Theses and Dissertations from UMD

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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 give thesis/dissertation in DRUM

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

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Subject: search.filters.subject.Induction

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Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
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    High Quality Induction to Ensure High Quality Teaching
    (2022) Hall, Nate' Lynne; Imig, David; McLaughlin, Margaret; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    In his letter introducing the 2011 reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, former President Barack Obama stated “we know that from the moment students enter a school, the most important factor in their success is not the color of their skin or the income of their parents – it is the teacher standing at the front of the classroom.” (U.S. Department of Education, 2011, p. 1). The findings of several research studies point to teachers’ classroom practice as one of the most impactful factors, if not the most impactful factor, on the success of students (Akirba, LeTendre, & Scribner, 2007; Putman, 2012; Kini & Podolysky, 2016). However, with high teacher attrition rates nationwide and decreased enrollment in and completion of teacher preparation programs, researchers are projecting a difference of 200,000 candidates by the 2024-25 school year between the supply of teachers and the demand for new teachers by the 13,500 school districts across the United States (Sutcher, Darling-Hammond, and Carver-Thomas, 2016). Given the ways that the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated this problem, we are at a critical time to consider ways to recruit, prepare and retain teachers for our nation’s schools. In 2021, Rosenberg and Anderson, writers at Education Resource Strategies (ERS), described the challenge of attracting and retaining teachers as a trifecta of “low salaries, difficult working conditions, and a lack of career pathway opportunities.” Then came the COVID-19 pandemic and, according to the ERS analysts, “being a teacher became even more challenging than before” (Rosenberg & Anderson, 2021, pg. 3). The COVID-19 pandemic elevated the need to consider effective ways to inculcate novice teachers into the profession, give them essential skills, and prepare them for the rigorous, demanding, and rewarding profession that they have chosen. One way to do this is to provide and quickly engage new and beginning teachers in a high-quality induction program that equips them with the necessary skills to be successful and builds their professional capital. The purpose of this qualitative study was to investigate the gaps within the district’s current comprehensive teacher induction program in comparison to the induction program components within the state’s regulations and Wong’s Induction Framework. Due to the fact that the largest percentage of the new/beginning teacher population leave the district after their second year, it is important that the teacher induction program provides them with the skills that are necessary to be, and feel, successful. The research questions that guided this study were: What components of high-quality induction programs are new and beginning teachers experiencing in the district’s current comprehensive teacher induction program? What are the ways in which new and beginning teachers’ induction experiences reflect the state’s regulations and Wong’s high-quality Induction Framework? Where do gaps exist between the current induction practices for new and beginning teachers in the district and the state’s regulations and Wong’s components of high-quality induction programs? The study was executed in three phases, (a) administering a new/beginning teacher survey, (b) conducting individual teacher interviews and school and curricular office leader focus groups, and (c) undertaking a document analysis of district documents. Analyses of new/beginning teacher and school and curricular office leader surveys, interviews, and focus groups assisted in identifying induction program components experienced by new/beginning teachers and offered by system leaders. Findings from all aspects of this study helped identify missing components of the district’s current induction program. These findings indicate the need to build administrator capacity around teacher induction and the establishment of systemic school-based induction programs. Establishing communication structures between system-level and school-based leaders is needed to ensure that new and beginning teachers are being provided a variety of supports that meet their needs.
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    SINGLE MOLECULE FRET OF LACI-DNA-IPTG LOOP CONFORMATIONS
