This study investigates the teaching practices that three Grade 9 Applied Mathematics teachers use to increase student engagement and enhance student learning. Specifically, the study examines the factors within social and academic domains that teachers used to increase student engagement. Qualitative data were collected in the form of teacher interviews, classroom observations and teacher journals. The evidence from the study shows that all three teachers were cognizant of attributes of their early adolescent learners as the teachers sought to increase student engagement in their Grade 9 Applied Mathematics classes. Six major findings as suggested by the case studies can be summarized as follows: (1) developing student self-confidence is a critical component of increasing student engagement for early adolescent learners; (2) teachers may focus on one domain more than the other as a result of their personal comfort with that domain; (3) domains for student engagement and the factors found within these domains are not independent; (4) the Ontario Ministry of Education’s TIPS4RM resource is an effective way to increase student engagement; (5) technology is also an effective and relevant way to increase student engagement; and (6) the use of a framework for student achievement may support teachers efforts to increase student engagement. Implications from this study suggest that teachers should consider a variety of factors to increase student engagement in the Grade 9 Applied Mathematics class. Teachers can consider characteristics of their early adolescent learners, and factors for social and academic engagement. Teachers will favour approaches that parallel their personality and values and efforts in one factor may support another factor of student engagement. Suggestions for areas of further research are included at the end of the study.

This study was conducted to investigate and assess the implementation process of the new high school biology curriculum. The major areas in the study included teaching methods and techniques, and instructional materials physical structure and facilities, and local, school and classroom level factors that influence the process of curriculum implementation. The research questions were the following: 1) How are the curriculum intentions implemented in biology classes? 2) What local, school and classroom level factors influence the implementation process of the new high school biology curriculum? A survey questionnaire, Biology Curriculum and Instruction Evaluation Questionnaire, was designed. The data collected from randomly selected 685 biology teachers working in public, Anatolian and private/foundation schools in fifteen cities were then analyzed through descriptive and inferential statistics, and qualitative data analysis techniques. The results revealed that the implementation process of the new high school biology curriculum shows differences at local, school and classroom levels. These differences rely on the physical structure and facilities of schools, some teacher characteristics and some teacher beliefs and perceptions. Yet, one common feature in all these different conditions is the attention called to the need for a change from learning being teacher-centered to student-centered teaching and learning process and the need to revise curriculum content and timing for its implementation.

Doctor of Philosophy / Curriculum and Instruction Programs / Jennifer M. Bay-Williams / Graphing calculators have been used in education since 1986, but there is no consensus as to how, or if, they should be used. The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and the National Research Council promote their use, and ample research supports the positive benefits of their use, but not all teachers share this view. Also, rural schools face obstacles that may hinder them from implementing technology. The purpose of this study is to determine how graphing calculators are used in mathematics instruction of high schools in western Kansas, a rural region of the state. In addition to exploring the introduction level of graphing calculators, the frequency of their use, and classes in which they are used, this study also investigated the beliefs of high school mathematics teachers as related to teaching mathematics and the use of graphing calculators. Data were collected through surveys, interviews, and observations of classroom teaching. Results indicate that graphing calculators are allowed or required in almost all of the high schools of this region, and almost all teachers have had some experience using them in their classrooms. Student access to graphing calculators depends more on the level of mathematics taken in high school than on the high school attended; graphing calculator calculators are allowed or required more often in higher-level classes than in lower-level classes. Teachers believe that graphing calculators enhance student learning because of the visual representation that the calculators provide, but their teaching styles have not changed much because of graphing calculators. Teachers use graphing calculators as an extension of their existing teaching style. In addition, nearly all of the teachers who were observed and classified as non-rule-based based on their survey utilized primarily rule-based teaching methods.

