21st century teachers: how non-traditional pre-service teachers navigate their initial experiences of contemporary classrooms

In the twenty-first century, teachers’ work has become more complex with high levels of accountability, increased bureaucratic responsibilities and unprecedented levels of public scrutiny. However, teaching fundamentally remains a caring profession, requiring well-developed social skills and emotional labour to successfully engage and motivate students. Teachers need resilience to thrive in these environments of intense and often conflicting pressures. Drawing on a transactional-ecological modelthis qualitative study explored the resilience and teacher identity development of a cohort of pre-service career-change teachers as they navigated their initial experiences in contemporary classrooms. The findings indicate that this cohort arrived to teacher education with teacher identities strongly aligned with a broad conceptualisation of care as active practice. This paper discusses how their identities and capacities for resilience were challenged and reviewed during their classroom experiences and the implications for teacher education and the profession.     

The characteristics of effective english teachers as perceived by high school teachers and students in Korea

This study investigated the characteristics of effective English teachers as perceived by 169 teachers and 339 students in high school in Korea, with a self-report questionnaire consisting of three categories: English proficiency, pedagogical knowledge, and socio-affective skills. Overall, the teachers perceived significantly different characteristics than the students in all three categories with the teachers ranking English proficiency the highest in contrast to the students who ranked pedagogical knowledge the highest. The student subgroups also held different perceptions of effective teaching. High achieving students reported different characteristics than low achieving students in pedagogical knowledge and socio-affective skills, whereas the male students demonstrated different characteristics from the female students in socio-affective skills. The findings have implications for knowledge-based teacher education for current and prospective English teachers.     

Academic and social attributions as predictors of emotional and behavioural difficulties in students referred for learning disabilities and typically achieving students: the female profile in Oman

Identification of children who exhibit emotional and behavioural difficulties (EBDs) has been prioritized in several countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region including Oman. Research showed that cognitive attribution processes are biased and defective in atypical populations such as students with learning disabilities (LD). The current study examined the relationship between school-based attributions including academic and social attributions and the display of EBDs in students referred for having LD and typically achieving students. The Student Academic Attribution Scale (SAAS), Student Social Attribution Scale (SSAS), and the Arabic version of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (A-SDQ) were administered to 135 typically achieving students and 89 students referred for LD. The participants were all females from middle school. Stepwise regression analyses showed that academic and social attributions were more predictive of EBDs in students referred for LD compared to typically achieving students. The attribution profile of students with LD reflected negative symptoms that lead to the display of internalizing and externalizing EBDs. The study findings are discussed in relation to how schools can utilize the cognitive process of attribution to support students with EBDs.     

Mandatory trialling of support services by international students: what they choose and how they reflect

This paper evaluates a strategy to promote the uptake of support services by international students (ISs) at an Australian university. As part of their assessment, ISs completed a so-called ‘University Service Reflection Task’ (USRT) in a core first-year course. To complete the USRT, all ISs accessed one support service (e.g. language consultation, study skills workshop, careers guidance), then submitted a written reflection about the experience. Using responses to a questionnaire by 155 participants, the researchers investigated which services ISs attended for the USRT and patterns of prior attendance. Students' perspectives were explored by analysing 73 reflective essays. The results showed that two-thirds of the students participated in a service for the first time in order to complete the USRT and favoured services that had closest application to their coursework. Students expressed positive feelings about their experiences and reported learning gains, particularly in the areas of study skills and development of academic language.     

