abstract: ABSTRACT This study details the pilot of a collaborative peer-coaching model as a form of job embedded professional development, to guide teacher collaboration and planning based on benchmark assessments. The collaborative peer-coaching framework used (including reflection and collaboration about student data, and classroom instruction) was informed by the five propositions outlined by the National Board of Professional Teacher Standards (NBPTS). This intervention included teacher training, discussion (pre and post instruction), collaboration about student benchmark data, and classroom observations with further data collected through surveys and interviews. Using a mixed methods approach to data collection and analysis, I focused on how participants engaged in a collaborative peer-coaching model to guide their instruction based on the use of student data they collected from common benchmark assessments. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ed.D. Educational Administration and Supervision 2011

This study aimed to investigate the potentials of two cognitive tools for instructional planning (Instructional Planning Self-reflective Tool, IPSRT, and Constructivist Planning Self-reflective Tool, CPSRT) and microteaching in gaining instructional planning and teaching skills for preservice teachers. The participants were 51 fourth year students in Computer Education and Instructional Technology program. The study is an action research with three main foci. The first focus of this study aimed at investigating contributions and challenges involved in the use of the cognitive tools for instructional planning with tutoring from the instructor. More specifically, to what extent the preservice teachers followed these tools during this process, the effects of these tools on preservice teachers&rsquo / self-efficacy, the perceived instrumentality regarding instructional planning, and the perceived contributions and challenges presented by these tools were focused. Both tools were introduced to the two sections, in different orders within four weeks. The data for this focus were collected by means of questionnaires, interviews and documents (lesson plans). This focus revealed that / expect for writing objectives, the participants could make instructional plans according to the IPSRT. They could also follow the CPSRT to design the instructional goal, required characteristics of learning activities and the assessment. Both tools were found to significantly increase their initial self-efficacy beliefs. They found CPSRT more flexible, while IPSRT easier and more helpful. This focus indicated that IPSRT and CPSRT can be used as supportive tools in preservice teachers&rsquo / gaining instructional planning skills. If both tools were used, it would be better to introduce IPSRT at first and then CPSRT. The second focus of this study was to explore the contributions and challenges of microteaching activities regarding preservice teachers&rsquo / instructional planning and teaching skills. The microteaching activities took eight weeks. Throughout this phase, each student planned a 20-minute microteaching with tutoring from the instructor and performed it in the classroom. The performers were formatively evaluated through a microteaching assessment form by the instructor, the teaching assistants and some preservice teachers. Then the performers made a self-reflection assignment about their microteaching performance, considering those evaluations. In the following semester, 15 participants&rsquo / perceptions about the contributions and challenges posed by microteaching activities for their instructional planning and teaching skills were obtained through interviews. More specifically, their perceptions about the microteaching planning process with tutoring, performing microteaching, formatively assessing peers&rsquo / microteaching performances, being assessed by peers, and doing self-reflection assignment were analyzed. This focus revealed that although preservice teachers perceive microteaching activities as valuable experiences, microteaching would be more beneficial if the pupils were real ones, not their class-mates. The third focus was to investigate the effects of the cognitive tools and microteaching activities on preservice teachers&rsquo / lesson planning and teaching skills in their field teaching. For this aim, 12 participants&rsquo / field teaching lesson plans and their performance assessments were analyzed. It was found that many of them preferred using the Microteaching Planning Guide and they had no difficulty in their lesson planning. As to field teaching performance, the analyses of the assessment forms showed that a majority of them performed successfully. Besides, most of them were observed not to have anxiety during field teaching. This focus showed that these cognitive tools and microteaching activities could improve preservice teachers&rsquo / self-confidence in lesson planning and teaching skills in real class environment. Considering to meeting the need for better qualified teachers, this study promised that applying these cognitive tools and microteaching model in schools of teacher education is likely to contribute to the instructional planning and teaching skills of preservice computer teachers. This study also offers suggestive implications for how to improve teaching methods courses with the two cognitive tools and microteaching, as well.

