Manipulatives Work!

This essay invites reflection on the phenomena of time as it impacts the day-to-day life of teachers. It also explores assumptions about time and teaching in three areas: first, beliefs about the force of time and the teacher's struggle to control it; second, beliefs about the potential of time and the benefits of its passing for teachers and students; and finally, beliefs about significant moments in time and the teacher's courage to be appropriately responsive to them.     

Feminist Praxis and the Gaze in the Early Childhood Curriculum

ABSTRACT Traditional approaches to curriculum development in early childhood education derive from modernist developmental understandings of the child. The article argues that such understandings of the child can support patriarchal gender relations by skewing the teacher's gaze and that reconstructing the teacher's gaze is central to feminist pedagogical praxis in early childhood education. One early childhood teacher's struggle to reconstruct her gaze via feminist readings of the child is used to explore the possibilities and challenges of working for feminist reconstructions in the early childhood curriculum.     

A place to begin (again) in research on student motivation: Teachers' beliefs

We report a questionaire study of teacher's beliefs about the effectiveness of different strategies for fostering student motivation. The questionaire covered a range of strategies, including those recommended by researchers, those rejected, and one on which recommendations have been in conflict. In general, teachers appeared to know what many researchers might “tell” them about student motivation. In the case where researchers have been divided, we judged the teachers to have adopted the better-founded position. We found modest correlations between strategy ratings and teacher's own motivational orientation as learners, a possible influence on beliefs about student motivation. The nature of research-based and common knowledge is discussed. Motivation researchers might begin by investigating teachers' knowledge rather than end their projects by telling teachers what they have found.     

Teaching the Nature of Science through Inquiry to Prospective Elementary Teachers: A Tale of Two Researchers

The teacher as researcher, Colburn, and the researcher, Bianchini, investigated Colburn's use of inquiry to teach the nature of science to prospective elementary teachers; we attempted to identify those aspects of the nature of science addressed through inquiry instruction and the varied contexts in which such insights arose. We began by videotaping small group inquiries and whole class deliberations during three units of Colburn's inquiry‐oriented general science course. We then conducted separate qualitative analyses of the resulting 20 h of videotaped data. Colburn, the teacher and informant, adopted an emic perspective and employed examples of explicit and implicit deliberations and demonstrations of the nature of science to construct his case. Bianchini also used an emic perspective, but examined only what teacher and students explicitly identified as examples of and insights into the nature of science. Taken together, our analyses highlight the difficulties in presenting a cogent and comprehensive picture of the nature of science to students, the teacher's pivotal role in initiating discussions of what science is and how scientists work, and the strengths and limitations of using classroom‐based research to investigate nature of science instruction. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 37: 177–209, 2000     

Adult Questions and Children's Responses: Coordination of perspectives in studies of children's theories of other minds

The main aim of this study is to shed light on the issue of how children learn to identify what is meant by what is said in communicative practices. The study replicates and extends the well-known work on what is referred to as children's 'theories of other minds'. The focus in the present study is on the interplay between the adult and the child, the nature of the task and the child's position in the communicative encounter. Rather than assuming that children have or do not have 'theories of other minds', we explore the communicative conditions under which children can be made sensitive to the nature of other people's (mistaken) beliefs. The empirical work was carried out amongst children aged three to five, since this is the critical age at which it is claimed that children become sensitive to the fact that other people's perspectives of a situation may differ from their own. The results show that whether or not children 'are able' to adopt other people's perspectives is very much a situated affair and reflects the manner in which they are brought into a position where they can share the framing of the adult. The questions posed are interpreted differently by the children in ways that go beyond the intended difference that concerns perspectivity. The test situation is polysemous in many respects and the variation in responses cannot be reduced to such a simple distinction as the one implied in the theory of mind research paradigm, which represents a monological conception of communication.     