What university teachers teach and how they teach it

In this article we make three related arguments. The first isthat different teachers have different intentions concerning whatstudents will learn and consequently in their teaching they constitutethe topic or subject to be taught quite differently. The second is thata teacher's intentions concerning what it is that students should learnis closely aligned with a teacher's expectation of how students learnand how they can be helped to learn through teaching. The third is thatwhen teachers focus specifically on the teaching of a particular topic,within a specific context, there is a close relationship between theirintentions and their teaching practice. In this article we explore thesearguments through an empirical study which considers the different waysin which 26 university teachers intended to constitute a subject ortopic for their students to study, how they then taught the subject andsubsequently how consistent were their intentions and their practice.The analysis shows that when the context of teaching and learning istightly defined there is a clear relationship between a teacher'sintention and their practice. In particular, university teachers whoadopt more conceptual change and student-focussed approaches to teachingconstitute objects of study which are more relational and focus on thestudent's knowledge. Approaches which are more information transmissionand teacher-focussed constitute objects of study which are moremulti-structural and have a focus on knowledge which is as constitutedas being external to the student.     

How they got it and how they wanted it: marginalised young people's perspective on their experiences of sexual health education

Young people in Australia are at greatest risk of contracting sexually transmitted infections, and priority actions are necessary for this population group. This study of marginalised and at-risk young people in out-of-school environments was conducted in Western Australia with the aim of obtaining young people's perceptions about their experience of sexual health education and preferred means of gaining sexual health knowledge and skills. A participatory research methodology was implemented through a series of workshops with 88 young people recruited through community youth agencies. The results of the study support what is already known about sexual health promotion for young people and the importance of a holistic approach to promoting positive relationships and sexual health. However, the findings emphasise that this should include the need for demonstrated trust, confidence and safe environments, and the complementary role of community youth agencies and peer-based programmes which may play an important role in reaching young people who may disengage with, or not be reached by school-based sexual health education.     

Motivation across domains: Do goals and attributions change with subject matter for Grades 4 and 5 students?

This study explored a theory for motivation which included aspects of both attribution theory and goal theory. Motivational variables included beliefs about intelligence (entity or incremental), goal orientation (mastery/learning, performance-approach, performance-avoidance) and avoidant behaviours. Grades 4 and 5 students from a large, metropolitan school district were surveyed regarding these motivational variables across the academic domains of reading and mathematics. The relationships among these motivational variables were explored, as well as differences across domains. A diverse sample allowed differences across ethnic groups and socioeconomic status to be studied. Results indicate that children could have a generalised notion of motivation that becomes differentiated when students are asked to reflect on these variables within specified domains. The existence of few differences across ethnic and socioeconomic groups suggest that instructional style could be a more powerful influence than either of these variables.     

When teachers learn how to provide classroom structure in an autonomy-supportive way: Benefits to teachers and their students

In two experimentally-based and longitudinally-designed studies, secondary-level PE teachers were randomly assigned to participate or not in a new intervention to help them learn all of the following: support autonomy, provide structure, and provide structure in an autonomy-supportive way. In Study 1, teachers who participated in the intervention showed longitudinal gains in all five hypothesized teacher benefits (e.g., teaching efficacy, job satisfaction). In Study 2, students of teachers who participated in the intervention showed longitudinal gains in all four hypothesized student benefits (e.g., classroom engagement, skill development). Overall, teachers and students benefited after teachers provided structure in an autonomy-supportive way.     

论中学思想政治课教师的政治素质

政治素质是思想政治课教师应当具备的最基本素质.中学思想政治课教学的本质和内容和新时期政治课教师的特殊地位决定了政治课教师必须有优良的政治素质.正确的政治方向、政治观点,坚定的政治信念、政治立场在思想政治课教师的教学过程中起着定向作用.政治鉴别力和政治敏锐性,是思想政治课能否取得长远效果的根本所在.     

Rural,suburban, and urban schools: The impact of school setting on the efficacy beliefs and attributions of student teachers

This study investigated student teachers' efficacy beliefs, to determine if school setting (i.e., rural, suburban, and urban) impacted teachers' sense of efficacy. Each setting group exhibited significant increases in teachers' sense of efficacy following student teaching. The urban student teachers exhibited significantly lower teachers' sense of efficacy. We also examined the attributions (external or internal) the student teachers made following student teaching. The urban student teachers did not make more external attributions than the rural and suburban student teachers, and the patterns of the self-serving attributional bias as well as the fundamental attribution error were apparent.     

