Globally, the demand for people prepared to enter Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) careers is increasing. To help fill this demand, many formal and informal STEM educational interventions have been implemented in the K-12 domain. However, due to the lack of a clearly defined framework for documenting the nature and scope of the…

K-12 students with disabilities in the United States are increasingly enrolling in online schools and educational programs. Therefore, K-12 online public and charter school special education (SpecEd) teachers must be prepared to develop and implement individualized educational plans (IEPs) that meet the procedural and substantive requirements of…

This dissertation case study examines how teachers' levels of units coordination afford their ability to reason multiplicatively and fractionally, as well as use their mathematics knowledge for teaching to analyze student multiplicative and fractional reasoning, when a two-year intervention is put into place to evoke new mathematical reasoning.…

The purpose of the research was identifying how teacher training and knowledge in play impacts the use of play as an RtI behavior intervention. The study was designed to find possible correlations between the following four areas; teachers' training on play, teachers' knowledge of play, teachers' beliefs of play, and teachers'' use of play as a…

Dual language and immersion (DLI) instruction at the secondary level is a particular challenge, as teachers are tasked with teaching abstract, cognitively complex content while supporting students in continuing to develop their partner language proficiency. This content and language integration requires a unique skill set and knowledge base, but…

Quality Professional Development (PD) interventions are important to improve teaching in schools (Desimone, 2009) and students' achievement (Wayne, Yoon, Zhu, Cronen, & Garet, 2008). Recent research has been focusing on learning using a situative perspective (Greeno, 2006). Within this body of research, this study analyzed elementary school…

Many have labeled the youth residing in detention homes as the forgotten children of society. Education in a detention home can be a catalyst for restoring troubled youth to the right track. However, most detention home education programs and educators are isolated, unregulated, and operated with minimal guidance from either the state or local…

Special education services provided students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in Saudi Arabia have been growing rapidly over the last two decades and teachers must be well-versed to address their students' needs. However, studies examining aspects of these services are scarce. The current study aimed to assess knowledge about ASD,…

Previous research indicates that pre- and in-service teachers are not receiving adequate training to implement data-informed instructional decision making. This is problematic given the promise this decision making process holds for improving instruction and student learning. At the same time, many educators do not see the value of different types…

The purpose of this mixed methods action research study was to identify the extent to which the Intervention and Referral Services program at the elementary schools in District M are effective at meeting the stated goals of helping students who struggle and helping teachers who work with those students. Both quantitative and qualitative methods…

This study examined the anticipated overall teacher shortage, and the specific reasons why novice special education teachers leave the profession within three to five years. A review of the literature suggested that a 2.5 million teacher shortfall is expected; however, special education teachers leave their teaching assignments two and one-half…

Gifted students' development is asynchronous in the social, emotional, physical and cognitive domains. Because of this, unique interventions must be used by teachers of the gifted in order to best serve their developmental and educational needs. This qualitative study used transcendental phenomenology to examine and describe the experiences…

This quasi-experimental study examined the effect of a phonological awareness professional development program on teachers' phonological awareness knowledge, the impact phonological awareness knowledge had on the frequency and complexity of phonological awareness instruction, and the impact the instruction had on students' phonological awareness.…

The current literature indicates a need for quality studies on how best to close the achievement gap between elementary English language learners (ELLs) and their English speaking peers. The purpose of this sequential explanatory mixed methods research study was to determine the relationship between standards-based differentiated instructional…