Role play has been recently studied in high school and college settings. The purpose of this study was to examine role play in an elementary-level classroom. Role play leads to increased student engagement. Early elementary school teachers' perceptions about the benefits and challenges of using role play to support student engagement were…

This naturalistic inquiry takes a deep dive into the experiences elementary classroom teachers who have experienced feelings of burnout in their career and persevered, choosing to stay in the classroom, overcoming those feelings. Using Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs as a theoretical lens, the researcher studied the teachers in their school setting.…

Prioritizing student engagement in the classroom, where students want to learn more and be challenged, can lead to future success. This study investigated the effectiveness of providing teachers with professional development focusing on student engagement. The study utilized a mixed-method methodology that examined the effects of professional…

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore the experiences and perceptions of instructional coaches and teachers using the Results Coaching Global Framework with respect to outcomes of working together. The intent of an instructional coach is to collaborate with teachers one-on-one to build their instructional teaching skills. The…

The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine educators' perspectives of the value of their workload and the many influences that affect those perceptions. A cross-sectional survey was developed and distributed to general educators in a northern region of Illinois that were teaching kindergarten through fifth grade. The developed survey…

Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) is a framework that is used in many school districts in the state of Florida. When implemented with fidelity, this preventative program is designed to promote a positive climate and culture in schools, with the aim of limiting behavior that distracts or disrupts the learning environment, thus…

Professional development is a significant factor in improving teachers' instructional practices and increasing students' growth (Kang et al., 2013). The purpose of this study was to explore and analyze elementary teachers' perceptions regarding the impact of professional development delivered by instructional coaches. The central question for this…

Although teacher burnout has been experienced for decades, teachers faced additional stressors with the onset of COVID-19. Teachers faced newfound stressors due to lockdowns and restrictions on gathering face-to-face and instruction becoming virtual. Even the youngest students (kindergarten to fifth grade) had to be taught according to the virtual…

This qualitative dissertation explores the implementation of new instructional coaching programs in elementary schools, focusing on the perceptions of instructional coaches and teachers. Amid growing demands for educational improvement and teacher support in the United States, instructional coaching has emerged as a pivotal strategy for enhancing…

Teachers have been confronting burnout even before COVID-19 appeared; however, with COVID-19, teacher burnout has amplified and persisted. Resilience is a component within individuals that exhibits endurance to burnout. One factor that could feasibly be a component of resilience is hope. Hope within the Positive Psychology framework is seen as a…

This transcendental phenomenological dissertation is a study that examined culturally responsive teaching perceptions and self-efficacy among elementary school teachers and whether or not teacher race impacted those individual perceptions and beliefs of self-efficacy. Data were gathered through a qualitative approach with the use of one-to-one…

This quantitative study sought to define the relationship between collective teacher efficacy and organizational commitment in elementary schools in Alabama. The basis of this study examined collective teacher efficacy as defined by Tschannen-Moran and Barr (2004) and organizational commitment as defined by Porter et al. (1974) and Steers (1977)…

This qualitative Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) explored the experiences of teachers who a) participated in a multiyear, multisite professional development (PD) program on formative assessment practices and who b) are identified by their supervising administrators as positive-outliers by virtue of their extraordinary improvement…

To improve student literacy in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education, a STEM program was established in an elementary school in a southeastern state. The problem addressed in this study was that it was unknown how teachers were implementing the STEM framework within their classrooms within a school district in South Carolina.…

Recently, school districts have relied on professional learning (PL) to help teachers adopt curricula and implement practices aligned with the science of reading and to help students recover from learning interruptions due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Elementary English Language Arts teachers in Cecil County Public Schools are adopting Bookworms…