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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Item Investigating Leadership in Charter Schools: An Examination of the Leadership Traits of Executive Directors in Successful Charter Schools(2013) Bloomfield, Brian David; Parham, Carol; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This study was a qualitative exploration of educational leadership within charter schools in an attempt to identify traits demonstrated by executive directors of successful charter schools. Because much research has been conducted to identify trends in educational leadership, but comparable little within the unique context of charter schools, and because the charter school movement is growing, it is imperative that Boards, CMOs, and advocates of charter schooling understand more clearly what constitutes successful leadership within this sphere. Two research questions were created for this study, and qualitative methods were used to collect and analyze data. Data were collected through personal interviews with four charter school executive directors, document review, field observations, and follow-up interviews. The conceptual framework used to interpret the collected data was based on Leithwood and Duke's six dimensions of educational leadership: instructional, transformational, moral, participative, managerial, and contingent leadership. Data were gathered and analyzed against these six leadership dimensions. A thick description of the experiences and perspectives of the four participants was created. The data provided insight into successful charter school leadership. Some of the findings supported extant research about leadership in other educational contexts, while some indicated some unique characteristics of leadership within a charter school. Participants indicated that the largest demands in their jobs were the quantity of needs as well as the necessary practice of affecting change through systems rather than directly with students. Participants further identified a sense of personal accountability, a change management process, as well as working within all six dimensions of leadership as essential to their successes. These findings and conclusions are reported in Chapters 4 and 5. This study was an exploration of traits and behaviors exhibited by executive directors of successful charter schools. The findings indicate a gap between current understandings of educational leadership in general and that within a charter school. It is expected that this research will help to create a clearer understanding of charter school leadership and provide insight for stakeholders to move forward in locating and training future charter school leaders.Item PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT THAT DEFIES THE TRADITIONAL CONSTRUCT OF TEACHER LEARNING: A Charter School's Commencement(2012) Oliver, Rollia Mandrell; Mawhinney, Hanne; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In August 2006, in accordance with a recently passed charter school law, a Mid-Atlantic school district opened its first public charter schools. The charter schools' staff had opportunities to exercise autonomy over their instruction and had very little in-service training. This study examined what seven teachers at a newly created charter school did with their time to achieve on-going professional development in the absence of frequent traditional structured in-service training. I employed a case study approach to portraiture that was guided by Desimone's (2009) core features of professional development as the theoretical framework. The data were specific activities that teachers used in place of frequent in-service that reported by the participants. Elements of the activities teachers used to construct knowledge were analyzed using the core features of professional development. Content focus, collective participation, coherence, active learning, and duration were present throughout the data. The data from this study revealed that teachers were deliberate in their actions. They constructed their own professional experiences and held themselves accountable. The retrospective nature, small sample of teachers, and limited span of focus for this study posed limitations. These findings have implications for designing professional development, facilitating autonomous instructional development, and future research.