Listening to Student Concerns: An Instructional Strategy to Expand Student Perspectives

It is well documented in the literature that relationships influence the lives of young children (birth to second grade). Consequently, it is essential that young children's caregivers and teachers build professional relationships with children's parents, because these relationships influence the children's present and later learning environments both at home and in school. While listening to parents is a well-established value in the field of Early Childhood Care and Education, details about what “listening to parents” means seem less clear in the literature, research, and our own pedagogy as early childhood educators. Incidentally, teacher candidates and advanced teacher students (hereafter referred to as “our students”) sometimes voice concerns related specifically to listening to parents. Yet, answers to such concerns also seem limited in the literature and the research. Therefore, the intent of this reflective position paper is threefold: to provide my fellow teacher educators with three literature-based reasons to share with our students about why it is important to listen to parents; to indentify familiar comments, concerns, and feelings that our students have voiced about listening to parents; and to provide five practical cooperative-learning activities that will potentially influence our students' practices.     

Standards‐based reform and its unintended consequences: Implications for science education within America's urban schools

This conceptual article examines the influence of the current standards‐based reform upon science education policies and practices within urban schools. We identify four negative yet unforeseen effects of the reform movement: undermining urban teachers' professionalism, eroding teacher–student relationships, diluting the science curriculum, and disparate instruction based on predicted individual test performance. Our awareness of these nuisances emerged from our first‐hand engagement with urban science teaching and through our collegial relationships with exemplary urban teachers. In closing, we propose mechanisms by which university‐based science educators might address these issues by assisting exemplary urban teachers to resist the reform‐induced perils and by incorporating the urban milieu as a substantive aspect of science teacher education. © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 39: 114‐127, 2002     

Sense of School Community for Preschool Teachers Serving At-Risk Children

Research Findings: Challenging the development of high-quality preschool education is the instability of the preschool teacher workforce, blamed in part on workplace conditions including isolationism, perceived lack of career reward, and lack of preparation. Little attention has been given to whether a preschool's organizational climate can mitigate these challenges, despite demonstrated workplace climate effects on teachers' attitudes, commitment, and practices in kindergarten–Grade 12 teachers. This study investigated preschool teachers' perceptions of a positive workplace climate (i.e., sense of school community); predictors of these perceptions (teacher qualifications and organizational features); and relationships among teachers' sense of community, classroom teaching quality, and attitudes toward teaching in a sample of 68 preschool teachers serving at-risk 4-year-olds. Overall, teachers provided high ratings for their sense of school community, although moderate interprogram variability and moderately large to large intraprogram variability existed. Teacher qualifications and preschool affiliation did not predict teachers' sense of community, but preschool size predicted perceptions of collegial support. Perception of collegial support and program influence was significantly related to positive attitudes toward teaching; only perceptions of program influence were related to classroom quality. Practice or Policy: We discuss the potentially important role of work environment in bolstering the quality and stability of the preschool teacher workforce.     

Using a sensory approach with children who challenge

In this article Denise Chilvers and Angela Cole describe a school‐based study which is located very much in an action‐research idiom. Starting from a questioning, but collegial, stance on identifying positive interventions for children who challenge, the authors illustrate how theory and reflection on practice can lead to significant innovations in pedagogy and curriculum. They provide a thought‐provoking account of how a multi‐sensory approach in one setting has had a notable impact on pupils' social behaviour.     

The Strengthening Families Initiative and Child Care Quality Improvement: How Strengthening Families Influenced Change in Child Care Programs in One State

Research Findings: This study investigated how the Strengthening Families through Early Care and Education initiative in Illinois (SFI) influenced change in 4 child care programs. Findings indicate that SFI influenced quality improvements through 4 primary pathways: (a) Learning Networks, (b) the quality of training, (c) the engagement of program directors, and (e) the organizational climate at programs. SFI's multilevel model of implementation was key to its effectiveness. Two barriers to improving family partnership practices were identified: lack of cultural competence and a negative organizational climate. Practice or Policy: First, quality improvement and professional development efforts are likely to be more effective in promoting real change when they target multiple levels of the context in and around child care programs. SFI's multilevel implementation approach is a model. Second, quality improvement efforts in the area of family engagement may be more effective when specific attention is given to strategies for creating a supportive organizational climate and collegial relationships among staff. Relationships within programs set the tone for relationships with families. Third, cultural competence requires increased attention to efforts to improve the quality of family partnership practices. A focus on organizational cultural competence may provide the workplace environment necessary to support culturally competent practice among program staff.     

