Measures that assess the quality of early childcare environments are not only useful to researchers investigating the link between quality and child outcomes but are also useful to policy makers that use such measures to determine funding systems for childcare programs. This project involved examining the most widely-used instrument designed to evaluate the quality of early learning environments, the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale-Revised Edition (ECERS-R). The ECERS-R has often been used in studies that focus on the impact of early educational quality on childrens development. Before an instrument can be used in such research, it is important that the measure be psychometrically sound. In addition to the ECERS-R use in research, several states use the ECERS-R as part of their quality rating system to determine which programs are to receive government funding. The policy arena, as well, should be concerned that measures put to such use not only have good psychometric properties but also include items that are thought to be important for quality. Using secondary data sets and surveys of field experts, this study sought to answer four main questions. First, the study compared the different scoring methods possible for the ECERS-R and applied them to the same data to determine their influence on the final quality ratings a classroom receives. Second, the study examined how the ECERS-R reflects the views in the field currently about what aspects of a classroom contribute to quality. Third, the psychometric properties of the ECERS-R and an alternate version of the instrument based on expert opinion were examined. Fourth, this study sought to examine how altering the content of the ECERS-R based on expert opinion might influence a classrooms scores and be important for policy decisions. Results indicated that the ECERS-R scores are generally unaffected by the scoring method used, and the instrument has fairly sound psychometric properties. However, serious concerns were explored about the content of the instrument; recommendations for a different way of thinking about measuring quality were proffered.

TEACHING AND LEARNING PRESCHOOL BOOK READING: TEACHER, CHILD, AND TEXT CONTRIBUTIONS TO VOCABULARY GROWTH BETSY G. WATSON Dissertation under the direction of Professor Dale Farran Vocabulary is one area of language growth that receives attention in many preschool programs. Teachers read books to children in whole group settings and use that context to provide support for word meaning through their reading of and talk about the text. Growing attention is given in preschool literacy curricula, guidance from teacher practitioner journals, and professional development about how vocabulary should be supported during book reading. This project involved examining the influence of teacher, child, and text contributions to vocabulary learning during whole group book reading of fiction and nonfiction texts. Using videotapes of seven teachers reading four fiction and four nonfiction texts, ratings of child involvement during whole group book reading, and teacher interview and book reading frequency data, this study sought to answer three main questions. The first question related to examining how the naturally occurring variation in the rate of teachers vocabulary facilitation during book reading is linked to growth in childrens vocabulary outcomes. The second question focused on the influence of childrens involvement during book reading on vocabulary growth. The final question involved the effect of genre on the rate of teachers vocabulary facilitation during book reading. Book-specific and distal standardized vocabulary measures were used as outcomes. Results indicated that relatively higher rates of teachers vocabulary talk during whole group book reading negatively influenced childrens distal word learning gains and had no effect on target learning gains. Also, results were negative for the influence of child involvement on word learning. The effect of genre was that teachers used a higher rate of vocabulary talk during nonfiction reading, but frequency of nonfiction reading was not related to word learning gains. The results of this study raise concerns about teachers unintentional overuse of vocabulary talk, about how level of experience and perception of strategies influence teachers behaviors during reading, and about the appropriate purposes of whole group book reading to support childrens word learning in preschool.

This micro-ethnographic research project examines discussions of "race" among African American secondary students. More specifically, this project focuses on how "race" is constituted in school settings, and the ways in which both students and teachers construct "race" through talk. Framed by sociolinguistic ethnography, critical race theory, and narrative theory, I investigate uses of narrative as a heuristic for connecting discussions of "race" to the ways students present their experiences with everyday life. The findings from this research project demonstrates that discussions of "race" happin in classroom settings and among students in several ways. Some of these discussions are a result of curriculum choices, and teacehrs' perspectives of teaching African American students inform other types of discussions. Students engage in discussions of "race" as a means to critique or challenge the wide ranges of ways "race" is presented to them in and out of school. I conclude that "race" is constructed based on either the social interactions students have or based on how student veiw themselves in relationship to other racialized communities.

