<p> Motivation is an important topic of concern for teachers. A review of motivation research, though, revealed that students have been the focus of motivation research. When teachers have been included in studies, researchers have asked teachers to evaluate specific students, compared teacher and student perception of the same phenomena, or asked teachers to respond to their own <i>a priori</i> frameworks. Research on lay theories and teacher beliefs also yielded ideas important for this study. The purpose of this study was to explore teacher thinking about student motivation among middle school teachers. </p><p> I designed a multi-method qualitative study to investigate teacher thinking about student motivation at the middle school level. In the first phase, I distributed a five-item, open-ended written questionnaire to teachers in two middle schools. The second phase of the study was a multiple case study of four teachers. Through interview and observation, I investigated each teacher's lay theory of motivation. Constant comparative analysis and a coding framework grounded in motivation research were used to analyze data. </p><p> Teachers, I found, tend to define motivation in terms of expectancy. At the same time, they also tend to prioritize belonging over value and expectancy. These findings show that teachers, as a group, consider each domain to be important, and they understand the domains to interact and influence each other. Implications for teacher education, policy, and future research are discussed.</p>

<p> Sexual minority students are targets of bullying and experience negative mental health and academic outcomes. Although teachers report positive attitudes towards the needs of sexual minority students, they do not feel prepared to effectively support such students. This study investigated the current ways in which teacher education programs integrate the topic of GLBT needs into the educational experience of pre-service teachers and factors that may affect the integration of the topic. Twenty directors of teacher education programs participated in phone interviews. Some information was also collected from institution and federal websites. </p><p> The results indicate that approximately half of teacher preparation programs expect pre-service teachers to develop GLBT related competencies prior to graduating, although very few assess these competencies. Pre-service teachers are most likely to learn about GLBT issues as they relate to family structures, bullying, and literature in a variety of education related courses. Hands-on experiences are limited, with few programs reporting a presence of GLBT faculty or students, few experiences with GLBT issues in the field, and few opportunities to engage in research on GLBT related topics. The results indicate no significant difference in the interview answers by institution type or program accrediting body. The institution's Carnegie Classification, student population, percent of the institution's students enrolled in the education program, and percent of ethnic minority students and faculty in the program were found to have relationships with factors extracted from the questionnaire. The results and implications for teacher education practices are discussed.</p>

<p>This study examines the perceptions expert teachers have about the ways the culture and the context of their schools influence their definition of expertise and their enactment of expert teaching. The teachers, nominated as expert by their respective school principals, teach in the same city, but in three schools with distinctly different contexts and cultures. The underlying assumption of this study is that expertise in teaching, in different school contexts and cultures, may present itself in distinct and particular ways. </p><p> The teachers are examined through case studies constructed with the use of interviews, observations, and school documents. Each teacher articulates qualities of expertise, which fall into three distinct categories. They describe personal attributes, perspectives on teaching and specific classroom practices. </p><p> The teachers were adept at acknowledging factors in their school culture and context that influenced their teaching and were aware of the organizational structures of their schools and the impact that brings to bear on their practice. They define qualities of expertise in their teaching practice that are more similar than different, yet their core educational beliefs and philosophies differ one from the other in substantial ways as does their teaching practice. Each believes that expert teaching practice requires distinctive teaching that best meets the needs of their very distinct populations of students. </p><p> One of the main implications of this study is that it may be easier to get teachers to generate characteristics of an expert teacher, but far more complex to explore a teacher&rsquo;s personal vision and qualify a teacher&rsquo;s commitment and motivation, which appear to be the true distinguishing characteristics of each of these teachers. These complex processes may need to be more thoroughly addressed in teacher education, school reform and educational research to gain a better picture of what comprises expert teacher practice. </p>

