Working with teachers to promote children’s participation through pupil‐led research

Enabling children and young people to act as researchers is increasingly viewed as useful in supporting their increased “participation” within settings where they live, work or receive services. This paper reports upon a project conducted by two educational psychologists (EPs) with two primary school class groups, in which the children and their teachers were provided with direct teaching and guidance to develop and undertake their own school‐based research projects. The work of each class group produced significant developments of educational provision across the whole school, showing that the EPs’ work had directly enabled the children to “make a positive contribution”. In addition, teachers and psychologists observed several social, cognitive and personal benefits to the children brought about by their engagement in the processes of questioning, data gathering, analysis, knowledge generation, and dissemination. The authors emphasise the potentially valuable contribution of EPs in promoting children and young people’s understanding and application of research skills, and in working directly alongside teachers within the classroom. Furthermore, the project represents a successful example of EPs and teachers engaging in joint direct work with children.     

Connecting science to everyday experiences in preschool settings

In this paper I discuss the challenges of teaching science concepts and discourse in preschool in light of the study conducted by Kristina Andersson and Annica Gullberg. I then suggest a complementary approach to teaching science at this level from the perspective of social construction of knowledge based on Vygotsky’s theory (1934/1987). In addition, I highlight the importance of the relational aspect of knowing using feminist standpoint theory (Harding 2004). I also draw from feminist research on preservice elementary teachers’ learning of science to further underscore the connection between learning content and everyday experiences. Combining these research strands I propose that science needs to be grounded in everyday experiences. In this regard, the idea is similar to the choices made by the teachers in the study conducted by Andersson and Gullberg but I also suggest that the everyday experiences chosen for teaching purposes be framed appropriately. In and of itself, the complexity of everyday experiences can be impediment for learning as these researchers have demonstrated. Such complexities point to the need for framing of everyday experiences (Goffman 1974) so that children can do science and construct meaning from their actions. In the conclusion of my discussion of science and its discourse in preschool settings, I provide examples of everyday experiences and their framings that have the potential for engaging children and their teachers in science.     

幼儿教师课堂教学奖励活动的个案研究

文章对山西省某机关幼儿园大班教师的课堂教学奖励活动进行个案研究,试图在自然的课堂情境中观察与倾听教师和幼儿的言行,通过了解其课堂教学奖励活动的现状,找到存在的问题,并提出教师应注意控制奖励对象的均衡化、教师应提高关于＂奖励活动＂的理论水平以及注重课堂奖励的人性化和艺术化的建议,旨在唤起包括调查对象及其所在的幼儿园在内的更多学前教育工作者去思索课堂教学过程中的奖励活动。     

The ontology of science teaching in the neoliberal era

Because of ever stricter standards of accountability, science teachers are under an increasing and unrelenting pressure to demonstrate the effects of their teaching on student learning. Econometric perspectives of teacher quality have become normative in assessment of teachers’ work for accountability purposes. These perspectives seek to normalize some key ontological assumptions about teachers and teaching, and thus play an important role in shaping our understanding of the work science teachers do as teachers in their classrooms. In this conceptual paper I examine the ontology of science teaching as embedded in econometric perspectives of teacher quality. Based on Foucault’s articulation of neoliberalism as a discourse of governmentality in his ‘The Birth of Biopolitics’ lectures, I suggest that this ontology corresponds well with the strong and substantivist ontology of work under neoliberalism, and thus could potentially be seen as reflection of the influence of neoliberal ideas in education. Implications of the mainstreaming of an ontology of teaching that is compatible with neoliberalism can be seen in increasing marketization of teaching, ‘teaching evangelism’, and impoverished notions of learning and teaching. A shift of focus from teacher quality to quality of teaching and building conceptual models of teaching based on relational ontologies deserve to be explored as important steps in preserving critical and socially just conceptions of science teaching in neoliberal times.     

Face‐to‐face with children

This paper investigates the motivational power of children to change teachers' beliefs about teaching. Weekly and summary reflections written by 18 preservice teachers served as data sources. Preservice teachers were learning from the children what they expect their teachers to know, to do, and to be, and in consequence of the face‐to‐face encounters with children, teachers were likely to establish and change their beliefs about children and how to teach. Teacher educators may encourage this learning by asking preservice teachers, during and after their work in classrooms, to respond to the questions: ‘As I related to the children, what did they require from me?’, and ‘How did I respond to these demands?’. The work of Emmanuel Levinas on the relationship in the face‐to‐face encounter between people provided an interpretive framework for evaluating responses to these questions.     

