The U.S. Department of Education, Office of Ed Tech Future Ready program has encouraged the use of open informal learning communities as professional learning opportunities for educators. This study categorizes 46 state Twitter chats by their moderation techniques and design. A purposive sample of Twitter chat designers participated in this phenomenological exploration that demonstrates how the designs of these informal learning spaces are aligned with the designers' pedagogical philosophies. Recommendations for supporting, growing, and sustaining similar learning communities are included.

This master's thesis aims to identify the issues that prisons' caretakers face in their workplace. Furthermore, the thesis analyzes approaches and methods used to resolve the issues. Following the findings, this thesis aims to summarize the prison caretakers' needs to make their work more comfortable and the caretakers more competent when facing described issues. The theoretical part summarizes the findings on prison caretakers' work with convicted persons during the execution of custodial sentences in a perspective of social pedagogy. The empirical part presents the results of qualitative research aiming to answer the main research question "What kind of issues the prisons' caretakers face and how do they resolve these issues?". To answer this question, the qualitative research based on semi-structured interviews with nine prisons' caretakers from different prisons was selected. The open-ended interview answers were coded and analyzed. The main finding of this research is that prisons' caretakers are facing two different kinds of issues. Firstly, there are issues closely connected to contact with convicted persons such as conflicts, aggression, and drug abuse, and drug dealing. Secondly, unrelated to the contact with convicted persons, the prisons' caretakers are facing excessive administration,...

This thesis describes a study conducted for the San Antonio River Authority to understand the needs of educators in environmental education programming. This study explores the experiences of educators in teaching environmental education, the tools and methodologies they use, what they think and feel about environmental education, and what their needs are when selecting environmental education curricula and programming to engage their students. This thesis contains an extensive literature review relevant to the local environment in San Antonio, Texas, equity in access to education in borderland regions, educator training, and environmental education goals and methodologies. The study utilizes both qualitative and quantitative research tools: a survey and a collection of semi-structured interviews. The findings of this study indicate that educators are looking for environmental education curricula and programming that is convenient to use and access, training that gives them confidence to teach environmental concepts, curricula and training that helps them facilitate a sense of wonder and engagement in their students, and more content that is locally relevant.

The role of teacher educators is vital to education, but when the population of public-school students shifts, or progress and advances in knowledge of the field or knowledge for teaching emerge, teacher education faces challenges. One such challenge involves a continuing increase in the proportion of second language learners entering primary and secondary schools, English learners (ELs) in this case. In such situations, teacher educators often do not have deep knowledge of second language acquisition or how to integrate attention to ELs within their regular courses. One response to this challenge is to provide professional development (PD) for teacher education faculty. This qualitative study explored how faculty responded to a PD focused on developing understandings of second language acquisition with opportunity to consider how it might be taken up in their own teaching of teachers. We interviewed eight teacher education faculty members about their learning and their response to participating in this PD effort. Using data analysis methods specified by Miles, Huberman, and Saldaña (2014), we gained a better understanding of how faculty responded to the PD in general and how it contributed to their positioning as participants within the PD. The importance of this study is that it can help professional development coordinators and facilitators understand the importance of positioning or orientation of participants as they begin a learning experience. Future research could examine ways in which learning opportunities can be designed to take into account the variability in these orientations.

The aim of this study was to determine the quality of work-life (QWL) of nurse educators at South African universities. The objectives of the research was to describe the demography, home, and work factors of these nurse educators, and its effect on their experience of QWL. It also entailed triangulation of these experiences with the perceptions of the heads of nursing departments (HODs) for a thorough understanding, and designing guidelines to address the situation. A mixed methods methodology was followed, with a partly mixed sequential equal status sampling design and equal weight to the first quantitative and second qualitative phases. The population for the first phase was all the nurse educators teaching at South African universities, who on invitation completed an electronic questionnaire. The data obtained was analysed by utilising both descriptive and inferential statistics. The population for the second phase was all the HODs of the nursing departments of the 22 South African universities. The qualitative data obtained in the second phase was analysed with the Atlas.ti 8 program. The results of the study indicate that nurse educators’ QWL is influenced by meso, macro and micro environmental factors, with work, home and individual situations that are contextual to the African and specifically South African positioning on the globe. A conceptual framework improving on Easton and Van Laar ‘s (2007) model are v proposed for the African higher education edcuation (HEI) context, to better understand these influences. Recommendations to address the situation include: • Mitigation of international, national and provinical influences through attention to curriculisation and improved governance and funding • Strengthening the structure across the HEIs by improved governance, consideration of salaries and benefits of all staff to be fair and equal, investing in good technology for better output, developing methods to distribute the workload fairly, and support to staff for research • Support of nursing departmental output by addressing the needs of HODs, line managers, the nurse educators themselves, supportive staff and students, with the focus on personal and individual factors that influence physical, mental and social health, inclusive of the support of family life The developed guidelines flows from application of industrial psychological principles to propose improving both the QWL and symbiotically, the output for HEI nursing departments. / Health Studies

There is No Abstract: / Dissertation (MPhil (Education for Community Development))--University of Pretoria, 2005. / Education Management and Policy Studies / unrestricted

