Preparing future teachers for diversity

This program for teacher education is built on the assumption that the effectiveness of public schooling will improve in relation to the diversity of ideas and experiences of teachers. The program speaks to the linkage between better teacher preparation, improved schooling for students of color, and the recruitment of teachers of color. The program has three main components: (1) early involvement in teacher education programs with ongoing internships in schools and the community; (2) active participation by arts and science faculty, including ethnic studies; and (3) seminars in the teacher education program which connect theory with practice.     

Block play: Building a foundation for literacy

The role of block play in the development of reading and writing is presented and discussed. A literacy-enriched block-play center is described, and accompanying tables identify books and additional literacy materials suggested for integration into a block-play area. Additionally, children's use of literacy props in a block-play area is presented through observations made in two preschool classrooms. Samples of children's writing produced during spontaneous block-play sessions are included to support examples given in the text.     

Building resilience in pre-service teachers

This article examines the role that professional experiences (practicum) can play in building resilience in pre-service teachers. In particular it focuses on a learning communities model of professional experience with its emphasis on relationships and its attention to the complex and dynamic interactions between individuals and their ‘student teaching’ contexts. This article draws on a number of studies including evaluations of two cohorts of graduate Bachelor of Education (primary) students and a self-study based on the work of two university academics. Jordan's [2006. Relational resilience in girls. In S. Goldstein, & R. Brooks, (Eds.), Handbook of resilience in children. New York: Springer] model of relational resilience – with its characteristics of mutuality, empowerment and the development of courage – is used as a conceptual framework for illuminating some of the emerging insights from our work with the Learning Communities model.     

A technology foundation course for women

The Technology Foundation Course for Women at Huddersfield Polytechnic is designed to help women compensate for their previous lack of experience in technology and to prepare them to enter diploma and degree courses in higher education. The course has several distinctive features in that it is for women only and is designed to meet the needs of mature students with family commitments. Students are allowed flexibility in their choice of subjects, enabling them to study mathematics, physics, computing or chemistry to approximately A‐level standard. Students from the first intake have evaluated the course positively and the majority are studying computing or engineering‐related subjects in higher education. The design of the course is discussed in the light of the requirements of women taking the course and the demand within industry and higher education for more qualified scientists and engineers.     

Mindfulness meditation for future early childhood teachers in Japan

To prevent future burnout and turnover among early childhood education students, mindfulness training may hold promise as a measure. A lab-based pilot and classroom-based feasibility study was designed to investigate an effective way to introduce mindfulness meditation. Results suggested that two types of audio-guided mindfulness meditation, a sitting meditation and a compassion meditation reduced stress level, and that the compassion meditation was perceived as more comfortable than the sitting meditation. As a tentative conclusion, the compassion meditation may be introduced first before the sitting meditation. Additional studies should examine the effects of longer-term meditation practice on teaching career development.     

The teachers college faces the future in the selection of teachers

This article examines the educational conditions and resources, institutional characteristics, and political factors that contribute to shaping states' educational accountability policies. The policies addressed are identification of underperforming schools, state takeover or reconstitution of failing schools, and state power to replace principals and teachers in underperforming schools. The article addresses accountability for schools and educators, rather than high-stakes tests for students, because of the emphases of the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). Based on correlations and cross-sectional, logistic regression, the most important predictors of states' accountability policies appear to be National Assessment of Educational Progress NAEP performance, state education agency staff resources, and Democratic party identification. However, the impact of Democratic party identification is reduced when the southern states are excluded. The article concludes with a discussion of directions for further quantitative and qualitative research, as well as predictions of how NCLB is likely to affect states' accountability policies.     

Building student-teacher relationships and improving behaviour-management for classroom teachers

Teachers can at times view behavioural intervention procedures as time-consuming. Thus, socially-valid classroom-based interventions are a critical component to behavioural success. This study examined the effects of traditional behavioural interventions with two kindergarten students presenting with challenging behaviours, including aggression, tantrums and noncompliance. Notably, it was found that traditional behavioural procedures were not sufficient to substantially reduce the behaviours alone. Therefore, a relationship-building component was added to target positive student-teacher relationships. Student outcomes resulted in a significant reduction in challenging behaviour as well as teacher-reported behaviours showing a reduction across all measured periods. Ongoing teacher consultation, increased student-teacher relationships (STRs) and use of effective classroom management strategies are necessary for effective models of behaviour support.     

Building a future without gender violence: rural teachers and youth in rural KwaZulu-Natal,South Africa,leading community dialogue

This article advances the idea that rural youth and teachers are the key in leading community dialogue towards addressing gender-based violence (GBV) in their community through their film making. The youth voices on the realities of GBV in their school and community, in rural KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, captured through the process of participatory video, are used to engage a group of their teachers in thinking about addressing GBV in the school and community. The teachers' engagement with the five participatory videos on GBV – through participatory analysis and participatory archiving – provided an opportunity to deepen their understanding of GBV by also interrogating their own stance and led them to direct the production of a composite video suitable for use in leading community dialogue on a future without violence.     

