The purpose of this study was to examine the ethical beliefs and preparation practices of high school principals when making decisions on the evaluation of teacher performance for retention and/or tenure. The participants consisted of a total of 10 high school principals, associate principals, and assistant principals who evaluate the performance…

The primary goal of this handbook is to provide relevant and practical information for mentors as they guide the development of beginning special education teachers. Even the best prepared of new entrants face steep learning curves as they work to apply in complex school settings what they have learned from their pre-service programs. At the same…

The 21st century has brought changes to education--changes that include greater distance learning options for middle and high school students. While distance learning has been around for a century, the progressive ways in which students are able to select and complete virtual courses through the internet in nearly every secondary content area are…

The purpose of this feminist case study was two-fold: (1) to describe the ways that Collaborative Inquiry (CI) can be proposed as a counter-discourse of professional development that acknowledges the multiple forms of personal and professional knowledge among five women preschool practitioners, and (2) to explore alternative constructs of the…

Findings from two studies of 11 young children with autism, Down syndrome, or attention deficit disorders investigating the effects of Popchilla, a socially interactive robot, on the children's affective behavior are reported. The children were observed under two conditions, child-toy interactions and child-robot interactions, and ratings of child…

Scholars in Second Language Acquisition (SLA) have long called for a reconceptualization of the field, in which sociocultural understandings of the nature of language, language use, and language acquisition are placed on an equal footing with cognitive understandings. This study, through an in-depth exploration of the beliefs, perceptions and…

Although chapel programs have been a part of higher education in America for over two centuries, little is written at the dissertation level on the nature and role of chapel. This qualitative collective case study examines the nature and role of chapel at four Christian universities. The research examines the threefold question of how do chapel…

Many children are surviving prematurity and serious childhood illnesses due to advances in technology and medical care. As a result, more children are entering public school systems with complex health care needs and intellectual and developmental disabilities. School nurses are responsible for caring for these children; however, many nurses feel…

This research explored essential elements to be considered when teaching US students to develop and define creativity in the general elementary (students aged 5-11 years) music classroom. This case study focused on answering the following research questions: 1) What are students' perceptions of creativity? 2) How can music educators successfully…

Using artifacts of teachers' practices, classroom observations, and teacher interviews, we explore the development and enactment of 2 novices' pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) for teaching history. We identify and track 4 components of PCK that are relevant to teaching history: representing history, transforming history, attending to students'…

The purpose of this study was to determine which has the strongest correlation to student achievement as measured by value-added test scores: Principal Observations, Teachers Self-Efficacy Ratings, or Student Perceptions of Teacher Effectiveness. 68 teachers from a K-12 public school in the southeast region of the United States agreed to…

This study examined the extent to which child syndromes and observation context related to mothers' parenting behaviors. Longitudinal observations were conducted of parenting behavior across ages 3, 4, and 5 years during structured and unstructured activities. The 183 participants included mothers of children with autism spectrum disorders,…

In the context of the tension between classroom observation as a form of empowerment and as an instrument of control, the partnership between three 16-19 colleges and a university School of Education in delivering a programme of sustained observation over eight years is explicated. Drawing on the literature about continuing professional…

We report on the development and evaluation of an innovative instructional model, which harnesses advanced technologies and local resources (an in-campus museum), to support undergraduate-level art history students in developing the skills required for analyzing artwork. Theory suggests that analyzing artwork requires theoretical knowledge and…

This paper reports a case study of four project schools in the primary school context of Hong Kong. It has investigated how teachers who were assigned subject panel head's and curriculum leader's roles perceived the student assessment reform and how they experimented with new assessment strategies in the school policy and classroom practice. The…