Instructional practices and self-regulated learning in Chinese language classes

This study investigated the relation between teachers’ instructional practices and students’ self-regulated learning (SRL) in Hong Kong Chinese language classes using quantitative and qualitative methods. Participants were 1121 Grade 10 students from six secondary schools in Hong Kong. A Chinese reading comprehension (RC) test was used to assess the students’ reading performance and a self-reported questionnaire measured their perception of reading instruction, strategy use and reading motivation. Classroom observations and in-depth interviews were conducted in one class at each school to explore what and how instructional practices supported or impeded SRL in real contexts. The findings of this study generally support the positive relation between SRL-based instruction and Chinese students’ SRL. Among the four instructional variables, instrumental support from teachers showed the strongest relation with students’ strategy use, motivation and RC. The degree of autonomy was low in Chinese language classes and was associated with students’ negative reading behaviours.     

Managing peer relations: A dimension of teacher self-efficacy that varies between elementary and middle school teachers and is associated with observed classroom quality

This study examined the nature of teachers' self-efficacy, differences between elementary and middle school teachers' self-efficacy and the implications for observed classroom quality. Teachers (N = 101; 61% female and 85% European American) completed a survey and 96 were observed teaching two different classes. The sample included 6th grade (n = 44) and 7th grade (n = 30) teachers from six middle schools and 5th grade teachers (n = 27) from twelve feeder elementary schools. Exploratory factor analysis indicated that teachers' self-efficacy for managing peer relations is a distinct dimension from teachers' self-efficacy for classroom management, instruction and student engagement. Teachers felt less efficacious about managing peer relations compared to classroom management and instruction. Further, middle school teachers reported lower self-efficacy for classroom management and managing peer relations compared to elementary school teachers. For elementary and middle school teachers, their self-efficacy for classroom management and for managing peer relations was associated with some aspects of observed classroom quality.     

Elementary students’ literacy opportunities in an age of accountability and standards: Implications for teacher educators

Adopting a place-based stance to better prepare teacher candidates for local schools, researchers investigated elementary students’ reading, writing, listening, and speaking opportunities. Observations included two literacy lessons of 14 preservice and inservice teachers and analysis identified instructional influences, including best practices (e.g., differentiated instruction), standards, and standardized assessments. Findings indicated students’ opportunities varied from little to no reading during literacy lessons to rich, authentic opportunities to read meaningful texts. Little writing was evident, only some lessons substantively supported state standards, and many speaking and listening opportunities occurred at the lowest levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy. Implications for teacher educators are discussed.     

小学高年级学生资料查阅能力培养策略探究

在小学语文阅读教学中,引导学生查阅与课文内容相关的资料可以丰富教材的课程资源,提高学生的阅读能力和识字量,培养学生主动学习、探究新知的好习惯。对于小学高年级学生来说,教师在培养他们的资料查阅能力时可以从三方面入手:一是课前为学生指明方向,由"扶"到"放";二是课中鼓励学生发散思维,彰显个性;三是课后要丰富形式,促进学生学习的融会贯通。同时,教师要努力培养学生质疑探究的能力,鼓励学生记忆感兴趣的内容;要拓宽学生处理信息的深度与广度,为学生搭建展示信息的平台。     

关于欠发达地区农村小学教师教学能力的调查

本调查以农村小学校长,各市、区和县小学教研室教师,农村小学教师及小学高年级学生为调查对象,就农村小学教师的教学能力进行调查。调查方式采用问卷、访谈、随机听课等方式,取得了第一手资料,并分析调查结果,结论是:农村小学教师教学能力有待于提高。     

小学课堂教学中的问题设计与呈现

小学课堂教学中,教师总会呈现一些问题,它们一般以提问、作业、质疑、讨论的形式出现在课堂教学活动中。课堂呈现的这些问题一般都是教师事先设计好了的,它的出现有助于学习者学习的成功。     

Classroom Behavior and Learning Environment Differences Between Resilient and Nonresilient..

In education, conceptual work on resilience has recently gained recognition as an important framework from which we can understand why some students become successful in school, whereas similar students from the same disadvantaged family backgrounds and neighborhoods have not been successful in school. The purpose of this study was to compare the classroom instruction and learning environment of resilient and nonresilient students in elementary schools consisting of predominantly minority students. The participants were 4th- and 5th-grade students and their teachers. Near the end of the school year, all the 4th- and 5th-grade students from 3 elementary schools located in a major metropolitan area in the south central region of the United States completed the My Class learning environment survey. Trained observers also systematically observed the resilient and nonresilient students identified by teachers during regular reading classes, language classes, or both. The results from this study indicate that resilient elementary school students perceive a more positive instructional learning environment and they are more satisfied with their reading and language arts classrooms than nonresilient students. In addition, nonresilient students indicated that they have more difficulty in their classwork than both average students and resilient students. The observational results revealed that resilient students spent significantly more time interacting with teachers for instructional purposes, whereas nonresilient students spent more time interacting with other students for social or personal purposes. Resilient students were also observed watching or listening significantly more often than nonresilient students, whereas nonresilient students were observed more often not attending to task. The percentage of time that resilient students were on task was much higher than that for nonresilient students.     