TEACHING AND LEARNING ACCOUTING FOR AGENCY IN TEACHING MATHEMATICS: UNDERSTANDING TEACHERS USE OF REFORM CURRICULUM ERIK WILLIAM BOWEN Thesis under the direction of Professor Kay McClain This study provides analysis of modified teaching sets conducted with three fifth-grade mathematics teachers. The teaching sets were designed to provide information on teachers current instructional practice in mathematics. Specifically, the role that reform curriculum plays in supporting teachers reconceptualization of their practice is analyzed. A major finding is that the reform curriculum teachers implemented became the only resource for instruction. Student reasoning was essentially a peripheral feature to their online classroom instruction, even though the teachers believed it to be central. This finding suggests that the common practice of codifying professional development and rapidly making it the responsibility of other teachers (the trainer of trainers models) may not be a viable model for spreading reform without distorting it. Approved______________________________________Date_______________

Looking at student work has increased in popularity in mathematics teacher professional development as a promising means of supporting teachers learning. However, up to this point, little conceptual work has been done to articulate the theoretical underpinning of this approach. In this dissertation, my goal is to reconceptualize the role of student work by drawing on a longitudinal professional development with a group of middle-school mathematics teachers. Central to the reconceptualization that I propose is the articulation of the relations between teachers learning in professional development and their practice in the classroom. In my view, designs for supporting teachers learning necessarily involve suppositions and assumptions about such relations. These suppositions and assumptions shape not merely the goals for teachers learning but the means of supporting and organizing it. The proposed reconceptualization centers on a bi-directional interplay that examines in juxtaposition teachers learning in professional development and their practice in the classroom.

This study investigated the experiences of preservice teachers within a program of teacher education and considered the interaction of the spaces and discourses therein during a semester of student teaching. The study built on previous research in the field of teacher education by examining multiple contexts, actors, documents, and tools that mediated the learning of student teachers. The investigation specifically addressed questions related to the outcomes of teacher education and the assessment of those outcomes, examining the ways in which they were enacted during various events related to student teaching and what the potential implications were for student teachers. Data collection occurred throughout the semester under consideration and included observation of program meetings, classroom instruction, and team conferences. Other data sets included interviews with student teachers and artifacts related to the program and the student teachers practices. Two student teacher case studies were identified based on their desire to work in high-need school settings. Using qualitative methods of data analysis, findings were derived and organized according to three areas related to the contradictions and tensions that arose. Specifically, findings related to the lack of systematic focus on P-12 student learning during the student teaching semester, the manner in which the divide between the university and school contexts was exacerbated by aspects of the curriculum, and the crisis regarding the assessment of preservice teachers that indicated a disconnect between the practice of assessing and the actual learning of student teachers. The study leads to new insights about teacher preparation and student teaching in particular. Given the findings within these three areas, recommendations are made for reconceptualizing the culminating experience of traditional programs of teacher education in order to create a more productively hybrid space that focuses on the learning of P-12 students in classrooms and uses systematic assessment to drive instruction during the experience as a model for preservice teachers.

<p> This dissertation contributes to our understanding of how to design professional development programs that support teachers development of effective instructional practices in which students reasoning is in the center of instructional decision-making. I analyze the learning of a professional teaching community of middle-school mathematics teachers during the last three years of a five-year professional development design experiment. I propose a set of revisable design principles for ongoing professional development that are grounded in the specific design challenges that led to their formulation. Together with Chrystal Dean, who analyzed the initial two years of this experiment, I contribute to the development of an empirically grounded professional development theory that is specific to the domain of middle-school statistics. My dissertation provides conceptual resources that can inform the efforts of other professional development facilitators so that the successive forms of teacher reasoning I identified and the means of supporting their emergence can be reproduced in other professional teaching communities. <p> I present two complementary analyses of the collective learning of the teacher group. In the first analysis, I demonstrate that even though the membership of the group changed during the years of the study, it is reasonable to view it as a single, evolving professional teaching community that was characterized by joint enterprise, mutual engagement, and a shared repertoire of tools. In the second analysis, I discuss the realized learning of the community over the three-year period by describing developments in the ways of talking and reasoning that became normative. I foreground shifts in pedagogical reasoning that were in the center of our design and research efforts, and document that the teachers came to view students reasoning as a resource in their instructional planning by the final year. I document that our initial design conjectures proved to be unviable and that we had to make major modifications in the means for supporting the teachers learning in order to achieve our professional development agenda. This modification involved building on teachers current practices and interests, and was critical in designing supports that proved effective.

