Student learning emotions in middle school mathematics classrooms: investigating associations with dialogic instructional practices

Emotions are central to how students experience mathematics, yet we know little about how specific instructional practices relate to students’ emotions in mathematics learning. We examined how dialogic instruction, a socially dynamic form of instruction, was associated with four learning emotions in mathematics: enjoyment, pride, anger, and boredom. We also examined whether these associations differed by student gender and prior mathematics achievement. The sample consisted of 1307 sixth through eighth grade students (51.6% female, 59.0% White, 30.8% African American, and 10.3% other race; 42.3% receive free/reduced price lunch) from 70 mathematics classrooms. Results indicated that teachers who used more dialogic mathematics instruction had students who reported more enjoyment and pride, and less anger and boredom. Males and low-achieving students reported more positive and fewer negative emotions with greater dialogic instruction compared to their female and high-achieving counterparts.     

Skills development for poverty reduction (SDPR): The case of Tajikistan

Vocational education and training (VET) can contribute to the attainment of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. A key to economic and social progress is the training of better-qualified individuals and skilled enterprise staff who will be more productive, improving goods, increasing incomes and adapting to changing markets. Experts from international cooperation agencies see VET projects as suitable instruments for poverty alleviation in target groups working in the informal sector and rural economy. The recent shortages and high prices of rural products in many developing countries support this position. For the past two years a skills development for poverty reduction (SDPR) project has been running in rural areas of Central Asia to address rural poverty. The approach and findings of the project are discussed against the background of the international debate on VET in the context of poverty alleviation. It is hoped that the conclusions will contribute to optimising the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of similar VET projects.     

Cultural practices in Italian family conversations: Verbal conflict between parents and preadolescents

This work studies verbal conflict between parents and preadolescents through analysis of family dinnertime conversations. We move from the assumption that verbal conflict is an educational instrument of interaction and a tool of socialization. The aim of the research is to analyze the participants' strategies in situations of conflict and to highlight the relations between parents and preadolescents in these specific situations. The data collection methodology is mainly ethnographical: videotape recordings of Italian middle class family dinners (the families were selected as being dual career ones with two children) were fully transcribed and codified following the approach of Conversation Analysis. The results of the quantitative (by the use of the log-linear models) and qualitative analyses confirm the importance of verbal conflict in family context as a particular cultural strategy of relationships between parents and preadolescents. The analytical data underline the relations between different aspects of conflict and the pragmatic implications for all family members at dinnertime conversations.     

把握教师专业发展特征在实践中提高教师的专业化水平

从全面把握教师专业发展的基本特征入手,分析影响教师专业发展的内在因素和外部条件,探讨基于教育教学实践促进教师专业发展的基本策略,以进一步提高中小学教师的专业化水平。     

Wye External Programme: Current practices and prospects for development

Distance education can be more cost‐effective than conventional education. In view of scarce resources available to developing countries, it is, therefore, a valuable means of tackling educational problems. The paradox is that this mode of education has not yet firmly established itself where it is badly needed (except in a few Asian and Latin American countries). This paper does not attempt to discuss the paradox but examines the potential of creating programmes that can cross national boundaries, taking as an exemplar, the context of Wye External Programme. It is believed that such programmes can assist these countries in resolving current educational problems and pave the way for further developments.     

Migration timing and parenting practices: contributions to social development in preschoolers with foreign-born and native-born mothers

Little is known about how key aspects of parental migration or childrearing history affect social development across children from immigrant families. Relying on data on approximately 6,400 children from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study–Birth Cohort, analyses assessed the role of mother’s age at migration on children’s social development in the United States (sociability and problem behaviors). Consistent with models of divergent adaptation and assimilation, the relation between age at arrival and children’s social development is not linear. Parenting practices, observed when children were approximately 24 months of age, partially mediated the relation between mother’s age at arrival and children’s social development reported at approximate age 48 months, particularly in the case of mothers who arrived as adults.     

Responding to infants: Fine motor development

Adults should interact with infants to meet their individual needs. The chart below lists the growth and needs of a baby for development of fine motor skills. It should be stressed that the use of chronological age in the developmental chart is only for convenience. We wish to emphasize that the child's behavior and abilities are the important criteria in determining his level of development. Some children will be ahead of the age range, while some may be behind. It is important to remember that the actual age of the child is the least important fact of individual development. You will notice that we use the masculine gender when referring to the baby. This is done for convenience and simplicity; it is just too cumbersome to keep saying he or she. Inez D. Moyer is curriculum coordinator of Respond, Inc., Day Care Centers of Camden, NJ. This article is excerpted, with permission, from Responding to Infants: The Infant Activity Manual, ©1983 by T.S. Denison & Co., Minneapolis MN.     

Developmental milestones: sign language acquisition and motor development

The sign language and motor development of 11 young children of deaf parents were studied across a 16-month period. The subjects showed accelerated early language development producing, on the average, their first recognizable sign at 8.5 months, their tenth sign at 13.2 months, and their first sign combination at 17.0 months. In contrast, children learning to speak typically do not attain the equivalent spoken language milestones until 2-3 months later. The structure and content of the subjects' 50-sign vocabularies closely resembled those for children at the same stage in previously published studies of spoken language acquisition. The pattern of synchrony between motor and language development previously reported by investigators of children learning to speak was found not to apply to the population of the present study: most of the subjects learning to sign did not slow down in their rate of language acquisition after achieving a new motor milestone, but rather continued to show a gradual increase in the size of their sign language vocabularies.     

