Teacher educators generally agree that prior experiences with teachers and teaching are highly influential to understandings of teaching. Adopting a sociological model inherited by contemporary teacher education, they have frequently found this influence to be a hindrance to teacher learning; years spent observing schoolteachers’ teaching are thought to result in limited, simplistic, and personal views of teaching, views that are highly resistant to change despite teacher educators’ efforts to engage them. Thus, prospective teachers’ views of teaching have been framed as deficits in teacher learning, and, while these deficit views are not universally held among teacher educators, they appear more common than views of prospective teachers’ understandings of teaching as assets in learning to teach. Through this study, I used the framework of conceptions of teaching to investigate the influence of prior experiences with teachers and teaching, and the assets and/or deficits prospective teachers might carry into teacher preparation. Employing a phenomenographic design, including interviews and participant created artifacts, I analyzed the descriptions of teachers and teaching of five high school students who were considering teaching as a career. Drawing on notions of consummatory experience related to learning to teach, I investigated individual descriptions of experiences with teaching––including links between these students’ prior experiences with teaching and teaching they were observing and/or doing––as well as variations of experiences across the cohort of participants. My study revealed complex views of teaching amongst participants, characterized by an array of commitments and uncertainties. For the cohort, teaching was, at its heart, a convergence of various actors and events; approaches, routines, and patterns of teaching; relations; priorities held by teachers and/or students; and/or dependencies brought on by community and/or contextual factors. The study helped to illustrate potentially powerful assets young people may carry to teacher preparation, including their experiences teaching others and an awareness and understanding of their own learning as teachers. This study proposes that teacher educators (re)conceptualize their work, at least in part, as the cultivation of these, and other, assets, and that the influences of prior experiences be examined during transitions between pre-collegiate, teacher preparation, and professional teaching experiences.

Over the last 30 years, colleges of education across the nation and around the world have examined and deliberated how best to prepare pre-service history teachers for the challenges of the modern classroom. Specifically, they sought to create and refine teacher preparation programs that foster within the pre-service history teacher the propensity to use authentic teaching practices once they are licensed and instructing independently in the classroom. Using a situated learning theoretical framework, this research study adds to the literature on this topic by examining how a semester-long pre-service residency at a historic site, archive, library, or museum influences in-service history teacher pedagogy. Implementing an ex post facto sequential explanatory mixed methods research methodology, this study pursued the objective of evaluating the nuances of a residency and how those experiences influence in-service pedagogical dispositions. The findings of the study conclude pre-service history teacher residencies offer valuable and unique learning spaces for the pedagogical development of pre-service history teachers by promoting authentic-based teaching models that participants carry into their in-service teaching.

Proportional reasoning refers not only to the ability to manipulate the proportions, but also to detect, express, analyze, explain, and provide evidence in support of assertions about proportional relationships. Students’ understanding of the proportional relationships that they encounter in science can be improved through well-designed instruction. In other words, teacher practice is key to the successful learning of both proportional reasoning and science. Stoichiometry is a basic topic in chemistry that focuses on the proportional relationship between the amount of reactants and/or that of products in a chemical reaction. This study explored 10 chemistry teachers’ knowledge and beliefs on integrating proportional reasoning in teaching stoichiometry mainly through interview, survey, and lesson materials. The framework of pedagogical content knowledge was used to examine key dimensions of teacher knowledge that were triggered as they teach stoichiometry. Moreover, teachers’ problem-solving strategies were sorted by using the proportional reasoning strategies framework. Three representative case studies allowed a deep analysis and the relation of each component of pedagogical content knowledge with implications for teacher education and professional development design.

