Language teacher education (LTE) has received increased attention over the last several decades. Language teacher educators, university researchers, classroom teachers, and future teachers have contributed immensely to existing knowledge on how language teachers learn to teach. Researchers and practitioners have finally acknowledged that future…

In contrast to the increasing diversity of students, the implementation and consequences of federal and state policies such as No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and the Comprehensive School Reform Act, have created a push for standardization in pedagogy and curriculum that serve culturally and linguistically diverse students. Effects of NCLB policies…

This study aims to understand the design and implementation of elementary methods classes focused in science instruction by teacher educators in the colleges and universities in the state of Arkansas. All 18 institutions with an Early Childhood Education program approved by the Arkansas Department of Education were reviewed with interviews, site…

This study utilizes a sociocultural activity theory approach to determine how, if at all, undergraduate coursework affects the attitudes of preservice English teachers, enrolled in a graduate teacher education program. Specifically, the study examines if there is any affect on the way the preservice teachers think about the teaching of writing…

During 2 decades of debate about teacher preparation education practitioners and policymakers have called for a more skilled professional teaching force (Darling-Hammond, 2010). Of particular concern has been poverty's impact on education--specifically in struggling urban schools--prompting legislation such as the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB),…

This study explored and compared the ways in which school-based cooperating teachers and college supervisors evaluate student teachers. The scores allocated to student teachers by school-based cooperating teachers and college supervisors in the final field experience evaluations of student teachers were analyzed. A mixed methods research design…

I investigated eight preservice teachers' understandings about culturally responsive pedagogy as they participated in a writing methods course in which they tutored children from different ethnic, socioeconomic, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds in an afterschool program at a local community center. I also investigated how these preservice…

The purpose of my study was to determine if there are any differences in performance measures of student teachers with varying levels of participation in professional development schools. The population in my study was the 2002 through the spring of 2006 kindergarten through 6th-grade student teachers from a small, private postsecondary…

In the past twenty years, substantial investments have been made in educational technology at the K-12 level. While increased integration of technology in K-12 teaching is more likely to occur when prospective teachers are exposed to a variety of computer uses in the majority of their undergraduate courses prior to their teaching in schools, due…

The U.S. Census bureau projects that by 2023, minorities will comprise more than half of all children. The population of school-aged Hispanic children is already the largest ethnic group, and the sheer number and rate of increase of these linguistically and culturally different students creates unfamiliar cultural challenges for school leaders.…

The Center for Information and Communication Sciences graduate program commenced at Ball State University in 1986 with a specific focus to train graduate students to be leaders in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) industry. The Center is the manifestation of a vision birthed out of creativity and resourcefulness. This study…

This dissertation investigates how teaching in a hands-on science center contributes to re/shaping one's teaching identity. Situated at the New York Hall of Science (NYHS) in Queens, New York, my research approach is to conduct a critical ethnography where the focus is on improving the teaching and learning of science for all involved. In…

Reform in the fields of adolescent and content area literacy have focused on broadening a definition of literacy beyond the ability to read and write. In a broader definition the language processes of reading, writing, speaking and listening become literacy tools to engage students in the learning of concepts and afford the learner ways to…