Uncertainties are inherent in education as learners encounter gaps in their awareness of topics, receive new information that potentially conflicts with prior understandings, and grapple with known unknowns in order to construct new knowledge. While researchers have shown that students productively struggling with problematized and uncertain elements within math and science contexts can lead to greater conceptual awareness, literature is scarce regarding how teachers intentionally use student uncertainty to facilitate learning, let alone how their own perceptions of uncertainty impacts their practice. However, being aware of one’s own uncertainties as well as the productive potential of using student uncertainty as a pedagogical tool can help to enhance instructional practice and initiate change. To that end, I aim to identify strategies and resources to support math and science teachers enhance their awareness of the productive potential uncertainty can have in their instruction. In Chapter One of this dissertation, I introduce the background and purpose of this line of inquiry before presenting three independent, but interconnected, manuscripts. In Chapter Two, I report findings from a qualitative study exploring pre-service math teachers’ sources and perceptions of uncertainty after engaging in a course that intentionally introduced personal, pedagogical, and mathematical uncertainties. In Chapter Three, I describe the findings from a qualitative study that identified changes in middle school science teachers’ perceptions and practice of using student uncertainty as a pedagogical resource, specifically after engaging in a practice-based professional development designed to elicit and reflect on scientific uncertainty. Then, expanding on the findings presented in the two previous chapters, I propose resources in Chapter Four intended to enhance math teachers’ awareness and ability to embed mathematical uncertainty into problematized instruction. Finally, in Chapter Five, I conclude the dissertation connecting the three manuscripts, integrating the findings, and summarizing future implications.

A reform movement in the United States has focused on STEM education and 21st century soft skills such as critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity. This spotlight on STEM instruction provided an opportunity to explore how K-14 STEM teacher participants perceived a Design Thinking Instructional Problems (DTIP) approach to developing instructional lessons. The study used a convergent parallel mixed-methods design with a survey instrument and a multiple case study focused on K-14 in-service STEM teachers. Data were collected from teacher participants during two five-week summer Research Experience for Teachers (RET) programs as part of two separate National Science Foundation (NSF) funded Engineering Research Centers (ERC) located at a large southwestern university in the United States (n=16). The study was conducted over three phases. During Phase I and II, teacher participants experienced a Design Thinking Overview workshop and weekly DTIP professional development sessions to facilitate the development of an RET instructional lesson. Pre- and post-program DTIP surveys and background interviews were conducted with all teacher participants (n=16). From this original group, teacher participants were selected as cases. Implementation observations and post-implementation interviews were conducted with these case-teachers (n=10). The study included frequency analysis and descriptive statistics of survey data. Qualitative data were analyzed using direct interpretation, thematic analysis, and open coding with the constant comparative method. A variety of arrays, summaries, and matrices were used to visualize patterns across and within individual case-teacher results. All 16 teacher participants viewed themselves as designers solving complex instructional problems. All 16 teacher participants found the DTIP professional development sessions to have somewhat to very much provided additional value during their RET summer programs. Six of the 10 case-teachers perceived the DTIP model graphic as mostly to completely corresponding to the way in which they developed their RET instructional lesson. Lastly, eight of the 10 case-teachers chose to embed a Design Thinking student learning strategy into the RET instructional lesson they developed.

This mixed methods action research project focused on improving external teacher evaluators’ self-efficacy for providing effective feedback during teacher evaluation conferences. More specifically, this project explored how and to what extent an intervention of a professional development model influenced external teacher evaluators’ self-efficacy for providing effective feedback during teacher evaluation conferences and how the intervention influenced external evaluators’ perception of effectiveness when providing feedback during pre- and post- evaluation conferences.

Self-efficacy theory, sociocultural theory, and the community of practice framework informed the intervention. Six external teacher evaluators participated in the study from July through December of 2017. The professional development model consisted of cycles of community of practice meetings, buddy shadowing experiences, post-buddy shadowing reflective conversations, and personal reflection. Data were collected in the form of pre- and post-intervention surveys, pre- and post-intervention interviews, reflective journal entries, and Wordles.

The results from this study indicated an increase in the evaluators’ self-efficacy for providing feedback during teacher evaluation conferences and an increase in perceived effectiveness. Successful experiences of providing feedback during teacher evaluation conferences, experiences of observing and listening to other evaluators, and engagement in reflective conversations influenced external evaluators’ self-efficacy for providing effective feedback during teacher evaluation conferences. The external evaluators expressed value in the professional development experience. During the intervention, evaluators gained ideas and strategies to apply in their practice and engaged in high levels of reflection. Outcomes from the research project suggest two main implications for practice: professional development in the form of social learning and reflection as a process for growth.

