The purpose of this study was to explore the preconceptions of classroom teaching held by the preservice teacher education students participating in the study. Further, the preconceptions of students majoring in elementary education were compared and contrasted with students majoring in secondary education for similarities and differences in their preconceptions of classroom teaching. Lastly, the participants were further divided into subgroups of traditional and nontraditional students. The similarities and differences of those subgroups' preconceptions were also examined. The participants included twenty-two students in a required first semester teacher education course. The course content encompassed material that was non-grade level specific or teaching content specific. Qualitative data was collected through the students' written assignments, audio- and videotapes of class and teaching lab sessions, small group discussions, fieldnotes, and informal interviews. Analysis of the data was conducted using Glasser's (1967) constant comparative method. The study found both similarities and differences across the participants' subgroupings of elementary and secondary majors, as well as the subgroupings of traditional and nontraditional students. The study found that the participants held preconceptions of classroom teaching and that those views are used as orienting lenses toward their teacher education coursework and fieldwork experiences. The findings of this study indicate that preservice teacher education students' preconceptions examined at the beginning of their formal coursework may be a research strand worth pursuing in furthering our understandings of teacher education students' orientations to teaching. The study's final chapter offers suggestions for future teacher education research and teach education practices.

As members of the general public lament the lack of success in America's public schools, those responsible for the educational program begin to look to teachers for improvement in student outcomes. Blending teachers with leadership in this enterprise presents special challenges to governing boards and administrators. The research asks these questions: (1) How do teachers exercise leadership? (2) What roles do teachers assume when leadership opportunities are presented? (3) What constraints prevent teachers from achieving success in leadership roles? This qualitative research looks at a team of six teachers and a principal who were hired by the governing board of a suburban school district in a southwestern state to plan the program for the first high school in the district. The planning was to include decisions about administration, budgeting, curriculum, personnel and school culture. Basing their plans on ideas from Systems Thinking and Coalition of Essential Schools, the Planners attempted to incorporate concepts such as teacher-as-facilitator, student as manager of learning, less is more, personalization of student contact with adults, and authentic assessment, including portfolios and performance based competencies. The eighteen month participant observation provided the researcher with interview opportunities, a complete set of planning documents and nearly a thousand pages of script from meetings attended. Coding the data by behavioral characteristics outlined in the literature on Effective Schools, the researcher found that teachers do not assume leadership roles in the same way that principals fulfill that role. When teachers leave the classroom to assume administrative functions, they are constrained by ambiguity from supervisors, lack role definition, negative community influences, and gender biases. More importantly, their inability to communicate either a decision-making process or the political language necessary to overcome these constraints forced them to retreat to the comfort of their teacher roles.

The purpose of this study is to test and extend Parsons' (1987) theory of aesthetic development by gathering extensive data on the ways that Mexican American and Navajo females and males respond to selected art images. Studies of twelve participants, six Mexican American and six Navajo, were based on a series of semi-structured in-depth phenomenological interviews (Seidman, 1991). Participants from each culture included six male/female pairs for each of three age groups: upper elementary students, high school students and adults. Each participant responded a series of open-ended questions about a set of eleven art images. Participants described their cultural background and their own personal or educational experiences with art. The data was analyzed in several ways and used to develop a case or portrait for each participant and was compared across groups. Parsons' model with the addition of two additional stances and a rating on a naive/expert continuum was found useful in examining the ways education, experience, gender, and cultural background contributed to aesthetic responses to art images. The resulting cases should be useful in art teaching and teacher education and contribute to the literature of cases in education.

There is no abstract available for this dissertation.

No description available.

"A recurring issue in the history of the teacher training movement is the problems involved in securing effective cooperative endeavor between the faculties of campus schools and teachers colleges. In the early days of teacher training institutions instructors teaching courses in education theory supervised student teachers who were attempting to carry out the theory while practicing in the campus school. As schools grew it became necessary to enlarge the faculty, having separate ones for campus school and the teachers college. This caused a breach between the two, and resulted in little or no correlation between the schools. The great aim of teacher training institutions should be to turn out efficient teachers, who can successfully cope with the problems of the modern school. The achievement of this goal should be a cooperative undertaking of all concerned"--Introduction. / Typescript. / "December, 1949." / "Submitted to the Graduate Council of Florida State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science under Plan II." / Advisor: R. L. Goulding, Professor Directing Paper. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 31-32).

