Art in a Million Schools: Art Education in China

There is a dichotomy in Chinese art education. On the one hand the authorities take for granted that the purpose of the national curriculum is to foster patriotism, morality and socialism; on the other hand art educators try to enlarge children’s vision and encourage them to create according to their imagination. Chinese art teachers seem to have dealt with this dilemma by preparing and presenting their lessons in the official format whilst allowing art itself to work inwardly on the children.     

基于新课程下的教师职业技能培训

基础教育课程改革带来教育观、教学观的转变,相应的实践层面上的教师职业技能也必然发生相应的改变。教师教育要应对新课程改革,依据当前新课程改革的需要,应加强适应新课程改革需要的教师职业技能培训。     

Censorship in Contemporary Art Education

This study draws upon interviews with fifteen secondary art teachers in Australia and England and focuses on the selection and censorship of artists and art works for student study. Given that cutting edge art must shock if it is to change artistic sensibility it would seem that the study of contemporary art must present students and teachers with many ethical dilemmas. The violent, sexually explicit, disgusting and psychologically disturbing, nature of many contemporary arts works make them potentially offensive, disturbing, provocative and confusing to young impressionable minds. While wishing to be open‐minded and to teach inclusive curricula, art teachers are also aware of their accountability in the community and their responsibility for the well being of their students. The study examines ways in which art teachers achieve postmodernist plurality in their programs yet also respectfully stay within the parameters of modernist school charters which define curriculum limits.     

The teacher as reflexive professional: making visible the excluded discourse in teacher standards

In the current climate of accountability, political manoeuvring, changing curriculum, increasingly diverse student cohorts and community expectations, teachers, more than ever, need to develop the skills and abilities to be reflective and reflexive practitioners. This study examines national teacher professional standards from Australia and the UK to identify the extent to which reflexivity is embedded in key policy documents that are intended to guide the work of teachers in those countries. Using Margaret Archer's theories of reflexivity and morphogenesis, and methods of critical discourse analysis, we argue that these blueprints for teachers’ work exclude reflexivity as an essential and overarching discourse of teacher professionalism.     

Positioning thinking within national curriculum and assessment systems: Perspectives from Israel,New Zealand and Northern Ireland

Over the past decade there has been a major move to position ‘thinking’ (however thinking is defined and enacted) as a more explicit outcome within the curriculum of many nations, with implications for teachers’ professional development, assessment, and examination requirements. This paper analyses approaches to this challenge taken by Israel, New Zealand and Northern Ireland. Each short case study considers: the political context in which the developments emerged; the ways in which thinking has been framed within the national curriculum, assessment and examination system; and the successes and challenges of the approaches taken to embedding change. Comparing and contrasting three different national systems provides important insights into the priorities, commitments and resources allocated to supporting a focus on thinking as a valued curriculum goal and outcome. In particular, it highlights the need for greater coherence between curriculum, professional development, pedagogy and assessment policies generally. Given the increasing international emphasis on the importance of developing critical thinking and problem-solving skills as a response to 21st century learning challenges, the paper reflects on what more may need to be done to leverage and sustain change.     

Attention to Intentions—How to Stimulate Strong Intentions to Change

The implementation of educational reforms requires behavioral changes from the teachers involved. Theories on successful behavioral change prescribe the following conditions: teachers need to possess the necessary knowledge and skills, form strong positive intentions to perform the new behavior, and have a supporting environment for change. However, existing approaches to teacher professional development in the context of educational reforms are predominantly aimed at the development of knowledge and skills and at creating a supporting environment, but lack attention to teachers’ intentions to change. In the study described in this article, we performed “motivating-for-educational-change” interviews (MECI) and explored the influence on teachers’ intentions to change in the direction of the proposed national biology education reform, that is, the introduction of a context-based curriculum. The MECI comprised two tools: building on earlier successful experiences and using lesson segments to rearrange instructional approaches. We explored the influence of the MECI technique on the strength and specificity of participating teachers’ intentions. When conducting the MECI, many participants expressed that they now realized how they had already implemented aspects of the reform in their regular instructional approaches. Furthermore, all the participants formulated stronger and more specific intentions to change their regular instructional approach towards that of the proposed reform while taking their regular instructional approach as a starting point.     

