Using the Inverted Pyramid Heuristic in Counselor Education and Supervision

This article describes a method that was used as a supervision and teaching tool to assist student counselors in developing client conceptualization skills.     

Academic Supervision: seeking metaphors and models for quality

This paper explores the idea that conceptualizing academic supervision (at Honours or graduate level) as a fiduciary relationship can assist supervisors in enhancing student learning through quality decision‐making. In this paper I reflect on my conceptions of supervision in the light of the growing scholarship on supervision. My conceptions of academic supervision affect my practices as a supervisor. I use my conceptions and experiences of the supervision process to draw conclusions about the ‘best practice’ of supervision. These conclusions about best practice are partial in the sense that they are justified by past experiences, mine and those of others. More is needed to assist supervisors to deliver good quality supervision within a complex relationship where future issues are hard to predict. As a solicitor and legal academic I have been exposed to the ‘professional–client’ relationship and to the literature on metaphors and models for such a relationship. The literature on academic supervision suggested to me that the professional–client relationship and the supervision relationship were similarly perceived. Metaphor is used as a device to understand complexity and to provide a model for decision‐making that, it is argued, will facilitate quality learning outcomes within the supervision relationship. In the fiduciary metaphor the focus is on a relationship which is essentially an ethical one of promoting the welfare of the student. The effectiveness and continuance of the relationship depends on trust. Differentials in knowledge and power are respected but not exploited. Those with greater knowledge and power have correspondingly greater obligations. The language is that of mutual responsibilities and obligations rather than rights. This is contrasted with paternalism, a widespread metaphor within the professions generally, which disempowers and marginalizes.     

Signatures of quality teaching for Indigenous students

This paper presents findings from the validation of a survey instrument constructed in response to what Indigenous parents/carers and students believe constitutes culturally responsive pedagogies that positively influence Indigenous student learning. Characteristics of culturally responsive pedagogies established through interviews with Australian Indigenous parents, community members and students generated themes which were distilled into survey items by a team of Indigenous and other educators. The instrument was then put on trial with 141 teachers for statistical validation. Analyses employing the Rasch model confirmed that the instrument measured a unidimensional latent trait: culturally responsive pedagogy. Seven subscales, content validities of which were determined by a panel of experts, were also confirmed. Results highlighted differences between primary and secondary teachers’ self-reported practice, and important facets of teacher pedagogy in the two different school contexts emerged. Analyses of four of the subscales of the instrument—Indigenous cultural value, self‐regulation support, literacy teaching and explicitness—are presented in the context of current emphases on quality teaching and Indigenous student outcomes. The instrument can be used to measure teachers’ nuances in pedagogy, and the resulting teacher profiles can be used to assist teachers to focus on particular aspects of their pedagogy to meet the needs of their students.     

Assessing and Promoting Self‐Regulated Strategy Use

College counselors can assist students in enhancing their academic performance by assessing student self‐regulated strategies. Key aspects of self‐regulated strategy use (SRSU) are identified, and a semistructured interview to assess SRSU is presented. The rich data collected in the interview can assist the counselor in designing academic counseling interventions consistent with the needs and life situation of the individual student.     

Understanding how a case-based assessment instrument influences student teachers’ learning approaches

In order to stimulate student teachers to thoroughly comprehend the main variables influencing their work, teaching and assessment strategies in teacher education have changed significantly. One of the changes in the assessment of student teachers in teacher education programs is the use of case-based assessment instruments. Such instruments evaluate the extent to which student teachers are able to handle authentic problems. It is expected that implementing this mode of assessment will stimulate student teachers to adopt a deep approach to learning. In this study we examine student teachers’ learning approaches in the context of case-based assessment. Hereto, we investigated the direct effects of the student teachers’ general beliefs on the cognitive demands of assessment on their learning approaches. Also the student teachers’ perceptions of the cognitive demands of the case-based assessment instrument were considered as a mediating variable. The present study is conducted in the Netherlands, in the third year of a 4-year initial teacher training program for primary education. A case-based assessment instrument, called the OverAll Test, was implemented as the major determinate of the third-year final examination grade of the student teachers.     

Counseling Deaf College Students: The Case of Shea

This case study describes developmental and psychosocial challenges experienced by a Deaf college student. A counseling intervention that combines person‐centered and cognitive behavior approaches with psychoeducational strategies designed to educate the client about Deaf identity development and Deaf culture is presented.     

Reflection in teacher education: Towards definition and implementation

Reflection is claimed as a goal in many teacher preparation programs, but its definition and how it might be fostered in student teachers are problematic issues. In this article, a report is provided of a review of literature on reflection, in particular focusing on strategies which assist its development in preservice programs. Next there is outlined a research project where types of reflection have been defined and applied to an analysis of student writing. Finally, the authors propose a framework for types of reflection as a basis for further research development in teacher education.     

飞行基础英语学困生成因分析

飞行学生本科英语学习分为基础英语和专业英语两个阶段,而基础英语学困生问题一直是飞行院校英语教学面临的巨大挑战。为了切实提高飞行学生基础英语水平,帮助其顺利掌握飞行专业英语,满足民航业对飞行员语言能力的各种要求,该研究从飞行专业基础英语课一线教师角度出发,采用定性研究方法,通过课堂观察及课下一对一访谈,发现飞行基础英语学困生的根本成因在于学习动机、学习意志、学习策略、课堂体验和课下管理意识这五方面的缺失。     

A Review of the Empirical Basis for Counseling: Implications for Practice and Training

This article reviews the empirical literature in terms of three components of counseling including existing counselor and client factors, the counseling process, and the outcome of client change. The counseling process is based on the therapeutic relationship, general factors, and common techniques or interventions, as well as specific counseling approaches. The review supports the contention that there are common factors exhibited by skilled therapists that are empirically related to positive client change. Recommendations are made for the use of this information by counselor educators in training student counselors and designing training programs.     

