Teaching, Learning, Policy & Leadership
Permanent URI for this communityhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2228
The departments within the College of Education were reorganized and renamed as of July 1, 2011. This department incorporates the former departments of Curriculum & Instruction, Education Policy Studies, and Organizational Leadership & Policy Studies.
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Item Learning Newton's Second Law Using a Microcomputer Based Laboratory Curriculum(1995) Morse, Robert Alan; Layman, John W.; Education; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, MD)This study investigated the effect of theory-based Microcomputer Based Laboratory instruction on high school students' understanding of Newton's second law in a high school physics course taught by the teacher-researcher. The study focused on 1) the effect of the theory-based MBL instructional design on student understanding of Newton's second law, 2) on the changes in conceptual understanding that occurred, and 3) on the effect of student learning beliefs on conceptual change. Data sources included pretest and posttest measures of conceptual understanding, audiotape debriefings of students during a seven day unit, and pretest and posttest measures of students' motivational and self-regulated learning beliefs. The design of the instructional unit was based on prior research and theory. It is important to specify the characteristics as well as the content of the knowledge we would like students to construct. Desirable characteristics of physics knowledge are that it be accurate, extendable, integrated with other knowledge, recognized as knowledge, related to experience and experiment, strategic, and available in multiple representations including verbal, graphical, algebraic, pictorial, and story representations. Proponents argue that appropriately designed Microcomputer Based Laboratory instruction can promote construction of such knowledge. The theory-based instructional unit employed real-time computer graphing of force and motion variables in a novel "iconographic" experiment which enabled students to determine the relationship between force and motion variables by simple recognition. The study found that the nature of students' conceptual change was consistent with the mechanisms postulated for MBL instruction, that the short chain of reasoning in the iconographic force and motion experiment allowed students to readily identify and focus on the goals of the experiment rather than be distracted by a profusion of sub-goals, that this instruction is more effective than some traditional instruction and as effective as some other theory-based instruction in Newton's second law, based on Force Concept Inventory (Hestenes, Wells, & Swackhamer, 1992) and Force and Motion Concept test (Thornton, 1992a) scores. The study failed to achieve the goal of relating motivational, cognitive and performance measures using the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (Pintrich & DeGroot, 1990).Item TEACHERS' PEDACOGICAL CONTENT KNOWLEDGE OF RECURSION(1995) Neagoy, Monica M. M.; Fey, James T.; Curriculum and Instruction; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, MD)"Pedagogical Content Knowledge" (PCK) consists of topic-level knowledge of learners, of learning, and of the most useful forms of representation of ideas, the most powerful analogies, illustrations, examples, explanations, and demonstrations --in a word, the ways of representing and formulating the subject that makes it comprehensible to others" (Shulman, 1986). Recursion is a process that permeates many aspects of the real world-both natural and man-made. In discrete mathernatics, recursion is a powerful idea, a problem solving strategy that enables us to describe or predict future results as a function of past results. The purpose of this study was to explore the nature of high school teachers' PCK of recursion prior to, and as a result of, their participation in a carefully designed summer institute that focused on the important emerging concept of discrete dynamical systems. The study also explored how teachers plan to use this knowledge in teaching recursion. The framework for studying teachers' PCK was one inspired by Shulman's model ( 1987), but modified in its connectedness among components and its dynamics of change. The in-service program that served this study was the 1991 Summer Institute in Mathematics Modeling with Discrete Mathematics, (SIMM) offered at Georgetown University and partially funded by NSF. Forty high school math teachers from Washington metropolitan area schools, who attended the SIMM were the subjects of this research. The instruments that helped assess the nature and growth of teachers' PCK as a result of the SIMM intervention were: A personal data questionnaire, a pretest, and a post-test; follow-up, one-on-one interviews were conducted with a random sample of nine teachers. The test results and interview transcripts were analyzed in terms of teachers' subject matter and pedagogical knowledge (knowledge of teaching and learning) of recursion: For that purpose, this study developed an original model of six categories of knowledge for each domain. Overall, teachers' PCK of recursion, as exhibited by their performance on the totality of the test items, grew as a result of the in-service intervention. The only category in which teachers' knowledge showed no growth was Student Errors.Item An Exploratory Case Study of the Formal and Informal Discipline Policies Used in Selected Elementary School