Teacher retention is a growing problem in the 21st century. Many veterans teachers are reaching retirement age and there are increasing numbers of new teachers entering school systems. School administrators across the state of Tennessee realize that there is a significant number of beginning teachers who are leaving the teaching profession within the first 3 to 5 years of their teaching careers. Beginning teachers are being surveyed to determine why many leave the profession. After gathering input from beginning teachers across Tennessee, school officials began to develop teacher mentoring programs designed to retain beginning teachers. The purpose of this quantitative study is to evaluate the effectiveness of the Knox County Schools system's teacher mentoring program, New Teacher Induction (NTI), for beginning teachers. The participants in this study were novice teachers (with 1 to 3 years of teaching experience). Two hundred novice teachers were invited to participate. Thirty-eight (19%) participants responded to the first survey. Efforts were made to increase the response rate through reminder emails. Reminders emails were sent 3 times. Hard copies of the participant letter and survey instrument were mailed to the novice teacher group during the 2nd data collection to increase the participant responses. Thirty-one responses were collected during the second data collection. Sixty-nine (34%) teachers participated in this study. Findings of the study are congruent with the literature in terms of perceptions of beginning teachers regarding the effectiveness of their mentoring experience and recommendations for enhancing mentoring programs. Most of the novice teachers indicated that their mentoring experience was successful. Many of the novice teachers also said that they attribute their decision to return to their school the following year to their successful mentoring experience.

Teachers, especially beginning teachers, continue a trend of leaving the profession at alarming rates within the first 5 years resulting in excessive costs to school systems and diminished instructional quality. Some programs, however, have shown impressive results. The purpose of this qualitative study, using an emerging interview process, was to examine the perceptions of beginning teachers in their 1st or 2nd year and those of veteran 3- to 5-year teachers regarding the effectiveness of mentoring and other guidance they received as beginning teachers in a secondary school and to understand their vision of how mentoring should be structured for beginning teachers. Specifically, the study addressed satisfaction with 1st year experiences specially designed to support the personal and professional well-being of beginning teachers. The study included 8 beginning teachers, 7 of whom had received mentoring in their first year of teaching and 1 who had received no mentoring and 13 veteran teachers, 7 of whom had received mentoring in their first year of teaching and 6 who had received no mentoring. The study was conducted in a secondary school in rural East Tennessee. Findings of the study are congruent with the literature in terms of perceptions of both beginning and veteran teachers regarding effectiveness of their mentoring experiences and recommendations for enhancing mentoring programs. Most beginning and veteran teachers indicated that mentoring could be helpful given certain conditions such as motivational support, encouraging communication, routine guidance in day-to-day school operations and mentor/mentee compatibility. Some said they felt that their own mentoring experiences actually helped them to remain in the profession. However, obstacles to effective mentoring such as lack of adequate time, lack of physical mentor/mentee proximity, lack of mentor interest in the process, and lack of mentoring skills were identified. Recommendations of beginning and veteran teachers for enhancing mentoring program effectiveness include using only those teachers who have a real interest in mentoring, matching mentor/mentee personalities for compatibility, creating clear guidelines and providing dedicated time for mentoring, logistically arranging mentors/mentees in close proximity, and providing appropriate mentor/mentee training.

Music educators admit that there is a great need for research in the field o public school music. Instrumental class teaching has suffered the trial and error method since its introduction into the schools. There is still an appalling lack of material on the subject. The two or three books published on instrumental class teaching are from twelve to seventeen years old. The Reader's Guide lists only nine magazine articles in the past ten years concerning the class teaching of string instruments. Yet, the successful teaching of instrumental classes requires a high type of organization and a specialized teaching technique. It is not only necessary for the teacher to be a good musician, but he must have a knowledge of proper classroom methods and apply it. The purpose of this study is to analyze and evolve from six recognized beginning string methods a course of study suitable for use in training a beginning string section.