西北少数民族地区中小学校本课程开发研究——基于甘肃省肃南裕固族自治县的调查

调查发现,甘肃省肃南裕固族自治县中小学校本课程开发主要采用国家课程的校本化实施方式,独立的校本课程尚未出现。校本课程开发中存在着思想认识不到位、教师的能力和精力欠缺、管理力度不足、信息缺乏、现代化的教学条件差等问题。转变观念、充分利用国家的各项优惠政策、积极争取外援、加强有效管理、充分开发丰富的课程资源、提高教师的技术水平和现代化教育技术装备水平是促进裕固族自治县校本课程开发的基本措施。     

STEAM教育理念下卓越职教师资“三维”培养模式

STEAM教育因顺应新工科发展需要,得以在全球盛行,其倡导的跨学科综合教育理念深入人心。在此理念启发下,构建以"学术"为基础,"技术-教艺"综合为突破的卓越职教师资三维培养模式。针对中职学校需要"技术-教艺"双馨职教师资,以"校-企-校"深度合作,按照三维综合通用培养模式,开设出专业理论、技术和教艺课程体系,突破技术和教艺实训瓶颈,完成三维卓越师资综合培养。根据专业硕士注重应用能力培养,招收拥有技术或教艺一技之长的在职人员,开展针对其薄弱维度的补偿教育,最终成就其"学术-‘技术-教艺’"的三维卓越素质,以满足高职院校对硕士层次"双师型"卓越教师的需求。     

School Art — What's in it?

In 2003/4 NFER undertook a study of the content of the art curriculum in secondary schools in England on behalf of the Arts Council England (ACE) and Tate Galleries [1]. In 18 schools, eight of which were identified as engaged with contemporary art practice (referred to throughout the article as the CAP schools), 54 art teachers were asked to describe the content of their most recently completed art module. ‘Content’ was taken as: the media and materials in which pupils worked; the artistic and cultural references used to support the teaching; the skills taught; and the thinking processes used. They were also questioned about the factors that influenced their choice of curriculum content and the aims that guided their choice of content. Most of the teachers (excluding the heads of department) were asked which of a set of six art images they would include in their teaching, and the reasons for their decisions. Teachers in the CAP schools were also asked to explain why they chose to include contemporary art. The findings revealed substantial differences between the two cohorts of schools, not all of which were related to the inclusion of contemporary art practice. A preoccupation with the teaching of skills was more apparent in the randomly selected schools, which also drew very heavily on the early twentieth century for their artistic references. Unsurprisingly, the CAP schools drew heavily on contemporary references, but included many from other periods, cited twice as many references overall, and had a generally more eclectic view of the purposes of teaching art.     

Friluftsliv: a contribution to equity and democracy in Swedish Physical Education? An analysis of codes in Swedish Physical Education curricula

During the last decade, expanding research investigating the school subject Physical Education (PE) indicates a promotion of inequalities regarding which children benefit from PE teaching. Outdoor education and its Scandinavian equivalent friluftsliv, is a part of the PE curriculum in many countries, and these practices have been claimed to have the potential to contribute to more equity in PE teaching. Through an investigation of how stipulations regarding friluftsliv in the national Swedish PE curriculum are transformed and interpreted into 31 local PE syllabus documents, this paper investigates the possibilities for friluftsliv to fulfil this potential. In an analysis inspired by the educational sociologist, Basil Bernstein, I claim that Swedish PE teachers’ marginalized interpretation of friluftsliv indicates its weak classification when a part of PE. When friluftsliv is addressed in PE, the strong dominance of a performance code transforms it into mere sport activities. The results of this study highlight questions regarding PE teachers’ interpretation of learning aims and their work with text documents. It also discusses alternatives to implementing friluftsliv through PE and the role of teachers in curriculum reforms.     

