Irreconcilable Differences: Black Teachers’ Lives and K-12 Schools

The Urban Review - University-based teacher education programs struggle with recruitment and retention of Black teachers. While the enrollment of children of color in K-12 public schools has held...     

Language in Science Classrooms: An Analysis of Physics Teachers’ Use of and Beliefs About Language

The world over, secondary school science is viewed mainly as a practical subject. This may be one reason why effectiveness of teaching approaches in science education has often been judged on the kinds of practical activity with which teachers and students engage. In addition to practical work, language??often written (as in science texts) or oral (as in the form of teacher and student talk)??is unavoidable in effective teaching and learning of science. Generally however, the role of (instructional) language in quality of learning of school science has remained out of focus in science education research. This has been in spite of findings in empirical research on difficulties science students encounter with words of the instructional language used in science. The findings have suggested that use of (instructional) language in science texts and classrooms can be a major influence on the level of students?? understandings and retention of science concepts. This article reports and discusses findings in an investigation of physics teachers?? approaches to use of and their beliefs about classroom instructional language. Direct classroom observations of, interviews with, as well as content analyses of the participant teachers?? verbatim classroom talk, were used as the methods of data collection. Evidence is presented of participant physics teachers?? lack of explicit awareness of the difficulty, nature, and functional value of different categories of words in the instructional language. In conclusion, the implications of this lack of explicit awareness on the general education (initial and in-service) of school physics teachers are considered.     

Constructivism in Mathematics Classrooms: Listening to Ghanaian Teachers’ and Students’ Views

One of the challenges of implementing a new curriculum is how to bridge the gap between the underlining principles of the curriculum and the cultural and social orientations of the society which includes teachers and students. This article reports on a study that explored how the cultural and social orientations of teachers and students can influence the implementation of a constructivist curriculum in mathematics classrooms. The data for the study came from 250 students and 41 mathematics teachers, using questionnaires, observations, and interviews. The results showed that inasmuch as mathematics teachers and their students acknowledge the importance of student’s active participation and teamwork, these practices have not been fully conceptualised into the Ghanaian mathematics classroom due to some cultural factors. Two main cultural factors were discovered from the analyses of the results. Firstly, the culture of acknowledging only correct answers in class has a negative impact on individual students’ confidence and participation during mathematics lessons. Also, the culture of teamwork is not fully accepted within Ghanaian classrooms as most students find it difficult working in groups and accepting and appreciating each other’s view. It was evident in all lessons that students were ridiculed by their peers when they provide a wrong answer to a question and this affected individual students’ participation in the classroom. Therefore, we suggested that teachers should be pro-active in promoting a classroom environment which is free from fear and intimidation to motivate students to be actively involved in the classroom discourse.     

The Bring Your Own Technology Initiative: An Examination of Teachers’ Adoption

This case study explored teachers’ concerns, use, and actual practices in their adoption of the Bring Your Own Technology (BYOT) initiative. Participants were 12 secondary teachers in a private school setting. The Concerns-Based Adoption Model tools provided data: Stages of Concern Questionnaire (SoCQ), Levels of Use interview, and the Innovation Configuration Map. Twelve participants completed the SoCQ, and 6 of the 12 teachers participated in interviews and observations. After triangulating the data, we found that the majority of teachers indicated highest concerns related to self, placed at the mechanical Level of Use, and had non-ideal adoption practices on the Innovation Configuration Map.     

Elementary Teachers’ Perception of Language Issues in Science Classrooms

Although the importance of language in science learning has been widely recognized by researchers, there is limited research on how science teachers perceive the roles that language plays in science classrooms. As part of an intervention design project that aimed to enhance teachers’ capacity to address the language demands of science, interview data (N = 9) were collected to understand teachers’ perceptions and experiences with a wide range of issues related to language use in science classrooms. Adopting an interpretive approach to qualitative data, the analysis revealed that the teachers perceive a wide range of student difficulties related to language use in science classrooms, especially to the use of specialized terms and writing. Although the teachers are keenly aware of how language can be a barrier to learning science, they are less certain as to what students need to know about the language of science in order to master it. The findings suggested professional support that highlights the distinctive language demands of science and how these demands differ from other subject areas could be useful to these elementary school teachers.     

Engaging Undergraduates in Feminist Classrooms: An Exploration of Professors’ Practices

This article reports the results of a feminist action research project that sought to ascertain professors’ best practices for engaging undergraduates in feminist classrooms. In semi-structured interviews, professors recommended assigning readings from a variety of positionalities; creating a safe space for class discussion; relying on data to respond to student resistance; and including issues related to diversity, human identity, and social justice at a curricular level. The article concludes with a discussion of the author's experience implementing this advice in his own teaching for two years.     

