Although increasingly encouraged to incorporate new media into classrooms to prepare students for engaged participation in a digital world, teachers are often taken by surprise when paradigm clashes arise between traditional school expectations and the affordances of these new spaces. Students, at the same time, are faced with making sense of the…

As the reauthorization of NCLB looms on the horizon, many states have made the decision to re-evaluate the teacher role in the classroom as it relates to student achievement. The accountability era in public education has evolved over the last decade to encompass broad changes, some good, some questionable. In education it takes time determine the…

This study characterizes how a cohort of 33 middle and secondary mathematics preservice teachers' inferential reasoning changed while enrolled in a statistics course designed for future teachers. Changes in inferential reasoning from pre- to post-assessments are analyzed and further elucidated by midcourse clinical interviews conducted with a…

Truly impacting teacher practices is a challenge for educational professional development (PD) providers. Typically, little attention is paid to the factors within the environment to which the educators return and how those factors will impact participants' ability to integrate what they have learned into their teaching practices. Even for…

The assistant principal is often overlooked in school leadership literature, yet in recent years has grown to be a vital part of secondary schools (Marshall & Hooley, 2006). This descriptive study seeks to expand on the work of Marshall and Hooley (2006), which serves as a primer in the study of assistant principals. In an era of increased…

In response to recent legislative changes including increased graduation requirements and changes in requirements for Highly Qualified status for secondary special education teachers, many schools have implemented co-teaching as a way to deliver special education services to students with high-incidence disabilities and to increase access to and…

This qualitative phenomenological study explored the impact of the professional development model, "Powerful Teaching and Learning" (PTL) on teachers' sense of efficacy of 17 secondary teachers at a single high school in Washington State. Qualitative data was collected through in-depth interviews and analyzed using the methodical…

This study investigated the impact of parenting trends on a private Pre K-12 school from the Midwestern United States. The researcher used focus group interviews with 16 educators to examine the perceived effects of parenting on teachers, students and the institution. Results from a survey, reaching a larger sample of educators from two additional…

Career and technical education (CTE), historically known as vocational education, is a collective term used to identify high school curricula designed to teach students job skills and prepare them for employment (Lynch, 2000). Transformations in the workforce have created a demand for teachers to be technologically literate and adept at using…

While research supports that formative assessment can improve student learning, it is rarely used and difficult to implement. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to investigate the use of student handheld response systems (SRS) as a tool for formative assessment in high school classes as well as teachers' attitudes towards this…

This quantitative study evaluates the impact of using robotics as a content organizer to teach a mathematic concept between math and technology education classes in a middle school of the students beliefs and interests toward STEM concepts. The analysis was based upon pre and post belief and interest survey responses by the participating middle…

In this dissertation, I analyze teacher, literacy coach and researcher subjectivities in a five-year study of on-site professional development with middle-grade Language Arts teachers in a school designated by its district and state as severely underperforming. Interested in the role of research interviews as both research method and cultural…

Leading through change is a difficult process. School leaders who hope to create meaningful, long-term change must be cognizant of numerous factors. This study was undertaken with the hope of increasing educational leaders' awareness of how their decisions are viewed by those who follow them. Case studies revealed pertinent data within two schools…

In distance education via videoconferencing, students at classroom remote sites learn without the physical presence of their teacher and other classmates at the host site. As a result, the learning experience of remote site students differs from host site students. Therefore, instructional leaders should make every effort to minimize the adverse…

The purpose of this qualitative action research study was to explore content area teachers' understanding of literacy, the strategies they use in working with content materials to support their students' learning of content, and how collaboration with a literacy expert informs literacy instruction. In my work with content area teachers,…