English has become the default language of global communication, and users around the world are adapting the traditional standards of grammar and interaction. It is imperative that teachers of English keep pace with these changing conceptualizations of the language as well as the changing expectations of its users so that they can best prepare language learners for the sociolinguistic realities they will encounter. Teacher training programs have a critical role to play in that they must keep pace with both the changing global linguistic landscape and how these changes influence pre-service teachers. It is therefore imperative to understand the attitudes of pre-service teachers towards the varieties of English that their students will encounter. This study considers the attitudes of pre-service TESOL teachers towards varieties of native and non-native English as used in naturalistic communicative situations. It considers personal factors that may play a role in how participants evaluate the interactive speech samples and whether TESOL training programs influence the development of attitudes towards language-in-use. To this end, a mixed methods design involving three primary components was used: an online survey of 70 respondents from 26 institutions, four focus group interviews, and a curriculum analysis of five teacher training programs. This study is unique in that participants evaluate speech-in-action that is representative of the types of language found in many English as a lingua franca (ELF) settings. Among other things, primary results suggest that (a) standard language ideology influences many participant assessments of both native and non-native speech, (b) teacher training programs exert at least some influence on the attitudes of pre-service teachers towards varieties of spoken English in discourse, and (c) engagement with non-native speech in teacher preparation courses and language learning as a component of a curriculum can benefit pre-service teachers. Implications for applied linguistics, teacher training, and ELF are considered

<p> The purpose of this study was to gain an understanding of six state-wide policies and procedures used in the family assessment process within early intervention services. This study looked at the administrative understanding of the family assessment federal regulations, state policies and procedures, and local implementation from the perspective of the Part C coordinator in his or her state. </p><p> This qualitative study utilized methodologies associated with a grounded theory approach through in-depth interviews. The participants in this study included six state Part C coordinators. Based on the findings of this study, two broad conclusions are offered: 1. There was a lack of specific policies and procedures regarding family assessment, which made family assessment difficult to implement with fidelity across a state system. 2. There was a lack of specific training around performance competencies of family assessment, which lead to a reliance on a state's family-centered philosophy and the IFSP process. </p><p> Recommendations were made for early interventionists, Part C coordinators, and researchers in the area of family assessment.</p>

<p> In the last 5 years, industries have begun to recognize a growing gap in the production of college graduates in areas of STEM. Researchers in various industries believe this gap will create a significant loss of competitive edge in the STEM fields, which will leave the United States pursuing STEM graduates from foreign countries and may ultimately leave the US behind in the industry of science, technology and innovation. This qualitative study analyzes the value and impact of STEM teacher leaders in secondary education. A phenomenological study was conducted with 10 secondary school science and math teacher leaders in order to gain a better understanding of teacher leaders' perceptions, classroom practices and the role of a STEM teacher leader. This study addresses the following research questions: 1) What attributes define effective STEM teacher leaders, according to teacher leaders who have completed the Center for Math and Science Teaching system? 2) What success strategies, among teacher leaders of the Center for Math and Science Teaching program, have enabled further development of teacher leadership? 3) What is the best model in developing teacher leaders, according to literature from 2005 to present? 4) What is an optimal model of developing STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) teacher leaders within secondary education? This research aims to explore teacher leaders' perceptions of their role as a teacher leader based on strategies learned from CMAST and past experiences. Findings from this study provide critical data for making informed decisions on including important elements when implementing an effective STEM teacher leader system or program, and the impact it can create on science and math teaching and learning in secondary education. The investigator concludes this study with the development of a STEM teacher leader model that merges these findings with existing research.</p>

<p>The authors investigated the extent to which the amount of training in Response to Intervention (RtI) impacts staff members' perceptions of RtI, how staff members' perceptions of RtI relate to their fidelity of implementation, and to what degree staff members' involvement in training influences their fidelity of implementation. A convenience sampling of thirty-eight staff members in Middle Tennessee was surveyed using a questionnaire and interview. Participants in the study worked in elementary and middle schools within a large urban district lacking a well-defined RtI program and a smaller district with a well-defined program. The quantitative analysis revealed that there is no statistically significant relationship between training and teachers' perceptions of RtI. There is a statistically significant relationship between teachers' perceptions and fidelity of implementation as well as the amount of training they receive and fidelity of implementation. The strongest relationship found was between teachers' perceptions of RtI and their fidelity of implementation of RtI. The qualitative analysis revealed that staff member perceptions concerning RtI effectiveness and individual comfort in implementation abilities are motivated by accountability, time, procedures, and training. The chief recommendations the researchers made to the Tennessee Department of Education are to focus on improving perceptions of RtI and provide adequate training through adding evidence-based intervention suggestions to the state manual, determine how to unite pre-service training for RtI across the state, and create a hierarchy map of new personnel including a state-level RtI coordinator, regional coordinators, state auditors, district-level coaches, and site coaches.

