Standards and Professional Practice: The TTA and Initial Teacher Training

This article examines the implications of the change from competences to standards for initial teacher training. It analyses the implicit interpretation of quality and standards of practice in Teacher Training Agency (TTA) documentation and compares it to that of the Management Charter Initiative in their new management standards. The TTA approach is challenged as incomplete.     

A Society of Signs? Mediating a Learning Society

This article critiques certain notions of a learning society. These are framed largely in economic and humanist frameworks of competitiveness and social exclusion. This overlooks the implications of information, communications and media technologies, and the linguistic turn in social theory. These suggest a learning society can be framed as a 'society of signs' Some of the possible implications of the latter are outlined.     

How emotionally intelligent are pre-service teachers?

Although there is evidence that teacher emotional intelligence is important for pupil adjustment and learning and for teachers in managing the emotional demands of their work, little is known about the levels of emotional skill of teachers and beginning teachers. Using Mayer and Salovey's emotional intelligence (EI) model and the MSCEIT test of EI, this study investigates how emotionally skilled student teachers are (N = 352). Results show lower than average levels of EI among student teachers, but with important differences between students and across emotional skill areas. The implications of the findings for pre-service teacher education are explored.     

实践取向的中小学教师培训课程设计的内涵及价值诉求

近年来,国家对教师培训课程倡导实践取向的理念。实践取向的中小学教师培训课程设计主要包含两层含义:一是形式上的实践取向,即中小学教师培训课程设计的各个环节都要全程贯穿实践取向的理念,以实践为核心,突出实践;二是实质上的实践取向,即中小学教师培训课程设计重在激起教师的主体性认识,养成其自主反思的习惯,在实践中不断促进反思性实践的形成和发展。中小学教师培训课程设计凸显实践性、反思性、建构性、自主性和主体性等基本特征,同时还具有关注实践问题、追求实践智慧及倡导理性实践等价值诉求。     

中小学教师“院校协作”教研培训模式探讨

院校协作是指大学与中小学建立协作关系：大学院校通过组建学科研究团队,设立培训试验研究基地,规范合作机制,以课堂学习研究为载体开展教研。该协作关系在一定程度上可提高教师教育学者的素质,并优化教师培训“效能”。     

A multi-level analysis of the teacher education internship in terms of its collaborative dimension in Northern Cyprus

Partnership is a two-way enterprise which becomes meaningful when the partners at different levels are fully engaged in mutual cooperation, aiming at promoting both trainees’ and educators’ professional growth. This case study, qualitative in nature, was conducted with administrators, educators, and trainees to examine the collaboration dimension of the multi-layer processes of the EDUC420-Internship regarding its organizational and communication aspects. The data, analyzed through categorization of codes, revealed striking limitations inhibiting the collaboration dimension of the internship and suggested its reconceptualization around a formalized give-and-take mechanism to cultivate reciprocal communication among the ministry, the university and the schools.     

Pre-Service Reading Teacher Efficacy and Tutoring: A Review

Teachers’ personal self-efficacy about their ability to motivate students and encourage learning has been shown to affect the classroom they create and student achievement. Therefore, research has been conducted on ways to increase teacher efficacy for in-service and pre-service teachers. One area of research that has been explored is the impact of field experiences on pre-service teachers. This review explores the research on field experiences and tutoring as well as the role these different experiences may play in pre-service teacher efficacy and knowledge of teaching reading. Overall, researchers have found that field experiences have varying effects on efficacy; however, researchers have found that tutoring field experiences in particular have been found to have a positive impact on pre-service teachers’ abilities to teach a particular content (e.g., reading) to the individual student and to put theory into practice. On the whole, this literature review suggests that we currently lack research exploring the possible benefits of simultaneously impacting efficacy and reading knowledge in pre-service teachers through tutoring.     

A teacher competence development programme for supporting students’ reflection skills

The Teachers of Promise study has followed the work histories of 57 primary and secondary teachers who had been identified at the beginning of their third year of teaching as having the potential to make a significant contribution to the profession. Using data from surveys and interviews, this paper reports on what sustained or inhibited their initial commitment to and enthusiasm for ‘making a difference’, six years later, both in the classroom and in broader school leadership roles. Satisfaction with their day-to-day experiences in their schools was a particularly strong driver of teachers’ career decisions over time. Thirty-four teachers responded to survey items that were used to identify three different groups of teachers: a group of 10 primary school teachers with the highest levels of job satisfaction who were ‘fulfilling their promise’; a group of 21 primary and secondary teachers who were ‘persevering and coping’; and three teachers who were ‘detached and disengaged’. The group with the highest levels of job satisfaction taught in primary schools where they felt respected and valued, and supported to develop their teaching and leadership expertise. School leadership practices and school cultures in the other two groups diminished teachers’ overall job satisfaction and contribution to collective knowledge building in their schools. Almost all of the teachers had retained their commitment to students, to their current schools and to teaching as a career, including those with lower levels of satisfaction. Although these teachers reported ‘collegial’ relationships with their peers, individualistic school cultures, most often in secondary schools, impacted on their opportunities to learn with and from their colleagues. Few secondary school teachers felt appreciated, and included in school decision-making or had found it possible to combine high standards of classroom teaching with management responsibilities. The study indicates that while most promising teachers were still satisfied with teaching after nine years, relatively few were in schools where they were able to make the impact that had been predicted for them early in their careers.     

