During the past 50 years, the landscape of education shifted from a rank order model to a system where all students are expected to achieve at a minimum level. This led to reforms in the way schools operate and teachers teach. One change to teaching is the use of data to inform instructional practices and student groupings. The need for teachers to increase their data use and change their instruction has prompted the need for professional development practices to be more effective. Coaching has been shown to be an effective professional development strategy to help teachers transfer new skills into their practice. This mixed-methods study examined one urban school district's two-year attempt to implement a data informed decision-making model of instruction in 20 schools through the use of instructional coaches. The study used two data sets - archival literacy benchmark scores and coach surveys - to identify a purposive selection of interview participants. The interviews were conducted to determine what structures and factors increased the implementation of the data informed decision-making initiative. Findings indicate professional development and leadership structures were needed for successful implementation of the data initiative. Results of this study showed the factors of trust, focus, coach-principal relationship, and assessment literacy contributed to the coaches' ability to implement the data initiative successfully.

The problem of this study was to investigate the effect of an in-service program utilizing Benjamin S. Bloom (Ed.) and others' Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, Handbook I: Cognitive Domain (Bloom's Taxonomy) on (1) the self-concept of experienced secondary English teachers and social studies teachers, (2) the cognitive level of test items on teacher-made examinations, and (3) the attitude changes toward school subjects as rated b students.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship among the teachers' use of the individual elements of lesson design, students' mastery of mathematics objectives, the hours of inservice training completed by the teachers and the teachers' years of experience. The individual elements of lesson design are defined by Madeline Hunter and are anticipatory set, objective and purpose, input, modeling, checking for understanding, guided practice, and independent practice.

A research report submitted to the faculty of Science, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Science. 20 July 2017. / Disciplinary knowledge is recognised as teacher professional knowledge base that is central in promoting effective teaching and learning in science education. Although that is the case, in one of the South African University, that this study was conducted in, the 4th year Life sciences Pre-service teachers’ were not tested on their understanding of the disciplinary nature of their subject of specialisation. As a result, the type of disciplinary gaze that they acquired by the end of the teacher training remained unknown within the institution. Thus, this study then used a case study methodology to investigate the Pre-service teachers’ levels of understanding of the disciplinary nature of Life Sciences as a discipline. The participants of this study consisted of twenty nine 4th year Pre-service teachers’ who were enrolled for a Life sciences Bachelor of Education program and one Life sciences lecturer who was involved in teaching the subject. This research took on a qualitative approach, which yielding both qualitative and quantitative data, through the use of questionnaires as well as semi-focused interviews as research instruments. The outcomes of this study showed that, although the Pre-service teachers’ were not explicitly taught about the nature of the subject, but they still showed a satisfactory understanding of it. Although that was the case, the Pre-service teachers’ still demonstrated a fractured comprehension of the disciplinary knowledge aspects, such as the history, philosophy and the nature of science. On the other hand, the findings of this study also demonstrated that, the Pre-service teachers’ acquired an extensive gaze of understanding of Subject Matter Knowledge, which is another component of Disciplinary knowledge, and this was because, this knowledge base was explicitly taught and assessed with the teacher training program. / LG2018

A thesis submitted to the Wits School of Education, Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy May, 2016 / This study investigates how primary school mathematics in-service teachers respond to learners’ offers, over time, during classroom interactions. The study was a follow-up to a one-year long in-service ‘maths for teaching’ professional development course in which 33 teachers participated in 2012. Four teachers from that course were tracked in this follow-up study. Data sources within this study consisted of two cycles of observations of lessons taught by the four teachers in 2013 and 2014, and an interim video-stimulated recall (VSR) interview with each teacher, with reflections guided by the structure of Rowland et al.’s ‘knowledge quartet’. A total of 18 lessons from the four teachers were video-recorded across the 2013 and 2014 observations. The notion of ‘elaboration’ was used in this study as an interpretive lens to examine and characterise responsive teaching actions in the South African context, with the focus narrowing over the course of the PhD to contingency situations within the knowledge quartet framework, focused on responses to learner offers. In the South African literature, the terrain of elaboration is characterised by extensive gaps in teachers’ mathematical knowledge, incoherent talk, and frequent lack of evaluation of learners’ offers in the classroom. Using a grounded theory approach, I propose an ‘elaboration’ framework with three situations of responsive teaching (breakdown, sophistication and individuation/ collectivisation), which can be used as a tool to support the development of more responsive teaching in the South African context (and perhaps in other contexts where similar problems prevail). In this way, the study has contributed in terms of identifying some important ‘stages of implementation’ (Schweisfurth, 