Preparing Mathematics Teachers to Teach English Language Learners: What We Know and What We Can Do

Abstract

A recent issue of The Educational Forum contained eight articles theming the preparation of teachers for linguistically-diverse classrooms. This article extends that discussion, and in it this scholar introduces practicalities for mathematics teachers in linguistically-diverse classrooms, and provides suggestions for teacher educators whose target audience is prospective mathematics teachers. The author’s intention is to contribute to the discussion of supporting ELLs in mathematics classrooms, and to advance the praxis for teachers and teacher educators.     

Jewish Day School Wounds and What We Can Do About Them

This article is based upon a qualitative research study that examined 95 school stories written by Jewish female teacher candidates in an undergraduate education course. Many candidates wrote inspirational or humorous stories about growth and development or a special teacher. However, over one third of the narratives described painful Jewish day schooling episodes with insensitive teachers, stinging rebukes, or public shaming. The findings argue for the enhancement of Jewish educator preparation with attention to professionalization of classroom management and interrogation of assumptions from schooling biographies. This study challenges teacher educators in the liminal space of educator preparation as teacher candidates shift from personal lived schooling experience into professional practice.     

What Should We Create Today? Improvisational teaching in play-based classrooms

This study presents the findings from a qualitative case study of free playtime in a toddler and a preschool classroom. This study explores whether recent understandings of play as a collectively produced improvised activity can shed light on the role of the early childhood teacher. The study found that the teachers and children collectively created a playful classroom environment by engaging in on-going improvised activity. The teachers often served as skilled improvisers, by creating, together with the children in their class, new performances out of whatever was available at the moment. The study concludes with a recommendation that improvisational theatre training be considered as a potentially supportive form of teacher education.     

Leadership for Organisational Learning and Improved Student Outcomes—What Do We Know?

The Leadership for Organisational Learning and Student Outcomes (LOLSO) Research Project addresses the need to extend present understandings of school reform initiatives that aim to change school practices with the intention of supporting enhanced student learning. In this article results from LOLSO's teacher surveys ('teacher voice') and student surveys ('pupil voice') are organised around six of the project's major research questions: how is the concept of organisational learning (OL) defined in Australian secondary schools (teacher voice)? What leadership practices promote OL in schools (teacher voice)? What are some outcomes of schooling other than academic achievement (pupil voice)? What are the relationships between the non-academic and academic outcomes of schooling? Do school leadership and/or organisational learning contribute to student outcomes? What other factors contribute to student outcomes? The answers to these questions lead to four clear implications relating to distributive leadership, development, context, and a broader understanding of student outcomes. The answers also raise concerns about the current emphasis on transactional leadership, that is school leadership that overemphasises the managerial or strategic.     

Do We Practise What We Preach?: putting policy into practice in teacher education

There are substantial pressures for changes in teaching practice which are now clearly reflected in government policy. It is argued that these pressures have emerged from changes in the culture of technologically based societies and the resulting changes in the needs of all students in schools. The implications of recent theories of learning and new needs for learners are discussed with respect to teacher education. An attempt to change the way in which students are prepared in mathematics education is reported. Data collected as part of the study indicate the need for a system‐wide approach to change.     

Teacher Planning,Instruction and Refl ection: What We Know About Teacher Cognitive Processes

The process of teaching is complex and multidimensional. Teaching behaviors and actions are shaped by numerous cognitive decisions made by the teacher before, during, and after instruction. This article examines teacher cognition across the broad field of education and, more specifically, physical education in teacher planning, instruction, and reflection. To date, research has largely examined the areas of planning, instruction, and reflection separately and often in controlled settings. It is suggested that future researchers examining teachers. thoughts and actions employ methodologies, such as case study, that examine the three processes holistically and in the natural teaching environment, thereby linking actual behaviors with the cognitive processes that produced them.     

Practicing What We Preach in Teacher Education: A Critical Whiteness Studies Analysis of Experiential Education

In this article I problematize the reasons for and methods through which I incorporated an opportunity for experiential learning, via a Community Inquiry Project, into my own teaching. I take the stance of a teacher-researcher to closely analyze the specific documents and tasks used to introduce pre-service teachers to the project. I draw on sociocultural approaches to teacher development and literature on experiential education in teacher education to provide a background for the project and the self-study and offer critical whiteness studies as an appropriate lens through which to analyze the various elements of the project. Findings from this study suggest that the project limited the pre-service teachers’ characterizations of community, understandings of sociocultural approaches to learning, relationships to the community, and perceptions of the role of community in teaching. I draw on these findings to suggest that teacher educators share their reflective practices with their students and learn about the diverse experiences of the pre-service teachers themselves to better prepare them to inquire into and draw on knowledge of communities as they work with diverse populations of students.     

