Teachers learning how to learn

School pupils learning how to learn (LHTL), aimed at helping them develop learning autonomy, requires teachers to develop new classroom practices. Hence teachers LHTL is equally important. The TLRP ‘Learning How to Learn in Classrooms, Schools and Networks’ project researched how practices were developed by teachers in 40 primary and secondary schools in England. Quantitative data were collected using teacher and pupil questionnaires, and qualitative data came from interviews with head teachers, school project co-ordinators and a sub-sample of classroom teachers. Some teachers were also observed and video-recorded. External constraints made it difficult for teachers to promote pupils' learning autonomy, unless they fundamentally changed the nature of classroom tasks and climate. A key factor was teachers' own engagement in collaborative classroom-focused inquiry. However, to be successful, this needed to be supported by school management and leadership. There were strong statistical relationships between school policy, teachers' professional learning and their capacity to promote learning autonomy in their pupils. Teacher learning through networking within their schools, and with other teachers in other schools, was also shown to be important.     

Teachers’ Discussions Of Students’ Thinking: Meeting The Challenge Of Attending To Students’ Thinking

The purpose of this article is to describe findings from a study of teachers’ social interaction during discussions about students’ thinking. The goal of the discussions was for the teachers to interpret their students’ thinking as revealed from work on non-routine, thought-revealing mathematical tasks, known as model-eliciting activities. The research reported in this article focuses on instances during the discussions when the teachers engaged in what the researcher termed ‘mini-inquiries’, occasions during which the teachers inquired into why their students thought about the associated model-eliciting activities as they did or when the teachers inquired into the underlying mathematical complexities associated with the model-eliciting activities. During these mini-inquiries, the teachers typically engaged in one of four types of interaction patterns that enabled them to meet some of the challenges of attending to students’ thinking that are described in United States reform documents.     

Learning from curriculum materials: Scaffolds for new teachers?

This article explores how beginning teachers use and learn from curriculum materials. As part of a longitudinal study of beginning English teachers who teach in the Pacific Northwest of the United States, the researchers tracked teachers’ responses to and use of materials over time, and how these materials shaped their classroom practice. The authors found that the teachers spent an enormous amount of time searching out curriculum materials for their classes and that the curriculum materials they encountered did, indeed, powerfully shape their ideas about teaching language arts as well as their classroom practice. Based on their findings, the authors propose a trajectory for the teachers’ use of the curriculum materials. New teachers begin by sticking close to the materials they have at hand. Then, over time, as they learn more about both students and curriculum, they adapt and adjust their use of the materials. The authors argue that new and aspiring teachers need opportunities to analyze and critique curriculum materials, beginning during teacher education and continuing in the company of their more experienced colleagues.     

Mentoring beginning teachers in secondary schools: An analysis of practice

The conditions that promote best practice in the mentoring of beginning teachers in secondary schools are explored in this paper in relation to the experiential model of learning put forward by Kolb [(1984). Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development. New York: Prentice-Hall]. The underpinning processes of this learning cycle include the experience, the reflection, the learning that results and (further) experimentation.We present some empirical research from a two-year funded project on The Professional Development of Subject Induction Tutors and data derived from questionnaires completed by beginning teachers in three education authorities at the start and end of induction year and from semi-structured interviews with sub-samples of beginning teachers. The questionnaire data allowed us to distinguish three broad teacher ‘types’ in terms of their experiences of induction and the associated mentoring. In relation to these types we explored differences and similarities in the extent to which mentoring functions are distributed in schools, the extent to which different mentoring relationships allow beginning teachers to be empowered in their work, and the particular uses made of review and target setting and the value placed on these processes by beginning teachers and their mentors. Overall we found that best practice for ‘developmental mentoring’ involves elements of challenge and risk-taking within supportive school environments with clear induction systems in place and strong school ethos in relation to professional development.     

Reach to Teach ICT: Issues and Compromises

This paper outlines some implications for pupils’ learning and for teachers of information and communication technology (ICT) in primary or elementary education of using complete ‘reach and teach’ resource and lesson plan solutions to support a national scheme of work. The example resources referenced in the paper are ‘The LCP ICT Resource Files for Schools’, designed to enable teachers to deliver the ICT National Curriculum requirements for England and are structured to closely follow the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) scheme of work. The authors of the LCP ICT Resource Files became aware that there was a widespread takeup of their materials and that, therefore, the resources had potentially a substantial impact upon practice in many schools.Models of curriculum provision are presented and characteristics of good practice are adduced which the author recommends to those who write, review or evaluate complete teaching solutions for ICT.     

