Images of reflection: a look and a review

The idea of reflection linked with teaching has a wide semantic array in educational enquiry. In the preceding papers, it has been called reflective teaching [Russell] and reflectivity [Bullough & Gitlin]. While neither of these terms has received any great prominence in Australia, the term “reflection” itself has several images. This paper looks at these images of educational enquiry based on reflection and reviews significant issues that have emerged in Australian research, indicating how these are related to the papers in this issue of QSE.     

Expanding teacher work roles: a resource for retention or a recipe for overwork?

This paper illuminates the tensions between the rhetoric and presumed rewards of an expanded conception of teachers' work and the work demands and strains introduced by such a conception. Based on data collected in the United States, this paper draws on multi‐day, 24‐hour time and task diaries recorded by case‐study teachers, together with ethnographic interviews and observations, to illuminate the disjuncture between reform rhetoric and workplace demands. I use these data to assess the usefulness of existing theories of overwork as they may apply to teachers and teaching. This paper suggests that teacher overwork is, in part, a result of the expansion of teacher work roles. The argument unfolds in three parts. First, teachers' work roles have been expanded but structural supports for the expansion have been uneven. Second, the nature and extent of organizational support influences teacher experience of role expansion and, finally, teachers who embrace the expanded role conception strive to sustain it even in the absence of organizational supports. This results in overwork: here overwork is taken to mean working beyond the contractual day, week and year. Teachers' contracts specify their working day; when they work beyond this time without pay, then they are overworking. Current explanations of overwork do not adequately account for the case of teachers' overwork.     

The emergence of the marketing professional in schools

Abstract

The marketisation of schools has emerged as a defining feature of the education landscape. While the role of principals and lead teachers in carrying out marketing work was investigated in the late 1990s, there has been scant evidence of how the people and practices of marketing in schools have evolved into the twenty-first century. Expanding on existing literature on educational marketing practices in schools, and through in-depth interviews with a unique sample of school marketers, this study explores the emergence of the school marketing professional. The interviews reveal the diverse backgrounds and experiences of these individuals, the transfer of their business skills into schools and the tensions in professional boundaries with educators who traditionally performed school marketing activities. Ultimately, the study furthers insights into the co-existence of educational and managerial agendas in the schools market.     

Contextually responsive transfer: Perceptions of NNES on an ESL/EFL teacher training programme

Post-training reflections from nine overseas NNES students were recorded in relation to the extent to which they perceived potential applications of what they had learned in a Contextually Responsive Teacher Training (CRTT) programme in the learning–teaching contexts into which they were returning as English as a Second or Foreign Language (ESL/EFL) teachers. Pragmatic issues in home contexts concerning resources generally and textbooks particularly were seen to threaten the viability of what was learned. Significantly, all participants projected disillusion with home country context rather than with foreign country training as a personal resolution of the mismatch. Implications are drawn for preventative redesign in relation to the Australian programmes.     

The Development of Teacher Appraisal: A Recent History

The Conservative government made appraisal compulsory to monitor teaching more effectively. Unable to elicit the type of data required, the process became marginalised. Labour is now turning to appraisal to raise standards. Though appearing more conciliatory, it is argued that the end result will be to achieve the Conservatives' original aim of controlling teachers     

STEAM Around the World: Successfully Incorporating Hands-On Learning and Diversity into Children's Programming

The incorporation of Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics (STEAM) into library programming is a continuing trend in the United States. At the Mount Prospect Public Library (MPPL) in Illinois, there are many STEAM programs in-house that focus on science and technology, but we were looking for ways to add it to outreach programming. Our receipt of the Association for Library Service to Children's (ALSC) Building STEAM with Día grant allowed us to build upon an established Día de los Niños, Día de los Libros (Día) program.     

Preservice teachers engaged in reflective classroom research

Abstract

During an eight‐week field experience six preservice teachers, under the supervision of their mentor professor, designed and facilitated an integrated inquiry unit for a fifth‐grade class. As a part of their field experience, the preservice teachers investigated their effectiveness in implementing the inquiry approach to teaching based on the children's learning responses. Reflecting on their own teaching behaviors through reflective classroom research challenged the preservice teachers to explore images of teaching that were often less than ideal but always informative.