Determining the conceptions of teaching science held by experienced high school science teachers

The article describes the process of analysis for determining a teacher's conception of teaching science using an available interview task. The analytical process provides a transparent link between teachers' spoken words and the different representations of their conceptions of teaching science. Representations of a teacher's conception of teaching science include a grid for analyzing different themes in a teacher's conception, a brief summary of the themes, and a longer written interpretive summary. Because these representations are based on the fundamental components of teaching science, they allow the uniqueness of both specific and structural aspects of teachers' views to emerge, and they facilitate comparisons between teachers. The analysis and its outcomes are exemplified using interviews with several experienced high school science teachers.     

The pygmalion effect: What teacher behaviors mediate it

Current literature suggests that a teacher's expectancies for a pupil may in part determine the pupil's subsequent behavior. This review asks how such expectancies affect the teacher's own behavior, with the goal of determining what teacher behaviors mediate the observed effect on the pupil. A model of this process is proposed, using Skinner's analysis of rule-dependent behavior as an organizational framework for recent research from several fields. The model identifies these sets of independent variables which warrant further investigation: (a) variables affecting the process through which a teacher deduces contingency rules from information about a pupil; (b) variables affecting the content of these rules; and (c) variables affecting the teacher's performance of the rule-specified actions.     

Understanding the co‐construction of inquiry practices: A case study of a responsive teaching environment

We set out to understand how different instantiations of inquiry emerged in two different years of one elementary teacher's classroom. Longitudinal observations from Mrs. Charles' 5th grade science classroom forced us to carefully and deliberately consider who exactly was responsible for the change in the class activities and norms. We provide empirical evidence to show how a focus on the teacher can easily overlook the complex dynamics of the classroom. The data reveal that students had a substantive and generative role in the class's arrival at the different instantiations of scientific inquiry—the nature and form of inquiry—that were constructed each year. We argue that, in an environment where a teacher carefully attends and responds to student thinking, the nascent resources students have for reasoning about phenomena can affect not only the conceptual ideas that emerge, but also influence what inquiry activities or practices become established as normative and productive over time. Our work with Mrs. Charles illuminates an important methodological concern with research on teacher development as well as the construct of teacher learning progressions; research accounts that focus primarily on the teacher may overlook the classroom norms that are negotiated between teacher and student, and thereby provide an incomplete portrayal of the teacher's activity within one classroom and the teacher's progress across multiple years. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 49: 429–464, 2012     

To Play or Not to Play—That Is the Question: Computer Use Within Three Swedish Preschools

Research Findings: This article is about computer use in 3 Swedish preschools with a specific focus on the preschool teacher's way of managing this use. Data were collected in 3 preschools serving children from 3 to 5 years of age. The data consisted of approximately 13 hr of video-documented observations and interviews with 9 teachers. The study is an example of a situated evaluation, which is an evaluation that takes place within an institutional practice such as a preschool. A key question is how this new artifact should be used in preschool activities. Practice or Policy: The study revealed how political and theoretical visions may be realized in everyday preschool practices. The teacher's approach to computer use was shown to be determined by a combination of the teacher's assumptions about the possibilities of computers and the dominant underlying principle or rationale at work in the preschool. It is argued that the computer is treated differently depending on whether a caring, nurturing, or teaching rationale dominates. It is also argued that the dominant rationale produces three different meaning-shaping practices; in the study, these are labeled protective, supporting, and guiding. These environments afford quite different possibilities for children to learn about and from the computer.     