This dissertation represents an attempt to uncover, understand, and unmake the structure of racism and its place in Master Narratives of education. This dissertation presents a counter-narrative to Master Narratives of meritocracy, Whiteness, and monologue by addressing two primary research questions: (1) What might dialogic teacher education that prepares a teacher to see the classroom as a site for social change look like? and (2) How might I, as a teacher educator and dialogue facilitator, develop teachers to see the classroom as a site for social change? I define the Social Context (Chapter 2) of this projects counter-narrative by defining Master Narratives of Meritocracy. I continue with a Theoretical Context (Chapter 3) that describes methods and tools for countering Master Narratives of Whiteness. I situate this project in a larger Academic Context (Chapter 4), describing how other researchers in the field of Multicultural Teacher Education are combating racism in education. I continue with this projects Methodological Context (Chapter 5), a detailed description of how this counter-narrative arose from a dialogue circle with five preservice teachers, thereby countering Master Narratives of Monologue. In Chapters 6 and 7, I recount a narrative that runs counter to these Master Narratives, a counter-narrative that is relational, critical of Whiteness, and dialogic; this narrative includes stories of the participants and myself and our individual racial identity developments, as well as the story of our dialogue circle as we investigated race and racism, ways racism appears in society, and methods for fighting racism in the P-12 classroom. In Chapter 8, I conclude with implications for theory by problematizing the conceptions of colorblindness and stereotypes. In the area of practice, I propose a possible foundation for talking about race with preservice teachers and provide possible resources for learning to dialogue. In the area of research, I problematize the conception of homogeneity among White female preservice teachers and the possible influence diversity in the classroom has on a teachers willingness to address social justice issues.

The study investigated the impact of teachers literacy-related beliefs on their participation in the professional development setting of literacy coaching. It also expanded current theoretical understandings regarding the nature of beliefs by investigating how teacher held their beliefs. This study used a qualitative, multiple case study approach to examine both teachers stated beliefs and their beliefs in action. The study was situated in an elementary school in a metropolitan district in the Southern United States. The reading specialist had 8 years of teaching experience, 3 of those in the position of reading specialist. The 3 teachers had 3 to 7 years of teaching experience. Data collection occurred over a 7 month period with the primary methods for collecting data being interviewing, observation, surveying, and written vision statements. Data were analyzed using a constant comparative method and cross-case analysis. Overall, the reading specialist and teachers held similar views of literacy and instruction, though their individual interpretations of educational ideas (i.e., facilitation) varied greatly despite the use of a common set of language. A range of evidence undergirded their beliefs. Data analysis also allowed for the identification of beliefs that were held more or less centrally by the teachers, offering a process for examining teachers talk about their work as a way to hypothesize the relative centrality of their beliefs helping to advance understandings of how beliefs are held and ways to uncover this through educational research. The teachers specific beliefs about literacy instruction impacted their coaching interactions. All teachers held central beliefs that contradicted the practices discussed during their coaching interactions. At times, these differences in belief were addressed while at other times they were not recognized or challenged. Overall, only 1 of the teachers took up new ideas offered in coaching. Finally, the reading specialists beliefs about her role as a coach and the purpose of coaching impacted her participation. She focused on affective aspects of coaching and developed specific strategies for considering teachers unique needs.

The primary purpose of this study is to critically investigate the association between preschool teachers mathematics instruction and their participation in a preschool mathematics intervention program in terms of three perspectives. First, the study examined whether preschool teachers participation in the preschool mathematics intervention program had significant effects on implementing mathematical activities more often and with higher quality in their classrooms. Second, within the treatment group, the study examined the effects of exposure to professional development on the amount and quality of mathematics activities the teachers provided for their students and their level of implementation of the curriculum. Third, the study sought to examine the effects of teachers overall satisfaction with the curriculum and the professional development support they received on the amount and quality of math instruction and their curriculum implementation level. Although participation in a professional development increased the quantity and quality of preschool teachers mathematics instruction, the results raised important issues for future research to investigate in terms of individual contributions of professional development models on preschool teachers mathematics instruction.