What does it mean to be an exemplary science teacher?

In order to provide a refreshing alternative to the majority of research reports, which malign science education and highlight its major problems and shortcomings, a series of case studies of exemplary practice was initiated to provide a focus on the successful and positive facets of schooling. The major data-collection approach was qualitative and involved 13 researchers in hundreds of hours of intensive classroom observation involving 20 exemplary teachers and a comparison group of nonexemplary teachers. A distinctive feature of the methodology was that the qualitative information was complemented by quantitative information obtained from the administration of questionnaires assessing student perceptions of classroom psychosocial environment. The major trends were that exemplary science teachers (1) used management strategies that facilitated sustained student engagement, (2) used strategies designed to increase student understanding of science, (3) utilized strategies that encouraged students to participate in learning activities, and (4) maintained a favorable classroom learning environment.     

教育目的,应从实然走向应然

教育目的是国家对培养什么样人才的总要求,具有很强的固定性,但实际上存在着“应然”和“实然”的教育目的的对立。在家庭教育、学校教育、社会教育中都不可避免地出现“实然”的教育目的,直接影响“应然”教育目的的实现,但教育目的从“实然”走向“应然”是必然的。     

The effect of trust on teacher empowerment: the mediation of teacher efficacy

This study explores the impact of teachers’ perception of trust in colleagues on their sense of empowerment in Mainland China, with a particular focus on the mediating role of teacher efficacy. The results of a survey of 1646 teachers indicate that although teachers scored positively on trust in colleagues, efficacy and empowerment, they had relatively lower scores on general teaching efficacy (GTE) and participation in decision-making. Trust in colleagues was a significant predictor of teacher empowerment. In addition, personal teaching efficacy had a significant mediation effect on the relationship between trust in colleagues and teacher empowerment, while GTE had not. These findings lead to some implications for understanding the nature of GTE and the relationship between trust and teacher empowerment.     

Pedagogical literacy: What it means and what it allows

In the context of literacy being understood as an evolving concept, this article argues that a particular form of literacy, pedagogical literacy, is an important cognitive tool for a developed conceptualisation of pedagogical content knowledge and that, by extension, being pedagogically literate is an integral feature of being a professional teacher. Pedagogical literacy is a reflexive concept in which reading and writing (through a knowledge-transforming model) about pedagogical content knowledge is the essential means through which the teacher's pedagogical reasoning develops.     

The elusiveness of pygmalion and differences in teacher-pupil contacts

Data are presented to show that teachers vary in the extent to which their views of pupils' attributes are related to their behaviour towards them. It is suggested that this variability might be a partial explanation of the inconsistency of teacher expectation effects. Implications of the study for teachers and for future research are discussed.

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Résumé Les indications suivantes sont présentées pour démontrer que les professeurs varient dans le degré d'influence que leur opinion des attributs des élèves exerce sur leur attitude envers ces derniers. Il est suggéré que cette variabilité pourrait être une explication de l'inconsistance des effects des espérances du professeur. On discute finalement la portée de l'étude sur les professeurs et les recherches futures.

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The authors record their gratitude to: the Social Science Research Council, who financed this research; J. E. Brophy, who gave helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper.     

甲型H1N1流感是什么？如何治疗？

它是发生在猪身上的一种常见呼吸道疾病,但这次爆发的似乎是在猪或人类身上以前从未见到过的一个亚型。以下是你或许要问的有关甲型H1N1流感的一些问题的解答。     

What is a successful English teacher like

With the global economy and trade developing in a high speed,English,widely used in our daily life,is becoming more and more popular and important all over the world.There is no exception in china,as an important foreign language,English has been a major subject in the school.     

The correlation between education and earnings: What does it signify?

This paper examines three alternative explanation of the basic finding that amounts of education and personal earnings are positively correlated in some 30 countries studied. Arbitrarily labelled (1) the “economic”, (2) the “sociological” and (3) the “psychological” explanation, (1) argues that better-educated people earn more because education imparts vocationally useful skills that are in scarce supply; (2) propounds that they do so either because length of schooling is itself correlated with social class origins or because education disseminates definite social values which are prized by the ruling elite of a society; (3) contends that education merely selects people in accordance with their native abilities and, obviously, abler people earn more than less able ones. The question is asked: Are these really conflicting explanations? It is concluded that a proper appreciation of the economic explanation in fact assimilates the other two. In a perfectly competitive labour market, earnings will necessarily reflect the relative scarcity of “vocationally useful skills”, and the vocational skills must include the possession of values and drives appropriate to an industrial environment. In the absence of competitive pressures, however, earnings may reflect purely conventional hiring practices. In the final analysis, therefore, the question posed by the paper highes on the strength of competitive forces in the labour markets. The question whether education contributes to economic growth turns out likewise to depend on the presence or absence of competitive labour markets. An analysis is made of the internal logic of the three explanations. Also examined is the small quantity of direct evidence available on the link between education and the productivity of workers. An attempt is made to view familiar questions from a new angle and to relate the education-causes-growth debate to contentious issues in the field of educational planning.     

Everything is illuminated: What big data can tell us about teacher commentary

What happens to writing instructors’ feedback when they use a common rubric and an online tool to respond to student papers in a first-year composition course at a large state university in the United States? To investigate this question, we analyze the 118,611 comments instructors made when responding to 17,433 student essays. Using concordance software to quantify teachers’ use of rubric terms, we found instructors were primarily concerned with global, substantive, higher-order concerns—such as responding to students’ rhetorical situations, use of reason, and organization—rather than lower-order concerns about grammar or formatting. Given past research has determined teachers overemphasize lower-order concerns such as grammar, mechanics, and punctuation (Connors and Lunsford, 1988, Lunsford and Lunsford, 2008, Moxley and Joseph, 1989, Moxley and Joseph, 1992, Schwartz, 1984, Sommers, 1982, Stern and Solomon, 2006), these results may suggest the possibility of a generational shift when it comes to response to student writing. Aggregating teacher commentary, student work, and peer review responses via digital tools and employing concordance software to identify big-data patterns illuminates a new assessment practice for Writing Program Administrators—the practice of Deep Assessment.     

What Islamic school teachers want: towards developing an Islamic teacher education programme

In the 70 year history of Islamic schools in North America, there is yet to be an accredited teacher education programme to train and professionally equip Islamic school teachers with an understanding of an Islamic pedagogy. Arguably, there has been an imbalance of energy placed on curriculum development projects over the considerations of teacher training. From my experience working as a teacher trainer/education consultant for Islamic schools for the past 10 years, it is evident that the underlying assumption for many school administrators is that a State/Ministry certified teacher who is Muslim will know how to teach ‘Islamically’. The aims of this paper are to first establish some semblance of what it means to teach Islamically or, more accurately, to teach through an Islamic pedagogy. From this framework, the crux of the paper is to present findings from a series of focus groups with Islamic school educators about their teacher training needs. The findings of this study establish the need for a formal teacher education programme in Islamic pedagogy within an established faculty of education. Such a programme would achieve three major ends in cultivating the stewardship of Islamic schools in North America: 1. Define and establish Islamic education as a valid and relevant pedagogical model that can contribute to the broader discourse of alternative, faith-based education;

2. Standardise the pedagogy and curriculum of Islamic schools based on the principles of education in Islam and to make both contextually relevant;

3. Contribute to raising the standards of Islamic schools through a teacher education programme at credible faculties of education where ongoing research and development will also be supported.