Teachers' Perceptions of Mandated Collaborative Decision Making in an Urban School District

Teachers' Perceptions of Mandated Collaborative Decision Making in an Urban School District PDF Author: Judith Stern Katz
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 686

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Teachers' Perceptions of Mandated Collaborative Decision Making in an Urban School District

Teachers' Perceptions of Mandated Collaborative Decision Making in an Urban School District PDF Author: Judith Stern Katz
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 686

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The Study of Perceptions of a Midwestern Urban School District's Teachers Regarding the Importance of Teacher Collaborative Interactions

The Study of Perceptions of a Midwestern Urban School District's Teachers Regarding the Importance of Teacher Collaborative Interactions PDF Author: Jo-Anna H. Warren
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Teacher effectiveness
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Teacher Agency in the Process of State Mandated Reform

Teacher Agency in the Process of State Mandated Reform PDF Author: Kyle C. Ruggles
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 708

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Book Description
Under No Child Left Behind (NCLB), federally funded schools and Local Educational Agencies (LEAs) that do not meet Adequate Yearly Progress (A YP) criteria for two consecutive years are designated Program Improvement (PI), mandating participation in school reform interventions. In February 2008, the California Department of Education (CDE) released a corrective action plan mandate requiring all LEAs, or school districts in Year 3 of PI to participate in intensive, moderate, light, or other levels of technical support that includes participation in the District Assistance and Intervention Team (DAIT) process. The DAIT process brings outside consultants and district office administrators into schools and classrooms for regular walkthroughs and assessments of improvement plan implementation. Yet little is known about how these state mandates influence teachers' instructional practices and decision-making power or agency. This study explores teachers' perceptions of the DAIT process and how agency is influenced in an urban fringe pre-kindergarten through grade 8, PI school district in California that volunteered to pilot the DAIT process during the 2006 - 2009 school years. The socio-cultural theory of learning (Gallucci, 2003) and the principal-agent theory (Ferris, 1992) guide the analysis of this embedded and longitudinal multi-case study of three middle schools and the district office within the PI school district. Rich, thick qualitative descriptions from 24 teachers and five district office administrators engaged in state mandated reform emerge from the single-case and cross-case analyses. Teachers perceive the DAIT feedback as vague and lacking in teacher involvement in classroom visitations, which led to teachers viewing the process as superficial. Yet teachers also considered the DAIT process as beneficial in increasing teacher-team reflection and collaboration around a singular, common instructional focus of reading comprehension, which seemed to be positively associated with agency. A variance of teacher agency levels was found to depend upon school context and how teachers perceived themselves while balancing the costs and benefits from DAIT feedback. Findings also reveal that the DAIT process may have compromised teacher agency due to the lack of teacher participation and involvement in the development of the process, potentially eroding teachers' sense of professionalism.

American Doctoral Dissertations

American Doctoral Dissertations PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Dissertation abstracts
Languages : en
Pages : 776

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An Exploration of Teachers' Lived Experiences in Professional Learning Communities in One Ohio Urban School

An Exploration of Teachers' Lived Experiences in Professional Learning Communities in One Ohio Urban School PDF Author: Marvin B. Jones (II)
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Low-performing schools
Languages : en
Pages : 107

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The purpose of this study was to explore teachers' lived experiences in professional learning communities, conceptualized in Ohio as teacher based teams. This study was carried out against the backdrop of state policies addressed to poorly performing schools. School culture must change in failing schools. In order to change culture (Kowalski, 2006) and to effectively impact student learning in underperforming schools, new shared beliefs and behaviors must come to fruition. In an effort to improve student achievement in underperforming schools across the state of Ohio, the Ohio Department of Education has mandated that these schools engage a process called the Ohio Improvement Process (ODE, 2012). This process requires schools to develop a two-way system of collaborative data analysis among three levels of stakeholders: district leadership teams (DLT), building leadership teams (BLT) and teacher based teams (TBT). The focus for this study was one Ohio urban middle school and its teacher based teams. According to DuFour (2004), professional learning communities place an emphasis on organizational learning, collaboration and collective accountability for student achievement. This concept of creating a learning organization by DuFour was an outgrowth of the work conducted by Senge (1990). The study took place at a school that performed in the lowest five percent of all Ohio's schools. I was an insider to the school district but not to the school itself. This school was considered urban, with high poverty and a high number of minorities. Participants (N=14) were middle school teachers selected from the teacher based teams in the areas of reading, mathematics and one intervention specialist from each of the seventh and eighth grade levels. Narratives of teachers' experiences, perceptions, and beliefs were solicited through one-on-one, face-to-face audio-taped interviews. I transcribed part of the interviews, assisted by a colleague (an outsider) who transcribed part of the interviews. I alone coded and interpreted the meanings of teacher voices. From the interpreted meanings I constructed three spheres of influence on the likelihood that TBTs maintain a sole focus on student learning: teachers as resources to each other, student performance data and allocated time. These three spheres of influence capture the experiences of the 14 teachers. Literature on professional learning communities (teacher based teams) have elements that delve into two spheres: teachers serving as resources to each other and utilizing data to drive the instructional decision making process. However, less focus on sufficient allocated time, the third sphere of influence, was found in the literature. I drew implications from these findings, including questions to teachers, administrators, and policy makers overseeing the consequences for poorly performing schools in Ohio. I suggest future studies of teachers' experiences that might serve to add to a growing body of research about professional learning communities that might aid educators in their quest to improve student academic achievement.

Dissertation Abstracts International

Dissertation Abstracts International PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Dissertations, Academic
Languages : en
Pages : 522

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The Difference Between the Perceptions Toward Collaboration and Collaborative Practices for Elementary Educators in an Urban School District

The Difference Between the Perceptions Toward Collaboration and Collaborative Practices for Elementary Educators in an Urban School District PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Elementary school teachers
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Examining Comprehensive School Reform

Examining Comprehensive School Reform PDF Author: Daniel K. Aladjem
Publisher: The Urban Insitute
ISBN: 9780877667339
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 388

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Book Description
Urban school reformers for decades have tried to improve educational outcomes for underserved and disadvantaged students, with the assistance of constantly evolving federal and state policies. In recent years, education policies have shifted from targeting individual students to developing universal standards for teaching and learning, and comprehensive school reform (CSR) has emerged as an effective key model. The federal CSR program seeks to support the implementation of comprehensive school reform, especially in high-poverty schools, and to improve efforts to help all children meet challenging academic standards. Schools that receive federal CSR funds must adopt approaches that comply with the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). This book provides a series of studies and reflections on CSR by leading experts in the field.

Resources in Education

Resources in Education PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 836

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Research in Education

Research in Education PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 1006

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