Teacher Scaffolding: An Exploration of Exemplary Practice

While computers have increasingly been used in classroom over the last twenty years, their application has often been mundane; being merely used to reinforce existing educational practices rather than as a catalyst for educational innovation. An effective way to bring about change may be to identify instances of best practice and then study associated strategies that may be useful for teachers trying to use computers in new and meaningful ways. This study investigates strategies used by a teacher deemed to be exemplary at using computers and associated technology in her classroom. It involved observing and recording teaching sessions conducted by the teacher. This paper discusses the learning task, the children's progression through the task and the teaching strategies used. In particular, it looks for instances of teacher scaffolding as a strategy for supporting children working with computers.     

Building Pre-service Teacher Capacity to Use External Assessment Data: An Intervention Study

In recent years, the use of data to inform instructional decision making has become a particularly prominent facet of K–12 educators' professional practice. However, research estimates limited opportunities for preservice teachers to learn how to use data, including standardized test data, for such purposes. In response, this article describes the results of a pretest–posttest study of a 6-hour standardized assessment data use intervention for preservice teachers. The facilitated, collaborative, and highly structured assessment course-embedded intervention engaged preservice teachers in asking and answering four different kinds of questions (e.g., achievement strengths and weaknesses, instructional implications) at five different student levels (e.g., individual, subgroup, school) with external assessment data presented in tables, charts, and score reports. Findings—which include highly favorable preservice teacher perceptions of the intervention's impact on their data-driven decision making skills, and changes in their self-efficacy and data interpretation skills—indicate that the intervention holds promise as a preservice teacher learning mechanism.     

Rehearsals in Clinical Placements: Scaffolding Teacher Candidates' Literacy Instruction

ABSTRACT

Rehearsals are lesson enactments with feedback prior to implementation with students, and are one facet of practice-based teacher education with an aim to promote ambitious teaching in all contexts. This study explores how rehearsals, related to literacy instruction, were enacted in an urban K–8 school between teacher candidates and their mentor teachers. Data collection included two structured interviews with each mentor and teacher candidate, and two rehearsal observations. Results indicate classroom mentors (a) provided specific, contextualized, individualized feedback in a range of ways, (b) connected feedback to underlying principles, and (c) asked teacher candidates to “rewind” and reteach rehearsed segments integrating feedback, which garnered additional and more refined practice opportunities. This study suggests that in the right circumstances rehearsals, which typically occur in higher education coursework, can enhance literacy instruction in clinical settings. Limitations and recommendations for if and how to integrate rehearsals in K–12 settings are also provided.     

基于“支架”视角的英语专业课堂中教师提问的探讨

教师课堂提问在外语课堂教学中起着重要作用,但国内外语教学界的学者们对此问题研究甚少.以社会文化理论中的支架理论为基础,通过对同一位教师教授的两个不同水平的英语专业课堂进行观察、记录、分析与研究,探讨了不同的课堂提问类型和提问策略在不同英语水平的班级上所起到的支架功能,并提出在学生的最近发展区进行课堂提问有利于学生交际能力和思辨能力的发展.     

Two Dimensions of Student Ownership of Learning During Small-Group Work in Physics

The theoretical framework student ownership of learning is developed both theoretically and with qualitative research. The metaphor “ownership” is related to the process towards meaning making and understanding and is seen as relevant especially to improve physics instruction. The dimension group ownership of learning refers to the groups’ actions of choice and control of the management of the task; how the task is determined, performed and finally reported. The other dimension, the individual student ownership of learning, refers to an individual student’s own question/idea that comes from own experiences, interests or anomalies of understanding; an idea/question that comes back several times and leads to new insights. From literature and from our own data, we have developed categories for group and individual student ownership of learning, which were iteratively sharpened in order to identify ownership in the two dimensions. As a consequence, we argue for use of the framework student ownership of learning as a way to identify an optimal level of ownership for better learning and higher motivation in physics teaching.     