如何构建适合高等师范院校的多媒体网络教室

多媒体网络教室代表了现代教学手段的发展新方向.本文阐述高等师范院校构建多媒体网络教室的必要性,介绍多媒体网络教室的主要功能、类型和设备,以某所师专为例介绍如何构建一个合适的多媒体网络教室.     

Preparing preservice English teachers and school counselor interns for future collaboration

The authors believe that by working together, teachers and school counselors can better support students and more effectively work for their success. In this article, we present our efforts in creating a collaborative class for preservice English teachers and school counselor interns. While offering an overview of English teachers and school counselors in their daily interactions with adolescents, we focus on the university preparation of both groups, specifically the preparation at our university, a large research institution in the Midwestern United States. We provide a look at the collaborative class created for the preservice English teachers and school counselor interns, offering examples of their interaction and feedback from the students. Lastly, we close with a consideration of the meaning of such collaboration at the university level for both English teachers and school counselors.     

Undergraduate research experience for future science teachers: A first effort

Conclusion As a means of providing some insights into the research activity for future science teachers, the project was a qualified success. Throughout its inception and implementation there remained an uneasy compromise between conducting a piece of worthwhile research and providing the maximum possible range of experiences for the students undertaking the subject. The experience undoubtedly was valuable for the students, it provided them with insights which served as the bases for developing individual research proposals, for the evaluation of a curriculum change in a secondary school. In general, through, the scope of the project was too ambitious for the time that was available and this led to a feeling of frustration, if not in the students, certainly in the authors. The investigation itself suffered from obvious limitations which have been discussed above. However, the gains observed in favour of the class using SCIS materials are congruent with those identified by a four-year longitudinal study conducted by Renner et al. (1973) and suggest that a more rigorous investigation is warranted. It may be possible to engage our under-graduate students in a longitudinal study of the effectiveness of SCIS by involving different groups at different stages of the project. We believe that the first attempt has shown that it is a worthwhile component of pre-service teacher education.     

Mathematics professional development for elementary teachers: Building trust within a school-based mathematics education community

Despite increased attention in professional development to building communities of teachers, few studies have investigated the development of trust in these communities. This paper presents issues related to trust in a professional development project at an elementary school. The project aimed for school-based elementary teachers and university-based mathematics educators to work together to improve mathematics instruction at the school by developing a mathematics education community of learners, where learners were conceived of as both the teachers and the mathematics educators. This paper addresses the following question: What factors in the project supported the development of trust among mathematics educators and teachers as the community was formed? More specifically, the paper is about one aspect of trust, namely, building school-based elementary teachers’ trust in the university-based mathematics educators. We point to three factors that helped the development of trust and we use care theory to further understand and discuss these factors in the context of in-service teacher education initiatives.     

Inservice for elementary teachers in science education — Some directions for the future

Conclusion It has been demonstrated that a range of factors contribute to the low status attributed by teachers to science education in many elementary school settings. The solution to this crisis is being sought by several education systems in Australia and the effective inservice/professional development models adopted invariably consider teachers as interested adult learners as they partake in extended courses. Furthermore, the models include content on the ways children learn in science, and aid in the development of teaching activities and units appropriate to the curriculum under which the participants operate.     

Regarding art and regarding future teachers regarding art

The 2011 Forum on Patronage and Pluralism in the Primary Sector presented Ireland with an opportunity to rethink the issue of patronage in Irish primary schools, as well as to consider how ‘religious education’ might be approached in such schools in the future. This paper suggests that, for the first time since 1831, Ireland had an opportunity to provide ‘state schooling’ for all children, regardless of their religious beliefs or lack thereof. The paper proposes educating all children in the state in non-denominational secular settings, leaving faith formation to the private domain of parents and communities. Although the concept of ‘secularism’ has negative connotations for those who belong to a religious community, this paper suggests that it provides a framework for inclusive and egalitarian education, offering children and young people the opportunity to learn alongside their peers, irrespective of religious backgrounds.     

Science teachers and technology teachers developing electronics and electricity courses together

We analyse the effectiveness of our 'Get Electronics' project, where our aim was to support 60 science teachers and 60 technology teachers in their efforts to co-operate and arrange courses in basics of electricity and electronics. The research problems consider the importance of the study of the basics of electricity and electronics at the comprehensive school and how we succeeded in promoting elective courses in this field by producing new learning materials and by organizing in-service training. Our survey had an ex post facto design with a study group and a non-equivalent control group. The results showed that the study group teachers had been more active in developing and improving their teaching, they had organized more courses, and they had co-operated more actively than had teachers in the control group. We also analyse the features that made our project successful.