Approximately 75.0% of the students in a district in the Bronx, New York, failed to meet grade level state standards in mathematics The district leadership team had implemented numerous improvement efforts but saw little progress. Grounded in Lave and Wenger's Social Learning Theory, adapting Wenger and Snyder's Community of Practice research, and…

This study aimed to enhance student engagement in language classrooms by developing a professional learning community (PLC) in the Modern Language Department in a high school. This exploratory study uses a mixed-method design collecting both quantitative and qualitative data through various instruments. Incorporating improvement science, the…

Lesson study is a model of effective professional development that originated in Japan and has become popular among math teachers worldwide in recent decades. Idaho math teachers have engaged in lesson study as a method of professional development for the past six years. Research is needed to determine the impact of lesson study on the…

The purpose of this study is to recovery educational community of Surachana English School in Nepal in a learner-centered education way. The project had been conducted for 12 weeks with 10 teachers teaching in the school for achieving the purpose. To measure and analyze the project, two methods like quantitative and qualitative were used. Through…

The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine how elementary teachers thought processes manifested in their teaching praxis. This exploration was conducted around their experiences in a professional learning community centered on Universal Design for Learning (UDL). As a practitioner scholar, I utilized Seidman's (2019) in-depth…

This action research study identified the effects of learner-centered professional development (PD) and continuous support of effective teaching practices during professional learning communities (PLCs). This study focused on four specific areas--(1) building the teacher's content knowledge through PD, (2) providing support for the implementation…

One of the primary aims of this action research study was to understand what happens when engineering faculty, staff, and faculty mentors engage in a professional development opportunity focused on improving instructional practices and faculty-student interactions. Since action research is aimed at using innovation to engage with a local problem…

Student-centered active learning strategies have been found to have a positive impact on student learning outcomes when compared to courses using traditional lecture methods in higher education. The practice of active learning is strongly linked to physical active learning classrooms (ALCs). Comprehensive studies show ALCs outperform traditional…

This dissertation was motivated by a deep commitment to creating robust mathematics learning communities for teachers and for students that are grounded in care, dignity, and connection. Designing for learning from this relational perspective requires disrupting dehumanizing aspects of systems of schooling that function to construct difference and…

This mixed methods study investigated how professional learning communities could support reformed teaching practices in the secondary science classroom. To assist preservice teachers with implementing these practices in the classroom, teachers must have a space for metacognitive reflection on their teaching practices (Darling-Hammond, 2006).…

This study centers on one early-career English language arts (ELA) teacher's development of his critical pedagogical discourses (CPD) within the contextual discourses of collaboration and data informed instruction. These contextual discourses circulated assumptions of teaching and learning that are privileged by the political ideologies of the…

Community is a concept with tremendous power in higher education and writing studies. For higher education institutions, community influences the purpose and method of education. Based on John Dewey's work on the social nature of education and other histories of community-based education, higher education practitioners and theorists like Ernest…

Block scheduling has been touted as a reform effort for American schools (Trump, 1959; Zepeda & Mayers, 2006). Block scheduling allows teachers to use the additional class time to vary the activities in the classroom and move away from the lecture model and affords teachers the opportunity to utilize more student-centered activities to engage…

Recent national reports (e.g., Carnegie Corporation 2009; National Research Council 2012a) call for increased attention to Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education to better prepare students for the demands of a scientific, technical, creative and critical thinking workforce (Honey, Pearson, & Schweingruber, 2014;…

In the last two decades, higher education researchers have reported numerous benefits of integrating technology tools in course instruction and their subsequent impact on the students' learning process. In spite of the accumulation of the large amount of evidence and multiple calls to adopt technology tools in instruction, traditional lecturing is…