Living the dream: the lived experience of an English language arts professional learning community at a college preparatory boarding school for underserved youth.

Permanent URL: http://hdl.handle.net/2047/d20005058
Title:
Living the dream : the lived experience of an English language arts professional learning community at a college preparatory boarding school for underserved youth
Creator:
Worth, Kim A. (Author)
Contributor:
Nickel, Sandy (Advisor)
McCready, Alan (Committee member)
Publisher:
Boston, Massachusetts : Northeastern University, 2014
Date Accepted:
March 2014
Date Awarded:
May 2014
Type of resource:
Text
Genre:
Theses
Format:
electronic
Digital origin:
born digital
Abstract/Description:
Teachers working in schools where the majority of the population is underserved students often feel a sense of helplessness. The purpose of the study is to uncover the lived experience of a small group of English Language Arts teachers working in such an environment. Specifically, the purpose is to determine if working within an effective Professional Learning Community (PLC) can help to build individual and collective teacher efficacy. There are eight participants in this study ranging in teaching experience from two to eight years. This research study utilized a phenomenological methodology. This research study found that the single most important factor of the PLC in terms of helping to build a sense of efficacy was the importance of belonging to a team. Based on this small study there are implications for schools that serve underserved students. Among them would be the importance of building effective PLCs in which teachers feel a sense of belonging to a team in order to offset any feelings of helplessness that serving a challenging population can create.
Subjects and keywords:
Collective Efficacy
Professional Learning Community
Underserved youth
Education
Teacher Education and Professional Development
Teachers -- Training of -- Maryland
Teams in the workplace
Preparatory school students -- Education (Secondary) -- Maryland
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17760/d20005058
Permanent URL:
http://hdl.handle.net/2047/d20005058
Use and reproduction:
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