Facilitating change at the school level: A missing factor in school reform

This paper argues that how a school improvement reform is implemented at the school level is a critical factor affecting the impact of that reform. In developing this position, the paper does four things. First, it notes the omission of a discussion about program implementation in the many recent national reports and studies of schooling. Second, it discusses the key components of program implementation ignored by the reports and studies. Third, it details three case studies of schcol improvement programs that are seriously compromised because of inadequate attention to implementation. Fourth and, finally, the paper outlines six reforms which would facilitate the implementation of school improvement programs.     

Reading in English Classrooms: A Developing Culture of Disenchantment

Based on a three-year project conducted in Australian secondary schools, this paper captures a developing disenchantment with reading in and for subject English. As part of an extended professional learning experience for teachers, students and their English teachers were interviewed and students were asked to draw reading. Paying attention to the sensitivities both students and teachers express about classroom reading experiences and to the impact institutional culture has on what they do and feel, this paper identifies a developing culture of disenchantment that is veiled by recurring busy and technically oriented activity. We suggest that in a pervading culture of valuing what we measure, students regard reading at school as ‘work’, find it difficult to keep their minds on task and experience a loss of independence in thinking. Teachers, loath to take risks in a culture of compliance, also describe their disenchantment with current practices.     

Elementary School Teachers' Sense of Efficacy for Character Education

Abstract

In this study, the authors describe the efficacy beliefs of practicing elementary school teachers regarding character education. The Character Education Efficacy Belief Instrument, developed and validated by the authors, was completed by a sample of 254 elementary school teachers in a large midwestern suburban school district. The results suggest that elementary school teachers feel efficacious about most aspects of character education and that teachers who earned their undergraduate degrees from private, religiously affiliated universities have a greater sense of efficacy for character education. Further research into the nature and effectiveness of programs that exist in private, religiously affiliated institutions may suggest methods for developing teachers' abilities to provide character education in schools.     

西北地区藏族教师参与民族文化课程资源开发的困境及出路

新一轮课程改革实行国家、地方、学校三级课程管理模式。这种管理模式对少数民族地区开发民族文化课程资源提供了制度保障,同时对少数民族教师专业发展的提高提出了更高的理论指导和实际要求。目前,西北藏区的民族教师承担不同程度的校本课程资源开发项目,但教师在具体开发和实施过程中遇到语言障碍、文化冲突、专业人员匮乏等困难。文章针对藏族教师参与开发民族文化课程所面临的困境,提出相应的对策。     

Enabling teachers to become pedagogical leaders: case studies of two IDEAS schools in Singapore and Australia

This research paper is about the role of the principal in enabling teacher leadership for pedagogical innovations and school improvement studied in two Innovative Designs for Enhancing Achievements in Schools (IDEAS) schools in Singapore and Australia over a 3-year period from 2005 to 2007. The research reported is based on the developing relationship between principals and teacher leaders as they collaboratively engage in a process of whole school improvement. Both case study schools used the IDEAS school improvement program which originates from the Leadership Research Institute, University of Southern Queensland. The cases trace the facilitation of the IDEAS process in each school and highlights the centrality of teacher leadership in bringing about change in school-wide pedagogy and a process of school re-culturing. It underlines the fact that principals need to support the enabling of leadership among teachers by giving them the space, time and responsibility to make decisions about curriculum work and ensuring that these are aligned with new organizational structures and processes. The paper discusses how the schools were different and yet similar in many ways between the two countries, Singapore and Australia, with regard to the nature of the enabling processes for organizational revitalization and school capacity building. It draws out some implications for school leadership and school improvement.     

Exploring the Cultural Context of School Improvement in Thailand

As education becomes a global enterprise, policies and practices derived from a particular cultural context are finding their way into educational systems that differ significantly from their land of origin. The article explores the cultural context of school improvement in Thailand, a developing Asian nation. Although Thailand is rapidly integrating into the global culture, it retains a strongly traditional set of cultural values and norms. Drawing upon literature review and case study data, we examine the changing nature of successful school improvement in Thailand during this period of rapid cultural transition. We also discuss implications for school improvement more generally.     