Producing caring qualified teachers: An exploration of the influence of pre-service teacher concerns on learner-centeredness

In a time where students in the United States academic performance continues to lag behind in the international rankings, a disconcerting phenomenon in concerns literature indicates that pre-service and in-service teachers report low levels of concerns regarding the effect implementation of educational innovations have on students. This study explored the relationship of pre-service teachers' learner-centeredness and their concerns related to how learner-centered education affects students. Results indicated that as learner-centeredness increased, so did concerns about student outcomes. Implications for teacher education programmes in the US and abroad will be discussed.     

新建本科高校教师培养课程设置构想

作为新建本科院校的优势专业、品牌专业,师范专业需根据教育的发展需要进一步加以培植、提升。应以“科学教育与人文教育、通识教育与专业教育、学科教育与专业教育的有机结合”为指导思想,打造“通识课程模块＋学科课程模块＋教师教育课程模块＋实践课程模块”的模块化教师培养课程体系．以形成提升师范生为师素质的“宽口径、厚基础、重学科、强专业”的人才培养模式。     

我国中小学家校合作的问题及对策

家校合作自在我国实行以来,有效地促进了中小学教育质量的提高,对我国整体教育的发展起到了很好的助推作用。但在具体的实践中还存在诸如家校责任不明、活动组织随意、沟通单向、合作程度不深的问题,本文从法律制度和组织机构的建立、学校以及家庭三个方面对以上问题进行原因分析,进而提出了完善我国家校合作的两大建议:完善家校合作相关法律制度和组织机构;促进学校、家庭的有效互动,形成教育合力。     

Correspondence

Abstract

A profile of teacher competences is described and interrogated in the light of inherent, language‐based problematics. It is argued that such texts tend to constrain the modes and parameters within which to think about one's practice, in addition to masking possible deficiences in education systems through a pathologisation of the individual practitioner. The importance of keeping alive alternative discourses is stressed. Such discourses, it is argued, should recognise the complex idiosyncratic, contingent aspects of teaching and learning, and should include students’ reflections on their own in‐ and out‐school experiences through dialogic, autobiographical writing.     

Creating home–school partnerships: examining urban and suburban teachers’ practices,challenges, and educational needs

This study examines suburban and urban teachers’ family involvement practices, challenges they face in involving families, and their educational needs. A questionnaire was administered to 89 teachers. Data were coded using a constant comparative analysis. Codes were analyzed to determine the number of teachers whose responses fell into each category and by comparing suburban and urban teachers’ responses. Results of this study suggest that although urban and suburban teachers share some similarities in terms of their practices, challenges, and needs, a number of differences were evident. Overall, suburban teachers’ responses were more detailed and included specific strategies. We also found that urban teachers’ interests in further education did not necessarily align with the areas in which they reported challenges.     

Group work: Prospective teachers’ acquisition of transversal competences

The current training model being used in higher education advocates the acquisition of competences aimed at providing students with all-round training that will enable them to tackle their future work responsibilities effectively. This encompasses a number of different competences, most notably the transversal kind, especially in view of the important role they play in shaping the profile of any professional individual. The active learning methods applied to group work have shown to be the most suitable for achieving these competences. From this perspective, and considering their relevance, we present the results of a study that addresses the perceptions held by students from Education Degrees regarding the extent to which transversal competences are acquired by implementing active learning methods. The students perceive group work as a dynamic that teaches them how to be more self-critical and committed to group-oriented tasks, thus encouraging communication skills, personal relationships and motivation. However, a lesser degree of acquisition has been recorded in other equally important competences. As such, it is necessary to promote these learning methods from the start, carefully designing and planning the curriculum structure as well as the tasks to be performed in order to avoid any negative implications that may arise.     

Teacher Coaching—Connecting Research and Practice

There are pressures for researchers to demonstrate impact and relevance. This paper recounts the case of translating research into training on coaching for mass consumption in secondary schools in England as part of a Government strategy. The account describes how the materials were developed for the particular format and how they were fine tuned after piloting with teachers. The discussion raises a number of significant issues about the relationship between research and practice: publishing formats, the conditions necessary for establishing research‐based innovations and the vital importance of research‐user relationships. It is proposed that insufficient attention is given to consultants in English school improvement efforts as important brokers between research and its users.