Framed in theories of pragmatism, self-efficacy, and ecology, this design-based research study attempted to make explicit connections between theory and field-based research. The pedagogical goal of this study was to expose in-service teachers to a scaffolded model of professional development for writing (IMSCI) that could be implemented in their own teaching. This model of professional development also served to place research participants in a professional learning community. Teachers worked in focus groups made of another teacher in their own discipline, and a collective focus group, and worked through the steps of the scaffolded model in consideration of their own writing instruction in an effort to increase their self-efficacy, while also experiencing a participatory approach to instruction that in turn improved their ability to enact this instruction in their own classrooms. The data, which included focus group interviews, blog posts by the teachers, and member checking, were analyzed using constant comparative methods. The analyses indicated that the majority of these content teachers had not experienced effective writing instruction models as students and did not learn how to teach writing in their preservice teaching programs. Additionally, their professional learning experiences as inservice teachers had not given them the tools they needed to overcome ecological factors that stopped them from teaching writing. Teachers' responses about their experience with the IMSCI model indicate that it has the potential to help teachers understand what effective writing instruction looks like, how to implement it in their own classrooms, and to increase their perceived self-efficacy as teachers of writing.

This study employed a mixed method research design to examine a teachers-teaching-teachers method of professional development for training secondary school teachers to use content area reading strategies and their perceptions of the effectiveness of these strategies. Teachers were trained by the researcher (who is also a teacher) to use three content area reading strategies: one before reading strategy (K-W-L), one during reading strategy (Student-Generated Questions), and one after reading strategy (Learning Logs). The findings revealed that teachers perceived content area reading strategies to be very effective for improving student comprehension. The Duke and Pearson (2002) model of comprehension instruction (and particularly the modeling portion of this framework) was found to be an effective way in which to teach both teachers and students how to use content area reading strategies. This study provides teachers with information they can use to learn more about content area reading strategies. It also provides information for administrators, reading clinicians, resource teachers, and professional development committees regarding effective methods of teacher training. / October 2007

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Delaware, 2009. / Principal faculty advisor: Sharon Walpole, School of Education. Includes bibliographical references.

Efficacy is created early in a career and not easily influenced over time yet states and school districts loose tremendous amounts of money annually educating and training teachers who elect to leave the profession as a result of low self-efficacy. The purpose of this study was to examine the perceived levels of self-efficacy of middle school Language Arts and reading teachers at various stages in their teaching careers in an attempt to inform the practices of teacher preparation. The Teacher Sense of Efficacy Scale along with a Teacher Demographic Survey was used to identify how preparation method, content area, and years of experience might relate to self-reported teacher self-efficacy scores. Findings suggest preparation method does play a significant role in self-efficacy of teachers specifically regarding classroom management. Content area of instruction did not reveal a significant difference among participants scores while years of experience did. Participants‘ self-efficacy increased as the total number of overall years teaching experience increased. Nevertheless, when focusing on the number of years at one location, this finding did not hold true. Teacher self-efficacy scores increased only until the 10 year and beyond mark then decreased. Demographic factors such as participant age, sex, ethnicity, and school location were not identified as predictive variables of a teachers‘ self-efficacy. Findings suggest school factors at the 6-8 grade levels may impact teacher efficacy scores. Implications and recommendations to schools districts and teacher preparation programs are offered.

English language learners (ELLs) are the fastest growing group of learners in U.S. schools. In recent years, much of this growth has occurred in parts of the U.S. with historically smaller immigrant populations. Secondary ELLs in particular are entering middle and high schools that are often underprepared and ill-equipped to meet these students’ academic and linguistic needs. In addition to learning social English, ELLs must also master the academic language and content necessary to succeed in their content-area classes. This report reviews current research on content-area instruction in math, science, and social studies for secondary ELLs. More specifically, within each content area, key findings are summarized from articles that address the following topics: the linguistic challenges of learning content for ELLs; the implementation of pedagogical approaches to teaching content to ELLs; and teachers’ challenges and needs. The report concludes with recommendations for pedagogy, practice, and professional development as well as suggestions for future research. / text

This dissertation is a case study that explores how 8th grade former English language learners, or RFEP students, interacted with texts in their social studies class across a unit of study on World War II. This study is based on three assertions: we have a limited understanding of language and literacy among newly reclassified adolescent English language learners due to a shift in state language policy, examining students' interactions with texts in a secondary content classroom is a valuable perspective, and the decisions teachers make to meet the perceived needs of their students warrants examination. The primary source of data in this study was the text annotations students completed when reading the teacher adapted texts. Annotations included any underlining, circling, questioning or commenting on the texts. Annotations were analyzed for patterns across students and across texts. Analysis of texts for linguistic features and structures was completed using the Coh-Metrix (Graesser, McNamara & Kulikowich, 2011) text analysis tool. Analysis of teacher talk during whole class text annotations as well as interviews with teachers and students showed additional patterns. Three key findings emerged: the teacher is a designer or relevant, meaningful and comprehensible instruction, teacher modeling matters to RFEP students, the adapted texts were used as instructional tools to promote content learning. These findings suggest directions for future research and have implications for practice. A critical area for research is the selection and adaptation of content area texts. With the advent of the Common Core State Standards and their emphasis on primary source documents and complex texts, it is essential to explore which texts are used and how they are adapted to facilitate access to those texts. This study also indicates the possibility for the further use of text annotations as a primary source of data for research and to facilitate instructional decisions by the teacher.

