Thesis (Ed. D.)--UCLA, 2008. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 199-209).

Thesis (M.A.)--Wheaton College Graduate School, 2007. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 31-33).

Orientador: Luciana Maria Giovanni / Banca: Alda Junqueira Marin / Banca: Emília Freitas de Lima / Banca: Elenice Maria Camarosano Onofre / Banca: Maria Regina Guarnieri / Resumo: A pesquisa, aqui apresentada, defende a idéia de que professores formados em Cursos de Pedagogia, com licenciatura plena de 4 anos, em instituições públicas ou particulares conceituadas e que participaram, ao longo da graduação, de Programas Especiais de Estudo, Grupos de Estudos, Monitorias, Projetos de Pesquisa e Extensão e, especialmente de atividades de Iniciação à Pesquisa tendem a ter uma trajetória e desempenho profissionais diferenciados em relação aos demais professores. O objetivo do estudo foi o de investigar o impacto específico das experiências de iniciação à pesquisa no processo de formação inicial e no desempenho profissional de professores/as do Ensino Fundamental I da Secretaria Municipal de Educação de Araraquara. Para a obtenção dos dados foi realizada, em 2004, uma pesquisa preliminar, por meio de questionários distribuídos a 259 profissionais atuantes como docentes e como especialistas nas equipes técnicas das escolas de Ensino Fundamental I da Secretaria Municipal de Araraquara, com o objetivo de traçar o perfil pessoal, bem como caracterizar a trajetória de formação e a carreira desses profissionais. Desse total (259), foram devolvidos 142 questionários. A pesquisa revelou que desses 142 profissionais respondentes, 32 ou 25,60% revelavam trajetória profissional diferenciada, ocupando posições de destaque na Secretaria: 16 atuando nas funções de coordenadores, diretores e assistentes educacionais pedagógicos e 16 atuando em salas de aula como professoras da rede de ensino municipal. Com o apoio teórico de autores como Pérez Gómez, Antonio Contreras e Henry Giroux e focalizando, especificamente, as16 professoras que permaneciam nas salas de aula exercendo funções docentes foram realizadas entrevistas intensivas, buscando analisar, nos depoimentos das professoras... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: The present study defends the idea that teachers who have graduated from Pedagogy courses in respected public or private institutions and who participated, during their graduation, in Special Study Programs, Study Groups, Tutoring, Research and Extension Projects and especially in activities of initial research tend to have differentiated trajectory and professional performance in relation to other teachers. The objective of this work was to investigate the specific impact of the experiences in research in the process of initial formation and in the professional performance of Middle School teachers of municipal schools in Araraquara. Preliminary research was accomplished in 2004 to obtain the data by means of questionnaires distributed to 259 professionals among teachers and specialists from Middle School teams in Araraquara, aiming to trace their personal profile as well as to characterize their formation trajectory and career. Of this total (259), 142 questionnaires were returned. The research showed that 142 of the respondents, 32 or 25.60% revealed differentiated professional trajectory: 16 were coordinators, directors and pedagogic assistants and 16 were teachers in municipal schools. Accomplished in 2005 and theoretically supported by authors such as Pérez Gómez, Gimeno Sacristán and Henry Giroux, intensive interviews aimed at the analysis of the relation established by these 16 teachers between their research experiences in their initial formation and the exercise of their profession. The results obtained in the second stage of the research indicate that in these teachers' view: initial formation constitutes fundamental learning for the building of knowledge necessary to teachersþ work; initiation activities to research, participation in study groups, extension projects and services to the community and, especially... (Complete abstract, click electronic address below) / Doutor

Although it has been more than 20 years since the publication of Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for School Mathematics (NCTM, 1989) and 10 years since the second version of standards, Principles and Standards for School Mathematics (NCTM, 2000), the research underlines the lack of essential practices for standards-based teaching (Franke, Kazemi, & Battey, 2007). The literature also emphasizes the importance of planning in standards-based teaching, although few studies focus on the direct planning of the teacher (Kilpatrick, Swafford, & Findell, 2001). The aim of the current study was to conduct a case study to extract the planning and classroom practices of an expert seventh grade mathematics teacher. The extracted practices were interpreted using the teaching-in-context theory which is based on the beliefs, goals, and knowledge of the teacher. The case study was conducted in a design experiment environment where the instructional sequence was revised based on the classroom instruction. The data were collected through different resources including videotapes of classroom sessions, teacher notes, students‟ artifacts, audiotapes of daily teacher interviews, weekly teacher meetings and classroom small groups in five weeks. Transcripts were used to observe the action patterns of the teacher during both planning and classroom practices. By triangulating the data, planning practices were separated into five categories: preparation, reflection, anticipation, assessment, and revision. These practices were interrelated in an environment of collaboration. Classroom practices also were categorized into five groups, namely creating and sustaining social norms, facilitating genuine mathematical discourse, supporting the development of sociomathematical norms, capitalizing on students‟ imagery to create inscriptions and notation, and developing small groups as communities of learners. Similar to the planning practices, these iii were also highly interrelated with social norms playing a key role in application of all other practices. The results showed that the expert teacher used a diverse set of practices with each practice comprised of multiple actions to create and sustain a standards-based environment. The results also indicated that standards-based teaching requires a rich and connected body of knowledge about students, curriculum, content, and literature. It was found that the depth of the teacher‟s knowledge allowed her to develop practices that were consistent with her beliefs and goals. Finally, the planning and classroom practices were found to be highly interrelated. While effective planning practices facilitated the application of standards-based teaching, the classroom teaching practices equipped the teacher with the data necessary to perform effective planning practices.

