Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Self-Teacher'

The study explored current site principals’ feedback practices that support or hinder teachers’ implementation of feedback, and identified site principal’s practices that encourage or interfere with teacher’s self-efficacy. Using qualitative interviews with site principals and teachers from two different districts and three different school sites, the study analyzed two major leadership practices: (a) an administrator’s ability to communicate effectively with teachers before, during, and after the feedback process, and (b) an administrator’s use of emotional intelligence when providing feedback. Data were separated into four feedback types (positive feedback, negative feedback, feedback and feedforward) and emotional intelligence traits (self-regulation, self-aware, empathy, social skills, and motivation). Comparative analyses were conducted amongst teachers at the same site to explore patterns and insights within and across sites. The results of this study indicated that site principals primarily provided positive feedback and positive feedforward and exuded some of the emotional intelligence traits when providing instructional feedback to teachers. Teachers also wanted their site principals in their classrooms giving instructional feedback more often and believed that the way in which their principal gave them feedback mattered. These findings suggest that collaborative opportunities with site principals on how to provide feedback to teachers more often is essential. Furthermore, principals should receive additional professional development opportunities targeting emotional intelligence and feedback types.

This qualitative study investigates two teachers who attempt to guide self-improvement initiatives in their school setting during and after completing a University based practicum course in special education. Fullan's (1993) framework for change agency was used to help facilitate the participants' self-improvement process. Participants were called to consider and enact self-identified changes they would like to make as teachers and to consider how these changes interact with their teaching selves and schools at large. To better understand how the self-initiated projects were carried out in the school context, two cases were followed for eighteen months after the sixteen-week self-study practicum was completed.

A case study of each participant was constructed based on observations, interviews, and document analysis. Using a recursive process, data was explored to analyze each participant's sense of identity and how this process related to efforts to foster improvements in their school setting. The critical importance of the participant's life experiences (past and present) emerged as important to the self-study process and as important to their actions beyond the self-study process. The participants in these case studies were engaged in a balancing act between efforts to improve themselves as teachers and efforts to respond to the internal and external expectations they had in their personal lives as mothers and wives. Although this study was initially interested in how a teacher's identity process might lead toward greater critical consciousness about social justice issues in the classroom, these cases do not suggest a strong connection between the enacted self-study process and an emerging critical consciousness in teachers. However an examination of a teacher's life circumstances and prior experience is believed to provide insights that may inform future research on identity development, teacher development and change agency.

Stress is a problem that affects teacher well-being; causes poor performance, teacher turnover, financial and organizational strain; and negatively impacts student outcomes (Greenberg, Brown, & Abenavoli, 2016). Addressing teacher stress is a significant challenge for school leaders with limited resources. Additionally, supporting teacher self-efficacy is an ongoing aspiration as it affects teachers, students, and organizational effectiveness. Furthermore, mindfulness has shown to be an effective means to reduce teacher stress and promote overall well-being by cultivating present moment awareness, emotional regulation, equanimity, and compassion (Abenavoli, Jennings, Greenberg, Harris, & Katz, 2013; Flook Goldberg, Pinger, Bonus, & Davidson, 2013; Jennings et al., 2017; Meiklejohn et al., 2012; Poulin, Mackenzie, Soloway, Karaylos, 2008; Roeser et al., 2013).

The purpose of the study was to examine the differences in teachers’ perception of stress, teacher self-efficacy, and mindfulness after mindfulness training. Thirty teachers in an urban school district, 16 at a high school and 14 at two middle schools, volunteered for the 8-week, 30-minutes per week mindfulness training. In this quasi-experimental study, teachers’ perception of stress, teacher self-efficacy, and mindfulness were measured three times: before, immediately following, and three weeks after mindfulness training.

Results indicated a significant reduction in teachers’ perceptions of stress after mindfulness training, and the reduction maintained for the three-week period following training. No significant differences in teachers’ sense of teacher self-efficacy were found; however, results indicated teachers’ mindfulness increased significantly after mindfulness training. Notably, data analysis also indicated significant increases in teachers’ mindfulness from the end of training to three weeks after mindfulness training.