Changing leadership: Teachers lead the way for schools that learn

This paper presents findings from a three-year, qualitative study of teachers enrolled in a Masters of Teacher Leadership program. Researchers sought to understand the ways teachers’ beliefs about and understandings of teacher leadership were affected by their participation in a formal teacher leadership program, as well as the kinds of actions they took up as a result of this participation. Data indicate three significant ways participants’ work as teacher leaders was developed and enhanced, including: (a) identifying and amplifying their professional voice, (b) deepening and extending their voice as they plan, and (c) reframing their work/shift responsibility through constructing widening circles of influence and impact. Authors identify implications of their research for growing teacher leaders, school improvement and change, changing school culture, enhancing student engagement, and building new structures.     

校长文化与学校文化的相生互动

学校成功的动力,源自于校长文化的辐射。学校要走出自己的特色,必须创造更有特色的学校文化。校长文化与多元文化、校长文化与教师文化、校长文化与校园文化、校长文化与学生文化等都是相生互动的。     

地方文化特质对地方高校办学理念的影响——基于贺州学院“立足贺州”办学定位的思考

历史文化特质是地方性本科院校办学定位重要因素,在高等教育办学过程中必需从地方历史文化、人文基础条件等实际出发,利用区域特色文化优势,站在服务社会与应用型人才培养角度进行顶层设计与规划,从实证角度探究地方高校办学定位与地方历史文化的共生关系,走出一条地方性本科院校可持续发展之路。     

学校变革视域下的专业学习共同体

近几十年,世界范围内教育改革研究关注的焦点,从教学与课程等局部层面的改革,转向关注学校整体的革新.在这个大背景下,专业学习共同体不仅仅被当作教师发展的一种途径,而且成为一种崭新的学校变革方式,它将教师发展、领导角色、学校改善统整为一体,形成以学生学习提高为中心的整体学校发展模式.走向专业学习共同体的学校变革历程是一场深刻的革命,制度与文化的完善是一个不断磨合的过程.     

重塑学校文化 促进教师专业发展——学校管理者的视野

新课程改革在某种意义上就是我国基础教育领域学校文化的重塑,而学校文化又与教师的专业发展密不可分。对于学校管理者来说,如何审视基础教育课程改革对学校文化重塑与教师专业发展提出的本质要求,既能以教师专业的发展策略来促进学校教学文化、管理文化、制度文化的更新,又能寻求促进教师专业发展的学校文化建设新策略,具有重要的意义。营造个性鲜明的精神文化、以人为本的制度文化和积极向上的行为文化,是行之有效的措施。     

Toward an Understanding of Unusually Successful Programs for Economically Disadvantaged Students

A conceptual framework based on prior research was used to study unusually successful compensatory programs in 4 schools (3 elementary schools and 1 middle school). The framework included 4 interrelated constructs: program effectiveness standards, school culture, curriculum, and teaching. Site visits were made to each of the 4 schools. During these visits, written documents were examined, interviews were conducted, and classroom observations were made. All 4 schools were characterized by clear purpose and high performance standards (program effectiveness standards); shared leadership, strong community support, and talented, hardworking teachers (school climate); opportunity to learn and curriculum integration (curriculum); and concern for students and nonacceptance of failure (teaching). Analyzing the data in terms of the framework enabled the researchers to describe the complex nature of success as well as the interplay among the constructs in producing it. It also allowed them to move beneath the surface differences among schools to the deeper level of similarities.     

Introduction to Special Feature: Alternative perspectives on school improvement

The growth of interest in school improvement in the last decade has been striking. In the UK, the educational system has moved to a position where school improvement is not merely expected but demanded. As a result, a large number of school improvement projects and initiatives have emerged to meet this demand. Many of these initiatives have emphasised structural change and have located change efforts at the level of the school. However, the research evidence concerning successful school improvement programmes demonstrates the importance of changing school culture and focusing upon teaching and learning. The Improving the Quality of Education For All (IQEA) project embraces both these elements. Over the last 10 years the project has achieved demonstrable success in a diverse range of school contexts and is at the forefront of school improvement work within the UK. This special feature considers IQEA from a variety of perspectives and provides important insights into the theory, process and practice of successful school improvement.     

