Shyness and School Adjustment Among Chinese Preschool Children: Examining the Moderating Effect of Gender and Teacher–Child Relationship

Research Findings: The current study examined the moderating effects of gender and teacher–child relationship on the association between shyness and school adjustment (school liking and avoidance, cooperative and independent participation). The sample consisted of 524 preschool students from 3 cities of Shandong province in northern China. Mothers reported children's shyness, school liking, and school avoidance, whereas teachers rated children's cooperative and independent participation and reported perceived teacher–child relationships. Overall, findings indicated that shyness was associated with lower teacher–child closeness, lower school liking, and higher school avoidance. Child gender moderated the relationship between shyness and teacher–child dependency. Moreover, teacher–child relationship and child gender moderated the shyness–adjustment relationships. Practice or Policy: These findings point to the potential for improving teacher–child relationships to facilitate shy preschoolers’ school adjustment and the importance of taking child gender into consideration in such intervention programs.     

Manual Arts Based on Home Repair

Abstract

This study was undertaken to determine if remarks about a teacher’s ability made by an authority figure prior to observation of that teacher would significantly influence the evaluation of that teacher’s effectiveness. Thirty-four graduate students in educational supervision rated a videotaped lesson; seventeen were led to believe the teacher was an excellent teacher and the other seventeen that the teacher was less than effective. Results confirmed that there was a significant difference in the ratings of the videotaped lesson by the two groups, with the group led to expect better performance rating the videotaped lesson higher. It is concluded that those making evaluations of teaching behavior are highly influenced by verbal comments that led them to expect either excellent or less than average performance.     

Benefits and drawbacks of the teacher echo: findings from a video study

Abstract

The teacher echo refers to teachers’ almost verbatim repetition of student responses and can be used to provide implicit feedback about students’ achievement or understanding. Echoing student answers is a controversial strategy of classroom discourse, as some critics see it as a bad habit and consequently deny its use in the classroom. The aim of this research project was to learn more about the perceptions of unprejudiced, prospective teachers on this controversial type of teacher feedback. Therefore, two short videos of a simulated lesson with and without teacher echo were created. A sample of 410 teacher trainees was asked to rate the perceived instructional quality and answer a knowledge test about the lesson contents. Results showed no significant differences in perceived cognitive activation and teacher dominance, but higher perceived constructive support and better knowledge acquisition when using the teacher echo. Thus, its application seems to be more beneficial than harmful.     

Part of the assignment: student–teachers’ planning instruction within/across activity systems

ABSTRACT

Looking closely at lesson plans as mediating tools, this study examines preservice teacher learning. By using activity theory in our analysis of lesson plans and other data collected in a student-teaching course, we uncovered tensions within/across the contexts of university teacher education program and secondary school field placements. This study serves to further understandings of how new teachers learn to appropriate the genres of teaching and to explore contradictions between a university preparation program and secondary school contexts. Findings provide an account of the student–teachers’ lesson planning and an explanation of how disruptions in those plans provided insight into points of tension. By viewing these tensions as contradictions within/across activity systems, we identify them as opportunities to better understand teacher learning and ways we might support new teachers in navigating tensions in their classrooms and schools.     

Class Size and Learning: A Theoretical Model

Abstract

A theoretical model of the relationship between class size and achievement is proposed, based on the assumption that a teacher adjusts the style and pace of a lesson to the least able student in the class. It is shown that the model and an extension to take into account the duration of instruction account well for various features of the data collected in the Glass and Smith (1978) meta-analysis of research. In particular, a correlation of 0.62 between predicted and empirical effect sizes was obtained.     

Teacher candidates' growth in designing mathematical tasks as exhibited in their lesson planning

Abstract

In order to gain insight into preservice teachers' beliefs about planning for mathematics instruction, a study was carried out involving K‐8 teacher candidates enrolled in an elementary mathematics methods course. Doyle's (1992) notion of academic task and the research on pedagogical content knowledge served as the theoretical framework for this study. The teacher candidates submitted lesson plans at three intervals during a semester‐long methods course; the lesson plans were then coded based on candidates' planned uses of academic tasks. Analyses of the data revealed trends in these teacher candidates' design of academic tasks over the course of the semester. Recommendations and implications are pre‐sented highlighting the benefits of incorporating the knowledge base on academic task into a mathematics methods course as a means to con‐tribute to teacher candidates' developing pedagogical content knowledge via their designing of academic tasks in lesson planning.     

