Promoting Metacognitive Decision-Making in Teacher Education

Effective teachers are characterized by their abilities to make thoughtful, deliberate, and informed adaptations while teaching (Hoffman & Pearson, 2000). These in-the-moment teaching decisions are guided by a complex web of teacher knowledge. Raising teachers' awareness of the decisions they make on a moment-by-moment basis may aid in thoughtful, more deliberate decision-making and more robust instruction. We charge that preservice teachers can acquire this skill, as well. This article highlights practices employed in preservice teacher education courses as a means to promote awareness of, and engagement with, in-the-moment teaching decisions. Using examples from mathematics, social studies, and literacy methods courses, we describe our processes to intentionally cultivate preservice teachers' adaptive teaching skills through metacognitive decision-making.     

Moral Law and Moral Education: Defending Kantian Autonomy

In this paper, I examine why Kantian ethics has had such a hard time of it. I look at readings of Kant's moral theory that have had great force in the 20th century and conclude that these have much to do with an ensuing confusion, which has led to charges of rigidity, formality and severity. Then I demonstrate that when we make moral judgements we rely heavily on the stock of rules, norms, duties and laws that is extant in our social life. We use these as frames that are already influential in the role and scope of our anticipated moral action. We deliberate primarily by forming a maxim (principle) that must have the consent of all. We do so only occasionally, as the existing stock of rules is already in operation, helping us to reject out-of-hand outlandish or egregious maxims. Finally, I discuss, in very cursory form, some educational approaches based on this way of conceiving Kantian moral theory.     

歌唱中的有意动作与无意动作

歌唱与发声是一种肌肉运动，是有意动作和无意动作的交替进行。有时先是有意动作，经过长时期的训练后，就会变成无意动作；有时先是无意动作，经过分析综合，反复实践，变成有意动作。     

Finding our way

Conclusion The guidelines presented here are based on my experience as a classroom teacher and a staff development coordinator for technology, and upon my study of the literature regarding the use of technology for instruction. I do not present these guidelines as a recipe for success in integrating the use of computers into instruction, nor as an exhaustive list of what must be done for integration to occur. To do so would be an oversimplification of a complex issue. There are many difficult decisions that schools need to make, and I offer these guidelines as a means for drawing upon the experience of those of us who are in the process of integrating technology into instruction. Even those of us who are heavily involved in this work feel as though we are just finding our way. I hope that what I have shared in this article will help others to find their way as well. He has taught math, science, and computer programming at the secondary level in the North Syracuse (New York) School District for the past nine years. During 1999–2000 school year, he coordinated the district’s staff development program for technology in addition to his teaching duties     

Moral Intuitions,Moral Expertise and Moral Reasoning1

In this article I examine the consequences of the dominance of intuitive thinking in moral judging and deciding for the role of moral reasoning in moral education. I argue that evidence for the reliability of moral intuitions is lacking. We cannot determine when we can trust our intuitive moral judgements. Deliberate and critical reasoning is needed, but it cannot replace intuitive thinking. Following Robin Hogarth, I argue that intuitive judgements can be improved. The expertise model for moral development, proposed by Hubert and Stuart Dreyfus, not only teaches us how we acquire intuitive moral judgements, it also shows the interconnectedness of intuitive thinking and deliberate reasoning. Analysing the expertise model in more detail, I show that it cannot do justice to the importance of reasoning skills. Reasoning skills are needed because we expect people to be able to argue for their standpoints. I conclude that moral education should not only aim at improving intuitive moral judgements, but also at acquiring reasoning skills.     

教你正确用(二十四)

Sometimes I took notes of things that I encountered, did, didn't do, or could have done but decided not to. Today I'd like to share with you some of these little events, which often make our day-to-day life more interesting.     

Developing “deliberate analysis” for learning mathematics and for mathematics teacher education: how the enactive approach to cognition frames reflection

We illustrate and exemplify how the idea of reflection is framed by the enactive concept of “deliberate analysis”. In keeping with this frame, we do not attempt to define reflection but rather work on the question of “how do we do reflecting?” within such a frame. We set out our enactivist theoretical stance, in particular pointing to implications for how we can learn from experience and showing the role of “deliberate analysis”. We then describe, drawing on education literature, what is generally seen as the purpose of reflection and review some existing conceptualizations in mathematics education, pointing out where we draw distinctions. To illustrate how we do reflecting, we offer excerpts from two lessons of an expert teacher and the writing of a prospective teacher. We exemplify how reflecting as deliberate analysis leads to a way of working with teachers supporting them in handling multiple views and ambiguity, their actions being contingent upon their students’ actions in learning mathematics.     

Teachers and content area reading: Attitudes,beliefs and change

“Sometimes the teacher will say, ‘Read to the bottom of the page,’ and I try but I fall behind. Then she asks questions and a whole bunch of kids can answer the questions but I can’t. I try to keep up with everything but it's really hard. Sarah; 6th grade social studies student”.