    (2012) Goodson, Kathy A.; Kahn, Jason D.; English, Douglas S.; Biochemistry; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    This work focuses on the Escherichia coli lactose repressor protein (LacI) which represses expression of the lac operon. In order to repress transcription, the tetrameric LacI protein binds a primary promoter-proximal operator, O1, and one of two auxiliary operators, O2 or O3. The binding of these two sites to a single LacI molecule occurs via DNA loop formation. Induction of the lac operon by allolactose reduces the affinity of LacI for DNA, but induction does not completely prevent looping in vivo. The synthetic inducer isopropyl-β-D-thiogalactoside (IPTG) acts similarly to allolactose. Model DNA constructs have been used to demonstrate, through fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) analysis, that LacI may change conformation in order to form more than one loop structure. This work employs single molecule FRET to investigate LacI-induced loop formation in DNA looping constructs, as a function of IPTG concentration, on freely diffusing LacI-DNA complexes. The results include evidence for the persistence of DNA loop formation under at saturating IPTG concentration, and they provide a detailed view of how LacI conformation affects DNA loop formation. In addition, this work explores possible changes in geometry in LacI-induced DNA loops through the use of model DNA constructs that produce alternative loop topologies. We propose that inducer-bound LacI-DNA looped complexes may control the kinetics of induction and re-repression of the operon.
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    Differentiating a Landscape of Lac Repressor Mediated DNA Loops Using FRET
    (2011) Haeusler, Aaron Raymond; Kahn, Jason D; Biochemistry; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    The variety of DNA loops formed by a protein such as Lac Repressor (LacI), predicted to populate multiple loop topologies and geometries, increases the uncertainty of models that have not been experimentally verified. We created a method for evaluating the multitude of LacI-DNA looped states using FRET with fluorophore position variants (FPVs) on a landscape DNA constructs with dual operator phasing variants bracketing an intrinsically curved DNA sequence. The FRET signature for each FPV corresponds to a specific LacI-DNA loop topology, and when applied to the landscape of constructs we could systematically explore DNA sequence dependent LacI mediated DNA looping. The FRET efficiencies calculated for each FPV landscape revealed the first unambiguous detection of antiparallel (A1 and A2) and distributions among parallel loop (P1) and antiparallel loops. The FRET efficiency maximum of each FPV landscape was used to calculate the loop population distribution for each topology assuming a uniform population at the peaks. The differences in the observed peak FRET among FPV landscapes led to an unavoidable estimate of loop populations with an extended LacI-DNA loop geometry, and also slightly extended LacI-DNA loop in the cases of antiparallel loops. The addition of saturating inducer to the FPV landscape demonstrated that IPTG-LacI-DNA loops have different properties than uninduced loops: they have increased instability, increased competition among previously energetically unfavorable states, and presumably have increased switching between specific and nonspecific LacI-DNA interactions. This multivariate data set confirms that rod mechanics models of DNA looping should also consider protein flexibility, and also demonstrates the importance of protein flexibility in modeling genetic regulatory circuits that are similar to the "hydrogen atom of gene regulation", the lac operon.
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    The Role of Syntax and Contextual Frame in Children's Use of a Causal Theory in Reasoning about Natural Kinds
    (2005-05-27) Hammond, Jane; Scholnick, Ellin K; Human Development; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    A central focus of cognitive development research is the nature and organization of knowledge. Some researchers claim that young children use an intuitive theory to help them understand foundational domains such as biological categories. In particular, researchers have studied whether children's biological concepts are embedded in a causal theory about the nature of living organisms. Two key features of this theory are the concept of biological essences and the use of inductive generalizations. This study examined the influence of contextual frame and logical conjunctions on access and use of the theory in elementary and middle school children. It also investigated whether that causal theory supports both inductive and deductive reasoning. Children were given inductive and deductive tasks involving natural kinds. In the inductive tasks the child was asked whether a property of an animal would be found in other animals varying in taxonomic distance from the animal. In the deductive task, children worked on syllogisms based on cues at different levels of a biological taxonomy. Older children were not as likely to make inductions about instances of less biological resemblance to the target. However they also made more accurate deductions regardless of level of the hierarchy. Inductive and deductive performance were not correlated. Whether the cues were stated in a sentence beginning with "if" or "all" had no significant impact on performance, but whether the problem was presented from the viewpoint of a scientist or a pet store owner affected performance. These results were used to re-examine the basic tenets of essentialist thinking and the nature of developmental changes in reasoning about biological kinds.