Teacher liking as an affective filter for the association between student behavior and peer status

This study investigated how peer perceptions of teacher liking and disliking for a student shape students’ social cognitions by moderating associations between the student’s peer-perceived social behavior and peer liking and disliking status. We studied individual teacher liking and disliking as well as classroom norms as moderators of individual and classroom-level behavior-status associations. Peer nominations of (dis)liking, being (dis)liked by the teacher, and prosocial and aggressive behavior were gathered from 1454 students (M_age = 10.60) in 58 fifth-grade classes in the Netherlands. Results from multilevel analyses showed the teacher made a difference in particular for those students who were at-risk of low peer status, that is, those students who were perceived by many of their peers to show aggressive behavior and by few to show prosocial behavior. These students were disliked less and liked more when they were perceived by peers to be less disliked and more liked by the teacher. Furthermore, the amount of disliking associated with overt and relational aggression differed across classrooms, depending on norms of teacher liking. These findings may help teachers to understand and improve an individual student’s peer status, and alter the behavior–status dynamics in their class.     

Dr. John R. Emens: President,Ball State University 1945-1968

When your student teacher is planning instruction, you might ask him to state his objectives in behavioral terms. Such statements may make the lesson more meaningful to both the student teacher and his pupils.     

THE INTERPLAY BETWEEN ADOLESCENTS’ PERCEPTIONS OF TEACHER‐STUDENT RELATIONSHIPS AND THEIR ACADEMIC SELF‐REGULATION: DOES LIKING A SPECIFIC TEACHER MATTER?

Although positive teacher‐student relationships are known to aid students’ academic self‐regulation, the emotional aspects of teacher liking are often neglected within research. The present study used a large sample of seventh‐ and eighth‐grade students (N = 1,088; M_Age =  13.7) in secondary schools in Germany to investigate whether the motivation students gain from specific well‐liked teachers (i.e., that students identify) can moderate the relation between their perception of teacher‐student relationships overall and academic self‐regulation (intrinsic motivation, identified, introjected, and external regulation). By means of latent moderated structural equations, students’ motivation based on liking one specific teacher was found to moderate the association between teacher‐student relationships and intrinsic motivation. The present study makes a contribution to the existing research on teacher‐student relationships and academic self‐regulation by investigating the role of students’ motivation related to the liking of a specific teacher. Results indicate that when early adolescent students can identify a well‐liked teacher, they tend to have higher levels of academic motivation. Hence, students’ motivation based on liking a single teacher compensates for generally low‐quality teacher‐student relationships and their respective impact on students’ intrinsic motivation.     

The Anatomy of Disruption: a preliminary consideration of interaction sequences within disruptive incidents

Abstract

This paper deals with teacher training procedures in West Germany. It reports on observations carried out inSeminare and in schools, and provides an analysis of the principles underlying the construction of lesson plans, and of those informing teacher education in a more general sense.     

Children’s Likes and Dislikes about what they Read

Abstract

Based on Fiedler’s contingency model of leadership, it was assumed that the teacher style required for effective student learning in the classroom depends on the favorableness of the situation for teaching (favorableness is defined in terms of ease of exercising influence). A person-oriented teacher was expected to be more effective than a task-oriented teacher in a situation of intermediate favorableness. A task-oriented teacher was expected to be more effective in an unfavorable situation. In support of these predictions, eighth-grade male students in a situation of intermediate favorableness rated the person-oriented teacher more positively than the task-oriented teacher in terms of effectiveness, encouragement, interest, and how much they learned. In an unfavorable situation, the opposite pattern occurred: students rated the task-oriented teacher more positively than the person-oriented teacher. Results on a performance test at the end of the lesson, though not significant, were in the predicted direction that paralleled the results on students' impression ratings. The implications of these results for teacher education were considered.     

Changes in Science Content Knowledge and Attitudes toward Science Teaching of Educators Attending a Zoo-based Neuroscience Professional Development

Abstract

Informal learning environments often host teachers for learning opportunities, but little is known about the impact of these experiences on teacher professional development (PD). This article describes a unique collaborative PD experience between zoological park personnel and university faculty, examining the impact on teacher content knowledge, attitudes, and classroom lessons. Our findings suggest that the PD improved science content, but made no impact on already high attitudes toward science. In light of the high level of self-reported satisfaction and high frequency of teacher lesson plan use, we propose that the PD had other positive outcomes such as pedagogical knowledge and authentic learning experiences.     