Classrooms(1999) Taylor-Cox, Jennifer; Andrews, J. Edward; Education; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, MD)The broad aim of this study was to examine the dynamics of classroom discipline policy through the use of the micropolitical model of interaction. While this study explored classroom di scipline policies utilizing the micropolitical perspective, it was classroom discipline that was the center of interest in this research. The template that framed and guided the exploration of classroom discipline included enactment, conveyance, realization, and evaluation as the particular phases of policy development. A distinctive feature of this study was the focus on the explicit, stated policies and the more subtle but equally important "dominant patterns of practice" in the classroom. This exploratory case study of the formal and informal discipline policies used in selected elementary school classrooms was a qualitative research endeavor. The data sources included in-depth guided interviews and semi-structured classroom observations, supplemented by informal interviews and pertinent printed material. The methods of data analysis involved categorizing, distilling themes, and arraying chains of evidence. The findings of this case study involved the ways in which teachers and students assert power and control; conflicts are manifest; compromises are used; protection is fundamental; and the classroom context affects, hinders, and constructs social order in the classroom. The views, behaviors, and verbal exchanges of the teachers and students concerning discipline were paramount to the analyses of the discipline policies used in the selected elementary school classrooms. The conclusions of this case study were that the micropolitical model of interaction is a productive, yet unrefined conceptual framework for the study of classroom discipline; discipline policies are teacher-centered, noise-related, and community-focused; the dominant mechanisms for teacher-based control are rewards and punishments; the dominant outcome of conflict and assertions of power is the brokering of policies; compromises are used to reduce conflicts and produce student compliance; intentions and realities pose a paradox; and the influence from parents is an important factor.Item Gender-Equity Components in Preservice Teacher- Education Programs(1993) Wilson, Charlotte June Adair; Henkelman, James; Curriculum and Instruction; University of Maryland (College Park, Md); Digital Repository at the University of MarylandThe purpose of this study was to identify teacher-education institutions that had gender-equity components in their teacher-education programs and through case studies to describe three programs . The information gathered through this study can benefit those who wish to improve the teaching about gender equity in preservice teacher-preparation programs. The main question was how are teacher-education institutions across the country addressing gender equity m their preservice programs in order for their graduates to be able to provide bias-free education for males and females. That question was further divided into 12 subquestions which explored these topics: Which institutions have gender- equity components? In what forms are the components? Which are the top- three institutions based on the questionnaire criteria? How are they alike and different from each other and from the five exemplary models found in the Iiterature search? What competencies do the top- three institutions identify for their graduates? What curriculum and instructional techniques are used in the programs? How could the programs examined be improved? A two-part data gathering strategy was used: first, a questionnaire was designed, sent to 547 institutions accredited by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education, and analyzed; next, on- site visits were made to the three institutions scoring highest on the survey, and case studies were written on the gender- equity component in their programs. This work includes a review of the literature on gender equity in teacher preparation, identifies five exemplary models for teaching gender equity, analyzes the data collected from 200 teacher- education institutions, presents findings from the survey and from the three case studies, and makes recommendations to equity advocates and researchers about future actions that could improve the teaching of sex equity in preservice teacher-education programs.Item A Study of the Use of Power by Middle School and High School Principals and Its Relationship to Teacher Satisfaction With Work and With Principal(1992) Lymas, Linda Warren; Lawrence E., Leak; Education; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md)This study was undertaken to determine the power bases used by middle school and high school principals in the Baltimore city Public schools (BCPS), and how their use of power affects teachers' satisfaction with their work and their principal. The three research questions posed in this study were: 1. To what extent is there a correlation between teacher satisfaction with work and supervisor, and the teacher's perceived classification of his/her principal's use of power? 2. To what extent is there congruence between the principal's self-perception of his/her use of power and the teacher's perception of the principal's use of power? 