The purpose of this thesis is to examine how teachers in the swedish language subject perceive and experience summative assesment of students’ essays. A second purpose is to investigate how teachers go about doing summative assessments of students’ texts. This qualitative study used semi-structured interviews, ranging from 18 to 48 minutes in length, with a total of six teachers of the swedish language subject in upper and secondary school.. The results indicates that the teachers’ found it difficult and complex to make summative assesments of students’ essays for a variety of reasons. For exampel teachers must take into consideration numerous factors when converting their assessment into a grade. The teachers also replied that summative assessment of students’ texts is a very time-consuming and not so inspiring part of their professional practice. The teachers answered that they largely assessed the students texts on their own, but if they felt uncertain they could request help from a colleague. Most teachers agreed that it would be beneficial if all assessments of writing were done collaboratively, but that there is no time to co-evaluate. Several teachers also meant that the national exams function as help in their own assessment, as it became something to relate to.

Teachers at an urban high school in the Southeast have failed to see an increase in classroom achievement or standardized test scores despite efforts to increase passing rates. If achievement rates do not increase, school restructuring will occur. While the site has implemented programs to reduce academic failure, data exists that external barriers may be affecting student achievement. Guided by Bandura's (1986) theory of metacognitive beliefs and self-efficacy as the conceptual framework, this qualitative case study explored teachers' perceptions about the root causes of poor student achievement. This study examines how to identify those causes to help students improve academically, while providing teacher recommendations to reducing the effects of those causes in order to improve student success. Five teachers were selected from the math and science content areas to participate in 1-on-1 interviews to identify external barriers to student success. Thematic coding and member checks allowed for data triangulation to analyze the findings. Seven themes emerged to increase student success by helping close the achievement gap through fostering support between teachers and the families of all students involved: socioeconomic status, ability of goal setting, having encouragement and motivation, seeing another environment, lacking parental support, building relationships with parents, and stress of taking state tests. Developing resources that will help students to overcome issues outside of the school day that leads to increased student academic achievement and graduation rates creates social change.

The aim with this study was to give awareness about the school situation for students living in the slum areas of Nairobi. The purpose was to raise the teachers’ perspectives about working with these students. Previous researches around the topic were studied to gain a better knowledge for the subject. The focus was put on Maslow’s hierarchy of basic needs, trauma with its effects and possible treatments in school and the home environment effects on the student´s learning. Since this was a qualitative study, the method used was open aimed interviews. Eleven teachers working in the slum areas in Nairobi were interviewed with these two main questions in mind; What do teachers think is important when working with students who come from the slum areas of Nairobi and how do teachers work with these students? All schools were located in or close to a children home in order for the teachers to have a wide range of experiences when working with students from the slum area. Some of the results that came up were that teachers saw it as important to provide students with their basic needs in school. The teachers also said that students had different reactions towards trauma and it was of great importance for students to be able to both channel their expressions after the trauma but also to forget the trauma for the moment to be able to concentrate in school. The teachers were disagreeing about whether to treat students equally or individually. Some of the teachers said that the student´s home environment affects their learning due to the quality and quantity of help that they can get with their homework. Some teachers felt adequate due to the extra work put on their shoulders in their work with the students from the slum areas.

Gifted middle school students may not always be provided with a differentiated curriculum that ensures their academic progression in inclusive educational settings. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to examine teachers' perspectives on differentiation for gifted students in the general education classroom. The conceptual framework for the study was anchored by the theories of Gardner, who recognized that students learn in different ways, and Vygotsky, who determined that students learn best at their level of learning or zone of proximal development. The research questions focused on teachers' perspectives about teaching the gifted students in the general classroom environment and how they were implementing differentiation for their gifted students. Participants included 7 general education teachers from a single middle school who taught students with mixed abilities. Data collection consisted of interviews with each teacher and a single observation in each teacher's classroom. Inductive analysis aided in the coding process. Open and axial coding were used to create labels and concepts, color coding for organization of the data, member checking for accuracy, triangulation, and peer review for validity. The results of the study indicated that teachers were willing to teach mixed-ability students in 1 classroom, but most teachers believed that gifted students should be taught in special gifted classes. Although teachers believed that differentiation was important, they were not implementing differentiation in their classrooms for gifted students. Social change implications include a deeper understanding by teachers and administration of the necessity for challenging and differentiated instruction. Recommendations are made for improvements in accommodations, appropriate strategies, and differentiated curriculum for middle school gifted students.

