published_or_final_version / abstract / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Classroom walkthroughs as a means of providing data for inquiry between principals and teachers and between teachers show promise for improving classroom instruction. Using data collected from classroom walkthroughs and through the development of a community of practice where administrators and teachers utilize dialogue and inquiry around these data collected, educators can design and improve instruction. Inquiry, involving both dialogue and reflection, is key to the effective use of these data. A case study of one elementary school embedded in a suburban district is used to investigate this district's implementation of the classroom walkthrough process to inquire through reflection and dialogue. Interviews with a district administrator and all four elementary principals in the district led to the identification of one elementary school with the highest level of implementation. In the third year of the initiative, intensive interviews with the four elementary principals and six teachers were conducted to gain understanding of the scope of the initiative, to determine the process by which the district administrator and school principals supported and implemented classroom walkthroughs, to understand how the principals used the walkthrough data, and to identify how the data informed dialogue and inquiry with teachers. Although the district administrators spent a great deal of attention to the process of collecting data, the initiative seemed to stall at this point. Little evidence of dialogue and inquiry about the classroom walkthrough data was found at the study school. Possible explanations for the stagnated implementation process include: a lack of movement from a focus on the collection of data for documenting the use of teaching strategies to dialogue and inquiry about the data in order to change instruction; an inconsistent purpose and vision for the initiative and communication of that vision; educational policy interference; and lack of agreement on the number of walkthroughs needed prior to engaging in dialogue and inquiry about the data.

The culture of teaching in most South African schools is one of isolation and independence. Once individuals have qualified as teachers, there is a strong sense of getting on with the job of teaching, rather than beginning a journey of critical reflection and change. This study aims to address and contribute towards shifting this ethos and establishing a joint reflective school culture.

This thesis investigates the experiences of generalist primary teachers, in Scotland, as they instigated curriculum and pedagogical change in physical education. Five primary teachers with an additional qualification in physical education, the Postgraduate Certificate in 3-14 physical education (PGCert), were followed within their school contexts over an academic year. In contrast to much of the preceding literature this research provides empirical work at the micro level on educational change from the perspective of the individual teacher: illuminating the reciprocal relationship between professional learning and educational change. A qualitative, interpretivist approach underpinned the gathering and analysis of data. This approach reflected the focus of the study which was to understand and make sense of the multiple realities, experiences and views of participant teachers evolving from their social, cultural and historical contexts. Data were gathered using semi-structured interviews, unstructured interviews about teachers’ planning and observations of physical education lessons. The theoretical framework that was used to interrogate the data incorporated situated learning theory (Lave and Wenger, 1991), professional learning and educational change literature; in particular the work of Fullan was utilised to explore his concept of ‘change agentry’. The first line of analysis establishes how the participant teachers approached teaching and learning in physical education prior to engaging with the PGCert. Thereafter the PGCert is examined to ascertain how the format and structure of this professional development opportunity came to influence the participant teachers. In the final analysis, an over-view of each teacher’s narrative in regards to their role in the change process is presented, outlining the curricular and pedagogical changes they initiated within their school contexts. Taken together, these findings contribute to research on educational change providing detailed analysis over an extended period of time of the motivating factors, constraints and complex character of change from the perspective of teachers within their individual school contexts. In the present educational climate where teachers are expected to be leaders of curricular and pedagogical change this study provides empirical evidence of teachers exercising their autonomy and integrating professional learning within their practice as they initiate and implement change.

The American education system has two daunting challenges. First, citizens need to be able to function in an interdependent world. Second, public schools' demographics have changed dramatically. Schools are failing to reach many students, particularly children of color and poverty. Schools must change to meet the needs of 21st century students. Without teachers' openness to change, effective educational reform win fail. Schools of education must prepare the next generation of teachers to be change agents who will implement school reform to meet the significantly different requirements of 21st century students. This study examined how one graduate teacher education program prepared teachers to be teacher change agents. The construct of teacher change agent incorporates research on successful school reform. In order for teachers to function as change agents they must (a) be competent, (b) be lifelong learners, and (c) have a sense of agency. A triangulation mixed-method design was used to examine a teacher education program's development of teacher change agents from various angles. The quantitative component of the study entailed the comparison of data from a scale administered at four different stages of teacher development. Graduates self-reported their frequencies of behaviors reflective of teachers open to change. The study's qualitative component included the examination of six professional portfolios, interviews with the portfolio's authors, and written responses to open-ended survey questions from a pool of 282 participants. Findings showed that all participants reported at least moderate levels of behaviors reflective of teacher change agents. Each of the interviewees reflected all dimensions of teacher change agents. In the larger sample, areas of strength included caring for students' emotional and academic well-being, and reflecting on one's practice. Participants reported the most beneficial elements of their preservice experience to be the extensive fieldwork and the collaborative cohort model. The cohort model and working with inspiring professors who modeled deep caring for students helped sustain participants' passion for teaching. Areas of weakness included teachers' willing to give students voice, embracing ideas of colleagues and families, and using community resources to enhance their teaching. These areas need to be developed more fully in the preservice program.