The purpose of the study was to explore the process of conducting action research and to describe how two groups of teachers came to understand, account for and apply their own action research plans. The processes involved in conducting action research and the degree to which teachers conducting action research can bring effective change in their own classrooms are described. The study analyzed the path of four teacher researchers conducting action research and provided insights into their understanding of the process of implementing their own action research plans. The primary research question addressed in this qualitative study during the fourteen-week period was: What is the difference in the process of conducting action research between those teachers whose action research plans were evaluated to have modeled appropriately the action research process taught to them and those teachers whose action research plans were evaluated to be divergent from the guidelines taught to them? The methods employed in this study involved the collection of qualitative data through observations, interviews, field notes, personal journals, reflections, document analysis and questionnaires. The analysis techniques included analytic induction and the constant comparative method. Using the constant comparative method together with triangulation revealed ten themes with supporting assertions that explicated the research questions. The four cases in this study demonstrated that conducting action research helped the teacher researchers provide personal and professional growth that brought effective and meaningful change in their teaching practices. This study also confirmed the findings of previous research indicating that action research contributes to the knowledge base of teaching, improves teachers' individual practice, changes their teaching and helps teachers become more reflective about their instructional practices during the inquiry. Although there were various degrees of differences between the two participant groups of teachers in the study, these differences were not extreme. Overall, it was evident that the process of action research enabled each of the participant teachers to bring about change in areas that they believed needed improvement. In this manner, action research was used as a school improvement tool and as an individual professional development alternative to bring about change and improvement. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Childhood, Reading, and Disability Services in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester, 2005. / October 25, 2004. / Challenges in Teacher Research Process, Reflective Practice and Critical Thinking, Professional Development through Action Research, The Effects of Action Research, Benefits through Action Research Process, Action Research, Teacher Research Process / Includes bibliographical references. / John Hansen, Professor Directing Dissertation; Sande Milton, Outside Committee Member; Ithel Jones, Committee Member; Diana Rice, Committee Member.

This paper centers around an experience a class of twenty-one fifth grade children and their teacher had with puppetry. The art teacher worked cooperatively with the classroom teacher and children throughout the experiment. The purpose of this paper is to describe ways in which she worked with the classroom teacher and her pupils and helped to meet pupils' need to make wise choices and decisions. The paper will include a description and analysis of three decisions: first, the decision by the group to make puppets; second, decisions made by a boy in making his hand puppet; and third, decisions made by a girl in making her string puppet. On the basis of these findings, recommendations for ways in which an art teacher can work with classroom teachers and children will be made. / Typescript. / "Submitted to the Graduate Council of Florida State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts." / Advisor: Julia Schwartz, Professor Directing Paper. / "Jan. 15, 1952." / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 47).

"The primary objective of this paper is to describe the purposes, background and procedures involved in providing a handbook for teachers of adult students in Polk County. The term adult education, in this paper, is used to denote non-vocational classes below college level, for employed persons and other not enrolled in the regular day schools"--Introduction. / Typescript. / "August, 1959." / "Submitted to the Graduate School of Florida State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts." / Advisor: Edward K. Hankin, Professor Directing Paper. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 35).

"The author has had an interest in teacher welfare throughout his many years as a teacher and as a principal. Observation of his fellow teachers gave evidence of varying stages of adjustment and varying degrees of satisfaction and happiness in the profession. Allowing, even, for individual differences, the questions in his mind were: Why are some faculties more successful than others? Why are some teachers happy and well adjusted whereas others are neurotic, unhappy, and maladjusted? What can be done to build good teacher morale? What can the principal do to improve the personal and professional welfare of the teacher?"--Introduction. / "August, 1953." / Typescript. / "Submitted to the Graduate Council of Florida State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts." / Advisor: John Permenter, Professor Directing Paper. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 31-32).

"This non-credit paper is, by no means, intended to cover the wide range of activities included in the position held by a teacher of high school journalism. Nor is it designed to delineate completely the personality of the 'ideal' adviser. The study is merely an attempt on the part of the writer to clarify for new journalism advisers certain emotional aspects which seem common to the production of all high school publications and to the teaching of high school journalism"--Introduction. / "May, 1955." / Typescript. / "Submitted to the Graduate Council of Florida State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science." / Includes bibliographical references.