Teaching and learning about science practices: insights and challenges in professional development

The purpose of this study was to determine if science teachers showed a change in their ability to design and implement science lessons that integrate twenty-first century science practices as a result of their participation in a subject-specific professional development program. A qualitative design utilizing inductive analysis was used to investigate teachers’ ability to design inquiry-oriented lessons and implement them in the classroom. Eight science teachers participated in the study. Findings showed that teachers have benefited from their participation in the program and were able to plan and implement their inquiry-oriented lesson plans and implement them in the classroom. The analysis also showed that teachers were not able to demonstrate their ability in two dimensions of inquiry (asking scientifically oriented questions and designing and carrying out investigations). Finally, several suggestions were presented to modify the program’s training materials to focus more on these two dimensions of inquiry.     

The impact of maternal deafness on cradling laterality with deaf and hearing infants

A recent article in the Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education (Leigh, Brice, & Meadow-Orlans, 2004) explored attachment between deaf mothers and their 18-month-old children and reported relationship patterns similar to those for hearing dyads. The study reported here explores a marker of early mother-child relationships: cradling laterality. Results indicated that, overall, the cradling bias of deaf mothers is similar to that of hearing mothers, but that there are significant differences among deaf mothers related to the hearing status of their own parents and, in a complex way, to the hearing status of their children. Deaf mothers of deaf parents showed a strong leftward cradling bias with both hearing and deaf children, whereas deaf mothers of hearing parents showed a leftward cradling bias with hearing children and a rightward cradling bias with deaf children. Possible explanations for these patterns of behavior are discussed.     

Cultural diversity in teachers’ group-centered beliefs and practices in early childcare

The present study examined the relation between teachers’ cultural backgrounds, their beliefs regarding group processes, their actual support of group processes, and children's behavior in center-based childcare in the Netherlands. For this purpose, 57 teachers of native Dutch and immigrant Moroccan-Dutch, Turkish-Dutch, Surinamese-Dutch, and Antillean-Dutch backgrounds were interviewed about their teaching beliefs and observed while engaging in a constructive play activity with small groups of children. Clear cultural differences in beliefs and corresponding behavior were found. In the interviews, the Turkish-Dutch and Moroccan-Dutch teachers mentioned concepts relating to group processes more often than the Dutch and Surinamese- and Antillean-Dutch teachers did, and they showed higher support of group processes during play. Moreover, the degree to which teachers expressed beliefs in group processes was significantly correlated with support of group processes by the teacher and with levels of collaboration and cognitive engagement in children's play. Structural equation modeling was applied to test direct and indirect effects, confirming the hypothesis that comparatively elaborate beliefs of teachers on group processes result in practices supporting group processes as well as more collaboration and cognitive engagement in children's play.     

Examining instructional practices in Core-Plus lessons: implications for professional development

In the research reported in this article, we sought to understand the instructional practices of 26 secondary teachers from one district who use a problems-based mathematics textbook series (Core-Plus). Further, we wanted to examine beliefs that may be associated with their instructional practices. After analyzing data from classroom observations, our findings indicated that the teachers’ instructional practices fell along a wide continuum of lesson implementation. Analysis of interview data suggested that teachers’ beliefs with regard to students’ ability to do mathematics were associated with their level of lesson implementation. Teachers also differed, by level of instructional practices, in their beliefs about appropriateness of the textbook series for all students. Results strongly support the need for professional development for teachers implementing a problems-based, reform mathematics curriculum. Further, findings indicate that the professional development be designed to meet the diverse nature of teacher needs.     

教师发展学校:探索与实践

2001年5月,首都师范大学教科院与北京市丰台区教委合作建设了4所教师发展学校。在近一年的实践中,教师发展学校体现出了旺盛的生命力。教师发展学校以“学校应当具有使教师获得可持续有效的专业化发展的功能、是大学和中小学的合作建设、是在合作的实践中实现教师的发展、是持续不断的革新和创造”为基本理念,以“建构教育新理念、重新理解教育、重新认识学校、重新发现教师”为宗旨,通过大学专业教育理论工作者与广大中小学教育实践工作者的沟通与合作,提高教师专业化水平,提高学校教育教学的质量,共同探索教育理论与教育实践的有机结合的途径与方法。本专题以北京市丰台区第一小学为研究个案,从学校校长的角度,大学教育专业理论工作者的角度,一线教师身上体现出的成果,以及鲜活的教育教学案例,全面反映教师发展学校在实践中的发展过程,供广大教育工作者思考和借鉴。     

Cultural heritage and tourism development

Cultural heritage is an important foundation for tourism development. The intrinsic value of tourism industry is achieved through the tourists'appreciation for the scenic tour. The development of tourism has caused a severe challenge,but also provided a good opportunity for the use and protection of cultural heritage. This article,through analyzing the relationship between tourism development and heritage protection,combining the features of Chinese cultural heritage protection,made a number of thoughts on ...     

Working in boundary practices: Identity development and learning in partnerships for inclusive education

There has been an increasing trend to promote partnerships for inclusive education that share responsibility for teachers' and students' learning. Yet, the complexities of collaborating across institutions and professions as well as the identity work that goes with it has been under theorized in inclusive education partnerships. Drawing from Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) and the literature on boundary practices, this paper advances theoretical tools to examine and further understand the work of inclusive education partnerships. We conceptualize partnerships as a fertile ground for learning and identity development as professionals work across institutional boundaries and face tensions and contradictions created by the overlap of different communities of practice and their respective policies and mediating tools. We illustrate theory with examples from our own work in a professional learning school for inclusive education and provide recommendations for teacher learning in teacher education programs.     

Learning practices and development in yeshivas: historical,social, and cultural perspectives

European Journal of Psychology of Education - Although the yeshiva is the housekeeper of the Jewish tradition of learning, it has undergone dramatic changes along history. We describe these changes...