Teachers’ Perceptions of Teacher–Child Relationships: Links With Children’s Observed Interactions

Research Findings: The present study examined associations between children’s classroom interactions and teachers’ perceptions of teacher–child relationships during 1 year of preschool. Teachers (n = 223) reported their perceptions of closeness and conflict in their teacher–child relationships in the fall and spring. Children’s (n = 895) positive classroom interactions with teachers, peers, and learning activities and their negative interactions were observed midyear. Children’s positive interactions with teachers and learning activities predicted teachers’ perceptions of more closeness in the spring when we accounted for fall closeness. Children’s negative interactions predicted teachers’ perceptions of more relational conflict in the spring when we accounted for fall conflict. Children’s positive peer interactions did not predict spring closeness or conflict. Implications regarding teachers’ perceptions of teacher–child relationships and children’s independently observed classroom interactions are discussed. Practice or Policy: Findings provide empirical evidence for an aspect of Pianta, Hamre, and Stuhlman’s (2003) conceptual model of teacher–child relationships. Results indicate that children’s classroom interactions may be a factor related to how teachers report on their relationships with children across 1 year of preschool. Findings point to links between a range of children’s positive and negative interactions during typical instruction and teachers’ relationship perceptions.     

Students’ and Teachers’ Application of Surface Area to Volume Relationships

The National Science Education Standards emphasize teaching unifying concepts and processes such as basic functions of living organisms, the living environment, and scale (NRC 2011). Scale includes understanding that different characteristics, properties, or relationships within a system might change as its dimensions are increased or decreased (NRC 2011). One such relationship involves surface area to volume which is a pervasive concept that can be found throughout different sciences. This concept is important for students to not only understand the association of the two, but to also be able to apply this relationship in science contexts. The purpose of this study is to investigate the factors that influence the understanding surface area to volume relationships. This study examined middle school students’, high school students’, and science teachers’ logical thinking skills (including proportional reasoning), visual-spatial skills, and understandings of surface area to volume relationships. Regression results indicated that participants’ reasoning abilities and components of visual-spatial skills could be possible predictors for one’s ability to understand surface area to volume relationships. Implications for teaching scale concepts such as surface area to volume relationships in the science classroom are discussed.     

Relationships Among Teachers’ Use of Mental State Verbs and Children’s Vocabulary Growth

Research Findings: Mental state verbs (MSV), a component of literate and academic language, may facilitate vocabulary growth, as they relate to metacognitive and metalinguistic awareness as well as decontextualized talk, all of which have been associated with vocabulary growth. In this study, we examined teacher MSV use in group content instruction and book reading in Head Start classrooms (N = 49) to determine the prevalence of teachers’ use of MSV. We sought to determine whether there was an association between teachers’ MSV use and children’s (N = 402) receptive and expressive vocabulary scores across 1 year of preschool. Results from hierarchical linear modeling revealed that teachers’ use of MSV in group content instruction was positively associated with children’s end-of-year receptive, but not expressive, vocabulary scores. No significant relations emerged for book reading. Positive associations between MSV in which the child was the referent of the verb and children’s receptive vocabulary were found, which indicates a potential scaffolding effect. Practice or Policy: Results indicate that teachers should consider including MSV in their content-rich instruction and provide support by placing the child as the referent of the verb. Additional instructional implications are addressed.     

The Role of Correction on Child’s Language Acquisition

Parental influences on the development of child language have been debated in linguistic field.So parental responses,including both positive feedback and negative evidence,have been discussed in the paper.     

Teachers’ Beliefs About Grading Practices and a Constructivist Approach to Teaching

We examined novice teachers’ beliefs about grading and constructivist teaching approaches. Adapting an existing instrument designed to assess preservice teachers’ grading beliefs that deviate from recommended practices, we administered the Survey of Grading Beliefs to 203 inservice teachers. Exploratory factor analysis resulted in a 3-factor model with a structure similar to that found in prior research; differences between the 2 samples were noted. Teachers who endorsed grading beliefs characterized as “academic enabling” tended to endorse constructivist teaching approaches. To better understand the underlying reasoning of the academic enabling factor, we conducted qualitative research with 6 additional teachers. Results revealed that teachers’ reasons for grading judgments were strategic, analytical, and thoughtful, not haphazard. This study provides empirical evidence about the nature of novice teachers’ beliefs about grading, how they relate to constructivist teaching beliefs, and how they may compare to the beliefs of preservice teachers.     