Practicing What We Teach: A Self-Study in Implementing an Inquiry-Based Curriculum in a Middle Grades Classroom

A science teacher educator returned to teaching adolescents after more than 10 years in the professoriate. We studied his beliefs, practice and daily use of inquiry pedagogy while implementing a reform-based curriculum. Reflection on practice was evidenced by a weekly journal, classroom observations and debriefings, and extensive interviews. Newly developed practical knowledge from this experience shifted the science teacher educator’s beliefs away from the Piagetian structuralism espoused in prescribed curricula towards a more culturally responsive, student-driven approach to teaching science to middle grades students. The merits and limitations of curricula attempting to follow traditional scientific practices are discussed.     

Preparing Jewish Educators: The Research We Have,the Research We Need

This article discusses the research we have and the research we need in both general and Jewish teacher education. First, I discuss three recent efforts to synthesize and assess existing research in teacher education and to identify needed research. Next I review a handful of recent studies in Jewish teacher education which illustrate various research genres and provide a taste of what more coordinated studies could generate in the way of usable knowledge. I conclude by proposing three programs of research on the education of Jewish educators.     

What We Learned about Using Metaphors in College Teaching: Methods and Meanings

The field of education is rich with metaphors that reveal one's perspective on the nature of teaching and learning—ideas are “covered,” students “absorb” information, teachers offer writing “clinics.” Each of these metaphors indicate nuanced ideas about what schooling is and is for—to be checked off? Taken in unquestioningly? For those who are sick? Two teacher educators in the field of early childhood education share insights from their own experiences in considering novice teachers' metaphors in their preparatory experiences, particularly wondering what these unveil about heretofore unanalyzed beliefs and what instructors can learn so as to form further instruction. Methods are shared and reflection led educators to find important instructional and relationship-building implications for working with novice teachers.     

What We are Missing in Studies of Teacher Learning: A Call for Microgenetic,Interactional Analyses to Examine Teacher Learning Processes

Much of the work in the Learning Sciences and Computer-Supported Collaborated Learning communities have focused on understanding and designing for learning in collaborative spaces. This work utilizes methods such as Interaction Analysis and has attended to multiple dimensions and timescales of learning. It has redefined ideas about knowledge and competence and how they are acquired, thus providing important insights into the process of learning and the design of learning environments. However, we have not in the same way advanced our knowledge of teacher learning. Our understanding of the process and mechanism of teacher learning in in collaborative professional development (PD) environments is still quite thin. In this paper, we discuss how utilizing methods from Interaction Analysis, in particular, can offer insight into the process of teacher learning in these contexts. We illustrate how adopting a lens that shifts away from asking whether teachers are progressing toward a researcher-defined goal, toward one that asks how learning occurs in the moments of interaction, and the meaning it has for participants as they work to achieve PD goals, has the potential to shed new light on learning in teacher PD.     

如何推进高职院校师资队伍建设--天津职业大学师资队伍建设措施

师资队伍建设是高等职业教育基础建设的重要内容。职业教育要办出特色，首先要建设一支优秀的教师队伍。天津职业大学在师资队伍建设方面，积极采取措施，取得了良好的成效。     

从教师角度考察我国基础教育信息化的状况和问题

教师作为教学活动的执行者,在教育信息化实践中起到最为直接的作用.本研究试图从一线教师的经验来考察基础教育信息化的现状,通过审视近五年教师认知技能和观念的变化来为教学实践和师资培训提供最新的决策信息.作者调查了433名小学教师技术使用的技能、态度和再学刊途径.数据显示,相比5年前,教师的技术使用水平有大幅提高;多数教师对技术应用持积极态度,并愿意开展更多的技术整合活动和参加更多的相关培训.对多数被调查教师而言,困扰他们的主要不是硬件设备的缺乏,而是相关软件和应用的缺乏.在新技术应用上,数据显示出教师支持"教"的实践较多,而支持学生"学"的实践较少.教师很大程度上把教育技术能力等同于技术操作、课常演示和课件制作水平.作者建议师资培训应从技术操作层面的训练转向教学法、教学内容和技术结合的设计训练,以此来提高技术整合活动的效果.     

