In this study I present data from a six-month qualitative study that examined how three English Language Arts teachers' beliefs about teaching, learning, and their students interacted with specific school, curricular, and educational policies to shape their instructional practice. Data drew from extensive interviews, classroom observations, and teaching artifacts. Data analysis focused on alignments and misalignments between teachers expressed beliefs and their observed teaching practices and on the negotiations that occurred when the teachers were faced with misalignments between their beliefs and the educational contexts in which they worked. Findings from this research study demonstrate that when faced with a tension between their beliefs and school and policy pressures, the three teachers drew upon several different negotiation strategies including isolating themselves from the larger school context or becoming more actively involved in the school context. These negotiation strategies employed were dependent on the level of agency the teacher felt in her particular school context as well as the type of administrative leadership in her school context. However, misalignments between the teachers' beliefs and instructional practices could not be entirely attributed to school or national educational policies, such as No Child Left Behind (NCLB); rather, the teachers' limited critical reflection on their instructional practice and the broad, vague nature of many of the teachers core beliefs about teaching and learning accounted for many of the misalignments found between their beliefs and instructional practices. These findings suggest that teachers need strongly-guided opportunities to develop and critically reflect on both their beliefs and instructional practices and to strategize how to make productive negotiations between these beliefs, practices, and external pressures (such as NCLB) if they are to maintain positive professional relationships and adapt their instructional practices in the face of new policies and "best practices.

The purpose of this study was to quantitatively examine the impact of third-party support service providers on the quality of science information available to deaf students in regular science classrooms. Three different videotapes that were developed by NASA for high school science classrooms were selected for the study, allowing for different concepts and vocabulary to be examined. The focus was on the accuracy of translation as measured by the number of key science words included in the transcripts (captions) or videos (interpreted). Data were collected via transcripts completed by CART (computer assisted real-time captionists) or through videos of sign language interpreters. All participants were required to listen to and translate these NASA educational videos with no prior experience with this information so as not to influence their delivery. CART personnel using captions were found to be significantly more accurate in the delivery of science words as compared to the sign language interpreters in this study.

This study contributes to the existing literature in teacher education on the relationship between what are commonly referred to as beliefs with the theoretical framework of cultural models (DAndrade, 1992; Gee, 1996, 1999, 2004; Holland, 1975, 1999; Holland and Quinn, 1987; Shore, 1996), offering a richer understanding of how beliefs and cultural models impact teaching candidates abilities to learn to teach. More specifically, this study examines how teacher candidates beliefs and cultural models about schooling, teaching, and learning affect their capacity to learn and grow as educators through a teacher education program and how they develop professional identities as they are confronted with concepts and ideas that may not align with their cultural models about teaching. Additionally, this study examines how candidates negotiate the tensions that exist when beliefs and cultural models are confronted or challenged within the contexts of the teacher education program. In conducting this study, attitude and belief inventories were taken across time and context, teaching and course artifacts were analyzed, teaching tapes were evaluated, and university and school site influences unpacked. Together these data strands helped to determine the ways in which cultural models were constructed and revised through a teacher education program. This study triangulated these various data strands to compile a holistic view of the relevance, influence, and significance of the different aspects of a programs components in influencing a candidates beliefs, cultural models, and emergent professional identities. Critical discourse analysis was the theoretical framework used for this study, using cultural models and beliefs as the unit of analysis, allowing for the analysis of competing ideologies regarding teaching and learning and connecting to the issues examined in this study, particularly how identity shifts and is constructed through participation in socially situated communities and practices. CDA provided a framework for exploring how the different experiences and aspects of the program contributed to the development of identity through competing and expanding cultural models. The findings of this study recommend ways teacher education programs can more directly and effectively impact candidate learning to create optimum experiences, necessary to stimulate and use the tensions between beliefs, practices, and contexts.

This descriptive case study examined the nature of talk a literacy coach used during coaching conversations to guide collaborative inquiry to support teachers needs. The study provided a rich description of the type of talk used in the coachs conversations with three kindergarten classroom teachers by analyzing the content of conversation, levels of support provided by the coach to scaffold teacher understanding about instructional practices, and the types of questions posed by the coach to prompt teacher thinking about instructional practices. Analysis of data revealed that the literacy coach was intentional in the approaches she used to differentiate her conversations with teachers. Moreover, the coach exemplified the characteristics that enabled her to hold effective coaching conversations: content knowledge, effective listening abilities, and skillful questioning techniques. Specific factors that influenced the nature of the coaching conversations included the relationships between the coach and teachers, teachers experiences and their knowledge of literacy instruction and assessment, and the teachers willingness to be coached. Analysis showed that both the content and scaffolding support differed in the coaching conversations between the literacy coach and teachers. Furthermore, student data provided the basis for the job-embedded professional development or coaching. It served as the impetus for the conversations held between the coach and teachers.

The current study examined the validation and alignment of the PASA-Science by determining whether the alternate science assessment anchors linked to the regular education science anchors; whether the PASA-Science assessment items are science; whether the PASA-Science assessment items linked to the alternate science eligible content, and what PASA-Science assessment content was considered important by parents and teachers. Special education and science education university faculty determined all but one alternate science assessment anchor linked to the regular science assessment anchors. Special education and science education teachers determined that the PASA-Science assessment items are indeed science and linked to the alternate science eligible content. Finally, parents and teachers indicated the most important science content assessed in the PASA-Science involved safety and independence.