Conversational Pedagogy: Exploring Interactions Between a Teaching Artist and Young Learners During Visual Arts Experiences

In many early childhood classrooms, visual arts experiences occur around a communal arts table. A shared workspace allows for spontaneous conversation and exploration of the art-making process of peers and teachers. In this setting, conversation can play an important role in visual arts experiences as children explore new media, skills, and ideas. The investigation of informal conversations during visual arts experiences will serve to improve understandings of the cognitive, imaginative, social, and affective components of young children’s creative endeavors. In particular, the exploration of conversational discourse contributes to understandings of conversation as an integral component of pedagogy in early childhood arts. As an exploration of the nature of conversation as pedagogy in early arts experiences, I present a ‘telling case’ (Mitchell 1984) featuring the collaborative work between a teaching artist and two young students as they explore and create together. The findings from this research have important implications for early childhood and art education teacher educators striving to develop supportive educational practices that will assist early childhood teachers in promoting supportive visual arts practices.     

师幼比与外部中介对幼儿教师教学反思的影响研究

本研究以8名幼儿园教师为研究对象,采用观察法和访谈法,探讨了不同师幼比和有无外部中介这两个外部因素对教师教学反思行为的影响。研究表明:(1)不同师幼比对教师关于幼儿学习情况的反思有显著影响:随着师幼比从低到高的变化,教师自发反思的重点从关注教学目标是否实现转向对幼儿学习情况的关注,对个体幼儿的学习情况的关注程度逐渐提高,表明提高师幼比有助于教师因人施教;(2)有无外部中介对于教师教学反思的影响存在明显差异,表明外部支持与合作有助于改善教师的教学反思。     

积极探索《学前教育学》课程的教学新思路

《学前教育学》是高专学前教育专业的专业核心课,在教授此课程时,要树立正确的教育观,使未来的幼儿教师在今后的工作中,用正确的教育观,教会幼儿从做中学,帮助幼儿开展自我建构性学习,促进幼儿成为全面和谐发展的人。在该课程教学时,要根据学生特点,在教学过程中,通过理论联系实际,在教学思路上进行积极的探索与实践。     

Critically Teaching Criticality?: Modeling Social and Pedagogical Inquiry with Literary Texts

Within US teacher preparation programs, critical pedagogy and a desire for social change can lead teacher educators to prioritize transformation of prospective teachers’ beliefs through self-reflection. In pursuit of effective critical pedagogies, teacher educators also need to examine their own practices and beliefs. This self-study, a manifestation of teaching as inquiry, reframes evaluations of teaching away from what students do toward what teachers do. Here I undertake a reflexive examination of my own recursive practice as a teacher educator in children’s literature. Drawing upon a complex notion of teaching and learning, I argue that student learning outcomes are unpredictable, and as a result, successful teacher education should model self-inquiry as a vital part of teaching. Findings show that teaching choices (and omissions) in response to students’ responses led to unintended outcomes that undermined my motivations. I conclude that teacher educators’ self-inquiry and reflection in broader social contexts offers access to critical ways of thinking that underlie their work toward developing similar capacities among their prospective teacher students.     

通过分组活动促进交互

在语言学习过程中,儿童喜欢游戏和有趣的课堂活动。因而,教师的主要工作就是如何使课堂更加有趣。本文介绍了几种常用的分组课堂活动。分组活动是课堂成功的有效方法。通过分组活动,课堂的交互就能真正地得到实行。     

Cultural Relay in Early Childhood Education: Methods of Teaching School Behavior to Low-Income Children

There is a distinct class difference in the way that children are taught school behavior. Teachers in affluent schools use more implicit teaching techniques while teachers of low-income children are more explicit in their teaching of behavior. This stems largely from the alignment of the home culture of middle class children to school behavior and the difference between the home culture of low-income children to school codes. However, middle class children learn behavior at home implicitly. This study examines the possibility of low-income children learning school behavior implicitly while at school. The researcher observed two Chicago Head Start centers??one using implicit instruction and one teaching behavior explicitly??over a period of 5?months. Observational data showed that the children that learned school behavior through implicit teaching techniques better internalized school behavior and, by extension, middle class codes.     

