Effects of coaching on teacher use of sociocultural instructional practices

This study evaluates a performance-based instructional coaching model intended to improve teacher pedagogy and classroom organization for educating diverse student populations. Elementary teachers (N = 21) participated in a 30-h workshop and seven individual coaching sessions across an academic year. The coaching model promoted use of the Standards for Effective Pedagogy, five research-based practices known to increase student achievement. Findings demonstrate performance-based instructional coaching led to statistically significant (a) improvements in teacher pedagogy, (b) patterns of teacher growth, and (c) changes in classroom organization. Implications for improving teachers’ ultimate achievement, the coaching protocol, and research are addressed.     

Higher education in East Asia and Singapore: rise of the Confucian Model

The paper reviews Asia–Pacific higher education and university research, focusing principally on the “Confucian” education nations Japan, Korea, China, Hong Kong China, Taiwan, Singapore and Vietnam. Except for Vietnam, these systems exhibit a special developmental dynamism—still playing out everywhere except Japan—and have created a distinctive model of higher education more effective in some respects than systems in North America, the English-speaking world and Europe where the modern university was incubated. The Confucian Model rests on four interdependent elements: (1) strong nation-state shaping of structures, funding and priorities; (2) a tendency to universal tertiary participation, partly financed by growing levels of household funding of tuition, sustained by a private duty, grounded in Confucian values, to invest in education; (3) “one chance” national examinations that mediate social competition and university hierarchy and focus family commitments to education; (4) accelerated public investment in research and “world-class’ universities. The Model has downsides for social equity in participation, and in the potential for state interference in executive autonomy and academic creativity. But together with economic growth amid low tax regimes, the Confucian Model enables these systems to move forward rapidly and simultaneously in relation to each and all of mass tertiary participation, university quality, and research quantity and quality.     

Educational gaps in medical care and health behavior: Evidence from US Natality data

The US Natality files provide information on medical procedures and health related behavior during pregnancy and childbirth. The data set represents nearly the universe of mothers who give birth in the US, providing the most complete coverage possible of medical care and health behavior among a specific patient population. We document gaps in outcomes by education of the mother and the changes in these educational gaps during 1989-2002.     

Student perceptions of the information professions and their master's program in information studies

Library and information (LIS) education is undergoing a major transformation. During this time of change, there is a pressing need for data from all stakeholder groups to support strategic decisions within individual schools and across the discipline as a whole; students are a key stakeholder group. This paper reports on a 4-year study of master's students enrolled in an institution undergoing a transition toward an iSchool. The self-administered questionnaire was distributed to students enrolled in the Master of Information Studies program at the University of Toronto eight times: to incoming students in the fall term for 4 years, and to the entire student body in the spring term of those same years. The data collected from approximately 1000 questionnaires indicate that students arrive excited about the information professions and optimistic about employment opportunities. As they progress through the program, however, many are not satisfied with professional aspects of their program. They want courses that prepare them for their first professional position, and opportunities to gain experience, which they believe will increase their employability. The data from the 4-year period revealed fluctuations over the years, which indicates the value of examining longitudinal data.