The purpose of this study was to explore the formation of teacher identity among four teachers of students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and my own by examining our perspectives, influences, and experiences at different points in our careers and determining the similarities and differences that exist in our professional and educational experiences. This study focused on how teacher identity is defined within the field of education, the current literature on teacher identity formation, and the importance of understanding the formation of teacher identity among teachers of children with autism, as well as how my own teacher identity has been formed. Throughout my research, I specifically emphasized the relationships between formation of teacher identity and teachers' experiences in and out of the classroom, the transformation or evolution teachers' identities during their careers, and the characteristics and experiences that specifically distinguish teachers of children with autism from other teachers. These main themes were guided by the concept that teacher identity is not only initially formed, but is a constantly evolving and complex process that is affected by teachers' experiences, interactions, influences, and personal and professional growth. Through purposeful sampling, four teachers of children with autism in self-contained elementary classrooms within public schools were chosen to participate in this study. Data collection consisted of semi-structured interactive interviews, critical friends' sessions, and the creation of three artifacts by each participant. Artifacts for this study aided the participants in giving a more holistic view of their identities as teachers of children with autism. Artifacts consisted of teacher self-portraits with reflective prompts, buckets of their experiences with detailed explanations, and, photo journaling. Critical friends' sessions were utilized as a setting to reflect on and discuss each participant's artifacts. Both the critical friends' sessions and the creation of artifacts were based on the work on Samaras' (2011) self-study concept. During analysis, data were coded and categorized based on themes, topics, and key-words-in-context derived from a codebook created for this study. Max QDA, qualitative data analysis software, was utilized to code written data, pictures of the artifacts, and the multi-media critical friends' sessions. Codes were then merged and overall themes, similarities, and differences among participants were noted. Narrative inquiry, self-study, and autoethnography were utilized to tell the stories of each of the participant as well as to juxtapose my own story with theirs. Findings indicated that these four teachers, like myself, have had similar experiences teaching children with autism, which are in some cases vastly different than the experiences of their colleagues who do not work with this population of students. The findings further indicate that these teachers were all attracted to this specific field because of their home and educational backgrounds. Overall teacher identity was created and transformed through a combination of life events and memorable moments in their teaching careers. Implications of this study include the need for teacher learning communities for teachers of children with autism, support, and communication among veteran teachers of children with autism with the beginning teachers in the same field, and the need for teacher reflection when working in a position needing the utmost commitment and dedication. Narrative inquiry, the act of storytelling, will offer teachers, who may be struggling, the opportunity to compare their own experiences and find support through stories of teachers who have similar teacher identity formation experiences.

Isaacson's (2004) dissertation chronicles the implementation of a constructivist instructional approach at Southwood Elementary School. Southwood's faculty experienced a change of principals, which the Tri-Partite Theory of Organizational Change and Succession, a theory of organizational entropy, predicts could lead to organizational entropy. This study examines the dynamics of the change in principal, as well as Isaacson's recommendation to study teachers' perceptions regarding the maintenance of the constructivist approach. This study answers three questions: 1) Are faculty still using constructivist strategies? 2) What are teacher perceptions regarding the maintenance and support of constructivist philosophy? 3) Is there congruence between what literature identifies as constructivist strategies and what teachers identify as constructivism and classroom practice? This study uses three sources. First, literature identified constructivist strategies and approaches. Second, teachers and principal were interviewed regarding an array of issues, such as their understanding constructivism, their perception of maintaining the constructivist philosophy, and student and teacher classroom roles. Third, classrooms were observed and scored using the Constructivist Teaching Inventory (CTI) as a rubric.The primary and an outside researcher identified four common themes that all support constructivist practices and philosophies: questioning, student-centered learning, active learning and the social influence on learning. Classroom observations, three for each of the interviewed teachers, were scored using the Constructivist Teaching Inventory.Southwood faculty and staff developed professional learning communities (PLC), which support and maintain constructivist strategies. PLCs are supports for new teachers in developing constructivist strategies. CTI results indicate that teachers are implementing constructivist strategies. Constructivist strategies could be impleme nted by telling teachers what to say or do, without understanding the why behind the actions. Although the principal, who initiated application of constructivist strategies retired and was replaced in 2004, constructivist strategies remain in use. The changes that occur with change in leadership, as predicted in the Tri-Partite Theory, were managed at Southwood by an internal replanning process of establishing PLCs. This study lends credence to the importance of professional learning communities as a constructivist change strategy, which finessed the entropy organizations face with leadership changes by establishing PLCs as a socialization process.

