This research explored the common experiences, values, and beliefs of three science teacher educators with elementary teaching experience and how these commonalities influenced their thinking about teaching preservice elementary teachers. This qualitative study used a life story approach and included an autobiographical component. Data were collected through interviews, observations, and archival records. The findings were shared in eight chronologically ordered vignettes that portrayed an individual representing a composite of the participants. The participants shared numerous life experiences including: growing up in small towns, having older parents, being part of a two sibling family, having strong female role models, learning science through everyday occurrences, and having successful experiences in school math and science. They also placed a high value on education, responsibility, spiritual development, and contributions of diverse groups. Two beliefs stood out in the data. First, each participant believed that she had been a "good" elementary teacher. Second, each participant believed in the importance of attending to the affective domain within teaching and learning environments.These findings represent an extension of the existing limited literature base regarding qualifications and characteristics of science teacher educators. The findings direct our attention to the need for changes in science teacher education programs with regard to recruitment and design in order to attract more applicants with elementary teaching experience and understandings of the elementary school culture.

College and university teacher education programs are not, and should not be, exempt from the growing demand for distance education opportunities. Science teacher education is no exception to this growing demand. While there are some distance-learning courses and even complete programs for teacher education, the majority of these are offered as continuing education or post-graduate education opportunities. The number of programs offered specifically in science teacher education (either undergraduate or post-graduate) is extremely limited. Those distance-learning classes that are available for teacher education rarely reflect the instruction expected from teachers by the National Science Education Standards when they enter the K-12 classroom. With the demand for distance education rising, it is important to determine if it is possible for the distance-learning format to be an effective form of delivery for quality preservice science teacher education programs. The research herein took the form of a qualitative case study of two sections of a Science Technology and Society Interaction (STS) course offered via a distance-learning format. (For the purposes of this study, distance-learning courses are defined as those that are offered using online delivery.) The research investigated the extent to which the course incorporated the principles of science education reform. The study took the form of an evaluative case study and provided a rich description of the course itself as well as the nature of the interactions and meanings constructed by students. The course was determined to be an example of a distance learning opportunity that exhibits the desired ideology. Insights gained here were used to illuminate some guiding principles for developing courses for distance delivery that exhibit principles consistent with science education reform.

This qualitative study described non-science undergraduate majors' responses to controversial issues embedded in an introductory level environmental science course in a liberal arts college located in the southeastern United States. Participants enrolled in this 12-week summer course were both traditional college-age (late teens to early twenties) and non-traditional age student (thirties to fifties). Approximately 76 percent were female. Students demonstrated various lifestyles (e.g., gay, single-parent, living at home), socioeconomic statuses (e.g., middle-income, low income), employment (e.g., employed, unemployed, ex-military) and ethnicities. The structure of the environmental science course was consistent with the science education reform movement standards applied to K-12 public schools, but not yet pervasive in higher education. Some of the reform techniques included use of open discussion format, cooperative learning, field trips, classroom demonstration, and v arious media. The theoretical framework for the study was using controversial issues in science to stimulate cognitive dissonance, which may provide a pathway to higher level reflective thinking. Controversial issues triggering a response in students showed elements of injustice and unfairness. Examples included the CHEERS pesticide study on children in Jacksonville, Florida; human radiation experimentation, including the use of depleted uranium in military conflicts; and local groundwater cases that exhibited environmental racism. The study showed the use of controversial issues in the environmental science course stimulated reflective thinking and encouraged the expression of environmental advocacy beyond the classroom. Students expressed participation in energy and water conservation, recycling practices, political involvement, and joining environmental groups. Students shared information with outsiders, such as family, friends, and co-workers when they deemed it personally or societally relevant (e.g., pertaining to family, health, safety, homelife, politics). Generational differences in students were observed in their openness to discuss controversial issues, ability to self-express, attitude toward the environment, quality of writing, and involvement in the educational process.