Developing Functional Language with Young Children from English‐speaking and Punjabi‐speaking Home Backgrounds: incidental teaching and contingent access to materials

Summary Two nursery class teachers were introduced to, and instructed in the use of, ‘Incidental Teaching’ (I.T.) procedures designed to facilitate child initiated language interactions in the natural classroom environment. Both nursery classes included a large proportion of children from Punjabi‐speaking homes. Throughout the study teacher‐child language interactions were sampled using a radio microphone linked to a tape recorder. For each sample all child initiations addressed to the teacher were transcribed together with all teachers’ responses to child initiations. A multiple baseline design across teachers/classes was employed to evaluate the effects of I.T. procedures and an amended strategy.

After the initial training session, both teachers’ use of I.T. procedures increased markedly and in both classes children initiated more frequently. The total number of words spoken to the teacher, and the average number of words spoken per child, increased in both groups. During a second intervention phase (the amended strategy), when the teachers arranged the environment so that children were required to request access to certain materials, both the number of child initiations and the teachers’ use of I.T. procedures continued to rise in both classes. In school A both the total number of words spoken, and the average number of words used per child, continued to rise, whilst in school B the total number of words spoken and the average number of words used per child fell, as more children with restricted language became involved in language interactions.     

Adapting Reform Ideas in Different Mathematics Classrooms: Beliefs Beyond Mathematics

The goals of this study are to understandelementary school teachers' beliefs andpractices and to unveil factors that influencethe way teachers adapt mathematics reformrhetoric when trying to adopt it. In theresearch, I searched for beliefs beyondmathematics that influence teachers' decisionsand choices for teaching mathematics. Workingwith children from different socioeconomicbackgrounds, teachers interpret reform indifferent ways. Based on their concept of students' needs, teachers select which partsof the reform documents are appropriate fortheir students. While children from uppersocioeconomic backgrounds experience problemsolving, those from lower socioeconomicbackgrounds undergo rote learning. Because notall children have the opportunity to learn thesame quality mathematics, the emerging concernof this study is the issue of equity inmathematics teaching.     

Using the Nuthall lens on learning to sharpen perceptions of teacher education practice

In this article I consider what teacher educators might learn about our own teaching practice from Nuthall's work on learning in elementary school classrooms. Using key ideas from Nuthall's theory of student learning applied to data from two prior studies of my own teacher education practice, I illustrate how his work might provide a productive way for teacher educators to analyze and critique the tasks they use to promote the learning of prospective teachers.     

School counseling in Israel. Issues and developments

This study investigated how Israeli teacher-counselors view their actual performance and what it is that teacher-counselors themselves feel should be their ideal roles. Counseling services were introduced into the educational system in Israel in 1960. Due to the fact that there was an urgent need to help students in their vocational plans and with their learning difficulties (Klingman and Ajzen, 1978), supervisors in The Ministry of Education suggested that teachers who have at least three years of teaching experience start a two year in-service training program in order to prepare them as specialists in helping pupils in the elementary schools plan for their future. A second objective was to help exceptional children with their learning problems. These goals caused the teacher with two years of special training to add a new role to his/her educational and teaching role. This dual role has been called ‘Teacher-counselor.’ In 1960, thirty four teacher-counselors started their work in different schools in Israel. Their major work was concentrated on disadvantaged children and with 7th and 8th graders helping them with their learning difficulties. To prevent overlapping with other helping professions and confusion concerning this new profession, a follow up study was conducted by Malinovski and Malinovski (1964) in order to define the role of the teacher-counselor. They have defined it to include eight activities which teacher-counselors were found to be involved with:

1. Help students adjust to school and community.
2. Help students reach self-understanding.
3. Provide information needed for vocational plans.
4. Help students understand their interests, values, and aptitudes.
5. Help students in human relationships.
6. To be a consultant for teachers and other professional workers.
7. Help parents in decision making concerning vocational plans for their children, and assist them in coping with behavioral problems.
8. Referral to special institutions when needed.