Arizona’s district and charter communities have a history of conflict, including working against each other when advocating policy positions at the state legislature. The purpose of this research was to improve the relationship between the district and charter communities through an intervention based on intergroup contact theory. Through her personal network, the researcher formed and facilitated the Arizona Initiative for Public Education Dialogue (AZ iPED), comprised of eight district superintendents and charter leaders. This mixed-methods, action research study explored what happened when Arizona school district superintendents and charter school leaders were brought through intergroup contact to discuss potential policies they could jointly support. This study addressed the following three research questions: To what extent does intergroup contact increase allophilia (positive attitudes) between Arizona school district and charter school leaders? In what ways do participants voice allophilia during in-group dialogue? How do school district superintendents and charter school leaders socially construct and negotiate narratives that support the conflict between their two communities? The members of AZ iPED met four times from October through December, 2016. Allophilia (positive feelings toward the outgroup) data included an Allophilia Scale administered at the beginning and end of the study and transcripts of first and second in-group district and charter focus groups. Results are reported through descriptive statistics, Wilcoxon signed ranks of matched samples, and content analysis. Findings indicated a non-statistically significant increase in allophilia. Content analysis also indicated increases in the quantity and quality of allophilia talk. Narrative analysis of conflict talk generated the four following themes: competition sets the stage for conflict, actions construct conflict, perceptions sustain conflict, and conflict causes feelings. Those themes provided structure for compiling a collective District Narrative and collective Charter Narrative, which were further analyzed through the lens of conflict-sustaining collective narratives. Narrative analysis of select portions of the transcript suggested processes through which conflict-sustaining narratives were constructed and negotiated during intergroup contact.

As scrutiny of teacher effectiveness increases, there is a greater call for multiple instruments to measure teacher effectiveness and provide robust feedback to support teacher growth and development. Student perception surveys, questionnaires completed by K-12 students about their teachers, have increasingly been used to evaluate teachers and provide feedback. Situated in the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College (MLFTC) at Arizona State University, this action research study used Attribution Theory, Sensemaking Theory, and research on teacher emotion to 1) document the experiences of pre-service teachers as they related to the administration and subsequent results from a student perception survey (SPS), and 2) examine the influence of two online professional development modules created to prepare teachers for the SPS process and make sense of the results. Teacher candidates participated in the SPS process in their final, year-long residency. Results from the mixed-methods study provided evidence that pre-service teachers had both positive and negative experiences that were influenced by the SPS results they received from their students. Also, depending on the results they received, teacher candidates either attributed the cause of the results to themselves or to characteristics of their students. Results from the study also indicate that teacher candidates use few strategies to make sense of the results and used those strategies to varying degrees. Pre-service teachers indicated that they regarded the modules as helpful in the sense-making process. Furthermore, evidence indicates that pre-service teachers value their students’ feedback.

The purpose of this action research study was to explore the relationship between growth mindset instruction in a community college success class with student academic effort and achievement, among students enrolled in a developmental reading class. Community college students, especially those testing into developmental classes, face numerous obstacles to achieving their goal of completing a college degree. Research supports that students with a growth mindset - a psychological concept grounded in the belief of the malleability of traits such as intelligence - embrace challenges, exert more academic effort, and achieve more. Fourteen students enrolled in a community college participated in this convergent parallel mixed methods study. A mindset survey was administered three times, at the beginning and end of the semester as well as at Week 3 after initial introduction to growth mindset. Descriptive statistics indicated a slight increase in students’ growth mindset scores by the end of the term. An analysis of variance, however, yielded no statistically significant relationship. Correlational analysis of final mindset scores with effort variables indicated an unexpected result – a negative correlation (p<.05) of growth mindset with time in Canvas (the Learning Management System). An ANOVA using a median split for high vs. low mindset scores indicated an unexpectedly significant (p<.05) positive relationship between missing assignments and a high mindset score. Statistical analysis of mindset with achievement yielded no significant relationship. Qualitative results included data from three journal assignments and semi-structured interviews and suggest that these students could comprehend and support most of the tenets of Growth Mindset Theory. While quantitative results were not significant in the expected direction, triangulation with qualitative data indicated that students’ goal orientation may be a factor in the unexpected quantitative results. This study adds to the growing literature on Growth Mindset Theory by extending it to a new and different population, first year community college students, with reading challenges. Further study is needed to clarify the relationships of growth mindset, malleability of intelligence, and goal orientation with academic effort and achievement over a longer period.

This research investigated preservice teacher collaboration in the context of an undergraduate teacher preparation program. Small groups of preservice students were examined over five collaborative work sessions as they collaboratively designed and delivered instructional projects for their fellow classmates. This study contributes to understanding factors that influence the quality of preservice collaboration to help teacher educators better prepare preservice students for current collaborations with their peers and future collaboration in professional settings. A parallel mixed methods design, with an embedded two case study, was employed to analyze and interpret two research strands, quantitative, and qualitative. Quantitative results served as complementary to corroborate the qualitative findings. The quantitative results and qualitative findings indicate that past collaborative experiences and beliefs about future professional collaboration impacted students’ current collaborative efforts. Students with a flexible orientation toward collaboration and/or expanded beliefs about professional collaboration were more likely to heedfully interrelate than students with fixed orientations or simple beliefs about collaboration. Preservice students’ perceptions of the quality of their own heedful interrelating remained stable across the phases of the collaborative task. However, analysis of the HICES noted significant differences in groups’ perception of the quality of their collaborative interactions. Finally, analysis of the two-case study indicated that high quality heedful interrelating among group members created the more effective collaborative instructional project. A model of how preservice beliefs and orientations may influence their heedful interrelating during collaboration, and impact their efforts in designing and creating effective collaborative instruction was presented. The dissertation research contributed to a more thorough understanding of factors that influence preservice collaboration as they prepare for professional collaboration, when the outcomes of collaboration are critical not only for themselves, but also for their own students. Implications for educational practice and further research point towards the continued need to better understand the processes of preservice collaboration, and factors that impact their interaction as they learn to collaborate for improving instruction, and how teacher preparation programs can support and best address their needs as they prepare for their critical careers.