3. Are there differences in the middle school and high school principals' uses of power based on their teachers' perceived classifications? The subjects for this study were middle school principals, middle school teachers, high school principals, and high school teachers in the BCPS. The middle school and high school principals completed the Power Perception Profile: Perception of Self (PPPS). The middle school and high school teachers completed the Power Perception Profile: Perception of Other (PPPO) and the Cornell Job Description Index (JDI). Of the 41 principals, 24 principals volunteered to participate. The middle school and high school tenured teachers numbered 922. Of the 922 tenured teachers, 387 tenured teachers returned the instrument. The seven power bases measured by the PPPS and the PPPO were (a) coercive power, (b) connection power, (c) information power, (d) expert power, (e) legitimate power, (f) referent power, and (g) reward power. The subtests used to measure the teachers' level of satisfaction were (a) Supervision, and (b) Work on Present Job. Based on the findings of this study, teacher dissatisfaction with principal or with work is associated with the principal's use of coercive power, connection power, and reward power. The principal's use of information power did not appear to affect teacher satisfaction with work or supervisor . The relationship between the principal's use of legitimate power and teacher satisfaction with work and supervisor was inconclusive. The principal 's use of expert power and referent power is associated with teacher satisfaction with work and with principal. In addition, the findings indicated that the middle school principals' perceptions of their uses of power were not congruent with their teachers' perceptions. The high school principals' perceptions of their uses of power were congruent with the high school teachers' perceptions, with the exception of connection power . An analysis of variance was done between the middle school teachers' ratings of the middle school principals' power styles and the high school teachers' ratings of the high school principals' power styles to determine if there were differences in the middle school and high school principals' uses of power. The results of the analyses indicated that the principals fell into three groups. The three groups were (a) positional power, (b) personal power, and (c) a combination of personal and positional power. The middle school principals used more positional power bases than personal power bases to induce compliance from or to influence their teachers. The high school principals used a combination of personal and positional power bases to induce compliance from or to influence their teachers. The findings from this study, based on the teachers' perceptions, indicate that middle school principals use (a) coercion, (b) their legitimate authority, and (c) the rewards that are available to them to induce compliance from or to influence their teachers. They use less referent power and expert power. The high school principals use more referent power and expert power than coercive power or reward power to induce compliance from or to influence their teachers.Item Assessing the Performance of Academic Presidents(1998) Schwartz, Merrill Pellows; Birnbaum, Robert; Education Policy, Planning, and Administration; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md)Previous research on assessing the performance of college and university presidents reveals little about the procedures used or the consequences of those reviews, beyond that most presidents are evaluated annually by the governing board. Much of the literature is based on anecdotal evidence and claims that reviews are often poorly conducted and harmful to presidents. Though the practice is widespread, and potentially destructive, little is known about presidents' experiences with performance reviews. This study posed three research questions: 1) What are the processes used to evaluate the performance of academic presidents?; 2) What are the outcomes of these reviews, according to presidents and board chairs?; and 3) What are the relationships between how assessments are conducted and the outcomes reported? A national survey was conducted, using questionnaires developed by the researcher; respondents included 1,348 college and university presidents (64 % response rate) and 535 governing board chairs (33% response rate). Findings revealed that most presidential assessments were confidential, limited in participation to trustees, completed in about one month, included a self-assessment statement and face to face meetings with members of the board, and resulted in an increase in compensation. This described an informal review process and was similar to the process recommended for most corporate CEOs. Contrary to the claims of critics, most presidents were satisfied with the way their review was conducted and found it to be useful; very few presidents or board chairs reported any negative impact for presidents from reviews. Bivariate analyses revealed that the most useful reviews for presidents were those that: provided the president with more adequate performance feedback from the board; were conducted less than once a year; and were used to set goals, clarify criteria for good performance, and evaluate performance against agreed upon goals. Presidents were most satisfied with reviews which were used to set goals and clarify criteria for good performance, and allowed greater participation of presidents in the review process. Significant relationships were also found between: presidents seeking critical performance feedback and both higher performance ratings and greater improvement in performance; and residents seeking positive performance feedback and lower performance ratings . Based on the research and data, the study suggests that: presidential assessments should have as