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No description available.

Master of Science

This research was conducted to study how five home economics teachers learned three new teaching techniques through an in service distance education project. The researcher looked specifically at: (1) How effective were video assisted self-instructional packets for teaching individual learners new methods of instruction? (2) How do teachers transfer knowledge of a particular method to actual classroom use? (3) Is there a relationship between one's learning style and style of teaching? Each case study draws upon data from the participant's background, test scores, interviews, self-reports, staff reports, student products, and observations. In three cases, it was concluded that learning style may influence style of teaching. The two teachers who were unable to transfer the information did not have consistent learning styles, were not comfortable users of the media, and reported having too many things going on in their personal life which interfered with the learning process.

published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

This study examines the ways to produce a successful transfer of the school-based continuing professional development activities into an improvement of classroom teaching from the viewpoints of teachers in a band one secondary school of Hong Kong. Both quantitative and qualitative methods in form of questionnaires and interviews were employed to obtain the data. The findings indicated that the continuing professional development activities that were related to curriculum and engaged teachers in collaborative work with more reflections were more effective to improve teachers’ instructions. Variables that facilitate and inhibit such learning transfer of professional development activities were discussed. To produce a successful transfer for teachers to put the learnt innovations into classroom practices, the school should have a systemic planning of the continued professional development activities through participatory decision-making that address to teacher needs with the necessary professional and resource support. However, it is found that the school-based continuing professional development of teachers is context-specific. Contextual variables like the school leadership and management, needs of teachers, departmental culture, and perceptions of individual teachers towards continuing professional development activities should be taken into consideration by school leaders in planning, implementing and evaluating the continued professional development activities to make them effective for improving teachers’ instructions and hence student outcome. / published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

Most school reforms require the implementation of policies and procedures; therefore, staff development has flourished as a means to introduce and reinforce required school, classroom, and teacher changes (Shroyer, 1990). The scant and inconclusive research regarding the impact of staff development on teacher change (Fullan, 1985; Griffin, 1983b; Guskey, 1986) has shifted from a focus on institutional factors impacting change to individual characteristics of the teachers involved in implementing change and the complex ecology in which these changes take place (McLaughlin, 1990). Recently, researchers have focused on the differences in teachers' beliefs and those implicit in the design of innovations to be implemented (Au, 1988; Johnston, 1988; Olson, 1980, 1981). Further, evidence exists that a teacher's beliefs can change throughout the staff development process (Richardson, Anders, Tidwell, and Lloyd, in press). These researchers, like Hollingsworth (1989), examined questions about the process of changing (Fullan, 1985); their research agendas focus on how new knowledge is used and how change occurs throughout the staff development process. Similarly, this case study was designed to identify changes in the subject's beliefs after she participated in a particular staff development project and to trace these changes throughout the process. The subject, Debbie, a veteran science teacher, enrolled in an inservice class to develop her questioning skills, to learn about thinking skills, and to implement the Taba Teaching Strategies in her classroom. In this case, changes in Debbie's beliefs were examined by comparing and analyzing the semantic maps of Debbie's responses in structured interviews (Spradley, 1970), including questions based on the Kelly Repertory Grid (Kelly, 1955) and the Heuristic Elicitation Method (Eisenhardt, Shrum, Harding, and Cuthbert, 1988). By reviewing and analyzing field notes, taped class sessions, and interviews with Debbie and other teachers at the site throughout the project, how this change in beliefs was exhibited throughout the process of changing was reconstructed in narrative form. Debbie described her beliefs privately and reconstructed them publically (Fenstermacher and Richardson, 1991) throughout the process of changing, struggling with her what beliefs about how students learn and her how beliefs as she practiced new teaching strategies (Sigel, 1985).

The purpose of this study was to examine the evolving event-structured knowledge of one student teacher in a second grade classroom containing a diverse population of students. His understandings, interpretations, and reflections were documented before, during, and after enactment of units of content in the classroom. Weekly interviews designed to elicit the student teacher's "well-remembered events" provided the primary data for the study. In addition, daily observations by the researcher supplemented analysis of the student teacher's interpretations. Interviews with the cooperating teacher to establish an understanding of the context in which the student teacher was learning to teach completed data collection. Findings indicated that the student teacher faced major difficulties in the areas of instructional time and unit context. Based on the demands of the curriculum, students, and cooperating teacher and his interpretations of difficulties encountered, the student teacher concluded that the second grade curriculum was above grade level, that it was constraining on planning and teaching, and that it contained discrepancies. The student teacher resolved these difficulties by moving students back in the curriculum or by condensing or eliminating portions of the curriculum before and during the enactment of content. Analysis of the data suggests that other factors may have contributed to the problems faced by the student teacher in learning to teach. For example, he reported having limited knowledge of the curriculum as well as teaching methods. These limitations may have affected the struggles he experienced as he learned, represented, and enacted the curriculum with a group of students in a complex environment.

The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the theories that classroom interactions are organized and shaped by the subtle intersecting and overlapping phenomena of race, culture, and gender, and that teachers and their inner-city middle-grade African American male students may make sense, i.e., interpret meaning, very differently in routine, day-to-day classroom interactions. The investigation was informed by Frederick Erickson's (1986) claim that the risk of school failure for students of color may be increased by incongruities between mainstream classroom interaction patterns and the predominant patterns/ways of interacting in the students' home culture. The study was conducted in three fourth-grade classrooms in inner-city schools. Data collected from classroom observations and semi-structured interviews were used to develop sensitizing and definitive typologies, construct individual teacher profiles, and categorize transcribed "talk" into primary and connective themes. Predominant characteristics of teacher-Black male student verbal interactions were identified inductively and presented as assertions (Erickson, 1986) in the findings. Based on the content, structure, and function of each, the selected interactions were characterized as completed continuous, discontinuous, or diminutive. As posited theoretically, the findings revealed differential participation, i.e., interaction peculiarities, specific to many verbal exchanges between each teacher and her/his African American male students. Discontinuities emerged from the different ways language was used by teachers and students. Negative vectors produced in sustained discontinuous interactions resulted in maladaptive meanings for both the teacher and the African American students. A second purpose of the study was to develop a staff development component specifically designed to address teacher-student classroom interactions from cultural perspective and to engender reflective critical inquiry by teachers into their own classroom practices (theories-in-use) and pedagogical principles (espoused theories) as they relate to interactions with their African American male students. Selected segments of analyzed interaction events were used to construct authentic teaching cases which contained embedded dimensions of the theoretical issues examined and the empirical assertions derived from the research. The cases were used as the major instructional tool in the professional development model. This study points toward the need for teachers to be aware of the relationships between language-use, culture, and gender, and the importance of understanding how these factors may play a role in facilitating or constraining equitable educational opportunities for some academically marginalized student groups, particularly pre-adolescent inner-city African American male children.

The purpose of this paper is to show how a business teacher may be professionally-minded. A careful study will be made of the literature dealing with factors that it is believed contribute to the professionalization of business teachers. Certain factors will be noted, among which are the following: the adequate preparation of teachers who aspire to professionalism of their calling; the benefits to be derived through membership in education associations as well as the criticism directed toward such organizations; professional business education periodicals; outstanding business education books; the practice of, and the need for, carrying on research in the classroom, as well as the need for sharing the findings with others; the relationship of the business teacher to teachers in other areas, the community, other business teachers, and to the accepted standard of morals. / Typescript. / "January, 1953." / "Submitted to the Graduate Council of Florida State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science." / Advisor: J. Frank Dame, Professor Directing Paper. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 60-62).