After having majored in Commercial Education and having taught bookkeeping for three years, the writer is attempting to organize his past experiences, knowledge, and material into a concise form. It is hoped that by so doing it will be possible to make a course of study in beginning bookkeeping interesting and beneficial to his students and help the teacher do a better job of teaching. The writer realizes that he has three types of students – (1) those who plan to continue their education; (2) those who do not plan to continue their education and feel a need for a vocation or avocation; and (3) those who have no interest, but take the subject for some particular reason. The writer hopes to be able to meet the needs of each group of students mentioned.

Comprised of seven essays, this collection of literary nonfiction explores one man's journey into the teaching profession. The author recounts his experiences from just before he heard the call, to his first year teaching as an intern at Punahou School in Honolulu, through his first three years teaching full-time, and the challenges, mostly internal conflicts, he worked through as he taught freshmen and then two junior/senior electives before eventually going on sabbatical to Tanzania for his ninth year.

The purpose of this thesis is the current education system in the company Termoplast Ltd. analysis, and propose posible solutions of identified deficiencies. The findings reported in the theoretical part and the subsequent application of these findings into practice subserve to achieve the goal of thesis. The practical part alalyze the education partly based on interviews with a responsible person, partly is the staff satisfaction with the current state of education in the company detected by the questionnaire. The intention is to maintain a comprehensive view on the subject.

This diploma thesis focuses on didactic games and their use during the lessons of social sciences at grammar schools. It mainly deals with the area of political science. The thesis is divided into two parts. The theoretical part looks into a didactic game itself, its significance for people, its role in education and the philosophical approach to didactic games. Not only a game from the didactic point of view, but also project teaching, which is closely related to this topic, are covered. The practical part is based on monitoring of selected schools. This part focuses on preparation of particular teaching topics and their subsequent analysis from the teachers' point of view. KEY WORDS Didactic game, educational method, politology, the basics of civics and social sciences

The purpose of this mixed methods study was to determine whether administrative support, classroom management, and parental involvement factors are significantly related to novice teacher’s retention. A quantitative survey and qualitative focus group measured the correlation between administrative support, classroom management, and parental involvement on novice teachers’ intent to remain in the classroom. The findings of this study will prepare educational leaders, human resource departments, and school board members with strategies to effectively reduce teacher attrition and improve student achievement in school systems. Both qualitative and quantitative data were compiled and synthesized while considering descriptive and inferential statistics to recognize emergent themes for implications of novice teacher retention. The findings of the study concluded that there was a significant correlation between administrative support and classroom management on novice teachers’ intent to remain.

The purpose of this study was to analyze select factors that impact teacher morale within the learning setting of two independent public charter schools by focusing on teacher autonomy, teacher evaluation, teacher resource support, teacher collegiality, and teachers’ perception of administrative leadership styles. The findings of this study will inform both local and national leaders in regards to variables that affect teacher morale; and thus, teacher shortage. Furthermore, this will provide guidance for current trending methods of teacher retention, which will improve the performance of advantage and disadvantage schools alike. Quantitative data points were the primarily source used to synthesize and compile data to identify emergent themes. The findings of this study concluded that there were moderate positive significant relationships between teacher morale and teacher evaluation; teacher morale and teacher autonomy; teacher morale and teachers’ perception of administrative leadership style within an independent public charter school setting.

The purpose of this quantitative study was to investigate Brain Based Learning (BBL) techniques in teaching science. Participants included 216 K-12, full-time, regular education teachers from 8 Northeast Tennessee school systems who taught at least 1 science class. Specifically this research was guided by 7 research questions on teachers’ perceptions and practices in teaching science. Data were collected by a survey that consisted of 82 statements where teachers rated their level of agreement and was distributed online via Survey Monkey. The first portion of my survey included demographic identifiers, teachers’ knowledge of the term BBL, and inquiries regarding science background and training. The remainder of the statements were focused on teachers’ perceptions and practices of BBL strategies in teaching science. The final item was open-ended and allowed teachers to share comments related to teaching science. For statements 6-81, participants responded by using a 5-point Likert scale that ranged from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Quantitative data were analyzed with a series of independent samples t tests, one-way analysis of variance tests, and a Pearson correlation coefficient. The results of the study indicate that teachers’ perceptions are positively correlated to their self-reported practices. Females, in general, and elementary teachers tend to practice BBL strategies in teaching science significantly more than other subgroups.