The positive results from this study were encouraging as the four-hour mindfulness training might be efficacious in reducing teachers’ perception of stress and increasing mindfulness. The positive effects gleaned from training were durable as the perception of stress maintained, and mindfulness improved over the three weeks following training. A short time-frame mindfulness training might have potential to aid school leaders in addressing problems of teacher stress, which is especially problematic in urban school districts.

This mixed-methods study sought to explore the impact the role a mathematics curriculum coach has on teacher efficacy and instructional practice.

School systems across the country are being asked to do more with less money. At the same time, districts are faced with mathematics standards that require a new approach to instruction. In response to these issues, school districts are choosing to implement the role of a mathematics curriculum coach. As a result, the question is raised, “are the funds utilized for math coaches being used effectively?” This mixed-methods study compared two schools of similar makeup. School A employs a math curriculum coach, while School B employs a general curriculum coach. Through the use of a survey (MTEBI), curriculum coach journaling, focus groups, and one-on-one interviews, this study sought to answer three research questions: (a) What is the impact of the use of a math curriculum coach on teacher instructional practices in the area of math; (b) What is the impact of the use of a math curriculum coach on teacher perceptions of their instructional practice; and (c) What is the impact of the use of a math curriculum coach on teacher sense of self-efficacy? The survey was administered to all teachers at both schools with an overall response rate of 63.6%. The focus groups and interviews were a small random sample of teachers at each school who provided an in-depth view of their perceptions regarding the impact of the coaches on their instructional practice and self-efficacy as related to mathematics. The teachers had high levels of self-efficacy when teaching math and high outcome expectancy. These measures did not change over the period of the study. This study found that the math curriculum coach did have an impact on teacher instructional practices.

Purpose. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore self-efficacy in teacher educational leadership and its connection to burnout as perceived by teacher-leaders in a confined small suburban school district.

Methodology. This research followed a qualitative case study research design. This approach allowed the researcher to interact extensively and intimately with the participants. This method also allowed the thorough exploration of phenomena through in-depth inquiry within a bounded system, time, place, or physical environment. Through semistructured interviews, the researcher was able to uncover the subtle personal understandings and perceptions of the teacher-leader participants in the real context. This helped the researcher gain insight into the relationships between the perceived self-efficacy of the participants and their experiences of burnout. Including the voices of the participants in the real context deepened the researcher’s understanding of the participants’ experiences as teacher-leaders.

Findings. The findings of this study are consistent with prior research from Bandura’s social cognitive theory and self-efficacy (Bandura, 1986, 1989, 1997, 2012). The researcher identified 11 themes that contribute to teacher-leaders’ perceived self-efficacy and feelings of burnout: (a) lack of organization at the district level, (b) credibility and broken trust, (c) administration turnover, (d) lack of funding to support the variety of programs, (e) lack of acknowledgement or recognition, (f) lack of student progress, (g) lack of support from colleagues due to broken relationships or friendships, (h) lack of clear expectations and communication, (i) loss of purpose, (j) lack of experience with a new task, and (k) lack of self-preparation. The researcher also found aspects distinctive to the participants of this school district, such as the substantial value the participants place on the friendships they have with their colleagues.

Conclusions. This study adds to the knowledge base that identifies specific activities that organizations can implement to build the self-efficacy and capacity of their teacher-leaders and prevent teacher-leader burnout.

Recommendations. District and school administration should explore ways to set the groundwork and help develop a financial framework to allocate resources that allow teacher-leaders the support they need to perform their work efficiently. In addition, administrators should design guidelines that promote inclusive behaviors in the organization to stimulate healthier work relationships and a support system for teacher-leaders. Finally, organizations should intentionally invest resources to create an environment at the workplace where the mental health of employees is nourished.