Working with toddlers in child care: Practitioners’ beliefs about their role

This exploratory research analyzes child care workers’ beliefs about the nature of their practice in center-based child care programs. Twenty-one female child care workers who worked with toddlers (aged 1 to 3 years) participated in the research. The participants were videoed in their practice and later interviewed about how good practice in child care could be described. In the interview, the video of participants’ practice was also reviewed to discuss salient videoed events to elicit further evidence about the nature and structure of beliefs that informed practice. The focus of the data analysis was to ascertain how affective, cognitive and executive functions of teaching in child care were represented in the practitioners’ beliefs and how well those beliefs were integrated into a relational structure. All child care workers identified the affective (care) function as a feature of their practice in working with toddlers. Fewer participants (71%) identified the cognitive (education) function or the executive function (38%) as features of their role. Only two child care workers were judged to have a highly sophisticated and relational belief structure integrating affective, cognitive, and executive functions in how they discussed their practice with toddlers. Greater emphasis in professional training for work in child care settings should be placed on exploring the expectations and beliefs that child care workers hold about their role in teaching young children and how that role is instrumental in supporting early learning.     

Relations of Early Childhood Education Teachers’ Depressive Symptoms,Job-Related Stress,and Professional Motivation to Beliefs About Children and Teaching Practices

Research Findings: This study used teacher questionnaires to investigate the relationships of early childhood education teachers’ depressive symptoms, professional motivation, and job-related stress to their beliefs about children and teaching practices. Teachers (N = 207) were recruited from early childhood education programs in the southern United States. Path analyses showed that teachers who exhibited fewer depressive symptoms were more likely to have a career orientation to their jobs and indicated feeling less job-related stress. Teachers with a career orientation to their jobs were also more likely to have child-centered beliefs and endorse developmentally appropriate teaching practices. Teachers’ job-related stress, however, was not related to beliefs about children or teaching practices. Practice or Policy: These results suggest that teachers’ psychological and job-related well-being are linked to their beliefs about children and teaching practice in early childhood education. It is therefore important to provide support systems and preventive programs for teachers to enhance their well-being.     

The first year university experience: using personal epistemology to understand effective learning and teaching in higher education

Personal epistemological beliefs, or beliefs about knowing, provide a way in which to understand learning in a range of educational contexts because they are considered to act as filters for all other knowledge and beliefs. In particular, they provide a useful framework for investigating learning and teaching for first year students in tertiary education, who are typically considered to hold less sophisticated epistemological beliefs. Using semi-structured interviews, this study investigated the nature of beliefs about knowing and learning of 35 first year teacher education and creative writing students at a large metropolitan university in Australia. The interview analysis indicated that a relationship existed between individuals’ core beliefs about knowing and their beliefs about learning. This relationship has implications for the way in which we support first year students’ learning as they transition into university and progress through their courses.     

The Integration of Preservice Teachers’ Naive and Informed Beliefs about Learning and Teaching

Preservice teacher education students are likely to have acquired naive beliefs about learning and teaching, that need to be integrated with theoretically informed beliefs, if they are to function effectively in classrooms. This study explored the nature of such integration using a sample of Graduate Diploma in Education students engaged in an educational psychology subject which was designed to help students develop constructivist beliefs and approaches to learning. Investigation of students’ journal entries, written statements, and stimulated recall interviews related to videotaped practice teaching sessions, revealed that students were able to integrate prior beliefs with the theoretical content of the course, enabling them to describe, and in some cases, evidence informed conditional knowledge.     

Changing Epistemological Beliefs in Pre-service Teacher Education Students

A teaching programme designed to foster the reflection on and development of more sophisticated epistemological beliefs was implemented with 29 pre-service graduate teacher education students at the Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia. As part of the year-long teaching programme, students were required to reflect in journal entries on the content of an educational psychology unit in relation to their epistemological beliefs. The students engaged in this teaching programme (the research group) were interviewed in relation to their beliefs at the beginning (Time 1) and conclusion (Time 2) of the teaching programme. Students in a comparison group were not encouraged to explicitly reflect on their epistemological beliefs. They were asked to complete written statements about their beliefs about knowing at the beginning (Time 1) and end (Time 2) of the year-long unit. Schommer's (1988, 1990) epistemological beliefs questionnaire was administered to both the comparison and research groups at Time 1 and Time 2. This questionnaire measured beliefs about knowing. The results of both the quantitative and qualitative data analysis indicated that the group of students engaged in the teaching programme experienced more growth in sophisticated epistemological beliefs. The success of the teaching programme has implications for how teacher educators develop learning environments.     