Teachers’ Integration of Scientific and Engineering Practices in Primary Classrooms

The Next-Generation Science Standards (NGSS) challenge primary teachers and students to work and think like scientists and engineers as they strive to understand complex concepts. Teachers and teacher educators can leverage what is already known about inquiry teaching as they plan instruction to help students meet the new standards. This cross-case analysis of a multiple case study examined teacher practices in the context of a semester-long professional development course for elementary teachers. We reviewed lessons and teacher reflections, examining how kindergarten and first grade teachers incorporated NGSS scientific and engineering practices during inquiry-based instruction. We found that most of the teachers worked with their students on asking questions; planning and carrying out investigations; analyzing and interpreting data, using mathematics and computational thinking; and obtaining, evaluating and communicating information. Teachers faced challenges in supporting students in developing their own questions that could be investigated and using data collection strategies that aligned with students’ development of number sense concepts. Also, some teachers overemphasized the scientific method and lacked clarity in how they elicited and responded to student predictions. Discussion focuses on teacher supports that will be needed as states transition to NGSS.     

Teaching and Learning Science in Authoritative Classrooms: Teachers’ Power and Students’ Approval in Korean Elementary Classrooms

Research in Science Education - This study aims to understand interactions in Korean elementary science classrooms, which are heavily influenced by Confucianism. Ethnographic observations of two...     

Teachers’ Critical Evaluations of Dynamic Geometry Software Implementation in 1:1 Classrooms

Although the use of dynamic software in high school mathematics in the United States has emerged as a research topic, little research has been conducted on how teachers integrate new software in relation to at-home technology networks. Interviews with eight mathematics teachers from four North Carolina counties participating in 1:1 laptop initiatives are analyzed to trace similar decision-making themes, including Internet access, laptop availability, software use, and teacher training. This article outlines how current technologies in classrooms were critically examined by the teachers and how network connectivity impressions affected hardware and software use.     

Teaching Genetics in Secondary Classrooms: a Linguistic Analysis of Teachers’ Talk About Proteins

This study investigates Swedish biology teachers’ inclusion of proteins when teaching genetics in grade nine (students 15–16 years old). For some years, there has been a call to give attention to proteins when teaching genetics as a means of linking the concepts ‘gene’ and ‘trait’. Students are known to have problems with this relation because the concepts belong to different organizational levels. However, we know little about how the topic is taught and therefore this case study focuses on how teachers talk about proteins while teaching genetics and if they use proteins as a link between the micro and macro level. Four teachers were recorded during entire genetics teaching sequences, 45 lessons in total. The teachers’ verbal communication was then analyzed using thematic pattern analysis, which is based in systemic functional linguistics. The linguistic analysis of teachers’ talk in action revealed great variations in both the extent to which they used proteins in explanations of genetics and the ways they included proteins in linking genes and traits. Two of the teachers used protein as a link between gene and trait, while two did not. Three of the four teachers included instruction about protein synthesis. The common message from all teachers was that proteins are built, but none of the teachers talked about genes as exclusively encoding proteins. Our results suggest that students’ common lack of understanding of proteins as an intermediate link between gene and trait could be explained by limitations in the way the subject is taught.     

Teachers’ Use of Focus Questions in German Biology Classrooms: a Video-based Naturalistic Study

This study investigated the effects of teachers’ use of focus questions on students’ knowledge structures and classroom teaching-learning process by re-analyzing selected data from a quasi-experimental pre-post video study (Wadouh, 2007). Focus questions are content-related anchoring questions highlighting the key content taught in individual lessons (Forbes & Davis, 2010). In Wadouh’ study, students answered a knowledge test before and after the lesson on “blood and the circulatory system” and one lesson per teacher was videotaped to investigate teaching practices in grade 9 biology classrooms. Students also completed a post-unit concept mapping exercise and a motivation-interest questionnaire. In this study, 30 lesson videos selected from 47 were re-analyzed for teachers’ use of focus questions—no focus questions, non-specific or simple focus questions, and specific and challenging focus questions. Individual students’ scores in the concept mapping exercise were aggregated as students’ topic-related knowledge structure. Multilevel analyses revealed a significant positive effect of teachers’ use of specific and challenging focus questions on students’ topic-related knowledge structure. Furthermore, a comparative case analysis of the classroom teaching-learning process was conducted in four lessons where teachers used specific and challenging focus questions in two of the lessons and non-specific or simple focus questions in the other two lessons. The findings indicate that specific and challenging focus questions anchored lessons on students’ co-construction of scientific explanations by activating their pre-instructional ideas, whereas non-specific or simple focus questions anchored lessons on their accumulation of canonical scientific knowledge. This study’s limitations and implications for teacher education reform are discussed.     

