Exploring the challenge of developing student teacher data literacy

Abstract

A number of trends are converging to drive the need for more informed teacher data use. These include advocacy for formative assessment and the need for teachers to account for student learning. In this context, assessment literacy and data literacy have emerged as a focus in research and professional development. Problematically, research signals that developing assessment/data literacy is challenging with evidence that teachers may not have mastered relevant aspects of mathematics and statistics. This paper reports lecturer, student teacher and school leader views of the role and requirements of data literacy using data from a larger study into how to foster student teacher mathematical thinking for the breadth of teacher professional work. Data were generated via interviews, surveys and document analysis. Findings suggest a concern and opportunity to develop assessment/data literacy as this calls on mathematical and statistical understanding.     

Achievement and engagement: How student characteristics influence teacher judgments

Teachers' judgments of student characteristics are affected not only by the characteristic in question, but also by other factors. This article presents three studies examining whether students' achievement influences teachers' judgments of their engagement (as a proxy for motivation) and vice versa. First, a field study was conducted with N = 52 teachers and N = 1135 students. Structural equation modeling revealed an effect of student achievement on teacher judgments of student engagement and an effect of student engagement on teacher judgments of student achievement—above and beyond the association of each student characteristic with teacher judgments of that characteristic. These results were then replicated in two experimental studies involving a computer simulation of an instructional situation, the Simulated Classroom, with N = 40 and N = 181 teacher candidates, respectively. The psychological determinants of the effects observed are discussed, as are their practical implications.     

Race and performance of student as determinants of teacher nonverbal behavior

This study tested the hypotheses that the nonverbal behavior of teachers is affected by the race and performance of their students. Fifty-six white college-age subjects, acting as teachers, were led to praise successful or unsuccessful students. The students were either white or black. Stimulus teachers' nonverbal behavior was recorded, and silent samples of their behavior were shown to naive judges who rated how pleased they appeared to be with their student. Results showed that stimulus teachers were more pleased with successful than unsuccessful students, and more pleased with white than black students.     

Effects of the learning cycle upon student and classroom teacher performance

A great deal of research has been done regarding science in-service education and the conclusion can be drawn that positive results were generally achieved in workshop-participant attitude and implementation of instructional approaches into the classroom. One of the most important effects of an in-service workshop is upon the students of the teachers participating in an in-service program, but rarely, if ever, is this parameter assessed in the in-service evaluation design. This study investigated the relationships among (1) teacher's attitudes and implementation of in-service workshop developed science materials (learning cycles) and (2) elementary school student's conservation reasoning and language used to describe properties of objects. Data were gathered from over 100 students from grades K-5 and 16 teachers who had participated in an in-service program. A representative comparison group of students and teachers was selected which generally matched the teachers participating in the in-service workshop except for one variable–-the comparison group taught science traditionally, that is, by exposition. Data from the research indicated that the teachers involved in the science in-service workshop implemented the workshop-developed learning cycles into their science classes. Significantly greater gains in conservation reasoning and language usage occurred with the students of the teachers participating in the science in-service workshop as compared to students in the exposition classrooms.     

How student teaching in an urban setting affects teacher candidates' career motivations

This is a qualitative study to determine changes in the motivation of senior student teachers to teach (at the elementary, early childhood, and secondary levels) in an urban setting during the student teaching internship in an urban public school. Emerging themes include roles of classroom teachers, discouragement from tenured teachers, school bureaucracy, views of students, relationships with cooperating teachers, candidates' views about subject matter, and their views about themselves. The findings indicate that motivation to teach changed during student teaching. This cohorts' experiences strengthened their confidence and commitment to teach in culturally diverse urban public schools rather than discouraging them. This research supports a contextual approach to understanding motivation and challenges educators to reflect on several issues of preservice training as well as collaboration with teacher practitioners. With a knowledge of what attracts teachers to the occupation and an understanding of how that attraction is influenced by field experiences in urban schools, programs which prepare teachers may be better able to educate teachers who want to teach in urban schools and can perform successfully in that setting.     

College students' ratings of student effort,student ability and teacher input as correlates of student performance on multiple-choice exams

In the class session following feedback regarding their scores on multiple-choice exams, undergraduate students in a large human development course rated the strength of possible contributors to their exam performance. Students rated items related to their personal effort in preparing for the exam (identified as student effort in the paper), their ability to perform well on the exams (identified as student ability), and teacher input that might have affected their exam performance. Students rated most student effort items higher than teacher input and student ability items. Notwithstanding, across all exams, ratings of student ability and teacher input correlated more strongly with exam performance than did student effort ratings. High and low performers on the exams differed significantly on ratings of student ability and teacher input, but were more similar on ratings of student effort.     

