- Bryan, Texas, United States
The views of 56 female high school principals in the State of Texas were obtained regarding their leadership practices in three areas (i.e., relationship building and decision making, giving and seeking information, and influencing... more
The views of 56 female high school principals in the State of Texas were obtained regarding their leadership practices in three areas (i.e., relationship building and decision making, giving and seeking information, and influencing people) which they believed had been beneficial in their positions as high school principals. Respondents viewed supporting employees by being helpful, developing employee skills, and managing conflict as being essential to their success as principals. Moreover, they reported involving their employees in decision-making practices, particularly when critically important decisions must be made. Motivating and inspiring employees was rated highly, although providing tangible rewards was regarded as less important. Individual traits of communication skills, trustworthiness, honesty and sincerity, and good listening skills were very important factors in their success as high school principals. The two individual traits deemed to be less relevant for success in...
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Women's support organizations should serve as vehicles for the growth of women at initial administrative career stages as well as for women in top level positions.
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All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written... more
All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Printed in the United States of America
There are some who argue that the existing theoretical paradigm used in leadership training programs should be modified to include the feminist perspective. This paper presents findings of a study that investigated male and female... more
There are some who argue that the existing theoretical paradigm used in leadership training programs should be modified to include the feminist perspective. This paper presents findings of a study that investigated male and female perceptions of effective leadership skills. Indepth interviews were conducted with 120 executives--60 men and 60 women. Half of the male and female respondents were leaders from business and government; the other half was comprised of educational leaders. Both male and female respondents perceived women as giving more attention than men to detail; men were seen by both genders as delegating detail to others. Both genders perceived men as relying on their past experiences to solve problems; women were viewed as more emotional than men and apt to seek input from others. Both men and women perceived male leaders' authority to be automatic and based on gender; women's authority was viewed as being earned over time and through hard work. The majority of...
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In education, mentoring is generally defined as a supporting and guiding relationship between an experienced teacher and a preservice or in-service teacher with less experience. Individual studies regarding mentoring in teachers’ specific... more
In education, mentoring is generally defined as a supporting and guiding relationship between an experienced teacher and a preservice or in-service teacher with less experience. Individual studies regarding mentoring in teachers’ specific career trajectories have been conducted; however, a meta-study chronicling such trajectories—of published works on the mentoring of teachers across their career stages, phases, or trajectories—has not been accomplished. Based on a critical review of 1,051 studies, an overview of practical insights for those who mentor teachers or for teachers who are mentored across career levels, as well as an example of a teacher career phase model with mentoring can be observed.
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ABSTRACT Math Concepts: First Language and Second Language, presented November 4, 2005
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Mayan mathematics, a significant part of the great civilization of the ancient people, is of true interest to all who admire the monuments, architecture, and art of the great Mayan cities.
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Campus administrators need to have a good understanding of strategies that work with diverse populations they serve. In this paper, the authors share a research-based intervention from a longitudinal randomized trial study funded by the... more
Campus administrators need to have a good understanding of strategies that work with diverse populations they serve. In this paper, the authors share a research-based intervention from a longitudinal randomized trial study funded by the Institute for Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. The intervention is Story Retelling and Higher Order Thinking for English Language and Literacy Acquisition ( STELLA) which combines the following components: (a) integrated ESL strategies, (b) higher order leveled questions, (c) academic vocabulary in the content area of science which was explicitly and implicitly taught, (d) opportunities for students to practice language through retelling, and (e) training for the teachers on a biweekly basis.
Abstract In this experimental study, we examined the impact of a curriculum-aligned, home-based literacy activity intervention on Chinese low-SES parents’ perceived engagement in their children's English language learning. The... more
Abstract In this experimental study, we examined the impact of a curriculum-aligned, home-based literacy activity intervention on Chinese low-SES parents’ perceived engagement in their children's English language learning. The intervention was composed of a series of take-home activities in which parents were encouraged to interact and practice with their first-grade children in English speaking, listening, reading, and writing after school. These activities were designed based on the topic and vocabulary of each story in the curriculum and were sent home electronically each week. All materials required in the activities were provided with detailed instructions in Chinese. Parents were encouraged to record or take pictures of their child's work and share with the teachers and research team. A parental engagement survey adopted from previous research was administered among 172 parents before and after the intervention in both treatment and control conditions. Results of repeated measure analysis of variance revealed that the home literacy intervention had a significant and positive effect on treatment parents’ reported engagement in their children's English language learning. Qualitative results from open-ended questions suggested that the home-based literacy activities not only supported student’ English learning outcome and parents’ English vocabulary, but also promoted students’ motivation in English learning, and fostered parent-child relationship. Implications for home-based English literacy activities in low-SES families were discussed.
