Teachers’ learning in school-based development

Background and purpose: Many researchers agree that teachers’ learning processes are social and that teachers need to be brought together to learn from each other. Researchers have also stated that intellectual and pedagogical change requires professional development activities that take place over a period of time in school. The purpose of the study presented in the article was to develop knowledge about the teachers’ learning when taking part in a school-based development project. Main argument: The study shows that it takes some time before the teachers identify with the work in school-based development. Even though the national authorities decided what to focus on during the development work, the participating teachers felt that they had autonomy in the work. The study presented in the article shows that it is important for the teachers’ learning culture that they are listened to and taken into consideration and that the leaders have competence in leading school-based development to support the teachers’ learning. Sources of evidence and method: The article is based on a study connected with school-based development in three lower secondary schools. Qualitative interviews were used as the data-collection strategy to capture the teachers’ and school leaders’ experiences and reflections. Conclusion: The article presents new knowledge connected with teachers’ learning in school-based development. The study presented in the article shows that schools’ learning culture can make a difference for the teachers’ learning and their job satisfaction and wellbeing.     

Key experiences in student teachers’ development

This study focuses on the question of why student teachers stay in teaching even after a profound ‘practice shock,’ i.e., a shock that in itself seems to characterize the complex and emotionally challenging first year of student teaching. Using a line drawing technique, the study investigates student teachers’ views of their first year of teaching by examining how they picture their development, their key experiences during that development, and the ways in which they coped with these experiences. The results suggest that most student teachers perceive their own development not as a steadily ascending line as is often suggested by research on the development of teachers’ professional identity. Instead, we now surmise that most student teachers view their development as a path with highs and lows that include transformative moments or periods. This relates to the idea of transformative learning and to theories on identity development that suggest people need a crisis for identity development to occur. During such a crisis, we saw that student teachers explicitly reconsidered their connections to teaching and that this reconsideration led to a regained motivation for teaching. It appeared that supervisors or mentor teachers played a significant role in first‐year (student) teachers’ regaining motivation for teaching.     

A sustainable development OCR system in CADAL application

INTRODUCTION China-US Million Books Digital Library Project is a research and development project proposed by Chinese and American scientists, aiming at creating a universally free access digital library containing over one million scanned books, using optical character recognition (OCR) whenever possible to support full text searching (http://www.cadal.cn). It is one of the key projects of the Ministry of Education of China for the Tenth Five Year Plan, and called China-America D…     

Mentoring and teachers’ professional development in Albania

The role of teachers is becoming increasingly important in advancing student learning outcomes. This article discusses one area that is still in need of significant reform in Albania: the induction and mentoring of new teacher-candidates. Based on a mixed-method study involving 275 Albanian teachers and mentors, it provides insights into the benefits and challenges of current practices. The study identifies a number of key areas in need of improvement, including: the selection of mentors; professional training for mentors; communication among different stakeholders; and overall planning and coordination of mentoring services. These issues are discussed within a wider European policy context that situates mentoring as an important component of teachers’ ongoing professional development.     

Collaboration and self-regulation in teachers’ professional development

This paper describes a professional development model with promise for supporting meaningful shifts in practice. We begin by introducing the theoretical principles underlying our professional development model, with a focus on explicating the interface between collaborative inquiry in a learning community (Lave, 1991, In L.B. Resnick, J.M. Levine, S.D. Teasley (Eds.), Perspectives on Socially Shared Cognition, American Psychological Association, Washington, DC; Lave, & Wenger, 1991, Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge) and teachers’ self-regulated learning. Next, we report on successes and challenges within a 2-year collaborative research partnership. We recount how participating teachers reflected on practice, constructed conceptual knowledge about teaching, and made important instructional shifts. We also detail features of our model that teachers found most effective. We close by discussing our implications for theory and in-service professional development.     

What develops in children's development of altruism?