The guiding question of this study was: What were the perceptions of the participants about their experience in the intensive art education program at Florida State University and what do these perceptions suggest about this program and other programs of this type There are two related purposes of this study. One purpose is to determine the perceptions of the participants about their experience of the program. The second related purpose is to evaluate the program qualitatively though their perceptions to see what they suggest for two and related programs. Based on a phenomenological study, data sources included in-depth interviews with six Korean teachers, the FSU program coordinator, the FSU program administrator, the Korean program coordinator at the teacher participants' home university, and two program assistants from FSU, intensive observations of whole events and activities, and review of the teacher participants' research journal notebooks, materials and documents. The intensive, Florida-based, one-month art education and cultural learning program that took place in January and February 2005, was intended to broaden the cultural understanding of the six participating Korean elementary school art teachers and enhance their professional lives. The program's content – units/modules consisting of extensive field trips, coursework, and schools visits – created an umbrella under which the teachers could investigate theories and practices in the field of art education within the diverse cultures of Florida. As both a participant observer and an assistant to the program, I observed all aspects of the program, conducted interviews with the primary stakeholders and read their research journal notebooks after the program was completed. Through these interviews and the analysis of the participants' journals, I was able to conclude that this program gave the teachers a valuable opportunity to understand differences in societies and cultures, and to some extent integrate their resulting insights into their classroom instruction at home. The significance of this program is that it can encourage the teacher participants and other primary stakeholders to understand people in different cultures, provide students who are interested in studying abroad with a beginning experience, and begin, through firsthand experience, to adjust their fixed or stereotypical views of cultures other than their own through the construction of new cultural perspectives. This is especially valuable for people from ethnically homogenous countries such as Japan and Korea who have a particular need for understanding other people and their cultures. One small piece of the solution to this problem may be education emphasizing cross-cultural understandings, such as that which occurred in this program. But the benefits seem to go both ways. From the analysis of the interviews I conducted with the American stakeholders in the program (who are members of a multicultural society, and were not traveling beyond their home borders) there was something to be learned about cultural understanding from the teacher participants. Clearly, such a program benefits both parties, and both have to work hard and stretch to understand other in the exchange. The implication and recommendation that derives from this study is that this program and others like it should be fostered and developed for both art teachers/educators and students in both homogenous countries, and others. While the benefits of this program, designed as it was to immerse Korean teacher participants in the culture of American art and education, are not measurable, this study offers strong evidence that one important outcome is increased cross-cultural understanding and recognition of the value of cross-cultural tolerance and respect from all parties involved. The implication of this insight is that this program should be further developed and fostered, and like programs should be implemented in other venues. Such programs as the one in which the Korean teachers participated may help to correct the inaccurate views that many international students have of the United States, and test the cultural understandings of such students against those of others, toward a better understanding of both. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Art Education In partial fulfillment of the Requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Degree Awarded: Fall Semester, 2007. / Date of Defense: August 20, 2007. / Art Education, Cultural Experience, Developing International Programs Through Art, Art Teacher Education, Site Visit-Based Art Education, Educational Art Criticism / Includes bibliographical references. / Tom Anderson, Professor Directing Dissertation; Jeff Milligan, Outside Committee Member; Linda Schrader, Outside Committee Member; Pat Villeneuve, Committee Member.