This paper presents the results of a review of the research into content area teachers’ attitudes and beliefs about the teaching of reading within their subject area(s). As exemplified in the quote above, the ability to read and learn from text written to provide information can be difficult and frustrating for students who lack the skills. Content area teachers have been encouraged for decades to incorporate reading into their area of instruction, but have often chosen not to do this for a variety of reasons. In addition, teacher educators have attempted to work with content area teachers to help them consider how to incorporate reading instruction into their classroom.This paper takes a closer look at the reasons that motivate pre- and in-service content area teachers in grades 6–12 to either teach or not teach reading. It also examines the ways in which teacher educators have worked to help content area teachers learn how to teach reading and the degree to which these interventions have been successful. In doing so I argue that (a) our approaches to working with content area teachers on this topic have been limited and (b) simply creating positive attitudes towards teaching reading is not necessarily enough.This paper begins with a brief discussion of what it means to teach reading in the content areas. Next I present a general introduction to teacher beliefs and how they may influence the instructional decisions teachers make. Then I discuss the methodology for my review. This is followed by the results of my review with implications for how teacher educators might consider addressing this issue in the future.     

Space and time in life and science

Space and time are concepts that seem to be embedded in our very consciousness. As we grow up, our ‘intuitive understanding’ of these concepts seems to grow as well. And yet the fact is that our understanding of space-time in the deepest scientific sense is far from complete, although we have covered a considerable distance along the route. There may still be many surprises awaiting us on the road ahead.     

Drawing ourselves into teaching: Studying the images that shape and distort teacher education

How do childhood memories and social stereotypes colour emerging teacher identities? What images of “teacher” silently direct the ways in which we teach and think? Is our teaching practice consistent with our personal teaching philosophy? Are we sufficiently aware of influences past and present? By analyzing student teachers' and experienced teachers' drawings, this paper explores many stereotypes and contradictions in teacher identity and teaching practice that are often ignored or left unexamined. We suggest that drawings provide an excellent forum for necessary (self-) reflection by bringing to light nuances and ambivalences in teaching identities that might otherwise remain hidden.     

印度之旅

I do not think that my husband and I see each other asthe world does.Sometimes he absently takes my handacross the dinner table and when I look down,I amstartled by the contrast in our skin colors.I do not see usas contrasting people,just unique individuals     

古瓷器（节选）

我对于古瓷器的偏爱,感情就像女性一样的。每当我到那些深宅大院做客,首先要看他们的瓷器柜,然后再看他们的画廊。对于这种偏好,我也说不出为什么。只能说每个人都有与别人不一样的偏好,至于什么时候开始有了这样的偏好,因为年深日久,我也就记不清它到底是什么时候形成的了。我现在能记起第一次去看戏,第一次去看展览的情形,可是,我对那些瓶瓶罐罐盘子碟子等瓷器究竟是在什么时候开始进入到我这想象世界中来的印象一点也没有。     

How do substitute teachers substitute? An empirical study of substitute-teacher labor supply

This paper examines the daily labor supply of a potentially important, but often overlooked, source of instruction in U.S. public schools: substitute teachers. I estimate a sequential binary-choice model of substitute teachers’ job-offer acceptance decisions using data on job offers made by a randomized automated calling system. Importantly, this randomization generates exogenous variation in offer quality. I find that determinants of substitutes’ offer-acceptance decisions include the offer's arrival time, commute time, day of week, classroom type, school type, and school quality. Interestingly, conditional on school quality student demographics do not significantly influence substitutes’ decisions. Longer and higher paying full-day jobs are preferred to half-day jobs, although conditional on daily pay, job length does not significantly impact daily labor-supply decisions. Preferences for several job characteristics are found to vary with substitutes’ regular-teacher certification status. Policy implications of these findings are discussed.     

Teacher education through the history of mathematics

In this paper I consider the problem of designing strategies for teacher education programs that may promote an aware style of teaching. Among the various elements to be considered I focus on the need to address prospective teachers’ belief that they must reproduce the style of mathematics teaching seen in their school days. Towards this aim, I argue that the prospective teachers need a context allowing them to look at the topics they will teach in a different manner. This context may be provided by the history of mathematics. In this paper I shall discuss how history affected the construction of teaching sequences on algebra during the activities of the ‘laboratory of mathematics education’ carried out in a 2 year education program for prospective teachers. The conditions of the experiment, notably the fact that our prospective teachers had not had specific preparation in the history of mathematics, allow us to outline opportunities and caveats of the use of history in teacher education.     

