Conceptions of and early childhood educators’ experiences in early childhood professional development programs: A qualitative metasynthesis

ABSTRACT

Policy makers and early childhood stakeholders across the United States continue to seek policy solutions that improve early educators’ instruction of young children. A primary vehicle for attaining this goal is professional development. This has led to an influx of empirical studies that seek to develop a set of best practices for professional development. While this deductive work is important and informative, it provides limited insight into how professional development is being conceptualized, and how teachers experience, respond to, or learn from these programs. This article begins to address these issues by presenting findings from a qualitative metasynthesis of published peer-reviewed qualitative studies of professional development programs for in-service early educators in the United States. By analyzing, synthesizing, and interpreting these studies, it appears that while such programs may have a positive impact on teachers’ conceptions of practice, there is a need to expand the research literature beyond identifying what works so that it includes studies examining teachers using such practices with children and investigations into teachers’ knowledge of their local teaching and learning communities. This study ends by offering an interpretation of the relationship between these findings and the field of teacher education.     

中美建交前美国汉语教育史述略

发韧于19世纪中后期的美国汉语教育,至中美建交时已有百年历史。在这百年间,美国的汉语教育受国内社会政治文化环境、中美关系、国际政治形势等外部因素以及汉语教学方法、语言教育思潮等因素的牵制,经历了初创、转折、跃进到停滞等一系列波折变化。美国汉语教育在这百年间所历经的波折变化具有深刻的文化内涵和政治内涵,折射出百年间中美关系的变迁和学习汉语动机的更移;同时,它亦启示我们,当下海外＂汉语热＂能否具有稳定性和可持久性,更为关键之处在于增强中华文化对海外人士的内在吸引力。     

A Study of Early Childhood Mathematics Teaching in the United States and China

Research Findings: The present study involved using a questionnaire to investigate the mathematics teaching practices of 74 U.S. and 67 Chinese early childhood teachers. Quantitative and qualitative analyses yielded several key findings. First, U.S. teachers are less intentional in mathematics teaching than their Chinese counterparts. Specifically, 27% of the U.S. participants did not set any goals for mathematics, and 20% did not use a curriculum or any resources. In contrast, 3% of the Chinese participants fell into each of these categories. Second, early childhood mathematics content in the United States appears to be broader and less differentiated by age group than in China. Lastly, emerging curriculum (mathematics learning that emerges from children's play, activities, and routines) is the prevailing approach for 3- and 4-year-olds in the United States. In comparison, mathematics-specific teaching is the primary, but not sole, form of instruction in China. Practice or Policy: These findings have important implications for implementing the Common Core mathematics standards in the early years.     

人本主义学习论对我国教师教学理念的启示

人本主义学习论主张"以学习者为中心"的教育思想,注重学生的人格发展和有意义的学习,强调教师"教人"比"教书"更重要。我国新课程改革也提倡以学生为中心,要求教师的教学要以学生的发展为出发点和归宿,因而人本主义学习论对我国教师的教学理念有重要的借鉴意义。     

Understanding teachers’ motivation for and commitment to teaching: profiles of Chinese early career,early childhood teachers

ABSTRACT

To better understand the reasons underlying attrition and the teacher shortage, and to develop ways to attract and retain high-quality teachers in early childhood education, it is necessary to explore teacher motivation and commitment to teaching. Although previous research has investigated various aspects of teacher motivation and commitment to teaching, little attention has been paid to this in the context of early childhood teachers, especially early career teachers. Drawing upon in-depth interviews with 12 early career, early childhood teachers in mainland China, this study aims to examine early career early childhood teachers’ motivation to teach and commitment to teaching in the Chinese context. Four distinct types of early career, early childhood educators were identified: committed passionate, committed compromiser, undecided, and uncommitted. Each of these had unique motives for teaching and different levels of commitment to kindergarten teaching in mainland China. The four types of early career early childhood teachers identified in this study demonstrate the diversity and complexity of teaching motivation and commitment to teaching in the field of early childhood education. The findings from this study can provide implications for policy-makers and teacher educators to enhance novice teachers’ motivation and commitment to teaching in the early childhood context.     