Intra‐activity of humans and nonhumans in Writers' Studio: (re)imagining and (re)defining ‘social’

Posthumanism, or the material turn, refuses to take the distinction between human and nonhuman for granted. Currently discourses in literacy education focus on the ways of incorporating new tools and technologies (products) but within a design perspective, which does not get at the social and participatory ways (processes) of students creating new relationships and realities with materials. A posthuman stance focuses on the processes of literacy artefacts coming into being and what is being produced in the process(es). The social is (re)imagined and (re)defined in processes that encompass social entanglements of humans/nonhuman materials creating newness, new realities. We put to work posthumanist concepts with data that we call the ‘solar system mural assemblage’ from a 7‐ to 8‐year‐old Writers' Studio in order to (re)imagine and (re)define social. We question what counts as ‘social’ when working from a posthumanist stance. Why does a ‘posthumanist social’ matter for literacy educators? How does this perspective not only change our research practices but also pedagogies? We wonder how literacies are produced – how realities come into being – in assemblages of human and nonhuman materials in Writers' Studio. We discuss how and why it matters that we (re)conceptualise the notion of social in literacy education by drawing on posthumanist views.     

Factors that develop effective professional learning communities in Taiwan

Abstract

This research aimed to investigate the key factors of developing effective professional learning communities (PLCs) within the Taiwanese context. Four constructs – supportive and shared leadership, shared visions, collegial trust, and shared practices – were adopted and developed into an instrument for measuring PLC function. A stratified random sampling was conducted with the strata of geographic areas. Out of 335 high schools, 51 schools were chosen and 612 copies of the questionnaires were distributed to teachers. After excluding invalid questionnaires, 444 questionnaires were collected from 34 schools, yielding a response rate of 73%. The final version of the questionnaire had 19 items with a 6-point Likert-type scale. Using confirmative factor analysis, the four factors in the conception of PLCs were confirmed. The results of the structural equation modelling indicated that a collegial trust relationship was strongly and directly related to shared practices, and was an important mediating factor between supportive and shared leadership, shared visions, and shared practices. In other words, shared vision along with supportive and shared leadership, through collegiality and trust relationships, could help school members collectively learn, collaborate, innovate, inquire, reflect, and give feedback to one another in the form of shared PLC practices.     

Whose perception of principal instructional leadership? Principal-teacher perceptual (dis)agreement and its influence on teacher collaboration

This study examines teacher collaboration across three Asia-Pacific countries (Australia, Malaysia, and South Korea), focusing on the possibility that principal-teacher perceptual disagreement regarding principal instructional leadership performance may impede progress toward a school organizational condition conducive to collaborative teacher interactions. Data for this study were taken from the OECD Teaching and Learning International Survey 2008. Overall, the results from a series of hierarchical linear modelling analyses appear to give credence to the hypothesis that the degree to which a principal's self-evaluation of her/his instructional leadership diverges from teachers' perception of the leadership is likely to negatively influence teachers' engagement in collaborative activities and collegial interactions; in other words, teachers become more likely to establish collegial relationships with other teachers in a situation where there is little principal-teacher disagreement regarding principal leadership performance. The significant effect of principal-teacher perceptual disagreement found in this study was fairly consistent across all three countries examined despite the substantial differences among the countries in terms of socio-cultural background. This finding sheds light on the need for paying close analytic attention to principal-teacher perceptual agreement as it may constitute an important aspect of school capacity.     

Peer communication relationships and psychological climate

This study examined the association between psychological climate and the types of communication relationships employees form with their peers. 194 teachers completed a questionnaire measuring psychological climate. They also reported their proportions of information, collegial and special peer relationships. Perceptions of the organization's climate were associated with the types of communication relationships employees form with their peers. These associations were moderated, in part, by gender, suggesting that men and women differ significantly in the ways they approach friendships at work. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

‘Interactive’ teaching in numeracy lessons: what do children have to say?

This article reports on the English National Numeracy Strategy (NNS) and, in particular, on the way in which children aged from 8‐ to 11‐years‐old view ‘interactive whole class teaching’. A qualitative, grounded study of both teachers' and children's perceptions of interactive teaching was undertaken, making use of ‘video stimulated reflective dialogue’. The focus here is on children's views about the roles of talking and of listening. Hearing what children have to say in this respect helps to illuminate the norms, expectations and practices of classroom discourse, and its implications for teaching. I argue that there is often a lack of any coherent theoretical basis for teachers' practices in relation to whole class interaction and that this can lead to a tension in which talking and listening become less effective as a vehicle for learning than they might otherwise be.     

Commentary on "Between Cordelia and Guido:

This commentary addresses several of the administrative issues raised in the preceding paper, and comments on the three case examples. The issues include the importance of developing ongoing collegial relationships with deans, delineation of different areas of responsibility for mental health services and the deans, confidentiality issues in campus "crisis" situations, required evaluations and treatment, and learning the mental health service consultant's role.     

