There is very little research on educator preparation programs' impact on teacher effectiveness and student learning (Darling-Hammond et al., 2005; Hagans & Powers, 2015; Korthagen, 2010; Okhremtchouk et al., 2009). This mixed methods study used a sequential explanatory approach (Creswell, 2009) to explore three research questions regarding…

The adoption of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) has brought with it a need for classroom assessments that measure students' ability to make sense of, explain, and use science, with many of the performance expectations asking students to apply scientific principles and evidence to produce an explanation. But creating coherent written…

This dissertation examined the effects of the inferencing reading strategy using a emotionally charged instruction for students from countries who do not speak English as their first language. A quasi-experimental study applying quantitative research methods to collect data from the two sections of Level four Reading classes during a ten week…

Beyond rigorous reading instruction in America's high schools, writing instruction in the 21st century must be addressed if students will be equipped with the critical thinking skills they need to be successful. Teachers, however, need training in implementing innovative methods in writing instruction to effect change in student achievement. This…

Research findings suggest that instructional technology coaching may be a critical lever in closing the gap in the usage of technology, sometimes referred to as the digital use divide. In the 2017-2018 school year, we provided 50 schools in 20 school districts across five states, with a grant to support an onsite, full-time instructional…

Most states have developed or revised school accountability systems in response to the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). While these systems include multiple indicators, to many stakeholders the outcome of central interest is the overall rating or classification produced for each school. These ratings are often used to identify schools that merit…

When Okema Owens Simpson, the sixth-grade Multi-Classroom Leader (MCL) for English language arts (ELA) at Ranson IB Middle School in Charlotte, North Carolina, plans her schedule for the coming week, she provides what her teachers need most: daily, on-the-job coaching; lesson planning; practice in delivering lessons; co-teaching or modeling a…

This dissertation is a qualitative research investigation that explores the educational experiences and perceptions of public school teachers (K-8) as they relate to the usage of educational video games in their classrooms. To shed light on the phenomenon, the study focused on providing in-depth descriptions of public school teacher narratives of…

This report contains reliability and validity evidence for the North Carolina Kindergarten Entry Assessment system (KEA) using a statewide sample of kindergarten children. The KEA was designed as a formative, developmental, authentic, and criterion referenced classroom resource for teachers. As a formative assessment, the KEA focuses on the…

We investigated the effects of preference and degree of match on job performance of four 19 to 20-year-old young adults with developmental disabilities placed in community-based job conditions. We identified high-preference, high-matched and low-preference, low-matched job tasks using a video web-based assessment program. The job matching…

During the last decade, universities have endeavoured to continually improve the level of student satisfaction and learning experience. Student evaluative feedback is therefore critical to measure and track progress, and questionnaires are the principal means of collecting this data. In the UK, although the National Student Survey is used to…

Many principal supervisors in the United States work in relative isolation and experience no professional development designed to support them. Over the past four years, the role of principal supervisor in Long Beach Unified School District in California has shifted from compliance and at-a-distance supervision practices to a deeply rooted…

edTPA is a pre-service assessment process designed to determine if a new teacher is ready for the job. edTPA is part of a national movement towards the use of performance assessments in teacher education. As of 2014, 41 states (a) require a state-approved performance assessment like edTPA for program completion or for state licensure and/or state…

Visual short-term memory (VSTM) is a crucial repository of information when events unfold rapidly before our eyes, yet it maintains only a fraction of the sensory information encoded by the visual system. Here, we tested the hypothesis that saccadic eye movements provide a natural bottleneck for the transition of fragile content in sensory memory…

In this paper, co-musicking in teaching is discussed on the basis of findings from a study on pop band and piano teaching. We understand co-musicking as collaboration between music-makers, including pupils. For this study, we chose to focus on the actions that teachers and student teachers take during pupils' performance of a piece of music in a…