Understanding professional development is a key component in ensuring school improvement. This study examines the professional development experiences of 16 school leaders and staff members in the Northeast Region of the United States. This qualitative grounded theory study investigates the type of professional development experiences that result…

This dissertation study explores how teachers perceive and use data to inform their instructional practices and ultimately impact student achievement. The research focuses on whether or not data availability impacted how often teachers used data for instructional purposes and if leadership and coaching practices impacted teachers' perception of…

Student success efficacy studies are aimed at assessing instructional practices and learning environments by evaluating the success of and characterizing student subgroups that may benefit from such modalities. We develop an ensemble learning approach to perform these analytics tasks with specific focus on estimating individualized treatment…

The utilization of learning analytics to support teaching and learning has emerged as a newer phenomenon combining instructor-oriented action research, the mining of educational data, and the analyses of statistics and patterns. Learning analytics have documented, quantified and graphically displayed students' interactions, engagement, and…

Well-educated and informed elementary educators provide the highest of quality instruction to elementary students. Elementary educators are expected to provide instruction from all academic subjects throughout the school day. As standardized testing continues to be a priority in U.S. classrooms, educators must be prepared to continue to deliver…

Data-rich activities provide an opportunity to develop core competencies in both science and mathematics identified in curricular standards. Perhaps even more importantly work with data puts learners in the position to use data to ask and answer questions, a potentially empowering capability. Research on work with data has focused on cognitive…

This inquiry explores Integral Theory's prospective value to assist interpreting student teachers' communicated awarenesses for how they make sense of their own pedagogies, acknowledging student teachers' partial existence within post-secondary teacher education circumstances along with emerging twenty-first century conditions. Accordingly, this…

A Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) is a course that is offered fully online and is usually open for enrollment by any individual, with no limit on the number of participants. MOOCs are a popular resource for learning worldwide with over 23 million new learners registering for MOOCs in 2017 alone. Coursera, the most popular MOOC platform, has…

The idea of data use as an educational reform strategy has gained significant traction in recent years, but there is limited research that illuminates what actually happens when teachers use data in practice. This study investigates the ways a group of middle school mathematics teachers used data in their classrooms and as part of an action…

Monitoring academic progress to guide instructional practices is an important role of teachers in a small rural school district in the Southern United States. Teachers in this region were experiencing difficulties using the approved school district model to implement data-driven instruction. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to…

A local urban school district recently reported that 86% of third graders did not demonstrate proficiency on the Math Standardized Test, which challenges students to solve problems and justify solutions. It is beneficial if these skills are developed prior to third grade. Students may be more academically successful if kindergarten teachers have…

The Common Core Math Standards were written to address concerns that the math curriculum in the United States was not focused and coherent. Based on national and international assessments, the United States math scores have remained stagnant, while other countries have seen significant growth in their scores. This study, designed as an action…

This qualitative case study explored the perceptions and practices of three teachers who teach social justice concepts in kindergarten and 2nd grade classrooms in an urban school district in the Northwest region of the United States. The research sought to answer the following central questions: (a) What do teachers perceive about how instruction…

The pervasive use of Facebook by college students has prompted educators in higher education to explore ways in which this social media platform could be used for instructional purposes. However, findings concerning Facebook in higher education instruction have been mixed. Furthermore, some studies have indicated significant boundaries to the…

Increasingly large populations of English Learners (ELs) attend public schools within the US and teachers are held accountable for the academic performance of these students. Unfortunately, multiple studies have concluded that teachers graduating from teacher education programs are not equipped with the competencies to clearly identify the…