2011) that might be required to move towards the ideals of more responsive teaching that are described in the international literature, and yet remain distant from the realities of South African schooling. Using the three markers of shifts (extent, breadth and quality) in elaboration recruited in this study, drawn from the ways in which the dimensions of responsive teaching were conceptualised, I report on the different patterns of shifts in elaboration by the four teachers. The results of this analysis indicated that all four teachers made shifts in their responses to learners’ offers from 2013 to 2014 lessons in at least one or more dimensions of responsive teaching, in relation to extent, breadth and quality of elaborations. Findings from VSR interviews indicated associations between shifts in teachers’ reflective awareness, and shifts in responsive teaching actions. Theoretically, the study contributes through characterising responsive teaching actions in contexts of evidence of limited evaluation within the elaboration framework, with a language of description for identifying and developing more responsive teaching actions in a resource constrained context

School leaders in the elementary and secondary levels are continually in search of ways to raise student achievement. It is acknowledged that a quality teacher is the most effective means to ensure student success. However, school leaders cannot stop at hiring quality teachers. They must take steps to provide support for those teachers so they will remain engaged in their jobs. This research study sought to examine how various supportive actions by school principals can affect teacher engagement. It addressed the research questions of “Can administrative support factors predict teacher engagement?” and “Can teacher engagement predict student achievement?” This was accomplished through a literature review of the topics associated with teacher engagement as well as a quantitative analysis of responses solicited from high school teachers in a large urban school district in the Southeastern United States. The results indicate that administrative support factors can predict teacher engagement as the model predicted that a significant amount (54%) of the variance in teacher engagement was due to the predictor variables. It was found that the social events factor significantly predicted teacher engagement (b=.419) with the next highest weight being the assessment factor (b=.246). However, the study did not show a predictive relationship between teacher engagement and student achievement. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2017. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of the implementation of a structured professional learning community model referred to as Learning Team Meetings (LTMs) on teacher practice and student achievement from the perspective of teachers and instructional leaders at high-need schools. To accomplish this purpose, a multi-site case study was conducted at three school sites (an elementary, middle, and high school) all within the same region of one of the largest urban school districts in South Florida. Qualitative research methods, including one-on-one observations, interviews, focus groups, and review of documents were utilized to analyze, contrast, and compare perceptions,beliefs, and assumptions of the participants in the study. The participants included teachers, principals, assistant principals, instructional coaches, and Learning Team Facilitators (LTFs). A total of 20 participants were involved in the study. The conceptual framework for this study is rooted in the guiding principles of organizational learning and effective professional development practices. Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) offer formal structures to provide teachers with learning enriched, ongoing, job-embedded staff development (Hord & Sommers, 2008). This study focused on one trajectory or type of PLC, and sought to better understand the implementation of an organizational systemic knowledge transfer structure and the impact on teacher practice from the participants' perception. The research design profided thick, rich data, which offered in-depth understandings of the participants' perception, beliefs, and assumption about the LTMs' impact on teacher practice and student achievement. Through the research it was determined that participants among all three of the schools sites believed that LTMs were changing teacher practice. / Further, the participants at each of the school sites recognized the significance of the LTF and that he or she plays an essential role in the LTMs. The significance of the study,implications of these findings, and recommendations for further research are also presented. / by Ora Meles. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2011. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2011. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Made available in DSpace on 2015-12-03T18:35:27Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Edilei_Rodrigues_de_Lames.pdf: 983194 bytes, checksum: a3a4909ed07c884e0a84ee7808c854b0 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-11-09 / The present work is stimulated by current investigations about university teacher's formation that, besides daily school life studies, constitute a set of topics considered mobilizers of the didactic reflection and superior teaching practice. To know how the teacher has been using the materials and resources and how has been constructing the pedagogical activities, has to do directly with the significance of the teaching function. This research had as an objective delineate the experiential knowledge outline of the professor who teaches the discipline of Cost Management in the Account Science course offered by a Higher Education Institution in the state of Sao Paulo, trying to identify the processes which structure and give meaning to their pedagogics practices in the university context. To this end, there was an exploratory research - qualitative. Data were collected through observation and interviews in order to identify aspects of professional life and the teacher's pedagogic practice, under the form of description and interpretation of their lived experiences, their