To determine the impact of an administrator's decision on student placement in kindergarten classrooms, teachers were asked to share their perceptions on how that decision impacted their ability to deliver instruction and follow the district scope and sequence, as well as how that decision impacts student academic achievement and social and emotional development. This qualitative study was designed to gather data from kindergarten teachers using focus group interviews and individual interviews of campus principals from two campuses within the same district. The following two ways in which kindergarten classrooms were created were explored: (a) by random assignment or (b) knowledge of students' academic and behavioral performance based on information relevant to their Pre-K experience. Campus principal participants reported that they each chose their method to provide equity in the classrooms and fairness amongst their teachers. Teacher participants reported that overall, they preferred to have as much information about incoming students as possible and to be a part of the process of placing students into classrooms for the following year. By examining these teachers' perspectives, the findings from this study may positively influence policy and practice for campus administrators as they decide how they will place students in kindergarten classrooms. Continued qualitative examination of student achievement could help determine if one method of placement positively impacts student achievement. Data collected from a larger sample within the district or expanded to compare between districts could help campus administrators make positive classroom placements for kindergarten students. Also, a quantitative study using a survey might provide a more expansive view of the impact of administrators' process of assigning kindergarten students to classrooms.

abstract: When it comes to planning for instruction, many teachers may feel an overwhelming need to rely on prescribed curricular resources and when those are not available many teachers may feel lost. While several methods for improving instructional planning exist, research has shown that prioritizing standards, creating assessments aligned to those standards, and using the data from those assessments to make instructional decisions have positively impacted teachers' instructional planning practices. Grounded in participatory action research (PAR), this mixed methods action research study sought to investigate the influence that targeted coaching could have on teachers' planning practices. The study was conducted in a K-8 Title I school and included four participants who engaged in targeted coaching and professional development designed to help them improve their planning practices. It utilized surveys, observations, artifacts, and interviews to answer the research questions. From the surveys, interviews, lesson plans, artifacts and coaching conversations, the Coaching Model for Effective Planning provided helpful and beneficial professional development that was readily adaptable and useful to the participants' classroom. In addition, the findings exhibited that coaching can influence planning whether formally by being written into lesson plans or by incorporating it into instruction. Furthermore, the findings also raised the question of teacher efficacy in coaching relationships as wells the impact of coaching. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ed.D. Educational Leadership and Policy Studies 2012

Fundação de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado de Minas Gerais / The course in distance learning can be customized taking in to account the specific characteristic of each student. This means that the learning environment has adaptativity. So, in order to develop adaptative systems of distance learning, it is necessary to consider the problems: instructional planning and the student model. The first problem allows to generate a specific sequence of content for each student and the second one provides the necessary information to cope with adaptativity. Planning techniques in Artificial Intelligence have been successfully used for determining the sequence of instructional actions. The Workflow technology has been used for the management of these systems. Then, this work presents an adaptative instructional planning and a student model based on Taxonomy of Educational Objectives and learning styles. / Muitos sistemas de educação à distância não levam em consideração características particulares do estudante, utilizam as mesmas estratégias pedagógicas e seqüencias de conteúdo para todos os estudante. No entanto, ambiente de educação à distância devem introduzir adaptatividade como uma das suas principais características. Para que isto seja possível, deve-se considerar os problemas de planejamento instrucional e definição modelo do estudante. O primeiro problema permite gerar uma sequência de conteúdo específica para cada estudante e o segundo problema prove informações necessárias para lidar com adaptatividade. Técnicas de planejamento em Inteligência Artificial têm sido utilizada para determinar a sequência de ações instrucionais. A tecnologia de Workflow têm sido utilizada para gerenciar estes sistemas. Por tanto, este trabalho apresentar um sequenciador de conteúdo adaptativo, que utiliza algoritmos genéticos e um modelo do estudante baseado taxionomia do objetivos educacionais e em estilos de aprendizagem. / Mestre em Ciência da Computação