日本中学音乐教学一瞥

在我国,小学阶段的音乐教学似乎还得到了应有的重视,从课时安排到教学内容均有一定的计划。但到了初中及高中阶段,音乐课几乎成为了一个摆设。据调查,在我国初中和高中时期的音乐课几乎成为了学生的作业课和自习课。其实,这一阶段正是青少年接受知识、提高认知及兴趣形成的最为关键的时期,也是青少年过渡到社会人、决定着社会音乐形态最为关键的一个环节,在我国却成为了接受音乐教育的一个断层。     

张飞是曹操的侄女婿：我们究竟研究了什么？

杂文选刊2006年第3期(上半月版)登载一篇名叫《博士论文》的百字杂文,说在某次“博土论文竞赛”中,获奖的论文题目如下:《吃饭有益论》《论“回”字的第四十四种写法》《秦始皇焚书坑儒所用引火材料新考》《武大郎卖烧饼的吆喝技巧与WTO背景下的营销策略》《左手还是右手——关于曹雪芹用哪只手举杯喝酒的伦理学考察》。这是文学版的对我们一些以学术特长取胜,“把学问做深做透做细”的高水平博士的最新注解。而现实版的学者专家又如何呢?四川社科院研究员、中国《三国演义》学会常务副会长沈伯俊潜心研究20余年终于提出“张飞是曹操侄女…     

Back to the Future: We Listened and We Learned

Being asked to give the 39^th Amy Morris Homans Commemorative Lecture at NAKPEHE is a tremendous honor. While certainly aware of Miss Homans' legacy related to the promotion of women, physical education, and the training of teachers, I admit it has been many years since revisiting details of her life and her work. In order to prepare my comments for this lecture, it seemed critical that I do so, and what a remarkable journey it has been these past months. It allowed me to come to know my own background more thoroughly, recognize where my own beliefs were developed, and understand what I hope is the impact of my work on prospective teachers and subsequently their pupils. Born 100 years almost to the day after Miss Homans, I too am a teacher educator. With this in mind, teaching and teacher education seemed an appropriate focus for this lecture today.     

Educational Psychology: What Do We Teach, What Should We Teach?

Teacher education students sometimes question the value of educational psychology courses even though educational psychology textbooks are primarily concerned with understanding and improving classroom teaching and learning. A survey of current educational psychology textbooks and instructors reveals that (a) most texts cover a wide variety of topics, (b) instructors rate most of these topics as important, (c) there are large variations in depth of coverage among texts, and (d) all texts contain numerous classroom applications. The questionable reputation of the educational psychology course may stem from its broad coverage. A dozen or more topics in one semester may decrease the probability that most students will achieve a solid grasp of any one topic, leaving students uncertain about the course's meaning and applicability. A proposed solution is to offer the introductory course as a two-semester sequence, with the second course offered as an elective.     

‘What We Think We Can Safely Say…’: Primary teachers’ views of the nature of science

Since science became part of the core curriculum in England and Wales for children aged five upwards, primary school teachers have moved from widespread diffidence to positions of some confidence and success in teaching it. In the process, their views of the nature of science and the purposes of teaching it can be expected to have developed. The importance of the teacher in relation to the quality of students' learning, and to the ideas about and orientations towards a subject that students develop, is well documented. There are good reasons to believe that teachers' views of the nature of science form part of a ‘hidden curriculum’ in their science teaching: thus, an understanding of them is necessary to an understanding of learners' experiences of science teaching. The research reported explored such views through both case study and survey methodologies. The case studies showed the depth and subtlety of some teachers' views of science. The survey data yielded six factors, explaining 82% of the variance in respondents' views of science, provisionally named scientism, naive empiricism, ‘new-age-ism’, constructivism, pragmatism and scepticism. The views of science expressed by teachers in interview, and those inferred from and made explicit in their practice, were in most cases consistent with their positions on these factors. These enable interesting insights into the representations of science communicated by primary teachers in their science teaching, which could inform curriculum development in relation to the nature of science, at both primary and secondary levels.     

What We Need to Know About Responsiveness To Intervention (and Shouldn't Be Afraid to Ask)

During the past several years, one of the most frequently addressed topics at conferences and in professional journals is responsiveness to intervention (RTI). This is because it is viewed by many as a new way to think about both early intervention and disability identification. Despite its relative newness, a subset of RTI proponents contend researchers and practitioners know everything they need to know to implement it effectively. We disagree and argue that the smartest and most responsible way to move forward with RTI implementation is to recognize what all of us collectively do know and do not know. In this article, we identify unresolved issues—general and specific—important to RTI implementation, teacher effectiveness, and student achievement.