habitus and their procedural knowledge. It was verified that the construction of the teacher's experiential knowledge happens through the mastery of educational fields such as: a) the way teacher presents the material to learners, b) the planning of education, c) the management of the classroom, d) the management of content. We can notice that the teacher's teaching knowledge is structured from the experiences he lived in the personal, academic, professional and organizational. His way of being and living as a teacher, his professorial habitus tends to set the rules, or ways of acting in pedagogical practice. These rules are present in the teacher's class, whether as a know-how, or as an instrument of expectations and/or standards judging and evaluating of students and their behaviors. It is concluded that the process of building experiential knowledge of the teacher does not occur in emptiness, their professional development and their teaching performances are inserted in a real and specific context, where their practices must be in line and responding. In this sense, this work contribute with data for the creation of proposals of monitoring and promoting to the experiences of teachers so that they can develop their creativity and originality of daily practice and the generation of a reflexive habitus indispensable for the improvement of teacher's knowledge / O presente trabalho ?? estimulado pelas investiga????es atuais sobre a forma????o de docentes universit??rios que, ao lado de estudos sobre o cotidiano escolar, constituem o conjunto de temas considerados como mobilizadores da reflex??o did??tica e da pr??tica de ensino superior. Saber como o professor vem utilizando seus materiais e recursos e como vem construindo suas atividades pedag??gicas t??m a ver diretamente com a significa????o da fun????o docente. Essa pesquisa teve como objetivo delinear o perfil do conhecimento experiencial do professor que ministra a disciplina de Gest??o de Custos no curso de Ci??ncias Cont??beis oferecido por uma IES do Estado de S??o Paulo, procurando identificar os processos que estruturam e d??o sentido ??s suas pr??ticas pedag??gicas no contexto universit??rio. Para tanto, realizou-se uma pesquisa explorat??ria - qualitativa. Os dados foram coletados por meio de observa????o e de entrevista, buscando identificar aspectos da vida profissional e da pr??tica pedag??gica do professor, sob a forma de descri????o e interpreta????o de suas experi??ncias vivenciadas, de seu habitus e de seus saberes procedimentais. Constatou-se que a constru????o do saber experiencial do professor acontece por meio do dom??nio de campos did??ticos tais como: a) o modo como o professor apresenta a mat??ria aos alunos; b) o planejamento de ensino; c) a gest??o da sala de aula; d) a gest??o do conte??do. Pode-se perceber que o saber docente do professor se estrutura a partir das experi??ncias por ele vivenciadas no ??mbito pessoal, acad??mico, profissional e organizacional. Seu modo de ser e de estar na doc??ncia, seu habitus professoral, tende a configurar as disposi????es, ou as maneiras de agir na pr??tica pedag??gica. Estas disposi????es se fazem presentes nas aulas do professor, seja em forma de um saber fazer, seja como instrumento de expectativas e/ou padr??es de julgamento e de avalia????o de alunos e de comportamentos. Conclui-se que o processo de constru????o do saber experiencial do professor n??o ocorre no vazio, seu desenvolvimento profissional e suas atua????es pedag??gicas est??o inseridos em contexto real e espec??fico, com os quais suas pr??ticas devem estar em sintonia e para os quais devem dar respostas. Neste sentido, este trabalho contribui com dados para a cria????o de propostas de acompanhamento e de fomento ??s experi??ncias dos professores para que possam desenvolver a criatividade e a originalidade da pr??tica cotidiana e da gera????o de um habitus reflexivo indispens??vel para o aprimoramento dos saberes docentes.

Submitted by Natalie Mendes (nataliermendes@gmail.com) on 2015-07-24T00:01:57Z No. of bitstreams: 1 A FORMA??O DE EDUCADORES DO CAMPO NO PROA??O II.pdf: 1650812 bytes, checksum: c908ba66a7cb5796fc2f17fd7e4d0ea3 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-07-24T00:01:57Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 A FORMA??O DE EDUCADORES DO CAMPO NO PROA??O II.pdf: 1650812 bytes, checksum: c908ba66a7cb5796fc2f17fd7e4d0ea3 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-03-26 / This thesis evaluates the limits and possibilities of pedagogy courses offered in teacher training in exercise program, PROA??O II. We sought to investigate the paradigm of Education in Countryside of pedagogy course offered by PROA??O II, answering the question: What theoretical and practical elements in PROA??O effectively promote a paradigm shift in the field of education? A Content Analysis, combined with historical and dialectical materialism was taken as a methodological principle. Corpus were selected as the Educational Project, the Program of Education in Countryside discipline, in addition to semi-structured interviews applied to peasant - teachers in the municipality of Ilheus, the course coordinators in UESC and municipal coordinators of Education in Countryside. The category of contradiction between chance-reality pointed to countriside education as a social phenomenon, the perception of their actual states and its possibilities. The data analysis allowed us to infer that the socio- political character of this educational approach is the materialization of a popular education and rupture of the structure of capitalist society, however, within the possibilities of implementation of its proposed action, there are constraints that shield its strength of action . Thus, the challenge posed for policymakers is to realize, in the capitalist model elements to overcome and subsequent implementation of a socialist pedagogy, either in specific courses for educators in the field or pedagogy courses responsible for in-service training teachers working in primary education the working class, the countryside and the city. / Essa disserta??o avalia os limites e possibilidades do curso de pedagogia ofertado no programa de forma??o de professores em exerc?cio, no PROA??O II. Buscou-se investigar