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- Creator:
- Olsen, Susan Nisonger
- Description:
- Throughout the United States, urban schools and districts with high-poverty and highly diverse learners have historically struggled with chronically low student achievement. Generally, their initiatives to rectify this problem have focused on implementing instructional reform goals for improving student achievement by ensuring all students have access and opportunity for rigorous learning for college and career success. Many districts and schools have devoted significant time and resources aimed at teacher professional development and training. This study took a qualitative analysis approach to understanding the growing use of instructional coaching programs to improve teaching and learning in high-poverty, highly diverse schools in three Northern California School Districts. This study addressed the lack of empirical research on the people in the profession of instructional coaching by gaining insight into instructional coaches working in roles that were focused on instructional reform in schools and districts with high-poverty and highly diverse student populations. Through the use of focus groups, this study investigated experiences and perspectives of K-12 public school instructional coaches (ICs) in three urban Northern California school districts. This study used the frameworks of guided participation (Rogoff, 1990), Billett’s (2004) learning through work perspectives, and Lave’s (1991) situating learning in communities of practice to understand instructional coaches’ experiences as they learned and made sense of the activities and duties of instructional coaching in high-poverty, highly diverse urban schools. Additionally, this study was focused on addressing the need for further understanding of the experiences and perspectives of ICs and how they made sense of and understood their role in relation to district instructional reform initiatives using culturally relevant instructional practices (Ladson-Billings, 1985). The findings of this study were that ICs do not receive formal training, they struggle with organizational dysfunction, and they rely on their social networks to make sense of their roles and responsibilities. Additionally, ICs do not address the socio-cultural needs of students in their coaching practices and instead reproduced the status quo, reinforcing teaching practices that marginalize students in highly diverse schools. This study recommends a learning through work coaching pedagogy using guided participation (Rogoff, 1990) and critical stance coaching (Teemant, et al., 2014) as a promising approach to more effective instructional coaching programs in high-poverty, highly diverse urban schools, and districts.
- Resource Type:
- Dissertation
- Campus Tesim:
- Sacramento
- Department:
- Educational Leadership
- Creator:
- Medley, Carson David
- Description:
- Too many Division II male student athlete collegiate basketball players are not graduating from college. In 2016, the Federal Graduation Rates (FGR) of Division II college basketball players (N=3,245) was 46%. This phenomenological qualitative study seeks to better understand what effect the redshirt year has on the identity, social, emotional, academic, and athletic development of college student athletes by interviewing 12 of the current student athletes on a Division II basketball team who either redshirted or are in the process of redshirting. The findings revealed that transformational leadership focusing on the holistic development (identity, social, emotional, academic, and athletic development) of the redshirt student athlete by employing the Social Emotional Academic Athletic model (SEAA) will lead to feelings of belonging and commitment that will increase the overall Division II NCAA graduation rates for all student athletes. The findings have led to the following conclusion: Committed male student athlete basketball players redshirting their freshman year made successful transitions in identity from high school to college; Committed male student athlete basketball players redshirting their freshman year showed positive social, emotional, academic, and athletic development; and committed male student athlete basketball players redshirting in this program have higher graduation rates based on the positive effects the redshirt year had on their identity, social, emotional, academic, and athletic development.
- Resource Type:
- Dissertation
- Campus Tesim:
- Sacramento
- Department:
- Educational Leadership
- Creator:
- Johnson, Ryne L.
- Description:
- A Certified Apprenticeship program comprises a partnership between private industry that serves as the program sponsor providing on-the-job (OJT) training opportunities, and public education agencies that provide Related Supplemental Instruction (RSI). Most certified programs require 4-5 years of combined OJT and RSI time, during which participants are paid while they train. Those who complete a certified apprenticeship program earn the title of Journeyman and become eligible for commensurate wages and benefits. These advantages lead supporters to tout apprenticeship as “the other four-year degree”, stating that it is a viable pathway to the middle class. Each certified program is required to follow guidelines for the recruitment of minorities and women, clearly stipulated in the State of California Plan for Equal Opportunity in Apprenticeship. This quantitative study examined participant data from eight of the largest apprenticeship programs in Northern California over a fifteen-year period (2000-2014) to determine if recruitment efforts, reflected in participation and completion records, align with the mission and vision originally designed by the State for the advancement of people of color and women in the public education-supported trades. My study asked three research questions, each considering equality of access and program success from different perspectives. For my first question, I compared reported participation levels by race and gender in each program against the criteria incorporated in California’s plan and summarized results in a series of tables and maps showing deficiencies, by program, in targeted race and gender participation levels across the 46-county Northern California region. For my second question, I completed a series of chi-square goodness of fit evaluations for race and gender across all programs. For my third question, I created a logistic regression model to determine which, if any, participant characteristics predicted program success. Overall, I found that people of color and women were underserved by the study group programs. Exceptions to this finding were in programs associated with generally lower paying career opportunities. Interestingly, my regression model showed that Latinos, though underrepresented, were more likely to successfully complete programs than Caucasians. My study has significant implications for state and federal administrators of apprenticeship programs as well as for the development of future policies designed to expand apprenticeship opportunities. If Certified Apprenticeship is going to fulfill its promise to be “the other four-year degree” recognized programs must serve all candidates to the level required by regulation. Policy recommendations include reviewing existing recruiting and mentorship practices to ensure they are inclusive to women and people of color, interviewing candidates who dropped out of programs to determine what factors may contribute most greatly to program failure, and increasing outreach to veterans to expand awareness of Certified Apprenticeship programs.
- Resource Type:
- Dissertation
- Campus Tesim:
- Sacramento
- Department:
- Educational Leadership