Diverse mentoring models have been implemented by educational organizations to address teacher retention, but debate continues over which mentoring model is most beneficial. Two school districts in Utah, USA, hereafter referred to as the Asher and Dane (pseudonyms) School Districts, provide distinct approaches to mentoring. Both the Asher and Dane School District have used veteran teachers with full-time teaching loads to mentor beginning teachers. The Dane School District, however, has recently implemented a unique and distinct mentoring model in addition to in-school mentors. In this model, full-time released teacher "coaches" with specialized mentoring responsibilities are assigned by the district to mentor several beginning elementary teachers in one grade band (K-3 or 4-6) throughout the district. This longitudinal research studied the Asher and Dane School Districts' mentoring models to develop a grounded theory to explain how these two distinct mentoring models were related to beginning teacher retention rates. A stratified, random sample was utilized, resulting in 23 participants selected for this study. Interview data were gathered from each participant during their first year of teaching, as well as follow-up survey and interview data in their third year. Beginning teacher attrition data were gathered from both the Asher and Dane School Districts. A constant comparative qualitative analysis method, using NVivo software, facilitated the development of the grounded theory. Findings describe and explain the sources and types of support that beginning teachers in these two distinct mentoring models found most beneficial in their induction, development and retention during their first three years. Beginning teachers reported that key mentoring characteristics included a mentor that had experience and knowledge, particularly in their same grade level, as well as a personal relationship with someone who was open to listening to them and who empowered others. Overall, collaborative teams and in-school mentors were a great source of support for beginning teachers, and teacher retention occurred most often when beginning teachers felt supported by their principals. Beginning teachers also experienced a decrease in stress and increase in both autonomy and confidence with time or years of teaching, experience, and support. Findings suggested that district coaches in the Dane School District lacked proximity, personal relationship, and knowledge of the grade being taught by those they mentored. As a result, they lacked the ability to help induct beginning teachers into their school culture and develop informal networks in the school and ensure retention.

This self-study explores my experience as a beginning reading teacher over a span of more than 30 years. It includes a brief look at theoretical models of reading and philosophical movements that impacted my experience as a classroom teacher and then lays my classroom experience and practice against the literature and historical background related to beginning reading instruction. The question studied is "How did the district-mandated curriculum in each era shape me as a literacy teacher and literacy instruction in my school context?" The purpose of the study is to unearth the impact of educational policies on my classroom practice. The methodology of self-study was employed to explore the tensions brought about as changes occurred. The study focuses on seven areas of educational change that influenced my practice in beginning reading instruction over three eras, the first being the late 1970s, the second the late 1990s, and the third beginning about 2008. The areas discussed include embedded beliefs about student achievement, mechanisms driving instruction, instructional approaches employed, reading program characteristics, assessment, professional development, and collaboration. All three eras contained experiences of personal and professional growth. In the first era, autonomy was a characteristic of almost every theme. The second era was characterized by the purposeful focus on professional development and support of student growth. The third era featured an increase in assessment and oversight of the mandated program implementation. Teacher capacity built in the second era enhanced my use of the commercial reading program mandated in the third era. While my current context seems similar to the first era, because of the richness of my experience, I am not right back where I started.

The United States Department of Education predicts that the nation will need more than one million new teachers by the year 2010 (U.S.DOE, 1996). At the same time, 43% of teachers leave the profession within their first five years of employment. Southwest Florida is experiencing a tremendous growth rate. This growth rate pattern has been predicted to continue through the year 2010. The school districts of Southwest Florida find themselves scrambling to build new schools in order to keep pace with the growth. These new schools must be staffed with qualified teachers. The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 coupled with the Class Size Reduction Amendment IX, has also increased the demand for qualified teachers. A child's teacher, next to the family, is the single most influential entity in their educational experience. A competent, caring, qualified teacher will make a lifelong impact on both the learning and development of a child. The purpose of this study was to determine the factors that caused dissatisfaction for beginning teachers, and to determine if there was a relationship to attrition. A total of 99 full-time Southwest Florida teachers participated in this study. The number of teachers from Charlotte County was 20, the number of teachers from Hendry County was 17, and the number of teachers from Lee County was 62. Data regarding dissatisfaction factors were analyzed to determine if a significant difference was observable between the three counties. In addition, the study addressed the racial and gender variables between counties as it related to dissatisfaction factors. A two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to compare the dissatisfaction factors between the races and counties. Analysis of the data suggested that there was no significant difference between race and county for any of the six factors. A two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was also used to compare the dissatisfaction factors between the gender and counties. Analysis of the data suggested that there was no significant difference between gender and county for five of the factors but there was a significant difference observed in factor 3, Safe Equipment, for gender. The results of this study indicate that there are distinct factors that cause dissatisfaction for beginning teachers. The results presented in the current study offer implications that although a single factor cannot be directly linked to teacher attrition, it does suggest that a combination of factors may lead to attrition. This data can inform educators that supervise beginning teachers of areas of concern. Decreasing the number of dissatisfaction factors can increase the probability that beginning teachers will not leave the profession within their first five years of employment.

