UMD Theses and Dissertations

Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/3

New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a given thesis/dissertation in DRUM.

More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.

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    Patterns in Curriculum Choices: Pre-Calculus Curricula in the Archdiocese of Washington
    (2015) Hurst, Christopher Bryan; Campbell, Patricia F; Curriculum and Instruction; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    This study aims to learn more about the choices made by mathematics teachers in the Archdiocese of Washington, given their unique independence from state or district curricular control. To study these choices, pre-calculus teachers completed a survey and submitted their course’s summative assessments. These responses were then compared to themselves, to each other, and to the Common Core to study the choices teachers made, both in the scope of their curricula and in the expectations they had for student performance. This study concludes that teachers choose pre-calculus curricula within two major archetypes, either advancing students’ algebraic skill or exploring new topics. Further, the study found that teachers’ assessments are well aligned to their stated curriculum, but that contrary to recent education trends, teachers have largely chosen to ignore statistics. Consequences of these choices are discussed, as well as implications for policy and future research.
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    The Effects of Prompt Condition and Genre on the Writing Performance of Students in 3rd and 5th Grade
    (2014) Worland Piantedosi, Kelly; De La Paz, Susan; Special Education; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Research on writing at the elementary level has shown that prior knowledge and task environment can have a significant effect on writing performance. In addition, there is preliminary evidence that suggests that children's development in writing may vary by genre favoring the narrative over expository genres (e.g., Olinghouse & Wilson, 2011; and Camp, 1993). One way to mitigate the effects of prior knowledge on topic and genre is through varying prompting conditions. The new Common Core writing assessment context requires students to write in response to texts read. To date, however, there are no studies that simultaneously examine the effects of genre and prompt condition in the elementary grades. This study examines the effect of two prompting conditions (supported and unsupported) on students' writing performance in multiple genres (narrative, persuasive and informational report) in order to assess the potential impact of the read aloud accommodation on these new types of writing assessments along with the effect of genre simultaneously. Findings show that at the 3rd grade level, students write best in the informational report genre over the narrative and persuasive genre, and that the read aloud accommodation positively affects writing quality. At the 5th grade level, the read aloud accommodation does not have a significant effect on writing quality. Based on the findings above, there are a number of implications for current testing policy and instruction. First, features of the prompt condition such as providing a common text, and audience and genre cues resulted in higher style, organization, conventions and mechanic scores for the informational report genre in the younger grades. This contradicts earlier findings that suggest at the elementary level, the narrative genre is more accessible. Accordingly, an effort should be made by test-makers and educators to provide students with these beneficial supports when designing tests and assignments particularly for expository genres. Second, given the observed benefit of the read aloud accommodation for students in the younger grades, test makers should consider designing tests that vary the degree of supports students are provided on the read and write response tasks as they progress through the grade levels.
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    THE PERCEIVED RELATIONSHIP OF PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT ON TEACHER SELF-REPORTED USE OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS COMMON CORE STATE STANDARDS
    (2014) Tresler, Tiffany D.; Kivlighan, Dennis; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Beginning in 2012 teachers from 44 states have been challenged to make significant changes in curriculum and classroom instruction to meet the rigor of the Common Core State Standards. However, available research does not provide definitive methods to impact wide-scale reform, such as Common Core Standards adoption. This preliminary, quantitative study seeks to examine professional development and one component of the Common Core. The purpose is to determine if specific teacher perceived features of professional development are related to self-reported classroom use of the six English language arts (ELA) Common Core instructional shifts. The specific professional development features studied and the statistical analysis are based on the work of Garet, Porter, Desimone, Birman, and Yoon (2001), examining what makes professional development effective. The features are type (reform vs. traditional), duration, collective participation, content focus, coherence, and active learning. The ELA instructional shifts are balancing informational and literary text, teaching reading and writing through disciplines, use of complex text, text-based answers, writing from sources, and use of academic vocabulary. The study population consists of 89 elementary school teachers in one school system in Maryland who completed a survey asking them to describe their most recent professional development experience and their classroom use of the six ELA Common Core instructional shifts. The survey is modified from the Teacher Activity Survey (Garet et al., 1999) used in a large-scale national study (Garet et al., 2001) and a follow-up three-year longitudinal study (Desimone, Porter, Garet, Yoon, & Birman, 2002). The results of the correlation and ordinary least-squares regression analysis indicate that alignment, a component of coherence, and content focus are the only two perceived professional development features that are strongly correlated with teacher self-reported use of the Common Core instructional shifts. Specifically, the feature of content focus is likely to be a predictor of reported use of students reading and writing through disciplines and writing from sources. Alignment is likely to be a predictor of the reported use of teaching students using complex text. Content focus and alignment are predictors of the reported use of the shifts in total.
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    The demands, constraints, and instructional leadership choices of elementary principals implementing the Common Core State Standards
    (2013) Sirgo, Sarah; Mawhinney, Hanne; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) placed unique demands and constraints on principals. Principals did not always make similar instructional leadership choices in how to spend their time, how to lead, and what to emphasize as a result of perceptions about their role, job demands, and the priorities for individual schools. Rosemary Stewart's job demands, constraints and choices model (1982) was integrated with Hoy and Miskel's (2008) social systems of schools framework to describe and analyze principal perceptions and instructional leadership choices. Demands, constraints, and choices were used to categorize perceptions about what exists and paired with the four frames of open systems. Instructional leadership was examined through the use of the Maryland Instructional Leadership Framework (MILF). This research was designed as a qualitative case study to answer three research questions. 1) What are the current demands that elementary principals perceive in their work? 2) What are the constraints that impact implementation of the CCSS? 3) How does a principal make instructional leadership choices in implementing the CCSS? The study used purposeful sampling and included six elementary principals within one district. Principals were with 3 to 30 years of experience and led medium sized schools with low levels of poverty and second language learner populations. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews, document, and memo review. Findings indicated that principals experienced a range of expected demands including supporting school climate, meeting district expectations for adherence to policies, managing the school building, and navigating the power structures of the district and community. Constraints included time, attitude, the distribution of power, attending to community needs, and the organizational hierarchy of the district. Instructional leadership priorities centered on supporting school conditions to facilitate collaboration and directing the professional development of staff. The results of this study provided a portrait of the challenges that principals faced, areas of possible influence, and how instructional leadership choices unfolded in a reform environment. In addition, the research served as an influential starting point for evaluating whether the instructional leadership practices utilized are sufficient to achieve the expected outcomes for CCSS implementation.