses on women's experience teaching in a patriarchal school environment. Even less exists on the experience of women student teachers in that same school context. This dissertation describes and develops an understanding of what it means to be a female learning how to teach in public secondary schools during the student teaching phase of preservice education. It focuses on how connecting the individual experiences of these women provides insight into the gender issues embedded in their lives and in the secondary schools where they did their preservice work. The gender issues that emerged from the study center on women's self-esteem and ways of knowing, patriarchal attitudes and other forms of harassment by male students and faculty, and collaborative and non-collaborative relationships between women student teachers and male and female cooperating teachers. I have used in-depth, phenomenological interviewing to ask women to reconstruct their student teaching experience in the context of their life history and inquire how they understand the meaning of that student teaching experience (Seidman, 1991).

Multicultural education focuses on the educational experience of diverse children who attend the nation's public schools. Statistics show that the majority of teachers in American schools are White, middle class women. Previous research has raised the question of whether this population of teachers can be trained to effectively teach students of color, or can utilize strategies that engage non-traditional learners, children of the poor, special needs and linguistic minority students. The purpose of this qualitative study of ten White, middle-class public school teachers was to discover how members of the dominant culture understand the concept of multicultural education, where they learned this interpretation of the concept and how they apply their insights to their pedagogy. The study looked for significant connections between teachers' personal and professional lives, and their understanding of diverse populations. By viewing teachers as people involved in a lifelong process of becoming multicultural, this research looks for insight from classroom teachers themselves. Recent studies demonstrate positive connections when participants are not only involved in the research question, but locate the source of information and interpretation among the teachers themselves. The methodology was phenomenological interviewing: three ninety-minute interviews with each participant. The first interview asked participants to reconstruct their personal background, issues related to diversity as well as events affecting their decision to become a teacher. The second interview focused on the details of curriculum, daily schedule, goals and pedagogy. The third interview included reflections on individual understanding of multicultural education, connecting methodological decisions with diversity in their classrooms. The major finding is that teachers have individual socially-constructed ideas about what multicultural education is, based on both professional and personal exposure to people and perspectives from different cultural backgrounds. Other findings include the importance of experiential education, particularly extended immersion in communities requiring participants adapt to different cultural and linguistic norms. Friendships with people of different cultural backgrounds, and experience standing up to issues of injustice also were important. Community and professional education factors are discussed. The final chapter summarizes participant ideas about support and training teachers in the process of becoming multicultural.

In the 1980s, changing teacher certification was associated with the educational reform movement and the attendant drive to professionalize teaching. In Massachusetts, and nationally, political forces outside traditional education organizations and structures initiated and sustained certification changes. The purpose of this study was to reconstruct the motivations and strategies resulting in a new Massachusetts teacher certification framework in 1987, and to explore connections between national trends and this state development. The Joint Task Force on Teacher Preparation (JTTP) issued a report entitled Making Teaching a Major Profession in October 1987. JTTP recommendations included provisions for two stages of certification: provisional and full. Recommendations for provisional certification included a major in the liberal arts or sciences, or an interdisciplinary major, that would replace the undergraduate education degree. Recommendations for permanent certification included a clinical masters degree that incorporated supervision by both education and liberal arts college advisors, as well as mentor teachers in the schools. Thirty-three participants were identified through membership on the JTTP, member recommendations, and suggestions drawn from a literature review. Interviews used a guided conversation structure, were about one hour in length, and were tape-recorded and transcribed verbatim by the researcher. A significant portion of the data in this oral history was presented through the participants' own words. Participant accounts describe the personal relationships, political contexts, and professional issues that affected both the process and the product of the JTTP. Where possible, supporting testimony and documentation were used to provide corroboration or additional detail. Systematic and organizational analyses informed the study's findings. Participant decisions were not instructed by research on teacher education. Shifting power relations among educational stakeholders affected both the framework's adoption--and its contents.

The use of puppetry to motivate and teach children in early education settings has a long tradition, yet there is very little research evidence linking puppetry training for teachers to the use of puppets in early elementary school classrooms. In this study, 120 early childhood educators completed a survey about the use of puppetry in schools and their perceived value as an educational tool. Teachers were also asked to indicate the type of training they had had in puppetry skills (college course, workshop, both college and workshop, neither), and their perceived abilities as puppeteers. The survey data were tabulated to determine overall frequency response rates. Chi Square analyses were used to examine relationships between the type of training and the following factors: the overall use of puppetry in the classroom; teachers' perceived ability as a puppeteer; the number of professional programs presented in the classrooms; and teachers' attitudes towards the effectiveness of puppetry in the classroom. Although results indicated that training by itself was not related to the use of puppets in classroom settings nor to teachers' reports on the overall effectiveness of puppetry as a teaching tool, training in puppetry was significantly related to the teachers' perceptions of their own abilities as puppeteers. And, the average frequency of use of puppets in the classroom increased with each increase in skill level. Data are also presented concerning the attitudes of the teachers toward the use of puppets in their classrooms, the various curriculum areas in which puppets have been used successfully, limitations on puppetry use and student classification (emotionally disturbed, developmentally delayed, physically challenged, "typical"). The implications of these findings as they relate to teacher inservice training are discussed. A training module to teach puppetry skills to early childhood educators is outlined as are topics for possible future research.

This ethnographic case study of eight environmental teacher educators who collaborated in a four-state watershed education partnership was focused on processes of social constructions of region and regional partnership. Participant observation in meetings, interviews, and spatial representations were used as data for the eleven-month study. Spatial representations at two intervals were analyzed for documentation of conceptual change. A metaphorical model was used as the interpretive frame for analysis of interview and partnership meeting discourse features. Participants identified central features of place, diversity, and scale as they elaborated upon their sub-watershed valley regions as "home." Participants identified experiential learning as the foundation for watershed education, and reported that grounded experience was their own most essential way of knowing the watershed. The participants valued collaboration, networking, learning about one another's work, and the opportunity to make professional connections as benefits of partnership. In an examination of discourses of "self" and "the environment," analysis of partnership discourse strategies yielded evidence of prosodic phenomena such as raising questions and laughter as means of maintaining synchrony and coherence in meetings. Over the study period, the participants' spatial representations demonstrated tensions between political and bioregional boundaries and growing similarity across representations of the partnership. Issues of support for multistate regional partnerships were considered. Conclusions were that cultural and folk concepts of region are useful in determining scale to inform watershed education policy initiatives and implementation. In partnership meetings, democratic practices were considered most practical for "getting something done." Implications for education included expanding applications of metacognitive approaches, a focus on experiential learning in watershed education, and the place of "place" as an interdisciplinary educational focus. Finding a cultural taboo on conflict, the researcher recommends further development of curriculum environmental conflict resolution, and calls for intergenerational community watershed councils trained in conflict resolution and mediation as foci for regional watershed education efforts.