Grammar has always been an important part of language learning. Based on various theories, such as the universal grammar theory (Chomsky, 1959) and, the input theory (Krashen, 1970), the explicit and implicit teaching methods have been developed. Research shows that both methods may have some benefits and disadvantages. The attitude towards English grammar teaching methods in schools has also changed and nowadays grammar teaching methods and learning strategies, as a part of language mastery, are one of the discussion topics among linguists. This study focuses on teacher and learner experiences and beliefs about teaching English grammar and difficulties learners may face. The aim of the study is to conduct a literature review and to find out what scientific knowledge exists concerning the previously named topics. Along with this, the relevant steering documents are investigated focusing on grammar teaching at Swedish upper secondary schools. The universal grammar theory of Chomsky as well as Krashen’s input hypotheses provide the theoretical background for the current study. The study has been conducted applying qualitative and quantitative methods. The systematic search in four databases LIBRIS, ERIK, LLBA and Google Scholar were used for collecting relevant publications. The result shows that scientists’ publications name different grammar areas that are perceived as problematic for learners all over the world. The most common explanation of these difficulties is the influence of learner L1. Research presents teachers’ and learners’ beliefs to the benefits of grammar teaching methods. An effective combination of teaching methods needs to be done to fit learners’ expectations and individual needs. Together, they will contribute to the achieving of higher language proficiency levels and, therefore, they can be successfully applied at Swedish upper secondary schools.

Pinyin, the romanization system of Standard Chinese released in 1958 in China, is used to transcribe Chinese orthography, to facilitate reading comprehension and is used as a tool in general Chinese language education. Both in and outside of China and for both Chinese and foreign students, pinyin has also been used as an aid in Chinese language education for teaching Standard Chinese pronunciation and annotating Chinese texts in Chinese characters. While the related research mostly concerns the effects of pinyin on students’ abilities, research on the beliefs and practices of pinyin by Chinese language teachers in Swedish schools is scarce. The present study aims to explore Chinese language teachers’ perceptions about the importance of pinyin, and to investigate the teachers’ practice with pinyin in teaching. While the didactics of the teachers is coherent with parts in the literature describing teachers’ communicative focus, findings in the study entail that the teachers employ a method of presenting new characters involving showing the combination of a Chinese character, pinyin, and translation all at once. The balance between pinyin and Chinese character reading comprehension, a theme identified in the analysis, is a fact that the study’s respondents find hard to balance. The respondents also report positive mental effects of pinyin, such as increased confidence and an increased desire for learning Chinese in general. Lastly, the respondents emphasized the importance of pinyin in an expanding, digitalized era.

Through the years, educational theorists and researchers have been interested in a possible relationship between teachers' effectiveness and their beliefs and expectations. Three concepts underpinned this work: teacher effectiveness, cultural diversity, and teachers' beliefs and expectations. The premise of the study was that the beliefs and expectations of effective secondary choral teachers are related to the social-cultural contexts in which they teach. The study implemented critical discourse analysis as the theoretical framework and the in-depth phenomenological long interview for data collection. Three secondary choral teachers were selected to participate in the study based on the researcher's criteria. The study revealed how each teacher conceptualized student cultural diversity during the teaching experience. Teacher beliefs about effective teaching in culturally diverse settings were described as developing over time in phases along a continuum. The study also confirmed that teachers' beliefs about students can be changed through experiences and reflection. The study revealed effective teachers focused on three different types of expectations in the teaching and learning context and affirmed diverse cultural identities and backgrounds. Recommendations included the development of stronger mentorship programs to increase effective teaching strategies for the secondary choral classroom. The findings of this study support my previous work, which introduces a sequential learning framework for teaching music in culturally diverse schools.

To provide quality education to all students, including ELLs, teachers need professional development designed and enacted according to best practice. However, a common problem for professional development is that teachers' practices often do not change. Implemented through the partnership collaboration with university, education, and public school faculty, the professional development designed in this study focused on educating teachers about needed content and engaging them in ways that would increase the likelihood they would enact such practices in their classrooms (Desimone, 2009; Opfer & Pedder, 2011; Penuel et al., 2007). The professional development program comprised six courses that adhered to the Utah State Office of Education's standards for the education of the teachers of ELLs. The study examined the teachers' beliefs and their classroom practices. A total of 197 teachers were surveyed on their beliefs toward teaching ELLs, and a subset of 23 teachers' classroom practices were videotaped. Factor analyses were conducted on the pre- and post-survey. The videos were coded using a protocol based on the SIOP model (Echevarria et al., 2013), and latent variables were created to measure the change of the survey score and practice score. The analysis revealed that teachers' beliefs or knowledge in particular changed from when they began the course of second language acquisition to the time they completed it. In addition, teachers' practice changed from the time they started the professional development program to the time they completed it. However, even though teachers' beliefs and practices changed, there was no correlation found between the belief change and the practice change. This study adds to the literature that educating teachers about second language learning and research-based practices (Baker et al., 2014) using professional development that attends to teachers' practices as well as their beliefs (Desimone, 2009; Opfer & Pedder, 2011; Penuel et al., 2007) resulted in positive changes in teacher's beliefs and practices for teaching ELLs. Future research should add a variable of teacher's beliefs about the context of their teaching practice into the study for this can be a confounding variable that affects the correlation between the change of beliefs and the change of practices.