<p>In a rapidly changing society, education must make adjustments and keep learning focused on the needs of students by providing increased opportunities for success. Classrooms are filled with students of different cultural backgrounds which makes education a challenge to every building leader and teacher. The challenges are how to design instruction and implement it to meet the academic and social needs of all learners. Understanding different lifestyles, languages, word context, body language, traditions, and dress present opportunities for educators to expand their cultural knowledge and create learning objectives for students which ultimately affect student achievement in the educational environment. </p><p> The focus of this study was to determine the characteristics of a successful, diverse school and the training needed for staff to support students and the district. To give educational stakeholders more insight into what characteristics are need to create a culturally proficient environment that creates learning opportunities for children, data was collected, analyzed and coded. The coding revealed eight axial codes and from there four main theories emerged: (a) leadership, (2) instructional model, (3) environment that supports diversity and, (4) parent and community involvement. </p>

<p>ABSTRACT Autism is a complex brain-based developmental disability with unknown etiology. It involves disturbances or delays in communication, social interaction, and play, as well as behavioral abnormalities including; obsessive, ritualistic, rigid, and/or stereotyped behavior. The disorder affects 1 in 68 individuals nationwide. Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) is recognized by the medical community as the best practice approach to treating autism. Early, intensive, ABA treatment has been attributed to the widespread opinion that autism is now a treatable condition. The effectiveness of ABA, combined with the increasing incidence of autism, has resulted in a high demand for well-trained professionals who are able to effectively work with individuals with this diagnosis. Training programs are not producing ABA trained personnel at a rate that can meet the demand for services. Given the efficiencies which may be realized with online instruction, this study examined a blended approach to training staff by combining online professional training modules with classroom and field based instruction. The purpose of this quantitative study was to evaluate the efficacy of online instruction in ABA training models. A repeated measures design with the use of a control group was used to evaluate online instruction and compare its efficacy to that of live lecture or classroom based instruction. Results revealed a statistically significant difference in the level of training content learned and retained between the online group and the live lecture group. These results seem to suggest that something other than chance resulted in the online group scoring significantly higher than members in the live lecture group and that the online mode of instruction may have some merits that can be of value to address the demand for highly trained professionals to work in the autism field.

<p> The purpose of the current study was to discern what differentiated administrative supports teachers perceived they needed to continue pursuing their teaching careers based on the problem of high teacher attrition confounding educational leadership. The population receiving the survey was all of the 21,174 public school teachers working in a highly populated county in Texas. This cross section of teachers included teachers of both genders and of all of the racial groups from K-12 public schools defined as urban, suburban, and rural. The number of survey responses included in the analysis was 809. When scoring the perceptions of administrative supports the majority of the teachers answered affirmatively that the supports were important. The highest support item score as agree or strongly agree was 99.75% for discipline, while the lowest item score as agree or strongly agree was 84.17% for technology. The mean, or average, administrative supports scale score for all 10 items of the 809 completed surveys was 4.54 out of a possible 5.0, with a standard deviation of .400. For the hypotheses, no significant differences in administrative supports scale scores were found when the questions were analyzed by experience level, type of preparatory training, teachers' age, race, or principal tenure at campus. Statistical differences were found by gender, level of education, and type of school. Male teachers showed less need for administrative supports than their female counterparts. For teachers' highest level of educational attainment, master's degreed teachers perceived support to be more important than their bachelor degreed peers. High school and early childhood teachers both showed a higher need for support, with early childhood teachers demonstrating a slightly higher need for administrative support than their high school counterparts. </p>