What and how teacher educators prefer to learn

In which areas and domains do individual teacher educators prefer to work on their professional development? What kind of learning activities do they want to take on and with whom? Are there significant differences in these preferences between teacher educators? This article reports on a recent survey (N = 268) about the professional development of teacher educators and differences in learning preferences between less and more experienced teacher educators and between university-based and school-based teacher educators. Findings show, for example, that while most university-based teacher educators were mainly interested in improving their teaching, less experienced school-based teacher educators were more focussed on aspects such as coaching skills. In this study, ‘learning profiles’ have been developed for four categories of teacher educators. These profiles may help to create more meaningful arrangements for teacher educators’ initial education and further professional development in a context where teacher education is required to have a more school-based as well as a more research-based orientation.     

Rater strategies for reaching agreement on pupil text quality

Novice members of a Norwegian national rater panel tasked with assessing Year 8 pupils’ written texts were studied during three successive preparation sessions (2011–2012). The purpose was to investigate how the raters successfully make use of different decision-making strategies in an assessment situation where pre-set criteria and standards give a rather strict framework. The data sources were the raters’ pair assessment dialogues. The analysis shows that the raters use a ‘shared standards strategy’, but when reaching agreement on text quality they also seem to make very good use of assessment strategies related to their work as writing teachers. Moreover, asymmetries in knowledge and participation among raters contribute to creating an image of writing assessment as a challenging hermeneutic practice. It is suggested that future rater preparation would gain from being attentive to the internalised assessment practices teachers bring to the fore when working as raters.     

French teachers' intentions to use accommodated materials in learning and assessment

The implementation of inclusive practices in mainstream education remains particularly difficult in the French context and is influenced by various factors including the types of disability labels, and the type of assessment practices that are used. Indeed, how student disability is labelled could impact teacher attitudes by notably disfavouring students labelled with autism. Moreover, normative assessment is strongly linked with selection at schools—a function that works against teacher attitudes towards inclusive education. This article reports on a study in which we examined teacher intentions to use materials accommodated to special educational needs students, as a function of special needs labelling. Specifically, this refers to the use of labels for either a disability or special educational need, in connection to tasks associated with learning or assessment. The results of our study revealed that, for both types of labels, the intentions to use accommodated materials are lower when teachers are asked to assess student competence than when prompted to teach this competence. These findings are discussed with consideration to the incompatibility between selection in schools—which is aligned with the principle of meritocracy—and efforts to promote inclusive education practices.     

Taking a step towards understanding interactions between teacher efficacy in behavior management and the social learning environment: a two-level multilevel analysis

Behavior management in the classroom is well known for being a challenge and a source of stress for preservice and experienced teachers alike. This means it may not only impact teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs, but teachers’ efficacy perceived by their students too, engendering effects on the social learning environment and vice-versa. This article aims at taking a step towards a better understanding of which aspects of the social learning environment preservice teachers and their students take into account when positioning themselves on behavior management efficacy. It then goes onto exploring how students’ perception of teacher efficacy in behavior management varies across classes and how it interacts with the social learning environment through a two-level model analysis. Results showed that the social learning environment’s dimensions are associated with the perception of teacher efficacy by students. On one hand, students perceive that efficacy in behavior management is linked to the social learning environment and therefore expect that an efficient teacher in this area will be able to create a healthy relationship with appropriate rules and class organization. On the other, when it comes to preservice teachers, findings seem to show the importance of the training program and how it supports self-efficacy beliefs throughout first teaching experiences as results go in the direction of confirming that these beliefs stabilize fairly early on, because unlike the students, the preservice teachers seem to take other aspects than the learning environment into account while evaluating their self-efficacy regarding behavior management. Finally, this research adds yet another element to the observation that effective behavior management within the classroom requires a positive relationship between teachers and their students. In addition, the way rules and organization are taken into account by students demonstrates the need for a proactive approach in which teachers’ expectations are clear.

     

Attention Deficit Disorder as a factor in the origin of behavioural disturbance in schools

The education of children with behavioural difficulties is under scrutiny from various quarters. The provision of specialised school environments isbeing questioned and, at the same time, there is pressure to minimise the exclusion of disruptive pupils. The study reported in this article lookedat a group of children whose behaviour had prompted placement in a school for emotionally and behaviourally disordered (EBD) pupils. The results showed the overall rate of psychiatric disturbance in the group was 86% and, in particular, that the rate of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) was 70%. These findings suggest that a significant minority of disruptive pupils may have their difficulties compounded by the presence of ADHD, and raises the question of whether specific screening processes should be established for such pupils.     

Enhancing students’ mathematical reasoning in the classroom: teacher actions facilitating generalization and justification

A proof is a connected sequence of assertions that includes a set of accepted statements, forms of reasoning and modes of representing arguments. Assuming reasoning to be central to proving and aiming to develop knowledge about how teacher actions may promote students’ mathematical reasoning, we conduct design research where whole-class mathematical discussions triggered by exploratory tasks play a key role. We take mathematical reasoning as making justified inferences and we consider generalizing and justifying central reasoning processes. Regarding teacher actions, we consider inviting, informing/suggesting, supporting/guiding and challenging actions can be identified in whole-class discussions. This paper presents design principles for an intervention geared to tackle such reasoning processes and focuses on a whole-class discussion on a grade 7 lesson about linear equations and functions. Data analysis concerns teacher actions in relation to design principles and to the sought mathematical reasoning processes. The conclusions highlight teacher actions that lead students to generalize and justify. Generalizations may arise from a central challenging action or from several guiding actions. Regarding justifications, a main challenging action seems to be essential, while follow-up guiding actions may promote a further development of this reasoning process. Thus, this paper provides a set of design principles and a characterization of teacher actions which enhance students’ mathematical reasoning processes such as generalization and justification.     

The dynamics of connecting universities,non-governmental organizations and community members by means of academic projects directed at people in need

In this article we discuss an action research experience that took place from 2002 to 2015. We analyze the inception and progress of several project-based learning-centered academic courses that were aimed at developing the project management skills of graduate and undergraduate students. The experience involved approximately 1800 students from two universities and 40 community partners. The students developed real-life projects on behalf of institutions and non-governmental organizations located in the area that help people in need; we refer to these agencies as ‘community partners.’ We analyze the development of the course from a systemic perspective, making use of causal loop diagrams in order to understand the main driving dynamics. We discuss the results achieved by these projects and the benefits brought to the community partners. We also present testimony from the community partners themselves. We conclude by presenting the lessons we learned over the years we have been running this course.