Applied Ethics as a Foundation in Early Childhood Teacher Education: Exploring the Connections and Possibilities

This project explores how one early childhood preparation program integrated applied ethics in introductory coursework. Recognizing that students enter teacher education with well-formed values and beliefs regarding children and teaching, carefully planned learning experience and encounters in real life learning contexts expand their understanding of the complexity of ethical decision-making in early care and education programs. This project documents students’ perspectives toward their role as meaning-makers through the analysis of assignments intended to promote reflection on values. As students engage with course content and gain practical experience, their knowledge and beliefs regarding teaching evolve together demonstrating the power of ethical thinking in enhancing early childhood teacher education. The findings indicate that students draw on their image of children, social justice, and self-awareness in their development of a professional ethical identity.     

Elementary Teachers’ Beliefs About Teaching Science and Classroom Practice: An Examination of Pre/Post NCLB Testing in Science

The impact of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) mandated state science assessment on elementary teachers’ beliefs about teaching science and their classroom practice is relatively unknown. For many years, the teaching of science has been minimized in elementary schools in favor of more emphasis on reading and mathematics. This study examines the dynamics of bringing science to the forefront of assessment in elementary schools and the resulting teacher belief and instructional shifts that take place in response to NCLB. Results indicated that teachers’ beliefs about teaching science remained unchanged despite policy changes mandated in NCLB. Teacher beliefs related to their perceptions of what their administrators and peer groups’ think they should be doing influenced their practice the most. Most teachers reported positive feelings and attitudes about science and reported that their students had positive feelings and attitudes about science; however, teachers reported teaching science less as a result of NCLB. Implications for elementary science education reform and policy are discussed.     

Alignment, cohesion, and change: Examining mathematics teachers’ belief structures and their influence on instructional practices

This collective case study reports on an investigation into the relationship between mathematics teachers’ beliefs and their classroom practices, namely, how they organized their classroom activities, interacted with their students, and assessed their students’ learning. Additionally, the study examined the pervasiveness of their beliefs in the face of efforts to incorporate reform-oriented classroom materials and instructional strategies. The participants were five high school teachers of ninth-grade algebra at different stages in their teaching career. The qualitative analysis of the data revealed that in general beliefs were very influential on the teachers’ daily pedagogical decisions and that their beliefs about the nature of mathematics served as a primary source of their beliefs about pedagogy and student learning. Findings from the analysis concur with previous studies in this area that reveal a clear relationship between these constructs. In addition, the results provide useful insights for the mathematics education community as it shows the diversity among the inservice teachers’ beliefs (presented as hypothesized belief models), the role and influence of beliefs about the nature of mathematics on the belief structure and how the teachers designed their instructional practices to reflect these beliefs. The article concludes with a discussion of implications of teacher education.     

Effective strategies for teaching Taiwanese minority students with low achievement and low socio-economic backgrounds

Research shows that minority students continue to fail in the Taiwan public school system. That failure has sharply focused on the urgent need for teachers with the skills to work effectively with minority students. The purpose of this study is to investigate the experiences of an exemplary Taiwanese teacher who teach Indigenous students and to obtain insights about teaching Indigenous students. Four themes can be drawn from the teacher’s beliefs and knowledge about educating Indigenous students and her efforts on behalf of that cause. The themes are to adapt teaching to students’ learning needs, to believe in their learning ability, to provide curriculum in context, and establish caring relationships with students. The implications for teaching practices and teacher education are provided.     