Assessing conceptual change of teachers involved in STES education and curriculum devleopment - the STEMS project approach

Science-Technology-Environment-Society (STES) orientation in science education is currently being implemented in Israeli high schools within the framework of 'science for all' reform worldwide. This paper focuses on assessing the conceptual change of teachers who have been involved in the development, implementation, field-testing and evaluation of several modules. These modules constitute a grade 10-11 high school national curriculum titled STEMS - 'Science, Technology, Environment in Modern Society'. STEMS is aimed at developing an autonomous learner, capable of system thinking, decision making and problem solving within the real life STES context. We sensed that the intrinsic nature of STEMS curriculum requires that the teachers, who will teach it, will also be the developers of its modules. Involvement of this kind makes the teachers responsible for their own conceptual change, explanations and interpretations. Our formative evaluation indicates that the conceptual change of STEMS teachers was gradual. Participants differed with respect to what sort of 'treatment' or experience within the project actually affected who and when. It was apparent that the change occurred with respect to both their content knowledge and pedagogical views. A positive response towards teaching beyond the discipline boundaries was followed by teachers' active involvement and participation in the development process and team discussions. Thus, the STEMS project affected their teaching/learning perception towards interdisciplinarity. These findings are in accord with teachers' support of a life cycle approach for curriculum development as being suitable for achieving the STEMS objectives. The teachers emphasized the need to practice together with their students scientific inquiry and experiment design skills which, foster an autonomous learner. At the end of the first year of the curriculum development process, STEMS was finally conceptualized by the project teachers as a novel way of learning, rather than another sophisticated teaching technique. The major conceptual change was, the switch teachers made from the role of knowledge providers into that of learners. The interplay among action, participation and conceptualization turned out to be instrumental in our life cycle approach for developing the STEMS curriculum.     

The Readiness of Primary Schools to Teach the National Curriculum in Art and Design

This paper summarises the findings of the research and development project, ‘Supporting Primary Art’ which was established at the Centre for the Study of the Arts in Primary Education at the Rolle Faculty of Education of the University of Plymouth in October 1992 with support and funding from the Calouste Gulbenkian and Paul Hamlyn Foundations. It is the intention of the project to investigate the response of teachers in primary schools to the introduction of the national curriculum in art and, on the basis of the understandings gained, to develop and evaluate appropriate forms of in-service training and support materials to address those difficulties and concerns identified by teachers in meeting the overall requirements of the Statutory Orders for Art. The project has in mind the significant advantage to the development of art and design education in our schools that is presented by the introduction of the national curriculum in art and the opportunities here to reinforce and extend the richness and quality of the teaching of art to a wider cohort of schools. We hope that this report will help LEAs and those involved in the initial, postgraduate and in-service training of teachers in their work in preparing students and supporting teachers to understand, teach and deliver the national curriculum in art.     

Societal culture and teachers’ responses to curriculum reform: experiences from China

Educational change is intrinsically bound to the cultural characteristics of the society. However, the relationship between educational change and societal culture is rarely explored, especially in the context of mainland China. Following a 3-year qualitative research project, the present study explored the influence of societal culture on teachers’ responses to the national curriculum reform of upper secondary education in mainland China. The results generated three themes highly relevant to teachers’ responses to curriculum reform in Chinese culture, namely teachers’ obedience, teachers’ facework and teachers’ collaboration. These teachers’ responses reflected some Confucian ethics rooted in Chinese culture and explained the absence of radical teacher resistance to the national curriculum reform. It was suggested that a culturally sensitive approach to change leadership may have been more fruitful for facilitating the aims of curriculum reform in mainland China.     

Remaking the professional teacher: authority and curriculum reform

Globally, national curriculum policies are up for renegotiation. These negotiations are shaped by international and national top-down accountability regimes, and an increasing turn towards curriculum centralization and standardization. The new Australian Curriculum (AC) is no exception. The AC is an important educational policy event, one in which understandings about teacher professional authority is being redefined. In this paper, we examine how judgements about teachers’ professional authority are used to defend, promote and explain the AC. Drawing on an analysis of policy documents and interviews with high-level policy-makers, we argue that the AC is opening space in the policy field to reposition teachers’ work by promoting a view of teachers’ professional authority as constrained and defined through the written curriculum documentation.     

