Teacher Planning,Instruction and Refl ection: What We Know About Teacher Cognitive Processes

The process of teaching is complex and multidimensional. Teaching behaviors and actions are shaped by numerous cognitive decisions made by the teacher before, during, and after instruction. This article examines teacher cognition across the broad field of education and, more specifically, physical education in teacher planning, instruction, and reflection. To date, research has largely examined the areas of planning, instruction, and reflection separately and often in controlled settings. It is suggested that future researchers examining teachers. thoughts and actions employ methodologies, such as case study, that examine the three processes holistically and in the natural teaching environment, thereby linking actual behaviors with the cognitive processes that produced them.     

A Developmental Framework for Enhancing Resiliency in Adult Survivors of Childhood Abuse

Roughly one third of children subjected to abusive environments grow into healthy and capable adults, demonstrating remarkable resiliency, despite risks for developing maladaptive self-structures and destructive behaviors (Werner, American Journal of Orthopsychiatry 59:72–81 1989; Kendall-Tackett et al., Psychological Bulletin 113:164–180 1993). This paper suggests that, for adults with developmental arrests due to childhood traumas, it may be beneficial to approach enhancing resilience through interventions meant to foster resiliency factors in adolescents and children, tailored appropriately for an adult. Connections to current and effective interventions are reviewed as well as an invitation to the international community for additional perspectives.     

Organisational self-evaluation and teacher education for community relations in a transforming society?

During 2004, the School of Education at the University of Ulster embarked on an innovative three-year project designed to embed community relations objectives within initial teacher education. With the advent of more peaceful times in Northern Ireland, this was a precipitous time for initial teacher educators to review the preparation given to beginner teachers for teaching in an increasingly pluralist society emerging from conflict. The present paper reports on one very specific and time-limited element of the broader project. That is, development work designed to investigate the possibilities of using processes of self-review and evaluation as a lever for improvements in initial teacher education for community relations. Following a brief contextualisation, the background to, and the development of, a set of materials designed to support rigorous and systematic self-review of all aspects of provision in a university-based initial teacher education department is described. The Community Relations Index for Initial Teacher Education (Cr-ITE) was envisaged as being of use to initial teacher education establishments in order to help teacher educators take responsibility for rigorous learning from their practice, whilst placing inclusive values at the centre of organisational development. The final section includes further critical reflection on the role of organisational self-review in transforming teacher education for inclusion in a society emerging from longstanding communal conflict.