This qualitative Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) explored the experiences of teachers who a) participated in a multiyear, multisite professional development (PD) program on formative assessment practices and who b) are identified by their supervising administrators as positive-outliers by virtue of their extraordinary improvement…

Social Networking Sites or SNSs have been used as a form of self-guided professional development (PD) by educators of all grade levels. However, there are limited students regarding Secondary educators using SNSs as a form of self-guided PD and there is also a lack of an examination of how those educators are using what the learn from SNSs within…

The researcher sought to understand how the complexities and challenges of offering high-quality professional development district-wide impacted teachers' ability to implement their new learning. The literature posits that to be considered effective, professional development must include six distinct design elements: (1) Is data driven, (2)…

This qualitative research study explored South Texas educators' perceptions of emotional intelligence after COVID-19. The study aimed to develop an understanding about teachers' emotional intelligence and perceived impacts on secondary teacher job proficiency. A qualitative approach employing a phenomenology methodology was used. Purposive…

As the cornerstones of societies, teachers play crucial roles in which society can build and shape an inclusive, equitable, and quality education system (Lawrie, 2013a). Stemming from the research that has established strong connections between teacher quality and student success (Darling-Hammond, 2000; Guskey & Sparks, 2004), also highlighted…

This qualitative phenomenological study aims to explore teachers' perceptions of professional learning communities and how they feel it impacts their effectiveness as secondary mathematics teachers in two instructional domains--content knowledge and pedagogy. Teachers spend a substantial amount of their time engaged in Professional Learning…

The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to explore how K-5 teachers describe the connections between their personal career development and their ability to implement digital citizenship pedagogy in the classroom. Twenty-four K-5 teachers completed a demographic questionnaire before signing up to participate in either a…

Implementing culturally responsive pedagogy (CRP) or culturally responsive teaching strategies in K-12 classroom settings helps educators mitigate systemic inequities within education systems. The purpose of this curriculum is to transform teacher pedagogy in a school district through a culturally responsive teaching lens. The content of this…

Arts integration is an interdisciplinary teaching model in which the arts become a conduit for the contextualization and understanding of non-arts content. Research has shown this approach increases academic engagement and content retention (Rinne et al., 2011). The use of arts integration also provides gains for teachers. Teachers perceive their…

There is an alarming rate of secondary students who struggle to read proficiently because they lack the literacy skills to acquire, process, and utilize information. State and federal learning standards require students to apply reading strategies in all content areas. These expectations require all teachers to know about reading strategies and…

The purpose of this narrative study was to explore professional development experiences intended to support the development and implementation of innovative teaching and learning strategies in the traditional K-12 educational setting, from the perspective and lived experience of educators. The sample of this study was four white, female educators…

The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological research study was to examine if utilizing performing arts elements as teaching tools in large-group professional development (PD) sessions for K-12 educators increased educator engagement during PD. The problem of practice was the lack of K-12 educator engagement during large-group PD sessions. The…

Educational reform policies such as the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) place a significant demand on teachers regarding teacher preparation using evidence-based instruction (Phillips et al., 2016). The need for teacher training has grown in recent years as professional expectations have increased (Kraft et al., 2018). The consensus among…

Many STEM professional learning opportunities have been characterized as basic, disconnected, and ephemeral. This phenomenological mixed methods study addresses the growing demand for quality STEM educators by investigating the relationship between STEM professional development and teacher self-efficacy. While teacher efficacy has been identified…

This study examined the challenges teachers faced in teaching reading comprehension to secondary students within the study school. Reading comprehension is a key skill for academic success, yet many students struggle to understand complex texts in subjects such as history, science, and mathematics. The purpose of this research is to assess how…