Findings by the Swedish Schools Inspectorate (2011), show that some pupils in Sweden feel anxiety when speaking English. This is no surprise to Horwitz, Horwitz and Cope (1986) who state that speaking is regarded to be the scariest part of language learning. To understand the phenomenon of speech anxiety further and to contribute to existing research, the purpose of this study was to investigate what learner speech anxiety is according to four chosen teachers as well as their strategies in dealing with speech anxiety. The teachers play an essential role when dealing with learner anxiety. Not including the pupils themselves is not necessarily a limitation, but a strength: Young (1992) reports that the students’ perspectives have been well-documented, and that investigating the teachers’ point of view might offer new insights on the issue at hand.In retrieving information from the four teacher respondents, semi-structured interviewing was used, adopting pragmatic qualitative research as an approach as well as the two paradigms phenomenology and pragmatism.The teachers perceive speech anxiety in the subject of English to be the learners’ feeling of nervousness, worry and fear stemming from real or imagined insufficient language skills, a fear of making mistakes and being humiliated. To decrease anxiety, the teachers believed ample oral practice in small groups in a supportive environment to be part of the solution. There was, furthermore, strong mutual agreement regarding what not to do: forcing and pressuring pupils to speak when feeling uncomfortable with speaking in front of others.

I den här studien vill jag belysa hur lärare beskriver prevention och intervention, alltså deras förebyggande och ingripande agerande när det gäller undervisningen av elever som presterar lågt i matematik. Det är en kvalitativ studie som bygger på en serie gruppintervjuer av lärare i grundskolan. Det finns fortfarande en traditionellt kompensatoriskt syn på eleverna hos matematiklärarna och de är ofta av uppfattningen att det behövs specialpedagogik för att alla ska få ett godkänt betyg i matematik. I och med fortbildning, främst genom matematiklyftet, har inställningen till att klara av att inkludera elever som presterar lågt i matematik på ett bra sätt dock ökat. Arbetet i skolorna pågår för att förbättra matematikundervisningen men man ser sällan en övergripande gemensam plan från skolans eller lärarnas sida. Det arbete lärarna bedriver preventivt för att kunna inkludera de elever som presterar lågt har en positiv effekt på alla elever. Mycket av förändringen ligger i att lärare och elever talar mer matematik och inte följer läroboken lika slaviskt som tidigare. / In this study I want to illustrate how teachers describe their preventions and interventions when teaching students with low achievement in mathematics. This is a qualitative study based on a series of group interviews of teachers in the Swedish compulsory school. Mathematics teachers still hold a traditional compensatory perspective on students with low achievement thus placing the responsibility for learning with the students. The general opinion is that special pedagogics is necessary to enable support enough to help students with low achievement in mathematics to reach a passing grade. Thanks to further training, primarily through “Matematiklyftet”, the view on the possibility to include low achieving students in the classroom in a good way is more positive. There is an ongoing work in schools to improve the mathematics teaching, but one cannot see a complete or common plan for the schools neither from the school administration nor the teachers. The preventive measures made to include the low achieving students does have a positive effect for all students. Much of the implemented changes have its origin in talking mathematics in the classroom and not following the textbook as slavishly as previously done.

At-risk youth come to school with a variety of challenges that sometimes lead to voluntary or involuntary disengagement from traditional high schools. Alternative education programs are an alternate placement for students who have disengaged from traditional high schools. Although researchers have shown that teacher and staff approaches to the overall educational experience of a student contribute to student success in alternative education programs, they have also highlighted that the lack of teacher-student relationships contributes to student disengagement. These findings may indicate that not all teachers are willing or able to connect with at-risk students. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore what educators identified as the personal factors that support their motivation, interest, and eagerness to be an effective teacher in an alternative education setting in a Northeastern U.S. city. Self-determination theory was the theoretical foundation to study the relationship between the motivation of an educator and their effectiveness. Data included semistructured interviews and guided writing assignments with 4 educators from an effective alternative education program. Seven significant themes emerged that educators identified as personal factors that support motivation, interest, and eagerness to be an effective teacher in an alternative education setting: (a) understanding, (b) defining moment, (c) perspective and outlook, (d) personal and/or psychological goal attainment, (e) intrinsic motivation, (f) teacher beyond academics, and (g) internal fortitude. Implications for social change include information to help in recruitment of effective teachers for engaging at-risk students, thereby promoting their chances for academic and nonacademic success.