Teachers' Visions: The Role of Personal Ideals in School Reform

This paper explores how the concept of ``teachers' vision' – or, teachers' images of ideal classroom practice – may be used to help us better understand the development of teachers' work and their careers. Drawing upon data from surveys and interviews with high school teachers, the author describes four different types of visions. By examining differences in the focus, range and distance of those visions, she shows how vision can serve as a guide for directing practice as well as a means of measuring how far teachers may be from their ideals. In the process, she suggests that teachers' visions can help explain what assumptions teachers make; what they learn about those assumptions; why and how they may choose to change their practice; and even whether or not they elect to remain in the profession. In conclusion, the paper considers how vision might function as a powerful tool for helping teachers surface and interrogate their beliefs as well as to imagine and elaborate pathways to promising new practices.     

Strategies used by teachers to rate student behavior

Upon completing the Teacher Report Form (TRF; Achenbach, 1991) on a randomly selected child in their current classroom, teachers were surveyed about the approaches or strategies they used to formulate their ratings. In Phase 1, teachers identified eight rating strategies. In Phase 2, a new group of teachers indicated the extent to which they relied on the eight strategies. Rather than the two approaches hypothesized to be foremost, (“I compared the child to other children in the same classroom,” “I compared the child to other children of the same age”), teachers relied primarily on their “experience with the child in many different settings.” © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

The ‘Hidden Pedagogy’ and its Implications for Teacher Training

Despite the diversity of training they receive and the diversity of subjects and schools in which they work, teachers tend to share a vision of their work in which ‘classroom control’ and ‘classroom privacy’ figure prominently. This common element in their understanding of the work can be explained by the fact that they share one overriding influence on their attitudes and approaches to the job — assroom experience. Because this experience itself is shaped by some characteristic features of the material and social organisation of classrooms, teachers tend to share certain problems, dilemmas, frustrations and opportunities that come as normal parts of classroom experience and which present the teachers with some practical imperatives they cannot afford to ignore. Classroom experience, for this reason, fosters a set of pragmatic beliefs about the job which, by way of contrast with formal educational theory, can be regarded as a ‘hidden pedagogy’. This generally involves a belief in the need to establish classroom control and to maintain the privacy of the situation as absoute prerequisites for successful teaching — a belief that gets carried through from generation to generation of teachers and which remains remarkably unchanged despite superficial alterations to pedagogy, curriculum and school organisation because the basic structural features of classroom experience have remained unaltered. Any attempt to innovate and alter the work of teachers needs to take into account this hidden dimension of the job and consider carefully the repercussions of pedagogic proposals for the deep‐rooted vision of competent teaching it contains.     

“To make the tacit explicit”: Teacher education, emerging discourse, and conceptions of teaching

The influence of teacher education on teaching is a problematic area, both in practice and in research. Often, because much research adopts a “first-order” perspective which focuses on teachers' behaviors, influences of teacher education are seen as temporary, negligible, or difficult to determine. The study reported here grew out of a general concern to document, via a “second-order” perspective which examines their thinking and perceptions, how teachers modify or improve what they do through formal teacher education. It addresses three important areas which have received little attention in recent research: foreign language teaching, in-service graduate education, and the role of a shared, professional discourse in developing teachers' conceptions of teaching. The paper presents a summary of the findings of an 18-month longitudinal study which examined how foreign language teachers' conceptions of their classroom practice developed as they took part in an in-service teacher education program. The paper discusses how the program's shared professional discourse contributes to increasing the complexity of the teachers' thinking about their teaching and suggests that as they learn to articulate their de facto ways of thinking in the shared discourse, the teachers gain greater control over their classroom practice and are thus more able to shape it to their own ends.     

Teachers' Experience and Management of Young Children Treated Because of Home Conduct Problems: A qualitative study

In the present study, a sample of 27 teachers were interviewed regarding their experience and management of young children with conduct problems in day‐care or school settings. The children had been referred and treated because of oppositional and conduct problems at home. Qualitative analysis of data was performed by using elements of a grounded theory approach. Although the children had complex conduct problems presenting considerable challenges for their teachers, most teachers described a close and engaged relationship with these children. Teachers used within‐discipline and within‐classroom approaches in their work with a main focus on managing the child's daily life in day‐care or school, supported by close colleagues. Their practices were not deeply rooted in evidence‐based knowledge and methods. Most teachers reported collaboration with parents as positive and necessary, however, they only pursued it to a limited extent. Representatives from supplementary services, such as school psychologist, child protection care and child psychiatry, were rarely involved in the work of teachers. Implications of the findings are discussed.     

