Practicum experiences as sources of pre-service teachers’ self-efficacy

This study examines physical education pre-service teachers’ (PTs) self-efficacy and practicum experiences as self-efficacy sources through a mixed-method approach. For the quantitative phase, a self-efficacy questionnaire was applied to 141 PTs. Results showed a stronger self-efficacy in the relationship with students and discipline promotion. Lower self-efficacy was linked to instructional strategies. Concerning the qualitative phase, eight PTs were interviewed. PTs with higher self-efficacy reported professional experiences before practicum as mastery experiences. During the practicum they highlighted as mastery experiences: classes’ characteristics, planning and teaching practice; lesson observation as vicarious experiences; and post-lesson conversations as verbal persuasion. PTs with lower self-efficacy reported classes’ characteristics and teaching practice as failure experiences. Lesson observation was linked to negative vicarious experiences and post-lesson conversations were associated to negative emotions and the absence of verbal persuasion. This study’s results have implications inasmuch as they confirm the role of the practicum in teacher education programmes and the importance of training supervisors in the implementation and management of the training experience, thus contributing to PTs’ self-efficacy development.     

Implementing Change in Neuroanatomy Education: Organization,Evolution, and Assessment of a Near-Peer Teaching Program in an Undergraduate Medical School in Greece

In light of the current shifts in medical education from traditional lectures to more active teaching modalities, a peer-teaching program was introduced to a compulsory, second-year neuroanatomy course. A cross-sectional survey of 527 medical students in the six-year medical program of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens was administered. The primary aim of the survey, which was distributed to second- through sixth-year medical students, who had completed the neuroanatomy course, was to assess student perception of peer teachers (PTs). Across the five years assessed, students increasingly acknowledged the contribution of PTs to their learning (P < 0.001). Attributes of PTs (e.g., contribution to learning, motivation, effective usage of material, and team environment) were significantly related to the student's opinion of the importance of laboratory activities (P < 0.001). Students who received “average” final grades scored the importance of laboratory exercises, and by inference PTs, significantly lower than students who received “excellent” final grades (P < 0.05). The amount of training that PTs had received was also significantly related to student perceptions of a PT's contribution. Better trained PTs were associated with significantly higher scores regarding learning, motivation, and positive environment compared to less trained PTs (P < 0.05). The results of the present study show that peer-teaching was well received by students attending the neuroanatomy course. While the results express the evolution of the program across the years, the findings also show that learners believed that PTs and the laboratory program contributed significantly to their understanding of neuroanatomy.     

Higher Education in Indonesia and the Role of Transnational Education

As transnational higher education is here to stay, developing countries like Indonesia should make provision for it in preparing their national plans for the development of higher education. Given the economic crisis of 1998‐1999 in this country that has led to cutbacks in traditional higher education possibilities, transnational offerings in some cases may help to fill the gap. However, transnational offerings should be regulated by national authorities in order to protect the population from low-quality and/or fraudulent offerings. It should not be restricted abusively for the sake of restricting it. Rather, in developing countries, traditional and transnational higher education offerings should be complementary. Organizations like GATE and INQAAHE should collaborate in the elaboration of a formal recognition process to be adopted by national accreditation bodies involved in transnational higher education.     

问题及其确立:高等教育研究活动的逻辑起点

问题是整个高等教育研究活动的逻辑起点,也是高等教育研究的灵魂,能够发现并提出有价值的研究问题是高等教育研究者的必备素质。问题的特点有三,第一,问题是在已经存在的理论和现实事物基础上产生的;第二,问题与主体(人)密切相关;第三,问题是不断发展的。高等教育的研究问题主要来源于高等教育实践和现有高等教育理论之间的矛盾,来源于高等教育理论内部以及高等教育和其他学科理论之间所产生的矛盾和问题。高等教育研究者在选择并确定研究问题时,要注意处理好真问题与假问题、热点问题与冷门问题、有重大价值的问题与自己能胜任的问题、他人的问题与自己的问题这四对关系,从而保证选好研究问题,使研究活动有一个好的开端。     

Vocational and Technical Education in France

French education has been dominated by the cultural and academic training of the lycée. It was little known outside of France that the majority of schoolchildren were presented with inadequate educational offerings beyond the first five years of elementary education. The nonacademically oriented children-indeed the majority-usually had only the fin d'étude (terminal) classes of primary school to attend until they reached the school-leaving age.     

