Positive teacher–student relationships go beyond the classroom,problematic ones stay inside

The authors voice teachers' perceptions of their interpersonal experiences with students in both positive and problematic relationships. Interview data from 28 teachers were examined by coding utterances on teacher and student interactions. Results indicate that teachers defined the quality of the relationship mostly by the level of communion (friendly vs. hostile), instead of by the level of agency (in control vs. powerless). Analyses of mentioned teacher and student behavior show a friendly interactional pattern for positive relationships and a hostile pattern for problematic ones. In teachers' perceptions, positive and problematic relationships also differed in context where encounters take place and topic of talk. Contrary to interactions in problematic relationships, encounters in positive relationships were mostly situated outside the classroom context and conversations during these encounters covered a wide range of topics. Implications for teacher education programs are discussed.     

Enhancing Secondary School Instruction and Student Achievement: Replication and Extension of the My Teaching Partner-Secondary Intervention

Abstract

My Teaching Partner-Secondary (MTP-S) is a web-mediated coaching intervention, which an initial randomized trial, primarily in middle schools, found to improve teacher–student interactions and student achievement. Given the dearth of validated teacher development interventions showing consistent effects, we sought to both replicate and extend these findings with a modified version of the program in a predominantly high school population, and in a more urban, sociodemographically diverse school district. MTP-S produced substantial gains in student achievement across 86 secondary school classrooms involving 1,194 students. Gains were robust across subject areas and equivalent to moving the average student from the 50th to the 59th percentile in achievement scores. Results suggest that MTP-S can enhance student outcomes across diverse settings and implementation modalities.     

教育中的“科学探究”:理论问题与实践策略

科学探究是当前国内外科学教育的关注热点。让学生经历真实的科学探究,教师需要了解真实科学探究的本质,明确科学探究的教育指向,学会引导学生开展科学探究的方法。真实科学探究是科学知识生成、验证和发展的过程,面对的是开放性的问题,需要探究者科学知识、有关科学的知识、直觉、想象力、创造性以及个性品质的介入,不存在一套普适性的、正确的方法和逻辑。教育中的科学探究不是让学生生成和验证新的科学知识,而是理解科学知识及其产生的过程,学习过程性科学技能,培养科学思维和科学理解,形成合理的科学本质和价值观。引导学生开展科学探究,教师需要学会创设不同结构化程度的探究情境,重视学生自由式的探索性活动,充分利用探究活动中的错误或失败引导学生进行科学思维,学会协商型的对话策略和引导学生进行科学思维的对话方法。     

Gender and emotions in relationships: a group of teachers recalling their own teachers

This narrative inquiry analyses the memories of a group of female teachers telling about their own teachers. We ask how gender and emotions are intertwined to teacher–student relationships. Gender was present in the stories where the teachers described being a schoolgirl in relationship with a teacher and told about their teachers as women and men. The collective process of recalling evoked the emotions experienced as students, but these emotions were also interpreted in the present context. When recalling, the teachers were reconstructing the past in the light of the present and the future. The article highlights the significance for teachers reflecting on their own educational histories.     

University–School Partnerships in English Pre-service Teacher Education: A Dialogic Inquiry into a Co-teaching Initiative

Evidence has been accumulating for some time about the impact of standards-based education reforms on schools and schooling, but there has been little research investigating the influence of these reforms on university-based initial teacher education (ITE). This article critically inquiries into the effects of these reforms on an ITE co-teaching project where a secondary English teacher in a school was seconded to work for a year as a teacher educator in an Australian university in a praxis-based partnership. Using Cavarero’s framing of ‘who’ and ‘what’ narratives, and Bakhtinian discourse theory, the authors present three autobiographical narratives exploring different perspectives on their experiences in the co-teaching partnership. The article affirms the value of school–university praxis partnerships for speaking back to standards-based reforms, but acknowledges that this speaking back involves complex relational and dialogic work in grappling with institutional and system-wide policies and practices.     

