Academic Optimism and Teacher Education

Abstract

Stereotypes are a particularly insidious factor in the formation of pre‐ and in‐service teachers’ images of students. Teachers who rely on stereotypes rather than try to see the students behind them run the risk of letting cultural and individual biases work to their own disadvantage and to the disadvantage of the next generation of high school students. This article describes a project called Teaching and Learning Together that brings preservice teachers into direct dialogue with high school students with the goal of helping preservice teachers learn to attend to high school students and analyze the pedagogical implications of that attention prior to undertaking teaching responsibilities.     

高校体育教育专业教师技能培养探索

作者分析了当前高校体育教育专业学生存在的问题及学生应具备的教师技能,对如何提高高校体育教育专业学生的教师技能,多渠道开辟培养途径及建立有效的体育教师技能训练体系进行思索。     

高校体育教育专业教师技能培养的探索

作者分析了当前高校体育教育专业学生存在的问题及学生应具备的教师技能,对如何提高高校体育教育专业的教师技能,多渠道开辟培养途径及建立有效的体育教师技能训练体系进行思索.     

The Relations of Emotionality and Regulation to Preschoolers' Social Skills and Sociometric Status

The purpose of this study was to examine the relations of emotionality (intensity and negative emotion) and regulation (coping and attentional regulation) to preschoolers' social skills (as rated by adults) and sociometric status. Teachers' ratings of children's constructive coping and attentional control were positively related to boys' social skills and peer status, whereas negative affect was negatively related. Acting out (vs. avoidant) coping and emotional intensity were negatively related to girls' and boys' social skills and boys' peer status. In addition, mothers' reports of boys' coping by seeking social support and low emotional intensity were associated with boys' positive social functioning, whereas avoidant coping was positively related to girls' rated social skills. The results are discussed in relation to research on emotion regulation and coping with emotion in interpersonal contexts.     

教师专业化与教师职业技能训练

教师是教育的第一资源,优秀教师是当代教育的稀缺资源,造就优秀教师必须走教师专业化的发展道路.教师职业技能是教师专业发展的基础,是当代教师之为教师的前提条件.如果忽视了教师职业技能的培养,则教师的专业发展就成了无源之水、无本之木.在教师职业技能训练中我们必须将教师的职业技能进行分解,并且必须将各项训练任务落到实处.     

Teacher Classroom Management Skills and Pupil Behavior

An experimental group of 20 in service elementary teachers was trained using the Utah State University Classroom Management Protocol Modules, and compared before and after training with a control group of 9 teachers. Although the experimental teachers received more favorable post-training scores on all 13 classroom management behaviors covered in the modules, the differences were generally small and nonsignificant. The level of work involvement and deviant behavior of pupils of the experimental group teachers was also compared before and after the teachers had been trained. In recitation situations, pupil work involvement increased and deviant behavior decreased significantly. In seat work situations, pupil work involvement increased significantly, but no significant changes occurred in deviant behavior.     

Social and Environmental Factors Associated With Preschoolers' Nonsedentary Physical Activity

The twofold purposes of the investigation were (a) to describe with direct observation data the physical activity behaviors and the accompanying social and environmental events of those behaviors for children in preschools and (b) to determine which contextual conditions were predictors of moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA) and nonsedentary physical activity (i.e., light activity + MVPA) for 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old children during their outdoor play. The results indicate that preschoolers' physical activity is characterized as sedentary in nature throughout their preschool day (i.e., 89% sedentary, 8% light activity, and 3% MVPA). During outdoor play periods, when children are most likely to be physically active, some contextual and social circumstances better predict their physical activity. Implications for policy makers, practitioners, and researchers are discussed.     

Orienting Toward Teacher Education for Online Environments for All Students

Abstract

The online environment is an expansive educational context distinct from the traditional one. We problematize the current online teacher education landscape and make recommendations for practices that prepare and support teachers as online teachers, rather than teachers who periodically use Internet resources and digital devices for instruction. Recommendations focus on personalization, collaboration, administrative support, program (re)designs, new models of technological integration, attention to standards for teaching and learning, and ongoing professional learning opportunities.     