“教学”概念史考察——以20世纪以来我国教学论教材为主线

"教学"是教学理论中最为核心的概念,对不同时期教学论教材中的教学概念变迁的研究,有利于我们认识主流教学观念的变化。20世纪初至20世纪60年代,我国对教学概念的主流认识相继受到日本具有赫尔巴特学派倾向的教学理论、美国行为主义心理学、苏联教育学和教学论的影响。80年代后,我国对教学概念的认识形成了中国特色,普遍认为教学是教与学相统一的教育活动。不同时期的教学概念对"教学的教育性"问题的表述,反映了教学概念通常不是对客观存在的教学的描述,而是对应然教学的一种规范。这种规范性的教学概念对教学实践具有重要的引领功能。     

Politics,Economics, Society,and Overseas Chinese Teaching: A Case Study of Australia

Abstract

The history and current state of Chinese teaching in Australia has largely been determined by two key factors: first, the country’s policy on languages, and in particular its policy regarding foreign language education; and second, its immigrants and overseas students from Chinese-speaking countries and regions. Beginning in the 1980s, Chinese teaching gained powerful support under Australia’s official language policy, and the number of people studying Chinese has continuously grown. At the same time, it is worth noting that the majority of those learning Chinese are students of Chinese descent. The questions of how to design courses, prepare teaching materials, grade examinations, and train qualified teachers in response to this situation merit careful consideration.     

Envisioned and enacted practices: educational policies and the ‘politics of use’ in schools

ABSTRACT

It is widely known that there is a discrepancy between educational policy on the one side, and teaching and learning practices on the other. Most studies have been focusing on the sociocultural and micropolitical frames that shape teachers’ understandings and enactments of teaching, and that cause the vast diversity of classroom practices around the world. This article wants to draw attention to the ‘politics of use’ in teachers’ work: how teachers mobilize larger political narratives when implementing curriculum reform. Arguably, these narratives provide a shortcut between the central government and street-level actors, thus circumventing the logics of these actors’ immediate institutional environments.

In order to showcase the politics of use, the article uses the case of education for creativity as it is designed for and practiced at Chinese schools. The case reveals how education for creativity is compromised by requirements emanating from larger political programs when implemented in Chinese classrooms. The article challenges the view that educational policy necessarily moves through a trickle-down process, from higher to medium to lower-level actors. In cases of strong ideological alignment between street-level actors and central state actors, educational policy may in fact sidestep and hence neutralize important institutional actors.     

Developing different identity trajectories: lessons from the Chinese teachers

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to investigate how three Chinese teachers developed their teacher identities in a reform context. Drawing upon data from a larger social historical study, the work-life narratives of the three teachers at different stages of their careers were used as case studies to showcase three types of teacher identity development trajectories, namely, learning to be both professional educator and subject teaching expert，learning to be subject teaching expert, and navigating to balance between educator and subject teacher. This study also investigated the factors that influence identity development trajectories of teachers and develops a conceptual framework for understanding teacher identity development in China. The framework shows that Chinese teachers’ exertion of their individual agency is embedded in the institutional context. Meanwhile, interpersonal relationships can work as a buffer to alleviate the tension between the institution and individual teachers. The study also shows the ways in which Chinese teachers’ exert their agency when developing their identities. The findings have significant implications for teacher education in terms of how to develop positive teacher identity over the course of a teacher’s career.     

试论探究教学的“学习环”模式

＂学习环＂模式有利于学生探究能力、推理能力、概念的建构和运用能力的提高。文章介绍了＂学习环＂模式在美国广泛的研究和应用及其如何指导教师进行探究教学。这一模式对于中国目前教育中开展探究教学具有十分重要的借鉴意义。在探究教学中,教师可以依据＂引入环节→探索环节→概念建构环节→概念应用与拓展环节→评价环节＂的步骤运用＂学习环＂模式,以促进学生理解科学概念,发展学生的科学思维,提高其推理能力及参与科学活动的积极性。     

Prospective teachers’ teaching experience: teacher learning through the use of video