o paradigma de educa??o do campo do curso de Pedagogia ofertado pelo PROA??O Sede II, respondendo ? quest?o: Quais elementos te?rico-pr?ticos no PROA??O efetivamente favorecem uma mudan?a paradigm?tica da educa??o do campo? A An?lise de Conte?do, combinada ao materialismo hist?rico-dial?tico foi tomada como princ?pio metodol?gico. Como corpus foram selecionados o Projeto Pedag?gico; o Programa da disciplina Educa??o do Campo; al?m de entrevistas semiestruturadas aplicadas a camponeses-professores do munic?pio de Ilh?us, a coordenadores do curso na UESC e a coordenadores municipais da Educa??o do Campo. A categoria da contradi??o entre possibilidade-realidade apontou para a educa??o do campo como fen?meno social, na percep??o de seus estados reais e de suas possibilidades. A an?lise dos dados coletados permitiu inferir que o car?ter s?cio-pol?tico desta proposta educativa ? a materializa??o de uma educa??o popular e ruptura da estrutura da sociedade capitalista, por?m, dentro das possibilidades de concretiza??o de sua proposta de a??o, h? condicionantes que subtraem sua for?a de atua??o. Destarte, o desafio posto para os gestores de pol?ticas p?blicas ? perceber, no modelo capitalista, elementos para sua supera??o e posterior implementa??o de uma pedagogia socialista, seja nos cursos espec?ficos de forma??o de educadores do campo ou em cursos de pedagogia respons?veis pela forma??o em exerc?cio de professores que atuam na educa??o b?sica da classe popular, do campo e da cidade.

After the comparison and contrast of the four schools, it is propounded that in the establishment and developing process of a professional learning community, its core, teachers' collaborative culture, also displays a developmental process from individualism and comfortable collaboration to organizationally induced collegiality and interdependent collegiality. A supportive system is the guarantee of the teachers' collaborative culture; and the key to facilitate the birth of this culture as well as the building of a professional learning community lies on the principals' leadership style which put attention both on the management strategies and the leading strategies. / Based on the result revealed from the questionnaire survey and data of the case studies, it is found that professional learning community, as an introduced concept from the west, has its local significance in primary schools in the three cities of mainland China, supporting the theoretical structure built by the following four professional learning community dimensions---Shared decision making; Shared sense of purpose and focus on student learning; collaborative activity and deprivatized practice; Staff support and cooperation. The features of the abovementioned dimensions also possess their local flavor: degree of the shared decision making is relatively low and the teachers rarely participate in the financial and personnel decision-making, but own more authority within their professional field; secondly, students' exam scores are more emphasized in the aspect of the focus on student learning, but this varies from the schools according to its realization of professional learning community; thirdly, as for collaborative activity and deprivatized practice, collaboration among teaching practice are bolstered by the traditional "teaching research system", nevertheless there is a gap between the system and the actual outcome of the activities; lastly, the uniform teaching research system, to some extent, provides teachers' cooperation with much support, but is overweighed by the collaborative culture among teachers. / Mixed methods are adopted in this research, in which the questionnaires are delivered in three cities (including Shanghai) of mainland China in order to know the features and the realization of professional learning community in primary schools in Shanghai. It is then followed a purposeful sampling on the basis of the data analysis from the questionnaires, and four schools will be chosen out as the cases to probe into the relationship between professional learning community and teacher development. The major methods for the data collection include questionnaire survey, in-depth interview, participant observation and document collection. / The professional learning community being the one side, the teachers' development is interactively on the other, and the key platform for their interaction is teacher development activities. The contents of teacher development activities vary in different schools of different realization of professional learning community, and also diverse in the interaction between professional learning community and teachers' teacher development. Meanwhile, the second round curriculum reform in Shanghai being the common backdrop, it on one hand offers three platforms to the interaction between professional learning community and teacher development, and on the other hand is itself affected by this interaction. Especially under the pressure of "moderate empowerment and high responsibility" in the second round curriculum reform, teachers are supported by professional learning community in terms of empowerment and responsibility, and are also aided to seek for their professional identities, which leads to the achievement of teachers' real proactive professional development. / With the advent of a transitional era, the field of education is likewise undergoing a global reform. However, in retrospect of the educational reforms launched by various countries in the past thirty years, the aspect of class teaching is seldom touched upon. The academia therefore gives increasing emphasis on teachers as well as teachers' communities, and the concept of professional learning community thus comes into being. In the recent years, the studies on professional learning community have been proliferated in the west, and are gradually introduced into our country, but the related empirical studies in China still remain a virgin land. / 宋萑. / Adviser: Lee Chi Kin. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 69-08, Section: A, page: 3113. / Thesis (doctoral)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 276-302). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts in Chinese and English. / School code: 1307. / Song Huan.