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Teachers are perceived by society and in law to be in a position of trust. As a result of the daily interaction with their students, educators have the opportunity to be influential and they are expected to behave in a responsible, ethical and moral manner. Being viewed as a moral compass of society is a significant responsibility and the implications of such a statement are substantial upon not only teachers but also impact on teacher education programs. This study investigates how educational law impacts on beginning teachers in light of the many legal and ethical boundaries that educators will experience throughout their career. The literature review discusses the delicate balance between an educator’s mission and the requirement to follow policies and procedures; documented court cases, which have an impact on educators; and, finally, the educational law component within the teacher education framework. Six participants were interviewed in this study of which two are teachers in their first three years of teaching, two recent graduates, a principal and an official with a teacher union who is a member from the Counseling department. All four of the teachers completed a two-year initial teacher education program. In addition, the principal is a member of the Partnership Advisory Council of the program. Maintaining the delicate balance between an educator’s mission and the law will continue to be a challenge. The direct and indirect statutory rules and regulations which impact on the education system and the supporting landmark court case decisions clearly bring to question the level of preparedness of teacher candidates and indicate a need to examine the role teacher education programs play in preparing future teachers. The major themes include the impact of educational law on the professional and personal lives of beginning teachers, the role of initial teacher education programs, and the legal enablers and barriers for educators. The key findings for each of the themes are discussed. Educators find themselves in a very complex role. The teacher education programs in Ontario need to examine the importance of including meaningful and insightful dialogue about the legal and ethical aspects of being a teacher.

This research study examines the status of mentoring programs for beginning teachers in Manitoba’s public school divisions. Based on reviewed literature, a distinction is made between formal and informal mentoring programs for beginning teachers. The study is a naturalistic inquiry using a semi-structured interview protocol. Twenty four of 38 school divisions in Manitoba participated in the study. Interviewees were asked if the school division had a formal mentoring program in place, the histories, goals and rationales of their formal mentoring programs, and the strengths and challenges of the mentoring programs. If the division did not have a formal mentoring program, they were asked to comment on the way they support beginning teachers and on rationales for not having a formal mentoring program. Based on the school divisions interviewed, the study found that the province was almost evenly split between divisions with formal mentoring programs and those not having formal programs. However, formal programs were more prevalent in urban areas than in rural and northern areas. Mentoring was recognized as a strong support for beginning teachers providing benefits to the beginning teacher, the mentor and the school division. Programs varied greatly from division to division with little or no communication or collaboration between divisions to develop a common program as is done in some other Canadian provinces. The challenges for school divisions to offer formal mentoring programs included time, money, and geography. The study offers five recommendations to support beginning teachers. / May 2017

Master of Agribusiness / Department of Agricultural Economics / Terry Griffin / Rosburg Farms is a crop farm in Northwest Iowa that specializes in corn and soybean production. The oldest farm operator, Richard was looking ahead to retirement while the next generation, Brian has been working to identify an entry strategy into the operation as a beginning farmer. The purpose of this research was to identify and evaluate candidate alternatives that Brian could bring to Rosburg Farms and to understand if the operation was at a point where Brian was needed as full time labor. Three candidate scenarios including renting additional crop acreage, building a hog facility, and building a poultry layer house were evaluated via SWOT analyses. The SWOT analysis results indicated that renting additional crop acres was the best candidate alternative for the farming operation. To understand how adding the additional acreage to crop production affects the timeliness of the operation and to identify binding resources a whole-farm linear programming planning model was parameterized. Parameters included available labor, machinery, days suitable for field work, crop rotations and available acreage. Production enterprise budgets for corn and soybean production and a projected cash flow were developed to understand if this acreage expansion would be profitable for the multi-family farming operation. The results of the planning model indicated that the field work operations would be completed with the available labor, machinery, and days suitable for fieldwork. The production budgets and cash flow results indicated that Rosburg Farms would remain profitable once farm size was expanded with additional rented acreage. Considering Brian employed off the farm, it was not necessary for him to quit his job to farm full time at this point. Future analysis should be used to understand at what farm size are needed to justify Brian leaving his off-farm employment to farm full time. These results are applicable beyond the Rosburg farm and are of interest to beginning farmers, farms anticipating transition to next generation, and professional specializing in succession planning.

The purpose of this study is to investigate how beginning teachers' personal teacher efficacy (the abbreviation PTE for personal teacher efficacy) and the organizational health of school (the abbreviation OHI for the organizational health of school) influence teachers' professional identity (the abbreviation PI for professional identity). The participants were 125 middle school teachers from China. They completed online surveys that measured these three variables and some demographics such as gender, salary and school size. The results revealed that there were significant correlations between the OHI and PI, PTE and PI, and OHI and PTE. Except for gender and salary, there was no statistically significant difference in PI between groups of different school size, educational background, type of teaching job, and years of teaching experience. The findings also indicated that OHI mediated the relationship between PTE and PI. Furthermore, a multiple linear regression model was used to predict teachers' PI based on OHI, PTE, and gender. Finally, a statistically significant difference was found on role values (subscale of teachers' professional identity) between tension group (high PTE while low OHI or low PTE while high OHI) and non-tension group (PTE and OHI are at the same level). These findings depict the interactions between PTE and OHI and its influence on PI of Chinese middle school's beginning teachers. The researcher also proposes the next question for further research and makes some practical suggestions for educational policy makers, schools, and individual teachers to improve their PI.

This study was to ascertain what relationship exists between the semester grades earned by students enrolled in the beginning drafting course at North Texas State University and the number of years of mechanical drawing that the student had in high school.

The object of this study was to compile a list of solo literature for beginning college voice students and analyze these solos for pedagogical and performance purposes. There is no lack of printed material on the subjects of singing and voice culture. But it is not readily accessible to teachers since it is extremely diversified and rather diffusely distributed throughout a variety of sources, such as books, periodicals, and scientific papers. Several lists and books containing songs for beginners have been compiled.

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston University / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / 2031-01-01