The primary objective of this study was to describe and analyze visions of 21st century education articulated by prominent individuals involved with current school reform and restructuring efforts. A second objective was to describe and analyze those images of the most likely educational scenario in the 21st century and the perceived barriers that would prevent realization of those idealized visions.

Thesis advisor: Andy Hargreaves / Reform has been difficult at all levels of schooling but secondary schools have proved the most intractable to change (Sarason, 1990). Some of the reasons include the persistence of long-standing conventions, the struggle between competing interests, the size and complexity of the organizations being changed, and ironically the negative impact of reforms that are designed to bring about change. Creating equity among the nation's students requires rethinking and questioning long-term and ingrained identities. This change is threatening to the status quo and pressures many to actively preserve and perpetuate cherished beliefs and practices. The objective to close the achievement gap and "provide all children with the kind of schooling once offered only to a small elite" (Meier, 2002, p. 3) is thwarted by a number of factors, one of which is the factory-style structures and models of classic schooling (Cuban, 1984; Meier, 2002; Oakes & Lipton, 2002; Sarason, 1990; Tyack & Tobin, 1994). This is particularly apparent in conventional high schools which have maintained their existing epistemologies for long periods of time, holding steadfast to the "traditional grammar of schooling" (Tyack & Tobin, 1994). To understand why and how traditional secondary schools choose and maintain their values and structures, and how that illuminates educational change; this dissertation explores a detailed historical case study of how a non-traditional high school underwent a fundamental change by becoming a high school representative of the traditional grammar of schooling. Research explored the technological, political, and cultural forces that influenced the change and what these forces tell us about educational change in general. Findings revealed that successful reforms were initiated at the grass-roots level by the principals but only within the parameters allowed by the school community. External reforms from the district and state government were rarely sustained over time. The changing economy, the politics, and culture of the island directly impacted change initiatives and contributed to the school's drift towards an increasingly traditional grammar. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2010. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Administration and Higher Education.

Due to the variety of factors that may affect student achievement, individual students often come to schools with different levels of academic preparation. These students from diverse academic background come with different learning needs. So, to better serve them, schools have adopted a variety of strategies, including increasing instructional time, reducing class sizes, providing differentiated curriculum and improving teacher quality through professional development trainings. My dissertation consists of three papers that examine several education interventions targeting at students with different academic abilities. These studies examine the design and current uses of several popular education interventions, and provide actionable insights on improving these interventions to enhance learning experiences for students at different points of the achievement spectrum. Chapter one evaluates a multi-subject remedial program that provided additional instruction on math and reading to under-performing students in a large metropolitan school district. Using a fuzzy regression discontinuity design and school administrative records, I find that double-dose remedial math courses improve math test scores by 0.21 standard deviations at the end of the school year. Yet, the effect of double-dose reading courses on reading achievement is small and statistically insignificant. In addition, the required extra classes in math or reading do not have crowd-out impact on instruction time and student performances on non-targeted core subjects. Finally, the study shows that students who receive treatments in multiple subjects do not necessarily have larger gains. While double-dose math courses may improve students’ math skills, the effect disappears for students who were taking double-dose reading courses at the same time. This finding suggests that two separate double-dose courses in different subjects may be ineffective in improving student achievements. To support students who struggle with more than one subject, schools should consider redesigning the double-dose courses with alternative curriculum and instructional strategies to integrate content of different courses and to increase student engagement. Chapter two examines effects of taking accelerated math courses under a subject-based acceleration program for middle school students. Students assigned to accelerated courses were exposed to more advanced curriculum and higher-performing peers. Using school administrative records and fuzzy regression discontinuity approach, the study finds null effects of taking accelerated math courses on students’ end-of-grade math test scores. Specifically, the effects are insignificant for students who took accelerated courses in both math and English Language Arts, and for those who took accelerated courses only in math. Also, the effects are insignificant for low-income and minority students. These findings are unexpected given the treatments provided by accelerated courses. The study provides possible explanations to the findings, and suggests directions for future research. Chapter three examines the sustainability of teacher knowledge gains from teacher professional development (PD) programs. Teacher PD is seen as a promising intervention to improve teacher knowledge, instructional practice, and ultimately student learning. While research finds many instances of significant program effects on teacher knowledge, little is known about how long these effects last. If teachers forget what is learned from the professional development program, the contribution of the intervention will be diminished. Using a large-scale dataset with 3,340 in-service teachers from 161 programs, this study examines the sustainability of gains in teachers’ content knowledge for teaching mathematics (CKT-M). Results show that there is a negative rate of change in CKT after teachers complete the training and that this estimated rate is relatively stable over time, suggesting that the average gain in test scores before and after the program is lost in just 37 days. There is, however, variation in how quickly knowledge is lost, with teachers participating in summer programs losing more rapidly than those who attend programs that occur during school years. The implications of these findings for designing and evaluating professional development programs are discussed.