The purpose of this study is to look at how different preschool educators define Rough and Tumble Play (RTP). We want to examine through empirical studies-what approach educators have when confronted with RTP, how they acknowledge these games and what role educators consider they have when acknowledging these games. We also want to look at if educators work actively with RTP, if preschools have active discussions about RTP or a more preventative approach with the play. Our methods are semi structured qualitative interviews with educators from different preschools around the Stockholm district. The aim of our semi structured qualitative questions are to be able to ask follow-up questions for a broader perspective of the respondents perception. We used sound recordings of the respondents answers and transcribed it into a text format to be able to analyse it.   The studies we looked at are Scandinavian and international studies that examined what RTP is, what benefits it might have for children and if there are any disadvantages to children engaging in a more aggressive form of RTP.  Our results show that how research and RTP is perceived in practice varies. While studies and research point more towards different benefits for children engaging in RTP, our respondents do not perceive it as a real play but more as a dangerous activity that might eventually physically harm the children. The respondents also expressed worries for children who have difficulty interpreting social codes and engaging in RTP and also what values are encouraged if RTP is allowed in preschools.

Thesis "Teacher assistant competences" responds to growing number of teacher assistants in educational system and reflects still remaining ambiguities in delineating requirements on assistants' services and activities. The objective of thesis is on the basis of empirical findings define the basic competences of teacher assistant working in a regular basic school. In its theoretical part thesis works with legislative norms specifying the role of teacher assistant and with findings of relevant researches. The explorative part of thesis is based on qualitatively orientated methodology and processes data from eighty interviews realized with assistants, teachers, principals and pupils with special educational needs from twenty basic mainstream schools. Data in research were processed by classification, coding and schematization with using the form of framework analysis. From the research results author formulates the main outcome - suggested model of competences for teacher assistant professional standard. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

Thesis advisor: Audrey A. Friedman / Through adventure-based learning (ABL), individuals analyze unique experiences in order to generalize and apply critical skills and dispositions to their homes, schools, workplaces, and communities (Dillon, Tannehill, & O’Sullivan, 2010).  However, there is a lack of research documenting the transferability of ABL to other contexts (Kraft, 1999; Furman & Sibthorp, 2012). In educator preparation programs, coursework in ABL has been found inadequate for its incorporation into practice (Sutherland & Legge, 2016; Dillon, Tannehill, & O’Sullivan, 2010). Expanding this research base is critical in justifying “adventure programming [as] more than just fun and games, and to support it as the powerful form of change that practitioners tacitly know it to be” (Priest & Gass, 1999, p. 478), and understanding how that change can impact teachers. This research is informed by the overall question: In what ways can experience as an adventure-based learning (ABL) leader impact the subsequent epistemologies and practices of professional educators? Utilizing qualitative, collective case study methodology (Yin, 2018; Hancock & Algozzine, 2017) and grounded in Mezirow’s (2000) transformative learning theory, this research studies ten professional educators who, as college students, had served as ABL facilitators. Findings indicate that participants’ experience in facilitating ABL aligned with Mezirow’s criteria for transformative learning both personally and professionally. While participants rarely incorporated the physical challenges and fantastical premises typically associated with ABL, they reported their pre-professional experiences deeply influenced their pedagogical practice.  This research posits a new framework for these connections, adventure-informed pedagogy, to explore how ABL philosophies and processes, but not practices, impacted former facilitators and their classrooms. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2021. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Teacher Education, Special Education, Curriculum and Instruction.

Qualitative research is scant on success factors of professional identity development for female African American counselor educators, specifically those who graduated from CACREP-accredited counselor education and supervision programs at predominately White institutions (PWIs). The purpose of this qualitative study was to understand the lived experiences of female African American counselor educators who attended a CACREP-accredited counselor education and supervision program at a (PWI). This study focused on the phenomenon of success factors of professional identity development to doctoral degree completion. This study examined the lived experiences of 10 female African American counselor educators to gain a better understanding of how their experiences at CACREP-accredited counselor educations and supervision programs at a (PWI) impacted success of professional identity development to doctoral degree completion. It used a qualitative, phenomenological methodology grounded in Intersectionality theory, Black Feminist thought, and Critical Race theory as frameworks. There were three research questions to guide the study in the participants? perceptions of professional identity development and the impact of success factors of professional identity development on doctoral degree completion. This study conducted semi-structured interviews with ten female African American counselor educators who completed doctoral degrees in (PWIs) in the United States. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and analyzed using Moustakas (1994) Modification of Stevick-Colaizzi-Keen data analysis. The goals of this study was to: a) review and present literature on female African American in the academy; b) increase knowledge on professional identity among female African American counselor educators who attended a CACREP -accredited counselor education and supervision program at (PWIs) in the United States; and c) explore ways to increase professional identity development to support female African American doctoral students to complete their doctoral degree and move into counselor education positions. Ten African American females who graduated from CACREP-accredited counselor education and supervision programs were interviewed. There were six themes: Convenience of the Location, Importance of support from Dissertation chair, Representation of African American women with PhDs in the community, I was needed and access, Being a Black woman in that space and Voice, Faith-based community and I prayed. Recommendations and directions for future research are discussed.