Background: Future teachers need to observe, interpret and analyse teaching during the initial teacher education period. The use of videoed teaching and learning in teacher education promotes reflection, and analysing videos of teaching is helpful in learning effective classroom practices that prospective teachers mostly do not have the chance to observe during fieldwork experiences. The analysis of videos of teaching can be seen as a way to enhance the development of prospective teachers’ professional vision, which, in turn, improves instruction. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine prospective teachers’ reflections on video examples depicting their own teaching experiences. It aimed to create a professional development environment to facilitate the prospective teachers’ reflection on their own videos and those of their peers to improve their professional vision. Sample: This study was conducted with over 200 (in 31 groups) third-year prospective mathematics teachers in a university in Western Turkey. The student teachers, receiving training to teach first- to fourth-grade elementary school pupils, were taking a teaching methods course. Design and methods: In the first week of the semester, the student teachers, working in groups, were assigned mathematics topics to teach the elementary school pupils. During the semester, each group prepared by trying out their activities in front of other student teachers in other groups. At the end of the semester, one student teacher from each group presented a short lesson related to their mathematical topic to the elementary school pupils. This lesson was videotaped, then later it was watched and discussed by the student teachers. Of the student teachers who undertook the teaching in the videos, 22 volunteers agreed to be interviewed. All groups of student teachers provided written reflections on their experience. Selected videos of the class discussions about the videos of teaching were also used for triangulation. The data were analysed to identify the issues the prospective teachers reflected upon. A content analysis technique was employed. Results: The data indicated that the prospective teachers were able to reflect on several issues related to effective teaching, connect their theoretical knowledge to their practice and consider issues related to pupil learning and difficulties. Conclusion: The findings suggested that the use of video, together with discussions between the student teachers, had the potential to create promising learning opportunities for prospective teachers.     

Early Childhood Teachers’ Psychological Well-Being: Exploring Potential Predictors of Depression,Stress, and Emotional Exhaustion

Research Findings: Early childhood teachers’ psychological well-being influences the nurturing and learning classroom climate in early care and education as well as children’s development. However, less is known about predictors of teachers’ psychological well-being in preschool. The purpose of this study was to explore associations between potential predictors of teachers’ psychological well-being—such as professional background, teaching efficacy, and work environment—and teachers’ self-perceived depression, stress, and emotional exhaustion after controlling for individual demographics. A total of 1,129 teachers serving preschool-age children (3- and 4-year-olds) in the United States participated in the study. Teachers responded to a questionnaire asking about their background, work environment, and social-emotional attributes. Multiple regression analysis revealed that levels of teachers’ self-efficacy and work environments are generally associated with their psychological well-being above and beyond their personal and professional backgrounds. Practice or Policy: The results of this study suggest that it is important to help teachers build teaching competence and efficacy and to prepare them to handle stressors from work environments in order to reduce their psychological burden. In addition, we suggest that positive work climates need to be created for teachers and children at the program level.     

Mother tongues: the Opt Out movement’s vocal response to patriarchal,neoliberal education reform

ABSTRACT

This article explores the widespread and growing public backlash against high-stakes standardised testing in the United States, following the parent-led Opt Out movement’s quest to dismantle neoliberal educational policy by coaching children to boycott standardised tests. We analyse how our participants, mothers and female teachers in Opt Out Florida, use Facebook group pages as on-going critical sites of consciousness development where connected learning, knowing, and action occur. We illustrate how our participants, perceiving their children’s teachers as muzzled by neoliberal, patriarchal education reform, banded together to collectively attack a corporatised and violent system of American public education. Our focus on the role of mothers, their defence of teachers, and their attack on patriarchal neoliberalism fits within the larger history of the feminisation of the teaching profession and reveals how mothers in the domestic sphere have organised to wrest teaching from neoliberal reformers.     

高职生大学英语合作学习能力培养探析

合作学习起源于20世纪70年代初的美国,它认为课堂是现实社会的一个缩影。它强调知识存在于社会情景中,教师应通过与学生的共同建构来传递知识,让学生在小组或团体中开展学习,互相帮助、互相沟通,是一种极富创意与实效的教学理论和策略体系,受到各国教育界的重视。它能较好地解决高职院校英语教育中教与学的矛盾。本文就如何在高职英语教学中应用合作学习理论,进行合作学习实践,促进高职英语教学改革进行了有益的探索。     

Exploring the pedagogical features of integrating essential competencies of scientific inquiry in classroom teaching

ABSTRACT

Background: As inquiry-based instruction is not universally implemented in science classrooms, it is crucial to introduce instructional strategies through the use of contextualized learning activities to allow students with different background knowledge and abilities to learn the essential competencies of scientific inquiry and promote their emotional perception and engagement.