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This meta-analysis includes experimental and quasi-experimental studies of reading interventions for English learners (ELs) coupled with four specific instructional strategies. The purposes of this meta-analysis were two-fold: (1) to... more
This meta-analysis includes experimental and quasi-experimental studies of reading interventions for English learners (ELs) coupled with four specific instructional strategies. The purposes of this meta-analysis were two-fold: (1) to identify the effects of the four instructional strategies (i.e. scaffolding, graphic organizers, interactive read aloud, and leveled questions) on ELs’ reading comprehension; and (2) to evaluate the combined effect of these four strategies when used together on ELs’ reading comprehension. In addition to considering that different studies might have varying effect sizes on ELs’ reading comprehension, we also conducted moderator analyses to explore potential moderators that might affect the variation between selected studies. Our moderators were school level, intervention duration, language learning context, and sample size. After an extensive search of research literature, 23 studies were identified that met the inclusion criteria of this meta-analysis s...
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Teachers and school district administrators, particularly in the United States, are increasingly turning to teacher virtual professional development (VPD) to stay current and learn new pedagogical knowledge and skills. With more English... more
Teachers and school district administrators, particularly in the United States, are increasingly turning to teacher virtual professional development (VPD) to stay current and learn new pedagogical knowledge and skills. With more English learners (ELs) entering public school classrooms, it is essential to find effective ways to prepare educators to meet the needs of these students. The authors examined the improvement of Texas in-service teachers' English as a second language (ESL) pedagogical and content knowledge after participating in a VPD program designed for developing teachers' ESL instructional capacity. Chi-square analyses were conducted with participant pre- and post-survey data (n=61). Results indicated a significant improvement in teacher knowledge after program completion. There was no difference in teachers' knowledge gains based on their school district location. These findings are in line with other researchers who have found improvement in terms of teache...
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Research Interests: Psychology and Routledge
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The phenomenon of absent fathers is a common occurrence in today's homes that appears to be escalating, especially in Black households across the United States. The purpose of this study was to describe the lived experiences of... more
The phenomenon of absent fathers is a common occurrence in today's homes that appears to be escalating, especially in Black households across the United States. The purpose of this study was to describe the lived experiences of successful Black men who were raised in absent-father homes as well as the lived experiences of their resilient single mothers. The authors share themes that captured the participants' experiences and provide recommendations for community counselors, school counselors, and counselor educators. El fenomeno de padres ausentes es una situacion comun en los hogares actuales que parece estar en crecimiento, especialmente en hogares de familias negras en Estados Unidos. El proposito de este estudio era describir las experiencias vividas por hombres negros exitosos que fueron educados en hogares con padres ausentes, ademas de las experiencias vividas por sus resilientes madres solteras. Los autores comparten temas que capturaron las experiencias de los participantes y proporcionan recomendaciones para consejeros comunitarios, consejeros en escuelas y capacitadores de consejeros.
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The field of bilingual education lacks reliable methods for accurately describing the instructional process in transitional bilingual classrooms. In this article, a four-dimensional pedagogical model of transitional bilingual education... more
The field of bilingual education lacks reliable methods for accurately describing the instructional process in transitional bilingual classrooms. In this article, a four-dimensional pedagogical model of transitional bilingual education was operationalized and an observation tool created. ...
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The authors examined the effectiveness of a 2-year (kindergarten and first grade) oral English intervention provided to 534 Hispanic English-language learners in transitional bilingual education (TBE) and structured English immersion... more
The authors examined the effectiveness of a 2-year (kindergarten and first grade) oral English intervention provided to 534 Hispanic English-language learners in transitional bilingual education (TBE) and structured English immersion (SEI) programs. Using latent growth modeling, the authors compared instructional programs in relation to growth trajectories and rates in academic English oracy. The findings revealed that students in all four programs (treatment TBE, control TBE, treatment SEI, and control SEI) improved significantly ( p < .05) in a linear pattern over 2 years, and students receiving the intervention developed at a faster rate than those receiving typical instruction ( p < .05, effect sizes >0.46). The authors concluded that (a) first-language instruction did not impede the learning of a second language, and (b) enhancements and best practices in TBE and SEI programs are needed to accelerate oral English acquisition to remove the initial disadvantage of low le...
