Is the world their oyster? The global imagination of pre-service teachers

This paper reports on a qualitative interview study with eleven pre-service primary teachers in Queensland about their career plans, exploring whether, and how, a global imagination motivates this next generation of teachers. The study is framed within sociological theory of globalisation, with regard to the growing possibilities for international mobility for work purposes, and the new life circumstances that make this imaginable. Teaching as a profession has changed and teachers are no longer as entangled with specific systems or geographical locations anymore. International recruitment campaigns are shown to pursue pre-service teachers during their university preparation. The analysis of the interview data reveals the kind of impact these possibilities make on how pre-service teachers imagine their career, and what other considerations enhance or limit their global imagination. The findings are used to reflect on the highly localised governance of pre-service teacher preparation and the limited State-bound imaginaries to which these pre-service teachers are unnecessarily confined in their preparation.     

基于改进TOPSIS法的教师评价分析

在对现有的教师评价方法进行分析的基础上,结合模糊数学、信息熵、多目标决策相关理论提出一种基于改进的TOPSIS法的教师综合评价方法。文章用模糊数学的方法量化了具有模糊性的属性值,运用信息熵权法确定属性权重,较好地解决了权重分配受主观偏好影响的这一问题,最后结合多目标决策中的TOPSIS法对教师综合评价这一问题进行了求解。通过实例分析,证明该方法是切实可行的,能较好地体现评价的客观性、公正性和实效性。     

French second-language teacher candidates’ positions towards Allophone students and implications for inclusion

In Canada, there is a rising population of K-12 students who speak neither French nor English at home, and who are sometimes expected to learn both of the country’s official languages in school. Applying the lenses of critical theory and positioning theory, this study uses questionnaire and interview data to frame considerations to explore how teacher candidates in French second-language (FSL) teacher education programmes across Canada position these Allophone students and their learning needs over the course of their year in teacher education. Findings showed mostly positive attitudes towards the students, and in some cases, apparent small changes in their perceptions of Allophone students in FSL classes but also revealed some uncertainty about the extent to which these positive positions led to recognition of the unique learning needs of this student population. Such findings raise questions about the potential for true inclusion of these students within the learning environment.     

The use of hypermedia in collaborative learning. An approach to the problem of complex systems in the teaching of urban planning / El uso de hipermedia en el aprendizaje colaborativo. Una aproximación al problema de los sistemas complejos en la docencia del urbanismo

The counterpart to the open access to information facilitated by the Internet is the problem of the over-saturation of data and sources. A collaborative model of hypermedia is proposed as a pedagogical approach to the teaching of urban planning in which students organize and construct information from the possibilities provided by hypertext language. The methodology is structured in three phases: organization when searching for information; presentation of information using hypermedia; and assessment of the work. The results show that organization of information in the form of websites obtained the highest scores, although collaborative assessment should be restricted to subjective aspects of communication, while objective aspects should be assessed by the teacher and by groups of experts.     

Developing biology teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge through learning study: the case of teaching human evolution

This work explores how pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) on evolution was modified by two biology teachers who participated in a professional development programme (PDP) that included a subsequent follow-up in the classroom. The PDP spanned a semester and included activities such as content updates, collaborative lesson planning, and the presentation of planned lessons. In the follow-up part, the lessons were videotaped and analysed, identifying strategies, activities, and conditions based on student learning about the theory of evolution. Data were collected in the first round with an interview before the training process, identifying these teachers’ initial content representation (CoRe) for evolution. Then, a group interview was conducted after the lessons, and, finally, an interview of stimulated recall with each teacher was conducted regarding the subject taught to allow teachers to reflect on their practice (final CoRe). This information was analysed by the teachers and the researchers, reflecting on the components of the PCK, possible changes, and the rationale behind their actions. The results show that teachers changed their beliefs and knowledge about the best methods and strategies to teach evolution, and about students’ learning obstacles and misconceptions on evolution. They realised how a review of their own practices promotes this transformation.     

一位新手教师专业成长的叙事研究

文章运用叙事探究的理念与方法,对甘肃临夏回族自治县一位东乡族女教师的专业成长历程进行了描述、诠释与反思,揭示了她对于教师职业、教师专业发展的理解。研究发现,新教师专业发展的形成与变化受到关键事件、重要他人等主客观因素的影响;自主发展意识与专业追求是教师发展的内在动力。     

Cochlear implants for younger children: a preliminary description of the parental decision process and outcomes

The authors conducted a preliminary telephone interview study of a random sample of 35 parents whose children had received cochlear implants through a large-scale implant program. Parents were asked about their child's preimplant and postimplant communications skills, how they learned about implants, and how they arrived at the decision to have their child receive an implant. Results of the interviews suggest, a least for this program, that two types of decision sequences are followed. One type of parent has initial and primary contact through a medical practitioner, uses that source of information exclusively, and is motivated by a desire for a "normal" communication situation. The second type of parent learns about implants from another parent, family member, or teacher. This individual will seek other sources of information and is most often motivated by the child's lack of communication skill. Generally, from parents' perspective, language and speech rather than improved social skills or social contact are the primary benefits of the implant.     