Teacher Accountability: An Experimental Field Study

An experimental field study was conducted to examine the impact of accountability on effectiveness in the teaching of physical education. Accountability was constructed through the introduction of a system of reporting and feedback between the teachers and the professional supervisor on two levels of intensity, high and low. Findings show that the institution of the accountability system improved the participant teachers' effectiveness as compared with control group teachers. Improvement in students' achievements was more evident in girls than in boys. The accountability system constructed for this study may be applied not only in physical education but in other educational areas as well.     

共同思考和共同学习：课堂讨论的干预研究

在日本的课堂中,学生受到两种不同力量的影响,一种为竞争,即学生都迫切希望成绩更优异;另一种为基于集体的共识,即同样这些学生必须相互合作以应对日常生活。这两种相互矛盾的力量对学生的行为和讨论产生了影响。通过开展一项名为＂通过合作学习＂的教育干预研究,对干预的效果采用了定性和定量的分析,用智力测验测量了学生集体完成非言语推理任务的能力,对干预的前-后测结果进行分析,发现干预是有效的。我们发现,小组讨论质量和个体推理能力有所提高,一些在小组活动和小组讨论中有困难（孤僻、不参与活动或被忽视）的学生有了进步,教师对小组讨论的看法以及管理小组讨论的技能也发生了改变。同时,我们也发现了某些障碍使得小组活动无法很好地进入课堂。可能需要提供进一步的干预才能实现＂班级＂的合作功能。     

老师开好自己的健康快车

近年来,中小学生的心理健康教育越来越受到重视,各地正在采取多样化的教学方式用于加强学生的心理健康教育工作,这十分必要.但是,教师的心理健康问题却一直未能引起足够的重视.现代化教学要求教师做到高效率、高质量、快节奏,所以很多教师都是在超负荷的状态下工作,时常感到疲惫、失眠、心情烦躁等.教师的工作时间往往延伸到八小时以外,这必然加剧了教师的工作负担;职业的特殊性决定了教师心理所承受的超负荷性,因此,教师的心理问题就会逐步累积,从而表现出一种不健康或亚健康状态.     

体面劳动视域下教师劳动权益保护问题研究

体面劳动反映了不同社会制度下各国劳动者的普遍需求,既包含了就业、社会保障等基本目标,也包含了实现这些目标所必不可少的社会对话等基本手段。教师是共享体面劳动权利的主体。从体面劳动的视域看,教师的劳动权益存在缺失,需要我们坚持正确的原则,进行系统性建设,促进体面劳动与保护教师劳动权益的统一。     

情感性支架：学生情感和学科内容交叉点上教师知识的研究

近十年以来,帮助教师更好进行教学的教师实践性知识研究成为教师教育研究领域越来越关注的热门话题.本文主要报告了对40名新手教师和专家型教师所进行的长达10多年的一系列关于教师实践性知识的研究.研究的主要目的是对学科教学知识理念进行批判和精炼.我们通过一系列实践活动探讨特定的教学表征是怎样影响学生对即将要学习的内容的情感反应,这些实践被称之为情感性支架.本文列举了一些情感性支架的例子,提出了情感性支架的分类方式,并探讨了它对教师知识理论和教师教育课程的启示.     

支架式教学理论对幼儿教师实践的指导

本文通过对支架式教学的介绍,分析了幼儿教师进行支架式教学应具备的条件和应遵循的原则,探讨了其对幼儿教师教学实践的指导,以期对目前的幼教改革有所启发.     

An Appraisal Perspective of Teacher Burnout: Examining the Emotional Work of Teachers

K-12 teaching is a profession characterized by high levels of burnout and emotional exhaustion. Teacher burnout has been widely reviewed and studied; however, only limited literature examines the emotional aspects of teachers’ lives and its connection with teacher burnout. The purpose of this article is to review the literature on teacher burnout and teachers’ emotions and to examine the role of teachers' appraisal of their emotional exhaustion. Through reviewing the literature on teacher burnout and emotions, I argue that the habitual patterns in teachers’ judgments about student behavior and other teaching tasks may contribute significantly to teachers’ repeated experience of unpleasant emotions and those emotions may eventually lead to burnout. In order to ease teacher burnout, I argue that more studies on the antecedent appraisals that teachers make are necessary to help teachers better understand how their emotions were triggered and then learn how to regulate those emotions.     

