To See or Not To See: Preservice Teacher Attitudes Toward Color Blindness

This study examined the perspectives of 85 undergraduate preservice teacher candidates engaged in a required survey course on diversity at a midsized Midwestern university. Candidates completed the Common Beliefs Survey at both the beginning and end of the 16-week semester. Quantitative analysis of the pre- and postcourse Likert ratings of candidates indicated a significant negative shift relative to the statement, “I don't think of my students in terms of their race or ethnicity; I am color-blind when it comes to my teaching.” Further qualitative analysis of candidates who provided written rationale for their numeric response indicated prevailing themes of conscious bias, intentional color-blindness, and movement toward appreciation of racial difference as a critical cognizance. Implications for teacher education include experiences beyond the scope of a survey course if significant schematic shift leading to the potential for educational equity is to be realized.     

Effect of the System Approach on Changing Preservice Teacher Attitudes Toward Selected Instructional Design Factors

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to determine the effect of system approach training upon changing preservice teachers’ attitudes toward selected design factors. An experimental and control group posttest design was utilized. The median test was used to determine if significant differences existed between the two groups. Differences were found between the samples in six of the eleven factors studied. A significant difference (.001) was also found between the groups in their overall evaluation of the program.     

Dispositions Toward Families and Family Involvement: Supporting Preservice Teacher Development

This article highlights the importance of nurturing preservice teachers as they develop the dispositions essential to establish empowering relationships with children’s families. The authors identify and describe several key dispositions necessary for working with families and offer suggestions for ways that these elements might be integrated into early childhood teacher preparation programs.     

Science Teacher Attitudes Toward Inquiry-Based Teaching and Learning

The purpose of this study was to determine teachers’ attitudes, values, and beliefs about inquiry. The participants of this study were 275 middle grade and secondary science teachers from four districts in North Carolina. Issues such as class size, accountability, curricular demands, and administrative support are perceived as constraints, impeding the use of inquiry. These are the issues that must be effectively dealt with in the professional education and professional development of all science teachers.     

Design Elements for a CSCL Environment in a Teacher Training Programme

In the design of a Telematic Learning Environment (TLE) in which student teachers learn collaboratively, we consider three clusters of design elements as important: the Telematic Work Environment, the guidance of the instructor and the task instruction. We will have a look at the way group and task behaviour, triggered by these design elements influence the collaborative outcomes. Experiments have revealed that the technical environment is not as important as we had expected beforehand. This research shows that the task instruction (pre-imposed structure, role taking and intrinsic motivation for the task) and the group process itself have far more impact on the online collaborative work of the student teachers.     

浅议课堂教学中教师的“错误”观

在课堂教学中,学生经常会出现各种各样的错误。面对学生的错误,教师所持的态度直接影响着教学的效果和学生错误潜在价值的充分发挥。教师的“错误”观是教师教育观、课程观、学生观的集中反映,也是其教学能力、评价能力的重要体现。教师在课堂教学中面对学生错误时,应该具有科学的“错误”观,如课程资源观、启发契机观、审视教学观、评价信息观。教师应该在这些“错误”观的指导下,采取正确的策略去帮助学生纠正错误。     

Preservice Teachers' Attitudes Toward Inclusion and Toward Students with Special Educational Needs from Different Ethnic Backgrounds

Drawing on social cognition frameworks, we experimentally examined preservice teachers' implicit attitudes toward students with special educational needs (SEN) from different ethnic backgrounds and preservice teachers' explicit attitudes toward inclusive education. Preservice teachers (N = 46) completed an evaluative priming task and questionnaires. Results showed indifferent implicit attitudes toward students with SEN with immigrant backgrounds and positive implicit attitudes toward those without immigrant backgrounds. Furthermore, participants reported a high motivation to act without prejudice toward minorities but held less favorable explicit attitudes toward inclusion of students with SEN, especially students with behavioral problems. Differential patterns of implicit and explicit evaluations could bias teachers' interactions with students. Findings are discussed with respect to implications for educational practice and research.     

Measuring Attitudes Toward Human Relations Training

This article reports a study designed to develop an instrument to measure attitudes toward human relations training. Test-retest stability and internal consistency reliabilities were established.     