Since its origins in 1960, school counseling in Israel has been developed rapidly. This is reflected especially in the increasing number of teacher-counselors (43 teacher-counselors in 1964 to 800 teacher-counselors in 1976 and to 1366 teacher-counselors in 1981). Teacher-counselors now work not only in the Ministry of Education but also in the Ministry of Labor providing vocational services to teenagers who dropped out of school and who are encouraged to work and learn at the same time. As mentioned earlier, originally teacher-counselors were certified teachers who were selected after three years of experience in teaching and then they participated in a two-year program of in service training to become teacher-counselors. This state of affairs did remain for long. Soon after the introduction of the counseling services, universities responded to the newly created need and developed academic programs (for B.A. and then M.A. degrees) in counseling education. This evolution in training programs took place in the mid 1960's and brought a new sense of professionalism to the field of counseling. Until the mid seventies, universities limited admissions to counselor training to only those candidates who were already certified teachers with at least three years of experience. Currently, admission is not limited to teachers only but includes ‘fresh’ in-experienced students who can be admitted when they qualify on two criteria: Academic achievement and personality variables. The latter development has two significant meanings. First, the quality of students has become higher as they are selected from a larger population. Second, it is well known in Israel that for the teaching profession there exists what is called in Israel ‘negative selection: the less able go to teacher training seminaries to become teachers. Thus, by limiting admission to programs of training counselors only to graduates of these seminaries, the educational system's weaknesses were perpetuated. By widening the range of potential candidates not only has the quality of students and departments greatly improved, but also the educational system has gained much from these highly able counselors even though they are less experienced.     

Approaches to teaching in thematic work: early childhood teachers’ integration of mathematics and art

Thematic work that integrates different knowledge areas is considered suitable for developing young children’s knowledge and skills in early childhood education. This paper reports evidence from a survey of early childhood teachers’ work with mathematics and art integrated in thematic work. In this study, we aim to explore how teachers perceive mathematics learning and teaching integrated with art. Data for analysis were collected from a questionnaire answered by 27 early childhood teachers from Finland and Sweden. Influenced by a sociocultural theoretical framework, the analysis concerns the teachers’ expressed goals for learning and their strategies for achieving these goals. The analysis reveals qualitatively different approaches to the learning goals addressed by the teachers – process-oriented, product-oriented, development-oriented and providing awareness – which, respectively, seem to generate different meanings of mathematical learning integrated with art. This study offers an overview of teachers’ approaches to teaching mathematics and art in thematic work, and of how different approaches may influence what mathematical meaning is offered to children to explore.     

Herding cats or getting heard: The SENCo–teacher dynamic and its impact on teachers' classroom practice

This article is based on two key findings of doctoral research into the impact that Special Educational Needs Coordinators (SENCos) in England have on teachers' skills when addressing the needs of children with SEN in mainstream primary schools. I use data from questionnaires and interviews with SENCos, teachers and headteachers to argue that key indicators for successful teaching of children with SEN include SENCos skilling teachers in their roles as ‘agents of change’ in relation to SENCos' views of their teaching colleagues, as well as the evolving nature of their own professional identity.     

Teachers' Adequacy of Subject Knowledge in Primary Science: Assessing constructivist approaches from a sociocultural perspective

In recent years, increasing emphasis has come to be placed, both by researchers and by policy‐makers, on the adequacy of primary teachers’ subject knowledge of science. Within research, this emphasis has been linked to the rise of constructivist ideas about the significance of establishing children’s prior conceptions of scientific concepts for effective teaching. In this article I examine two constructivist approaches to teachers’ adequacy of subject knowledge within UK research on primary science education. In each case I provide a critique of the assumptions they make about the nature of knowledge and how it develops. I do this from a sociocultural perspective, which views knowledge and learning as necessarily situated within communities of practice. My aim is to assess the implications of this perspective for understanding teachers’ adequacy of subject knowledge.     

‘If it weren’t for my mum…’: the influence of Australian Indigenous mothers on their children’s aspirations to teach

This article draws upon data from semi‐structured interviews with Australian Indigenous teachers to explore the role their mothers played in shaping their decisions to become teachers. The findings suggest that their mothers’ emotional involvement and investment in their sons’ and daughters’ education generated significant reserves of emotional capital upon which the teachers drew. Such capital, expressed by their mothers in a variety of ways, including encouragement, coercion and anger, motivated and inspired them to complete their schooling, to consider teaching as a profession and to take out teaching degrees, often in the face of enormous challenges and barriers. They understood teaching as presenting opportunities for their own upward class mobility as well as the chance for them to bring about social change for Indigenous people in general. I conclude by arguing the need to reconsider the dominant discourses in Australia around the aspirations of Indigenous mothers in regards to their children’s education and I also raise issues for further consideration and research.