Legal and Psychometric Criteria for Evaluating Teacher Certification Tests

Will our teacher certification testing program stand up to a court challenge? What are the critical issues the courts consider in examining teacher certification testing? What do we need to do to strengthen our program legally and psychometrically?     

Establishing Standards for Teacher Certification Tests

Are teacher certification tests subject to the same concerns as other licensure examinations? How should standards for such examinations be established?     

DEVELOPING STUDENT FIELD EXPERIENCES THROUGH UNIVERSITY‐COMMUNITY COLLABORATIONS

The political, economic, social, equity, and historical influences on the status of kindergarten education and early childhood teacher education in the United States are discussed. There are many sources of data that create a picture of the diverse programs, resources, and opportunities that kindergarten children experience, including the preparation of kindergarten teachers. This article addresses the questions: What does kindergarten curriculum look like today compared with other times? What is the status of full-day kindergarten? What are the influences of the high-stakes testing movement, school budgets, and economic status across communities? How has early childhood state teacher certification changed during the past two decades? What is worthwhile learning? This article takes an editorial position that supports an intellectually significant curriculum in which specially prepared early childhood teachers match teaching with the ways in which kindergarten children learn, and might want to learn more.     

Job Analysis for Lkensure and Certfication Exams: Science or Politics?

How might empirical j o b analysis give the appearance of science to a flawed public policy? How do “political” factors have an impact on the development of licensure tests? What are areas for future research and for improvement of prevailing practices in licensure and certification testingy?     

The elusiveness of teacher quality: A comparative analysis of teacher certification and student achievement in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries

In national education systems worldwide, teacher quality has become synonymous with education reform efforts, but a more elusive goal is empirically measuring teacher quality. One proposed measure of teacher quality, teacher licensing, also known as certification, is an increasingly ubiquitous component of national education systems and pre-service teacher education around the world. Rapidly developing national education systems, like those in the Arabian Gulf states, are actively seeking to measure teacher quality through teacher certification and to estimate teacher quality using scores on student achievement tests. This study synthesizes research literature and contextual data as a foundation for using hierarchical linear models to estimate the impact of teacher certification on student achievement in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. Despite the emphasis on improving teacher quality by establishing teacher certification requirements in GCC national education systems, the researchers found neither a direct nor a consistent association between teacher certification and student achievement in the GCC.     

Growing scholarly teachers and educational researchers: a curriculum for a Research Pathway in pre‐service teacher education

This paper advocates the development of high‐level research capability in some students in their undergraduate Bachelor of Education course. The rationale for this viewpoint is presented in relation to three questions: ‘What is educational research?’ ‘Why should universities develop high‐level research capability in some pre‐service teacher education graduates?’ and ‘What type of curriculum can support the development of high‐level research capability in some pre‐service teacher education graduates?’ The first two questions are addressed broadly. The latter question is addressed with reference to an existing Research Pathway within a Bachelor of Education course. The paper concludes with the identification of a priority issue for subsequent iterations of the Pathway and a reflection on the shift in my role as a teacher in this Pathway from ‘teacher researcher’ to ‘scholarly teacher’.     

Standards for Teacher Tests

States are increasingly requiring that public school teachers pass one or more tests as a condition for permanent employment. As a result of a recent federal court decision, these tests must now satisfy the same legal standards as other employment tests. Moreover, some of the measures used to assess teacher competence no longer rely on multiple-choice items. They now utilize various types of open-ended performance assessments. This article discusses how these developments may affect the adverse impact, reliability, validity, and pass-fail standards of teacher certification tests. The article concludes by recommending that such tests combine multiple-choice questions with open-end tasks that focus on the common or critical situations that are likely to arise across the full range of practice setting for which the teacher is being certified or licensed.     

Standards for Teacher Tests

States are increasingly requiring that public school teachers pass one or more tests as a condition for permanent employment. As a result of a recent federal court decision, these tests must now satisfy the same legal standards as other employment tests. Moreover, some of the measures used to assess teacher competence no longer rely on multiple-choice items. They now utilize various types of open-ended performance assessments. This article discusses how these developments may affect the adverse impact, reliability, validity, and pass-fail standards of teacher certification tests. The article concludes by recommending that such tests combine multiple-choice questions with open-end tasks that focus on the common or critical situations that are likely to arise across the full range of practice setting for which the teacher is being certified or licensed.     

教师教育发展的趋势、因素及其策略研究

教师队伍质量的高低关乎我国基础教育的整体质量,教师队伍质量的高低取决于教师教育的发展水平。教师教育目前的发展趋势是什么?这些发展趋势产生的原因是什么?我们针对教师教育目前发展的趋势采取何种措施促进我国教师教育科学发展?这些问题成为教师教育研究亟需解决的问题。     

The Profession's Evolving Standards

What steps has the measurement profession taken to bridge the gap between professionally and legally acceptable practice in licensure testing? What questions should be raised about the progress made by the profession in supporting valid inferences from certification test scores?     

Testing and Grading Practices and Opinions of Secondary Teachers of Academic Subjects: Implications for Instruction in Measurement

What are secondary school teachers' views on testing and grading practices? What clusters of opinions can be categorized as ‘flexible,”“opposed to difficult testing,” or “hard-nosed?” How should the use of test results for grading be treated in teacher in-service training programs?     