Learning to Learn From Benchmark Assessment Data: How Teachers Analyze Results

Although interim assessments are currently promoted as a mechanism for improving teaching and student learning, we know little about how teachers use this data to modify instruction. This article presents findings from a larger study on teachers’ use of interim assessment information in elementary mathematics. We address the following questions: (a) How do the Philadelphia teachers in our sample analyze benchmark assessment results, (b) how do they plan instruction based on these results, and (c) what are their reported instructional responses to such results? To answer these questions, we interviewed all 3rd- and 5th-grade teachers in five average- and above-average-performing elementary schools three times during the 2006–07 school year. We found that although the teachers in our study used interim assessment results to gain information about students’ learning in mathematics, teachers did not use interim assessments to make sense of students’ conceptual understanding. Furthermore, teachers’ tendency to interpret student errors as procedural missteps was paralleled by a trend toward procedural instructional responses.     

Comparing two teacher development programs for innovating reading comprehension instruction with regard to teachers’ experiences and student outcomes

This study compared a year-round intensive coaching of teachers (35 h) with a restricted in-service course (13 h), designed on the basis of research-based components of effective professional development of teachers. Both courses were developed to innovate reading comprehension instruction in elementary schools. Fourteen second- and 16 fifth-grade teachers participated. Results indicated that both conditions were equally effective in changing students’ reading comprehension, reading fluency, reading strategy use, and self-efficacy perceptions. Teachers’ experiences with the professional development course were also comparable in both conditions. A significant point of difference indicated; however, that teachers attending the restricted in-service course experienced more workload with regard to settling in the innovations.     

It’s time to learn: School institutions and returns to instruction time

This paper investigates whether the effects of a reform that substantially increased daily instruction time in Chilean primary schools vary depending on school institutions. Focusing on incumbent students and exploiting an IV strategy, we find that longer daily schedules increase reading scores at the end of fourth grade and that the benefits are greater for pupils who began primary education in no-fee charter schools rather than in public schools. We provide evidence that these two types of publicly subsidized establishments, which cater to similar students but differ in their degree of autonomy, expand the teaching input in different ways: in order to provide the additional instruction time, no-fee charter schools rely more on hiring new teachers and less on increasing teachers’ working hours than public schools do.     

小学语文群文阅读模式探究

在小学语文课堂教学中,教师要立足本学段学生的实际年龄,培养学生的阅读兴趣,使学生能够在自我阅读中感悟文本的思想内涵,再加上教师恰当的引导,使学生能够关注主题对自己成长的价值和意义。本文基于小学语文群文阅读教学经验,将利用多元的教学方法培养学生的阅读兴趣,以提升学生的语文阅读素养。     

A Critical Survey of 1000 Activities

Attitudes, beliefs, perceptions, and classroom practices of teachers in 24 urban and suburban elementary schools throughout the United States were assessed with teacher questionnaires and classroom observations during a single school year. Teachers in schools serving students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds put greater emphasis on teacher authority and control and less on student autonomy and constructivist approaches than teachers in other schools did. Teachers in schools serving students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds also were less trusting of students and more skeptical about their abilities. Teachers’ beliefs were generally consistent with their practices, even when school poverty level and students’ mean achievement levels were statistically controlled.     

再论大学英语读写课程教学模式的改革

大学英语听说课程的兴起使教育研究者们不再把读写课堂作为他们的关注焦点,然而读写能力却始终是掌握语言最基本的能力之一。读写课程枯燥、低效的根本原因在于教育者们固守成规,没有让学生成为课堂的主体,没有把语言应用作为学习的目的。改革读写课堂应该让课堂摆脱教材和教师的束缚和管控,让学生充分发挥自主学习的能力,同时进一步开发教师作为学习指导者和帮助者的作用,最终为英语语言的实际应用服务。     

The role of teacher trust in segregated elementary schools: a multilevel repeated measures examination

This study aims to investigate how teachers’ trust in their students relates to reading comprehension achievement in socially and ethnically segregated elementary schools in Flanders (Belgium) by taking into account class composition characteristics. It is examined how student variables, ethnic diversity and the proportion of non-native students in the class, and teachers’ trust in their students relate to reading comprehension achievement and learning growth. A 3-level multivariate repeated measures analysis was conducted. At 2 measurement occasions, reading tests and questionnaires were administered to a sample (n = 417) of 7- and 8-year-old students in 32 classes. Teachers’ trust in their students was found to be a key factor relating to learning growth in reading comprehension, and mediated the relationship between the level of ethnic diversity in the class and learning growth. Teachers with a higher level of trust in their students seem to foster more learning growth in reading comprehension.     

