Teacher appraisal and assessment

In the fast globalising world of education, it is argued that educational leadership and management as a field of study has failed to keep pace with events in policy and practice. Accordingly, there is need to review how the field might develop to better reflect the forces of globalisation in education and their interaction with local cultural contexts. In this article, we derive five major issues raised by the authors in this Special Issue and express them as propositions. Each of the five propositions is briefly illustrated and presented as pointers to possible future directions for this branch of the field to take.     

Teacher stress: Issues and intervention

The purpose of this study was to consider the stress within the teacher's environment and examine methods of assisting public school teachers with managing stress. Participants in the study were 124 female public school teachers of grades K-12 from the public school systems of two central Georgia counties. Three weeks after completing a set of pretest questionnaires, each teacher participated in one of two three-hour training sessions. In the individualized training method, participants were led through a step-by-step development of an individualized plan for more effectively managing the stressor they had identified at the beginning of the training session. By the end of the session, each participant had her own plan for working on her own major stress. In the global approach training method, information about stress was presented to the participants in a lecture fashion with the focus being on general knowledge with no attempt being made to direct the participants in the development of individualized plans. Approximately three weeks after the training session, all participants were sent a set of questions concerning their activities in stress management since the training. The results of the study provided data concerning types of stresses experienced, sources of stress at work and home, effects of stress and burnout, and relative effectiveness of the two training approaches in terms of degree of relief, variety and type of methods utilized, and degree of involvement. The results indicate that the teachers who received the individual training method did significantly increase the time they spend on managing stress.     

教师专业素质自我评价的调查研究

新课程改革的顺利进行,关键是教师的专业素质。而教师对自身专业素质评价直接影响教师的专业成长。本研究从教师对自身专业素质的评价入手,提出提高教师的专业素质,促进教师专业成长对策,这对推动新课程改革具有重要的理论意义和实践价值。     

诲人不倦的导师--怀念辛安亭同志

辛老离开我们了 ,但他给我们的印象是不会磨灭的。我仿佛仍然看见他从校园散步归来 ,一身朴素的衣着 ,一口很浓的山西口音 ,我们又在一起津津有味地讨论问题。有人曾经问我 :您这几年研究中国哲学和中国文化 ,谁是您的导师 ?我回答说 :就是他 ,辛老。我上小学时 ,从辛老编的课本上第一次知道他的名字。等见到他的时候 ,我已经在兰大工作了十几年。那还是十年动乱时期 ,他从师大调到兰大 ,是学校的负责人之一。一天 ,办公室说辛老找我 ,我心里有点紧张。见面后才发现 ,这位延安来的老干部、“大领导”原来是一位十分亲切的老人。他看到我在学…     

Exemplary Teacher Induction: An international review

Whereas present theories of transformative learning tend to focus on the rational and reflective actor, in this article it is suggested that spontaneous action may play a decisive role in transformative learning too. In the spontaneity of action, novelty finds its way into life, gains momentum, is respected by others and reflected by the actor. Such transformation processes are investigated both with the means of theoretical reflection and of empirical inquiry. Based on nine narrative interviews typical phases of transformative learning processes are identified. Owing to the comparative nature of the study, it was also possible to develop an age‐related typology that overlaps certain phases of the transformation process. These empirical findings constitute the background against which the nexus of spontaneous action and transformative learning is reflected theoretically. Theories drawn upon include John Dewey's Pragmatism and George Herbert Mead's Social Pragmatism. Both scholars provide rich theoretical concepts for reflecting on the nature of that what so often eludes from the control of both educators and learners: the spontaneity of the beginning.     

Teacher Accountability: An Experimental Field Study

An experimental field study was conducted to examine the impact of accountability on effectiveness in the teaching of physical education. Accountability was constructed through the introduction of a system of reporting and feedback between the teachers and the professional supervisor on two levels of intensity, high and low. Findings show that the institution of the accountability system improved the participant teachers' effectiveness as compared with control group teachers. Improvement in students' achievements was more evident in girls than in boys. The accountability system constructed for this study may be applied not only in physical education but in other educational areas as well.     

