Digital badges promise greater transparency and granularity in documenting the professional learning and knowledge base of teachers compared to traditional credentials like certificates of attendance, resumes, and transcripts. Yet before they gain widespread acceptance, educational leaders must understand what they are, how to use them, and how to…

Special education teachers have the unique expectation of being qualified to provide instruction and supports to students with disabilities in the educational setting. This phenomenological study set out to determine the degree of knowledge special education teachers have in regards to 40% of the special needs student population: those students…

This study analyzes the work being done in Long Beach Unified School District for newly credentialed teachers who are unemployed. The new induction law requires new teachers be contracted to teach in a local district before they can participate in induction. However, budget cuts reduced the number of available jobs and increased the number of…

The purpose of this phenomenological, qualitative study was to explore elementary teachers' perceptions of the practice and implementation of literacy coaching. Specifically, this study sought to describe the nature of how kindergarten to fifth grade teachers participate in literacy coaching activities and to describe how such experiences are…

This study applies transformational leadership theory practices, specifically inspiring a shared vision, modeling the way and enabling others to act to examine the purposeful ways in which principals work to build the next generation of teacher leaders in response to the dearth of K-12 principals. The purpose of this study was to discover how one…

Purpose: The purpose of this grounded theory qualitative study was to discover the perceptions of special education directors regarding the changes in special education at the policy level, teacher practice level, and student support level necessary to improve the academic achievement of students with disabilities in California. Methodology: The…

Just as PK-12 teachers are taught how to teach, college and university professors should also receive instruction in how to teach. They should acquire pedagogical skills and understand methods for planning and content delivery prior to entering the classroom. The knowledge base of the discipline and a focus on research are emphasized in the…

The education system in California currently faces three major challenges--teacher shortage, lack of diversity in the teacher population in terms of gender and ethnicity, and a need for more effective teachers. After school programs have the potential of addressing all these challenges in a cost-effective manner. However, for these programs to…

The general purpose of this study was to investigate effective practices of interpreting education programs in the United States as measured by the readiness to credential gap. The increasing demand for interpreters has created an environment with under-credentialed interpreters and this is compounded by the fact that the field of interpreter…

Due to the complex challenges facing schools of nursing, a research study was implemented to introduce nurse faculty at one small rural northeastern Tennessee school of nursing to the NLN "Core Competencies for Nurse Educators". Utilizing Kalb's Nurse Faculty Self-Evaluation Tool as a pre- and post-intervention test, 30 nurse faculty…

This qualitative case study was designed to explore how master teachers in transfer high schools learn the competencies they perceive are required to engage at-risk students so that they persist and graduate. The study is based on the following assumptions: (1) The requisite teacher competencies can be defined and identified and, in fact,…