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The schools were randomly assigned to treatment type during 2004-2005 school year with classrooms nested ... 2. 10 minutes--Daily Oral Language using Question of the ... 3. 15 minutes-- Story Telling for English Language and ... 4. 10... more
The schools were randomly assigned to treatment type during 2004-2005 school year with classrooms nested ... 2. 10 minutes--Daily Oral Language using Question of the ... 3. 15 minutes-- Story Telling for English Language and ... 4. 10 minutes-- was spent with the lowest performing
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English language learners (ELLs) benefit when their teachers utilize a wide range of English as a Second Language (ESL) instructional strategies. However, content-area teachers often are unfamiliar with these ESL strategies as they have... more
English language learners (ELLs) benefit when their teachers utilize a wide range of English as a Second Language (ESL) instructional strategies. However, content-area teachers often are unfamiliar with these ESL strategies as they have not received extensive professional development on meeting the needs of ELLs, especially within the context in their content area. In the current study, we explored the instructional differences between sixth-grade science teachers in their use of specific ESL strategies through the use of an observation protocol. Treatment teachers received ongoing, in-depth professional learning on working with ELLs and using ESL strategies. Our research question was: Is there a significant difference between treatment and control classrooms on teachers’ implementation of ESL strategies? A total of 1,380 rounds of observation were completed in both treatment and control classrooms during science instruction, with an average of 54.5 minutes per teacher. Chi-square t...
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The authors focused their investigation on Latino faculty, who represent the largest minority group in the United States. They point out that the numbers of faculty continue to be marginal as compared to White males and females. They... more
The authors focused their investigation on Latino faculty, who represent the largest minority group in the United States. They point out that the numbers of faculty continue to be marginal as compared to White males and females. They hypothesized that the invisibility of mentoring programs from universities’ Websites reflect the perfunctory importance these institutions give to ensuring that Latinas are provided with ethno-cultural appropriate mentoring aimed at their acclimatization to institutions, which does not mean that they must leave behind their ethnic and linguistic identities. The authors bring strong insights regarding the status of minority faculty and the need to have mentoring programs to support them, as well as the importance to publish mentoring policies and guidelines in their Websites as a reflection of the importance to the success of all faculty, and more specifically to Latino/a faculty.
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In this empirical study we examined the effect of a literacy-infused science intervention on fifth grade economically challenged students’ science achievement in the curriculum-based and standardized assessments. A total of 27 treatment... more
In this empirical study we examined the effect of a literacy-infused science intervention on fifth grade economically challenged students’ science achievement in the curriculum-based and standardized assessments. A total of 27 treatment students and 20 comparison students from two intermediate schools in a rural district in South Texas in the United States participated in the present study. The intervention consisted of ongoing, structured, bi-weekly virtual professional development (VPD) with virtual mentoring and coaching (VMC) at the teacher level and literacy-infused science lessons with inquiry-based learning delivered at the student level. Results revealed a significant and positive intervention effect in favor of treatment students as reflected in higher normal curve equivalent scores in the standardized science assessment and higher scores in curriculum-based assessment. We conclude that the literacy-infused science intervention, inclusive of evidence-based curriculum, VPD, ...
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When analyzing complex longitudinal data, especially data from different educational settings, researchers generally focus only on the mean part (i.e., the regression coefficients), ignoring the equally important random part (i.e., the... more
When analyzing complex longitudinal data, especially data from different educational settings, researchers generally focus only on the mean part (i.e., the regression coefficients), ignoring the equally important random part (i.e., the random effect variances) of the model. By using Project English Language and Literacy Acquisition (ELLA) data, we demonstrated the importance of taking the complex data structure into account by carefully specifying the random part of the model, showing that not only can it affect the variance estimates, the standard errors, and the tests of significance of the regression coefficients, it also can offer different perspectives of the data, such as information related to the developmental process. We used xxM (Mehta, 2013), which can flexibly estimate different grade-level variances separately and the potential carryover effect from each grade factor to the later time measures. Implications of the findings and limitations of the study are discussed.
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This article includes a discussion of the growing use of virtual professional development and learning for educators. Next the authors describe virtual professional development and learning within the context of a U.S. federally-funded... more
This article includes a discussion of the growing use of virtual professional development and learning for educators. Next the authors describe virtual professional development and learning within the context of a U.S. federally-funded Investing in Innovation (i3) grant, English Language and Literacy Acquisition-Validation (ELLA-V), and the need for a new understanding of such on an informal and individual basis. The proposed concept is a Massive Open Online Professional Informal Individual Learning (MOOPIL). Lastly, the authors provide an example of a MOOPIL from the ELLA-V grant which is called ELLA-Virsity—a collection of short professional development webinars for teachers and school leaders who work with English language learners.
EJ607015 - Concerning Inclusion: Perceptions of Middle School Students, Their Parents, and Teachers.