Purpose: This study explores how essential scientific competencies of inquiry can be integrated into classroom teaching practices and investigates both typical and gifted secondary students’ emotional perception and engagement in learning activities.

Sample: A case teacher along with 226 typical and 18 gifted students from a suburban secondary school at Taiwan participated in this study.

Design and methods: After attending twelve 3-hour professional development workshops that focused on scientific inquiry teaching, the case teacher voluntarily developed and elaborated her own teaching activities through the discussions and feedback that she received from workshop participants and science educators. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected through activity worksheet, questionnaire, video camera, and tape recorders. Frequency distribution, Mann-Whitney U test, and discourse analysis were used for data analyses.

Results: Case teacher’s teaching activities provide contextual investigations that allow students to practice making hypotheses, planning investigations, and presenting and evaluating findings. Students’ learning outcomes reveal that typical students can engage in inquiry-based learning with positive emotional perception as well as gifted students regardless of their ability level. Both gifted and typical students’ positive emotional perception of and active engagement in learning provide fresh insight into feasible instructions for teachers who are interested in inquiry-based teaching but have little available time to implement such instructions into their classrooms.

Conclusions: The results of our work begin to address the critical issues of inquiry-based teaching by providing an exemplary teaching unit encompassing essential scientific competencies     

Addressing the Sociopolitical Realities of Teaching through Standards-Based Reform to Post-Licensure Master’s Degree Programs

ABSTRACT

Physical education teacher education programs have a responsibility to prepare preservice teachers in the technical aspects of teaching while also preparing them for the sociopolitical realities of teaching a marginalized subject. There is also a need for inservice teachers to engage in continuing professional development related to socialization and school sociopolitics to build upon lessons learned during initial teacher education. In the United States, one such professional development opportunity is reflected in master’s degree programs. These programs are typically guided by the National Association for Sport and Physical Education advanced standards for physical education teacher education. However, these standards do not currently have any reference to socialization or sociopolitical learning. The purpose of this article is to propose that an additional standard focusing on sociopolitical skills and teacher socialization be added to the National Association for Sport and Physical Education advanced standards for U.S.-based post-licensure master’s degree programs.     

我国中小学教学研究组织的发展及其困境

我国的教学研究组织是借鉴苏联教学法小组建立的非行政性组织。从发展过程来看,它不仅仅是一个教学研究组织,也是教师集体学习组织、教师业务组织和教师管理组织。随着教育改革的不断深入,在学校教研体制与行政管理体制、教学研究与课题研究、研"教"和研"学"上,教学研究组织面临着进一步发展的困境。     

提高《中国近现代史纲要》课堂教学效率之思考

教材是教和学的基本依据,是教师开展教学活动的载体。文章认为,要提高《中国近现代史纲要》课堂教学效率,教师必须认真研究本门课程的性质与目的,全面把握教学的任务和教材的特点,遵循思想政治教育的基本原则,从大学生的实际情况出发,依托教材创新教学方法,培养学生的史学情趣,充分发挥教师的主导作用和学生的主体作用。     

Jumping Into the Deep End: Developing Culturally Responsive Urban Teachers Through Community-Immersive Partnerships

Abstract

Preparing special educators for the highest-need schools remains an ongoing challenge in urban districts across the United States. One university’s collaborative community-based immersive partnership model, with emphasis on service learning, has demonstrated promising levels of impact on candidates’ preparation as preservice teachers learning how to celebrate the rich cultural histories of the communities where they are immersed. Both quantitative and qualitative results on the impact of one specific example of this work are provided.     

国际中文师资培训模式的构建——基于美国TESOL项目的启示

国际中文教育已经开启了一个普及化的新时代,构建一支高水平的师资队伍是推动国际中文教育长期稳定发展的必要条件。为了提升教师质量和数量,亟需构建更为完善的国际中文师资培训体系。美国TESOL(Teaching English to Speakers of Other Language)教师培训模式较为成熟,已经得到全球英语教师和用人单位的高度认可。通过对TESOL项目的培训理念、教学对象、课程培训目标、课程设置和资格认证等方面的深入分析,可以帮助国内学界了解美国TESOL项目的特点,为国际中文师资培训提供切实可行的参考,构建一套专业化、规范化、国际化、统一的国际中文师资培训模式。