Approximately 80% of lean manufacturing program initiatives are abandoned in the first year of implementation. Only 2% of organizations that embark on the lean journey complete it with the results and the sustainability they expected. There is a gap in past research regarding, the leadership strategies organizations can use to overcome resistance…

Principal leadership is crucial to the success of a high school character education initiative. The purpose of this qualitative grounded theory research was to identify the roles that high school principals play in developing, implementing, and sustaining a high functioning character education program. Data were collected through interviews and…

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to describe kindergarten teachers' experiences with integrating play-based learning into standards-based academic curriculum in a school district in South Carolina. Play-based learning experiences were defined as instances which allow children to engage in active, social learning experiences in…

This study focused on the lived experiences of a team of four rural middle school teachers as they made the transformation from traditional classrooms to personalized learning classrooms. The teachers were beginning their third year of personalized learning implementation as the study took place. The researcher investigated participants'…

Although previous research has explored the efficacy of differential response (DR) programs in child welfare, there have been no studies to date about coding decisions between designations by child protection service agencies. Research has explored client satisfaction with DR as well as rates of recidivism and removal/placement but with limited…

School districts implement a variety of initiatives that too often fall short. This case study investigated how one public school district in southeastern Michigan implemented interest based-bargaining (IBB). The study also sought to understand the factors that influenced the decision-making process and what was considered when making…

The objectives of this research study were to examine local level factors shaping the implementation of a blended pedagogical approach for geospatial- and information-literacy, and to understand implementer satisfaction. As such, we addressed the following research questions: What local-level factors shape the implementation of the blended…

The purpose of this study was to understand the decisions elementary principals have made during the Common Core State Standards reform. Specifically, (a) what decisions principals have made to support Common Core implementation, (b) what strategies elementary principals have employed to communicate with stakeholders about Common Core State…

The implementation of professional learning communities (PLCs) in schools has been shown to increase the academic performance of students and develop a beneficial and productive culture of true teacher collaboration. Despite these demonstrated benefits, resistance to PLC implementation has been documented in various forms throughout the…

While many innovative teaching strategies exist, integration into undergraduate science teaching has been frustratingly slow. This study aims to understand the low uptake of research-based instructional innovations by studying 21 successful implementations of the Student Centered Active Learning with Upside-down Pedagogies (SCALE-UP) instructional…

This paper presents a case study of a private preschool in Thessaloniki, Greece. The school, located at the unique setting of an educational farm, has a curriculum focus on environmental education. An analysis of teacher interviews and lesson plans in the span of three years presents insights into the barriers teachers faced in implementing their…

This qualitative case study investigated the perception of school safety, what current policies and procedures were effective, and what policies and procedures should be implemented. Data were collected in two steps, by survey and focus group interview. Analysis determined codes that revealed several themes relevant to the perception of school…

In education today there is a heightened emphasis on teacher accountability for improving student outcomes. The law requires that in order for a student to qualify as a student with a disability, the child's IEP team must ensure that the child's problem is not due to poor instructional programming. Therefore, the general education teacher is…

The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to investigate transformative learning strategies implemented by 10 Title I elementary principals that influence novice teacher retention. Data were gathered by individual interviews. Data were analyzed using Creswell's (2013) description of qualitative research as a collection of data…

The local school district in the current study was struggling to meet adequate yearly progress (AYP) targets in reading because secondary students were scoring below the basic level in reading and their content area teachers had little or no training in reading deficiencies. What had been speculated, yet never tested, was the utility of teacher…