A Predictive Model of Inquiry to Enrollment

The purpose of this paper is to build a predictive model of enrollment that provides data driven analysis to improve undergraduate recruitment efforts. We utilize an inquiry model, which examines the enrollment decisions of students that have made contact with our institution, a medium sized, public, Doctoral I university. A student, who makes an inquiry to our university such as by returning a request for information form, often provides far less information than is available from applicants. Despite this fact we find that characteristics of the student, as well as geographic and demographic data based on the student’s zip code are significant predictors of enrollment. Accounting for uncertainty in our model’s specification, we find that we are able to predict out of sample the enrollment decision of 89% of student inquiries. We also demonstrate how these findings can be used to improve marketing efforts.     

Making sound decisions: A framework for judging the worth of your data

In our daily lives, we encounter decision points on a continuous basis. To maximize the likelihood of successful decisions, organizational members must draw on relevant, reliable, valid, and complete data. Sometimes copious data are available, but an overabundance can make it difficult to judge the worth of the data. This article presents a data evaluation framework that provides guidance for decision makers to evaluate and determine the potential effectiveness of the data they will use to inform their decisions.     

Dreaming the Unstable Wings of Desire: Unseen,Educational Bruisings and The Elusive Self of Literature

When it comes to education, the dream cannot be controlled by the strictures of language or the conscious mind, and in its insistently disobedient character, is unwilling to submit to the demands of a deliberate and conscious curriculum. Indeed, we might say that what dreams represent is the absence of education itself, and a mobile energy antithetical to a fantasy of smoothly functioning teaching. In this article, we approach the question of dreaming’s place in education through two intertwined lenses: the conceptual and the literary. First, we intersperse throughout our paper excerpts from an untitled fictional narrative about a group of students who become progressively more beaten up, and whose teacher is unable to see their bruises, as they embark on the precarious task of expressing their dreaming, creative selves. We also turn to psychoanalytic theory (and, in particular, Thomas Ogden’s theory of dream thinking) to discuss the significance of the impenetrable nature of the dream, and ask how such qualities of unrepresentability might challenge our desires for answerable questions and legible answers. We end this piece with a recognition of the ways in which shared experiences of reading and writing may also support a place for dreams.     

Genealogies of governmentality: Producing and managing young children and their education

Genealogies, or histories of the present, create critical spaces to remind us of the nonnecessity of that which we consider necessary to our lives (Burchell 1993). Further, genealogies of governmentality attempt to create this space with a focus on how conduct is conducted. In this paper I suggest that genealogies of governmentality are one way to create critical analyses of the education of young children. Sociologies of childhood consider childhood to be a relational concept, functioning in relation to adulthood. I argue that genealogies are one way to illuminate these relationships, in particular pointing towards the ways in which the education of young children is deeply embedded in a range of complex and contradictory’ adult’ discourses and knowledges, including those of motherhood, politics, worker, citizen and the economy. To illustrate this I provide an analysis of the provision of preschool education in Queensland’s government schools.     

On reading: Some thoughts on the old and the new

Conclusion I have presented some of the problems on which the Orton Society has labored during the past three decades and some of the issues needing battle in the next three. Much has happened in the past 30 years. Many of the dreams of Orton and of the Society have been realized. But I do not think anyone will wish to rest for long, for the victories have brought new problems. And so, to borrow a few words from Dr. Samuel Torrey Orton: if we continue to be “sufficiently keen” and prove ourselves “clever enough,” it would seem that the labors of our next 30 years may be as fruitful, and even more so, than those of our first thirty.     

Education research for the Anthropocene: the (micro)politics of researcher becoming (2017 Radford Lecture)

This lecture asks: How can education research address the big questions of our time, and what has politics got to do with it? It will trace moments and movements of researcher-(un)becoming to explore the (micro)politics of a lifetime of educational research. Politics is understood as both intimate and immense, as the intertwined politics of global conditions, and of the nation, with the intimately personal. It is about the researcher lives we all live. The approach was generated in a recent visit to Oulu, north Finland, where doctoral students asked me to present ‘tales’ of a researcher life. The lead student wanted to know how to manage a doctorate while raising three young children. As I have wandered back and forth over a lifetime of presentations, the shapes of key influences emerged. Relations with Aboriginal people and Country have been there since before the beginning, and are incorporated into my ways of being in the world. Feminist theories and their libidinal flows have been fundamental in shaping both my life and research, including their uneasy alliance with Aboriginal onto-epistemologies. Doctoral students have emerged as a strong generative force in my intellectual directions, moving me into all sorts of worlds I would never have entered otherwise. And finally, Place, the places where I have lived and worked have been the crucial grounding of my body and being, primal and prior, but also the basis of thought. In further elaborating these different influences, they culminate in the contemporary force of the Anthropocene, calling us to consider how the world is asking to be named, and how we can learn to be human differently, for the wellbeing of the planet. In developing this address into a paper, I have decided, in consultation with, and supported by the editor Nicole, to preserve its original content as far as possible. The knowledge contained in the address belongs with the oral performance and images as much as with the very few written words that were used in the powerpoint slides. A small selection of images is also included.