Dialogical argumentation in elementary science classrooms

To understand students’ argumentation abilities, there have been practices that focus on counting and analyzing argumentation schemes such as claim, evidence, warrant, backing, and rebuttal. This analytic approach does not address the dynamics of epistemic criteria of children’s reasoning and decision-making in dialogical situations. The common approach also does not address the practice of argumentation in lower elementary grades (K–3) because these children do not master the structure of argumentation and, therefore, are considered not ready for processing argumentative discourse. There is thus little research focusing on lower elementary school students’ argumentation in school science. This study, drawing on the societal-historical approach by L. S. Vygotsky, explored children’s argumentation as social relations by investigating the genesis of evidence-related practices (especially burden of proof) in second- and third-grade children. The findings show (a) students’ capacity for connecting claim and evidence/responding to the burden of proof and critical move varies and (b) that teachers play a significant role to emphasize the importance of evidence but experience difficulties removing children’s favored ideas during the turn taking of argumentative dialogue. The findings on the nature of dialogical reasoning and teacher’s role provide further insights about discussions on pedagogical approaches to children’s reasoning and argumentation.     

INFLUENCES ON TEACHERS’ JUDGMENT ACCURACY OF READING ABILITIES ON SECOND AND THIRD GRADE STUDENTS: A MULTILEVEL ANALYSIS

The present study aims at examining variables (at individual and class level) that influence the accuracy of teacher judgments of second and third graders’ reading abilities (decoding and reading comprehension). Data of 1,468 students and 86 teachers were collected. Due to the nested structure of the data, multilevel regression analyses were applied. Results revealed about 5% of the variance in judgment accuracy at class level. Generally, teachers judged reading comprehension abilities more accurately than decoding abilities. Low‐achieving students’ abilities, though, were judged less accurately. Accuracy in judging decoding was higher in small classes and in students with special educational needs. Accuracy in judging reading comprehension grew along the years (higher in Grade 3 and at the end of the academic year). Additionally, teachers judged second language learners' reading comprehension less accurately. The results are discussed in the light of implications for teacher training.     

Authority Structure,Classroom Openness and Student Outcomes

The effects of open education on student outcomes were investigated using classroom authority structure analysis. It was maintained that student outcomes are contingent on the congruence between formal and informal authority structure. The former is determined by the educational policy of the school, while the latter reflects pupils’ ratings of teacher readiness to share classroom decision making with them. A Student Decision Making Scale was devised to assess shared authority as perceived by students. Three open elementary schools with 274 students in 10 classes, and two comparable traditional schools with 224 students in nine classes were included in the present sample. Results indicated that more congruent authority structure was related to higher reading comprehension and vocabulary attainment, as well as to lower social desirability scores. This was true both when (a) shared authority was higher at the formal as well as the informal level (open schools with high shared authority in the classroom), and (b) shared authority was lower at the formal and the informal level (traditional schools with little authority shared in class).     

高中英语新课程改革背景下阅读教学策略探微

高中英语阅读在英语教学中起着重要的作用,是英语学习过程中极为重要的组成部分。在高中英语阅读教学中,教师存在对阅读教学理论研究不足、缺乏语篇分析意识、缺失背景知识的介绍、缺乏必要的阅读技巧指导的现状;学生存在阅读习惯不良、有效阅读量不够、阅读品质欠佳的现状。通过对图式理论、语篇分析理论和建构主义理论与英语阅读的相关性研究后认为：教师在阅读教学中应注重语篇模式教学,构建课文整体教学观;运用阅读策略指导学生提高分析问题、解决问题的能力;增加课外阅读量,增强语言的输入量,形成良好的英语语感,拓宽英语知识面和间接生活经验;借助于多媒体现代教育技术再现相关英语文化背景知识,丰富学生的内容图式,激发学生的阅读兴趣,增强其理解、分析、推理和鉴赏力,提高其综合语言运用能力。     

陕西地震灾区灾后中小学生学校满意度调查

本研究采用自编量表对陕西省地震灾区2450名学生被试学校满意度现状进行调查。结果显示：（1）灾区中小学生学校满意度处于中等以上水平;（2）性别、办学类型、学校所在地、住宿与否是影响学生学校满意度的重要因素;（3）与非地震灾区相比,地震灾区办学条件改善显著,但教师教学及学生管理工作仍需持续改进与提升。