This paper describes how improving a teacher's content knowledge changes his teaching practices and its subsequent effects on student learning during a middle school volleyball instructional unit. The study was designed to challenge teacher educators' thinking about the importance of in-depth content knowledge for effective teaching by…

Research has affirmed the importance of principals and mentors in supporting novice teachers; however, little is known about how teacher leaders contribute to this work. We employed a mixed methods design to examine teacher leaders' contributions to induction by surveying principals, teachers, and other staff (n = 246) and interviewing teacher…

Onwuegbuzie and colleagues proposed the Instrument Development and Construct Validation (IDCV) process as a mixed methods framework for creating and validating measures. Examples applying IDCV are lacking. We provide an illustrative case integrating the Rasch model and cognitive interviews applied to the development of the Transformative…

In this article, the authors discuss how to explore the agency of ordinary citizens using local institutions to combat Jim Crow segregation laws during Freedom Summer. Primary sources from Miami (OH) University website about Freedom Summer and Susan Goldman Rubin's trade book ground the inquiry. Through the series of activities discussed, middle…

All but four states in the nation now permit teachers to come into the profession through an "alternate route," compared to only a few 30 years ago. Alternate routes into the classroom have grown so acceptable that about one in five teachers now enters the profession through one of these programs, which offer some real benefits to the…

Spanning the course of two decades, educational leaders have invested government finances into the social-emotional needs of adolescents. Government programs provide student questionnaires to survey the scholastic climate from students' perceptions. Previous research discusses the correlation between students' perception and their success in…

The present study examined variations in incidents of student insubordination and violence using an individual change model, which allowed for repeated observations of student behaviors in 148 Ohio schools at the initial status (2010) and over time (2010 and 2014). Findings were significant only at the initial status. As school size and total…

The purpose of this study was to explore teachers' lived experiences in professional learning communities, conceptualized in Ohio as teacher based teams. This study was carried out against the backdrop of state policies addressed to poorly performing schools. School culture must change in failing schools. In order to change culture (Kowalski,…

The purpose of this study is to explore the correlation between state-recorded value- added (VA) scores and academic optimism (AO) scores, which measure teacher self-efficacy, trust, and academic emphasis. The sample for this study is 87 third through eighth grade Reading teachers, from fifty-five schools, in an urban school district in Ohio who…

"Prentice Hall/Pearson Literature©" (2007-15) is an English language arts curriculum designed for students in grades 6-12 that focuses on building reading, vocabulary, literary analysis, and writing skills. It uses passages from fiction and nonfiction texts, poetry, and contemporary digital media. The curriculum is based on a textbook.…

This study looks deeply inside 17 schools that stand at the vanguard of the current revolution in teaching. This new National Center on Time & Learning (NCTL) report reveals the substantive ways in which these schools are providing their teachers with more time to reflect on, develop, and hone their craft, by very explicitly leveraging an…

The purpose of this quantitative study was to determine whether or not a relationship existed between principals who demonstrate transformational leadership traits and six different quality practices in their special education program. Effective principals must know and understand special education laws, practices, and current issues, but evidence…

Charter schools represent an increasingly important form of school choice in the United States. Charter schools are public schools, with a difference. Compared to traditional public schools, they are exempted from some of the state laws and regulations that govern traditional public schools. In this way, parents come to have a greater number of…

Education reformers are calling for increased accountability for the nation's public schools. Teacher evaluation has experienced a shift in focus from what teachers do to accomplish the task of teaching to student growth as a result of what teachers do in the classroom (Achieve, Inc., 2007). Additionally, a connection between teacher job…

The purpose of this phenomenological research study was to use Self-Determination Theory as a framework to analyze middle school mathematics teachers' motivation to attain effective professional development concerning Ohio's Learning Standards as well as other instructional aspects that affect the classroom. Teachers are exceptionally busy meeting…