Network-related teaching and changes in classroom seating

The extent to which teachers make changes in classroom seating reflects, in part, the degree to which they value promoting positive peer relationships in the classroom. We assessed the frequency with which teachers made both minor (i.e., involving only 2–3 students) and major (involving half or more students in the class) changes in classroom seating. We tested whether the frequency of seating changes was linked to teachers' beliefs about promoting positive peer relationships, their attunement to child- or peer-reports of peer victimization, and their concern about bullying at the school. Participants were 37 fourth-grade teachers and their students (N = 677). The frequency of major seating changes was negatively associated with teachers' peer-focused classroom seating (PFCS) beliefs and to their attunement to student peer victimization. Minor seating changes were positively associated with PFCS beliefs for teachers with low or average attunement to peer victimization; however, teachers highly attuned to peer victimization made fewer minor seating changes regardless of their PFCS beliefs. Implications for research and practice are discussed.     

Self‐regulated pupils in teaching: teachers’ experiences

This article outlines in a theoretical and practical way the concepts of self‐regulated learning, learning strategies and metacognition by looking at concrete examples in the classroom. The teachers presented in the article were taking part in a research and development (R&D) work project in which they were cooperating both with each other and a researcher who was facilitating their way through the development processes. The article focuses on how the teachers introduced learning strategies, how the strategies were adapted to the pupils, how the strategies were connected to various tasks and what the use of strategies means for the pupils’ learning in the studied context. The overall aim of the article is to illuminate how the teachers experienced the pupils’ use of strategies in their learning work. Findings from the study indicate that teachers have to adapt the introduction and use of strategies to the pupils’ development levels and that pupils from 13 to 16 years of age need help from their teachers, both in learning and in controlling their own learning processes.     

Selectivity in Learning: A Theme in the Application of Whitehead’s Theory of Prehensions to Education

This paper, which is particularly centered on the student’s learning process, is the first half of a detailed study of selectivity in Whitehead’s philosophy of education. Here, by setting forth the analogy between the creative process exhibited in Whitehead’s Theory of Prehensions and the learning process through an interpretation of the term, ‘prehending subject’ as ’learner,’ I argue that selectivity, via ‘negative prehensions,’ is the efficient motive power at work in the process of learning. Various concrete classroom examples of selectivity are alluded to, which lend support to this thesis. With clues from the Aims of Education, by reading the theory of prehensions with some conceptual modifications made for the purposes of education, I present the perspective that, as one side of a logical contrast, Whitehead’s theory of prehensions can be said to be conducive to a critical pedagogy.     

Kindergarten teachers adjust their teaching practices in accordance with children’s academic pre‐skills

This study examined the extent to which kindergarten children’s academic pre‐skills are associated with their teachers’ subsequent teaching practices. The pre‐skills in reading and math of 1268 children (655 boys, 613 girls) were measured in kindergarten in the fall. A pair of trained observers used the Classroom Assessment Scoring System instrument to observe 49 kindergarten teachers on their emotional support, classroom organisation and instructional support in kindergarten in the spring. The results of the multilevel modelling showed that low levels of academic pre‐skills in kindergarten classrooms in the fall predicted high classroom quality in the classrooms later on. The results suggest that the overall level of children’s academic pre‐skills in the classroom plays an important role in the ways in which teachers adapt their instructional practices to the needs of a particular classroom.     

Coteaching/Cogenerative Dialoguing: Learning Environments Research as Classroom Praxis

Critical educators have leveled a methodological critique against traditional forms of classroom research because they both objectify teachers and students and lead to results that do not enhance praxis. Over the past decade, we have developed coteaching as a context for learning to teach and supervising teaching, on the one hand and, on the other, as a method for doing research on and evaluating teaching. Coteaching involves an equitable inquiry into teaching and learning processes in which all members (or representatives thereof) of a classroom community participate – including students, teachers, student teachers, researchers, and supervisors. In this article, we articulate coteaching in terms of activity theory and the associated first-person methodology for doing research on learning environments that is relevant to praxis because it constitutes an integral part of praxis. A detailed case study exemplifies coteaching and the associated research on learning environments.     