Worldviews,religions, and beliefs about teaching and learning: perception of mathematics teachers with different religious backgrounds

Beliefs about mathematics education and their influences on teaching practices have been widely investigated in recent decades. There have been numerous empirical studies on the influences of religions on teachers’ and students’ beliefs about subjects such as sciences and language. However, the influences of worldviews in general and religions in particular, as one of the major sources of beliefs in relation to mathematics education, are under-researched. The current study is a first step to unpacking the relationship between teachers’ religions and their beliefs about mathematics teaching and learning. By means of semi-structured interviews with mathematics teachers of different religious backgrounds, teachers’ perceptions on the connection between their personal religious beliefs and their beliefs about teaching and learning are investigated. In-depth analyses of the perceptions of three mathematics teachers reveal the complex relationship between teachers’ religious beliefs and their teaching beliefs. First, there are some common values shared by different religions, which influence the beliefs about mathematics teaching and learning as well as education in general. Second, religion is a rich belief system, and the teachers appear to apply only a portion of their religious beliefs to guide their teaching. It is also possible that a teacher is influenced by more than one religion or cultural tradition. Despite its subtleties, our study provides evidence to support the alignment between teachers’ personal religious beliefs and their beliefs about mathematics teaching and learning.     

Beyond the comfort zone: A curriculum and assessment “immersion” experience in graduate early childhood teacher education

Abstract

A graduate course in Early Childhood Education assessment which combines coursework and a practicum with young children is designed and implemented using constructivist principles and practice. Teacher education is more effective when field work and coursework are combined, and when students are able to apply what they learn in class to real life experiences with young children [Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education 21 (1) (2000) 65], learning is enhanced. This course was constructed in a way that incorporated theory, application, reflection, and reconstruction, allowing students an opportunity to rethink their teaching practice through the experience of an early childhood practicum. The key components of the model — the components that are thought to most effectively help students to apply theory to practice, change some of their ways of thinking about teaching and learning are the following: the relationship of the coursework to the setting, continuity from previous courses, the laboratory school environment, the intensive faculty involvement, the co‐constructivist, collaborative nature of the faculty team, the collaborative nature of student work, the use of the three curriculum models, the use of embedded assessment, formative nature of the assessment, informed teaching (on‐going use of student feedback), the tools provided to student that assist in the process, and the practical hands‐on assessment techniques.

Changing students’ ways of thinking about the teaching, learning and assessment process is considered a vital part of the course. [Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education 17(1) (Marshall, 1996) 43] has identified constructivist principles to guide teacher education. She believes that students must experience first‐hand those behaviors that she hopes they would exhibit in their own teaching (Rand, 1999, p. 126). It is through the processes of the course that graduate students are challenged to experience the implementation of emergent curriculum, examine their own beliefs in relation to their practice, articulate why they do what they do and see how classroom assessment strategies help to support meaningful teaching and learning. Furthermore, collaborative practice is considered an important factor that encourages and facilitates reflection, supports a more multi‐dimensional view of teaching and assessing young children, and enables students to listen and observe more effectively and look for the impact of children making choices. Through participation in this course, students became more aware of the impact their view of children and respect for children has on their ability to implement effective and appropriate assessment practices in the classroom. Students gained more of a conceptual understanding of the role of assessment in informed teaching, and were better able to meet individual children's instructional needs.

Finlly, students learned how to use tools inquiry, collaboration and reflection that are likely to assist them in future personal professional growth.     

Learning environment,self-efficacy for teaching mathematics,and beliefs about mathematics

Learning environment research has a long history of significant relationships between the learning environment and student outcomes. This study investigated relationships between the learning environments of mathematics courses in a teacher education program and two outcomes, mathematics teaching self-efficacy and beliefs about mathematics. These two outcomes have been repeatedly shown to influence the future teaching practices of preservice teachers but, to date, their relationships with learning environment have been investigated neither with preservice teachers nor at all in the United Arab Emirates or wider Gulf region. The learning environment was found to be significantly related to preservice teachers’ mathematics teaching self-efficacy and beliefs about mathematics. Learning environments perceived more favourably by preservice teachers were associated with higher self-efficacy for teaching mathematics, but also with more-traditional beliefs, making these findings important for higher education institutes and teacher educators.