Japan's communal approach to teacher induction: Shokuin shitsu as an indispensable nurturing ground for Japanese beginning teachers

Sustaining beginning teachers has been one of the greatest challenges in some countries such as the U.S. In contrast, Japan sustains their teachers with the low attrition rate of 1.35%. This qualitative study aims to examine how Japan supports beginning teachers by examining shokuin shitsu or the teachers' room. Results from the qualitative study revealed the critical role that the teachers' room played for novice teachers as a place to exchange necessary information among colleagues, to develop collegial relationships with one another, and to provide a safe environment to make sense of beginning teachers' questions.     

Secondary school students' stance-support strategies in online discussion: implications for the composition classroom

Taking a stance and supporting it are intrinsic acts in expository/argumentative essays. One question of interest to English teachers is how to improve the development and expression of support arguments in students' essays. This paper offers an answer by examining students' stance‐support strategies in informal argument, and identifying the associated lexico‐grammatical features that they use and do not use to realise those strategies. The paper will show how research findings on students' argument practices and use of language resources in an informal context can inform the process of deciding what thinking skills and language forms to teach in composition classes.     

Learning to negotiate sexual relationships: a girls’ school in Tanzania as a restrictive and agentic site

Literature on schooling in Africa often frames sexual relationships as threatening girls’ educational participation, health, and general well-being. Schooling practices aimed at sheltering girls reflect the prevalence of discourses emphasising danger and abstinence. This article presents the case of one all-girls school in Tanzania which provides a protective environment while also teaching young women strategies to negotiate sexual and romantic relationships. Drawing on classroom observations and in-depth interviews, we examine how the school's policies, practices, and lifeskills curriculum offer students a supportive environment in which to learn about relationships. Our analysis reveals that young women find this space simultaneously restrictive and freeing, and that their learning has supported their ability to imagine equitable relationships for themselves. This case contributes to our understanding of how schools can serve as sites that foster young women's agency when curriculum and pedagogy create space for open discussion of sexual relationships.     

Elementary students’ literacy opportunities in an age of accountability and standards: Implications for teacher educators

Adopting a place-based stance to better prepare teacher candidates for local schools, researchers investigated elementary students’ reading, writing, listening, and speaking opportunities. Observations included two literacy lessons of 14 preservice and inservice teachers and analysis identified instructional influences, including best practices (e.g., differentiated instruction), standards, and standardized assessments. Findings indicated students’ opportunities varied from little to no reading during literacy lessons to rich, authentic opportunities to read meaningful texts. Little writing was evident, only some lessons substantively supported state standards, and many speaking and listening opportunities occurred at the lowest levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy. Implications for teacher educators are discussed.     

Change in a culture of collegiality and consensus-seeking: a double-edged sword

ABSTRACT

The study aims to move beyond idealised and predominantly trait-based typologies of leadership and leadership roles and addresses collegial leaders’ practice of change in higher education. Collegial leaders at two research-intensive higher education institutions, who had received educational leadership training, were studied. In the study, we explored ordinary actions and change practices as a way of understanding emerging practices among collegial leaders. Five categories were identified that show how collegial leaders experience change, process change and organise the practice of change. The article also contributes a critical discussion on the notions of collegiality in a consensus-seeking context, which may be relevant for academic developers, policy makers, and researchers alike.     

Teacher Stress in the Low-Trust Society

Stress is a widespread feature of work in teaching. Recent accounts of teacher emotions and cultures of teaching have noted that unsatisfactory social relationships with adults, e.g. colleagues, headteachers, parents and inspectors, elicit hostile emotions from teachers and appear to be a source of stress in teaching. This article examines why this should be the case. Some commentators have used labour process theory to argue that the intensification of work and government policies promoting managerialism in schools are the roots of the problem. This article uses qualitative data from a study of primary teacher stress to examine staff relationships in the primary school. It argues that while intensification of teachers' work is certainly involved in eroding positive staff relationships, it is also the changing trust relations in high modernity that are shaping the social relations of low-trust schooling, and impacting negatively on teachers' physical and emotional well-being and their collegial professional relations.     

The Practicum: student‐teacher perceptions of teacher supervision styles

This paper describes a study of 28 student‐teachers during a three‐week practicum in which participating students were asked to keep an unstructured journal describing their experiences and reactions to the practicum. The paper examines the perceptions that these students had of the supervision provided by their cooperating teachers. It identifies four distinct styles of teacher supervision, ranging from neglectful practices which alienate students from the practicum experience, to collegial practices which prove to be empowering. The paper concludes that supervision which is collegial is more likely to facilitate the professional growth of student‐teachers and enhance reflective action.