A substantial literature has drawn inconsistent conclusions about bias in teachers’ perceptions of minority students and girls. Although the number of immigrant students in U.S. schools is increasing rapidly, research on teachers’ perceptions of foreign-born students is lacking. Using a nationally representative sample of U.S. high school students from the Educational Longitudinal Study of 2002, this work evaluates teachers’ perceptions of academic behavior by student nativity and ethnoracial identity. Net of objective criteria, teachers disproportionally perceive students as hardworking or passive in ways conforming to ethnic and immigrant stereotypes. These appraisals are highly subject-specific, racialized, and gendered. This work has important implications for the assimilation of immigrant students into the U.S. educational system. / text

This study concerns the impact of providing teachers with increasing levels of information about a hypothetical student's PTSD symptoms. Specifically, the amount of information given teachers was examined as it impacted: 1. teachers' causal attributions, 2. their ability to identify specific emotional problems, and 3. their ability to choose accommodations recommended for students with PTSD. An online survey format was used to randomly assign 236 teachers to one of three levels of information about a hypothetical student namely, 1) description of behavioral and academic difficulties in the classroom (Behavioral Descriptors), 2) Behavioral Descriptors plus information about trauma exposure and diagnosis of PTSD (PTSD Diagnosis), and 3) Behavioral Descriptors, PTSD Diagnosis plus outcomes associated with PTSD (PTSD Outcomes). Increased levels of information resulted in a significant increase in accurate identification of the cause of student difficulties overall. Regarding ability to identify specific emotional diagnoses, teachers' ability to identify PTSD as the accurate emotional problem represented was also significantly more likely with increased levels of information. However, the likelihood of teachers to identify accommodations recommended for students with PTSD was not significantly impacted by increased levels of information. Results indicated that teachers make more accurate causal attributions about students with PTSD with increased information, but this does not result in increased ability to identify classroom accommodations that are recommended for students with PTSD.

Decisions to refer students for disciplinary consequences (Hyman & Perone, 1998), eligibility for special services referrals (Smart, Wilton, & Keeling, 1980), and even suspension or expulsion (Brooks, Schiraldi, & Zeidenberg, 2000), are all likely to be driven by teacher perceptions of student behavior. Yet though there is a wealth of research investigating the mechanisms and consequences of teacher perceptions of student behavior, the accuracy of these perceptions has not been addressed in the literature. This study contrasted staff responses on questionnaires about student behavior by infraction category, school locations, and times with the actual referral counts from each setting to achieve a measure of perceptive accuracy for each participant. The results presented in this study extend the research literature on teacher perceptions by providing strong support for data sharing as a perception-changing mechanism among participants working in schools implementing school-wide positive behavior support (SWPBS). Participants assigned to conditions in which school-wide discipline data were shared had accuracy scores which were statistically higher than those in non-data sharing conditions. However, asking participants to report their perceptions more than once did not increase the accuracy of their responses in a statistically significant way. The application of an experimental research design and the use of appropriate statistical significance tests draw attention to effects which are statistically real. Additionally, the random assignment of participants within schools to one of four conditions provides us with confidence that the intervention, and not some factor, caused the change in accuracy scores among participants.

The National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) is the recently introduced qualification for New Zealand senior secondary school students. Based on a mix of internal and external assessment against achievement standards, it represents a complete break away from previous norm-reference based qualifications. NCEA was first introduced in 2002 starting at Level 1, involving Year 11 students in their first year in senior secondary school education. The implementation of Level 1 NCEA related assessment changes involved a considerable mind shift in assessment practice for teachers, especially for those with no previous standards-based assessment experience. The use of achievement standards impacted not only on how teachers gathered evidence and made judgements in relation to student work, but also on the ways in which they conducted recording and reporting, and managed procedures such as reassessment and moderation. Change of this nature by necessity, at least short term, was always bound to give rise to implementation concerns and challenges. The focus of this research is on investigating geography teachers' perceptions regarding the implementation of the Level 1 NCEA related geography achievement standards. It aims to identify the factors perceived as supporting or hindering the implementation process, the likely implications of achievement standards-based assessment for teaching and learning, and the types of strategies being developed to ensure the future manageability of NCEA related assessment change.

The research on bereaved children’s outcomes is mixed, with the course of grief in young people prone to variation. Each child’s reaction following a loss is unique and should be considered in relation to psychological, academic, familial, social, environmental, and a number of additional factors. However, what is known is the important role that a supportive environment, stable adult figures, and early intervention may have for grieving youth. Teachers could be considered the first line of defense in identifying youth who are struggling with a loss, as they are significant adults with whom students have consistent contact on a daily basis. However, very little is known about the teacher’s role in the identification and support of grieving students. Therefore, the purpose of this project was to explore the teacher’s role in the grief support process at school, as well as teacher perceptions of childhood grief and the ways in which a teacher’s own early experiences with death may affect the provision of services. These factors were explored through the administration of an online mixed-methods survey to a random sample of 225 Kindergarten through 12th grade teachers in the state of Kentucky. The findings of this study were supportive of the hypothesis that having a bereaved student in class is nearly universal. The majority of teachers in this study reported receiving no training related to death and grief issues pre-service, with minimal training offered at the school level. Teacher perceptions about grief were not found to differ significantly overall between teachers of various school levels, counties, or early-bereaved status. Additional findings, limitations, implications, as well as directions for future research are discussed.

