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- Creators: Arizona State University
Description
Federal education policies call for school district leaders to promote classroom technology integration to prepare students with 21st century skills. However, schools are struggling to integrate technology effectively, with students often reporting that they feel like they need to power down and step back in time technologically when they enter classrooms. The lack of meaningful technology use in classrooms indicates a need for increased teacher preparation. The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact a coaching model of professional development had on school administrators` abilities to increase middle school teachers` technology integration in their classrooms. This study attempted to coach administrators to develop and articulate a vision, cultivate a culture, and model instruction relative to the meaningful use of instructional technology. The study occurred in a middle school. Data for this case study were collected via administrator interviews, the Principal`s Computer Technology Survey, structured observations using the Higher Order Thinking, Engaged Learning, Authentic Learning, Technology Use protocol, field notes, the Technology Integration Matrix, teacher interviews, and a research log. Findings concluded that cultivating change in an organization is a complex process that requires commitment over an extended period of time. The meaningful use of instructional technology remained minimal at the school during fall 2010. My actions as a change agent informed the school`s administrators about the role meaningful use of technology can play in instruction. Limited professional development, administrative vision, and expectations minimized the teachers` meaningful use of instructional technology; competing priorities and limited time minimized the administrators` efforts to improve the meaningful use of instructional technology. Realizing that technology proficient teachers contribute to student success with technology, it may be wise for administrators to incorporate technology-enriched professional development and exercise their leadership abilities to promote meaningful technology use in classrooms.
ContributorsRobertson, Kristen (Author) / Moore, David (Thesis advisor) / Cheatham, Greg (Committee member) / Catalano, Ruth (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
This study utilized symbolic interaction as a framework to examine the impact of mobility on four veteran elementary general music teachers' identities, roles, and perceptions of role support. Previous research has focused on teacher identity formation among preservice and novice teachers; veteran teachers are less frequently represented in the literature. Teacher mobility research has focused on student achievement, teachers' reasons for moving, and teacher attrition. The impact of mobility on veteran teachers' identities, roles, and perceptions of role support has yet to be considered. A multiple case design was employed for this study. The criteria for purposeful selection of the participants were elementary general music teachers who had taught for at least ten years, who had changed teaching contracts and taught in at least two different schools, and who were viewed as effective music educators by fine arts coordinators. Data were collected over a period of eight months through semi-structured interviews, email correspondence, observations, review of videotapes of the participants' teaching in previous schools, and collection of artifacts. Data were analyzed within and across cases. The cross-case analysis revealed themes within the categories of identity, role, and role support for the participants. The findings suggest that the participants perceived their music teacher roles as multi-dimensional. They claimed their core identities remained stable over time; however, shifts in teacher identity occurred throughout their years as teachers. The participants asserted that mobility at the start of their careers had a positive impact because they each were challenged to solidify their own teacher identities and music teacher roles in varied school contexts. Mobility negatively impacted role and teacher practices during times when the participants adjusted to new school climates and role expectations. Role support varied depending upon school context, and the participants discovered active involvement in the school community was an effective means of seeking and acquiring role support. Reflection experiences in music teacher preparation programs, as well as mentoring and professional development geared toward teacher identity formation and role maturation, may assist teachers in matching their desired school context with their teacher identities and perceptions of the music teacher role.
