The education system continues to change and the needs of the 21st century learner are increasing. More students are being identified as at-risk. Statistics in New Jersey demonstrate trends that indicate the number of students being classified for special education is rising. Supervisors in schools need to develop and support programs to provide…

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to identify, investigate, and describe the espoused Pennsylvania Principal Mentoring Network (PPMN) training program and protocols for the principals who served as mentors for newly hired principals in Pennsylvania. This study posed three research questions: (1) what was the espoused training provided…

Purpose. The purpose of this study was to determine if a significant difference in the degree of teamness in high school teams whose schools have strong evidence of the five dimensions of a Professional Learning Community, compared to high school teams in schools that do not have strong evidence of the five dimensions of a Professional Learning…

This qualitative research explored how the retelling of a life story influenced teachers' self-understanding. Informed by the disciplines of psychology, anthropology, and philosophy I constructed a conceptual framework of life as a continuous narrative, reflected and focused by past and anticipated experiences. This framework was informed by…

Appreciative advising is an innovative academic advising method based on the organizational development theory of appreciative inquiry. This approach emphasizes student strengths through a collaborative relationship between advisor and student using open-ended questions and focusing on positive potential. This study addressed the local problem of…

School information systems (SIS) have the potential to cause a change in a school's technical, structural, psycho-social, and managerial systems. Implementation of a technological innovation such as an SIS is not a one-step occurrence; it is a process that occurs over time. Implementing any technological innovation involves active learning…

This case study of a single school district aims to identify teachers' perceptions of how their professional practices have been affected after four years of receiving Cognitive Coaching. Cognitive Coaching was used in participants' professional development as a part of an Alternative Teacher Professional Pay System and included three…

The American Nurses Association advocates for nursing professional development (NPD) specialists to have an earned graduate degree, as well as educational and clinical expertise. However, many NPD specialists have limited exposure to adult learning theory (ALT), and this lack of exposure may reduce organizational knowledge transfer (KT) and the…

The stated goal of this study was to investigate teacher self-efficacy in regards to using educational technology with low-achieving students. The qualitative research method employed was case study. By using this method the researcher was able to investigate the experiences of the research participants in regard to the phenomena under study. Data…

The purpose of this study was to better comprehend the experiences of middle school teachers when they are asked to implement practices promoted in professional development. The professional development in which the teachers were involved centered on cultivating classroom discourse through the use of six Teacher Discourse Moves. These moves were…

As public education seeks to address the needs of a globalized, 21st Century workplace, curriculum and instructional methodologies increasingly require classroom technology integration, infusion of critical thinking skills and information and media skills over rote memorization of facts. In order to retrain teachers in the new instructional…

The state of Pennsylvania comprises 500 school districts. Each district is required to have a superintendent of schools. Now, more than ever, the work portfolio of U.S. school superintendents is increasingly diverse. In an occupation enjoying very little security, having fewer benefits than similar jobs in the private sector, and facing increased…

Efficacy studies of educational programs often involve mediator analyses aimed at testing empirically appropriate theories of action. In particular, in the studies of professional teacher development programs, the intervention targets presumably teacher performance while the ultimate outcome is the student achievement measured by a standardized…

This study examines the practices of an instructor who designed and instantiated an online professional development program to foster expertise in online instructional design. The main purpose of this study is to investigate how her application of technological affordances may inform a re-examination of Cognitive Apprenticeship (Collins, Brown,…

What makes a Title I school high-achieving, and what can we all learn from that experience? Professional learning and leadership that supports personalized instruction makes the difference, as captured in the ground-breaking research of authors Sonia Caus Gleason and Nancy Gerzon. This illuminating book shows how four outstanding schools are…