Abstract

Cognitive-developmental theorists have maintained that children's development of altruism does really mean a movement from centration to decentration. In this paper we make a different claim. Borrowing from the two micromodels Piaget used, in succession, to account for the child's transition from preoperational to operational throught (i.e., a cost-gain model guided by game theory, and an affirmation-negation model based on equilibration theory), we suggest that children's development of altruism represents a movement from centration or cost-perception to compensation or gain-construction. Ninety children from three age levels (30 5-year-olds, 30 7-year-olds, and 30 10-year-olds) were presented with four prosocial dilemmas appealing to sharing, donating, helping, and conforming. Children's cost-perception/gain-construction competence was first assessed and then related to their level of altruism in an opportunity-to-donate situation. Consistent with our cost-perception/gain-construction approach, children became more likely with age to think of prosocial acts in terms of gain than in terms of cost. Positive associations between gain-construction competence and observed altruism were also found. These results strengthen our Piagetian approach to children's development of altruism     

Teacher development in China： A study of pedagogical training in TCFL

This paper on pedagogical training of TCFL （Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language） programs is based on the author＇s five-week study in the summer of 2008 at six Chinese universities. Based on class observations, interviews of teachers and students, and documents provided by the six universities, the author has found that their curriculum for pedagogical training is insufficient; theory and practice are often disconnected due to insufficient hands-on experience; and the training for cross-cultural communication skills needs to be improved.     

Non-participation in guidance: An opportunity for development?

This article discusses how new opportunities for guidance can emerge from an analysis of the interplay between the participation (or lack of participation) of the individuals in career guidance, and the career guidance practitioner’s response. The article suggests critical psychology as a framework for career guidance research and presents the analytical categories of “participation” and “conduct of everyday life” as means to analyse the dialectical relationship between participant and structure, as well as individual and society. Finally, it is argued that flexible career practices that adapt to the needs of participants have the potential effect of greater social justice.     

Fathers’ roles in the process of talent development

In the process of children’s talent development, fathers have been largely ignored compared to mothers who are mostly identified as the initial and primary influence for their children. Though modern fathers are becoming more engaged in childrearing and interacting more with their children and changes in family systems lead to new challenges and demands for defining parental roles today, fathers are still predominately portrayed as the principal breadwinners of families. Literature including both empirical and anecdotal data has documented positive and promising outcomes of paternal involvement for children’s talent development though fathers’ roles are not always differentiated from mothers’ roles and little research studied fathers and gifted children, exclusively. This paper includes a comprehensive review of fathers’ contributions to children’s talent development and discussion about issues and suggestions for research involving fathers and talent development.     

Reexamining technology’s role in learner-centered professional development

The American Psychological Association’s Learner-Centered Principles provide empirically-based approaches to improving teaching and learning. However, in order to facilitate learner-centered, technology-rich instruction to K-12 students, teachers must be afforded opportunities to develop key understandings and skills, rarely evident in most professional development programs. In this paper, we synthesize empirically-based studies and recommendations for teacher learning and propose a learner-centered professional development (LCPD) framework to guide both professional development and empirical work on teacher learning. We describe LCPD components, discuss ways that technology can support LCPD, and highlight implications for research and practice.     

The school leader’s role in school-based development

ABSTRACT

Background: While the school leader’s role is undoubtedly instrumental in school effectiveness, the specific influence of formal leadership on pupil learning is indirect and can be difficult to determine. Research findings suggest that school leaders can influence school organisation and pupil learning by acting catalytically, thus unlocking their schools’ existing potential. In school-based development, school leaders and their staff undergo a workplace development process, using school resources to contribute to it.

Purpose: This article explores the concept of leadership in school-based development, focusing on leading teacher learning processes in relation to pupil learning. The research problem is formulated in the following question: How is the school leader’s role enacted and experienced when enhancing teachers’ learning in school-based development? The intent of the study was to further the understanding of leadership in school-based development.

Sources of information and method: A qualitative interview study was conducted with teachers and leaders from three lower secondary schools, roughly 2 years after the schools participated in a formal school-based development project which was initiated by the Norwegian education authority. To present the findings based on the collected data, narrative texts were constructed.

Findings: The findings draw attention to the importance of leaders’ participation in the teacher learning processes of school-based development. The study highlights the importance of leaders building trust in their schools: development processes must be collegium-rooted with common goals for the whole school. The interplay of culture, structure and content is found to be necessary for successful school-based development. Furthermore, school leaders need to balance internal and external accountability, moving school practices towards local goals, which are constructed within national overall aims.

