The professional learning needs and priorities of higher-education-based teacher educators in England,Ireland and Scotland

Against a rapidly changing policy landscape for teacher education, exacerbated by ‘Brexit’ in the UK, findings are presented from an electronic survey of 272 higher-education based teacher educators in England, the Republic of Ireland and Scotland about their experiences of, and priorities for, professional learning. While the data generated were mainly quantitative data, qualitative features were embedded within the survey design. Both types of data have been used to draw out complexities that emerge when exploring a professional group of educators responsible for the preparation of a future generation of teachers. The findings are presented and discussed in relation to the professional demographics of the sample, research expectations placed on them and teacher educators’ priorities for professional learning. Given the unique occupational position of teacher educators, their importance in the quality of teacher education and the lack of formal focus on their professional development, our starting point for teacher educators’ professional development lies in their practice situated and positioned within global, regional, national and local policy contexts.     

Recovery from sexual satiety in male rats

In order to describe more completely the time course of recovery from sexual satiety in male rats, 18 males were tested after each of six recovery intervals: 3, 6, 9, 11, 13, and 15 days. Different recovery rates were found for different measures of behavior. While most measures were restored to baseline levels by 6 days following satiation, the postejaculatory interval following the second ejaculation was still prolonged after 9 days of rest. No changes were seen in the number of intromissions preceding ejaculation. Systematic changes over the course of the experiment were found in the measures of copulatory behavior taken in the sessions that preceded each recovery test.     

Renaming experience/reconstructing practice: Developing new understanding of teaching

Although teacher-thinking research is now well established, the specific mechanisms through which teachers construct new understandings of their teaching have not been closely examined. This paper presents four interrelated concepts—teachers' conceptions of practice, tensions in their practice, articulation, and local and professional language—which emerged as grounded categories from a longitudinal study of change in teachers' practice. The study focused on how a group of foreign language teachers integrated new ideas, encountered in an inservice masters' degree program, in their thinking about and activity in the classroom. The analysis traced the ways in which the teachers reconstructed their classroom practice, using professional discourse to rename their experience and thus to assign new or different meanings to their actions. The concepts, presented with illustrations from the study and accompanying analysis, have implications for research on teaching and teacher education as well as the design and execution of teacher education programs.     

Salary increases and teaching effectiveness

The relationship between salary increases and student ratings of teaching effectiveness was studied for a sample of 266 faculty members at Kansas State University. Three measures of teaching effectiveness (student progress in meeting relevant course objectives, liking the instructor, and appreciation of the field of study) and two salary criteria (percent and dollar increases) were used. Several measures of the emphasis on the teaching function were used to determine if this variable moderated the relationship between salaries and student ratings. The effect of discipline was also examined.In general, there was a modest but significant correlation between ratings of teaching effectiveness and percent salary increase. The amount of emphasis given to the teaching function was a significant determinant of the strength of this relationship. Correlations were generally more pronounced in social science and humanities than in the science areas. Student motivation was highly correlated with effectiveness ratings, but was not regularly taken into account in salary recommendations.     

Life-science concept development among beginning kindergarten children from three different community settings

Two basic questions were investigated. (1) Do beginning kindergarten children from three different community settings (inner-urban, outer-urban, and rural-farm) vary significantly in performance on a Life-Science Concept Acquisition Test (L-SCAT)? (2) What independent variables are the most useful predictors of performance on the L-SCAT? The L-SCAT was developed by the investigator. It was administered to seventeen subjects from each of the three community settings (N = 51). Among the results were the following: (1) there were significant differences (p < .05) among the scores made by the subjects; (2) a major source of significance was between outer-urban and inner-urban subjects' mean scores; (3) when all physical, mental, and sociocultural variables were used as predictors, a subject's I.Q. and his chronological age were the most useful predictors of L-SCAT performance; and (4) when sociocultural variables alone were used as predictors, the number of years education of a subject's mother was the most useful predictor of L-SCAT performance.     

Effects of stimulus spacing on steady state gradients of inhibitory stimulus control

When the response of pigeons is maintained to a number of stimulus wavelengths, but extinguished to one (S?), the birds peck more rapidly at stimuli near the S? than at more distant stimuli. The present study explores this “dimensional contrast” effect as a function of the number and spacing of test wavelengths. A fixed portion of the wavelength continuum was spanned by 5, 9, 13, or 49 stimuli, which appeared in random sequence behind a standard pecking key. At the end of each 20-sec trial, pecks to test stimuli produced a conditioned reinforcer (sometimes followed by food), while pecks to the S? stimulus produced only darkness. Dimensional contrast “shoulders” developed to test stimuli on either side of the S?; these shoulders were of approximately the same height and wavelength position for all but the 5-stimulus (widely spaced) condition, and were comparable to the original contrast results with 25 stimuli. The results strongly suggest that the extent and locus of contrast shoulders are largely independent of the number and spacing of test stimuli.