Generic Skills in the Context of Higher Education

The Higher Education Council Report Achieving Quality (October 1992) identifies ‘generic skills, attributes and values’ as the ‘central achievements of higher education as a process’. The account which the Report offers of those generic skills and of the graduate ‘attributes and values’ which, it claims, should accompany them is flawed, however, by a pervasive vagueness and inconsistency. Personal qualities, generalized capacities, individual attitudes, value systems, professional competencies, higher order generic skills and lower order technical ones are all lumped together in a general hodge‐podge of desirable graduate attributes. In the present paper the authors offer a more systematic, though still preliminary, analysis of higher order generic skills as they manifest themselves in thinking, research and communication, and of the way in which these skills assume a variety of different forms in their different disciplinary contexts. Definitional work of this kind, the authors argue, is currently neglected, but it remains a fundamental pre‐condition for any successful review or audit of Quality in undergraduate education.     

高教育背景母亲阅读指导风格研究

本研究以高教育背景母亲（专科及专科以上）的阅读指导方式为切入点，运用“CHILDES”语言鳊码系统，主要从母亲“讲故事”的着重点、提问类型厦幼儿对问题的反应等角度，考察高教育背景母亲与幼儿共读过程中的指导风格与特征，结果发现：高教育背景母亲在亲子阅读中的提问一般超过单纯的文本讲述数量，甚至在讲述过程中全用提问方式；各个年龄段高教育背景母亲提出的特殊疑问句和是非疑问句比重较大，而较少使用选择疑问句；幼儿对母亲提问的回答率在各个年龄段相差不大，都呈现出较低的水平，表明母子阅读整体质量不高。为此，母亲应根据幼儿年龄特征与兴趣提问，而不要一味地向幼儿施加压力，并要灵活采取指导策略，以维持幼儿的阅读兴趣。     

Preservice teachers’ teacher efficacy beliefs and constructivist-based teaching practice

The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between preservice teachers’ (PTs) teacher efficacy beliefs and their constructivist-based teaching practices. Data were gathered through the questionnaire (Teachers’ Sense of Efficacy Scale) and the observation protocol (Reformed Teaching Observation Protocol) administered to the participants. A total number of 101 PTs (53.5 % from science education and 46.5 % from mathematics education) from a university in eastern part of Turkey participated in the study. Also, qualitative data were also used in order to clarify quantitative data. The semistructured interviews were conducted with 20 PTs who voluntarily participated in these interviews. Results showed that PTs’ constructivist-based teaching practice was positively correlated with their teacher efficacy beliefs. Also, qualitative findings confirmed that finding. To conclude, PTs with high teacher efficacy tend to employ constructivist approach in their teaching while PTs with low teacher efficacy tend to use traditional approach, lecturing in their teaching.     

“It was smart when:” Supporting prospective teachers’ noticing of students’ mathematical strengths

Learning to name and notice students’ mathematical strengths is a challenging process requiring time and multiple iterations of practice for prospective teachers (PTs) to adopt. Mathematics teacher educators (MTEs) can approximate and decompose the complex practice of naming and noticing students’ mathematical strengths so PTs learn to teach mathematics while emphasizing what students know and can do. This study uses two tools MTEs can use to support PTs as they learn to name and notice students’ mathematical strengths: A LessonSketch experience, a digital platform with comic-based storyboards showing children engaged in a mathematics task, and a strengths-based sentence frame. Our study presents the findings from the 111 noticing statements from 18 PTs as they engaged in the LessonSketch digital experience and practiced making noticing statements about what children know about mathematics. The study found that after a sentence-frame intervention, the PTs are more likely to use strengths-based language and more likely to identify mathematical evidence in their noticing statements. Uncommitted language (statements that do not align with a strength- or deficit-based coding scheme), suggests a fruitful, yet complex space for supporting more PTs as they learn to name and notice students’ mathematical strengths. The paper concludes with implications for future research in teacher education.

