Competing priorities: Singaporean teachers’ perspectives on critical literacy

This paper explores a group of Singaporean English language teachers’ knowledge and beliefs about critical literacy as well as their perspectives on how best to teach literacy and critical literacy in Singapore schools. A face-to-face survey was conducted among 58 English language teachers by using open-ended questions. The survey covered various topics related to literacy instruction including text decoding, meaning construction, and critical analysis of texts. The participating teachers believed strongly that reading and writing are transactional and interactional practices. However, they were less certain in their beliefs about teaching critical literacy including the critical, analytical and evaluative aspects of text reading. Some teachers saw a conflict between using time on teaching critical literacy and preparing students to pass their exams. As critical literacy is not a requirement at exams, they found it difficult to justify using time teaching it. The results suggest that the teachers’ belief systems are strongly influenced by the broad macro-structure of the educational system in Singapore and their own educational experiences.     

开诚宏道 立教育人——钱基博先生在国师的学与行

从原始的史料出发考察钱基博先生在国立师范学院的学与行,从襄助革创学院、合谋院务推进、忠于教学职守、慨兼学生导师以及瘁力学术研究等方面阐述其开诚宏道、立教育人的学行志旨.     

教师形象的悦目性对教育教学的影响

教师属于职业传播者,其外在形象是否具有悦目性将对其教育教学效果产生一定的影响。但在我国各级各类学校中几乎都存在轻视或忽视悦目性的现象。通过对悦目性的构成要素及其对教育教学效果影响的逐一分析,以求引起教育界的普遍关注,从而使教师外在形象的悦目性在教育教学中发挥最大的效能。     

Teacher e-mail message strategies and students' willingness to communicate online

In light of the prevalent use of e-mail between teachers and students, researchers have highlighted the need to assess its uses and effects. Relying on the research and thinking of teacher immediacy and extra-class communication, we developed a scale that measures those e-mail message strategies that influence students' willingness to communicate online with their teachers. Next, we isolated those reasons that students use e-mail to interact with their teachers: (1) to clarify course material and procedures, (2) as a means of efficient communication, and (3) for personal/social reasons. Finally, we examined student characteristics such as gender and ethnicity, and history of e-mail use that may (or may not) influence their attitudes toward e-mail exchanges with teachers.     

大学体育教师的专业特性与专业性——兼论我国体育教师职业专业化问题

体育教师职业专业出问题是学术界的热点问题之一，讨论体育教师专业化问题应该从“专业特性”和“专业性”两个侧面来予以把握，研究指出．虽然体育教师职业还无法被承认为专业性职业，但其主要原因是人们传统的价值观念的偏差以及不完善的评价标准等、不涉及该职业的专业性水平。体育教师职业具有较高专业水平和高度专门知识技能，应该享有确定的地位。     

对大学体育教学过程师生互动问题的思考

体育教学中的师生互动的结构包括:师生互动的主体、师生互动的基础和条件、师生互动的过程、师生互动的结果。体育教学中的师生互动具有教育性、交互性和连续性、网络性、组织化和非正式化相结合、非对应性、系统性和综合性等特征。     

Using Questionnaires in Teacher Research

Teacher research is described as being beneficial and yet it is hampered by teachers' lack of knowledge about research, including how to use popular research methods. Given that accounts by teachers describing their use of such methods in a systematic manner might prove useful for their peers, this article describes my experience of using a questionnaire in teacher research.     

The changing nature of autonomy: Transformations of the late Swedish teaching profession

This article discusses teacher autonomy in the case of the Swedish teaching profession since the 1980s. It is argued that deregulation, decentralization, and marketization reforms of the 1990s have indeed increased teacher autonomy, but in some respects also led to a increase of complexity in the Swedish school system. In order to handle this complexity, the state intensified a standardization of schooling, which restricts teacher autonomy today. Relevant the paper's understanding is that teacher autonomy is always about control, exerted internally by the profession itself and facilitated externally by state standards. The article argues that the restriction of teacher autonomy in recent times is also related to a simplified understanding of the phenomenon in the reforms of the 1990s.     

Teachers’ voice,power and agency: (un)professionalisation of the early years workforce

This article examines Slovak early years teachers’ concerns with conceptions of teacher professionalism. It suggests that there is a mismatch between understandings of professionalism, policy aspirations and the attitudes of teachers to their own professionalism, and that this mismatch fuels early years teachers’ sense of agency. These tensions between conceptions of professionalism, teaching practice and actual working conditions have led to a ground-up approach to self-governance within the early years teacher workforce. We analyse teachers’ discussions in an early years online forum of 12,500 members that was started and remains governed by the teachers themselves. It represents in itself a very particular attitude and response to the need to determine what it means to be a professional teacher. This analysis examines intersections of policy, quality and professionalism, and highlights considerations of power and voice, and the complexities of uncertainty and change. The article concludes with the suggestion that teacher attitudes, power and agency are impacted in unpredictable ways by the policy landscape.     

What contemporary work are student ratings actually doing in higher education?

It is conventionally assumed that student ratings perform a significant function in driving improvement in pedagogical practices in higher education. As a result, this form of evaluation has gradually become institutionalised in recent decades as an essential proxy for understanding teaching and course quality in universities across the world. However, with the rise of market-based models in higher education and heightened expectations for accountability mechanisms, the role and functional purpose of ratings-based student evaluation have become increasingly confused. This rising ambiguity has created strong tensions between the seminal drive of student ratings as a tool of quality improvement, and the emerging demands for its use as a transparent accountability measure for the comparative assessment of academic performativity. So are student ratings now largely a tool of quality assurance or performance measurement, or do they remain a legitimate tool for pedagogical improvement? This paper reports on a study that responded to this critical question by considering the contemporary work of student ratings in a major Australian university. The outcomes of this research demonstrate that tension between improvement and accountability motives is causing considerable confusion and discord around the role and value of the student voice. It also reveals that academics are tending to discount the often critical insights of students on the implications of their pedagogical practices as a result of the elevating institutional role of student ratings as a proxy for teaching quality. In considering these outcomes, rising levels of academic dissonance around student ratings would suggest a necessity to consider broadened evaluative strategies that are able to more effectively capture the improvement potential offered by the student voice.