Teacher evaluation standards in practice: A standards‐based assessment tool for diversity‐responsive teaching

Abstract

Although there is no question about the need for preservice and inservice teachers to have the skills to meet the diverse needs of students in todays classrooms, the issue of how to assess those same skills has proved to be problematic. This article reports on a joint effort by faculty from an urban university and a large public school district to create an observation tool that will assess and mentor preservice and inservice teachers’ abilities to address issues of diversity in their classrooms meaningfully. The authors will first report on missions and background information representing both the university and the school district and then on the development of a standards‐based assessment tool. Lastly, suggestions that compliment a comprehensive body of evidence of teacher evaluation will be discussed.     

A comparison of developments in university continuing education in Finland,the UK and Sweden

This paper develops work carried out under the aegis of a European Commission‐funded university continuing education (UCE) network. It compares the ways in which UCE has developed in three countries within Northern Europe. The authors firstly review the developments of university education in general in Finland, the UK and Sweden, paying particular attention to the factors that historically have influenced UCE. They then focus on developments and policy imperatives of the last decade. A number of convergences and divergences in policy and practice in the three countries are pointed to. In both Finland and the UK, UCE is well defined by state or quasi‐state agencies and is an activity that has been located within well‐defined structural units in most institutions. Universities in these two countries have a diverse mission based on a national lifelong learning agenda. By contrast, in Sweden, whilst there is a longstanding international tradition of adult education rooted within democratic movements and a recognition of the importance of equality of access, the provision is to a large extent embedded in universities and not manifest as UCE. What provision that does exist as UCE is patchily distributed across the university sector and nonuniform in character. UCE provision within Finland and UK to varying degrees in becoming more diverse in its make‐up. The presence of new providers in a ‘CE market’, an emphasis on UCE as an economic instrument, moves towards the accreditation of provision and the loss of a particular identity for UCE are amongst factors creating increasing heterogeneity of provision in these countries.     

Mask Making in Human Services Education: A Case for Student Engagement

This article is an examination of strategies for engaging students in programs of human services education. We describe an in class mask-making activity, used by three human services instructors at an undergraduate university in western Canada, as a means of engaging students to grow in individual and collaborative awareness and skills. We present a survey study, conducted with students who have taken part in mask making, to examine their perspectives on the impact of the activity on their learning. We conclude with a discussion of applicability of mask making, particularly for students learning and working as part of diverse groups.     

What matters to supervisors and is this reflected in what they do? Analysing the work of university supervisors of the practicum

This study analyses the contemporary work and potential contribution of university supervisors supporting preservice teachers´ during their practicum experiences in initial English language teacher preparation. The study draws on a complex data derived from surveys, interviews, and observations of university supervisors working in a diverse array of English language teacher education programmes across Chile. A cultural historical activity theory perspective is employed to explore and analyse the motives, activities, and actions that underpinned the work of these supervisors. Findings suggest that supervisors have to respond to often contradictory demands and an overemphasis towards quality assurance actions that are potentially detrimental to preservice teachers´ development. The work of supervisors is analysed to understand how potentially to re-envision their role and functions, toward proposing how to productive expand supervisory practices as an integral part of teacher education.     

The University as a community of selves: Johan Vilhelm Snellman's “On Academic Studies”

Nowadays we tend to regard the idea of a university as an outdated subject. The world of universities is today so complex and diverse that no general doctrine of the university seems possible. In a recent article Alasdair MacIntyre challenges this view and points out that by giving up the question “What is university?” we also give up the question “What is an educated mind?” In this article I will return to the old discussion on the idea of a university. I will go all the way back to Plato, but my main theme is J. V. Snellman’s essay On Academic Studies (1840). There Snellman, a young university lecturer at the time, defends his view that the university is a community of selves. The essay strongly emphasises that students should not only learn to know but also to act in a responsible way as selves. However, the text also reflects on Snellman’s own activity before the publication. He had defended academic freedom against the rector of the Imperial Alexander University of Finland. As a result, Snellman was in the end sentenced in an open court and forced to leave the university. Snellman’s view is certainly not the final definition of the university, but as it, besides presenting a theoretical view on the essence of the university, also reflects on activity in a university community, it gives us elements for reflecting on the idea of a university and an educated mind.     

Isolated learners: young mature-age students,university culture,and desire for academic sociality

The differentiated experiences of young mature-age students are under-researched and often unacknowledged in higher education literature and university policy. This article contends that, due to their age (early 20s to early 30s), many younger mature-age students feel ‘out of the loop’ and ‘alienated’ from university culture. The sample is drawn from a large first-year subject and analyses students’ written ethnographic reflections on their identities as students within university culture. Using interpretive theory and NVivo coding software to analyse the written assignments, the experience of isolation amongst the young mature-age demographic was a prominent and unanticipated finding. Students in this age range want academic-based sociality but do not identify as either school leaver or ‘mature-age’. They feel like isolated learners. We argue young mature-age students’ experiences of social isolation pose a significant barrier to full participation, negatively impacting their identities as students and their university transition. In Australia and internationally, governments and universities have increased their enrolments of young mature-age students, but their capacity to structure learning environments to suit them are limited without greater knowledge of their diverse experiences. Taking a cultural, socially situated view of learning allows insights into students’ experiences and suggests opportunities for understanding and supporting them.     

