The ethical dimension of teacher practical knowledge: a narrative inquiry into Chinese teachers’ thinking and actions in dilemmatic spaces

Previous research concerning teacher practical knowledge has revealed its epistemological foundations, content structure and research methodology, but little research examines its ethical dimension. Based on a four-year project in China, this study probes the ethical dimension of an experienced teacher’s practical knowledge, explicated in a dilemmatic but teachable moment. Narrative inquiry is used as both a research method and a representational form to reveal the teacher’s ethical decisions and actions in the nested macro–meso–micro dilemmatic spaces. It is found that the teacher’s practical knowledge is embedded in a complicated web of meanings, and tapestried by her compromise to the national policies, her negotiation with the school governance and her caring for her students with diverse backgrounds. The ethical dimension of her practical knowledge provides her a vital power to carry out her educational practice. It is advocated that an ‘ethical turn’ for research and practice in teacher professional development is needed, so as to authorize teachers’ professionality reflected in their roles as humanity cultivators and transformative intellectuals. Moreover, under the global educational reform context since late 1990s, this article can be seen not only as a case from China, but also has implications for other countries in the world.     

Windows into the mind

As faculty, our goals for students are often tacit, hidden not only from students but from ourselves as well. We present a conceptual framework for considering teaching goals – what we want our students to achieve – that encourages us to think more broadly about what we mean by achieving in our knowledge domains. This framework includes declarative knowledge (“knowing that”), procedural knowledge (“knowing how”), schematic knowledge (“knowing why”) and strategic knowledge (“knowing when, where and how our knowledge applies”). We link the framework to a variety of assessment methods and focus on assessing the structure of declarative knowledge – knowledge structure. From prior research, we know that experts and knowledgeable students have extensive, well-structured, declarative knowledge; not so novices. We then present two different techniques for assessing knowledge structure – cognitive and concept maps, and a combination of the two – and provide evidence on their technical quality. We show that these maps provide a window into the structure of students declarative knowledge not otherwise tapped by typical pencil-and-paper tests. These maps provide us with new teaching goals and new evidence on student learning.Based on an invited address, Facoltá di Ingegneria dell’Universitá degli Studi di Ancona, June 27, 2000. This research was supported, in part, by the Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing (Grant R117G10027), and by the National Science Foundation (Nos. ESI 95-96080). The opinions expressed here represent those of the authors and not necessarily those of the funding agency.     

Exploring the dimensions of personal epistemology in differing classroom contexts: Student interpretations during the first year of college

The study of personal epistemology has typically addressed the theories and beliefs that individuals hold about knowledge and knowing, and the way in which such epistemological perspectives are related to academic learning. This qualitative, exploratory case study focuses on the epistemology of instructional practices as interpreted by students in two versions of introductory-level college chemistry, each with different underlying epistemological assumptions. Classroom observations and interviews of 25 first-year students provide a contextualized perspective on the dimensionality of beliefs as identified in the literature: certainty of knowledge, simplicity of knowledge, source of knowledge, and justification for knowing. This research suggests that students’ perceptions of instructional practices are interpreted through the lens of their epistemological assumptions, but that such perspectives are evolving and instructors may influence them in multiple ways.     

The first year university experience: using personal epistemology to understand effective learning and teaching in higher education

Personal epistemological beliefs, or beliefs about knowing, provide a way in which to understand learning in a range of educational contexts because they are considered to act as filters for all other knowledge and beliefs. In particular, they provide a useful framework for investigating learning and teaching for first year students in tertiary education, who are typically considered to hold less sophisticated epistemological beliefs. Using semi-structured interviews, this study investigated the nature of beliefs about knowing and learning of 35 first year teacher education and creative writing students at a large metropolitan university in Australia. The interview analysis indicated that a relationship existed between individuals’ core beliefs about knowing and their beliefs about learning. This relationship has implications for the way in which we support first year students’ learning as they transition into university and progress through their courses.     