How critical thinking,multicultural education and teacher qualification affect anti-immigrant attitudes

Previous studies identify a relationship between education and anti-immigrant attitudes. There is, however, uncertainty regarding the underlying explanations linking education to attitudes. In this article, we examine whether a relationship exists between exposure to teaching about critical thinking as well as multiculturalism (measured as religions/cultures as well as xenophobia/racism), and anti-immigrant attitudes among adolescents. In addition, we examine whether teacher qualification matters for attitudes. The analysis is based on survey data collected from high school students in Sweden. The results show an association between exposure to teaching about critical thinking as well as multiculturalism (both indicators) and anti-immigrant attitudes among students, i.e. higher exposure is related to lower levels of anti-immigrant attitudes. However, we find that teaching about xenophobia/ racism affects attitudes, but not when simultaneously controlling for teaching about critical thinking and religions/cultures. In terms of teacher qualification, we find that students in schools with a high proportion of certified teachers tend to have lower levels of anti-immigrant attitudes.     

如何提升教师在学生管理工作中的作用

学生管理工作一直都是学生思想稳定、良好学风的形成,乃至院校发展不可缺少的重要方面,在当前学生能够通过网络接触到各种各样的信息以及高职院校的学生自觉性相对较差的现实前提下,学生管理工作的作用日显突出。本文主要探讨如何改变学生管理等于辅导员工作的模式,激发教师参与学生管理工作,探索其有效的参与方式,提升教师在学生管理工作中的作用。     

Developing different forms of student feedback to promote teacher reflection: A 10-year collaboration

This paper describes a 10-year collaboration between a teacher educator and a high-school science teacher as they investigated different ways to gather student feedback to enhance teacher reflection. Four different procedures were developed during this time: (i) interviews by a teacher educator with students; (ii) learning logs written by students; (iii) observation schedules completed by students; and (iv) a survey completed by students and teachers. Of the four procedures, the most meaningful for teacher reflection was the student interviews because they were the most personal. However, other procedures for gathering student feedback may be more useful to initiate teacher reflection because they are less confronting.     

Investigating the use of student perception data for teacher reflection and classroom improvement

This article reports a study involving: (1) developing and validating a learning environment instrument, (2) investigating whether reflection on feedback generated using the instrument led to improvements in the learning environment and (3) examining how teachers used the feedback. For the new learning environment instrument, validity was supported for a sample of 10,345 secondary students over 3 years (2,042 students in 2008, 4,467 in 2009 and 3,836 in 2010). To investigate whether reflection on feedback from this instrument led to improvements in the learning environment, multivariate analysis of variance and effect sizes were used to examine pre–post differences. Statistically significant improvements in students’ views of the learning environment were found for 8 of the 11 scales. Finally, we examined how teachers used the student feedback. Of the 459 teachers, 45 focus teachers used the feedback as part of a formal action research approach involving entries in reflective journals, written reports, discussions and participation at a forum. These data were analysed to provide an overview of the ways in which the information was used, and to provide a more detailed account of the journey of one of the teachers.     

The effect of teacher vagueness terms on student performance in high school biology

High school biology students (n = 48) were each randomly assigned to one of four groups defined by possible combinations of two teacher vagueness conditions (high vagueness versus low vagueness) and two post-lesson conditions (test, then lesson evaluation versus lesson evaluation, then test). Each group was presented a lesson over the vascular system of angiosperms. After the lesson, each group was tested on comprehension of the material and each group completed a lesson evaluation. Teacher vagueness terms significantly affected student achievement and student perception of lesson effectiveness. These findings are discussed in relation to previous research on teaching clearly.     

How student characteristics affect girls' and boys' verbal engagement in physics instruction

This study investigated how student characteristics predict the nature of girls' and boys' verbal interactions with their teachers in physics classes. The sample included (N = 1378) students from 81 randomly selected high-school physics classrooms in Germany and the German-speaking part of Switzerland. At the beginning of the school year, the following student characteristics were assessed: cognitive abilities, pre-knowledge, self-concept, and interest. Each student was classified as having one of five profiles previously identified by Seidel (2006). Classroom instruction was videotaped four months after student characteristics were assessed. The videotaped classroom interactions were coded and analyzed with respect to the students' profiles. Multilevel analysis indicated the highest amount of verbal engagement for girls and boys with high-level cognitive and motivational-affective characteristics. There are significant interactions between student profile and gender for girls with high-level characteristics. We argue that the interaction between gender and other characteristics is a valuable predictor of verbal engagement in physics instruction.