Rethinking teacher evaluation using human,social, and material capital

Teacher evaluation’s relationship with instructional improvement is under-theorized in the literature. To address this gap, this paper uses a conceptual framework rooted in human, social, and material capital to analyze and synthesize findings from research conducted since 2009 on whether and under what conditions teacher evaluation stimulates change in teachers’ instruction. We find that teacher evaluation can facilitate instructional improvement if evaluators understand teaching and the teacher evaluation system and teachers and evaluators trust each other and have opportunities to develop social capital regarding instruction. In addition, adequate time and a userfriendly online data system appear to facilitate the use of teacher evaluation to stimulate changes in teachers’ practice. This paper thus presents a theoretical framework, rooted in theory and empirical research, that may prove useful to scholars and practitioners.

     

Mixed emotions: teachers’ perceptions of their interactions with students

This paper describes the conceptual framework, methodology, and some results from a project on the Emotions of Teaching and Educational Change. It introduces the concepts of emotional intelligence, emotional labor, emotional understanding and emotional geographies. Drawing on interviews with 53 teachers in 15 schools, the paper then describes key differences in the emotional geographies of elementary and secondary teaching. Elementary teaching is characterized by physical and professional closeness which creates greater emotional intensity; but in ambivalent conditions of classroom power, where intensity is sometimes negative. Secondary teaching is characterized by greater professional and physical distance leading teachers to treat emotions as intrusions in the classroom. This distance, the paper argues, threatens the basic forms of emotional understanding on which high-quality teaching and learning depend.     

Powerful Learning, Powerful Teaching and Powerful Schools

This paper is a personal reflection on the purpose and scope of school improvement. In explaining why in education the more things change the more they stay the same, I clarify the focus of educational reform as being powerful learning on the part of students, and then demonstrate that this occurs in contexts where content is conceptual rather than particular, where learning is constructive inquiry not passive reception, and where the social climate is expansive instead of restrictive. Such classrooms exist in schools whose organisational conditions and cultures are characterised by high expectations, collaboration and innovation. Finally I argue that equity and high standards require a coherent policy framework that emphasises process as well as substance.     

Revisiting emotional geographies: Implications for family engagement and education policy in the United States

From 2000 to 2001, Andy Hargreaves produced a series of publications introducing the concept of distinctive emotional geographies of teaching. The concept addressed how teacher emotions are situated within the context of their work and influence interactions with students, colleagues, administrators, and families. Hargreaves contended that understanding the emotional geographies of teachers would help build stronger relationships among stakeholders. He also predicted that educational policies centered on accountability that fail to develop commitments from families and communities threatened to exacerbate preexisting tensions. Ten years later, Hargreaves’ prescient observations provide important insights on the challenges encountered by the No Child Left Behind Act and implications for policy proposals being entertained during the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act in the United States. This article revisits the concept of emotional geographies, utilizes its conceptual framework to examine policy efforts focused on the issue of family engagement, and offers recommendations for new directions in educational policy.     

Young children learning about living things: A case study of conceptual change from ontological and social perspectives

Although research from a developmental/psychological perspective indicates that many children do not have a scientific understanding of living things, even by the age of 10 years, little research has been conducted about how students learn this science topic in the classroom. This exploratory research used a case‐study design and qualitative data‐collection methods to investigate the process of conceptual change from ontological and social perspectives when Year 1 (5‐ and 6‐year‐old) students were learning about living things. Most students were found to think about living things with either stable, nonscientific or stable, scientific framework theories. Transitional phases of understanding also were identified. Patterns of conceptual change observed over the 5‐week period of instruction included theory change and belief revision as well as reversals in beliefs. The predominant pattern of learning, however, was the assimilation of facts and information into the students' preferred framework theory. The social milieu of the classroom context exposed students' scientific and nonscientific beliefs that influenced other individuals in a piecemeal fashion. Children with nonscientific theories of living things were identified as being least able to benefit from socially constructed, scientific knowledge; hence, recommendations are made for teaching that focuses on conceptual change strategies rather than knowledge enrichment. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 41: 449–480, 2004     

Male teachers in Shanghai public kindergartens: a phenomenological study

Using theories on gendered organizations and masculinities as a conceptual framework, this study explores the experiences of men who teach kindergarten in China. The findings illuminate the simultaneous struggles and privilege the men experience as well as the challenges of deconstructing gendered roles associated with social and professional expectations. Such deconstruction requires both a shared awareness of the need for change and the desire to make these changes. In societies where gendered roles are deeply embedded in social norms, change will likely be slow to emerge.     

The Eye of the Beholder: The Interplay of Social and Cognitive Components in Change

Sociocultural and cognitive perspectives hold to epistemically different views on knowledge acquisition and change. While sociocultural perspectives point to social experience as the principal source of knowledge, cognitive perspectives emphasize the importance of the individual mind and reasoning as the primary source of knowledge. Herein, I argue that both sociocultural and cognitive influences are critical catalysts in conceptual change and that integration of these components is vital to learning. As a mechanism for supporting this contention, I explore the epistemic views of students and the role those views play in knowledge acquisition and change. Specifically, I propose a framework built on students' understandings of the relations between belief and knowledge within the change process. In over-viewing the framework, I consider potential catalysts for knowledge acquisition and change. Finally, I highlight two instructional approaches that effectively integrate the social and cognitive dimensions of change.     

Learning scientific concepts through material and social activities: Conversational analysis meets conceptual change

The number of analyses of cognitive activity situated in a material and social world has increased. It has been particularly challenging to the theoretician and researcher to make the bridge from macrosocial theories of cultural learning to microanalytic details of situated human activities for learning in specific subject domains. The ontogenesis of conceptual change in scientific thinking provides a central case for examining this problem. A sociocultural framework informed by studies of conversation analysis is described, in which meaning negotiation and appropriation are identified as mechanisms for achieving such conceptual change. Key implications of this perspective for the design and study of learning environments are outlined.     