Rethinking the ethics of scientific knowledge: A case study of teaching the environment in science classrooms

In this paper we argue that scientific literacy ought to be rethought in that it involves ethics as its core element. Considering the fact that science education has addressed ethical dilemmas of Science, Technology, Society and Environment (STSE) issues, it is worthwhile to question what the ethics of scientific knowledge mean in terms of their implications in modern society where knowledge generally is separated from action and thereby from the responsibility for knowing. We draw on the concept of integrity of knowing to analyze knowledge about the environment in Korean sixth—grade science classrooms. Examining the notion of immediate coping and ConfucianCheng, we differentiate ‘knowing about ethics’ and ‘knowing ethically’ with respect to STSE issues. We challenge the notion of knowing, suggesting instead that there is not only knowing about but knowingin andfor action. Participatory scientific literacy ought to aim for the latter form of knowing. This understanding of ethics and scientific literacy could help science educators bring forth the responsibility for knowledge in science classrooms by encouraging students to become active and responsible concerning STSE issues.     

Elaborating pedagogical content knowledge: what it means to know students and think about teaching

The purpose of this study was to examine how a teacher understood her students and then thought and made decisions about content, curriculum and pedagogy. Pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) and Deweyan philosophies of experience and education provided the theoretical frameworks. Data were collected through observations (N?=?38) and interviews (N?=?38) over four months and analysed using constant comparison. Findings indicated that this teacher possessed a broad repertoire of knowledge about students that she used to think and make decisions about content, curriculum and pedagogy. The connections between knowing students and thinking about teaching were more sophisticated and interconnected than is typically recognized or articulated in teacher knowledge literature. Three themes are used to explain how this teacher understood her students’ emotional and social lives in and out of her classroom, and ways it influenced her thinking and teaching. The discussion centers on the need for more comprehensive analyses of teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge.     

Science Students' Perceptions of Engaging Pedagogy

During their years of schooling, students develop perceptions about learning and teaching, including the ways in which teachers impact on their learning experiences. This paper presents student perceptions of teacher pedagogy as interpreted from a study focusing on students' experience of Year 7 science. A single science class of 11 to 12 year old students and their teacher were monitored for the whole school year, employing participant observation, and interviews with focus groups of students, their teacher and other key members of the school. Analysis focused on how students perceived the role of the teacher's pedagogy in constructing a learning environment that they considered conducive to engagement with science learning. Two areas of the teacher's pedagogy are explored from the student perspective of how these affect their learning: instructional pedagogy and relational pedagogy. Instructional pedagogy captures the way the instructional dialogue developed by the teacher drew the students into the learning process and enabled them to “understand” science. How the teacher developed a relationship with the students is captured as relational pedagogy, where students said that they learned better when teachers were passionate in their approach to teaching, provided a supportive learning environment and made them feel comfortable. The ways in which the findings support the direction for the middle years and science education are considered.     

基础教育课程改革中教师角色的转变

当前正在进行的基础教育课程改革要求教师的角色必须进行相应的转变。即由知识的传授者转向学习的参与者、促进者和指导者;由“教书匠”转向科研型、创新型教师;由单一型教师转向综合型教师;由传统教学方式转向现代教学方式;由面向全体学生的教学转为面向全体与面向个体学生相结合的教学。     

Teacher credentials and student achievement: Longitudinal analysis with student fixed effects

We use a rich administrative dataset from North Carolina to explore questions related to the relationship between teacher characteristics and credentials on the one hand and student achievement on the other. Though the basic questions underlying this research are not new—and, indeed, have been explored in many papers over the years within the rubric of the “education production function”—the availability of data on all teachers and students in North Carolina over a 10-year period allows us to explore them in more detail than has been possible in previous studies. We conclude that a teacher's experience, test scores and regular licensure all have positive effects on student achievement, with larger effects for math than for reading. Taken together the various teacher credentials exhibit quite large effects on math achievement, whether compared to the effects of changes in class size or to the socio-economic characteristics of students.     