     

Examining a program designed to improve supervisory knowledge and practices of cooperating teachers

This article reports on how a program based on educative supervision supported the supervisory knowledge and practices of three cooperating teachers. The program was planned as a kind of practicum: the cooperating teachers participated in the program while working with a student teacher. The program included activities where the cooperating teachers reflected on their supervisory beliefs and practices in collaboration with each other. The case study method was used, where the case was the designed program. Data analysis indicated some changes in the supervision styles of the participating cooperating teachers toward educative supervision. First, the percent of speech given by the student teachers in the post-lesson conferences increased after the discussion of educative supervision in the program. Secondly, the amount and depth of talks on mathematics pedagogy increased. Thirdly, the cooperating teachers moved away from conveying their feedback directly to the student teachers; they started asking more open-ended questions to have the student teachers reflect on their teaching.     

The Globalization of Higher Education: Some Observations Regarding the Free Market and the National Interest

The globalization of higher education, which is as much an affair of electronic delivery as of franchising and of validation of university awards, has given rise to various concerns. The most well known of these has been the question of quality; however, there are also cultural, economic, and political factors, examples of all of these being given. Some countries, indeed, have made such efforts to regulate transnational higher education offerings on their national territories that they have created less than legitimate barriers to such programmes. The higher education community should respond forcefully to these barriers.     

The relationship between critical thinking skills and in‐class questioning behaviours of English language teaching students

It is important that trainee teachers in the faculties of education should develop their critical thinking skills so that they can meet the expectations and needs of their profession. This study aimed at investigating the relationship between critical thinking skills and in‐class questioning behaviours of English Language Teaching (ELT) students at the Faculty of Education at Mugla University. The authors attempted to find out answers to the following questions: ‘What kinds of questions do students in lower and higher critical thinking groups ask?’ and ‘Is there a difference between the questions of students with higher and lower critical thinking scores?’ Three data collection instruments were used: Ennis‐Weir Critical Thinking Essay Test; a reading passage; and a structured interview. The findings obtained suggest that the questions asked by the students of the higher critical thinking score group are not questions that clarify unclear points, but questions asked out of curiosity, to remove the uncertainties, and to lead people to think profoundly. Moreover, these students ask questions to find alternatives, to think the reverse and to head for new ideas. The students in the higher score group experienced thinking processes more intensively than the lower score group.     

An analysis of three different approaches to student teacher mentoring and their impact on knowledge generation in practicum settings

Mentoring in Teacher Education is a key component in the professional development of student teachers. However, little research focuses on the knowledge shared and generated in mentoring conversations. In this paper, we explore the knowledge student teachers articulate in mentoring conversations under three different post-lesson approaches to mentoring: dialogue journaling, regular conferences and stimulated-recall conferences. Propositional discourse analysis identified 4534 propositions that were subsequently classified into four types of knowledge: recalls, appraisals, rules and artefacts along with the precision of arguments therein. Additionally, log-linear analyses were conducted to search for differences among the three mentoring approaches. The results indicate that dialogue journaling demonstrated more appraisals of practice, regular conferences emphasised rules and artefacts, and stimulated-recall favoured more precision in the type of the arguments stated. The three mentoring styles favour different but complementary understandings of practice and point to the impact of various approaches to mentoring on the sort of knowledge shared and generated in post-lesson mentoring conferences.     

Hypothetical Insurance and Higher Education

What level of government subsidy of higher education is justified, in what form, and for what reasons? We answer these questions by applying the hypothetical insurance approach, originally developed by Ronald Dworkin in his work on distributive justice. On this approach, when asking how to fund and deliver public services in a particular domain, we should seek to model what would be the outcome of a hypothetical insurance market: we stipulate that participants lack knowledge about their specific resources and risks, and ask what insurance contracts they would take out to secure different types of benefit and protection in the domain in question. The great benefit of the hypothetical insurance approach is that it allows us to take apparently intractable questions about interpersonal distribution and transform them into questions about intrapersonal distributions: that is, questions about how an individual would choose to distribute risks and resources across the various lives that they might end up living, in light of their individual ambitions and preferences. Applying this approach to higher education, we argue that the UK model of higher education funding in which the costs of an individual's higher education are shared between general taxation and the individual herself, with the latter element to be paid retrospectively through an income‐contingent state‐backed loan, is vindicated as just. In particular, we argue that it is more just than alternatives such as a graduate tax, full funding through general taxation, and full privatisation.     