A case study of high school teachers' decision making models for planning and teaching science

The focus of this study was to investigate the manner and the degree to which science teachers consider the nature of the subject matter in their decision making addressing the planning and the delivery of instructional tasks. An assumption of the study is that considerations for the nature of the subject matter should be a factor in a teacher's decision making about what to teach and how to teach. Relevant research literature reviewed includes (1) human decision making and the development of cognitive models of reality, (2) modern philosophies of science, and (3) philosophy of science and science education. Methods of data collection and of data analysis followed Spradley's Developmental Research Sequence guidelines for conducting ethnographic research. Validity of research findings was established from the triangulation of observations, interviews, and documents and surveys. The goal of the research was the development of grounded hypotheses about science TEACHERS' pedagogical decision making. Based on the results of this study it is hypothesized that science TEACHERS' decision-making models of reality for the selection, implementation, and development of instructional tasks are dominated by considerations for (a) student development, (b) curriculum guide objectives, and (c) pressures of accountability. Little, if any, consideration is given to the nature of the subject matter by the science teachers in decision making. Implications exist for the disenfranchisement of teachers from the task of making decisions concerning what to teach.     

I BOOK REVIEWS

This study examines the influence of graphing calculators on a teacher's assessment practices in a college algebra course. The researcher focused on three techniques of alternative assessment: oral discourse, teacher observations, and problem‐solving investigations. The teacher's assessment practices were revealed during 6 weeks of classroom observations. The researcher examined the teacher's assessment practices before and after the teacher used graphing calculators as tools for teaching and learning mathematics. The use of the graphing calculators enhanced the teacher's assessment practices as related to oral discourse, classroom observations, and problem‐solving investigations. The results of the study indicate the potential for technological tools to influence teachers’ practices of alternative assessment in the mathematics classroom.     

Telling and Retelling Our Stories on the Professional Knowledge Landscape

Drawing on a 3-year study focusing on the shaping influences of the professional knowledge landscape on the personal practical knowledge of experienced teachers, we first explore how stories are shaped as they are told and responded to in different places and, second, explore whether or not this sharing leads to imagining new possibilities for retelling and reliving stories. By sharing and exploring a story of a disagreement between a parent and a teacher, we focus on what we do when we tell stories in schools and what we do when we tell stories off the school landscape. In making meaning from this story, we show that both in the teacher's living of the story with the parent and in her numerous recountings of the story to others on the school landscape, she did not have opportunities to figure out new ways to relive the story. In our research group, she shared her story again. In this telling, we asked her to focus on who she, the mother, and the principal are in the story, and we inquire into what plotlines each were living. We ask questions about how they were positioned as characters in relation to one another. Re-searching the story in this way enabled us to understand the embodied nature of the teacher's knowing and how this knowledge shaped the events of the story as they were lived out, particularly how the teacher's living of a relational story countered the story of teacher and principal as positioned above parent. By drawing on Nelson's work on 'found' and 'chosen' communities, we imagine ways in which schools could become chosen communities where the story of school might be one of fostering the living out of multiple stories. We imagine the stories emerging from such communities might significantly shape the landscape of schools by opening up new possibilities for living in relation with others.     

The ethical claim of partiality: practical reasoning,the discipline,and teacher education

Practical reasoning refers to a teacher's capacity to discern particulars and make wise judgements about how to act in pedagogical situations. But how do teachers know what is right? How are teachers' preferences to be grounded and their choices justified? I explore the disciplines as one source of moral perception. Assuming that narrative unities underscore the coherence and continuity of an individual's experience, I generated data in the context of a 2‐year teacher education programme. The case study of an aspiring teacher of secondary school language arts illustrates how the intellectual virtues of a discipline can influence a student teacher's practical reasoning. I conclude that teacher educators must attend to the complex ways in which a prospective teacher's prior discipline may influence aspiring teachers' orientations to experience, their consideration of educational ends, and, finally, their characters.     

The professional writing teacher as author's editor

Editing includes teaching authors how to write, but the traditional editor's task, like the teacher's, is complicated by the additional requirement of being a gatekeeper of an author's work. When teachers (like editors) see their primary task as judges or gatekeepers, they can become engaged in adversarial relationships that contradict their role as enablers/teachers. The author's editor, on the other hand, is an emerging model of the editor‐author relationship that focuses on helping authors meet the expectations of gatekeeping journal and book editors. Teachers can use the author's‐editor model in the professional writing classroom to minimize the current‐traditional emphasis on the product and emphasize the collaborative nature of the writing process.     