The effect of writers' personalities and raters' personalities on the holistic evaluation of writing

Recent work in reading and writing theory, research and pedagogy has raised questions about relationships between Fluent reading processes and holistic scoring of essays (e.g., Huot 1993). In holistic scoring settings, are the raters behaving as normal Fluent readers (i.e., readers interacting critically and personally with the text) or, are they somehow disconnected From their normal reader responses because they are using reliable scoring guides? Related questions concern the behavior of such holistic raters when they are teachers (e.g., Barritt, Stock, & Clark, 1986), and when those teachers respond to student writing (Connors & Lunsford, 1993). How are teachers/raters behaving, and what are they responding to in judging the writing? Previous research has suggested a role for personality type in the study of the process of writing evaluation (Jensen & DiTiberio, 1984, 1989).Thus, it seems reasonable to ask what role personality types play in the holistic evaluation of writing.This empirical study addressed the general question: What role, if any, do personality types of writers and of raters play in the holistic rating of writing? Moreover, is there a relationship between writers' personalities and raters' personalities?Writers were native English-speaking university freshman composition students; raters were native English-speaking university freshman composition instructors.Results indicate that the personality types of writers affect the ratings their essays receive, and the personality types of raters affect the ratings they give to essays. However, there is no significant relationship between writers' styles and raters' styles. Implications for future research, as well as classroom implications of these results are discussed.     

Teachers’ sense-making about comprehensive school reform: The influence of emotions

The paper examines teachers’ emotions in the process of making sense of educational reforms. We draw upon concepts from sociological theory and education to inform our framework for understanding how emotions, as a social construct, directly and indirectly, influence teachers’ understandings. Using qualitative data gathered in a study of comprehensive school reform (CSR), we explain how teachers make sense of reforms within their school and classroom contexts and the emotions that arise in the process. Findings show that as teachers made sense of reforms at the school level, they attached little emotion to them; whereas, making sense of the reforms vis-à-vis their own classroom practice appeared to be a more emotional process for teachers. Implications for policy and practice are discussed.     

Sympathiebeziehungen unter Peers im Klassenzimmer: Wie gut wissen Lehrpersonen Bescheid?

Are teachers aware of how well each of their students is embedded in the sympathy-based peer network of the classroom? In this research, we asked students of 39 classes (N = 821) from different types of schools and grades to nominate the three peers they liked most within their class. At the same time, the 39 classroom teachers were asked to reproduce the nominations they thought every single student would undertake. Using the Jaccard coefficient, we compared the similarity of the social networks that emerged from students’ and the respective teacher’s nominations. Results showed that on average, teachers identified 30.1% of the peer nominations correctly. Elementary school teachers were better attuned to their students’ sympathy relations than secondary school teachers. Teachers’ accuracy in identifying peer relations was predicted by the extent to which they intentionally observed peer interactions in the classroom and by their beliefs whether teachers are accountable for the quality of peer relationships in the classroom. Future studies should further investigate whether students profit in their social and academic development from their teacher being highly accurate in the perception of the classroom’s sympathy peer network.     

Novices and veterans journeying into real-world teaching: How a veteran learns from novices

This paper illustrates the experiences of novice teachers through self-reflection by a teacher trainer. It shows how novice teachers recognize deficiencies in their professional capacity, the coping strategies they adopt and implications for teacher training. As teacher trainers we should know why novice teachers say ‘I wish they had taught me about…’ or ‘how lucky I am to have been taught this.’ The paper accounts for the initial experiences of novice teachers in their first school and clarifies how they address their own self-improvement. It shows how novice teachers engage in meaning making as they connect theory and practice in the classroom. It also illustrates how within one component of a teacher training programme a veteran teacher-trainer learnt from novices whose experiences enabled practical theories to be recognised. The evidence highlights potential areas of criticality in teacher education programmes in the real-world of teaching.     

Exploring the use of Technology textbooks in medium- and well-resourced school contexts in South Africa

Abstract

This study explored how Technology teachers in medium- and well-resourced schools use commercially prepared textbooks in their classrooms. A qualitative-interpretive design was used with a purposively selected sample of four schools from a city in the Gauteng province, South Africa. Data were analysed according to the conceptual framework of didactical transposition, focusing on textbook content, activities, context and teaching strategies. It was found that teachers in well-resourced schools adapt textbooks by adding content, thus expecting a higher standard from textbook content, and preferring learners to work individually, while teachers in medium-resourced schools follow textbooks without adapting them, therefore accepting the standard set by the textbooks. It is recommended that teachers in both contexts be assisted by specialists to interpret the curriculum so as to be sure how they are expected to use textbooks to improve their classroom practices.