This research report explores the implications of one central question: ‘In what ways can course materials support and improve ABET teachers’ ability in the classroom and what are the limits of that support?’ Methodologically it is an ethnographic case study of five teachers at company literacy programmes using The ELP English Literacy Course for Adults to prepare learners for examinations at ABET English Communications Levels 1&2. Conceptually it makes use of Shirley Grundy’s exposition of different paradigms for thinking about curriculum and Jean Lave’s notion of learning in a community of practice. It portrays literacy as a social practice in which people learn to master skills, make decisions about the applications of those skills and develop an emancipatory awareness. The research enables insights into the relationship between ABET teachers and texts, outlining their respective responsibilities and some implications for thinking about ABET teacher development.

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I have identified a need for an analysis of the middle and high school STEM education curricula in the East Tennessee Region which does not effectively integrate technology into their current instruction, which results in low student engagement, motivation, and achievement in the instruction and learning of algebra and geometry. I propose a program to identify specific applications and methods to be integrated into these programs which will improve the abilities of teachers to positively impact their students' understanding and mastery of algebra and geometry. Using emerging and novel STEM subject instruction, teaching, and engagement methods, and focusing on the analysis of the current uses of technology, identifying specific applications and computing systems, and providing necessary resources and support to teachers, the program I am proposing aims to cast a wide net for effective programs and adapt to new and innovative methods.

The availability and sophistication of visual display images, such as simulations, for use in science classrooms has increased exponentially however, it can be difficult for teachers to use these images to encourage and engage active student thinking. There is a need to describe flexible discussion strategies that use visual media to engage active thinking. This mixed methods study analyzes teacher behavior in lessons using visual media about the particulate model of matter that were taught by three experienced middle school teachers. Each teacher taught one half of their students with lessons using static overheads and taught the other half with lessons using a projected dynamic simulation. The quantitative analysis of pre-post data found significant gain differences between the two image mode conditions, suggesting that the students who were assigned to the simulation condition learned more than students who were assigned to the overhead condition. Open coding was used to identify a set of eight image-based teaching strategies that teachers were using with visual displays. Fixed codes for this set of image-based discussion strategies were then developed and used to analyze video and transcripts of whole class discussions from 12 lessons. The image-based discussion strategies were refined over time in a set of three in-depth 2x2 comparative case studies of two teachers teaching one lesson topic with two image display modes. The comparative case study data suggest that the simulation mode may have offered greater affordances than the overhead mode for planning and enacting discussions. The 12 discussions were also coded for overall teacher student interaction patterns, such as presentation, IRE, and IRF. When teachers moved during a lesson from using no image to using either image mode, some teachers were observed asking more questions when the image was displayed while others asked many fewer questions. The changes in teacher student interaction patterns suggest that teachers vary on whether they consider the displayed image as a "tool-for-telling" and a "tool-for-asking." The study attempts to provide new descriptions of strategies teachers use to orchestrate image-based discussions designed to promote student engagement and reasoning in lessons with conceptual goals.

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This study is a longitudinal, qualitative, interpretive inquiry into the work motivation of four novice EFL teachers at public secondary schools in Japan. I employed constructivism as my philosophical framework and narrative inquiry as my primary methodological tool, and attempted to capture the four young teachers’ changing motivation as embedded in their life histories and teaching trajectories over their first two years of teaching. The narratives of the four participants, constructed mainly from the multiple interviews, revealed various kinds of tensions in their transitions from student to teacher. Such tensions included a chasm between classroom realities and their beliefs, conflicts between collegiality and individuality, and also tensions that derived from the inherent nature of teaching such as uncertainty, extensive range of duties, and reflection on the self. In varying degrees and frequencies, all these tensions damaged the participants’ occupational motivation, demonstrating the vulnerable side of novice teachers’ motivation. The same narratives, however, also displayed a completely opposite feature of young teachers’ motivation: resilience. In the midst of the adverse circumstances, the participants continued to engage in the profession, sometimes restoring their motivation through interactions with students and colleagues, and other times returning to their original goals and ambitions. Among various sources of the sturdiness of their motivation, what was unique to novice teachers was a sense of discovery (Huberman, 1993). The four teachers’ discoveries included not only learning about teaching techniques or social norms but also new understandings of themselves as a teacher, and as a person. Although the process of negotiating and reshaping their self-concepts (Dörnyei, 2005, 2009; Markus & Nurius, 1986) disturbed their emotions and damaged their motivation temporarily, all four participants exhibited robustness of their self-concepts and motivation when they rediscovered their motivational goals at a higher level of self-awareness. The four young teachers’ narratives invite authorities such as policy makers, teacher educators, school administrators, and researchers to seek ways to support the growth of young teachers more effectively. In my conclusion, I suggest several measures to reduce the amount of tension and pressure to ease novice teachers’ entry into secondary school teaching. / CITE/Language Arts