Academic and Managerial Skills of Academic Deans: A self-assessment perspective

Brazilian higher education institutions face a complex and challenging environment as the national market in education is becoming more competitive. International investment, a decrease in the population of potential students, and the proliferation of innumerable small institutions add to this complexity. Organizations are becoming flatter and the key managers within them are deans. Although deans are required to act as managerial experts, they are usually selected from the teaching body of the institution. In this paper, a group of deans from a large private institution gave their self-assessment of their academic and managerial skills. The results revealed that they tend to have a high perception of their managerial skills, even though they have no previous managerial experience or formal training. This underlines that senior academic administrators cannot simply assume that deans, by the nature of their work environment, are proficient in managerial skills; neither that they can easily identify inadequacies nor have them self-corrected. To accomplish the necessary institutional changes to face the complexities of the current globalized education market, a new assessment culture has to be implemented in the academic environment.

     

Cognitive Control Predicts Academic Achievement in Kindergarten Children

Children's ability to shift behavior in response to changing environmental demands is critical for successful intellectual functioning. While the processes underlying the development of cognitive control have been thoroughly investigated, its functioning in an ecologically relevant setting such as school is less well understood. Given the alarming number of children who face failure in the U.S. school system, the purpose of this project is to determine whether subtly different measures of cognitive control differentially predict academic achievement. Sixty‐five kindergarten children were given two versions of a Dimensional Change Card Sort task—a geometric version followed by a linguistic version. Educational outcomes consisted of a standardized measure of academic achievement as well as assessments used by the school district. Results revealed that cognitive control, particularly as assessed by the linguistic variant, predicted children's academic performance on math and school‐based assessments, thereby suggesting that deficient cognitive control negatively impacts educational success.     

Deconstructing Building Blocks: Preschoolers' Spatial Assembly Performance Relates to Early Mathematical Skills

This study focuses on three main goals: First, 3‐year‐olds' spatial assembly skills are probed using interlocking block constructions (N = 102). A detailed scoring scheme provides insight into early spatial processing and offers information beyond a basic accuracy score. Second, the relation of spatial assembly to early mathematical skills was evaluated. Spatial skill independently predicted a significant amount of the variability in concurrent mathematical performance. Finally, the relation between spatial assembly skill and socioeconomic status (SES), gender, and parent‐reported spatial language was examined. While children's performance did not differ by gender, lower SES children were already lagging behind higher SES children in block assembly. Furthermore, lower SES parents reported using significantly fewer spatial words with their children.     

Teachers' Emotional Support Consistency Predicts Children's Achievement Gains and Social Skills

Research Findings: It is widely acknowledged that consistent, high-quality teacher–student interactions promote optimal developmental outcomes for children. Previous research on the quality of teacher–student interactions provides empirical support for this premise. Little research has been conducted on the consistency of teacher–student interactions. This study examines whether consistency in teachers' emotional support is related to better academic and social outcomes for children. Multiple observations were conducted in 694 prekindergarten classrooms. Mean levels of emotional support and consistency of emotional support were used as predictors in multilevel models. Results indicated that when mean levels of emotional support were controlled, within-day consistency of emotional support predicted several academic outcomes in prekindergarten as well as social competence in kindergarten. Practice or Policy: Results indicate that teachers' consistency of emotional support is a salient aspect of children's classroom environment. Findings suggest that consistency should be considered when evaluating teachers' emotionally supportive interactions.     

Links Between Preschoolers' Behavioral Regulation and School Readiness Skills: The Role of Child Gender

Research Findings: We examined relations among preschoolers' behavioral regulation, gender, and school readiness outcomes in preacademic and classroom skills using a sample of South Korean preschoolers aged 3–5 (N = 229). Behavioral regulation was assessed using a direct measure, the Head–Toes–Knees–Shoulders task, which requires children to switch rules by responding in the opposite way to 4 different oral commands. Results demonstrated nonsignificant gender differences in behavioral regulation and academic skills but significant gender differences in classroom work-related skills and social skills, with higher scores for girls. Multilevel path modeling revealed that behavioral regulation predicted none of the preacademic skills and classroom behaviors after child age, gender, verbal intelligence, maternal education, and classroom nesting were controlled. However, there was an interaction effect of behavioral regulation and gender for early reading; the contribution of behavioral regulation to early reading was positive and stronger for boys. Practice or Policy: These results suggest that behavioral regulation is not an overall strong predictor of school readiness in South Korean children. Early educators need to support the development of behavioral regulation skills, especially for boys, as these skills may work as an important path to school readiness when children lack other classroom social strategies and resources.     