Finding Time: Practical Time Management for Out-of-Classroom Educators

This study assesses the validity and reliability of the Learning Styles Preference Indicator (LSPI), an instrument developed by the author. The LSPI identifies students' preferences for analytical or global approaches to learning new and difficult material. This instrument is easy to administer, quick to score, and produces information that will help teachers understand the way their students process information. By using information from the LSPI, teachers can design more appropriate learning strategies for the benefit of each student. This article reports reliability and validity correlation scores for elementary through adult students.     

Further evidence supporting the validity of both a multidimensional profile and an overall evaluation of teaching effectiveness

The purpose of this research is to provide additional empirical evidence supporting the use of both a multidimensional profile and an overall evaluation of teaching effectiveness as valid indicators of student perceptions of effective classroom instruction. A factor analytic teaching evaluation instrument was used that also included open‐ended comments on four questions. Numerical scores from 208 classes were matched with the average valence of the open‐ended comments. It was found that the average valences were highly positively correlated with the numerical factor scores that make up the multidimensional profile of teaching effectiveness and with the second‐order factor that serves as an overall evaluation of teaching effectiveness. The implications of these results for the usefulness of student evaluations are discussed.     

Developing professionals: student experiences of a real-client project

This study investigated the learning potential of the student experience of working with real clients in a final-year undergraduate unit that aims to develop professional skills. Students, working in consultancy teams, developed communication strategies for a not-for-profit organisation. A teaching intervention was trialled late in semester to promote the sharing of client-interaction experiences amongst student teams. Student worksheets were analysed to explore student perceptions of the challenges of the client project and their responses to those challenges. The findings revealed that assumptions cannot be made about the value of real-client projects and suggest that such learning activities need to be carefully structured to make the links between academic learning and professional development explicit and beneficial.     

Probabilities and Predictions: Modeling the Development of Scientific Problem-Solving Skills

The IMMEX (Interactive Multi-Media Exercises) Web-based problem set platform enables the online delivery of complex, multimedia simulations, the rapid collection of student performance data, and has already been used in several genetic simulations. The next step is the use of these data to understand and improve student learning in a formative manner. This article describes the development of probabilistic models of undergraduate student problem solving in molecular genetics that detailed the spectrum of strategies students used when problem solving, and how the strategic approaches evolved with experience. The actions of 776 university sophomore biology majors from three molecular biology lecture courses were recorded and analyzed. Each of six simulations were first grouped by artificial neural network clustering to provide individual performance measures, and then sequences of these performances were probabilistically modeled by hidden Markov modeling to provide measures of progress. The models showed that students with different initial problem-solving abilities choose different strategies. Initial and final strategies varied across different sections of the same course and were not strongly correlated with other achievement measures. In contrast to previous studies, we observed no significant gender differences. We suggest that instructor interventions based on early student performances with these simulations may assist students to recognize effective and efficient problem-solving strategies and enhance learning.     

Improving course evaluations to improve instruction and complex learning in higher education

Recent research has touted the benefits of learner-centered instruction, problem-based learning, and a focus on complex learning. Instructors often struggle to put these goals into practice as well as to measure the effectiveness of these new teaching strategies in terms of mastery of course objectives. Enter the course evaluation, often a standardized tool that yields little practical information for an instructor, but is nonetheless utilized in making high-level career decisions, such as tenure and monetary awards to faculty. The present researchers have developed a new instrument to measure teaching and learning quality (TALQ). In the current study of 464 students in 12 courses, if students agreed that their instructors used First Principles of Instruction and also agreed that they experienced academic learning time (ALT), then students were about 5 times more likely to achieve high levels of mastery of course objectives and 26 times less likely to achieve low levels of mastery, according to independent instructor assessments. TALQ can measure improvements in use of First Principles in teaching and course design. The feedback from this instrument can assist teachers who wish to implement the recommendation made by Kuh et al. (2007) that universities and colleges should focus their assessment efforts on factors that influence student success.     

浅谈小学语文导学目标的设计与生成策略

小学语文“目标导学”实施的关键在于设计恰当的导学目标。导学目标设计的基本策略有：以语文课程标准为准绳、以教材文本为依据;以学生实际为基础;坚持全面与重点、人文性与工具性相结合;坚持联系现实生活;引领学生自主建构。同时,目标描述要明确、适切、可检测。     

Webworlds—Web-Based Modeling Environments for Learning Software Engineering

This article presents a survey of Web-based learning environments (“Webworlds”) such as diagramming tools and program animators that support the teaching of some standard topics in a software engineering course. In addition it proposes an approach to classification based on how the student explores or expresses the model represented in the software. It is suggested that such a classification, based on the student learning view, can assist in evaluating claims for enhanced learning effects. For each Webworld discussed, various attributes are analyzed to assist in its classification. Finally, some technical concerns and issues for further evaluation are raised.     

大学生成就行为的外部动力源因素分析

文章分析了大学生成就行为的外部动力源因素,这些因素分别是大学生的成就目标、学习任务难度、外部奖励及环境氛围等,它们对大学生的成就行为有着重大的影响。在此基础上本文还提出了相应的对策以激发大学生的成就行为,使之成为社会的有用之才,并为教育者的教育、教学和管理提供必要的帮助。