Focus on implementation

This paper presents a model of the process of implementation of school change. The model has been developed from observation of and interaction with planned changes in a large number of schools, and traces the process through eight stages, from the initial climate for change to full field trials of innovative programs. At each of these stages the contribution of any of a number of components is discussed: the social context in which change occurs, organizational considerations, the role of evaluation, the development of innovative programs, and the role of the teacher, principal, administrator, and academic. The model is presented as a conceptual framework from which implementation strategies may be, and are being, derived for use in implementation of change in the schools.     

Shifting sands: a case study of conceptual development as competition between alternative conceptions

Conceptual change may be considered as a process of coming to view one theory or model as having more explanatory power than others. Various theorists have described how an individual's understanding of a concept may be multifaceted; how conceptual frameworks develop in a cognitive ecology, and are subject to selection pressures; and how alternative frameworks compete in terms of their explanatory coherence. The present paper applies these ideas to a case study of learning in science. It is argued that conceptual development may be described in terms of a gradual shift in which of several alternative explanatory principles is the learners' preferred choice. The case study illustrates the long-term nature of conceptual change, as a learner comes to see the limitations of one explanatory framework, and the scope for exploring and developing another.     

Conceptual foundations for understanding inequality in participation in adult learning and education (ALE) for international comparisons

Inequality in adult learning and education (ALE) participation has been reported by previous comparative studies. In doing so, however, most of efforts have been made to understand such patterns of inequality in ALE participation at the micro-level using a conceptual approach based on human capital theory. While the micro-level approach offers an individualistic and economic perspective on learning, macro-level structural conditions play an important role in creating the circumstances faced by individuals. By performing a critical literature review, this paper intends to build conceptual foundations conducive to understand both micro- and macro-level dimensions implicitly and/or explicitly linked to inequality in ALE participation. Specifically, this paper takes a brief look into social origins as a micro-level factor, and takes an in-depth look into social inequality (i.e. education, economic and skill inequality) and institutional settings (i.e. active labour market policies and strictness of employment protection,) as macro-level factors. These conceptual foundations can be used as a conceptual framework for a cross-country empirical analysis of the degree of inequality in ALE participation.     

A typology for a social justice approach to assessment: learning from universal design and culturally sustaining pedagogy

This paper aims to provide a tentative roadmap for ensuring that higher education policy makers and practitioners are apprised of what might be done to advance a concept of socially just assessment praxis. It extends current thinking around the notion of social justice approaches to assessment by further developing the conceptual framework proposed in McArthur's recent work (2016). It does so by extending understandings of how a socially just perspective might be realised. Drawing upon recent conceptual developments within both Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy (CSP), the paper proposes a typology for praxis and organisational change. Crucially, this typology focuses upon enhancing learning outcomes for all learners, but it is particularly concerned with enhancing educational experiences and learning outcomes for students that have been systematically marginalised by the normative procedural practices that have traditionally informed the nature of supposedly objective assessment.     

Beyond Diversity Courses: Strategies for Integrating Critical Consciousness Across Social Work Curriculum

ABSTRACT. This paper advances the knowledge base of social work education by employing a critical social work framework to inform teaching strategies that 1) raise critical consciousness, 2) uncover privileged positions that inform research, and 3) conceptualize social work practice that disrupts privilege and oppression. The premise of a need for such strategies arises from examination of the social work educational policies and standards that require attention to the experiences and conditions of marginalized populations. The conceptual and teaching approach described in this paper extends this standard via the examination of the privileged social identities and the ensuing behaviors that perpetuate oppressive practices and conditions among marginalized groups. A conceptual foundation for this approach is elucidated and teaching strategies for exploring privileged social locations are presented.     

Contextual factors and effective school improvement

This research provides policy-makers, researchers, and educators at all levels with a glimpse of the contextual influence on effective school improvement (ESI) in 8 European countries. What are the factors at the contextual level, particularly at the national level, which influence ESI? Are there any similarities or differences between the influences they exert on ESI in different countries? Can common traits be identified? These are the core questions this paper tries to explore. It has drawn on insights from 5 areas of research: school effectiveness; school improvement; curriculum; public choice (marketization); organization, organizational learning, and learning organization. This yields a “goal – pressure – support” conceptual framework accompanied by 10 contextual factors and 48 indicators. Given the original conceptual framework and the empirical support of 31 case studies contributed by 8 European countries, the findings of this study may have significant implications for policy, practice, school effectiveness, and school improvement.     

Framework for Developing a Social Administration Concentration

Abstract

Alternative curriculum models for implementing social administration concentrations are useful in Schools of Social Work for selecting options from an array of alternatives. This article presents the conceptual design and framework for developing a concentration in social administration based on a curriculum model that pools knowledge between macro disciplines. Educational outcomes based on this curriculum model focus on training and educating social workers to become incisive, analytical thinkers, as well as skilled practitioners, who can lead, manage, collaborate, and create change in both organizational and community settings. Today's social administrators need to be prepared to assume strong leadership roles in communities and to advocate for social change.     

A conceptual framework for job change

Change related to the job is identified as an exigent issue in the field of career development. This paper presents an effort to conceptualize a job change framework. The intent is increase awareness, generate discussion, and stimulate empirical research in this area.The conceptual framework for job change has been predicated on client concerns. The framework involves the unique relationship of several life factors which influence individual job change, and provides a means for systematic personal decision-making. A schematic diagram is also included as a tool that can be used for counseling and research applications.