What's in a rating?

We examine the relationship between the formal ratings that principals give teachers and a variety of observable teacher characteristics, including proxies for productivity. Prior work has shown that principals can differentiate between more and less effective teachers, especially at the tails of the quality distribution, and that subjective evaluations of teachers are strongly correlated with subsequent student achievement. However, whereas prior work has relied on survey data, we consider formal ratings from a setting in which the stakes are reasonably high. We find that the ratings are correlated with an array of teacher qualities including experience for young teachers, education credentials, and teacher absenteeism. Our finding that principals reward qualities of teachers known to be related to student productivity provides reason to be optimistic about policies that would assign more weight to principal evaluations of teachers in career decisions and compensation.     

Everyone's a Criminal? Reflections on Critical Reading in the Primary Classroom

Calls for children to be taught to read critically become ever louder. This article asks what teaching for critical reading might look like in the primary school. It presents accounts of two group reading lessons from a Year 3 classroom. It examines the interactions that take place: the questioning of the teachers and the responses of the children. It suggests that where children are given the power to make meaning for themselves, they are more likely to learn to read critically than those who are not.     

Reflections on ELT in China

大多数第二语言教学或外语教学的理论均来自欧洲或是美国，这些理论对中国的外语教学产生了巨大的影响，有时甚至引导着中国的外语教学的发展，但是我们知道外语教学理论的形成都有自己特殊的历史和文化背景．中国的外语教学全盘的接受这些理论是不利于我国外语事业的发展的．本文在分析主要外语教学理论利弊的基础上，提出要发展符合中国特定条件的外语教学理论。     

What's in your bag?

Hello,pupils.Nice to see you again! What's in your bag?Can you tell me? Yes,I can.There is a pencil-box,a pen,a pencil,an eraser and a ruler.     

The end of methodology?Reflections on the notion of progress in TESOL

We might be forgiven for wondering from time to time whether it is possible to discover either the perfect language teaching method or, more modestly, a "best method for now". In this paper, I argae that the research style of our profession is not single solution oriented and that developments in methodol-     

What's in a name? The impact of reputation and rankings on the teaching income of English universities

This study examines the impact of universities’ reputation on teaching income and demonstrates how strongly reputation may affect the fees that they can charge. Higher Education is increasingly competitive and international, and institutions are preoccupied with national and international prestige. Research output is demonstrably central to reputation and, specifically, to global rankings, but less has been written about the benefits of high prestige for teaching income and the ability to charge high fees. This article uses English data to show the impact when fees are partially deregulated. Public universities with high rankings in global league tables and on domestic measures can command teaching income per student which is very much higher (in this case typically more than a third) than lower‐prestige institutions. This financial return to prestige further increases universities’ incentives to seek high positions in league tables and establish a reputational brand.     

No Pain No Gain? Reflections on Decolonisation and Higher Education in South Africa

Abstract

Calls for the decolonisation of higher education in South Africa have been punctuated by comments on black pain. This is not surprising if it is acknowledged that violence inordinately marks so much of South African life. What is rarely discussed though is the idea that pain has also come to be fetishised. Pain, for example, is valued as a pedagogical means. While invoking notions of the decolonisation of education that cohere with humanisation, the authors critically reflect on the ways in which pain remains a dehumanising feature of higher education in South Africa. In doing so, they hope to start a discussion around issues seldom addressed more than in deeply felt sentiments that are rarely clarified and defined in terms of their importance for the transformation and decolonisation of higher education.     

After conflict comes education? Reflections on the representations of emergencies in ‘Education in Emergencies’

Over the last decade, education has been advanced as a new and legitimate core of the humanitarian crisis response. ‘Education in Emergencies’ (EiE) developed into an institutionalised field of humanitarian practice, advocacy, and scholarly work. Identifying how emergency discourses have been critiqued to operate as ‘social imaginaries’, in this paper the ‘emergency imaginary’ as it develops in the particular discursive context of EiE is analysed. We scrutinise how emergencies are represented in this EiE-discourse by pointing to the socio-ideological and economic drivers of conflict, how the interconnections between education and these drivers are pictured, and the educational changes subsequently advocated for. We conclude that, while EiE has been called a ‘new field of academic and policy research’, the discourse might reiterate prevailing power relations, leading to an adverse portrayal of crisis-affected communities and a legitimation of a global status-quo.     

Zooming in on infinitesimal 1–.9.. in a post-triumvirate era

The view of infinity as a metaphor, a basic premise of modern cognitive theory of embodied knowledge, suggests in particular that there may be alternative ways in which one could formalize mathematical ideas about infinity. We discuss the key ideas about infinitesimals via a proceptual analysis of the meaning of the ellipsis “...” in the real formula \(\hbox{.999\ldots = 1}\). Infinitesimal-enriched number systems accommodate quantities in the half-open interval [0,1) whose extended decimal expansion starts with an unlimited number of repeated digits 9. Do such quantities pose a challenge to the unital evaluation of the symbol “.999...”? We present some non-standard thoughts on the ambiguity of the ellipsis in the context of the cognitive concept of generic limit of B. Cornu and D. Tall. We analyze the vigorous debates among mathematicians concerning the idea of infinitesimals.     

How do parents guide children towards ‘playing to learn’? Reflections on four studies in a special issue on self- and co-regulation in early childhood

Metacognition and Learning - This special issue on early self- and co-regulation addresses a topic that is founded on a rich mix of theoretical perspectives, including self-determination theory,...     

Some Reflections on Enhancing Students＇ Interest in College Mathematics

大学数学作为基础课程的教学状况,总体是好的,成绩也是显著的。但目前数学基础课程的教学的状况应该说也有很多不尽如人意的地方,鉴于此,从倡导启发式的教学方法、培养学生的学习兴趣、激发学生主动学习和鼓励教师用心灵去教学四个方面对如何提高学生学习大学数学的兴趣作出了一些思考。     

Graduates’ Reflections on an Online Doctorate in Educational Technology

In recent years online education doctorates have become more prevalent to accommodate the growing need for distance academic preparation. Due to the newness of these degree programs, there is a dearth of information in the literature on learner perspectives of effective online teaching and learning strategies. The authors of this paper are recent graduates of the online Doctor of Education program in Educational Technology at the University of Florida. They convey their own experiences using supporting research and the three components of the Community of Inquiry (CoI) model (Garrison, Anderson, & Archer, 2000)—social, cognitive, and teaching presence—to examine this online doctoral program. The insights in the paper are intended to promote dialogue on the student perspective and make recommendations to further the initiation and development of online education doctorates.