Mentoring was a component of the Resident Teacher Professional Preparation Program (RTP3), a Race to the Top (RTTT) program funded project. RTTT funded efforts reward states that have demonstrated success in raising student achievement and have the best plans to accelerate learning in the future (U.S. Department of Education, 2014). Five Florida school districts implemented different variations of the RTP3 mentor model and due to the unique needs of each school district, context differences in effectiveness may have emerged. The purpose of the study was to determine the differences among the five mentor models, the extent to which these differences may relate to variances in mentoring effectiveness, and the impact on persistence of the resident teachers in teaching. School district designee interviews were conducted and mentor and resident teacher surveys were administered. Interview and survey data were analyzed using the grounded theory approach (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) and open coding (Strauss & Corbin, 1990) to determine mentor and resident teacher perceptions of the effectiveness of the RTP3 mentoring support. The findings of the research suggest that the decisions of the five partner school districts to add additional targeted supports to their mentor models had an impact on increased persistence rates and decreased rates of resident teachers leaving the field of teaching. The majority of mentors perceived that common professional learning increased their capacity as a mentor to a moderate or large degree. The findings suggest that resident teachers who had school-based mentors perceived that their mentors were somewhat to very influential in assisting them in being more effective teachers. There were limitations to this study. Five school districts in the state of Florida were used in the study, and the sample of survey and interview participants were limited. Therefore results may not be able to be generalized to other school districts in Florida or other states. Additionally, the objectivity of survey and interview participants may be questioned because the participants were employees of the school district. However, it was assumed that participant's responses to the survey and interview questions were candid. Further research is recommended that would examine variations in school district mentor preparation and selection processes. Further recommendations would include evaluating different mentor models within the same context to better examine the impact of specific components of mentoring programs and considering the effectiveness of the mentee based on not only mentee perception of increased effectiveness, but effectiveness as determined by the school district-adopted evaluation system. Another avenue for future research to broaden and support the findings in this study would be to access whether effective mentoring models differ depending on the context and based on the needs and experiences of the beginning teachers. ?

On championing the villain, there is a naive quality that must be maintained even though the actor has rehearsed his tragic ending several times. There is a subtle difference between to charm and to seduce. The need for fame, glory, power, money, or other objects of affection drives antagonists so blindly that they ve no hope of regaining a consciousness about their actions. If and when they do become aware, they infrequently feel remorse. I captured the essence of the villain by exposing these lightless characters to the sun. On Monday, April 9th and Tuesday, April 17th, 2007, on the Gillespie stage in Daytona Beach, Florida, I performed a thirty-minute, one-act cabaret entitled The Dark Side of the Tune. By selecting pieces from the musical theatre genre to define and demonstrate the qualities of the stock character, the villain, I created a one-man show; a musical play, including an inciting incident, rising conflict, climax, and denouement, with only a few moments of my own dialogue to help handle the unique transitions for my own particular story. By analyzing the arc of major historical villains and comparing them to some of the current dark characters, I will discuss the progression of the villain s role within a production and the change from the clearly defined villain to modern misfits who are frequently far less scheming or obvious. My research includes analysis of the dark references within each piece s originating production, and how it has been integrated into the script for The Dark Side of the Tune and a breakdown of my cabaret s script (Appendix A). I explore actors tools, specifically voice, movement, and characterization, and their use in creating villainous characters. I also discuss similarities in story progression for the deviant s beginning, middle, and final positions within the plot structure of a production.

In recent years, a significant surge has occurred in the amount of children who are being diagnosed with a disorder on the autism spectrum. Current statistics from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (2011) show that 1 in 110 children in the United States have an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and that the diagnosis of such is estimated to grow prodigiously due to a variety of different aspects, such as an ever-increasing broadening definition of autism, an inclusion of autism as a disability category under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 1990, improved diagnostic methods, and some other unknown factors (In Nickel's work as cited by Nickels in 2010). Also, because a lack of or weakness in communication skills is a common characteristic for students who have an ASD, receiving early intervention to increase communication is imperative for this population. In consideration of this premise, this study looks at whether using a blended, balanced mode of reading instruction, the Language Experience Approach (Stauffer, 1970; Van Allen, 1970) and the work of Patricia Oelwein (1995), through written means can improve oral language fluency output and syntactical structure concurrently for a student who has suffered from many of the symptoms of ASD, but has not been clinically diagnosed. Along with the collection of qualitative data aggregated throughout this study through observational means, quantitative data was also collected before, during, and after the intervention to measure the effects on the subject. Quantitative data was obtained from a Letter-Identification Assessment (Clay 2005), the QRI-5 (Leslie & Caldwell, 2011), the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (Dunn & Dunn, 1997) , and Mean Length of Utterance (MLU).; Results obtained from this study showed that the interventions had a positive effect on the subject in terms of listening, speaking, reading, and writing where the fluency and complexity of the subject's speech patterns and ability to read and write improved over the course of the intervention period.

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