Race,Culture, and Intelligence: An Interview with Asa G. Hilliard III

Student achievement of the curriculum is the school's reason for being. This research, however, suggests that the behavior of school leaders is not effective in accomplishing four critical outcomes of curriculum development: (1) the creation of well-written documents that use a common framework; (2) curriculum that is aligned with state and national standards; (3) an understanding and teaching of the curriculum by teachers; and (4) all students successfully learning the curriculum. Leaders must orchestrate multiple changes that provide opportunities for teachers to work in teams, focus resources effectively on implementing the curriculum, and establish accountability for results.     

Criticality and connoisseurship in arts education: pedagogy,practice and ‘Pinterest©’

ABSTRACT

In time-poor and pressured teaching environments, some classroom teachers look for immediate and simple solutions to resourcing their arts teaching. Online platforms, such as Pinterest, seem to offer ready-made answers for these teachers, however, a lack of criticality can underscore the unexamined ‘advantages’ of such accessible resources. Accessibility and lack of confidence for time poor teachers are two key issues in understanding why teachers prefer online platforms for the sourcing of arts teaching resources rather than curriculum documents written for them by ‘curriculum experts’. Critically competent curriculum decisions require informed knowing about value and how the decision impacts on practice and student learning and in this way criticality and connoisseurship are important capabilities that constantly need to be strengthened in a digitally mediated world. Combined in an arts context and drawing on interviews with 16 classroom teachers, criticality and connoisseurship are two key concepts used to highlight the systemic issues of context, value and pedagogy that impact on teacher’s practice. Suggestions for increasing teachers’ criticality and connoisseurship are explored as important pathways for improving arts learning for young people.     

Environmental education (EE) policy and content of the contemporary (2009–2017) Mexican national curriculum for primary schools

In Mexico a reformed curriculum is being implemented at the national primary level focused on the competence model and incorporating EE as a key element. This article reports our analyses of what theories, policies and/or EE related-contents were included in the documents that integrated this curriculum: general study plan, study programs of Grades and official students’ textbooks. Results indicate that in those official documents was incorporated a competence related to EE called ‘competences for the coexistence’, implying harmonic relationships with others and the nature. Additionally, EE for sustainability was included as a transversal topic expecting that contributes to reach the graduate profile of basic education that indicates that students should promote and assume the care of health and the environment. Nevertheless, it is not clear how it is expected that teachers implement EE in practice, lacking clarity of the environmental theory that support this curriculum.     

Expressions of agency within complex policy structures: science teachers’ experiences of education policy reforms in Sweden

We explore the experiences of school science teachers as they enact three linked national curriculum and assessment policy reforms in Sweden. Our goal is to understand teachers’ differing responses to these reforms. A sample of 13 teachers engaged in 2 interviews over a 6–9-month period. Interviews included exploration of professional background and school context, perceptions of the aims of the policy reforms and experiences of working with these reforms in the classroom. Analysis was guided by an individual-oriented sociocultural perspective on professional agency. Here teaching is conceptualised as an ongoing interplay between teachers’ knowledge, skills and personal goals, and the characteristics of the social, institutional and policy settings in which they work. Our analysis shows that navigating the ensuing continuities and contradictions results in many different expressions of teacher agency, e.g. loss of autonomy and trust, pushing back, subversion, transfer of authority, and creative tensions. Typically, an individual teacher’s enactment of these reforms involved several of these expressions of agency. We demonstrate that the sociocultural perspective provides insights into teachers’ responses to education policy reform likely to be missed by studies that focus largely on individual teacher knowledge/beliefs about reform or skills in ‘implementing’ reform practices.     

高中教师选修课程开发能力调查研究——以浙江省为例

作为新课改的重要内容,选修课程的开发与实施越来越受到重视。作为课程开发的主体,教师的课程开发能力直接影响到课程实施的成效。通过问卷和访谈发现,教师虽然对选修课较为重视,但是在开发课程中存在缺乏相应的课程观念;对课程资源的开发和利用能力不足;实际操作能力低下以及评价与反思能力不足等问题。需要在实践中加以重视,采取相应的对策:重视课程观念的培养;提高对课程资源的开发和利用能力;将课程评价融入日常教学。