Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2005, Teaching and Learning

The 2001 No Child Left Behind Act is the most recent federal push to reform America's public schools through standardized testing and accountability measures. The problem is that this policy impacts practice without including teachers in the dialogue. This means that the legislation of NCLB creates a discrepancy between teacher practice and policy objectives, thus leaving teachers the classroom as the one place for autonomy. Located in sociocultural and critical ways of knowing and incorporating the feminist principles of research, this dissertation utilized collaborative methods to explore the lived experiences of five urban Midwest teachers implementing the testing policy within NCLB. Teacher participants represented varying grade levels, teaching experience and racial and ethnic backgrounds in an effort to depict the diverse make-up of the teaching population in an urban city. Through intense reflection, questioning, and dialogue, teacher participants demonstrated the particular ways that practice is getting pushed by the testig policy and the ways that teachers are exercising their agency and pushing back. Moreover, teachers also explained the dilemmas of teaching bilingual and special education students that are emerging through the testing policy. The experiences of the teacher participants demonstrated how collaborative research methods grounded in teacher meanings can create a safe political space for teacher empowerment and development, thus, impacting teacher practice and creating better informed policy and research. Not only do the findings portray how qualitative research can be more purposeful to teachers but the narratives also serve policy and scholarship alike. The data describes what supports are needed for teachers within the policy as well as the ways that collaborative methods can create a "realism bridge" between practice, theory, and policy. This approach is significant because it answers teacher calls for realistic research and realistic polic (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Patricia Enciso (Advisor) Subjects:

Doctor of Education (Educational Leadership), Youngstown State University, 2013, Department of Teacher Education and Leadership Studies

Within the walls of our schools lies the future of our society. The contributions and achievements of the next generations will determine the course of our country and the world. The responsibility for preparing and educating this population falls on our school systems and the teachers within them. The demands and expectations placed on our educational systems are ever-changing. One of the most significant of these changes has been an increase in the level of accountability for the achievement and growth of every student. Teachers in the primary grades, working with our youngest students, are the first to see the disparity of skills and readiness they demonstrate. Charged with developing not only academic skills, but also social, emotional and interpersonal skills, this first experience to structured education lays a critical foundation. Kindergarten is the time during which students begin to develop their knowledge base, as well as their perception of themselves as learners. Reading readiness and the acquisition of its component skills, form the scaffold upon which all later skills will be layered. Dr. Seuss said, “The more you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn the more places you'll go” (Seuss, 1990). While it is clear that literacy skills are critical elements of early instruction, it is not clear in what format or with which approach, these skills are most appropriately taught. Additionally challenging in the instructional process is keeping students motivated and engaged in the learning process. Effective means by which to achieve these outcomes are also not universally accepted. Teacher education organizations, as well as researchers in the field identify the use of technology as a tool for thinking, decision-making and learning (Couse & Chen, 2010). This study looks to examine the impact of the use of iPad 2 literacy based applications on the acquisition of emergent literacy skills in the areas of phonemic aw (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Karen Larwin Ph.D. (Advisor); Robert Beebe Ph.D. (Committee Member); Amy Camardese Ph.D. (Committee Member); Gail Saunders-Smith Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Early Childhood Education; Literacy; Technology