Teacher perceptions of immersion professional development experiences emphasizing language-focused content instruction

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 269-294
Author(s):  
Diane J. Tedick ◽  
Caleb Zilmer
Keyword(s):  
Professional Development ◽  
Communities Of Practice ◽  
Teacher Perceptions ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Teacher Practices ◽  
High Impact ◽  
Community Practice ◽  
Group Data ◽  
Growing Body ◽  
Focus Group Data

Abstract The knowledge and pedagogies needed for immersion classrooms are unique and complex. Although there is a growing body of research on immersion pedagogy, there is a dearth of research on professional development (PD) experiences that positively impact immersion teacher practices. This paper focuses on exploring immersion teacher perceptions of PD experiences in the area of language-focused content instruction that have a positive impact on their teaching. The theoretical framework guiding the study is “communities of practice” (CoP) (Wenger, 1998), and survey and focus group data were analyzed in relation to Wenger’s four realms of CoP (community, practice, meaning, and identity). Findings revealed specific features of high impact assignments and PD experiences. The paper concludes with implications for designing meaningful and effective PD experiences for immersion educators and others who teach in CBI settings.

scholarly journals Segregation and the Sea: Toward a Critical Understanding of Race and Coastal Blue Space in Greater Miami

2020 ◽  
pp. 019372352095053 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cassandra Phoenix ◽  
Sarah L. Bell ◽  
Julie Hollenbeck
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Focus Group ◽  
African American Community ◽  
Empirical Knowledge ◽  
Health And Wellbeing ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
Group Data ◽  
Growing Body ◽  
Focus Group Data ◽  
Critical Understanding

There is a growing body of research signaling the health and wellbeing benefits of being in blue space. Here, we advance this intellectual agenda by critically examining perceptions and experiences of coastal blue space among residents of a disadvantaged, predominantly African American community who report limited engagement with their local coastal blue space, despite beachgoing being considered mainstream by a previous generation. Drawing on focus group data and sensitized to a range of theoretical perspectives aligned with race, space, and social class, we advance theoretical and empirical knowledge pertaining to blue space engagement. In doing so, we demonstrate the need for more critically informed, theoretically appropriate research in this area, which connects individual stories of the sea to the wider historical, social, and political settings in which relationships with blue space are framed and (re)produced.

scholarly journals One size doesn’t fit all: rethinking approaches to continuing professional development in technology enhanced learning

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Compton ◽  
Timos Almpanis
Keyword(s):  
Professional Development ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Continuing Professional Development ◽  
Continuous Professional Development ◽  
Technology Enhanced Learning ◽  
Key Stakeholders ◽  
Growing Body ◽  
Compliance Mechanism ◽  
Enhanced Learning ◽  
The Way

Despite extensive investment, levels of enthusiasm for technology enhanced learning (TEL) are notoriously varied amongst the key stakeholders. A growing body of research shows that TEL is often expected by students and, when used effectively, has a positive impact on engagement and outcomes. Despite this, transmissive models of continuous professional development (CPD) that focus on the technology and systems over the pedagogic underpinnings can feel like a compliance mechanism ripe for resistance. We argue that a more effective approach utilises simpler, cloud based tools to highlight pedagogic approaches and that adaptations in the way CPD happens provide an environment within which exploration, utilisation and even transformation in practice can occur. 

Exploring the Experiences, Challenges, and Approaches of Parish Nurses in Their Community Practice

2018 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 121-129
Author(s):  
Jessica A. Devido ◽  
Willa M. Doswell ◽  
Betty J. Braxter ◽  
Martha Ann Terry ◽  
Denise Charron-Prochownik
Keyword(s):  
Diabetes Education ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
Holistic Care ◽  
Community Practice ◽  
Parish Nurses ◽  
Group Data ◽  
Making A Difference ◽  
Focus Group Data ◽  
The Many ◽  
Future Work

Purpose: To explore the personal experiences, challenges, and practices of parish nurses in their communities. Method/Design: The overall study used a mixed methods concurrent embedded design to describe parish nurses’ experiences with diabetes education and preconception counseling in their practice. Also included were descriptions of generalized practices. Therefore, this current report will focus on these broader experiences. Focus group data were collected using face-to-face, teleconference, and video conferencing formats with 48 nurses who consider themselves to be parish nurses and analyzed with content analysis. Findings: Four qualitative themes were identified in the data: (1) Gaining Entry Through Trust, (2) Enhanced Focus on Spiritual Caring, (3) Accomplishing Much Despite Challenges, and (4) Practice Making a Difference. Parish nurses are uniquely situated to provide holistic care for the mind, body, and spirit of their patients. Despite the many positive aspects, parish nurses experience unique challenges, such as funding their practice and working independently. Conclusions: The parish nurses can play a vital role in providing holistic care to patients in a faith-based community. Future work is needed to address the challenges of parish nurses such as access to continuing education programs related to health topics of concern to their community members.