This study seeks to qualitatively examine the intersection between teachers' practical reasoning and beliefs, adolescent developmental needs, and positive teacher-student relationships. Positive comments about middle school teachers were gathered anonymously from middle school students (grades 6-8; ages 11-14) and coded according to four developmental domains: physical, social, emotional, and physical. Chi square analysis was used to determine statistical significance of which domains students alluded to most often when describing their teachers. The six middle school teachers who were mentioned most frequently in the student comments participated in semi-structured, open-ended interviews in which they were asked about the developmental needs of their students and responded to positive comments that students had made about them. Cross-case analysis was used to compare teacher attitudes and beliefs about teacher-student relationships and adolescent developmental needs, as well as to reveal practices teachers enacted in response to perceived needs. Findings suggest that teachers interpret a majority of student actions as indicative of underlying emotional needs, and that they use emotions as an entry point through which they can attend to the needs of students not just emotionally, but socially and cognitively as well. Teachers revealed in what ways they integrate developmentally appropriate classroom practices into their teaching based on their assumptions of need, including providing students a safe environment and using different types of humor in the classroom. Teacher perspectives on the characteristics of the ideal teacher surfaced, as well as how teachers tend to position themselves against students within the teacher-student relationship. Suggestions for teacher preparation programs as well as practicing teachers to place a greater focus on intentional developmentally appropriate teaching practices are given.

The use of digital games in mathematics is something that has found its place in many classrooms over the years. Previous research regarding digital games’ effect on students’ results and motivation has not included a teacher’s perspective. This qualitative study has therefore collected the data through semi-structured interviews and has interviewed five teachers about their intention and beliefs behind using digital games in teaching mathematics and how their intentions and beliefs may affect the choices they make. The result of the study was that teachers used digital games as to make students motivated to practice mathematics  as well as to individulize the mathematical content to the students. The teachers also viewed students as “digital natives” and related this view to their own self-image and this belief appeared to be a major factor when the teachers’ made choices. / Digitala spel i matematikundervisning är något som tagit plats i många klassrum de senaste åren. Den forskning som bedrivits om digitala spels påverkan gällande elevers resultat och motivation har däremot saknat ett lärarperspektiv gällande användningen av digitala spel. Denna kvalitativa studie har därför med hjälp av semistrukturerade intervjuer undersökt fem lärares syften och uppfattningar gällande digitala spel i matematikundervisning och vilka bakomliggande faktorer som kan ha kommit att påverka deras val. Resultatet visade att lärarna använde spel i syfte att låta eleverna färdighetsträna på ett motiverande sätt samt att kunna individanpassa undervisningen för eleverna. Lärarnas syn på eleverna som “digital natives” i relation till sin självbild var det som tycktes påverka deras val i störst utsträckning.

The purpose of this study is to find out how the six participating primary teachers teach vocabulary in the EFL-classroom, in particular through children’s literature and digital tools. Furthermore, this study aims to discuss how the participating teachers motivate their pupils to acquire vocabulary through various strategies and methods. Two research questions, first, how primary teachers teach vocabulary in the EFL classroom, second, what functions children’s literature and digital tools play when it is used by the teachers to enhance pupils’ vocabulary, are applied. This is a qualitative study where semi structured interviews have been conducted. The findings are coded through a thematic analysis to find patterns in the result. The results show that participating teachers differ in their reasoning when children’s literature can be used, where some of the teachers thinkthat it is possible to start using them in first grade, while others think that the pupils first need a basic vocabulary. Moreover, large screens are mostly used to display other teaching materials, while individual screens, such as iPads and computers, are used to differentiate the teaching. Additionally, the participating teachers mainly use children’s literature and digital tools to motivate the pupils in their vocabulary proficiency development.