教师绩效评价的理论与实践

教师绩效评价是教育人事制度改革的关键,20世纪80年代以来,它成为了教育改革的重点和难点。在以往有关教师评价的研究中,三种不同类型的评价常常被混用;而对教师绩效的评价又常常只关注任务绩效,没有关注关系绩效;此外,大多数教师评价研究均是关于大学教师的。教师绩效评价应以教师绩效结构的理论分析为基础。基于教师素质结构理论,在文献分析和关键事件调查、关键事件访谈的基础上,通过定性分析和实证分析,在反复研究基础上,提出了教师绩效的结构,并通过实证研究探讨了教师绩效评价的信度与效度。     

Building school-university partnerships: Subjectivity,power, and the process of change

In the flurry of 1980s educational reforms, school-university collaborative partnerships appeared as a popular and promising vehicle for change. The growth of partnerships has been accompanied by an increasing knowledge about the process of change. This study, based on ethnographic and interview data, further extends the knowledge by focusing on one facet of the process: the initiation of partnership relations between a college of education and surrounding elementary and secondary schools. The study finds that the subjective perceptions of school people toward change plays a critical role in the development of partnership relations. These perceptions are grounded in the existing relations between school and university people, and in the harsh conditions of work in schools. School people's relation to these conditions, as manifest in their sense of power or powerlessness, shaped their willingness to work with the university.     

Teacher professional learning as a social practice: an Australian case

Abstract

Framing professional learning as a social practice underscores the interplay between subjective meaning systems and objective conditions of the social space where learning occurs. Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of social practice, and methodologically guided by critical realism, the paper identifies what constitutes effective teacher professional learning through mentoring. The empirical focus of the paper is an Early Childhood teacher mentoring programme in the state of Victoria, Australia. The findings show that: (a) relevant circumstances that make teacher professional learning a necessity are associated with individual aspirations and systemic requirements; (b) collegial relationships and critical deliberation constitute meaningful learning experiences; and (c) teacher learning takes place in the domains of professional dispositions, pedagogical knowledge and social capital. The implication is that in designing professional development programmes such as mentoring, it is important to take teachers’ contexts of practice into account; conceptualise learning as a socially situated practice; and recognise the value of teachers’ lived experiences as a locus of deliberation and learning.     

Making It Better for Lesbian,Gay, Bisexual,and Transgender Students through Teacher Education: A collaborative self-study

Teacher education programs have a critical role in helping incoming teachers develop a deeper understanding of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) issues and their moral and legal obligations to counter homophobic bullying. In this self-study, two educators – a university professor and a classroom teacher, who facilitated a workshop titled “Sexual Diversity in Secondary Schools” in a faculty of education in a mid-sized Canadian city – reflect on the feedback provided by teacher candidates on workshop evaluation forms in relation to their experiences as teacher educators delivering the workshops. In particular, they consider (1) their commitment to this work; (2) why they taught the way they did; (3) the impact their approach had on teacher candidates in the workshops; and (4) what the study revealed about their teacher education practices.     

论高校教师选聘体系的构建与评价

高校师资队伍的状况对学校的发展起着决定性的作用。如何选拔和聘用教师,是建设一支高素质师资队伍的重要环节。为了保证教师选聘的质量,宜采用定性和定量分析相结合的方法,在主观评价的基础上引入了客观评价法。在使用主观评价指标时,运用差异性分析法,以增强主观评价指标的准确性。     

Transitioning in elementary school: parent advocacy and teacher allyship

This paper examines how parent advocacy and teacher allyship played an important role in supporting six-year-old Violet Addley’s (a pseudonym) gender transition in elementary school. We first met the Addley family in the spring of 2015 when we interviewed them for a research study on the experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) families in Ontario schools. The goals of the study are to interview LGBTQ families about issues that come up at school, document how families have worked with schools to create safer and more respectful classrooms for their children, and share the families’ interviews with teachers and principals so they can begin to think about the ways they can best work with LGBTQ parents and their children. Our paper also discusses what a group of teachers learned about parent advocacy and teacher allyship from their engagement with the Addley family interviews.     

Research on technology and teacher education: Current status and future directions

Within the context of a brief history of information technology in teacher education (ITTE), current research on ITTE is reviewed. It is argued that ITTE research can be categorized into three paradigms: empirical, critical, and interpretive. The need for a clear, multi-paradigmatic approach for future work is emphasized. Examples of exemplary work are cited. Conclusions suggest needs for more sharing of information of “islands of excellence” in work on technology in teacher education, more case studies on diffusion of innovation, more emphasis on bias-related findings from critical theory, and more development and dissemination of resources and tools for using technology effectively in teacher education. Recommendations for further work in the area also include emphasizing instructional design (ID) work to create innovations and recognizing the need for grounded, reflective papers on innovative approaches that have been implemented and studied over several years.     