Reflective Teaching in the Early Years: A Case for Mentoring Diverse Educators

Student diversity in classrooms is on the rise and with it, a need for teachers who recognize the needs of diverse student populations. Teacher retention is a national crisis, with teachers of color at especially high risk for leaving the teaching profession early. This case study describes a collaborative mentoring approach used by a primary grades Latina teacher and two university professors. This approach focused on reflective discussion of classroom events and addressed the challenges of teaching for understanding in an age of accountability and changing demographics. Findings indicate that the beginning teacher’s enthusiasm combined with the expertise of teacher educators benefited the teacher, the students, other teachers in the school, and the participating university professors. Implications of this case study point towards the need to mentor diverse educators in the early years.     

Support for Engaged Scholars: The Role of Mentoring Networks with Diverse Faculty

As internationalization initiatives on university campuses have increased in the past decade, the practice of mentoring diverse scholars has increased. In an exploratory study conducted at a doctoral/research-extensive university in the Midwest, researchers investigated the nature and functions of mentoring and the role of mentoring networks in nurturing the careers of engaged scholars in the teaching and human service professions. The twelve participants in the study self-identified as engaged scholars who (a) have been mentored within a mentoring network throughout their professional careers, and (b) are currently involved in mentoring diverse engaged scholars within mentoring networks. The study findings suggest the benefits of mentoring networks for diverse, engaged scholars and outline the nature of effective mentoring.     

Dimensions of student success: a framework for defining and evaluating support for learning in higher education

ABSTRACT

The capabilities students need for success during and beyond higher education extend far beyond specific discipline skills to include the development of productive mindsets, the management of life circumstances and the way they relate to others and identify with their profession. The provision of support for these capabilities at university can be both diverse in scope and diffuse in delivery. Consequently, the development of streamlined and integrated evaluation strategies to measure the extent to which these capabilities are being successfully delivered can be challenging. This paper describes how one Australian university used a collaborative process to design an evaluation framework for student learning services. The framework, a first for this university, represents the breadth of student support, including a typology of support for learning: connectedness, mindsets, self-management, professional identity and academic capabilities. These terms, coined as dimensions, form the scaffold of university-wide delivery of support for learning initiatives.     

Universities,knowledge and pedagogical configurations: Glimpsing the complex university

This paper elaborates a typology of universities in which each university is characteristically associated with (i) diverse missions, (ii) different ways of producing knowledge and (iii) contrasting pedagogical configurations. Four university forms are identified, analysed and illustrated, namely the expert university, the non-elite university, the entrepreneurial university and the revolutionary university. It is suggested that the typology and the analysis of university forms offered here provide insight into the current positioning of universities in relation to the wider world and have potential in prompting new forms of university for the twenty-first century. The paper further advances another possible university for the future, namely the complex university. The complex university is part of and respectful of diverse ecosystems. It creates new frameworks to understand the world and, in that way, supports social transformations.     

Being chimaera: a monstrous identity for SoTL academics

Lurking on the fringes of university culture are academic identities that do not fit into the usual disciplinary communities. Aiming to explore the experience of ‘being academic’ when not linked directly to a discipline, this paper examines the stories of a diverse group of SoTL scholars who work in a centralised multi-campus academic skills support centre in an Australian university. Framed as group auto-ethnography, the paper inquires into the everyday experience of these academics through narrative analysis of multiple first-person accounts and makes apparent the monstrousness of de-affiliated academic identities. Despite diverse disciplinary backgrounds, the author-participants found that they now shared a tripartite academic identity formed through the negotiation of three roles: the teacher, the disciplinarian, and the educational researcher. Using the chimaera, a mythical three-headed monster as an organising metaphor, this paper aims to provide agency and visibility for often under-represented and unacknowledged academic identities.     

Use of social web technologies by international and domestic undergraduate students: implications for internationalising learning and teaching in Australian universities

Much research into the use of online information and communication technologies for the internationalisation of learning and teaching has focused on established web technologies. This paper considers the possible internationalisation implications of existing uses of social software, also known as Web 2.0 technologies, which are now widely available inside and outside of formal education settings. The paper reports on two studies: the first, conducted at a large Australian university, investigated differences between international and domestic undergraduate students’ (n = 1973) use of web‐based technologies and tools; the second investigation reports on interviews with eight Australian and eight Singaporean university students about their use and perceptions of blogs and blogging. The findings from two studies provide new evidence of both cultural similarities and cultural differences in aspects of young university students’ use of social software for communication and content creation. Discussion and conclusions draw out factors to be considered in planning to implement new uses of social software among culturally and linguistically diverse students of the Net Generation, in Australia and more generally.     