Teachers as Designers of Learning Environments

Abstract

This study examined how six Singapore teachers approached the design and implementation of a unit of work (topic) to demonstrate exemplary classroom practices that engage learners and use ICT in knowledge-generative rather than presentational activities. After a reflection and feedback session on the first lesson observation involving the researcher and the teacher, the teacher redesigned the lesson to enhance ICT use and involve students more actively in their learning. Our study revealed that there is a difference between students' physical engagement and cognitive engagement in a task and that the teacher, as a designer of the learning environment, needs to make explicit the cognitive processes involved in using the tool to ensure students' effective use of ICT. The teachers' understanding of what constitutes effective learning and their roles in students' learning determine how they design the learning environment. In essence, it is the teacher's skill in managing the “tripartite” partnership of IT tool, learning task, and teacher support that brings about higher levels of student engagement.     

Enhancing in-service teachers’ professional learning through a school-based professional development programme in Hong Kong

ABSTRACT

Lesson study is a collaborative model of professional development that provides teachers with the opportunity to learn from the planning, conduction and reflection of a specifically designed research lesson. Lesson study is increasingly incorporated in initial teacher education (ITE) and calls have been made to further detail the lesson study structures that support student teacher learning. In this paper the core organisational elements of incorporating lesson study in ITE are investigated as a comparative case study situated in two distinct educational and cultural settings: one in Ireland (post-primary) and the other in Norway (primary). Qualitative data, including student teachers’ planning notes, research lesson designs, and observation notes from live research lessons, were analysed and findings reveal three structural factors for the incorporation of lesson study in ITE. First, defined roles of mentor and university teachers as knowledgeable others; second, the engagement of student teachers at each phase of lesson study, with the inclusion of case pupils; and third, the conduction of the lesson study cycle on both university campus and in the classroom. These findings contribute to the growing literature of lesson study in ITE and may support the inclusion of lesson study in ITE programmes.     

Teachers’ uptake of problematic assumptions of climate change in the NGSS

Abstract

This case study presents the efforts of three high school teachers to design and implement climate change lessons in alignment with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Using three conceptual frameworks that organize the assumptions of the environment in the NGSS we examine how those assumptions influence teacher practice when teachers strive to align with the standards. Video recorded instruction of eight climate change-anchored lessons spanning three consecutive years were thematically coded. Results indicate that the problematic aspects of the NGSS’s characterization of climate change can help explain the framing of environmental issues and the compartmentalization of humans relative to the climate science in teachers’ lesson plans and instruction. The NGSS promulgate disconnected agency which appears in teacher and student talk in classrooms. Our analysis reveals opportunities to use standards to design interventions for classroom practice to support diverse students in countering the assumptions about the human-environment relationship embodied in the NGSS.     

Personality and Adjustment of High and Low Anxious Children

Abstract

This study examined the effect of computer simulation training on elementary teacher trainees’ ability to administer an Informal Reading Inventory (IRI) to a child and interpret it. After initial in-class instruction for all trainees, the experimental group participated in the simulation and then gave an IRI to a child. The order of these steps was reversed for the control group. Analysis of results showed no significant differences between groups in ability to administer the IRI accurately, but the experimental group scored significantly higher (p > .02) in their ability to diagnose reading skill weaknesses correctly. The experimental group also had a more favorable attitude (p > .03) toward developing lesson plans based on skills weaknesses identified by the IRI.     

A Qualitative Study of British Student Teachers’ Lesson Planning Perspectives

Abstract

Five student teachers on a one year, internship based Post Graduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) course, were tracked in an attempt to understand their lesson planning perspectives. The investigation concentrated on the key areas of the planning process as it related to their learning, their beliefs about planning, the process of planning and the factors that influenced that process. The data are presented in the form of two case studies and the discussion includes the implications for future research in the area, as well as recommendations for reforming the role of lesson planning in teacher education.     

Articulating the Relationships Between Theory and Practice in Science Teaching: A model for teacher professional development

In-depth analysis of science teachers' idiosyncratic instructional behaviors combined with the notion of deliberated 'teacher reflection' as a means of improving professional teaching practice has become one of the most pervasive concepts to influence science teacher education during the past decade. Sweeney and coworkers have described how the notion of teacher reflection and Lytle and Cochran-Smith's typology of teacher research were utilised to examine the relationships between a beginning high school chemistry teacher's articulated personal practice theories and his actions as demonstrated by his curricular decisions and instructional practices. Using data drawn from the previous study, this report focuses on examining how the methodological approach taken in the investigation (explicit, deliberate articulation and analysis of a teacher's instructional behaviors and rationales within the context of a mentoring relationship) may serve as a useful model for teacher professional development across all areas of instruction.