Teachers’ Discussions of Emotion in Child Care Centers

Teachers have the opportunity to discuss the emotions of children as they occur in the context of the classroom. As such, teachers play an important role in the socialization of emotions of young children. This observational study examines teachers discussions of emotions in three child care centers. The findings suggest that child care centers are important social contexts for learning about feelings because of ongoing interaction between teachers and children. Teachers in child care centers use various strategies with children to discuss their emotional expressions. They help children learn to identify emotion-related words, to understand the causes of emotion, and to provide them with constructive means of emotion regulation. The implications for teacher-training programs focusing on methods of facilitation of emotional competence and appropriate emotional socialization are presented.     

The Role of Drawing in Young Children’s Construction of Science Concepts

It has been observed that many young children like making marks on paper and that they enjoy the activity. It is also known that children’s drawings are vehicles for expression and communication. Therefore, it would be logical and reasonable for teachers to incorporate children’s drawings into building science concepts. To demonstrate how drawings are utilized to help a child to acquire a science concept, the article first presents a vignette of an interaction between an adult and a 5-year-old boy, focusing on the science concept of the physical characteristics of a spider. It is then followed by several analytical explanations of how drawings build children’s understandings. Not only are the introduced strategies useful for one-on-one interactive communication, but also applicable to a small group of young children. The article ends with the specifics of how these strategies were applied to a group of four children in their acquisition of the science concept of the water cycle.     

Parent-Child Relationships from the Child’S Point of View

The authors examined the distributional properties of 3 improvement-over-chance, I, effect sizes each derived from linear and quadratic predictive discriminant analysis and from logistic regression analysis for the 2-group univariate classification. These 3 classification methods (3 levels) were studied under varying levels of data conditions, including population separation (3 levels), variance pattern (3 levels), total sample size (3 levels), and prior probabilities (5 levels). The results indicated that the decision of which effect size to choose is primarily determined by the variance pattern and prior probabilities. Some of the I indices performed well for some small sample cases and quadratic predictive discriminant analysis I tended to work well with extreme variance heterogeneity and differing prior probabilities.     

Mother–Child Relationships and Children’s Psychosocial Functioning: The Specific Roles of Attachment Security and Maternal Behavior

Objective. This paper aimed to examine the contributions of a second assessment time point of attachment security, along with assessments of maternal behavior (sensitivity and autonomy support), to the prediction of children’s behavior problems. Design. Maternal behavior and mother–child attachment were assessed in 73 mother–child dyads when children were between 15 months and 26 months old. Children’s internalizing and externalizing problems were reported by their teachers in kindergarten and first grade. Results. Each assessment time point of attachment security, as well as maternal behavior, explained comparable portions of the variance in children’s anxious/depressed behavior, jointly predicting more than three times the variance explained by either measure of attachment alone. Conclusion. Researchers should consider a multidimensional approach to the assessment of the quality of mother–child relationships, at least when attempting to explain the development of child internalizing problems.     

Validation of Preschool Teachers’ Recall of Children’s Behavior

A multiple-choice behavioral observation scale designed to be used by preschool teachers (N = 424) was factor analyzed to obtain factor coefficients. The four factors obtained were cognitive skills, self-control, relationship with achievement model, and dependency. The factor coefficients were then applied to the ratings of 153 preschool disadvantaged children by 33 teachers and 64 teacher aides. Three multi-trait, multi-rater matrices were analyzed using Campbell and Fiske’s convergent discriminant validation procedures. The analyses supported convergent and discriminant validity of three of the four traits.     

Beyond Antagonism? The Discursive Construction of ‘New’ Teachers in the United Arab Emirates

The UAE, which celebrated independence in 1971, is a rapidly changing environment where aspects of traditional Bedouin culture co‐exist with the immense changes being wrought by the forces of globalization and the wealth brought about by the development of the oil industry. Emirati nationals are a minority within the UAE, comprising approximately 20% of the population, and the majority of the schoolteachers are expatriates drawn from other Arabic speaking countries. Within this context, the Higher Colleges of Technology’s Bachelor of Education degree in Teaching English to Young Learners prepares young UAE national women for English language teaching positions in local government schools. The research presented in this paper is drawn from this two‐year study of student teachers and explores the discursive construction of the students’ systems of knowledge and belief. The paper concludes with a critical consideration of the study’s implications and some possible recommendations for teacher education in the UAE that may also have resonance for teacher education programs in other contexts.     