the primary purpose improving the president's performance; presidents should be actively involved in developing the process and conducting the review, including a self-assessment statement; reviews should be used to plan future goals and agree upon the criteria for evaluating future performance; previously agreed upon goals should be used as criteria; presidents should routinely receive performance feedback from the board; boards should consider less frequent, more thorough reviews; and presidents should actively seek critical performance feedback, but avoid asking for positive feedback.Item THE DESIGN AND VALIDATION OF A LEADERSHIP TRAINING PROGRAM PROTOTYPE FOR AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMEN(1995) Williams, Martha W.; Davidson, Neil A.; Teaching, Learning, Policy & Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md)The study designed and validated a leadership training program prototype for African American women by examining role modeling and self-efficacy constructs using the direct instruction model. This study was the first to engage federal senior executive service (SES) African American women members in examining leadership skills and competencies. These women also assessed the intrinsic and extrinsic value of fourteen managerial behavior skills. A modified educational research and development methodology consisting of three phases outlined by Borg and Gall (1989) was used. Phase One included two major activities: (a) needs assessment and (b) design of the prototype workshop. As part of the needs assessment process, a survey-questionnaire was developed which integrated competencies from two studies in the literature. Those results were used to: (a) determine the prototype workshop topic, and (b) examine the fourteen managerial behavior skills. Fifty-four African American women in the SES completed the needs assessment survey-questionnaire and three of them served as project role models. The project role models were interviewed during a videotaped focus-group session. The prototype workshop, a day-long session on "planning and organizing 11 based on the direct instruction model, was also designed under this phase. A preliminary field-test of the prototype workshop was conducted under Phase Two. The revised prototype workshop was subjected to a ma in field-test under Phase Three, Twenty-four African American women at the GS-7 through GS-13 grade levels employed in a federal executive branch agency participated in the main field-test. An independent observer served throughout the study, but was not a participant. A variety of measurements were used to gather data: needs assessment survey-questionnaire; project role model focus-group interview session; pretest-posttest; prototype workshop evaluation form; interview-questionnaire; an independent observer's evaluation-questionnaire and clinical notes; and post-workshop assignment. The one-group, pretest-posttest experimental design was employed because no studies existed which examined African American women's leadership training using the direct instruction model. It was therefore hypothesized that distribution of scores on the pretest and posttest measuring "planning and organizing" would differ in their mean at the p<.05 level. A Wilcoxon Matched-Pairs test was conducted. Findings show that the model of African American women's leadership as defined by the cluster sampling group embraced transformational leadership attributes. Consistent with the literature was the perception by the project role models that having fewer African American women role models in the workplace affects their leadership development. The needs assessment participants rated the fourteen managerial behavior skills in terms of their level of intrinsic and extrinsic value. "Dealing with racism" held the highest level of intrinsic value. But, unlike other studies, the skill "dealing with sexism" held the lowest level of intrinsic value and was rated the least important managerial behavior skill for leadership development. The skill "problem-solving" held high extrinsic value and "supporting" held low extrinsic value. "Planning and organizing" was rated the most important skill for leadership development while "dealing with sexism" was rated the least important. Finally, scores on the post test were higher than scores on the pretest. The Wilcoxon Matched-Pairs test results show that pretest-posttest mean scores differed at the p<.05 level. The hypothesis was retained, suggesting usefulness of the direct instruction model for developing the prototype workshop.Item A Deaf Way of Education: Interaction Among Children in a Thai Boarding School(1995) Reilly, Charles Banks; Hopkins, Richard L.; Teaching, Learning, Policy & Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md)This is an ethnographic study of peer society in a boarding school for deaf children in the Kingdom of Thailand. The aim is to describe the students' after-hours interaction together and its function in their intellectual and social development. Deaf children tend to be institutionalized because they are unable to fully participate in the process of socialization conveyed by speech. Deafness is perceived as an inevitable loss to intellectual and social capacity. Considered to be uneducable in ordinary settings, they are sent to residential schools, which remain the predominant placement worldwide. The informal interaction among deaf students has largely been ignored or decried as impeding educational goals. Yet as their first opportunity for unhindered communication, the interaction among deaf students reveals their learning