ContributorsGray, Lori F (Author) / Stauffer, Sandra (Committee member) / Schmidt, Margaret (Committee member) / Sullivan, Jill (Committee member) / Bush, Jeffrey (Committee member) / Tobias, Evan (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
One of the critical imperatives for the development of inclusive school systems is the capacity to nurture and develop teachers who have the skills, critical sensibilities, and the contextual awareness to provide quality educational access, participation, and outcomes for all students; however, research on teacher learning for inclusive education has not yet generated a robust body of knowledge to understand how teachers become inclusive teachers in institutions where exclusion is historical and ubiquitous. Drawing from socio-cultural theory, this study aimed to fill this gap through an examination of teacher learning for inclusive education in an urban professional learning school. In particular, I aimed to answer the following two questions: (a) What social discourses are present in a professional learning school for inclusive education?, and (b) How do teachers appropriate these social discourses in situated practice? I used analytical tools from Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and Grounded Theory to analyze entry and exit interviews with teacher residents, principals, site professors, and video-stimulated interviews with teacher residents, observations of classroom practices and thesis seminars, and school documents. I found two social discourses that I called discourses of professionalism, as they offered teachers a particular combination of tools, aiming to universalize certain tools for doing and thinking that signaled what it meant to be a professional teacher in the participating schools. These were the Total Quality Management like discourse (TQM-like) and the Inclusive Education-like discourse. The former was dominant in the schools, whereas the latter was dominant in the university Master's program. These discourses overlapped in teachers' classrooms practices, creating tensions. To understand how these tensions were resolved, this study introduced the concept of curating, a kind of heuristic development that pertains particularly to the work achieved in boundary practices in which individuals must claim multiple memberships by appropriating the discourses and their particular tool kits of more than one community of practice. This study provides recommendations for future research and the engineering of professional development efforts for inclusive education.
ContributorsWaitoller, Federico R. (Author) / Artiles, Alfredo J. (Thesis advisor) / Kozleski, Elizabeth B. (Committee member) / Gee, James P (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
The purpose of this practitioner inquiry was to explore the use of Guided Critical Reflection (GCR) in preparing preservice teachers for English learners (ELs). As a teacher researcher, I documented, analyzed, and discussed the ways in which students in my course used the process of GCR to transform their passively held understandings about ELs. Specifically, the research questions were: 1) What are preservice teachers' common sense about teaching and learning related to ELs? 2) How does GCR transform preservice teachers' common sense about ELs? 3) What is my role as an educator in creating opportunities for GCR? I utilized methods for data collection that fit my teaching practices. Data sources included three types of observations (self-reflective field notes, audio recordings of each class, and notes documented by an outside observer), student-work artifacts, and my audio reflection journal. I analyzed data inductively and deductively using a modified analytic induction approach. Building on previous research concerning the use of reflection in teacher preparation, I define GCR as the process in which I guided preservice teachers to acknowledge and examine their common sense about ELs, reframe what they know in light of course learning, and transform their understandings. Five major findings emerged from this study. First, preservice teachers entered the course with common sense notions about ELs rooted in their educational and life experiences. Students felt comfortable sharing what they knew about ELs, but needed to be scaffolded to examine how their life experiences shaped their common sense. Within the course, preservice teachers framed and reframed their common sense in different ways. Through the process of GCR, students evidenced a renewed sense about ELs. Finally, my role as a teacher involved establishing a comfortable learning environment, valuing my students' common sense as the catalyst for course learning, and guiding students through their reflective work. Ultimately, I was able to create opportunities for GCR because I too was reflecting on my practices, just as I was asking my students to reflect on their common sense about ELs.
ContributorsMarkos, Amy Michele (Author) / Arias, M. Beatriz (Thesis advisor) / Faltis, Christian (Committee member) / Hudelson, Sarah (Committee member) / Wiley, Terrence G. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
This qualitative study explores the learning experiences of two first-grade teachers in a progressive public elementary school in the southwestern U.S. Participants inquired into their literacy instruction practices within their reading-workshops. Weekly inquiry group conversations between teachers and researcher informed a perspective of learning as participation. During the semester-long study, two key questions guided design and implementation: 1) What is the nature of teachers' learning experiences related to their literacy instruction practices, contextualized within an inquiry group? 2) How do those learning experiences reflect and/or refract the community, interpersonal, and individual planes of analysis? An ethnographic perspective informed data collection and analysis; data were collected through weekly inquiry-group conversations, bi-weekly classroom observations, and in-depth interviews. A learning framework of community, interpersonal, and individual planes of analysis served as an analytic tool used in conjunction with a modified analytic induction. Teachers' case studies offer unique accounts of their learning, contextualized within their specific classrooms. Findings are discussed through narrative-based vignettes, which illustrate teachers' learning trajectories. On the community plane, apprenticeship relationships were evident in teachers' interactions with students' parents and with one another. Interpersonal interactions between teachers demonstrated patterns of participation wherein each tried to teach the other as they negotiated their professional identities. Analysis of the individual plane revealed that teachers' past experiences and personal identities contributed to ways of participation for both teachers that were highly personal and unique to each. Affective considerations in learning were a significant finding within this study, adding dimensionality to this particular sociocultural theory of learning. The ways teachers felt about themselves, their students, their community, and their work constituted a significant influence on what they said and did, as demonstrated on all three planes of analysis. Implications for practice include the significance of professional development efforts that begin at the site of teachers' questions, and attention to teachers' individual learning trajectories as a means to supporting educators to teach in more confident and connected ways.