The repercussions of reporting bullying: some experiences of students at an independent secondary school

This article reports on the complex web experienced by young people when making decisions to report bullying in school. The study was conducted in the secondary school of an independent day and boarding school in the east of England. A Participatory Action Research approach was used with student voice and perspective at its core. This study involved five students as co-researchers with the first author to explore the concept of ‘snitching’ about bullying. Data were collected from the wider student group through a variety of methods including questionnaires, focus groups and interviews. The findings suggest that the process of reporting bullying is more complex than adults once thought. Students have to negotiate a complex web in firstly deciding if the bullying is serious enough to report. The concept of ‘serious’ bullying is contentious, particularly between boarders and day students, but physical abuse and/or repetition tended to be characteristic of ‘serious’ bullying. Once considered ‘serious’ enough, students have to weigh up the potential repercussions from the bully or the wider friendship group if they ‘snitch’. Students were therefore in conflict between loyalty to the bully and wider friendship group in deciding if unfairness had taken place and should be reported. Finally students needed to decide who they trusted to report the bullying to. The students in this study often reported to teachers who they perceived as supportive and authoritative.     

Connected and culturally embedded beliefs: Chinese and US teachers talk about how their students best learn mathematics

This study compares US and Chinese elementary mathematics teachers' beliefs about how students learn mathematics. Interviews with teachers in each country revealed that Chinese and US teachers have distinct ways of thinking about how mathematics should be taught and how students learn. Many Chinese teachers talked about developing students’ interest in mathematics and relating the content of mathematics lessons to real-life situations. The US teachers talked about students' learning styles and using hands-on approaches to learning mathematics. Furthermore, these beliefs may be widespread and persistent within each country because the set of ideas among teachers appear to be internally consistent. Implications for teacher change and the study of teachers' beliefs are discussed.     

Student-centred and teacher-centred science classrooms as visualized by science teachers and their supervisors

The current study examined how in-service science teachers and their supervisors visualized student-centred and teacher-centred science classrooms. The grade levels covered in the study were grades 1–12. We used a modified Draw-A-Science-Teacher-Test Checklist (DASTT-C) tool. The findings revealed that both groups viewed science teaching in schools to be more teacher-centred. When asked to sketch a “student-centred classroom”, science supervisors were able to produce better drawings that reflected a student-centred teaching environment compared to science teachers. On the other hand, there was no significant difference in terms of science teachers’ gender, teaching experience and grade level.     

Bullying: Group differences of being victim and being bully and the influence of social relations

Bullying refers to several aspects of social interaction and communication. As a negative indicator of social inclusion, it has a high impact on students' well-being/health. Therefore, the present paper focuses on bullying of risk groups (gender, migration background, …), the influence of social relations on bullying and its context on school-well-being. 353 secondary school students (Austria) participated. Results indicated that boys were more likely to be bullies as well as victims. Regression analyses indicate that being female and positive teacher-student-relationships are significant predictors of being a bully less often and a positive peer-relationship is a predictor of being a victim less often. A negative correlation was found for both being a bully and being a victim and school-well-being. The findings highlight that social relations rather than being member of a minority group are important factors causing bullying and victimisation. Results will be discussed, taking into account methodological-analytical conditions.     

Teachers' views of their pupils with profound and multiple learning difficulties

This paper explores the perceptions of a small group of teachers of pupils with profound and multiple learning disabilities (PMLD) in north‐eastern England. The focus of the paper is their views of their pupils who have PMLD. A total of 14 teachers were interviewed, both individually and in small groups over a four‐year period. This paper stems from the individual interviews, which were validated at the group interview stage. Through the interviews we hear how neurological, developmental and co‐existence issues help shape teachers’ views of their pupils. Thirty years ago this group of pupils received their education from the Department of Health; today they are in schools and we hear the teachers in this project reflect on their students’ learning needs in positive and professional ways. What emerges through this research is the need for teacher educators to support professional development experiences that enable teachers to integrate the distinct perspectives of parents and the more contemporary theories of disability into their understandings of this group of learners. In this way, teachers of pupils with PMLD would build upon their professional knowledge base to include wider parental and societal perspectives.     