The purpose of this study was to determine if there was a significant difference in total scores on the Mathematical Self-Efficacy Scale, the mathematics task self-efficacy portion of the scale, and the math-related school subjects self-efficacy portion of the scale for middle school students between students assigned to a homogeneously grouped accelerated math class and students assigned to a heterogeneously grouped math class. The instrument used to gather information for thus study on student self-efficacy was the Mathematics Self-Efficacy Scale (MSES). The MSES measures 2 domains of mathematics-related behaviors and capabilities. The Mathematics Task Self-Efficacy scale is designed to measure the level of confidence the student would have when successfully completing the given task. The Math-Related School Subjects Self-Efficacy scale is designed to measure the level of confidence the student would have when successfully completing a college level course with a final grade of an A or B. The 2 parts of the MSES may be individually scored or holistically scored to obtain a total score representing overall mathematical self-efficacy. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze the data for the 9 research questions. Participants in the study were randomly assigned to the heterogeneous or homogeneous groups by their schools and were not controlled by the researcher. Students within the groups were chosen as participants based on their math ability and scores on the seventh grade TCAP test. At the time of the survey these students attended either a K-8 elementary school or a middle school in Northeast Tennessee. The population consisted of 357 gifted or talented eighth grade math students in 6 school districts in Northeast Tennessee. The results of this study does not support or discourage the practice of acceleration by retaining 7 of the 9 null hypotheses that there are no significant difference in self-efficacy scores between homogeneous grouped eighth grade math students who were placed in accelerated coursework by taking Algebra I and those students who were heterogeneously grouped in a regular eighth grade math class.

The engineering technology department at ETSU currently lacks a modern method to teach digital circuits. The aim of this thesis is to convert our current digital circuits labs to equivalent labs suited to run on the Basys 3. The Basys has several advantages over the aging NI Elvis boards (and now just breadboards) currently in use. The first advantage is that the Basys gives students a taste of FPGA programming without being overwhelmingly; like the systems currently in place for the digital signal processing class. The Basys is also a more modern system; our current integrated circuit and breadboard system is from the 70’s and has little to do with the modern world of electronics. There are several major difficulties with moving towards the Basys 3. It requires several tweaks to the current computer security setting of the lab computers. The other issue to be solved is that very few people in the department have even an inkling of how to program in VHDL and most of them are outgoing students. This lack of skills could be a threat to the class but I have included an appendix and a few recommendations for books on the subject to ensure that system development can continue. The other objective of this project was to see if there were ways to incorporate new educational techniques into the engineering technology curriculum. While there have been no actual tests on students, the groundwork has been laid to use some new ideas in the classroom. All of these new systems are designed to get students to think about how devices actually work and develop models to help them fully understand what is being taught.

Based on recent research concluding that fiction can increase empathy, this project examines how multicultural young adult literature may encourage empathy in Appalachian adolescents. Empathy encourages prosocial behaviors, but evidence suggests that young adults’ ability to empathize has declined in recent decades. In addition, Appalachia in particular is still a relatively homogenous region as it is majority white, protestant Christian, and heteronormative. Because of this, young adults in Appalachia may encounter few diverse perspectives in real life; multicultural young adult literature can provide diverse perspectives with which teenagers can empathize in a region where they might not have similar opportunities in reality. This thesis demonstrates how three multicultural young adult novels (The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (2007), Accidents of Nature (2006), and The Porcupine of Truth (2015)) can be used in a literature unit that encourages students to show emotional understanding despite personal differences.