The purpose of this qualitative study was to describe the operation and impact of teacher study groups at one school site throughout a school year. The study was exploratory in nature. The research questions focused on the major factors in the school's external and internal context that impacted the study groups, the typical behaviors and interactions of the study group participants, and the impact of the study groups on the participants, the curriculum, and instruction.

Students with mild to moderate hearing losses, and some with severe hearing losses, are mainstreamed in a regular classroom for all or part of the day (Martin, Berstein, Daly & Cody, 1988). While these students may require special education services, the classroom teacher plays a vital role in the overall education and daily management of a child with a hearing impairment (Hass, 1987). Villa (1989) reported that many school employees have not received adequate training to educate these students. Therefore, it becomes the school's responsibility to educate teachers through a comprehensive inservice training program. One format for providing such a program is a self-directed inservice program. This approach can be utilized as a cost-effective means of meeting the professional needs of educators, although little is known regarding its' effectiveness to train teachers about the needs of students with hearing impairments. To address the effectiveness of a self-directed inservice approach, a comprehensive self-directed inservice program which provides information about hearing loss, behavior manifestations of children with hearing impairment, hearing aid maintenance, and mainstreaming was developed. This program was designed to educate teachers about the classroom needs of students with hearing impairment. A group of 20 teachers were randomly assigned to either the experimental group, which received the inservice program or control group, who read a brief article. A post test was administered to both groups, and the experimental group also answered a questionnaire regarding the inservice program. The results revealed a significant difference in the basic knowledge of regular education teachers about the classroom needs of students with hearing impairments for those receiving the program. This suggests that a self-directed inservice program is a viable method of educating teachers about the needs of students with hearing impairments.

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This study was undertaken to analyze the opinions of elementary school teachers in Korea about actual and desired levels of computer education and the sources of computer anxiety, with the object of developing guidelines for a teacher training program. A survey instrument was developed and tested to provide basic sample demographic data, tabulation of opinions on computer competencies, as well as an analysis of three variables of anxiety: 1) use of computers as educational tools, 2) lack of personal ability, and 3) lack of computer knowledge. The instrument was administered to a sample composed of 421 teachers, parents, or computer experts, and three analyses of variance procedures were performed to analyze the sources of computer anxiety. Analysis of the data revealed the following: 1) most of the teachers sampled had little experience with computers or computer applications; 2) older teachers or those with little experience reflected the highest degrees of computer anxiety; 3) training programs should focus on computers as instructional tools; 4) computer language training should be addressed on a broad level; 5) development of a broadly focused training program, ranging from basic instruction in computer capabilities to advanced programming skills; and 6) there is a need for support and commitment to computer education by educational administrators. A model for the development of guidelines for computer training programs was proposed, based upon the assumption that computer literacy cannot be equated with computer science. Based upon objectives derived from an analysis of the nature of Korean society, learners, and the state of their knowledge, the following program goals were suggested: 1) instructors should be made aware of computer capabilities and limitations; 2) classify the scope and sequence of programs to reduce computer anxiety in accordance with existing skill levels and levels of needs among teachers; 3) encourage a teacher-centered approach based upon voluntary participation; 4) select knowledgeable training personnel with communicative skills; 5) encourage small group training to enable collaborative learning; 6) extensive use of hands-on methods, with adequate hardware and software resources; 7) training periods of a length to assure provision of practical classroom skills; 8) provision of incentives; 10) focus upon the integration of computers into the instructional process. / Graduation date: 1992

A review of the literature revealed that there are many variables that influence teachers' instructional practices. These influential variables fall into three categories: those related to the teacher, which are referred to in this study as teacher role characteristics; those related to the inservice education activities of teachers, referred to as staff development variables; and those related to the teachers' individual teaching situations, referred to as school climate variables. It was hypothesized that there may be variables that are related to the use of manipulatives for mathematics instruction by primary grade teachers. Nineteen independent variables in the three categories were studied. In order to investigate the hypotheses, a population of teachers was located in eight school districts outside of but within a sixty-mile radius of Corvallis, Oregon, and a sample was drawn from those teachers having some specialized training in the use of manipulatives beyond their initial teacher certification college coursework. One hundred eighty teachers were mailed a survey instrument, designed and field-tested by the researcher, whose purpose was to determine amount of manipulatives use. Following the completion of this survey, there were 145 participating teachers who were then sent a questionnaire, designed and field-tested by the researcher, which Pearson correlations were calculated for the variables based on continuous data and one-way analysis of variance was computed for the variables based on categorical data. Multiple regression analysis was then performed on the three independent variables that were statistically significant at the .05 level. A teacher's attitude toward the usefulness of manipulatives training, his/her current teaching beliefs (child-centeredness), and perceived attitude of students' parents were all highly correlated with manipulatives use. In the final regression model, each of these three variables made a unique contribution for explaining the variance in teachers' use of manipulatives. Other variables that may also have some relationship to the use of manipulatives included: quality of manipulatives training, follow-up from initial manipulatives training, and perceived response from students. / Graduation date: 1991

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M. Tech. Education, Tshwane University of Technology, 2010.

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published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

No description available.