Effects of a Pre‐service Teacher Preparation Programme on Effective Instruction

A quasi‐experimental, treatment‐control group investigation was designed to test the effects of a pre‐service training course on effective instruction. Research findings from teacher effects research and cognitive strategy instruction were translated into two direct instructional models: one model for explicit or well‐structured skills and one model for implicit skills or higher‐level thinking strategies. Following a course on effective instruction from their teacher educators, student teachers implemented standardised lessons to apply selected research‐derived teaching behaviours and to increase pupil engagement rates. Based on trained observers’ pre‐and post‐training classroom observations, a significant treatment effect was found for student teachers’ teaching behaviours regarding effective instruction and for pupil engagement rates. Ratings from supervising teachers also showed that the student teachers who participated in the course on effective instruction used the recommended instructional skills after completion of the course significantly better than prior to the course.     

Support Personnel: Attitudes Toward Functions and Training Responsibility

This study was conducted to determine (a) if the heads of counselor education programs agree on what functions are appropriate for support personnel assisting secondary school counselors, and (b) who should take the responsibility for their training. Questionnaire replies were received from 128 (64.0 percent) of the 200 heads of counselor education programs queried. The respondents were asked to examine a list of 17 functions and (a) indicate if they were appropriate, and (b) specify if counselors, counselor educators, or city/state directors should be responsible for training support personnel to perform each appropriate function. There was significant agreement (X², d = .01) among them on both questions. Ten of 17 functions were considered appropriate; the counselor was perceived as having the major responsibility for training. A small segment of the sample (11.7 percent) was engaged in training support personnel.     

Effectiveness of Case-Based Learning Instruction on Epistemological Beliefs and Attitudes Toward Chemistry

The purpose of the study was to investigate the effectiveness of case-based learning instruction over traditionally designed chemistry instruction on eleventh grade students’ epistemological beliefs and their attitudes toward chemistry as a school subject. The subjects of this study consisted of 63 eleventh grade students from two intact classes of an urban high school instructed with same teacher. Each teaching method was randomly assigned to one class. The experimental group received case-based learning and the control group received traditional instruction. At the experimental group, life cases were presented with small group format; at the control group, lecturing and discussion was carried out. The results showed that there was a significant difference between the experimental and control group with respect to their epistemological beliefs and attitudes toward chemistry as a school subject in favor of case-based learning method group. Thus, case base learning is helpful for development of students’ epistemological beliefs and attitudes toward chemistry.     

新疆双语师资培训教学中的几个重要问题探析

文章以南北疆双语师资培训调研为基础,重点反映2004-2005年间新疆维吾尔自治区中小学少数民族双语师资培训在教学内容、教学方法和教学效果等方面的情况,同时提供作者对这些问题的思考和改进建议,旨在为政府有关部门进一步完善自治区双语教师培训方案、提高新疆中小学少数民族双语教师培训质量提供参考依据。     

Our Practice, Their Readiness: Teacher Educators Collaborate to Explore and Improve Preservice Teacher Readiness for Science and Math Instruction

Since many preservice teachers (PTs) display anxiety over teaching math and science, four PT educators collaborated to better understand the PTs’ background experiences and attitudes toward those subjects. The research project provided two avenues for professional learning: the data collected from the PTs and the opportunity for collaborative action research. The mixed method study focused on: the relationship between gender and undergraduate major (science versus non-science) with respect to previous and current engagement in science and math, understanding the processes of inquiry, and learning outside the classroom. A field trip to a science center provided the setting for the data collection. From a sample of 132 PTs, a multivariate analysis showed that the science major of PTs explained most of the gender differences with respect to the PTs’ attitudes toward science and mathematics. The process of inquiry is generally poorly interpreted by PTs, and non-science majors prefer a more social approach in their learning to teach science and math. The four educators/collaborators reflect on the impacts of the research on their individual practices, for example, the need to: include place-based learning, attend to the different learning strategies taken by non-science majors, emphasize social and environmental contexts for learning science and math, be more explicit regarding the processes of science inquiry, and provide out-of-classroom experiences for PTs. They conclude that the collaboration, though difficult at times, provided powerful opportunities for examining individual praxis.     

基于社会网络分析的师范生实习支持平台交互研究

在以解决实习中遇到的真实问题为主要目的的师范生实习支持平台中,交互是保证情感交流和意义协商的最重要因素。通过社会网络分析法,叮以了解师范生实习平台中各成员之间的交互情况,并可总结归纳出社群对于职前教师专业发展的影响以及社群中的成员关系在互动中的作用。