A new mathematics pedagogy for the early years: in search of principles for practice

The new English mathematics curriculum for three to five year olds requires adults to teach number. How this should be done is not clear: this article looks at current theory and research in order to recommend some teaching strategies. A new mathematics pedagogy is proposed, based on holistic principles and considering children's mathematical learning in terms of cognitive, physical, social and emotional aspects. A range of cognitive processes, an emphasis on large‐scale activity and multisensory learning, concern for children's self‐esteem and agency in their own learning, diverse home experiences and supportive pair and group situations are identified as key features. Teaching strategies therefore need to take account of these, for instance by avoiding direct questioning. This framework is then applied to two official English guidance documents, which are found to give mixed and conflicting messages, and inappropriate recommendations.     

Adapting Strategies of Effective Instruction for Culturally Diverse Preschoolers

This article describes collaboration between preschool and university educators focused on adapting the Center for Research on Education, Diversity, and Excellence (CREDE) standards for Effective Pedagogy for use in early childhood (EC) settings. The CREDE standards are strategies of best practices for culturally diverse K–12 students. Teachers and teacher educators worked together to adapt the CREDE standards for use with young children. Participants included 13 preschool teachers and 2 administrators serving 2- to 5-years-olds at a university-based EC center. Data sources included participant observations and video-recordings of the teachers' instruction. Criteria for measuring use of the standards were changed to be more developmentally appropriate, including adjustments for language development and a focus on goals that included self-management and social skills. The adapted CREDE EC standards may provide a useful framework for high-quality EC instruction for diverse children. This partnership may have been successful because the project drew on the strengths of both the university and EC collaborators, minimizing the hierarchical relationship that is often experienced in such an arrangement.     

Using phenomenography to build an understanding of how university people conceptualise their community-engaged activities

Higher education institutions are seeking greater community engagement through academic, social and civic activity. In response, researcher attention has turned to impacts on students’ education, and benefits to both university and community partners. This phenomenographic study examines how a diverse group of teachers, researchers and administrators at one New Zealand university conceptualised their involvement in community-engaged learning and teaching. We identified an outcome space where university people conceived their community engagement in three ways: within an expert/novice discourse, as advocacy, and in the most complex conception, as reciprocal learning. When working with and within communities, we suggest that university people should be supported to approach community engagement as reciprocal learning rather than adopting approaches that render community partners in passive roles.     

Enhancing the Student Experience for Direct Entrants to the Penultimate Year of Undergraduate Degree Programmes

In higher education, modifications to student induction would be broadly beneficial in order to take account of the changing student population and its increasingly diverse needs. A case study of one rather innovative approach to induction is described where a pre-semester credit-bearing bridging module is mounted. This module is designed for Higher National Diplomates from the Further Education sector who have gained direct entry to the penultimate year of a university degree course. The module has five broad aims: to facilitate general integration into the university; to familiarise students with the main methods of teaching, learning and assessment that they will experience; to develop the skills necessary for successful independent study in higher education; to build self-confidence; and to improve the appropriate skills which will enhance career prospects.     

Accessing university education: perceptions, preferences, and expectations for interpreting by deaf students

This paper provides a brief review of the history of deaf education in Australia, Australian Sign Language (Auslan), and Auslan interpreting. A panel of Australian deaf university students from diverse linguistic and educational backgrounds provides insights into their perceptions of sign language interpreting provision in university lectures. They commented on their interpreting preferences after viewing two videotaped segments of university lecture interpretation, one demonstrating a predominantly free approach and the other a predominantly literal approach. Expectations of the deaf students were explored in relation to the educational backgrounds and qualifications of university interpreters; comprehension of interpreters is also discussed. Results suggest that the university students preferred interpreters to combine both interpretation styles, switching between literal and free approaches when appropriate. In doing so, students can access lecture content in Auslan while accessing subject-specific terminology or academic language in English. In terms of qualifications, the students advocated for interpreters to have a university qualification in general, especially if they are working in a university context. However, the students also acknowledged that interpreting did not provide them with full access in educational settings.     

论全方位、全过程教学质量保障体系的构建

教学质量保障体系是对教学工作进行全方位、全过程和全员性管理的一套操作系统,它把对教学产生重要影响的教学管理活动有机结合起来,其目的是保障学校办学特色的发挥和人才培养目标的形成。我校经过长期的探索和实践,形成了由八个相互支撑的子系统组成的全方位、全过程的教学质量保障体系,在保证应用型人才的培养质量方面显露成效。     

FROM PRESERVICE PREPARATION TO WORKING LIFE: CAREER EXPERIENCES OF EARLY CHILDHOOD TEACHERS IN FINLAND

ABSTRACT

This is a case study of four students in an early childhood teacher preparation program at a large, state university that intentionally seeks to emphasize supporting children and families from diverse backgrounds and using culturally responsive pedagogy. The program includes a family engagement course in the first semester that is designed to facilitate students’ recognition of the perspectives of diverse families, as well as practica in schools serving children and families from a range of backgrounds. Our investigation revealed that not all of our participants were willing to completely let go of their preconceived understandings of family diversity and engagement, but those who did were very willing to try multiple ways of building mutually beneficial relationships with families. Our findings suggest that teacher educators must have an understanding of the cultural and family backgrounds of teacher preparation students so as to better support students in decentering and resisting normalizing their own family and school experiences.