Giving priority to evidence in science teaching: A first‐year elementary teacher's specialized practices and knowledge

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to examine the nature of a first‐year elementary teacher's specialized practices and knowledge for giving priority to evidence in science teaching and to explore the possible sources from which this knowledge was generated. Data included three audiotaped interviews, six videotaped classroom observations, lesson plans, and samples of students' work. The findings of this study reveal that the teacher gave priority to evidence by frequently engaging students in collecting evidence through observations and investigations, recording and representing evidence, and using that evidence to construct explanations. The findings of this study also illustrate that critical experiences during preparation to teach and specific university coursework acted as sources through which the teacher's specialized knowledge for giving priority to evidence was generated. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 42: 965–986, 2005     

What factors influence the decisions of parents of children with special educational needs when choosing a secondary educational provision for their child at change of phase from primary to secondary education? A review of the literature

This review presents the results of a literature scoping exercise looking at the decisions parents of children with special educational needs (SEN) make when choosing a secondary placement to send their child at change of phase. The review reports on studies that were conducted in England and other areas of the UK as well as in Australia and the USA because there has been only a limited amount of research into this area conducted in an English context. In addition, some of the papers do not discuss school choice specifically but cover related themes. The study identifies a number of broad factors that impact on parents' decision‐making: the age of the child, the nature and degree of the SEN; the socio‐economic status of the parents; the child's experience of inclusion in the primary phase; the secondary schools philosophy, capacity and perceived commitment to SEN; beliefs about teacher's skills, knowledge, capacity and attitudes; and the influence of other people, for example family, friends and professionals.     

Teachers' Experiences of Unfair Grading

Grading is often perceived as one of a teacher's most difficult tasks. Despite most teachers endeavoring to grade their students as objectively as possible, many students feel that they are subject to unfair grading. The aim of this study is to describe what it is about a teacher's grading that contributes to the perception of unfairness. This study used the critical incident technique, with 411 practicing teachers in Sweden contributing their own experiences of being assessed in a school context. The main findings from qualitative data analysis indicate that when teachers fail to follow guidelines of the current grading system, use undependable information, allow themselves to be influenced by irrelevant factors, or are ambiguous in their communication, the pupils perceived the grading process as unfair. The findings are analyzed and discussed in relation to a theoretical model of teachers' grading, validity and reliability, and three ethical principles.     

Cultivating Virtue in Teaching: The Role of the Personal,the Professional,and the Situational

It has been argued that virtuous teaching dispositions are essential to high-quality teaching. Discourse around dispositions, however, is still murky because there are contradictions in the field in regard to the issue of virtue. What is the source of teacher virtue, and how might it be cultivated? This essay explores evidence and implications for three possible sources of teacher virtue: the teacher's personality, the teaching profession, and the teacher's situational context.     

“Oh,I have a story”: narrative as a teacher's classroom model

This paper examines the teaching practices of one American Indian teacher in a high school literature class. It explores the teacher's use of narrative as an instructional strategy designed to convey abstract concepts through concrete experience. The narratives engage students in critical thinking and personal reflection, and provide them with the opportunity to make connections between social and historical contexts. In addition, the teacher uses stories to contrast multiple contexts with personal experiences, which reflects teaching strategies previously identified as those used by effective teachers. There is evidence that sharing ideas and concepts through story is an important way of encouraging social relations and helping students make connections between what they are learning in school and what they know of the world. Based on data analysis, this study presents a model of the teacher's use of narrative as a strategy to pose critical questions, frame a context for discussion, encourage students to reflect on personal perspectives, and introduce ideas and concepts. The model provides a visual representation of the teacher's use of narrative as a way of clarifying course content, contextualizing meaning, and reinforcing understanding.