In pursuit of excellence in teaching: An ESL educator’s narrative

This is an educator’s story about the pursuit of excellence in teaching. The narrative of an ESL teacher is examined using the analysis tool, Burke’s Pentad (Burke 1945). This qualitative examination considers contributing factors of teacher self-efficacy and agency connected with the development, implementation, and sustenance of exemplary professional practice targeted at meeting the needs of each student. Application is made from the analysis of the narrative considering educators’ self-perceptions, self-reflections, self-efficacy, and agency in their pursuit of excellence in teaching. The questions of how and why the professional practices of working ESL teachers are impacted relative to the dialogical and dynamic encounters within the teaching, working, and learning contexts are addressed.     

Chinese Parents’ Expectations and Child Preacademic Skills: The Indirect Role of Parenting and Social Competence

Research Findings: This study examined how parenting styles and child social-emotional functioning may help explain the indirect relations between Chinese parents’ expectations for their preschool-age children’s social-emotional development and their children’s preacademic skills. A total of 154 parents with preschool-age children were recruited from 7 preschools located in northeastern China. The results showed that when parents expected their child to master social-emotional skills at a younger age or when they placed more value on social-emotional skills, they were more likely to adopt authoritative parenting, their children had better social competence, and finally their children showed better preacademic skills. The findings not only provided support for the interconnections between Chinese young children’s social-emotional functioning and preacademic skills but also revealed parenting styles and child social competence as potential pathways through which parents’ social-emotional expectations relate to children’s preacademic skills. Practice or Policy: The findings can be used to facilitate parent education efforts to help contemporary Chinese parents reflect on and even adjust their developmental expectations for young children. Parental expectations can also be an important element to consider in prevention and intervention programs that are designed to improve young children’s social-emotional and preacademic skills.     

Effects of Televised Lecture Presentation Styles on Student Learning

College level instructional television (ITV) has been criticised for rigid formats involving little creative or interactive use of the media. Limited budgets and other constraints make it difficult for most ITV operations to introduce innovative communication modes. However, literature suggests other techniques to improve instructional television, specifically the use of interspersed questions and eye contact. This study manipulated these techniques in a television lecture, examining their relevance to student learning and acceptance. In a 2X2 experiment, four sections of an undergraduate course each viewed a different videotape treatment of the same lecture and content. Results yielded four conclusions. (1) Presenter eye contact and inserted questions are perceived as useful learning aids in televised lecture presentations. (2) Student satisfaction with, and interest in, televised courses is relatively low, with various learning difficulties reported. (3) Positive perception of eye contact and inserted questions correlates with higher levels of student interest in and satisfaction with televised courses. (4) Neither eye contact nor inserted questions impact directly on short‐term learning. Further studies would identify ways to more effectively manipulate eye contact and inserted questions in instructional television presentations, exploring how these techniques can enhance student learning motivation and reduce learning difficulties. Long‐term effects of these techniques on learning also should be explored     

Leveling the Playing Field: An Urban School System Examines Equity in Access to Mathematics Curriculum

This study measured the mathematics admissions process, the mechanism by which educators assign students to the critical ninth-grade mathematics courses, against a meritocratic definition of fairness to determine if this process denied access to students from particular segments of society. While controlling for academic ability, this study assessed if socioeconomic status, race, gender, and school assignment taken independently and in combination were significant in predicting which students were denied admission to Algebra I and Geometry. The findings of this study evinced that students who scored in the upper quartile in mathematics were not scheduled into the gatekeeper mathematics courses without regard to their socioeconomic status, gender, or school assignment.