The Development of Measures of Individual Differences in Self-Regulatory Control and Their Relationship to Academic Performance

Two studies are reported describing the development and validation of the Strategic Flexibility Questionnaire (SFQ): a self-report instrument aimed at eliciting students’ beliefs about the need for, and conditional nature of, self-regulatory control over learning. In Study 1, 281 first-year university education students completed a 40-item pilot questionnaire. Factor analysis of responses revealed a 21-item instrument indicating three types of control beliefs: adaptive executive control, inflexible executive control, and irresolute executive control. In Study 2, the predictive validity of these conceptions was tested against the academic performance of 105 third-year university education students. Results indicated that students reporting adaptive executive control beliefs were more successful academically, while those students reporting inflexible or irresolute control beliefs were significantly less successful academically.     

Examining the Validity of Behavioral Self-Regulation Tools in Predicting Preschoolers' Academic Achievement

Research Findings: The current study investigated the predictive utility of teacher-rated, observed, and directly assessed behavioral self-regulation skills to academic achievement in preschoolers. Specifically, this study compared how a teacher report (the Child Behavior Rating Scale), an observer report (the Observed Child Engagement Scale), and a direct assessment (the Head–Toes–Knees–Shoulders task) relate to early math and literacy skills. The sample consisted of 247 children from 31 preschool classrooms. Trained research assistants observed a subsample of 104 children. Results indicated significant positive relationships for teacher-rated and directly assessed behavioral self-regulation for early math and literacy skills. Teacher ratings were the strongest predictors of literacy, and the direct assessment emerged as the strongest predictor of math. Observed behavioral self-regulation was not significantly related to either academic domain. Practice or Policy: Discussion focuses on the domain specificity of behavioral self-regulation assessments and the importance of utilizing multiple measurement tools when assessing behavioral self-regulation and its relations to early achievement.     

大学教师：一项学术性职业

大学职能的成功发挥有赖于对大学教师职业属性的把握和理解.大学教师职业成长与变迁的历史与实践证明,大学教师是一项以知识传播和科学探索为内容的学术性职业,是一项与大学发展密切相关的学术性职业,是一项需要学术自由权利呵护的学术性职业.     

高校图书馆与教师信息素养教育

信息素养概念源自图书馆素质和文献检索技能,随着对信息概念的不断深入,信息素养从传统的信息检索、存储的基本含义上升为一个涵盖广泛的综合性概念。教师信息素养是信息时代发展的必然要求,是教育改革发展的前提条件,是教师专业化发展的内在需要,而高校教师信息素养教育则是高校教师适应教育信息化发展的客观要求。高校图书馆在教师信息素养教育中具有环境优势、人才优势、技术和经验优势,通过各种途径和方式为提高教师信息素养服务。     

Understanding Preservice Teacher Skills to Construct Lesson Plans

This study examined preservice teachers’ (PSTs) capacity for lesson planning in a university-based teacher preparation program in the USA Participants (n?=?126) wrote lesson plans in three approaches: synthesis, creation, and modification. Findings indicate that PSTs who modified preexisting lesson plans produced better lesson plans than their peers and reported higher efficacy in their use of the lesson plan in their field experiences. This study supports the notion that the efficacy of first-year teaching lies more appropriately in the area of enacting curriculum than in the area of designing curriculum. With respect to career-long learning, PSTs’ abilities to do curriculum work are likely to improve, as they grow more familiar with students and existing excellent curricula over years. Although the study presents a snapshot of U.S. preservice teachers’ capacity for curriculum design, the findings may serve to inform the literature on the developmental aspect of curriculum design for teacher education systems across the world.     

幼儿教师文化重建及其专业成长

幼儿教育改革要求重建幼儿教师文化,通过转变幼儿教育信念,转换幼儿教师角色定位,构建适宜的制度文化和自然合作的学习型团队文化模式,可以有效地重建幼儿教师文化, 促进幼儿教师的“自我更新”,实现其专业成长。     

学术职业与高校教师管理

高校教师从事的是学术职业。基于学术职业和学术职业主体地位的高校组织的特点,高校教师管理具有自身的特征：严格学术标准、强调学术自治、遵循学术自由、重视学术成就与声望等。