scholarly journals Administrator Perceptions of School Improvement Policies in a High-Impact Policy Setting

2008 ◽  
Vol 3 (7) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mario S. Torres ◽  
Luana Zellner ◽  
David Erlandson
Keyword(s):  
Professional Development ◽  
School Improvement ◽  
Community Involvement ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
High Impact ◽  
School Type ◽  
Site Based Management ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Perceptions Of School

This study investigated school administrators’ perceptions of school improvement policies in a high-impact policy environment by measuring the impact of accountability, site-based management, professional development, and scheduling reform on the three dependent variables of a) academic outcomes, b) staff morale, and c) parent and community involvement. Using a convenience sampling method, 49 public school principals from Texas participated and an online survey was constructed to gather both quantitative (i.e., Likert scale) and qualitative (i.e., open ended response) data. The findings clearly point to principals, regardless of geographical district type and grade level school type, viewing less controversial and more intrinsically oriented policies (i.e., site-based management and professional development) as having a greater positive impact on outcomes as a whole than more radical alternatives (i.e., accountability and time and schedule reform). The evidence suggests that more aggressive school improvement policy approaches are likely failing to generate enough convincing outcomes to generate high commitment and confidence from school leaders. Further studies may look at the interaction of policy impact with minority student enrollments and with subgroup populations.

Do principals really know what their teachers believe about evaluation? Exploring principals' reactions to teachers’ beliefs in the United States

2021 ◽  
pp. 174114322110519
Author(s):  
Mary Lynne Derrington ◽  
Toni Jackson ◽  
John W Campbell
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Evaluation ◽  
Focus Group ◽  
Teacher Perceptions ◽  
Evaluation Process ◽  
The United States ◽  
Teacher Survey ◽  
Group Data ◽  
Johari Window ◽  
Focus Group Data ◽  
Principal Feedback

This study explored principals’ reactions to findings from a survey regarding their teachers’ evaluation beliefs. As participants in a longitudinal study, these principals were invited to focus group meetings to discuss the teacher survey data, which were sent to them for review prior to the meetings. They were asked to consider data that were puzzling, surprising, inconsistent, or consistent with their perceptions of conducting teacher evaluation. The focus group data were analyzed using the Johari Window, consisting of four domains of awareness. Based on the Johari Window analysis, principals shared teachers’ awareness of a checklist approach to observations but maintained different beliefs about a checklist's intentions and efficiencies. Principals were unaware of or disagreed with the following teacher beliefs: (a) principal feedback is marginally effective for teachers’ instructional improvement, (b) the evaluation ratings are applied unfairly, and (c) too much of principals’ time is allotted to the evaluation process. This study illustrates that principals and teachers have contradictory beliefs regarding the practice and value of teacher evaluation. The researchers suggest that principals should consider applying the Johari Window construct to reveal and explore teacher perceptions that could hinder an effective supervision and evaluation process.

scholarly journals Considering Coherence: Teacher Perceptions of the Competing Agendas of RTI and an Existing Special Education Model

2011 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Angela Pyle
Keyword(s):  
At Risk ◽  
Special Education ◽  
Focus Group ◽  
Teacher Perceptions ◽  
School System ◽  
Ministry Of Education ◽  
Group Data ◽  
Focus Group Data ◽  
Education Model ◽  
Levels Of Support

In 2005, the Ontario Ministry of Education introduced Responsiveness to Inter-vention (RTI) to the Ontario school system. RTI is a tiered approach involving increasing levels of support for students who are at risk for later learning difficul-ties. However, the introduction of this different support structure was not accompanied by a substantial shift in Ontario’s process of identifying and sup-porting struggling students. This paper uses focus group data to describe the perspectives of teachers who participated in the implementation of RTI and the tensions they experienced due to the lack of coherence between RTI and a special education framework where psycho-educational testing is the gateway to addi-tional support.

scholarly journals Quantified Nostalgia: Social Media, Metrics, and Memory

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 205630512110088
Author(s):  
Benjamin N. Jacobsen ◽  
David Beer
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Focus Group ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
The Past ◽  
Group Data ◽  
Focus Group Data ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Memory Practices ◽  
The Relationship