Research shows that quality teachers are the single most significant influence on the quality of education available to students. This recognition of the importance of quality teachers on quality education is reflected in goal 6 of the EFA: Quality Education. EFA proxies for quality, however, are dubious measures of the concept......What does the concept quality mean when applied to the work of teaching or to the business of education? How do we know quality when we see it? Is it the same from culture to culture or does it differ based on the educational aims of different societies? Despite EFA's emphasis on improving the quality of education, quality education remains elusive in many developing countries. Cambodia, for instance, has enjoyed considerable international assistance for more than four decades, yet the quality of Cambodian education remains low by both Cambodian and international standards. What might explain the failure of decades of assistance to improve education in Cambodia? This study argues that before this question can be answered and more effective steps taken in the development of Cambodian education we must have a clearer understanding of the conceptualization and operationalization of the concept "quality" in the constructs "quality teachers" and "quality education" in the Cambodian context to understand whether and how it differs from that implied in the theory and practice of Cambodia's international donors. Differences may help explain the difficulty encountered in improving the quality of education in Cambodia and point to more effective strategies to achieve this elusive goal. To this end, this inquiry deployed a hybrid methodology called philosophical ethnography to discover the conceptions of quality held by Khmer teacher training instructors and administrators. This discovery is guided by the idea of dialogue expressed by Jürgen Habermas and implemented by Paolo Freire. Findings indicate that there is a tension between traditional Khmer conceptions of quality and those emphasized in modern conceptions of quality education. Traditional Cambodian conceptions of quality reflect Buddhist social virtues including of ទាន (tian, generosity), មេត្តា (mey-ta, generosity), ករុណា (garunna, compassion), មូទិតា (mutita, empathetic joy), and ឧបេក្ខា (upeka, equanimity) to be a good person in a moral sense. This differs from modern conceptions of quality that emphasize equality, individual achievement, and economic drive for education to produce a person with the knowledge, skills, and abilities to do some job that supports the growth of the economic machine. The results of this study suggest that the introduction of modern ideas of quality in education beginning with the French in the 19th century and continuing today through foreign aid donations have permeated the education sector in Cambodia influence how Cambodian teacher trainers perceive quality education with respect to how day to day operations of education should function and influence contemporary policy decisions. Despite the push to change reform Cambodian education, participants indicate that being a good person (in the Buddhist sense) is still how quality should be measured and should be the primary objective of Cambodian education. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies in partial fulfillment of the Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester 2016. / February 24, 2016. / Cambodia, Teacher education / Includes bibliographical references. / Jeffrey Ayala Milligan, Professor Directing Dissertation; Michael Ruse, University Representative; Stacey Rutledge, Committee Member; Lara Perez-Felkner, Committee Member.

The purpose of the study was to examine the relationship between Turkish preservice early childhood teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs and their mentor teachers’ mentoring. The study also examined related factors including the mentor teachers’ modeling, the feedback provided by the mentor teachers, the amount of time mentor teachers devoted to teaching science, and the amount of time spent teaching science by the preservice teachers. Participating in the study was a sample of 96 Turkish preservice early childhood teachers and their mentor teachers (N=41). The data were collected at two Turkish universities during the time when the preservice teachers were completing their teaching practicum or field-experience. The Pre-Service Science Teaching Efficacy Belief Instrument (STEBI-B) was administered to the preservice teachers to measure their self-efficacy beliefs. A related instrument (STEBI-A) was also administered to the mentor teachers to measure their self-efficacy beliefs. As the preservice teachers were participating in their practical teaching experiences in kindergarten classes in Turkish public schools they completed the Science Experiences Time Tracker Record. This instrument was designed to measure the amount of time spent on science teaching and observing activities by the preservice teachers and mentors. At the conclusion of the field experiences the preservice teachers were administered the Mentoring for Effective Science Teaching (MEST) instrument. This instrument was designed to measure the preservice teachers’ perceptions of their mentoring teachers’ mentoring activities, including modeling and feedback. Correlational analyses were used to measure the relationship between the preservice and mentor teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs. Correlational analyses were also used to measure the relationships between the preservice teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs and the amount of time they spent teaching science, the amount of time they spent observing science teaching, and their mentor teachers’ modeling and feedback. There was a statistically significant correlation between the mentor and preservice teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs. There was also a statistically significant correlation between the time spent teaching science and the preservice teachers’ self-efficacy. Also, correlated with the preservice teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs were the measures of mentor teachers’ modeling and feedback. The correlations uncovered in this study suggest that if preservice teachers have an opportunity to see the outcomes of their teaching, and receive constructive feedback from their mentor teachers, they will probably have more confidence in their teaching, and thereby increase their self-efficacy beliefs. / A Dissertation submitted to the School of Teacher Education in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Fall Semester 2016. / November 7, 2016. / MENTORING, PRESERVICE EARLY CHILDHOOD TEACHERS, SCIENCE TEACHING, SELF EFFICACY BELIEFS, TEACHING PRACTICA / Includes bibliographical references. / Ithel Jones, Professor Directing Dissertation; Ming Cui, University Representative; Diana Rice, Committee Member; Lindsey Dennis, Committee Member.