The purpose of this dissertation was to survey community college students in order to evaluate their perceptions of the awareness and significance of global-mindedness or worldview of interconnectedness to the global community. The sample of participants included students at a 4-year community college in Florida. The results can be valuable and informative as a needs assessment in curriculum reforms to provide more globally minded courses and programs; consequently, better prepare graduates to compete in the global job market.

Darbe atskleidžiamas M. Lukšienės lyderystės fenomenas švietimo reformos laikotarpiu. Tyrėjams intriga: kokios aplinkybės kokius asmenis iškelia į lyderius, kaip susiklosto tokia lyderystė ir kokia ji yra šiuo konkrečiu – M. Lukšienės atveju. Mokslinės literatūros analizės, rašytinių dokumentinių šaltinių kokybinė analizės, ekspertų apklausos metodo, teorinių prielaidų ir tyrimų duomenų lyginamosios analizės pagrindu daromos išvados apie lyderystės fenumenalumą M. Lukšienės veikloje. / The project reveals phenomenon of leadership activities of M. Lukšienė during education reform in Lithuania. The researches face the issues: What circumstances do make the leaders rise? How such leadership develop? And what style of leadership is in case of M. Lukšienė? based on analysis of scientific literature; qualitative analysis of written document sources; method of expert survey; comparative analysis of theoretical prerequisites and research data were made conclusions about phenomenon of leadership in activities of Meilė Lukšienė.

During the 1990s, standards-based reform became the predominant education reform inthe country. However, neither federal legislation nor state standards-based reform programshave focused much on addressing the needs of special groups. While, the explicit goal ofstandards-based reform was to raise academic achievement of all students, the implicit goal wasto change beliefs about specific groups of students, particularly students who traditionally havebeen perceived as "disadvantaged." This dissertation examines the implementation of standards-based reform policies withpopulations of limited English proficient (LEP) high school students to determine the strength of the Kentucky's policies to include LEP students and the capacity for those policies to influenceeducator beliefs about the abilities of LEP students. The study includes an analysis ofKentucky's reform policies and a case study of one high school English as a Second Languageprogram seen as a leader in implementing standards-based reforms. The case study approachprovided an opportunity to learn about the issues associated with educating LEP high schoolstudents in the context of standards-based reform from the point of view of those who arecharged with implementing these policies. The findings from this study suggest that it is notsufficient to include LEP students in state assessment and accountability systems. In order foraccountability systems to ensure strong student performance, they must also address inequities instudents' opportunities to learn to high standards. The success of Kentucky's policies, as well asother standards-based policies, depends on their ability to drive changes in educator beliefs aboutstudents' capabilities and to drive the creation of local conditions supportive of practicesconsistent with achieving the goals of the Kentucky Education Reform Act.

A variety of policies originating from Ontario’s Ministry of Education make it clear that education reform requires that teachers reflect on their practice. Despite this, there is little evidence of a common understanding of just what reflection would look like in teacher practice.This means that Initial Teacher Education programs face ambiguous challenges both in producing teachers who can reflect on practice in order to participate in school reform and in matching program goals regarding reflection to admissions requirements. This study investigated the understanding and evaluation of reflection in an Initial Teacher Education program through interviews with 15 instructors and field partners who had evaluated applicants’ written evidence of reflection. Differences among participants were evident in the understanding of reflection;however, the overriding theme of conscious attention to and engagement with experience as a vehicle for change was consistent with current literature. Differences in the evaluation of profiles were based on perceptions of how well applicants met the criterion of specificity, which was emphasized in the rubric; what role their judgement should take in evaluation decisions and the knowledge base on which those decisions were made. Participants described an organizational context in their Initial Teacher Education Program in which reflection was encouraged but not formalized or defined in any consistent way, and described opportunities for reflection that resembled informal communities of practice. They articulated some significant dilemmas in the fair evaluation of reflection that were similar to the challenges of school administrators evaluating the reflection required of teachers. The results of the study have implications for admissions policies as well as for creating a culture of reflection and inquiry in an Initial Teacher Education Program or school.