Dilemmas of Prescriptive Practices and Perceived Alignment in Program Implementation

This paper studies the early implementation of a school improvement effort in two high schools. We examine what explains variation in the teacher adoption of program practices. Our findings highlight the tension between encouraging immediate adoption of program practices and the longer term goals of schoolwide culture change. We find that highly structured practices and those that are already aligned with teachers' extant beliefs and classroom practices can be implemented with little preexisting capacity. These conditions could also lead to more consistent and quicker initial adoption. However, this type of implementation might not encourage sufficient understanding of program goals and may inhibit the diffusion of practices into the school culture. Findings highlight dilemmas associated with program practices when the goal is to bring educational reforms to scale.     

高职“工学交替”模式下酒店专业实习管理系统设计

开发基于WEB的实习管理系统,既可将学校、实习学生和不同地域的酒店连接成一个有机的整体,方便教师的指导管理、师生交流,以及学校与酒店方的协调与沟通：而且,还能够明晰学校、学生和酒店三方在实习过程中各自承担的职责,全面地反映出整个实践教学过程中出现的问题,从而为提高学生实习效果和质量提供技术层面的保障。     

Changes in Examination Performance in English Secondary Schools over the Course of a Decade: Searching for Patterns and Trends Over Time

The article explores changes in the examination performance of a random sample of 500 English secondary schools between 1992 and 2001. Using econometric methods, it concludes that: there is an overall deterministic trend in school performance but it is not stable, making prediction accuracy poor; the aggregate trend does not explain improvement over time at school level, where there is very considerable variation in improvement paths; there is a degree of persistence with respect to changes in performance at school level but it is short-lived; whilst there is evidence of a general upward trend across schools, there is a large amount of year-to-year variation and little evidence of sustained improvement at school level; and the model applied has little ability to forecast the direction of change for particular schools in the following year(s).     

精神文化视野中的知识形态及其教育意蕴

知识是人类精神文化的载体。从精神文化的视野,基于人的文化规定性,从人的生存与发展对人类精神文化的需要出发,胡德海教授将精神文化分为常识、一般知识、理论和思想四种存在形态。精神文化的知识存在形态及其层次性和教育中人的生存与发展对其的精神需要是根本一致的。基于此,学校教育要重视常识在“基础知识”中的重要地位,学校课程内容组织要反映人对文化知识需要的层次性和阶段性,化知识为智慧是教育传承知识的永恒追求。     

Building the mentoring relationship: humanism and the importance of storytelling between mentor and mentee

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we describe a mentoring program designed to help prepare high school seniors at Arizona State University Preparatory Academy for postsecondary education. Specifically, we address the usefulness of ‘humanistic mentoring,’ a form of mentoring that stresses the importance of reciprocity, mutuality, and empathy in the mentor/mentee relationship. We further describe how sharing stories was useful in developing such humanistic relationships. Based on etic-thematic coding of interviews from 13 of the mentees, a humanistic lens for mentoring and sharing personal stories is productive for both developing relationships and passing on knowledge.     

Data-informed curriculum reform: Which data,what purposes,and promoting and hindering factors

Schools face a lot of data on the functioning of their school which they can use to make improvements in teaching, learning and the organization. For data use to lead to improvement, it is important to further research the concept data-driven decision making. The results of this explorative study in the Netherlands show that teachers mainly use classroom level data for making instructional decisions at classroom level, and school leaders mainly use school level data for policy development decisions. This article ends with suggestions with regard to enhancing the effectiveness of data-driven decision making, for example by stressing the importance of developing teachers' competence in the use of data.     

中职学校校园环境建设策略探究

校园环境作为校园文化的物质依托,对学生健康心理的培养、品德素质的提升具有重要作用。与普教学生相比,中职学生心理特点有其独特性。因而,中职学校在进行美丽校园环境建设时,除须遵循环境设计的一般原则外,还应针对中职学生的心理特点做出相应的设计。