A ‘politics against social submission’: of early years teachers’ accessibility and work with children in Québec

In this paper, I examine the claim that teachers’ subjective experiences can lead to social change through the perspective of the early years teacher in Quebec. Fourteen early childhood teachers participated in memory writing and individual interviews. Data were inductively coded and analysed in terms of the teachers’ subjective experiences of: (1) their occupational image, (2) their day-to-day work in early childhood settings, and (3) their constructions of childhood. Analysis revealed a closer understanding of the interplay between the teacher’s internal and external experiences, particularly in terms of childhood as a discursive concept, gendered assumptions about professionalism, and psychoanalytic notions of individuation. The study suggests that change will require that early years teachers develop and articulate their understandings of their subjective experiences in ways that simultaneously expose deeply entrenched assumptions in the social unconscious that deny recognition to educators whose work relies on their accessibility to the youngest children.     

Novice teachers' work: constructing ‘different’ children?

Developing a teacher identity is an ongoing and multifaceted process. In part, the process involves finding a voice amid the clamour of other, often contradictory, voices and complex conditions in which teachers find themselves. Drawing from a larger study of teacher professional identities, this paper explores how two beginning early childhood educators talk about what it means to teach. The paper focuses on how these novice teachers position themselves, and are positioned, by their understandings of the ‘child’. This focus on children is particularly relevant to understanding teacher identities for in educational contexts, teachers and children are inextricably linked – they are part of a relational pair. Using critical discourse analysis as a way of examining interview data, I discuss how a discourse of the ‘normal’ child constructs particular identity positions for children and the adults who work with them.     

新时期语文教学名师成长的影响因素探析

新时期以来涌现出一大批语文教学名师。他们的成长,既有主观因素,也有客观因素。主观因素主要包括深厚扎实的语文素养,学生主体的教学理念,坚定执着的教育情怀;客观因素主要包括健康发展的社会环境、教育专家的理论引领、合作融洽的教师文化。     

Teachers’ Conceptions of Teaching, and the Making of Specific Decisions in Planning to Teach

Teachers’ conceptions of teaching, and broad approaches to teaching reported by teachers are both commonly found to range from teaching as information transmission, through to teaching as supporting students’ own knowledge constructions. Further, conceptions and approaches have been found to correlate, suggesting that there might be some functional relationship between conceptions and actual teaching practices. But in teacher conception research, participants are commonly asked in interview to reflect on teaching generally, and not to report on particular teaching episodes. The conceptions reported might thus actually be post hoc reflections on past experience, and not indications of detailed functional decision steps. In work reported here, teachers described their reasoning when planning recent teaching episodes. Were higher level conceptions of teaching directly involved in these teachers’ detailed planning, then some vestige of that might be expected to manifest. While student-centredness varied, teacher thinking during actual planning seemed more about contextually localised models of what students might do, than about evoking general conceptions of teaching. The constraints that this finding places on the interpretation of conceptions of teaching, and possible implications for teacher development, are discussed.     

OUTCOMES OF ELDERHOSTEL PARTICIPATION

A qualitative phenomenological study was conducted to determine in what ways and to what extent elderly women perceived a change in their knowledge, attitudes, or behaviors as result of participation in an Elderhostel program. In‐depth interviews were conducted with 12 participants of five Elderhostel programs in a western state. Glaser and Strauss's (1967) method for developing grounded theory was used to analyze the interview information. Interviews produced six general‐outcome themes and 11 subthemes. General‐outcome themes were appreciations, Elderhostel support, social contact, travel, learning, and follow‐up activities. The 11 subthemes were cultural appreciation, other appreciation, self‐appreciation, historical appreciation, Elderhostel loyalty, recruitment of others, social contact, travel, content learning, general learning, and follow‐up activities. The particular educational needs of the elderly described by McCluskey (1971)—coping, influence, expressive, and contributive needs—were met for these women through their Elderhostel participation. Some higher education goals (e.g., cognitive learning, direct satisfaction and enjoyment of higher education, and advancement of knowledge in social welfare) were also met by this program.     

Parent Surveys for Teacher Evaluation

Parent or guardian perceptions play a specialized role in the evaluation of school teachers. Parents are important stakeholders in teacher success, they are in some instances partners in the teachers' work, parents have unique personal information about student learning, and they can report on the teacher duties to inform parents about the classroom and child progress. This study analyzed the responses of parents to 12 survey items concerning teacher performance in 201 classrooms. The surveys were used as part of an innovative teacher evaluation program in which teachers elected to include parent feedback as one objective data source for annual review. In this study three factors emerged as important concerns for parents: humane treatment of students, support for pupil learning, and effective communication and collaboration with parents. Recommendations for use of specific survey items can be based on the empirical results of this sampling. The data gathered by parent surveys define one dimension of quality which may vary in importance from one teacher to another.