Teacher candidates’ opinions and experiences as input for teacher education curriculum development*

The aim of this international study was to generate recommendations for curriculum improvement in family–school partnerships (FSP) by examining teacher candidates’ understandings, attitudes and experiences. A survey of 1144 candidates in their first or final year of preparation at three universities, one each in Belgium, the Netherlands and the USA, provided qualitative and quantitative data regarding their understandings, attitudes about FSP and their experiences in their teacher preparation. The data indicated modest approval of the value of partnerships, understandings of partnerships weighted towards teacher to parent communication, preference for traditional teacher–parent activities over non-traditional choices, and, among final year candidates, mildly positive feelings of preparedness. Candidates wished more interactions with parents during field experiences and practical strategies for communicating with parents. Inferred in their responses was the need for curriculum to develop an expanded view of partnerships, enhance attitudes, especially among secondary education candidates, and cultivate skills in working with families from culturally diverse backgrounds. However, few candidates expressed a desire for exploring theory and research on partnerships or for the opportunity to develop a personal philosophy, components which are thought critical for teachers’ ability to establish partnerships with parents.     

新课程背景下科学探究教学活动解读——两位理科教师实施科学探究教学质性研究报告

本文用质性方法对两位理科教师实施科学探究教学活动进行了分析。     

Collaborative Meaning-Making and Dialogic Interactions in Critical Friends as Co-Authors

ABSTRACT

From this year-long study, we offer new perspectives for being and becoming critical friends as co-authors. Informed by the Transactional Theory of Reading, a narrative view of experience and feminist communication theory, we positioned ourselves as collaborative, active meaning makers who could read and make meaning from our lived experiences and who could disrupt and problematize our narrative lives as teacher researchers. Through use of a collaborative conference protocol, we discovered what it means to be and to become critical friends who can co-author narrative understanding of self in the study. We have revisited the concept of critical friendship by repositioning our coauthoring as not just a resource for the completion of a better end product, but also as a way of being and knowing that enables an individual to revisit, reignite, disrupt, problematize and challenge one’s past and present storied lives.     

语篇衔接研究新探

语言学界在如何看待衔接与连贯的关系这一问题上提出了许多不同的观点。文章首先论述了衔接的实质,然后从认知科学的角度探讨了语篇的衔接。     

Avoiding the Perils of “Teacher-Proof” Online Design: A Content Analysis

This content analysis explored how previously validated Web-based inquiries (WBIs) for science instruction are designed and to what extent they match the proposed teacher-support guidelines of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Examined WBIs implemented few recommended teacher-support mechanisms. This article explores the reasons why so few mechanisms were supported and proposes ways to enhance the curricular usefulness of WBIs by incorporating more recommended mechanisms.     

Teacher–student relationship at university: an important yet under-researched field

This article reviews the extant research on the relationship between students and teachers in higher education across three main areas: the quality of this relationship, its consequences and its antecedents. The weaknesses and gaps in prior research are highlighted and the importance of addressing the multi-dimensional and context-bound nature of teacher–student relationships is proposed. A possible agenda for future research is outlined.     

Inquiry into Children's Mathematical Thinking as a Means to Teacher Change

In the context of U.S. and world wide educational reforms that require teachers to understand and respond to student thinking about mathematics in new ways, ongoing learning from practice is a necessity. In this paper we report on this process for one teacher in one especially productive year of learning. This case study documents how Ms. Statz's engagement with children's thinking changed dramatically in a period of only a few months; observations and interviews several years later confirm she sustained this change. Our analysis focuses on the mathematical discussions she had with her students, and suggests this talk with children about their thinking in instruction served both as an index of change, and, in combination with other factors, as a mechanism for change. We identified four phases in Ms. Statz's growth toward practical inquiry, distinguished by her use of interactive talk with children. Motivating the evolution of phases were two sorts of mechanisms: scaffolded examination of her students' thinking; and asking and answering questions about individual students' thinking. Processes for generating and testing knowledge about children's thinking ultimately became integrated into Ms. Statz's instructional practices as she created opportunities for herself, and then students, to hear and respond to children's thinking.