Doctor of Education, University of Toledo, 2014, Educational Administration and Supervision

Investigations in the field of teacher epistemology have been informative in that they have provided a framework for identifying which epistemic beliefs are associated with student- and teacher centered instruction (Schraw & Olafson, 2002) and which beliefs prevent teachers from adopting student centered instructional practices (Gill, Ashton, & Algina, 2004). Understanding teachers' epistemic beliefs is an important asset to school districts because it provides insight on which teachers may require additional intervention to adopt new teaching practices. However, few studies have examined the epistemic beliefs of high school teachers. There were three objectives of this investigation: (1) to identify the proportions of high school teachers in one urban district whose epistemic beliefs reflect resistance to change teaching practices (Gill et al., 2004; Patrick & Pintrich, 2010) versus those with beliefs amenable to adopting new practices (Feucht, 2010); (2) to identify the proportion of teachers with teacher- and student centered epistemic beliefs by area of certification, and (3) to establish whether relationships exist between high school teachers' epistemic beliefs and selected demographic variables. Findings showed that 57.9% of teachers surveyed held epistemic beliefs that reflect a student centered orientation. Few relationships were found between high school teachers' epistemic beliefs and selected demographic factors. Implications for teacher epistemology research and school district leaders were discussed.

Committee: Nancy Staub (Committee Chair); Dale Snauwaert (Committee Member); Mary Ellen Edwards (Committee Member); Shanda Gore (Committee Member) Subjects: Education; Education Philosophy; Education Policy; Educational Evaluation; Educational Leadership; Educational Psychology; Educational Theory; Epistemology; Pedagogy; Secondary Education; Teacher Education; Teaching

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2019, EDU Teaching and Learning

Classrooms are to be supportive environments where students learn writing as a way to participate in activities, discussions, and communities. Writing researchers need to explore the classroom context with a view of writing as a social practice. In 2016, the National Council of Teachers of English announced the position statement that the nature of writing instruction is contextualized and complex in order to support students' writing and learning about a range of ideas and experiences as well as in a variety of genres. However, previous studies indicate that writing instruction implemented in secondary schools in the United States do not always align with this theoretical and practical perspective. Writing instruction is often designed through teacher experiences and pedagogical knowledge. However, several other influential factors such as teacher's differing epistemologies, individual experiences, and process of socialization shape the instructional designs of writing. To date, little evidence has confirmed the effectiveness of different epistemologies for teaching writing in English language arts classrooms. This study provides a unique perspective of writing instruction to show that although they have the same goal, teachers with different epistemologies orchestrate activities, understand concepts, and respond to student work differently. Using an ethnographic approach, I collected data—audio and video recordings, pre and post-observation interviews, student work, and artifacts—over a period of one academic year, from August 2017 to May 2018, in two ninth-grade English language arts classrooms. I argue that the landscape of teaching and learning argumentative writing can be fundamentally different due to different epistemologies, despite identical teacher training to incorporate the same writing approach. Through the exploration of writing instruction from two teachers with different epistemologies, this dissertation presents a way to build an iterative series o (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: George Newell (Advisor); Mollie Blackburn (Committee Member); Caroline Clark (Committee Member); Alan Hirvela (Committee Member) Subjects: Education; Literacy