Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2003. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 109-113).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2002. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Available also from UMI Company.

Thesis (M. Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 88-94).

Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on Feb 17, 2010). The entire thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file; a non-technical public abstract appears in the public.pdf file. Dissertation advisor: Dr. Jay Scribner. Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin -- La Crosse, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 34-37).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hong Kong, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 320-344).

Thesis (Ed. D.)--Lehigh University, 2003. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 200-222).

<p> As student learners become exposed to more technology, they drive change in their learning environments. The United States Department of Education and Georgia Department of Education responded with national and state technology plans to better support the Digital Natives of this century. Local school districts and schools equipped educators in this study through portable and mobile tablet/laptop carts, student response devices, data/video projectors, and/or interactive TVs/white boards. In this multisited, multiple case study, three middle grades English/Language Arts educators honored connections between content, pedagogy, and technology. Through narrative vignettes, within-case and cross-case analysis of data, and interpretation and implications of findings, the researcher described how technology-based learning impacts the learning environment of student learners and their educators in middle grades English/Language Arts instruction and how those experiences impact learner autonomy. The researcher desired the findings to be of value to educators and others whose decisions regarding professional development, instructional practices, and instructional resources influence the learning experiences for educators and their student learners.</p>

<p> Internet Memes transverse and sometimes transcend cyberspace on the back of impossibly cute LOLcats speaking mangled English and the snarky remarks of Image Macro characters always on the lookout for someone to undermine. No longer the abstract notion of a cultural gene that Dawkins (2006) introduced in the late 1970s, memes have now become synonymous with a particular brand of vernacular language that internet users engage by posting, sharing and remixing digital content as they communicate jokes, emotions and opinions. </p><p> For the purpose of this research the language of Internet Memes is understood as visual, succinct and capable of inviting active engagement by users who encounter digital content online that exhibits said characteristics. Internet Memes were explored through an Arts-Based Educational Research framework by first identifying the conventions that shape them and then interrogating these conventions during two distinct research phases. <?Pub _newline>In the first phase the researcher, as a doctoral student in art and visual culture education, engaged class readings and assignments by generating digital content that not only responded to the academic topics at hand but did so through forms associated with Internet Memes like Image Macros and Animated GIFs. In the second phase the researcher became a meme literacy facilitator as learners in three different age-groups were led in the reading, writing and remixing of memes during a month-long summer art camp where they were also exposed to other art-making processes such as illustration, acting and sculpture. Each group of learners engaged age-appropriate meme types: 1) the youngest group, 6 and 7 year-olds, wrote Emoji Stories and Separated at Birth memes; 2) the middle group, 8-10 year-olds, worked with Image Macros and Perception memes, 3) while the oldest group, 11-13 year-olds, generated Image Macros and Animated GIFs. </p><p> The digital content emerging from both research phases was collected as data and analyzed through a hybrid of Memetics, Actor-Network Theory, Object Oriented Ontology, Remix Theory and Glitch Studies as the researcher shifted shapes yet again and became a Research Jockey sampling freely from each field of study. A case is made for Internet Memes to be understood as an actor-network where meme collectives, individual cybernauts, software and source material are all actants interrelating and making each other enact collective agencies through shared authorships. Additionally specific educational contexts are identified where the language of Internet Memes can serve to incorporate technology, storytelling, visual thinking and remix practices into art and visual culture education. </p><p> Finally, the document reporting on the research expands on the hermeneutics of Internet Memes and the phenomenological experiences they elicit that are otherwise absent from traditional scholarly prose. Chapter by chapter the dissertation was crafted as a journey from the academic to the whimsical, from the lecture hall to the image board (where Internet Memes were born), from the written word to the remixed image as a visual language that is equal parts form and content that emerges and culminates in a concluding chapter composed almost entirely of popular Internet Meme types. </p><p> An online component can be found at http://memeducation.org/</p>

This report gives an in-depth study of the relationship between effective school leadership and teacher retention. It reviews existing literature that establishes the connection between effective school leadership and lower rates of teacher turnover. The report then attempts to find the relationship among effective school leadership, teacher retention, and student achievement in New York City middle schools. The report also highlights the important processes and strategies that the New York City Department of Education employs in an effort to increase teacher retention. A closer look at The New Teacher Project’s 2012 Report, “The Irreplaceables,” redirects the report to recommend retention efforts that focus on retaining the city’s highest-performing teachers instead of using “blind” retention strategies. In the end, the report summarizes the political climate in New York City between the teachers’ union and the district and recommends four strategies that keep this relationship in mind. / text