The bullied boy: masculinity,embodiment, and the gendered social-ecology of Vietnamese school bullying

This article considers the ways in which school bullying is both gendered and embodied. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in two lower-secondary schools in northern Vietnam, the article focuses on the experiences of one ninth-grade boy, who was regularly bullied by his classmates, and whose experiences of bullying appeared to be embodied for all to see. Inspired by Arthur Brittan’s notion of masculinism, Elizabeth Grosz’s use of the möbius strip metaphor for understanding embodiment, and Urie Bronfenbrenner’s conceptualization of the ecological environment, I argue that school bullying needs to be understood not only in terms of the interactions between individuals or groups of individuals, but also in terms of the specific gendered social-ecological environment within which those interactions occur.     

构建"教学"平台促进"师生"成长——外国语学院师资队伍建设和学生实践能力培养模式探析

在大众化教育背景下,"专升本"院校的二级教学院系如何建设一支满足本科教学要求的师资队伍,保证人才培养的质量?本文简要回顾了外国语学院近年来以评建为契机,在人才培养模式方面的积极探索,通过构建教师职业发展平台和学生能力实践平台,有力地促进教育教学质量的提高。     

Tutoring through the internet: how students and teachers interact to construct meaning

Two episodes of tutoring through the internet have been analysed in terms of situational, interactive and content perspectives. The episodes involved secondary students who submitted queries about chemistry issues to an online service provided by teachers. Studies of the asking of questions and of the dynamics of classroom interactions are employed to discuss the interactive and content factors of this approach to teaching–learning. The functions conveyed by students’ and teachers’ utterances are used to identify the structural patterns of the interactions. The occurrence of classical and inverted I–R–F exchanges, the questioner’s role, the continuity of the dialogues, and other structural patterns, are used to classify the episodes as being Debate and Triadic Dialogue. The notions of mastering cultural tools and scaffolding are used to account for how meaning is constructed through the interactions.     

Environmental Education as Critical Education: how teachers and students handle the challenge

Previous research studies suggest that environmental education for social change has to be considered as critical education rather than as nature study. In a participatory research approach, classroom projects with teacher teams in five senior high schools were initiated and in‐service seminars were offered. A theorising debate about environmental education resulted in a critical environmental education concept based on human action in local social systems and the questioning of the norms and value judgements of the people concerned. Classroom projects were analysed with respect to locally constructed critical knowledge and in view of the teaching/learning culture. This study shows that teachers are most concerned about ways of handling a complex and value‐laden process. It is concluded that reflection on processes and methods is essential if teachers are to understand their students’ critical exploration of social issues.     

Teaching and Learning Science Through Song: Exploring the experiences of students and teachers

This qualitative, multi-case study explored the use of science-content music for teaching and learning in six middle school science classrooms. The researcher sought to understand how teachers made use of content-rich songs for teaching science, how they impacted student engagement and learning, and what the experiences of these teachers and students suggested about using songs for middle school classroom science instruction. Data gathered included three teacher interviews, one classroom observation and a student focus-group discussion from each of six cases. The data from each unit of analysis were examined independently and then synthesized in a multi-case analysis, resulting in a number of merged findings, or assertions, about the experience. The results of this study indicated that teachers used content-rich music to enhance student understanding of concepts in science by developing content-based vocabulary, providing students with alternative examples and explanations of concepts, and as a sense-making experience to help build conceptual understanding. The use of science-content songs engaged students by providing both situational and personal interest, and provided a mnemonic device for remembering key concepts in science. The use of songs has relevance from a constructivist approach as they were used to help students build meaning; from a socio-cultural perspective in terms of student engagement; and from a cognitive viewpoint in that in these cases they helped students make connections in learning. The results of this research have implications for science teachers and the science education community in developing new instructional strategies for the middle school science classroom.