Agricultural education consists of three components: classroom instruction, FFA, and supervised agricultural experience (SAE). SAE is the experiential learning component in which students apply agricultural principles and concepts. The purpose of this study was to identify the perceptions of Kentucky high school agriculture teachers toward the value of SAE, the quality components of SAE, and teacher satisfaction with SAE. A secondary purpose was to determine the status of SAE participation in Kentucky. This study concluded that Kentucky agriculture teachers perceive SAE as a valuable component of agricultural education. Moreover, teachers were in agreement with accepted quality standards for SAE programs, but the findings implied that other quality indicators may be valid. Furthermore, teachers were not satisfied with their SAE programs. A slight majority of students in Kentucky agricultural education programs have a SAE with the bulk of those SAEs categorized as either placement or entrepreneurship SAEs. Based on the conclusions, the author recommended that a SAE task force be created to address concerns related to SAE participation, student and teacher motivation to conduct SAE, state rewards for SAEs, and assessing the quality of SAE programs in Kentucky. KEYWORDS: Agricultural

The purpose of this study was to determine teacher perception of education program suitability in Northern Saskatchewan. The sample consisted of one hundred sixty-five divisions I, II and III teachers in Northern Saskatchewan. Analysis was made on teachers as a total group, and teachers grouped according to the following variables: type of teaching certificate held; area of study in teacher training; total years of teaching experience; total years of teaching experience with Indian and Metis children; division level of experience with Indian and Metis children. Six hypotheses were proposed regarding the total group and the five variables.In order to test these hypotheses, all teachers in divisions I, II and III in Northern Saskatchewan were asked to complete a questionnaire designed to determine their perception of education program suitability. The first hypothesis, that teachers would generally perceive the education program as unsuitable, was tested by determination of standard score probability of error for teacher responses to Part II of the questionnaire. Hypotheses two to six inclusive, that teacher perception of education program suitability would vary according to the five variables mentioned above, were tested by means of multi-factor analysis of variance. Responses to Part III of the questionnaire were analyzed by means of frequency tables.It was found that generally teachers felt that the education program in Northern Saskatchewan was unsuitable. Areas of the program perceived as least suitable included programs in reading and literature, English and social studies. The shortage of relevant resource materials was seen as a problem by a significant number of respondents. Areas perceived as most suitable by the teachers included nature science, mathematics, the adapted social studies program for pupils of Indian ancestry and pre-vocational and vocational courses.When teachers were grouped according to the five variables referred to earlier, several significant differences in perception of education program suitability were noted. Teachers who had taken courses in Indian or cross-cultural education perceived the education program to be less suitable than did teachers who had not taken courses in these fields. It was also noted that teachers with less than four years of teaching experience with Indian and Metis children, and teachers with a total of less than four years of teaching experience perceived the education program to be less suitable than did teachers with more experience. A significant interaction was found to exist between area of study and division level. No significant differences were noted when teachers were grouped according to the type of teaching certificate they held, or according to the division level in which they had experience with Indian and Metis children.

This study aims to investigate Turkish teachers&rsquo / opinions and beliefs on the place of target cultural information in English language teaching, as well as their related practices and applications in EFL classrooms in Turkish higher education context. Particularly, it tries to explore three research questions: (a) How do Turkish teachers of English define culture? (b) What are the EFL teachers&rsquo / attitudes towards incorporating cultural information into their teaching? and (c) What role do they allocate to the culture of the target language in their classrooms? Data was collected from 98 randomly selected EFL teachers in the Preparatory (Hazirlik) Programs of four universities (Hacettepe University, Middle East Technical University, Ankara University, and Baskent University) in Ankara. A written survey questionnaire, including structured items, a rating scale and a Likerttype attitude scale, together with a follow-up interview were used as the two data collection methods. The analyses were carried out by frequency counts of the predetermined choices in the items and the related responses that were given to questions of the interview. The study shows that teachers mostly define culture in the sociological sense, such as values and beliefs. Their definition of culture in the framework of ELT slightly shifts towards more visible culture, such as food and clothing. The study also reveals teachers&rsquo / positive attitudes towards incorporating cultural information in their instruction. Teachers incorporate cultural knowledge to increase the learners&rsquo / awareness of other cultures and people for intellectual development, and to improve learners&rsquo / communicative competence.