This dissertation offers an intimate view into the emotional life of a queer teacher while she lived and taught middle school in a conservative rural Northern Californian community during the years 2020 to 2022. Acknowledging the emotional weight felt by many educators as they confront challenges in and outside of their academic curricula, this study offers a framework for recording, examining, and analyzing the wobble moments (emotionally difficult events) experienced by teachers in ways that may relieve some of their associated tension and stress. Through reflections on teacher journal entries, this autoethnographic study demonstrates how emotion, dialogic, and queer theories may be used to rethink and reconfigure the narratives of our emotional experiences. The author argues that by engaging in emotional dialogue, teachers may gain new insight on and deepen their relationships to their practice and profession, as well as to their students and colleagues. Ultimately, it is in her analysis of these relationships that the author finds solace and lightens some the emotional weight of teaching.

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Science in Information Technology in Education

This mixed-methods study was situated within one Florida county and investigated the impact of a newly initiated end-of-course Civics examination upon middle school teachers’ instruction and student learning. High-stakes testing is often a polarizing issue regarding the perceived benefits and challenges for both students and teachers. Participating teachers completed surveys comprised of Likert-type items and short-answer questions inquiring about their instructional choices and resulting student learning with and without the presence of the Civics EOC examination. A subset of department instructional leaders were interviewed providing additional qualitative data with a wider scope due to their dual positioning as teachers and as links between the social studies teachers at their school and the School District of Sunshine County. The analysis of the data reveals that while civics teachers value the increased prestige brought to the subject area with the introduction of the end-of-course examination, the heightened importance of standards has a resulted in a focus on breadth of content coverage rather than depth of learning, leading to content-centered rather than student-centered classroom environments and subsequent loss of voice and choice in curricular decisions for teachers and students. Teachers feel intense pressure to cover the curriculum, raise test scores and engage in test preparation; they question the soundness of the examination to adequately assess the learning of all students and to capture the essence of civics education: active engagement. Teachers’ perspectives on the effect of the examination on teacher practice and student learning were framed within contextual factors that emerged in the analysis: the abandonment of the policy to introduce foundational content at the elementary level; a lack of communication among stakeholders, but particularly between state-level decision makers and local educators; and an absence of the ongoing scaffolding required to create a strong foundation of knowledge and skills to foster continued growth. Consequently, the recommendations of this study of educators’ voices on the policies that impact their profession are directed primarily at state level policy makers and future researchers regarding the flow of communication, inclusion of teacher feedback, continued teacher development, addition of a participatory component, and curricular alignment. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2018. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Quality physical education is important to adolescent health and physical well-being. For urban schools, contextual and environmental constraints often make school-based physical education challenging. A good fitness testing program has the potential to promote physical activity and fitness. Attitude theory posits that attitude influences how teachers do their work. The purpose of this study was to investigate the attitudes of urban middle school physical education teachers toward physical fitness tests and their relationship with student performance on fitness tests. Middle school teachers (N = 124) were recruited from urban school districts on the east and west coasts of the United States. They completed the Physical Education Teacher Attitudes toward Fitness Tests instrument (Keating & Silverman, 2004) whose scores have been validated and also provided demographic information. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics for overall teacher attitude and teacher attitude subdomains and correlational statistics to examine the relationship between each component of teacher attitude (overall, affective, and cognitive) and the percentage of students in the Healthy Fitness Zone (HFZ) on various components of the FITNESSGRAM. Correlations also were examined by various teacher demographic variables and for boys and girls. Univariate and multivariate analyses were conducted to examine the differences in fitness tests performance variables by demographic and profession-related variables. Teachers’ overall attitudes toward fitness testing were just higher than neutral, signaling positive attitudes. Among the findings, the affective subdomain of teachers’ attitude on the enjoyment of using fitness tests results was found to have a significant positive relationship with the percentage of students in the HFZ for the push-up test. Additional significant positive relationships between the percentage of students in the HFZ on the tests and various components of attitude were also found for girls. The findings suggest that teachers’ affective attitude may have a relationship with students’ performance on fitness tests and that relationships may be different for boys and girls. The relationships for teachers’ attitude toward enjoyment of using fitness tests results suggests teachers may use them to design activities and lessons that lead students to engage in more physical activity and thus improve their levels of fitness.

Diversity across U.S. classrooms is on the rise which is leading to renewed calls for teachers to meet individual learning needs. Studies indicate the failure to address individual learning needs can lead to higher rates of student disengagement, off-task behaviors, and diminished learning outcomes. Differentiated instruction is an approach to teaching that meets the growing diversity of individual learning needs by considering students' readiness, interest, and learning styles. Differentiated instructional approaches help teachers meet individual learning needs by allowing them to modify instruction as needed. However, despite the apparent benefits of differentiated instruction, teachers are hesitant to abandon other educational models. Research has shown beliefs about student learning influence teachers classroom practices. If teachers do not possess beliefs supporting differentiated classroom practices, then calls for additional implementation may go unheeded. Thus it is important to examine teacher beliefs that may help or hinder implementation of differentiated instructional practices. The purpose of this study was to explore teacher beliefs connected to teaching, learning, and differentiated instruction in diverse classrooms. This study used qualitative case study methodologies to interview, survey, and observe the beliefs and practices of four white, female, veteran middle level educators operating in diverse classroom settings. Data analysis revealed the following themes: (a) differentiated instruction is considered essential, (b) teachers' diversity definitions influenced their differentiated instructional strategies, (c) the classroom environment influences teachers self-efficacy, and (d) professional development sessions support differentiated instructional practices. Conclusions drawn from this study may be used to help improve teacher practices--and ultimately learner outcomes--by informing teacher preparation and professional development, state and local educational policies, and curricular reform efforts.

Thesis (Ed. D.)--University of La Verne, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 119-128).