Exploring a Pedagogy for the Supervision of Prospective Mathematics Teachers

Our investigation explored a pedagogy for supervision through a case study of one prospective middle school mathematics teacher during her student teaching semester. Classroom observations by the university supervisor, teaching episode interviews between the supervisor and student teacher, and focused journal reflections by the student teacher were coordinated to challenge the student teacher's existing models of teaching. The emerging pedagogy of the teaching episodes, a central focus of this study, was characterized by (a)the use of open-ended questions that centered the student teacher in the process of sense making; (b) a shift away from the supervisor's direct, authoritative evaluations of the student teacher's practice; (c) a sustained focus throughout supervision derived from the student teacher's classroom experiences; and(d) an effort to maintain sensitivity to the student teacher's zone of proximal development. We found our approach to be coincident with the notion of instructional conversation (IC)advanced by Gallimore and Goldenberg (1992).The nature of the teaching episodes seemed to open the student teacher's zone of proximal development so that her practice of teaching could be mediated with the assistance of a more knowing other. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

A Case Study of the Development of a Beginning Chemistry Teacher's Knowledge about Models and Modelling

In this paper, we present a case study of a beginning chemistry teacher who enrolled in a project aimed to contribute to the development of teachers' knowledge of models and modelling in science. The project consisted of a series of institutional meetings in combination with an action research project the teacher conducted in her own classes. By explaining how the project was conducted and mainly by focusing on the teacher's voice, her dynamic, continuous, and non-linear process of knowledge development is discussed in detail. We were able to investigate and describe this development in terms of various types of knowledge – content knowledge, curricular knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge – which were developed simultaneously. Among other results, it became clear how certain institutional activities led to specific choices in the teacher's action research project. For instance, although initially she was reluctant to conduct a modelling activity in her class, she decided to experiment with such an activity in her action research project. Subsequently, the responses of her students during the project convinced her of the value of this modelling activity and helped her to become aware of specific views of her students. Finally, it became evident that the whole experience made her very enthusiastic and stimulated her to formulate specific intentions with respect to the future, both in terms of applying certain teaching activities and in terms of collaborating with colleagues.     

教师教育中的理解与视域融合

教师教育的意义不在其所传播的话语中,也不存在于教师身上,它存在于教师与其他教育者的视域融合之中。在教师教育中,教师与教育知识都是处于历史之中,教师的专业发展与教育知识的增长变化一起构成一种内在的相互作用,在这种相互作用中教师与教育知识构成一个统一体,构成一种运动关系的效果历史。任何教育知识的理解与接纳都是教师运用自己的语言的自我理解与接纳。他们的视野与教师教育的课程安排间的融合与抗拒,推进了教师理解的创造性发展。视域融合并不完全是一种"共享"、共识,它一直包含着一种深刻地质疑与批判。     

班主任的“爱”与“严”

班主任既是老师又是家长,班主任工作既繁琐又朴实。班主任既要教导学生多学文化科学知识,将来做一个对社会有用之人,又要引导学生树立正确的世界观和人生观,帮助他们走上正确的人生旅途。作者根据多年的班主任工作经验,就工作中容易出现的“爱”与“严”尺度把握不准的问题进行了分析和探讨,以求共同进步。     

教师叙事与专业发展

对于教师而言，教育叙事是促进专业发展的方式。这是因为叙事是教师教育生活的一种方式；教师以叙事方式认识教育教学；教师以叙事的方式建构教育经验。教师进行教育叙事能锻炼观察日常教育生活的能力．帮助洞悉个人实践知识，提高反思探究能力，提升课程意识。     

润雨滋万物暖语拨人心--乐于接受性原则与语文课堂教学

乐于接受性原则指出,教师只有在学生乐于接受教学信息时,传输信息才会有效。语文教师在具备了自身应有的人格和学识的同时,充分尊重学生,用富有人情味的方法和富有人性化的内容实施教学,则会如“润雨滋万物”一样收到“暖语拨人心”的效果,走向教育的终极目标——人的全面发展。     

The role of elementary teachers’ conceptions of closeness to students on their differential behaviour in the classroom

While many studies have documented the importance of supportive student–teacher relationships, particularly during students’ formative education experiences, few studies have systematically examined teachers’ conceptions of their relationships. The purpose of this project was to examine elementary school teachers’ conceptions of closeness using a structured interview protocol. Participants included three Caucasian teachers from the United States. Specifically, as part of the protocol, teachers were asked to (1) rate their feelings of closeness for each of the students in their class, (2) describe each relationship, (3) identify patterns of interpersonal closeness and distance across their class, and (4) talk about their understanding of what it means to be close to students. Findings were organised into a grounded model of teacher closeness in which teachers described how their feelings of closeness to students were related to five different teacher's approach orientations. Teachers’ approach orientations may have important implications for the way in which children in the class are privileged or marginalised by their teacher relationship.     