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The number of students receiving educational services under the classification of autism is increasing (Sack-Min, 2008; Center for Disease Control Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network, 2007; Dymond, Gilson, Myran, 2007; Fitzgerald & Ryan, 2006). There is a need to provide better educational opportunities for individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) in schools. One of the clearest needs in the field is to increase the number of well-prepared professionals to work with children and their families. (Simpson, LaCava, Graner, 2004; Palmer, Blanchard, Jean & Mandell, 2005). Learners with ASD can be expected to acquire vital skills, knowledge, and behaviors only when educators are able and willing to adopt and properly use effective practice strategies and methods (Lerman, Vorndran, Addison & Contucci Kuhn, 2004). A Two-Phase Sequential Exploratory Mixed-Method design was used in this study. In the first qualitative phase, seven experts in the field of ASD and teacher education were interviewed to explore the phenomenon quality special education teachers of students with ASD, particularly the areas of knowledge, skill and characteristics. The results of this phase were used to develop a battery of measurement instruments that were used in the second, quantitative phase of the study. During the second phase, 112 special education teachers of students with ASD were surveyed, using the instruments developed in phase one, to investigate correlations and predictive relationships between the dependent variables knowledge of ASD, skill, characteristics quality, self-efficacy and the independent variables number of courses in ASD, highest degree reported, type of certification/endorsement, number of years of professional experiences working with individuals with ASD, number of years of professional experience working with individuals with disabilities, number of students with ASD worked with in professional career, number of current students with ASD, number of years since received highest degree, and self-reported effectiveness of preparation. Correlations and hierarchical regressions for all dependent variables were conducted. Results indicated the best predictors of knowledge of ASD for special education teachers of students with ASD were: number of courses in ASD; highest degree reported; number of years of professional experience working with individuals with ASD; and number of students with ASD worked with in professional career. The best predictors of skill were: number of courses in ASD; number of years of professional experience working with individuals with ASD; and self-reported effectiveness of preparation. The best predictors of self-efficacy were: number of courses in ASD and number of years of professional experience working with individuals with ASD. Lastly, the best predictors of quality special education teachers of students with ASD were determined to be the number of courses in ASD and self-reported effectiveness of preparation.

My dissertation investigates teachers' thinking within that "oscillating place of difference" that is the classroom. I propose that teachers think and see differently in the classroom because they have practiced, like travelers, the dynamic thinking which makes them open to novelty, attentive to difference, reflective wayfarers on the paths of the world. I offer a threefold articulation of teaching into thinking, traveling and philosophizing . My guiding figure is that of teacher as traveler. I focus on the teacher's way of seeing the familiar and the unfamiliar in the classroom. Reliance on teaching routines is considered as a sign of the need for the teacher to feel at home in the classroom, and as a response to the inherent uncertainty of the educational experience. Dewey's conception of reflective thinking is put at work to explain teachers thinking in the classroom: reflection is a twofold movement of the mind that at first focuses on the given particular of the experience, and that also expands and opens up the given to new possible interpretations. The third chapter proposes to historicize the metaphor of teacher as traveler by considering Graeco-Roman thinking about travel and movement in relation to knowledge and wisdom. I consider the thesis that traveling is conducive to learning and wisdom. Herodotus explicitly connects travel to knowledge. The presence of itinerant teachers in Ancient Greece seems to reinforce this connection, as does the mythological representation of the ideal teacher as the centaur Chiron. I then posit an antithetical idea: that traveling be counterproductive because in travel the person is exposed to distraction, loss of focus, fragmentation. This antithesis is endorsed by Seneca's Epistles to Lucilius. The dissertation moves to a re-examination of the figure of teacher as traveler in relation to the idea of home. The traveler reaches out and explores novelty and alterity in a meaning-making relation to where she is from. Similarly, the teacher thinks in the classroom by being attentive to newness and difference while keeping in mind the home or familiar: her routines, her curriculum, her tradition Montaigne's humanistic philosophizing is considered in its constitutive dynamism. The way to the knowledge of home-- and the wisdom deriving from it-- passes through the encounter with the Other, be it the indigenous inhabitant of the new world, or the neighboring country, or a different language. Like a traveler, a teacher retains her freedom to move and to chose the direction to her steps, and carries the necessary provisions and supplies: enough to get around, but not too many to weigh her down. The teacher as traveler can read the world of experience, can read her discipline, and can read her students by paying attention and knowing their pace. The encounters that are at the heart of the educational experience, between teachers, students, works and things of the world, all concur to exercise the mind of a traveler: a mind that finds itself " at home" in the world.