Doctor Educationis / Three questions are central to this thesis: First, can the practice of teaching be made safe from luck through the controlling power of knowledge and reason? Second, even if it can be made safe from luck, should it be? Third, if it is neither possible nor desirable to exclude luck from teaching, what knowledge and personal qualities will put practitioners in the strongest position to face the contingencies of luck and, more especially, to face those conflicts which arise as a consequence of circumstances beyond the practitioner's control? Martha Nussbaum's account of luck and ethics in Greek philosophy and tragedy prompts the questions and provides, with Aristotle, many of the conceptual tools for answering them; Thomas Nagel's work on moral luck provides the categories for a more refined account of luck and its place in teaching. With respect to the first two questions, I argue that as a human practice teaching is open to the vicissitudes of fortune and cannot be made safe from luck, except at the expense of its vitality. Like other human practices, teaching is mutable, indeterminate and particular. Both its primary and secondary agents (teachers and pupils) and the practice itself are vulnerable to luck in four categories: constitutive, circumstantial, causal and consequential. But teaching is not just a matter of luck; it is a public practice in which some people are put into the hands of others for specific purposes, usually at public expense. If we have no way of holding practitioners accountable for their actions, the practice loses credibility. Any money or trust put into it is simply a gamble. For these and other reasons, the drive to exclude luck from practice is strong. Yet strong luck-diminishment projects are themselves a threat to the vitality of the practice. During the twentieth century two strong luck-diminishment projects have been especially detrimental to teaching: one rooted in the science of management, the other in the empirical sciences. Both have resulted in a proliferation of unfruitful and often trivial research projects, to misconceived programmers of teacher education, to distorted notions of knowledge and excellence in teaching, and to self-defeating and impoverished practice. Luck-diminishment projects rooted in logic are more or less threatening to vital practice, depending on how far they are committed to instrumental reasoning and a science of measurement. These are blunt and controversial claims. A central task of the thesis is to refine and defend them. The refinement proceeds by way of a contrastive analysis of strong luck-diminishment projects and others which are more responsive to the indeterminacy of practice. With respect to the final question, I argue that there are at least three sets of necessary conditions for a flourishing practice in the face of luck. One concerns what Aristotle calls the virtues of intellect and character. Central among these are practical rationality (conceived non-instrumentally), situational appreciation, and the knowledge required for an intelligent pursuit of the definitive ends of teaching. A second set concerns enabling institutions. A third concerns the kind of community best able to nurture those qualities necessary for vital and excellent practice. All three sets are themselves vulnerable to reversal. Keeping the practice of teaching alive and ensuring that it remains true to its definitive ends is thus a matter of sustained struggle.

This study was an examination of 20 North Texas high school teachers' perceptions about the effects of bring your own device (BYOD) initiatives on instructional planning and classroom environment. The BYOD initiative at two high school campuses was studied through a qualitative approach, i.e. a collective case study. Data were collected through interviews, classroom observations, and reviews of participants' lesson planning documents. The findings indicated teachers had to plan for inequitable technology access, technology support, effective classroom management, and relevant content to support student learning effectively. Teachers participated in professional development focused on planning for student devices, effective use of instructional technology, and classroom management during this type of instruction. Results revealed that, during instruction that included students' devices, teachers believed student engagement and content retention were greater. Observation data also indicated that students were more engaged in the instruction. The interviews and classroom observations indicated that students assumed a more active role in their learning during these lessons, and teachers facilitated and provided more support as needed. Effective planning and classroom management were identified as key components in the success of this type of initiative. Overall, the study supports the necessity for relevant professional development for teachers and campus administrators to ensure the success of BYOD initiatives. Similarly, these two groups should work together to develop the campus framework to support BYOD technology in the classroom.