ContributorsSteeg, Susanna Mae (Author) / Mccarty, Teresa L. (Thesis advisor) / Fischman, Gustavo E. (Committee member) / Marsh, Josephine P. (Committee member) / Smith, Karen (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
Libertarians affirm the right to liberty, i.e., the right to do what one wants free from interference. Libertarians also affirm the right to private property. One objection to libertarianism is that private property relations restrict liberty. This objection appears to have the consequence that libertarianism is an incoherent position. I examine Jan Narveson's version of the libertarian view and his defense of its coherence. Narveson understands the right to liberty as a prohibition on the initiation of force. I argue that if that is what the right to liberty is, then the enforcement of property rights violates it. I also examine Narveson's attempt to support private property with his distinction between interference with and mere prevention of activity and argue that this distinction does not do the work that he needs it to do. My conclusion is that libertarianism is, in a sense, impossible because conceptually unsound.
ContributorsSchimke, Christopher (Author) / de Marneffe, Peter (Thesis advisor) / McGregor, Joan (Committee member) / Blackson, Thomas (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
This study examines teacher educators' understandings of hope related to teacher education. The study provides a previously unforeseen perspective on teacher educators' hope or lack of hope, and gives insight into that hope's foundation and maintenance. I have designed and implemented a rigorous multi-method study, beginning with developing and conducting a nationwide on-line survey with 625 participants. From a pool of 326 participants expressing interest in participating in interviews, I interviewed 23 teacher educators selected from a randomized and purposive sample. Finally, 25 participants took part in a writing prompt sent in lieu of an interview. Findings reflect that teacher educators' "hope" is a construct, a mixture of abstract ideas, emotions, dispositions, attitudes, that is hard to conceptualize or measure, but appears to be a very relevant and influential and hope for teacher educators takes place on a continuum from bystander to actualizing. The results of this study serve as a way to encourage educators to be more explicit about hope and discourses about teaching. It raises awareness about "false senses" of hope, which arise from narratives of redemption, paving the way for a conception of hope grounded in a strong understanding of the multiplicities of teaching, and how things "are." This conception of hope has the potential to foster discussions and actions of what education can be, rather than dwelling in the rhetoric of what education is not. Further, this research has the potential to open up spaces to discuss both the importance of and how to begin to think about incorporating hope into curricula through critical pedagogy and pedagogies of hope.