capacity and preferences. Aged six to nineteen years, the youth created educational activities to learn the sign language, in-group and societal norms, and worldly knowledge. They devised a complex social organization via a sign language that is little used or appreciated by teachers. They regulated their modes of interaction with each other according to relative skill in the sign language and mental acuity (a "social hierarchy of the mind"). This provided a pathway of gradually diversifying learning activities. The confinement to a given status group fostered teaching and learning among youth of similar skill levels ( and provided an example of Vygotsky's "zone of proximal development.") Student leadership was split into elders who wielded authority and those few youth who were skilled and creative masters of signs. These "signmasters" were generators of new ideas, storytellers and interpreters. This honored role was aspired to by youngsters, and the skills had been consciously passed down. At the same time there was pressure, by some students and teachers, to supplant creative activities with regimentation. The study recommends that educators examine the overall school environment to assure that there is a "normal" balance of activity that is similar to other children in the society, and to consider the value of deaf students' interactions and sign language as resources in the classroom.Item Recommended Data for the First Step in External Environmental Scanning for Public Schools(1990) Poole, Molly Linda; Dudley, James; Teaching, Learning, Policy & Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md)Environmental scanning, a part of strategic planning, begins with the collection of information from the broad social, economic, political, and technological climate surrounding an organization. The purpose of this study was to improve the guidelines for the first step in external environmental scanning by developing a checklist of suggested data public school personnel might consider. Through a modification of both Q-sort and Delphi techniques, 10 representatives of school districts across the nation who have experience in scanning (Practitioners) and 6 persons widely recognized for their contributions to the development of scanning literature and practice (Experts) scored the degree to which they would recommend 90 original test items and 4 items submitted by participants. Based on the final results, a suggested checklist of 68 items was constructed. Predictably, the majority of these 68 items concern population descriptions, budget patterns, socio-economic factors, and social issues. Most of the rejected items relate to housing, transportation, and economics. The same ten items scored highest in all three rounds. Nine of the items identify population size and composition or specific statistics on education enrollment and attainment. The tenth item was "number of single-parent families". No definitive explanation was reached as to why this issue was recommended over other equally popular and significant ones. Although consensus increased with each round, the group means continued to differ on 33 items. The disagreement in scores is most likely attributable to differences in perspective and in criteria used for recommending items. The study led to three major conclusions. First, the recommended checklist offers valuable assistance to scanners, especially novices, but it also has limitations. Scanners must adapt the checklist to their own situations and they must progress beyond any suggested list to explore new indicators of opportunities and threats. second, environmental scanning is still in the developmental stage even among experienced school systems. Finally, participant comments indicate a lack of rapport between Practitioners and Experts which could hamper efforts to adapt scanning to public schools. Despite these difficulties, continued implementation of external environmental scanning is strongly recommended.Item The Effects of Peer Collaboration on Community College Freshmen's Writing, Socialization, and Attitudes(1992) Thompson, Shirley Mae Smith; Slater, Wayne; Teaching, Learning, Policy & Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md)This was a study investigating the effects of peer collaboration on 15 community college freshmen's narrative writing, on their socialization, and on their attitudes toward writing during a semester freshman composition course. One narrative writing sample was collected at the beginning of the semester and a second was collected near the end of the semester. An attitude survey also was administered at the beginning and at the end of the semester. In addition, eleven class sessions during the semester were observed and audio taped by the researcher. A student in the writing class served as a key informant to assist in assessing the validity and reliability of the researcher's observations. Interviews with the teacher were held also. The writing samples were scored holistically; the attitude surveys were analyzed; and the researcher's observations and audio tapes were analyzed and interpreted in concert with the observations made by the key informant and the teacher. Writing Sample A revealed a 1.86 average score; Writing Sample B revealed a 2.35 average score, a difference of .49. Attitude Survey A revealed a 3.29 mean; Attitude Survey B revealed a 3.75 mean, a difference of .46. Observations and interviews verified the writing sample and survey results. Results suggest that peer collaboration may have had a positive effect on students' writing, their socialization, and their attitudes toward writing.