教师专业知识基础与教师教育改革:来自PCK的启示

教师的专业知识基础是教师的专业地位之根基、专业能力生长的土壤和区别于社会其他人的根本特征。上世纪80年代后期出现的学科教学知识理论开创了教师知识基础的第三种观点,对美国独立分离的专业化教师教育体制改革产生了极大的影响,对我国当前的教师教育改革也有重要的指导意义。     

SBAS:教师专业成长的一种有效模式

SBAS教师教育模式起源于韩国,到目前为止被认为是一种最为有效的促进教师专业成长的教育模式。本文从介绍SBAS模式的本质涵义与基本特征入手,阐明SBAS的工作内容、实施策略以及操作程序,并在此基础上对其存在的问题进行分析,进而对我国的教师教育提供合理的建议。     

Teacher Scaffolding: An Exploration of Exemplary Practice

While computers have increasingly been used in classroom over the last twenty years, their application has often been mundane; being merely used to reinforce existing educational practices rather than as a catalyst for educational innovation. An effective way to bring about change may be to identify instances of best practice and then study associated strategies that may be useful for teachers trying to use computers in new and meaningful ways. This study investigates strategies used by a teacher deemed to be exemplary at using computers and associated technology in her classroom. It involved observing and recording teaching sessions conducted by the teacher. This paper discusses the learning task, the children's progression through the task and the teaching strategies used. In particular, it looks for instances of teacher scaffolding as a strategy for supporting children working with computers.     

Teacher efficacy: An investigation of Economics teachers

Abstract

In an era of unprecedented curriculum change it is not surprising that many South African teachers have begun to question their ability to affect learner performance. Teachers have to engage with a changing learner culture, with new curriculum content and are under pressure to embrace different teaching strategies without fully understanding the theoretical principles on which they are based. In this paper the authors explore high-school Economics teachers' beliefs about their capacities to influence learning. This paper is based on a quantitative empirical investigation into Economics teachers' efficacy beliefs about the teaching of Economics. Economics teachers from each of the 45 Department of Education delineated districts in KwaZulu-Natal province were selected to be participants in the study. We argue that while Economics teachers perceive their role as important in the learning process, male teachers in particular see the teacher as the dominant influence on learner performance, and are more confident than female teachers of their knowledge and teaching abilities.     

Teacher effectiveness research: An example from Thailand

This article reviews briefly the reasons for carrying out teacher effectiveness research and presents the testing of a teaching effectiveness model in 80 fifth-grade mathematics classes throughout Thailand. The data are based on a pre-/post-test study over the period of one school year. Each classroom was observed six times between the pre- and post-tests. Special attention is paid to those aspects of schooling that effect teacher behaviours and to those teacher behaviours that effect learning.

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Zusammenfassung Dieser Artikel untersucht kurz die Gründe, warum Studien über die Effektivität von Lehrern durchgeführt werden und stellt die Testergebnisse eines Modells für die Effektivität des Mathematikunterrichts in 80 Klassen des 5. Schuljahres in ganz Thailand vor. Die Daten stützen sich auf eine prä-/post Test-studie, die sich über den Zeitraum eines Schuljahres erstreckt. Jede Klasse wurde sechs Mal zwischen den Prä- und den Posttests beobachtet. Besondere Aufmerksamkeit wird den Aspekten gewidmet, die die Schule auf das Lehrerverhalten ausübt und den Verhaltensweisen der Lehrer, die das Lernen beeinflussen.

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Résumé Cet article examine brièvement les raisons pour lesquelles des travaux de recherche sont effectués sur l'efficacité des enseignants et présente l'étude d'un modèle d'enseignement efficace dans 80 classes de mathématique du cinquième degré en Thaïlande. Les données sont basées sur une étude des pré- et posttest sur une période d'une année scolaire. Chaque classe a été observée six fois entre ces tests. Une attention particulière est accordée aux aspects de la scolarité qui influent sur le comportement de l'enseignant et aux attitudes de l'enseignant qui exercent une action sur l'apprentissage.