College of Education
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The collections in this community comprise faculty research works, as well as graduate theses and dissertations..
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Item Fostering Teacher Learning Communities: A Case Study of a School-Based Leadership Team's Action Research(2013) Fischer, Kenneth B.; Valli, Linda; Curriculum and Instruction; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The purpose of this study is to examine how a school-based leadership team identifies and alters school conditions to foster the development of TLCs. Many educators, school leaders, and politicians have embraced teacher learning communities (TLCs) as a vehicle for school reform. Despite the considerable documentation of the capability for TLCs to influence teaching and learning, TLCs are not the norm in American schools. The development of advanced levels of TLCs is dependent, in part, on the presence of certain school leadership, professional development, and workplace design conditions. This study examines how school leaders and teachers conceptualize TLCs, how they identify and alter supportive conditions, and how those altered conditions influence the development of TLCs. The researcher conducted a single case study incorporating a practitioner inquiry stance with his own school where he served as an assistant principal. The study traced the influence of conditions altered by school leaders to two embedded subunits: the Math and World Language TLCs. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with five school leader participants, focus group interviews with the two TLCs, observations, and document analysis. Participants identified six characteristics of TLCs capable of accomplishing goals: trusting relationships, common purpose, reflexive dialogue, collaborative activity, data-driven decisions, and agency. School leaders identified and altered 12 supportive conditions. Of those 12, participants reported that nine influenced their work and the development of their TLCs from traditional teacher teams to novice and intermediate professional communities. Although compatible with scholars' descriptions of TLCs, participants' descriptions represented an emerging/novice perspective suggesting a dynamic TLC conceptualization. Three of the six characteristics that participants' identify are precursors to other scholar's conceptualizations. These TLCs could reach advanced levels without developing shared values, deprivatizing practice, and focusing on student learning. The study's findings also suggest that school leaders seeking to foster TLCs provide time embedded into the teachers' regular workday and identify someone to serve as a resource/power broker to help teachers negotiate power relationships. By addressing their emerging/novice perspective and continuing to alter additional conditions, school leaders may influence the development of TLCs, eventually reducing teacher workload and improving teaching and learning.Item An Examination of Science Teachers' Learning in a Laboratory-Based Professional Development Program(2008-04-22) Kiehl, Melissa Lynn; McGinnis, James R; Curriculum and Instruction; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Professional development generally refers to the collection of activities that systematically increase teachers' knowledge of academic subjects and advance teachers' understanding of instructional strategies. Given the complexity of the reform initiatives for science education in the United States of America as set forth by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and the National Science Education Standards (NRC, 1996), professional development might provide a bridge for aligning teacher practice with national standards (Loucks-Horsley, 1995). However, the current model of professional growth, focused largely on expanding a repertoire of skills, is not adequate (Little, 1993). Understanding teacher learning theory and utilizing research on pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) could be the differentiating factor for science teacher professional development; if utilized in design and evaluation, they may promote both knowing science in context and knowing how to tailor science learning to the needs of students (Shulman, 1987). The purpose of this study was to investigate how the Laboratory Science Teacher Professional Development Program (LSTPD), a three year professional development model that immerses teachers in learning science content through inquiry, impacts teachers' learning and classroom practice. It first aimed to analyze teacher learning and PCK; second, it examined their views on professional development; and third, whether they anticipate adapting their practice to include facets of their laboratory experience. Participants were teachers in their second or third year of participation in LSTPD. The study followed a qualitative case study design and made use of in-depth interviews and observations to examine teachers' knowledge, beliefs, and practice. The study drew on a constructivist framework. Findings demonstrated that teachers' understanding of content, inquiry, and science as a living enterprise were greatly increased, and that teachers generated goals for practice that echoed their new understandings. Further, teachers articulated how they connected LSTPD to their classrooms, fueling further discussion of the role of PCK in their experience. This study has greater implications for the design of sustained research-based professional development experiences in promoting learning in teachers, and inquiry techniques in classrooms.Item Integrative Learning as a Developmental Process: A Grounded Theory of College Students' Experiences in Integrative Studies(2007-05-16) Brown Leonard, Bonne Jean; McEwen, Marylu K.; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The purpose of this grounded theory study was to learn how students in an explicitly integrative learning environment make meaning of and understand integrative learning. The research questions that guided this study included: Do students experience integrative learning? If so, how do students experience integrative learning, and which experiences do students identify as contributing to their ability to integrate? What challenges and successes do students experience with integrative learning? Consistent with constructivist grounded theory methodology (Charmaz, 2000, 2006). I developed an emerging theory about students' experiences with integrative learning that is grounded in the data. I interviewed 10 students enrolled in an Integrative Studies program at a university in the greater Washington, DC region. Students in this study defined integrative learning very broadly. To capture the range of learning described by students, I created a continuum of different forms of integration that vary by complexity: application, comparison, understanding context, and synthesis. A developmental theory of integrative learning emerged from this study. Students engaged in the least complex form of integration, application, by finding their coursework personally relevant and applying what they learn to their own lives. Through class discussion and reading students identified multiple perspectives, which led to integration as comparison. When different perspectives are in conflict, students began to engage in integration as understanding context. Context is an important consideration when evaluating competing claims and evaluating arguments. By reconciling conflict, students may reach the most complex form of integration: synthesis. Students needed to wrestle with the ambiguity and complexity and resist automatically adopting an externally provided solution from a trusted authority figure. Students in this study rarely if ever reached synthesis, but they agreed that it was an ideal. Students' level of cognitive complexity as well as their pattern of Integrative Studies course work affected students' progress with integrative learning. By listening to student voices, I learned about the Integrative Studies program as students experience it and compared it to faculty expectations. This study both celebrates program strengths and offers recommendations for improvement. I discuss the implications of this for future research and higher education practice.Item Early Elementary Influences on Student Engagement in Learning(2006-12-11) Nese, Joseph F; Gottfredson, Gary D; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Student engagement is a process that combines the attention, interest, investment, and effort students expend in work towards learning. Studies have shown that engagement leads to academic achievement and that disengaged students have lower scores on achievement tests and a higher probability of dropping out of school (Connell et al. 1994; Finn et al., 1995; Marks, 2000). The goal of this study was to probe the validity of an explicit predictive model of the antecedents of engagement involving measures of prior achievement, ethnicity, sex, socioeconomic status, and parent involvement and the total effect of these variables decomposed into direct and indirect (via engagement) effects on academic achievement. Results indicate that a self-report measure of engagement was found to predict achievement for a sample of 676 third grade students but that engagement had no incremental validity in predicting achievement. The construct validity of engagement and parent involvement measures are discussed.