MATHEMATICS TEACHER EDUCATION AND QUALITY

‘Quality’ in mathematics teaching does not relate solely to pupil achievement, to teaching approaches or to deeply held beliefs about the nature of mathematics and its teaching and learning, but to all of these. A model of a teacher's mathematics‐related belief‐system is presented, and the issue of the contrast between espoused and enacted beliefs is discussed. ‘Quality’ in mathematics teacher education raises all of these issues, as well as the aims, goals and means of the teacher preparation process itself. The paper concludes by arguing against the ‘apprenticeship’ model of mathematics teacher education, for depriving student teachers of theory and of practical research experience. A well known dictum paraphrased states that theory without practice is empty, but that practice without theory is blind. ‘Quality’ in mathematics teaching and teacher education depends on both theory and practice in systematic cooperation.     

VOICES IN EDUCATION: ACCOUNTABILITY IN TEACHER EDUCATION AND THE NATIONAL COUNCIL ON TEACHER QUALITY

Abstract

This article explains several reasons why multicultural preservice teacher education is important and suggests some ways it can be better accomplished. The authors make a strong case for teacher education programs to be more deliberate about preparing European Americans to teach ethnically diverse students of color. They argue that this explicit professional preparation is needed because of the increasing racial, cultural, and linguistic divide between teachers (predominately European American) and K–12 students (increasingly from ethnic groups of color). Two other factors underscore the need for more multicultural teacher education: the fear of diversity and the resistance to dealing with race and racism frequently expressed by students enrolled in teacher education programs. To overcome these problems and better prepare preservice teachers to work effectively with ethnically diverse students the authors suggest a two‐part program of professional development.     

PROMOTING EFFECTIVE SCIENCE TEACHER EDUCATION AND SCIENCE TEACHING: A FRAMEWORK FOR TEACHER DECISION-MAKING

Learning and effective teaching are both complicated acts. However, many administrators, teachers, parents, and policymakers appear not to recognize those complexities and their significance for practice. Fueling this perception, recommendations from isolated research findings often neglect the complexities in learning and teaching, and when implemented in classrooms often fall well short of the advertised effect. Consequently, education research is generally ignored, and the resulting research-practice gap raises concerns regarding the utility of university-based teacher education, and education research more generally. However, the strength of education research resides in the synergy resulting from its integration into a unifying system that guides, but does not determine, decision-making. Dewey (1929) argued for teacher decision-making guided by education research, but recently several writers have justly criticized education researchers for not providing comprehensible assistance to educators and policymakers (Good, 2007; Shymansky, 2006; Windschitl, 2005). This paper proposes a decision-making framework for teaching to help beginning and experienced teachers make sense of education research, come to understand crucial teacher decisions, and how those decisions interact to affect student learning. The proposed decision-making framework for teaching has significant utility in the design of science methods courses, science teacher education programs, effective student teacher supervision experiences, and professional development workshops.     

培养培训相互衔接相互促进的英语教师教育探索

培养培训相分离的弊端阻碍了我国教师教育的发展。遵照国务院的要求，通过教育科研、教育实习等活动。建立起高师与中小学英语教学的紧密联系，使其相互促进。这既能充分发挥师范院校在教师教育中的主体作用。解决中小学英语教师的继续教育问题。又能促进高师院校英语教育专业自身的改革与发展，并在此基础上完善国务院提出的“培养培训相衔接的开放的教师教育体系”。     

COLLABORATIONS IN EARLY CHILDHOOD TEACHER EDUCATION: CHALLENGES AND PROMISE

Abstract

This article describes the reflective process used by a group of early childhood faculty members to study national standards in order to improve their teacher education program. The standards studied included those from the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (INTASC), National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) and the Division for Early Childhood of the Council for Exceptional Children (DEC/ECE). The reflective process and study resulted in changes in field experiences, course requirements and activities and assisted in state and national accreditation.     

TEACHER EDUCATION AND TEACHER-PERCEIVED NEEDS IN EDUCATIONAL MEASUREMENT AND EVALUATION

Professors and teachers were compared relative to their perspectives on preservice educational measurement courses. Twenty-four professors from different colleges in seven states and 360 teachers from elementary and secondary schools in one midwestern state responded via mailed questionnaire. Professors reported the emphasis given to each of eight topics in preservice educational measurement courses, and teachers reported the emphasis they believed should be given to each topic. In five of the eight content areas, the relative emphases given by professors differed from that recommended by teachers. Major differences emerged in nontest evaluation, statistical analysis, and formative and summative evaluation. Implications of these results are discussed.     

QUALITY IN TEACHER EDUCATION: RELFECTIONS ON A DECADE

This article reflects on the changing definitions of quality as they have been applied to teacher education in the 1980s and looks forward to the decade ahead.     

师范教育与大学:比较分析及其对香港的启示

教育大学可视为一种新型大学 ,能够以崭新的方式同时适应师范教育发展和知识社会的需求。本文首先对大学和师范院校在西方和亚洲社会的发展作一历史回顾。然后 ,探究这两类院校形成的对照的价值取向 ,讨论本文的核心问题 ,即师范教育如何达到与大学比肩的学术水准 ,同时保有师范院校与知识社会有关的价值观。对三个西方社会和三个亚洲社会的比较的历史分析 ,展示了摆脱这一困境的不同方式。本文最后勾勒了师范教育截然不同的四种模式 ,提出教育大学这一模式最为适应香港的现状 ,可能也最为适应亚洲的文化环境     

TEACHER EDUCATION: SUCKING OUT THE JUICE

This article sets out a proposal for raisins quality in teacher education and so for quality in our schools. The current system of teacher education is heavily regulated by CATE — the Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education — which has been established by the DES to ensure quality. Paradoxically, these regulations may actually limit quality rather than enhancing it because they are principally concerned with quantity and balance rather than with process. So the paper argues that a better way must be found in which the processes involved in becoming a teacher, and the structures which shape the system, may assist each other. The components needed for raising quality are already within the system, but need nonetheless a radical re‐adjustment if quality is to be raised. The proposals made here concern the potential within CATE to become a national professional council for the teaching service as well as for teacher education; for making it a requirement on teachers to read for the Masters degree as part of their professional qualification; and for the consequent integration of pre‐service and in‐service teacher education.