Adolescent literacy is currently viewed as in crisis. Moore (2002) argues that a focus on adolescent literate identity seems to be a key consideration when designing literacy instruction for secondary classrooms. This dissertation argues that in order for adolescents to develop a literate identity, their teachers should possess a literate identity.This phenomenological case study investigates the transformational paths nine developing teachers traversed as they "authored" their teacher literacy identity through a university content area literacy course, student teaching, and/or the induction period. "Authoring" includes both how the teachers represent their literacy identities in their writing and speaking, and how teachers do their literacy identities when enacting or performing (Moje, 2004) literacy instruction.Six instructional engagements completed by participants when they were students in a university content area literacy course comprise one data set. During student teaching and/or during their first or second year of teaching, three types of data were gathered: the Seidman (1998) three-interview series; a content area literacy lesson planning session; and an observation of each planned lesson. A phenomenological analysis (Merriam, 1998) guided the initial examination of the data. The data sets were analyzed using the constant comparative method (Bogdan & Biklen, 2007; Merriam, 1998).Teacher literacy identity is a previously unexplored construct. Based on a literature review and the voices of the participants, the following definition took shape: teacher literacy identity is a confident view of self as responsible for and in control of improving the literacy learning of self and the competency to enact engagements to guide the literacy learning of students. Teacher literacy identity consists of three transactional dimensions: the construct of literacy, the construct of literacy in practice, and the quality of the literacy enactment. Six major categories emerged to illustrate the phenomenon: identity, learning communities, personal agency, design of practice, literacy theories, and sources of dissonance.Implications of this exploration suggest that the investigation and documentation of developing teachers' literacy learning trajectories are worthy areas of further study. Moreover, a critical re-evaluation of teacher education and professional development in the support of teacher literacy identity deserves close attention.

This study employed a mixed method research design to examine a teachers-teaching-teachers method of professional development for training secondary school teachers to use content area reading strategies and their perceptions of the effectiveness of these strategies. Teachers were trained by the researcher (who is also a teacher) to use three content area reading strategies: one before reading strategy (K-W-L), one during reading strategy (Student-Generated Questions), and one after reading strategy (Learning Logs). The findings revealed that teachers perceived content area reading strategies to be very effective for improving student comprehension. The Duke and Pearson (2002) model of comprehension instruction (and particularly the modeling portion of this framework) was found to be an effective way in which to teach both teachers and students how to use content area reading strategies. This study provides teachers with information they can use to learn more about content area reading strategies. It also provides information for administrators, reading clinicians, resource teachers, and professional development committees regarding effective methods of teacher training.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of using graphic organizers during prereading, reading, and postreading positions of the comprehension and retention of Chinese sixth-grade students who were identified as below-average or above-average readers. Chinese sixth graders from one school were first administered The Michigan Chinese Reading Test to identify reading level. Subjects were then assigned to one of the four treatment groups: traditional Chinese social studies method, graphic preorganizers, graphic organizers as a reading guide, and graphic post organizers.Two practice passages were first used to familiarize the subjects with how graphic organizers were utilized in instruction before reading on experimental passage. The dependent measure, 45 multiple-choice questions based on the experimental passage, was administered twice: the next day after the instructional sessions were concluded and again seven days later.The principal analysis to test the three null hypotheses was a 2 x 4 x 2 ANOVA with repeated measures on the last factor corresponding to the two administrations of the test. Two follow-up analyses of variance (ANOVAs) were used to test for differences in treatment condition sepa-rately for above-average readers and below-average readers, using the average of the immediate and the seven-day delayed tests. One Scheffe test was applied to find the location of significant differences among the four treatment conditions for above-average readers. Finally, four follow-up t-tests were used to test for differences in reading level at each of the four treatment levels.Three conclusions were drawn from the statistical analyses of the data: 1) graphic organizers had a significant effect on comprehension and retention only when above-average readers were required to process the organizers during reading; 2) graphic organizers did not produce significantly better comprehension and recall performance of below-average readers; and 3) the effect of graphic organizers was equal to that of the traditional Chinese social studies method in maintaining comprehension and recall for both above-average readers and below-average readers over a one-week delay. / Department of Elementary Education

This study employed a mixed method research design to examine a teachers-teaching-teachers method of professional development for training secondary school teachers to use content area reading strategies and their perceptions of the effectiveness of these strategies. Teachers were trained by the researcher (who is also a teacher) to use three content area reading strategies: one before reading strategy (K-W-L), one during reading strategy (Student-Generated Questions), and one after reading strategy (Learning Logs). The findings revealed that teachers perceived content area reading strategies to be very effective for improving student comprehension. The Duke and Pearson (2002) model of comprehension instruction (and particularly the modeling portion of this framework) was found to be an effective way in which to teach both teachers and students how to use content area reading strategies. This study provides teachers with information they can use to learn more about content area reading strategies. It also provides information for administrators, reading clinicians, resource teachers, and professional development committees regarding effective methods of teacher training.