Opening Teachers’ Minds to Philosophy: The crucial role of teacher education

Abstract

Why has the ‘Philosophy for Children’ movement failed to make significant educational inroads in Australia, given the commitment and ongoing efforts of philosophers and educators alike who have worked hard in recent decades to bring philosophy to our schools? In this article we single out one factor as having particular importance, namely, that, on the whole, teachers consider philosophical inquiry to be futile. We argue that the explanation rests with teachers’ underlying epistemological beliefs and that openness to philosophy depends upon teachers being disposed to engage in the practices of reason-giving and reason evaluation, being aware of the epistemic value of such practices and, concomitantly, having highly developed reasoning skills. Drawing on both anecdotal evidence and wide-ranging research from within cognitive psychology, we go on to make a case for change within teacher education programmes.     

The Inspiration of The Interpreter’s Roles to College English Teaching

Jef Verschueren is the representative of European Continental pragmatic thought.He puts forward a new theory that pragmatics is a perspective on language and he uses the theory of adaptation to analyze pragmatics."The general concern for the study of linguistic pragmatics is to understand the meaningful functioning of a language as a dynamic process operating on context-structure relationships at various levels of salience"(Verschuren 2000:69).The focal points in contexts are the utterer and the interpreter,for the physical,social and mental aspects of contexts are activated by language users’cognitive processes.Verschueren divided interpreter’s roles into five types:addressee,side participant,bystander,listener-in and eavesdropper,which can explain the adaptation of context and language choices.This is also applicable in college English classroom as the English class is also a context.At present students taught at the same time by the same teacher do not master the knowledge at the same level.One of the reason is that students are not engaged in the class at the same level.According to the Verschueren’s theory,the best English teaching class is one that each student in the addressee of teachers.Addressee is a metaphor which means everyone should follow the teachers’explanation carefully and take part in the teaching activities.It has something to do with interaction theory,which considers students as active individuals but not passive receivers.One of the common interaction patterns is questioning.In this thesis,the question how to make students addresses through adoption of questioning approach in college English class will be researched.     

Preparing Teachers to Use GIS: The Impact of a Hybrid Professional Development Program on Teachers’ Use of GIS

This article reports the findings of a 3-year study of a hybrid professional development program designed to prepare science and mathematics teachers to implement GIS in their classrooms. The study was conducted as part of the CoastLines Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers project funded by the National Science Foundation. Three cohorts of teachers participated in the program, with each participant receiving 40 h of synchronous online instruction and 80 h of in-person instruction and support over an 8-month period. Data from surveys of participants both before and after the program were analyzed using correlation, ordinary least squares, and ordered logit regression analyses. The analyses revealed increases in the self-reported frequency of GIS use and enhanced feelings of preparation, competence, community, and comfort with respect to using GIS for instruction. A composite index of all impact variables was positively influenced as well. The statistical analyses found a strong relationship between self-reported feelings of preparation and use of GIS. Some support was found for the idea that feelings of competence, community, and comfort were related to the teachers’ sense of preparation. The findings suggest that a robust hybrid model of teacher professional development can prepare teachers to use GIS in their classrooms. More research is needed to understand how hybrid models influence the sociopsychological and other dimensions that support teachers’ feelings of preparation to implement GIS.

     

Teachers’ Journeys: A Case of Teachers of Learners Aged Five to Six

South Africa’s esteem is low with regard to current learner achievement in mathematics. Results from international studies, such as TIMMS and SACMEQ, continuously indicate that South African learners perform below international benchmarks in mathematics. Research and evaluation studies assert that teacher practices and poor early mathematics stimulation influence this state of affairs. Hence, this article reports on a study that explored the developmental progression of Grade R teachers’ mathematics knowledge and general knowledge of teaching participating in a professional development intervention. In this article I report on data collected after a two-day workshop conducted with the teachers. The video recordings of 14 teachers’ self-selected lessons were collected and transcribed, using a lesson observation tool, and analysed by means of thematic analysis. The findings indicated that teachers’ knowledge of number sense forms a strong foundation for improving the quality instruction of number knowledge. The first step seen to be taken by these teachers to engage the learners was the question and answer approach. The lessons of those who tried to let learners engage lacked structure and resulted in chaos. Demonstration and drill were used to develop the learners’ content knowledge. The teachers’ practices were inadequate as far as developing conceptual understanding is concerned; and their classroom management skills were not sufficiently developed to include all learners in their mediation. In instances where all the learners participated, the teacher directed the participation and did not allow for learner-to-learner engagement. It is crucial to note that they showed potential for growth and willingness to learn despite the limited or minimal the training they received.