Using an explanatory sequential mixed methods design, this study aimed to contribute to an understanding of A) the availability of arts education programming in NYC during the 2022–2023 academic year at charter schools affiliated with Charter Management Organizations CMOs), and B) arts educators’ plans for retention and perceptions of professional satisfaction, network-level support, and school-level support. In this study, a CMO was defined as a non-profit operator that exists (as a business entity) separately from the charter schools it manages. Quantitative data was collected prior to qualitative data. In Phase 1 (quantitative data collection), an electronic survey of arts educators in CMO-affiliated schools in New York City (NYC) was conducted to measure job satisfaction, attitudes and opinions of perceived levels of support from networks and schools, and needs for further support. In Phase 2 (qualitative data collection), interviews were conducted with six arts educators to further explore the perceptions of support held by arts educators at schools associated with NYC-based CMOs. Emerging from the qualitative results were the educators’ concepts of and needs for support across three categories: structural support, peer support, and support for teacher development (including both lesson planning and lesson delivery). The roles of network-level leadership and school-level leadership (as a team and as individuals) in providing support across these three categories while also preserving teacher autonomy created a complex web of influences on charter sector teacher satisfaction and retention within the field of arts education at schools affiliated with CMOs for the teachers in this study, which has implications for theory, practice, and policy alike.

Evaluation of teacher training has been conducted primarily on pre-service contexts and has focussed almost exclusively on evidence of impact in terms of changes in teachers’ behaviour or beliefs. Using a responsive / constructivist methodology my research focuses on an in-service context and takes the participants as the starting point of the research in order to examine both the processes of teacher learning (i.e. how do teachers learn) as well as the product (what are their claims, concerns and issues) regarding the training programme. The emergent data is analysed with findings grounded in the literature of teacher learning and parallels made with my own reflections on the processes of learning through the research experience itself. The evaluation focuses on a Cambridge In Service Certificate of English Language Teaching (ICELT) training course which is designed as an internationally appropriate INSET programme that can satisfy the training needs of (both native and non-native) EFL teachers. The research is valuable because we do not know how teachers learn on a training course. Through a review of the literature and exploiting the imagery of a metaphorical journey of development, I formulate a framework for analysing teacher learning which distinguishes between practical (applied) knowledge, conceptual knowledge and knowledge of self. This theoretical framework provides a lens to analyse data emerging during the evaluation. The research advocates an alternative ‘constructivist – responsive’ method of evaluation for teacher education programmes that has the dual aim of learning through the evaluation (process) as well as from the evaluation (product). The research methods follow a Fourth Generation Evaluation model (Guba and Lincoln 1979). The results show that in terms of the evaluation outcomes (product) we can identify modes of learning that concern tasks (how), knowing (what) and awareness of self and socio-cultural context (why). Analysis of the teachers’ talk as collaborative interaction showed little evidence of learning taking place. There were no obvious sections of exploratory talk that is conducive to the construction of new meanings and learning. However by analysing teachers’ talk as a manifestation of individual modes of thinking we are able to identify modes of thinking that have clear parallels with the framework of teacher learning depicted above: techno-rationale thought (how), reflective thought (what) and critical thought (why).The descriptive framework therefore depicts the integration of levels for both the process of learning and the products of learning and as such is a powerful tool for teacher educators. Teachers need to operate on all three levels in their professional lives. The study challenges some well-established assumptions in teacher training evaluation. In terms of epistemology, teacher learning is life-long and individual. Human learning occurs on three levels: physical (body), mental (mind) and spiritual (soul) and these levels describe how we think as well as what we do. Evaluation of any training course needs to take into consideration the dimensions of learning, the influence of the socio-cultural context and recognise the interconnectedness of process and product (i.e. how the traveling and the journey interact).