Student conscientiousness,self‐regulated learning,and science achievement: An explorative field study

This explorative field study examined the mediating role of self‐regulated learning (SRL) in the relationship between the personality trait of conscientiousness, SRL, and science achievement in a sample of junior high school students. Over the course of an entire academic year, data on enacted SRL were collected each week for 52 eighth‐grade students in the context of an inquiry‐based ecology project. Data were also collected on personality traits, self‐reported study strategies, science project achievement, and grade point average. Findings show significant relationships between conscientiousness, SRL, and achievement. As hypothesized, conscientiousness was shown to significantly impact academic achievement in the inquiry‐based course, mediated by enacted SRL. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Teachers’ interpretations of texts-image juxtapositions in textbooks: From the concrete to the abstract

The paper examined expert literature teachers’ coping with a novel textbook, integrating literature with visual arts, which is a particular interdisciplinary case of text-image relations in textbooks. Examination was performed within the framework of teachers’ responses to curricular changes and of theory regarding strategies of interdisciplinary instruction. Data regarding teachers’ coping was collected via video recorded deep interviews and analysed qualitatively using the phenomenological approach. Findings revealed four phases of a recurring pattern of performance: (a) retrieving prior knowledge about texts, (b) cycles of processing and refinement (comprising comparing-identifying-matching, making meaning of elements in contexts, eliciting themes and deeply examining artworks’ devices), (c) mindful evaluation of the juxtaposition, and (d) pedagogical reasoning. Four potential roles of the textbook visual artworks, for promoting literature learning, were inferred. The study shed some light on the involvement of teacher cognition and culture of teaching in the reading, evaluating, and adapting of novel curricula. A deeper understanding of the factors involved in the introduction of novel materials, examined from a cognitive perspective, may inform teachers’ professional development and curriculum developers as well as promote implementations of curricular reforms.     

Learning to teach: enhancing pre‐service teachers’ awareness of the complexity of teaching–learning processes

Abstract

Interest in story in teaching has been linked to teacher research (Carter, 1993; Elbaz, 1991), to teacher education (Connelly &; Clandinin, 1994), to curriculum (Britz‐man, 1989; Gudmundsdottir, 1991c), and to school change (Giltin, 1990). I wish to argue here for a link between story and one form of teacher reflection, for portfolio construction, unlike more conventional forms of teacher development, encourages teachers to tell the story of their classrooms and to frame that story in particular ways. I wish to argue here for a view that constructing a portfolio shifts the ownership of learning to the portfolio‐maker and that in this constructing, we can trace a teacher's developing understanding of pedagogy. Specifically, my aim is to illustrate the narrative dimensions of a self‐generated portfolio question — its interpretations, the reflections upon its meaning, and its transformations of pedagogical understanding — as this text becomes pedagogy and pedagogy becomes text. This interpretive process is illustrated through a case study of Ellen Nicol, a secondary English as a Second Language teacher, in her graduate teacher education year and her first 2 years of classroom teaching. Ellen's pedagogical text, her question, is reinterpreted with major changes each time she comes to understand more completely the richness and complexity of her classroom. Each new transformation and reinterpretation serve as guide for selection of materials, for selection of pedagogy, and for assessment of success. Each new collection of pedagogical information serves as impetus for possible reframing and transformation of the text.     

Professional education as co-inquiry: an evaluation of the learning approach to developing the role of connexions personal adviser

This paper presents an example of using evaluation as a tool for encouraging democratic participation in the development of professional learning and course delivery. The new professional role of Connexions Personal Adviser (CPA) is being clarified and developed through participation of CPAs on a new national training programme, the Diploma for Connexions Personal Advisers, and the approach to evaluating the programme builds on the espoused values and principles of the Connexions Service. Whilst using findings from an evaluation of a specific training programme, the paper advocates a method that could be used on other professional programmes. A theme to emerge from the evaluation has been the identification of a gap between the rhetoric of the national policy and the reality of awareness at local delivery level. These findings have been instrumental in informing future developments and research in particular into the effectiveness of approaches to action learning, and an exploration of strategies to enable the effective transfer and integration of learning from education to workplace.     

Using Online Education to Transition Teaching Assistants to Teacher Certification: Examining the Differences Between Teacher Education Programs

Elementary education teacher candidates who studied under two delivery methods—online and face to face—were compared to determine if there was a significant difference in professional knowledge and skills using Praxis II test scores. The participants included 60 teaching assistant program (TAP) online candidates and 564 face-to-face candidates. The two groups’ perceptions of self-efficacy were also compared. Results indicated a significant difference in professional knowledge based on Praxis II test scores and no significant difference in perceptions of self-efficacy. Although both groups felt confident in their teaching abilities, the traditional candidates outperformed TAP candidates on Praxis II. However, in the ancillary findings of this study, 41.6% of traditional candidates were admitted to the teacher education program with a Praxis I exemption, whereas only 23.4% of TAP candidates were exempt from the requirement. This suggests that traditional candidates entered the program at a more advanced level than the TAP candidates, possibly explaining the significant difference in the finding of the Praxis II test scores.