Teachers’ use of PowerPoint in kindergarten: An empirical investigation in China

Nowadays, with the rapid progress of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), the integration of ICTs in education has attracted more and more attention of educators and researchers. However, there are different situations between developed and less-developed nations both in ICT application and in ICT research. PowerPoint is a readily available and most popular tool for teaching in some less-developed countries. Under this particular circumstance, it is not an outdated issue to explore teachers’ use of PowerPoint in teaching. Thus, this paper systematically looked at teachers’ PowerPoint use in the setting of Chinese kindergartens. Specifically, four questions were explored: (i) the status of PowerPoint-related infrastructures in the kindergartens; (ii) teachers’ use of PowerPoint in teaching; (iii) teachers’ design, competences and training related to PowerPoint; (iv) teachers’ perceptions and attitudes toward PowerPoint in teaching. A sample of 62 kindergarten teachers was investigated with a self-created questionnaire. Finally, it was found that the kindergartens had been well equipped with PowerPoint-related equipments; teachers frequently implemented teaching activities with PowerPoint and in an intelligent manner; the majority of teachers had positive perceptions and attitudes toward PowerPoint’s general effects, but there was an imbalance of perceptions and attitudes toward children’ emotional-social aspects and children’s cognitive aspects. Besides, the influencing factors of the availability and access to PowerPoint equipments in kindergartens, PowerPoint’s location, teachers’ using years of PowerPoint, teachers’ knowledge and skills, teachers’ training were also emphasized by this study.     

Factors Affecting Teachers’ Adoption of Technology in Classrooms: Does School Size Matter?

Researchers in educational technology have searched for factors to explain teachers’ acceptance and resistance to using technology for instruction. Among the many identified factors, however, organizational and school factors have not yet been explored and discussed. This study investigates the effects of school size on science and mathematics teachers’ adoption of technology in classrooms. Using national survey data collected from 940 science and mathematics teachers at junior high schools in Taiwan, we employed factor analyses, log-linear analyses, and three-way ANOVA techniques to examine interactions among school factors and teacher factors. Results obtained from the log-linear analyses suggested that both the interactions of school region with school size and school size with technology users were needed to explain teachers’ use of educational technology in classrooms. It appears that teachers at small schools were more likely to use technology for instructional purposes. Additionally, results of the study revealed that teachers at small schools tended to have positive attitudes toward technology use and that among users of educational technology in southern Taiwan, teachers at small schools designed and used significantly more instructional activities with technology. This study suggests that small schools provide a better environment for science and mathematics teachers to implement educational technology in instruction.     

K-12 Science and Mathematics Teachers’ Beliefs About and Use of Inquiry in the Classroom

A survey instrument was developed and administered to 1,222 K-12 mathematics and science teachers to measure their beliefs about and use of inquiry in the classroom. Four variables (grade level taught, content area taught, level of support received, and self-efficacy for teaching inquiry) were significantly correlated to two dependent variables, percentage of time that students are engaged in inquiry during a typical lesson and the perceived ideal percentage of instructional time that should be devoted to inquiry. Specifically, elementary school teachers reported using inquiry-based practices more than either middle-school or high-school teachers; similarly, elementary-school teachers believed such practices should be used more often. All groups, however, reported believing in an ideal percentage of time devoted to inquiry instruction that was significantly greater than their reported percentage of time actually spent on inquiry instruction. A disordinal effect was found between grade level taught and content area taught; at the elementary level, science teachers reported both an ideal and actual percentage of time on inquiry higher than those reported by the math teachers, while at the high school level math teachers reported both an ideal and actual percentage of time on inquiry higher than those reported by the science teachers. No correlations were found between typical and ideal percentage of time devoted to inquiry and subject matter content knowledge training, gender, years of teaching experience, or maximum degree earned.     

Gender Difference in Teachers’ Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching in the Context of Single-Sex Classrooms

This study examines gender differences of teachers on their mathematical knowledge for teaching in the context of single-sex classrooms in Saudi Arabia. A translated version of the Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching (MKT) instrument (Learning Mathematics for Teaching [LMT], 2008) in Number and Operation Content Knowledge (CK) and Knowledge of Content and Student (KCS) scales were administered to 197 teachers (146 male and 51 female). Two-sample t test and multiple regression were conducted to compare the two groups and test the effect of teacher background variables. Female teachers significantly scored better than their male counterpart. Gender, years of teaching experience, and specialization significantly predicted teachers’ content knowledge, F(3, 187) = 13.180, explaining 41.8 % of the variance. Only gender and specialization significantly predicted teachers’ knowledge of content and student, F(2, 191) = 6.335, explaining 24.9 % of the variance. Further comparing items in the MKT instrument where female teachers outperformed male teachers confirmed that female teachers were better in attending to the content knowledge in the context of student’s learning.

     

Gender Difference in Teachers’ Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching in the Context of Single-Sex Classrooms

This study examines gender differences of teachers on their mathematical knowledge for teaching in the context of single-sex classrooms in Saudi Arabia. A translated version of the Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching (MKT) instrument (Learning Mathematics for Teaching [LMT], 2008) in Number and Operation Content Knowledge (CK) and Knowledge of Content and Student (KCS) scales were administered to 197 teachers (146 male and 51 female). Two-sample t test and multiple regression were conducted to compare the two groups and test the effect of teacher background variables. Female teachers significantly scored better than their male counterpart. Gender, years of teaching experience, and specialization significantly predicted teachers’ content knowledge, F(3, 187) = 13.180, explaining 41.8 % of the variance. Only gender and specialization significantly predicted teachers’ knowledge of content and student, F(2, 191) = 6.335, explaining 24.9 % of the variance. Further comparing items in the MKT instrument where female teachers outperformed male teachers confirmed that female teachers were better in attending to the content knowledge in the context of student’s learning.