The number of schools failing to prepare students for post-secondary life continues to increase; thus, school reform continues to be a pressing concern. Millions of dollars have been spent on school reform initiatives, particularly comprehensive reform such as complete school turnaround. Turnaround efforts include full closure, restarts, and transformation of schools that are currently failing. School turnaround requires the immediate disruption of past practices to establish new practices. These changes require the development of new habits of mind, a refocus on expectations and a re-examination of adult-adult, adult-student, and student-student relationships. For stakeholders, school turnaround is viewed as what happens to them rather than what happens for their benefit. The stakeholders who are the students and teachers within the school are affected in numerous ways by the disruption. This study reviewed literature on turnaround endeavors and pinpointed the important organizational design, traits of leadership, culture and climate, and adult actions that can be leveraged to create comprehensive school turnaround that is sustainable. The findings of this study resulted in the development of a handbook that provides school turnaround leaders with the tools to design a comprehensive turnaround program. This Turnaround Handbook is built on the premise of stabilizing culture and climate within the school to drive change practices that lead to school success. This handbook takes into account the needs of students to have a voice, adults to be supported and developed, and practices to be sustained beyond a finite period of classification as a turnaround school. The significance of this research is that school turnaround leaders can design programs that are sustainable and can significantly improve the lives and educational experiences of those affected by the reform process.

Mexico introduced in 2013 a historic reform amending the entry, performance assessment, promotion, incentive programs, and retention of teachers, with the aim of advancing teachers’ careers and eliminating discretional practices by the teachers union. This study analyzed Mexico’s teacher selection process following this reform and focused on the state of Puebla. It offers evidence on whether standards-based teacher evaluations, specifically the written teacher entry examinations, were a valid method for selecting competent teachers. The core component was a predictive validity study of the teacher selection method, assessing whether the teacher entry examination results predicted teacher performance evaluation results after 2 years. This was supplemented with semistructured interviews of 31 teachers and analysis of administrative documents, contextualizing the quantitative findings and offering evidence on the content of the teacher entry examination. From the current perspective on validity, this study provides evidence on the relationship between the teacher entry examination scores and external measures collected at a later point in teachers’ careers, used as criterion validity for interpretation of the soundness of the teacher entry examination. The evidence showed that the entry examination was able to predict teacher performance, with correlation coefficients ranging from .23 to .28 between the subject-matter test and the global performance evaluation score (the other two tests were not correlated or inadequately correlated). However, this finding must be explained carefully, since the convergent evidence between the subject-matter test and the exam instrument of evaluation are possibly due to the similarity in content and method of the two measures. In this regard, the lesson plan instrument offered better evidence of an adequate correlation (.22 to .29) with the teacher entry examination (the portfolio instrument of evaluation showed no significant correlation). Ordinary least squares (OLS) regressions showed that the teacher entry examination was one of the factors that best explained the variability in the global performance evaluation score, with 1% increase associated with a 3.8% increase in the global performance evaluation score (equivalent to 30 points). Grades were also found to be an explanatory factor, but half the size of the teacher entry examination effect. Previous teaching experience in public schools was associated with a negative effect of the same size as the entry examination effect, as well as staying in the same school during the first two years with an increase of 27 points. An adverse socioeconomic context was not necessarily unfavorable, as shown by the positive effect of the marginalization index on the performance evaluation, but teaching in lowly dense communities it was, with -42 to -92 points less. Finally, an innovative strategy estimated the teacher selection error rates, using as validity criteria success and failure measures of predicted teacher performance. The error and severe error rates may not be exact, but the best prediction models showed an underselection error rate of 7% for the global performance evaluation score, 8% for the lesson plan score, and 14% for the portfolio score, reflecting the probability of leaving out of the teaching career promising teachers. They also showed that the overselection error rate was 12% for the global performance evaluation score, 13% for the lesson plan score, and 14% for the portfolio score, describing the probability of selecting underperforming teachers, which was the worst of outcomes. In light of this evidence, the sample studied shows that results in Mexico’s teacher entry examination were associated with the subsequent performance evaluation. However, conceptually, a test can hardly predict teaching quality, since a test captures individuals’ knowledge, while teaching quality is a much richer concept, approximated by the concept of effective teaching and teacher effectiveness, and including observable and unobservable characteristics, and contributions to education outcomes other than learning outcomes. This means that the performance evaluation in Mexico was not necessarily a measure of effective teaching nor of effective teachers, but showed teachers’ pedagogical and subject-matter knowledge, abilities to build a lesson plan, and skills to assess and select student work from different achievement levels. The most obvious information missing was teachers’ practices, as captured through classroom observations. Despite the difficulty of a test to measure teaching quality, and the difficulties in implementing a nation-wide education reform, the study conducted produced rigorous, scientific, and objective evidence that demonstrates that Mexico’s teacher entry examination is a robust method to select teachers, providing useful information on teacher performance when making a hiring decision. The most important implication is that it may guarantee the selection of quality teachers, if some corrections are made, in order to avoid selecting underperforming teachers and leaving promising candidates out of the teaching career.