Performing arts curricula, specifically theatrical role-play, have aided in enhancing life skills of secondary education students throughout the past. This continues to be the case in the present education climate. However, the performing arts are still not viewed by some education policymakers at a level that helps those programs flourish and thereby be accessible to students. Despite the empirical evidence of life skill enhancement, both academically and socially, that can be applied in an interdisciplinary manner and to life outside of the school setting, the arts are often not considered as important as core content areas. These programs are subject to elimination to a greater extent compared to other education programs. This action research study sought to examine the ways in which high school theatre programs impact life skills, defined in this study by both academic and social contexts, learned by secondary education students. The innovation intervention consisted of theatrical role-play applied in an interdisciplinary manner. The innovation occurred over the course of two weeks in a senior English class at a southwest public high school. The likelihood of the English teacher using theatrical role-play in future lesson plans was also studied. The action research utilized a mixed-methods approach with a theoretical framework consisting of Experiential Learning Theory (ELT) and Academic Risk-Taking (ART). Results indicated assertions related to the enhancement of the social skills of empathy and public speaking in student participants, as well as the English teacher planning on utilizing the innovation in future lesson planning. The academic skill of text analysis was possibly affected, however results were inconclusive.

The purpose of this action research study was to improve the implementation of a large-scale redesign of teacher preparation programs at Arizona State University. This was a highly complex redesign that impacted over 150 courses across 27 programs, involving more than 200 faculty and 2,500 students annually. As a result, implementing the redesign posed significant challenges for supporting fidelity and agency across all faculty involved, including many part-time faculty and new hires with no prior knowledge of the redesigned program curricula. While this challenge was not unique, I approached it in a novel way in this action research study by creating course “fact sheets” that provided simple, visual representations of each course’s intended purpose within the program’s context to solve what was fundamentally an information transfer challenge. To study the effects of this intervention, I used a convergent mixed methods approach to address three guiding research questions aimed at exploring (1) how faculty used the course fact sheets, (2) how that use related to differences in outcomes related to implementation fidelity and sense of teaching agency, and (3) how those differences compared to an online orientation module as a more traditional form of professional development. Results showed that a majority of the 122 faculty members surveyed used the course fact sheets and, on average, found them highly usable for the purpose of gaining knowledge about their courses as part of the redesign. Furthermore, those who used course fact sheets had significant increases in their knowledge and confidence of implementation fidelity practices and significant increases in their sense of teaching agency. The results also showed more positive outcomes for those using the fact sheets than those who participated in an orientation module. However, interview results suggested that the fact sheets may not have been enough to address all the factors that influence faculty agency. Nevertheless, this study has important implications for faculty development initiatives in higher education, demonstrating the potential of course fact sheets as a scalable solution to improve the implementation of large-scale redesigns.

Under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), schools and families collaborate to determine educational decisions for children with special needs. However, successful collaboration occurs when special education practitioners and families build strong partnerships. This study employed a mixed-methods action research design to examine the effectiveness of professional development training for school-based special education personnel to increase collaboration during special education meetings. The training centered around building participants’ knowledge of special education regulations, policies, and procedures and providing strategies to facilitate a collaborative partnership between families and the school. Participants’ knowledge gained from the training intervention was assessed using a pre-post-intervention survey, followed by semi-structured interviews. Useful aspects of the training intervention included gaining a foundational understanding of legal rights and responsibilities in special education and specific preparation and communication strategies for future family and school collaboration during special education meetings.