This thesis aims to explore how Korean middle school students exercise agency in the Free Semester policy setting. The Free Semester is an education reform policy in Korea which has been implemented to change traditional East Asian learning environment to be more student-centered and creative one since 2013. This qualitative research is motivated by what kinds of difference the Free Semester policy have brought in regards to Korean young adolescents’ perception on schooling, learning and autonomy. Data for this study was mainly consisted of semi-structured interviews with seven Korean public middle school students; three second-grade girls (age of 13), one second-grade boy (age of 13), one third-grade girl (age of 14) and two third-grade boys (age of 14) who experienced the Free Semester one or two years ago. To analyze the interview data, thematic analysis was used and, as a result, three main themes were found as follows: Theme 1. Experiencing autonomy, Theme 2. Hope for more autonomous actions 3. Appreciation of social and cultural values. Korean middle school students experienced a widened range of agency in a newly given school setting under the Free Semester policy. However, their agency was still far limited by East Asian education culture. The students were stuck in ambivalent situations; while the students are encouraged for student-centered and creative learning by the Free Semester policy, they were still pressured to value traditional passive learning attitude since it is regarded as a winning strategy to earn a higher test score.

In response to the challenges presented by unprecedented growth in higher education (HE) since 1978, China adopted policy experimentation (PE) as a means of introducing and testing HE reforms. This study involves four in-depth case studies of important reforms facilitated by policy experiments at different junctures of China's HE development: early 1980s, mid-late 1980s, late 1990s, and early 2010s. Within each reform, two elite universities as 'experiment points' (shi dian) were selected. Through cross-case analysis informed by semi-structured interviews and extensive documentary analysis, the study offers a holistic historical perspective on how PE has been used to bring about institutional changes in China's higher education. The study documents different rationales used for implementing policy experiments. State actors use PE to exert pressure on universities to introduce reforms, to lower associated risks and to strengthen the nation's overall HE policymaking capacity in a volatile and extremely heterogeneous context. For their part, university leaders have adopted PE locally to navigate China's politically charged policymaking environment and to negotiate with state actors more favourable terms for reforms. Therefore, the PE approach enables state-university interactions and power negotiations that create and maintain 'strategy space' for consensus-building and institutional changes. It is an iterative process characterised by central-local interaction and intentionally ambiguous boundaries. The state, however, retains ultimate authority for legitimatising, selecting and expanding policy experiments. It is best understood as elite-enabled experimentation within existing political hierarchies. Over time, China's PE approach has become a semi-institutionalised mechanism for HE reforms. In the various policy experiments discussed in this study, PE functions as a productive, disciplinary and symbolic force at different stages of the policy process. Sometimes it appears to offer a genuinely productive mechanism for producing, identifying and negotiating innovative policy options that may be replicated at a larger scale; sometimes its essential use lies in its generated regulative effect; and sometimes it assumes more of a symbolic role allowing the government to acquire or consolidate reform legitimacy. Policy processes are mediated by these different uses of PE towards either reform efficacy or institutional conformity. This study situates these reforms within broader political, social, economic and historical contexts, and highlights the policy implications for higher education reform internationally.

abstract: The goal of science education in the United States is promoting scientific literacy for all students. The goal necessitates understanding the nature of science-what science is as a body of knowledge, explanatory tool, and human enterprise. The history of science is one of the most long-standing pedagogical methods of getting at the nature of science. But scientific literacy also encompasses education in scientific inquiry, and in the relationships among science, technology, and society (STS), as well as fact and theory-based subject-matter content. Since the beginning of the standards-based reform movement (circa 1983) many attempts have been made to codify the components of scientific literacy. National level voluntary standards have lead to state standards. Under No Child Left Behind, those state standards have become integral parts of the educational system. Standards are political in nature, yet play the role of intended curriculum. I examine one thread of scientific literacy, the history and nature of science, from its beginnings in science education through the political perturbations of the last thirty years. This examination of "the history and nature of science" through the history of standards-based reform sheds light on our changing conception of scientific literacy. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.S. Biology 2011