Conclusions: The study suggests that leaders require an overview of developmental processes to manage to support and progress development; leadership needs to be distributed. Further research on leaders’ learning in relation to school-based development can generate knowledge that serves as a thinking tool, thereby informing leaders’ actions in support of school-based development.     

Supporting students’ literacy development in the secondary school

Abstract

This paper highlights the importance of teaching all students in inclusive settings multiple literacies through their subject disciplines in the secondary school. After briefly discussing the responsibilities of the major stakeholders in the literacy process, the author provides examples of how strategies can be used to improve students’ literacy skills in the different subject disciplines.     

A school‐based project in five kindergartens: the case of teacher development and school development

Kindergarten teachers in Hong Kong are blamed for not putting child‐initiated learning theory into practice. Their competence is challenged. An earlier study (Li, 2003 Li, YL. (2003). Roadblocks to educational reform: investigating knowledge and practice of Hong Kong kindergarten teachers. International Journal of Educational Reform, 12(3): 217–229.  [Google Scholar]) suggested that the professional development of kindergarten teachers was limited by their inability to extend thinking beyond their own personal concerns so that the needs of the children were not the major determinant of their classroom practice. It was argued that to confront and modify the teachers' personal beliefs the presence of models, action research and joint collaborative activity were the keys. This report was a follow‐up study of a school‐based project, providing opportunities for teachers to engage in collaborative investigation of school curriculum and of pedagogical innovations. In this study, the practice and belief of a group of around 60 teachers were tracked during their participation in the project and the merits of peer coaching, mentoring and collaborative teamwork were examined. Classroom observations and semi‐structured interviews (40–60 minutes) were adopted as the main research procedure. Teaching records, videoed teaching episodes and feedback on project workshops were sources of data collected for triangulation. The findings of the study suggest that collegiality holds some promise for change in teachers' practice, though questions concerning the constancy of change are of concern.     

Engineering education in Bangladesh – an indicator of economic development

Developing nations including Bangladesh are significantly lagging behind the millennium development target due to the lack of science, technology and engineering education. Bangladesh as a least developing country has only 44 engineers per million people. Its technological education and gross domestic product growth are not collinear. Although limited progress was made in humanities, basic sciences, agriculture and medical sciences, a vast gap is left in technical and engineering education. This paper describes the present condition of engineering education in the country and explores ways to improve engineering education in order to meet the national as well as global skills demand.     

Teachers’ learning in a research and development work project

This article focuses on teachers’ learning in a research and development (R&D) work project. The teachers are working in a lower secondary school, and the cooperation between them and the researcher lasted for two years. The aim of this article is to show what teachers can learn and how they can learn during such a project. In the qualitative study conducted within this R&D project, observations, reflection dialogues and log‐book entries were key data collection strategies. This material shows that teachers want to reflect together to learn, but both the form and content of these collective reflections have a major impact on their learning. Before the teachers are ready to challenge each other, they have to have confidence in each other. Once they have this confidence, the form of the reflection dialogues can change. During the R&D work the teachers learn how reflections become part of the planning process for their next teaching sessions, and after a while theories become a tool that can help them with their reflections.     

Goodbye conflict, hello development? Curriculum reform in Timor-Leste

Motivations to reform curriculum in post-conflict, or post-colonial states are often driven by the need to (re) construct a cohesive and publicly legitimated national identity that is starkly different to that which existed prior. This paper explores the context behind such action in the Timor-Leste (East Timor) and some challenges which policy makers and citizens have wrestled with in developing and implementing the country's first post-independence primary curriculum. The author argues that specific aspects of this new curriculum have effectively alienated and/or divided large segments of its population, despite a desire for the reforms to result in a more inclusive, democratic and distinctly “Timorese” educational system. The assertion is that the desire to institute change rapidly after independence has in fact hampered the ability of the reforms to constructively serve the political and social project of nation building. The paper cautions that education's role in promoting human development, and reducing the triggers of conflict in this country hang in the balance as long as this new curriculum fails to deliver on its aspirations.