ContributorsRivers, Melissa Beth (Author) / Fischman, Gustavo E (Thesis advisor) / Christine, Carol J (Committee member) / De Barona, Maryann Santos (Committee member) / Barone, Thomas (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
This study contributes to the ongoing discussion of Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching (MKT). It investigates the case of Rico, a high school mathematics teacher who had become known to his colleagues and his students as a superbly effective mathematics teacher. His students not only developed excellent mathematical skills, they also developed deep understanding of the mathematics they learned. Moreover, Rico redesigned his curricula and instruction completely so that they provided a means of support for his students to learn mathematics the way he intended. The purpose of this study was to understand the sources of Rico's effectiveness. The data for this study was generated in three phases. Phase I included videos of Rico's lessons during one semester of an Algebra II course, post-lesson reflections, and Rico's self-constructed instructional materials. An analysis of Phase I data led to Phase II, which consisted of eight extensive stimulated-reflection interviews with Rico. Phase III consisted of a conceptual analysis of the prior phases with the aim of creating models of Rico's mathematical conceptions, his conceptions of his students' mathematical understandings, and his images of instruction and instructional design. Findings revealed that Rico had developed profound personal understandings, grounded in quantitative reasoning, of the mathematics that he taught, and profound pedagogical understandings that supported these very same ways of thinking in his students. Rico's redesign was driven by three factors: (1) the particular way in which Rico himself understood the mathematics he taught, (2) his reflective awareness of those ways of thinking, and (3) his ability to envision what students might learn from different instructional approaches. Rico always considered what someone might already need to understand in order to understand "this" in the way he was thinking of it, and how understanding "this" might help students understand related ideas or methods. Rico's continual reflection on the mathematics he knew so as to make it more coherent, and his continual orientation to imagining how these meanings might work for students' learning, made Rico's mathematics become a mathematics of students--impacting how he assessed his practice and engaging him in a continual process of developing MKT.
ContributorsLage Ramírez, Ana Elisa (Author) / Thompson, Patrick W. (Thesis advisor) / Carlson, Marilyn P. (Committee member) / Castillo-Chavez, Carlos (Committee member) / Saldanha, Luis (Committee member) / Middleton, James A. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
Effectively educating students with autism is a necessary element in providing all students with a free and appropriate public education, and as the number of students diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder continues to increase in both public and private educational settings, providing successful and satisfactory professional development opportunities in the area of autism is becoming increasingly essential. This study explored the experiences of twenty-three educators in a suburban southwest K-12 public school district, as they participated in a fifteen-hour professional development course in an online or face-to-face format, and collaboratively problem-solved their challenges in educating students with autism. Qualitative data was collected from participants' weekly written reflections and comments from a pre- and post-survey on attitudes, to determine quality of and satisfaction with collaboration in relation to course format. Results indicated that the online format produced higher-quality collaboration when it came to presenting one's own situation(s) to the group, finding group discussions helpful, having enough time to collaborate, providing feedback/suggestions to group members, and perceiving suggestions for one's own situation as helpful (as evidenced by the number of suggestions that participants said they would likely implement). The face-to-face format produced higher-quality collaboration when it came to in-depth problem-solving regarding a situation, implementing suggestions for one's own situation, and relating course content to collaborative activities. Participants' attitudes about using technology as a means of collaboration showed little change overall from pre- to post-survey. Though slight increases in positive attitudes concerning technology were found in various areas, many participants still thought highly of a face-to-face format for collaborative purposes, even after participating in the online professional development course. Findings may be of use to educational institutions developing online or face-to-face professional development opportunities in the area of autism.
ContributorsWozniak, Renee M (Author) / McCoy, Kathleen M. (Thesis advisor) / Puckett, Kathleen (Committee member) / Gehrke, Rebecca (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
This dissertation puts forth an account of moral responsibility. The central claim defended is that an agent's responsibility supervenes on the agent's mental states at the time of the action. I call the mental states that determine responsibility the agent's quality of will (QOW). QOW is taken to concern the agent's action, understood from an internal perspective, along with the agent's motivations, her actual beliefs about the action, and the beliefs she ought to have had about the action. This approach to responsibility has a number of surprising implications. First, blameworthiness can come apart from wrongness, and praiseworthiness from rightness. This is because responsibility is an internal notion and rightness and wrongness are external notions. Furthermore, agents can only be responsible for their QOW. It follows that agents cannot be responsible for the consequences of their actions. I further argue that one's QOW is determined by what one cares about. And the fact that we react to the QOW of others with morally reactive emotions, such as resentment and gratitude, shows that we care about QOW. The reactive attitudes can therefore be understood as ways in which we care about what others care about. Responsibility can be assessed by comparing one's actual QOW to the QOW one ought to have had.
ContributorsKhoury, Andrew (Author) / French, Peter A. (Thesis advisor) / Calhoun, Cheshire (Committee member) / Portmore, Douglas W. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011