Birth to three early intervention is unique time in the life of a family of a child with a disability in that confidence and competence of the parents can be addressed as part of the intervention goals and objectives. Locus of control is a quality measure of a parents perception of their ability to be their childs teacher, advocate, and champion and is associated with confidence and competence. The purpose of this dissertation was to examine the association of locus of control orientation using Rotters Locus of Control Scale (Rotter, 1966) with perception of family status as it relates to the child with the disability at entry and exit of birth to three early intervention using the Family Outcomes Survey (Bailey, 2006) in two groups of mothers at entry and exit of services. Analysis indicated there was no difference in locus of control between the two groups. Further, locus of control was not associated with the Family Outcomes Survey. The Family Outcomes survey demonstrated differences between the two groups and additional association with the socioeconomic proxy of type of insurance, length of time the family took part in early intervention, and the reason the child qualified for early intervention.

This study was designed to better understand how children begin to make the transition from seeing the natural world to scientifically observing the natural world during shared family activity in an informal learning environment. Specifically, this study addressed research questions: 1) What is the effect of differences in parent conversational style and disciplinary knowledge on childrens observations of biological phenomena? 2) What is the relationship between parent disciplinary knowledge and conversational style to childrens observations of biological phenomena? and 3) Can parents, regardless of knowledge, be trained to use a teaching strategy with their children that can be implemented in informal learning contexts? To address these questions, 79 parent-child dyads with children 6-10 years old participated in a controlled study in which half of the parents used their natural conversational style and the other half were trained to use particular conversational strategies during family observations of pollination in a botanical garden. Parents were also assigned to high and low knowledge groups according to their disciplinary knowledge of pollination. Data sources included video recordings of parent-child observations in a garden, pre-post child tasks, and parent surveys. Findings revealed that parents who received training used the conversational strategies more than parents who used their natural conversational style. Parents and children who knew more about pollination at the start of the study exhibited higher levels of disciplinary talk in the garden, which is to be expected. However, the use of the conversational strategies also increased the amount of disciplinary talk in the garden, independent of what families knew about pollination. The extent to which families engaged in disciplinary talk in the garden predicted significant variance in childrens post-test scores. In addition to these findings, an Observation Framework (Eberbach & Crowley, 2009) that hypothesizes how everyday observers become scientific observers is proposed.

Museums provide supportive spaces for families to practice talking together. Although studies have shown that families engage in rich learning conversations within museum settings, it is not yet known whether the rehearsal of such talk carries beyond the museum walls and into the home. This study was designed to test one way that a museum visit might facilitate learning conversations at home: By centering talk around everyday objects. The study took place within a travelling exhibition called How People Make Things and in participants homes. Twenty-nine parent-child pairs were assessed jointly and individually before a visit to the exhibition, immediately after the visit, and two weeks later at home for evidence of changes in four areas of learning talk: content mentions, process explanations, prior references, and open-ended questions. Additional data was also collected during the families visit to the exhibition, through parent self-reports, and during a scavenger hunt activity at home. Findings show that families content talk immediately after the visit and two weeks later at home was significantly greater than before the visit. Families also gave more process explanations two weeks after the visit than they had before or immediately after the museum visit. In addition, families used significantly more references to prior experiences immediately after the visit than they had before the visit. The number of open-ended questions families asked immediately after the visit decreased significantly compared to before the visit. A series of regressions looking for possible predictors of family content talk revealed that what families talked about during the museum experience significantly predicted how families talked about content immediately after the visit. Furthermore, what families talked about immediately after the visit, as well as their everyday conversations around objects in-between visits, led to an increase in the amount of learning conversations they had together at home. An examination of changes in childrens content understanding suggests that families talk about content after their visit to the exhibition, as well as how they discussed content before their visit, resulted in a delayed payoff in which children demonstrated an increased content understanding two weeks later at home.

This descriptive case study examined the nature of talk a literacy coach used during coaching conversations to guide collaborative inquiry to support teachers needs. The study provided a rich description of the type of talk used in the coachs conversations with three kindergarten classroom teachers by analyzing the content of conversation, levels of support provided by the coach to scaffold teacher understanding about instructional practices, and the types of questions posed by the coach to prompt teacher thinking about instructional practices. Analysis of data revealed that the literacy coach was intentional in the approaches she used to differentiate her conversations with teachers. Moreover, the coach exemplified the characteristics that enabled her to hold effective coaching conversations: content knowledge, effective listening abilities, and skillful questioning techniques. Specific factors that influenced the nature of the coaching conversations included the relationships between the coach and teachers, teachers experiences and their knowledge of literacy instruction and assessment, and the teachers willingness to be coached. Analysis showed that both the content and scaffolding support differed in the coaching conversations between the literacy coach and teachers. Furthermore, student data provided the basis for the job-embedded professional development or coaching. It served as the impetus for the conversations held between the coach and teachers.

The goal of this study was to create an evaluation tool that would be the new standard for evaluating clinical competencies of interns in the field of orientation and mobility (O&M). Using results from previous research in this area, specific competency skills were identified and the O&M Clinical Competency Evaluation Matrix (CCEM) was developed. O&M university faculty were surveyed to gather content evidence. After revisions were made to the O&M CCEM, the evaluation tool was piloted with O&M clinical internship supervisors and validity and reliability evidence was examined. The combination of all the validity evidence supported the intended inferences. The content evidence showed that experts in the field agreed that the O&M CCEM as a whole was representative of the content area. The internal structure evidence showed that scores on the O&M CCEM could be interpreted as measuring clinical competency in relation to standard teaching skills, O&M specific skills, and advanced O&M instruction skills. The external structure evidence showed that scores on the O&M CCEM are related to scores on the ACVREP evaluation form. The practicality evidence showed that the tool is useful for measuring clinical competence. In addition, the internal consistency reliability evidence showed that there was consistency in ratings within dimensions and the inter-rater reliability evidence showed there was moderate consistency in ratings between supervisors.