As social media platforms have developed over the past decade, they are no longer simply sites for interactions and networked sociality; they also now facilitate backwards glances to previous times, moments, and events. Users’ past content is turned into definable objects that can be scored, rated, and resurfaced as “memories.” There is, then, a need to understand how metrics have come to shape digital and social media memory practices, and how the relationship between memory, data, and metrics can be further understood. This article seeks to outline some of the relations between social media, metrics, and memory. It examines how metrics shape remembrance of the past within social media. Drawing on qualitative interviews as well as focus group data, the article examines the ways in which metrics are implicated in memory making and memory practices. This article explores the effect of social media “likes” on people’s memory attachments and emotional associations with the past. The article then examines how memory features incentivize users to keep remembering through accumulation. It also examines how numerating engagements leads to a sense of competition in how the digital past is approached and experienced. Finally, the article explores the tensions that arise in quantifying people’s engagements with their memories. This article proposes the notion of quantified nostalgia in order to examine how metrics are variously performative in memory making, and how regimes of ordinary measures can figure in the engagement and reconstruction of the digital past in multiple ways.

Lessons Learned from NASA STEM Workshops for High-Impact Professional Development

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Keliann LaConte ◽  
Brooks Mitchell ◽  
Christine Shupla ◽  
Carrie Liston ◽  
Ginger Fitzhugh
Keyword(s):  
Professional Development ◽  
High Impact ◽  
Lessons Learned

scholarly journals When the Kids Are Not Alright: School Counseling in the Time of COVID-19

AERA Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 233285842110336
Author(s):  
Mandy Savitz-Romer ◽  
Heather T. Rowan-Kenyon ◽  
Tara P. Nicola ◽  
Emily Alexander ◽  
Stephanie Carroll
Keyword(s):  
Postsecondary Education ◽  
School Counselors ◽  
Role Expectations ◽  
Mixed Methods Study ◽  
Concerted Effort ◽  
Social Emotional ◽  
School Based ◽  
Group Data ◽  
Focus Group Data ◽  
American Children

The unprecedented arrival of COVID-19 upended the lives of American children with rapid shifts to remote and hybrid schooling and reduced access to school-based support. Growing concerns about threats to students’ mental health and decreased numbers of students transitioning to postsecondary education suggest access to school counselors is needed more than ever. Although previous research on school counselors finds they promote positive postsecondary, social emotional, and academic outcomes for students, further studies highlight the organizational constraints, such as an overemphasis on administrative duties and unclear role expectations, that hinder their work. Drawing on survey and focus group data, our mixed methods study documents school counselors’ experiences during the COVID-19 crisis, including the opportunities and constraints facing their practice. Findings suggest there should be a concerted effort to reduce the role ambiguity and conflict in counselors’ roles so they are better able to meet students’ increased needs.

scholarly journals Online Professional Learning in Response to COVID-19—Towards Robust Evaluation

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 56
Author(s):  
Alireza Ahadi ◽  
Matt Bower ◽  
Abhay Singh ◽  
Michael Garrett
Keyword(s):  
Professional Development ◽  
Teacher Perceptions ◽  
Teacher Professional Development ◽  
Professional Learning ◽  
Background Information ◽  
Evaluation Approach ◽  
Online Mode ◽  
Evaluation Models ◽  
Teacher Professional ◽  
Workshop Evaluation

As COVID-19 continues to impact upon education worldwide, systems and organizations are rapidly transiting their professional learning to online mode. This raises concerns, not simply about whether online professional learning can result in equivalent outcomes to face-to-face learning, but more importantly about how to best evaluate online professional learning so we can iteratively improve our approaches. This case study analyses the evaluation of an online teacher professional development workshop for the purpose of critically reflecting upon the efficacy of workshop evaluation techniques. The evaluation approach was theoretically based in a synthesis of six seminal workshop evaluation models, and structured around eight critical dimensions of educational technology evaluation. The approach involving collection of pre-workshop participant background information, pre-/post-teacher perceptions data, and post-workshop focus group perceptions, enabled the changes in teacher knowledge, skills, and beliefs to be objectively evaluated, at the same time as providing qualitative information to effectively improve future iterations of the workshops along a broad range of dimensions. The evaluation approach demonstrated that the professional learning that was shifted into online mode in response to COVID-19 could unequivocally result in significant improvements to professional learning outcomes. More importantly, the evaluation approach is critically contrasted with previous evaluation models, and a series of recommendations for the evaluation of technology-enhanced teacher professional development workshops are proposed.

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