Distributed Scaffolding: Scaffolding Students in Classroom Environments

Educational Psychology Review - This paper traces the origins of the scaffolding construct, placing it in its theoretical-historical context. The paper discusses the connection between...     

Scaffolding Voluntary Summer Reading for Children in Grades 3 to 5: An Experimental Study

The effects of a voluntary summer reading intervention with teacher and parent scaffolding were investigated in an experimental study. A total of 24 teachers and 400 children in Grades 3, 4, and 5 were randomly assigned to one of four experimental conditions: control, books only, books with oral reading scaffolding, and books with oral reading and comprehension scaffolding. Books were matched to children's reading levels and interests. Children were pre- and posttested on measures of oral reading fluency (DIBELS) and silent reading ability (Iowa Test of Basic Skills [ITBS]). Results showed that children in the books with oral reading and comprehension scaffolding condition scored significantly higher on the ITBS posttest than children in the control condition. In addition, children in the two scaffolding conditions combined scored higher on the ITBS posttest than children in the control and books only conditions combined. Practical implications for summer voluntary reading interventions are discussed.     

Scaffolding Complex Learning: The Mechanisms of Structuring and Problematizing Student Work

There has been much interest in using software tools to scaffold learners in complex tasks, that is, to provide supports that enable students to deal with more complex content and skill demands than they could otherwise handle. Many different approaches to scaffolding techniques have been presented in a broad range of software tools. I argue that two complementary mechanisms can explain how a diversity of scaffolding approaches in software act to support learners. Software tools can help structure the learning task, guiding learners through key components and supporting their planning and performance. In addition, tools can shape students' performance and understanding of the task in terms of key disciplinary content and strategies and thus problematize this important content. Although making the task more difficult in the short term, by forcing learners to engage with this complexity, such scaffolded tools make this work more productive opportunities for learning. I present arguments for these mechanisms in terms of the obstacles learners face, and I present several brief examples to illustrate their use in design guidelines. Finally, I examine how the mechanisms of structuring and problematizing are sometimes complementary and sometimes in tension in design, discuss design tradeoffs in developing scaffolded investigation tools for learners, and consider the reliance of scaffolding on a classroom system of supports.     

Understanding the Active Ingredients in an Effective Preschool Vocabulary Intervention: An Exploratory Study of Teacher and Child Talk During Book Reading

Research Findings: In order to identify the active ingredients in an effective professional development intervention focused on enhancing preschool vocabulary instruction, this study examines the frequency with which teachers and children discussed theme-related vocabulary words during shared book reading. Head Start teachers received 1 year of training focused upon early vocabulary development. Children's vocabulary skills were assessed in the fall and spring of the school year. In spring, teachers read a storybook to their classroom, and teachers’ and children's remarks about theme-related vocabulary during the reading—including contextualized and decontextualized statements as well as verbatim repetitions of one another's statements—were coded. Practice or Policy: Results of multilevel models showed that more frequent references to thematic vocabulary by teachers were linked to stronger child vocabulary development. Although children's vocabulary references were not uniquely predictive of vocabulary learning, teachers’ repetition of children's remarks contributed to children's vocabulary gains.     

江西省高校教师胜任素质特征与工作绩效关系实证研究

运用词频分析的方法汇编成高校教师胜任力问卷,通过实证调查研究初步构建了江西省高校教师胜任力素质特征模型,包括6个维度,27个胜任力要素。同时根据该胜任力模型融合问卷调查的结果考察并分析了江西省各高校教师的胜任素质水平,并验证了该模型;再运用数据统计分析方法对工作绩效问卷的数据进行相关分析、回归分析,对江西省高校教师胜任素质水平与工作绩效的关系和机理进行实证分析。