Teacher candidates’ epistemological beliefs, dispositions, and views on teaching as persuasion

Alexander and her colleagues proposed teaching as persuasion as a guiding metaphor for conceptual change pedagogy (Alexander, Fives, Buehl, & Mulhern, 2002). However, there is reason to suspect that the term persuasion can have negative connotations for some individuals ( Dole & Sinatra, 1999; Murphy, 2001). Therefore, we examined 182 primarily preservice teachers’ views of teaching as persuasion, and related those views to their openness/resistance to new ideas as measured by selected epistemological belief scales and dispositional measures. Consistent with our hypotheses, our results indicated that teacher candidates who believed that knowledge evolves, that beliefs can be revised, and that learning is a process of constructing knowledge were more open to persuasive teaching. Our findings provide support for Murphy’s (2001) view of persuasion and suggest further that the teaching as persuasion metaphor would be more successful embedded in an instructional context designed to broaden teachers’ epistemological worldviews.     

Examining secondary school students’ views of model evaluation through an integrated framework of personal epistemology

The aim of the study was to investigate students’ views of model evaluation through the lens of personal epistemology. We developed an integrated analytical framework by combining a developmental framework, including absolutist, multiplist, and evaluatist, with a multi-dimensional framework, including limits of knowing, certainty of knowing, and criteria of knowing. Furthermore, we examined the potential influence of the question contexts and the students’ grade levels. A total of 188 secondary school students were surveyed. Students answered two sets of model evaluation questions based on two scientific contexts. After reading the information about the two models, the students had to choose from three epistemic assumptions and then provide written justifications explaining their choice of assumptions. Quantitative and qualitative analyses were conducted for the multiple-choice questions and the written responses. In both contexts there were higher percentages of 11th-grade students choosing the evaluatist assumptions than the eighth-grade students. For students choosing multiplist and evaluatist assumptions, the 11th-grade students were more likely than the eighth-grade students to think in terms of pragmatic and evidential criteria as the criteria of knowing. Different contexts of the questions evoked different views of model evaluation particularly regarding the limits of knowing. Four additional categories of epistemic levels also emerged from the data. This study provides a new framework for understanding students’ thinking about model evaluation. Implications and suggestions for future research are provided.

     

Discursive practices, genealogies, and emotional rules: A poststructuralist view on emotion and identity in teaching

This paper invokes a poststructuralist lens—and, in particular, Foucauldian ideas—in conceptualizing teacher emotions as discursive practices. It is also argued that within this theoretical framework, teacher identity is theorized as constantly becoming in a context embedded in power relations, ideology, and culture. In terms of the methodology used when studying teacher identity and emotion through this lens, it is shown that long-term ethnographic investigations offer important advantages. This is shown through an ethnographic study of the emotions of teaching with one teacher over three years (1997–1999) and a semester long follow-up study with the same teacher four years later (spring 2003). The contribution of this study in what is presently known about teacher emotions in educational settings consists in the following three ideas: first, that emotional rules in teaching are historically contingent; second, that a teacher plays a part in her own emotional control; and third, that a teacher's identity is constituted in relation to the emotional rules in the context in which she/he teaches. The contribution of a poststructuralist perspective in research on teacher emotion is discussed and analyzed.     

Detectability of correctness: A measure of knowing that one knows

It is important to know that one knows, to be able to discriminate what one knows from what one does not, since that is a basis for making decisions about using and augmenting one's knowledge. A measure of knowing that one knows has been proposed, the detectability of correctness, the ability to discriminate those answers that one gives that are correct from those that are incorrect. This paper presents the background of the problem of knowing that one knows, points out how previous efforts at measurement have been faulty and presents empirical results that indicate that detectability of correctness is a valid and stable measure.