Understanding silence: an investigation of the processes of silencing in parent–teacher conferences with Somali diaspora parents in Danish public schools

This article questions the dominant understanding that immigrant and refugee parents in parent–teacher conferences are silent because they come from a culture where one does not question the authority of the teacher. Instead, it is argued that they become silent through certain interactional processes. Building on material from an explorative case study of the home–school relations of Somali diaspora families in Danish public schools, the article argues that while these parents have many opinions about their children’s education that they wish to convey, there are institutional and interactional processes in the parent–teacher conference that systematically silence their voices. The understanding of culture as a stable structure that persons are situated within in a top-down manner is thus challenged, arguing that dynamic here-and-now interactions unfolding in a specific practice result in persons becoming, rather than being, silent.     

经济因素对个人高等教育选择的影响

今天的个人高等教育选择中，经济因素所起的作用是否在不断增强，对不同经济背景的受教育者是否产生着分化作用，从而对个人接受高等教育的公平性产生负面影响，进而对未来社会的阶层分布和贫富分化产生着负面作用。为了回答上述问题，利用11所高校在校大学生的问卷调查数据进行了实证研究。获得的研究结论是：个人的家庭经济条件对个人的高等教育选择行为具有显著影响，我国目前的高等教育规模的扩大更有利于经济富裕家庭的子女；高等教育与个人未来收入均等化存在非一致性和确定性，使得个体人力资本投资具有差异性；个人接受高等教育需要付出很高的费用，因此限制了他们的选择行为。对此，提出建立对经济贫困家庭和较低社会阶层家庭子女接受高等教育的专项资金转移支付制度；国家和政府加大对第二、三层次高校的教育投资；对民办性质高校和高等职业学院制订专门法律，明确规定他们招收低收入或较低社会阶层家庭子女的入学人数比例等相应对策。     

Intercultural teaching and learning strategies for global citizens: a Chinese EFL perspective

External quality monitoring of higher education is explored and analysed. The different types of external bodies and their modus operandi are reviewed. The reasons for undertaking the evaluation are also examined in detail. It is argued that external evaluation legitimates the status quo and fails to ask substantial questions about the nature of learning. External quality monitoring is preoccupied with method and has almost entirely ignored a quarter of a century of research into learning theory, the nature and styles of learning, and classroom innovations. It is suggested that higher education monitoring agencies need to adopt an explicit 'transformation' approach to quality and to address the implications of that for student learning. Only then will they shift from accountability- and compliance-orientated agencies to ones that raise substantial questions about improving student learning.     

Relationships and Values Among Students and Staff in British and German Higher Education

Financial stringency and neo-liberal influences in higher education are impacting upon relationships and academic values in higher education. The aim of the present paper was to analyse how these forces operate differentially in the UK and Germany. The British students were significantly more satisfied than were their German counterparts with the intellectual and personal relationships that they had with their university teachers; this could, however, be attributed more to country-specific factors, predating marketization, than to the effects of globalisation. Students in both countries clamoured for more practical experience during their university courses; but a number of UK students and almost half the UK staff thought that that insufficient justice was being done to theory in the HE programmes. Though ‘the market’ might be assumed conducive to efficiency, the British respondents (both staff and students) were especially dissatisfied with organisational aspects of their institutions. Many of the German staff believed that the old order of the university as they had known it was passing away and this awareness was painful to them. An erratum to this article is available at .     

“Make the Education of the Youths Our Own Education”: Plato's Laches,a Dialogue for Educators

Through an exegesis of the dramatic elements of Plato's Laches, Brandon Buck and Rachel Longa argue that it is an especially valuable text to read with practicing and preservice teachers. Buck and Longa show how the dialogue illustrates three essential aspects of what education means and involves. First, they show how the dialogue foregrounds the often-obscured role of philosophical inquiry in addressing educational questions. Second, they show how the depiction of aporia in the Laches underscores the importance of uncertainty for the persistence of humanistic conversation, and thus for substantial engagement with core educational questions. Finally, they interpret Socrates to suggest that participation in humanistic conversation is not merely an incidental aspect of education as a profession, but rather precisely what it means to be an educator. In sum, Buck and Longa argue that the Laches illustrates the core idea that in order to educate at all, we must be deeply involved in the very questions that characterize humanistic conversation.