澳大利亚维多利亚州教师资格注册制度及启示

澳大利亚的教师资格制度以教师资格鉴定和教师注册制度为基本类型,形成了比较成熟合理的教师资格认证体系。维多利亚州教师注册过程注册步骤合理详细,认证内容注重实践研究、依托相关法律运行,有助于促进教师专业化发展。对维多利亚州教师资格注册制度的研究,为我国教师资格认证制度的完善提供相关资料。     

Investigating the dynamics of formative assessment: relationships between teacher knowledge,assessment practice and learning

This exploratory study of elementary school science examines questions central to policy, practice and research on formative assessment: What is the quality of teachers’ content-pedagogical and assessment knowledge? What is the relationship between teacher knowledge and assessment practice? What is the relationship between teacher knowledge, assessment practice and student learning? Drawing on multiple measures, hierarchical linear modelling and path analysis, results suggest that despite weaknesses in teachers’ content-pedagogical and assessment knowledge, teachers’ formative assessment practices are positively related to student learning. Relationships between teachers’ knowledge and assessment practices are mixed. Findings underscore both the potential and challenge of bringing effective formative practice to fruition as well as the need for continued research.     

论教师教学效能感的研究在教学上的应用

怎样的教学行为最有效 ?优秀教师的教学表现如何 ?这一直是教育工作者所关心的问题 ,本文在介绍教师效能感研究的基础上 ,从三个方面探讨效能教师的教学策略特征 ,以期对师范教育有所裨益。     

How to be a good teache

What makes a good teacher?How should teachers talk to students?How should teachers give instructions?Who should talk in class?What are the best kinds of lesson?How important is it to follow a pre-arranged plan?     

基于教师专业发展的美国普瑞细斯系列测试研究

美国普瑞细斯系列测试是一项针对中小学教师的测试,其目的是为了给各级教育当局认证教师资格、颁发教师资格证书提供帮助。它分为教师职前技能测试、学科知识评估考试和课堂教学评价三个项目,具有强大的理论支持、良好的操作性能和有效的测试结果三个特点。我国教师资格考试可以从考试内容的全面性、考试对象的广泛性、过程性评价贯穿于考试之中和评价的连续性几方面加以借鉴。     

Tutors Talking

What do form tutors say about tutoring? For this special edition of the journal, focusing on tutors, I contacted some experienced tutors for some insights into the role. I asked them to respond to four questions.  What do you enjoy about being a form tutor?  What, in your experience, are the most significant problems you face in your role as form tutor?  What do you think your students get from you as a form tutor?  What advice would you give to a new teacher who is taking on the role of form tutor?Their positive and engaging responses reinforce how the care they give to the young people is a significant part of their work as teachers.     

Leadership for Organisational Learning and Improved Student Outcomes—What Do We Know?

The Leadership for Organisational Learning and Student Outcomes (LOLSO) Research Project addresses the need to extend present understandings of school reform initiatives that aim to change school practices with the intention of supporting enhanced student learning. In this article results from LOLSO's teacher surveys ('teacher voice') and student surveys ('pupil voice') are organised around six of the project's major research questions: how is the concept of organisational learning (OL) defined in Australian secondary schools (teacher voice)? What leadership practices promote OL in schools (teacher voice)? What are some outcomes of schooling other than academic achievement (pupil voice)? What are the relationships between the non-academic and academic outcomes of schooling? Do school leadership and/or organisational learning contribute to student outcomes? What other factors contribute to student outcomes? The answers to these questions lead to four clear implications relating to distributive leadership, development, context, and a broader understanding of student outcomes. The answers also raise concerns about the current emphasis on transactional leadership, that is school leadership that overemphasises the managerial or strategic.     

Preparing teachers for professional learning: is there a future for teacher education in new teacher induction?

Today the quality of teachers is held to be increasingly important yet there continue to be doubts about whether teacher education programs graduate teachers ready to meet the challenges of their initial years of teaching. In some jurisdictions, other agencies (Ministries of Education, school districts, and private providers) are supplementing the work of teacher education through the introduction of new teacher induction programs which have become favoured policy initiatives to enhance new teacher transition, retention and quality. Evidence suggests that induction and mentoring increase teacher retention and ensure more effective socialisation of new teachers into the school culture. In spite of their growing popularity, the degree to which induction programs complement teacher education and/or impact new teacher professional learning remains unclear. In this paper the authors report a secondary analysis of data from an evaluation of the New Teacher Induction Program in Ontario, Canada to consider the implications for the future of teacher education by asking: What are the challenges facing new teachers? In what ways does the induction program support new teacher professional learning? What are the major implications for the future of teacher education?     

Reconstructing teacher education for disadvantaged communities

Can teacher education be reconstructed to help teachers acquire the knowledge and skills they need to teach disadvantaged populations as proposed by new theories of learning? What shape should this type of teacher education take? After making a case for a transformative teacher education, responsive to current thinking in teaching and learning, I present two instances of school-based approaches to educating teachers that incorporate elements of constructivist, cognitive, and developmental theory when teaching poor rural children. I discuss these cases vis-à-vis their reach and potential for the future of teacher education.