     

Teachers’ views on effective classroom management: a mixed-methods investigation in Western Australian high schools

Teachers’ views about teaching, learning and school experiences are important considerations in education. As the central participants in classroom interactions, students and teachers naturally have strong views about what it takes to manage learning and surrounding behaviours effectively. With this in mind and because we believe that ignoring the thinking of either of these stakeholders would be to the detriment of teaching and teacher education, we focused on hearing and understanding teachers’ voices about teaching, learning and classroom management. Our aim was to further clarify teachers’ perspectives on how educators create quality learning environments as well as gathering their views of various disciplinary interventions, their perceptions of challenging students and their sense of efficacy for classroom management in order to inform both policy and practice in teacher education. A survey was conducted with 50 secondary school teachers to capture their views on their classroom experiences. Follow up interviews with teachers identified by students as effective in their classroom management provided consistent reports that effective classroom managers build positive relationships with their students, manage their classrooms by establishing clear boundaries and high expectations, and engage students in their learning.

     

Before Student Teaching: How Undergraduate Students in Early Childhood Teacher Preparation Programs Describe Their Early Classroom-Based Experience

Classroom-based experiences, alternatively known as practica, are an integral component of undergraduate teacher preparation programs, which provide students essential opportunities to apply knowledge in practice. Though much is known about student teaching, much less is known about students’ earlier classroom-based experiences. This qualitative study explores how early childhood care and education students describe their early classroom-based experience. Thirty-four students enrolled in a teacher preparation program participated in interviews, submitted journals, and responded to survey questions about their early classroom-based experience. Results are presented in terms of how students talk about their experiences—belonging or not belonging in the classroom—and what students talk about when discussing their experiences, including communication, support, freedom, new learning, and “the children.” These themes are discussed in terms of students’ experiences in the classroom and implications for undergraduate teacher preparation in early childhood education.     

Developing effective teacher beliefs about learners: the role of sensitizing teachers to individual learning differences

Effective teacher beliefs about students are an integral part of effective teaching. Teachers with interventionist beliefs about students (‘I can intervene to help a learner with difficulties’) show more effective practice than teachers with pathognomonic beliefs (‘I blame the learner for his difficulties’). A professional development (PD) course sensitized teachers (N = 234) to individual learning differences (ILDs), using five learning/cognitive styles tools. Teachers’ responses to a pre‐/post‐test question concerning their beliefs about ‘weak students’ were analyzed and correlated with their ILD scores. Before the PD, teachers with strong ILD preferences matched to traditional learning contexts were significantly more ‘at risk’ (i.e., had fewer interventionist beliefs) than the other teachers; the former teachers were significantly overrepresented in the sample. After the PD, teachers’ interventionist beliefs significantly increased, regardless of their ILD preferences. Neither the length of the PD (28 hrs. vs. 56 hrs.) nor the amount of teaching experience affected the teachers’ interventionist beliefs about students. A mediated, constructivist and collaborative PD, which sensitizes teachers to individual learning differences, can increase effective teacher beliefs about students. We conclude that developing more effective teacher beliefs about learners should become a component of teacher professional development.     

Tracking changes in pre-service EFL teacher beliefs in Greece: A longitudinal study

This article reports on a longitudinal study that aims to investigate pre-service EFL teacher beliefs about learning and teaching in Greece. The study attempts to track possible changes in those beliefs during a 3-year teacher education program and explores the impact of teaching practice, in particular, on student teachers’ beliefs. The results indicate that while there is a gradual and sometimes significant development in student teachers’ beliefs during the program, student teachers’ engagement in the teaching practice seems to have a low impact on the development of their beliefs. Those findings are interpreted with reference to the structure and context of the specific teacher education program and can be useful for the design and development of EFL teacher education programs.     

Exploring university-based teacher educators’ teaching beliefs and practice: a Hong Kong study

This study explores two higher education-based language teacher educators’ teaching beliefs and how they implemented their beliefs in classroom practice. Drawing on data from in-depth interviews and classroom observation, the findings revealed the teacher educators’ multiple and complex beliefs, which were derived from their past experiences and continued to be shaped and transformed through their professional work. The study also shows that while the participants tried to act in accordance with their beliefs in their teaching of teachers, they encountered some contextual obstacles (e.g. the ‘publish-or-perish’ system) which resulted in the gap between their beliefs and practice. Through their continuous reflections and agentive work, the teacher educators tried to close the gap and facilitate their students’ learning to teach. This study concludes with some implications for current teacher education and higher education on how to promote language teacher educators’ cognitive learning and continuous development.