This study focused on the continued mathematical achievement gap between African American and Latino students in an urban elementary school. An illustrative case study design was used to examine the teachers' perception of factors contributing to this gap in mathematical performance, and what instructional math strategies can narrow the achievement gap. Socioconstructivism and culturally relevant pedagogy were the learning theories used to form the conceptual framework in this study. Qualitative data were obtained from 6 individual interviews with 4th grade math educators, classroom observations, and teacher artifacts. Data analysis in this study included data triangulation and coding, as well as identification of common themes as an important analytical approach to enhance the credibility of this study. Methods for minimizing bias and error included peer debriefing and member-checking, which consisted of obtaining feedback from participants to ensure the trustworthiness of findings. The key results of this study indicated that teachers perceived that 4th grade African American students often lacked basic skills and background knowledge for their school grade. Based upon the findings, the outcome was a plan for professional development training to help teachers gain knowledge on how to incorporate cultural relevant pedagogy, through strategies that include differentiating learning instructions and mastery learning into their classrooms, to narrow the mathematical achievement gap between African American and Latino 4th grade students. Implications for positive social change from this study include providing teachers with research-based strategies targeted toward narrowing the mathematical achievement gap between 4th grade African American and Latino students at the local and district site.

The school is a place of work where teachers, with different tools, are supposed to teach their students for the future. In the study the teachers’ opinions will be lifted when it comes to use of computers as a tool to teach the students how to read and write. The interpretation is that the use of computers is reflecting the development of society and the intention is to find out if computers will be used in a didactic purpose in teaching. We focused on getting knowledge about which different opinions there are among teachers in grade 1-3 when it comes to the use of computers as a tool in teaching how to read and write. The study is qualitative and is built on five interviews done at four different schools. The result presents how teachers consider how they use computers as a tool in a didactic purpose in teaching how to read and write in the students´ young years. Furthermore which ideas the teachers have about how they would like to use computers in a didactic purpose in teaching how to read and write. In the result there also will be lifted which elements according to the teachers make this computer using possible. Finally, the result is discussed in relation to the literature and our own reflections. / Skolan är en arbetsplats där lärare ska lära elever för framtiden med olika hjälpmedel. I studien lyfts lärares uppfattningar till datoranvändning som ett hjälpmedel till läs- och skrivinlärning i skolan. Tolkningen är att datoranvändningen speglar samhällsutvecklingen och avsikten är att ta reda på om datorer används i ett didaktiskt syfte i undervisningen. Fokus läggs på att få kunskap om vilka olika uppfattningar det finns bland lärare i årskurs 1-3 gällande datoranvändning som hjälpmedel vid läs- och skrivinlärning. Studien är kvalitativ och bygger på fem intervjuer, vilka är genomförda på fyra olika skolor. Resultatet presenterar hur lärare resonerar kring datoranvändning som ett verktyg i didaktiskt syfte i sin läs- och skrivundervisning i tidiga åldrar. Dessutom hur lärare resonerar kring hur de skulle vilja använda datorer som ett didaktiskt verktyg i sin läs- och skrivundervisning. I resultatet lyfts även fram vilka faktorer som påverkar datoranvändningens omfattning i undervisningen, enligt lärare. Slutligen diskuteras resultatet i relation till litteraturen och egna reflektioner.

<p>The school is a place of work where teachers, with different tools, are supposed to teach their students for the future. In the study the teachers’ opinions will be lifted when it comes to use of computers as a tool to teach the students how to read and write. The interpretation is that the use of computers is reflecting the development of society and the intention is to find out if computers will be used in a didactic purpose in teaching. We focused on getting knowledge about which different opinions there are among teachers in grade 1-3 when it comes to the use of computers as a tool in teaching how to read and write. The study is qualitative and is built on five interviews done at four different schools. The result presents how teachers consider how they use computers as a tool in a didactic purpose in teaching how to read and write in the students´ young years. Furthermore which ideas the teachers have about how they would like to use computers in a didactic purpose in teaching how to read and write. In the result there also will be lifted which elements according to the teachers make this computer using possible. Finally, the result is discussed in relation to the literature and our own reflections.</p> / <p>Skolan är en arbetsplats där lärare ska lära elever för framtiden med olika hjälpmedel. I studien lyfts lärares uppfattningar till datoranvändning som ett hjälpmedel till läs- och skrivinlärning i skolan. Tolkningen är att datoranvändningen speglar samhällsutvecklingen och avsikten är att ta reda på om datorer används i ett didaktiskt syfte i undervisningen. Fokus läggs på att få kunskap om vilka olika uppfattningar det finns bland lärare i årskurs 1-3 gällande datoranvändning som hjälpmedel vid läs- och skrivinlärning. Studien är kvalitativ och bygger på fem intervjuer, vilka är genomförda på fyra olika skolor. Resultatet presenterar hur lärare resonerar kring datoranvändning som ett verktyg i didaktiskt syfte i sin läs- och skrivundervisning i tidiga åldrar. Dessutom hur lärare resonerar kring hur de skulle vilja använda datorer som ett didaktiskt verktyg i sin läs- och skrivundervisning. I resultatet lyfts även fram vilka faktorer som påverkar datoranvändningens omfattning i undervisningen, enligt lärare. Slutligen diskuteras resultatet i relation till litteraturen och egna reflektioner.</p>