Chinese middle school teachers’ preferences regarding performance evaluation measures

Teacher performance evaluation currently is receiving unprecedented attention from policy makers, scholars, and practitioners worldwide. This study is one of the few studies of teacher perceptions regarding teacher performance measures that focus on China. We employed a quantitative dominant mixed research design to investigate Chinese teachers’ preferences for teacher performance measures and the possible reasons for their preferences. Considering the quantitative results, the surveyed Chinese teachers identified fulfillment of additional roles, collaboration with faculty and staff, and students’ test scores as the most important measures for performance evaluation. Qualitatively, the most important measures that the surveyed teachers reported were the teacher’s morality, workload, and students’ test scores.     

Paving the Pathway: Exploring Student Perceptions of Professional Development Preparation in Doctoral Education

The breadth of doctoral education has expanded to include professional development activities in order to prepare students for academic and nonacademic careers. This mixed methods study focused on students’ perceptions of professional development opportunities at a Research One university. The findings suggest that most students feel prepared in scholarly-related activities; but they identify gaps in areas such as preparation for grant writing, teaching, and leading research teams. Statistically significant differences in perceived preparation were noted among disciplines. We offer suggestions for future research in doctoral professional development and recognize the need to expand and diversify centralized, institution-based resources so as to pave the pathway to successful careers for graduate students.     

MENTAL MODELS ABOUT SEISMIC EFFECTS: STUDENTS’ PROFILE BASED COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS

Nowadays, meaningful learning takes a central role in science education and is based in mental models that allow the representation of the real world by individuals. Thus, it is essential to analyse the student’s mental models by promoting an easier reconstruction of scientific knowledge, by allowing them to become consistent with the curricular models presented in the classroom. In this context, the study aims to examine, through the application of a diagnostic instrument (Two-Tier Diagnostic Test), what students consider to be the seismic effects on soils and buildings, to analyse and to compare their mental models about some of these issues related to seismology, applying a questionnaire to 52 students from a Portuguese University attending an undergraduate degree in Geology and a master course in Biology and Geology teaching. The analysis of the data allowed concluding that undergraduate students have more inconsistent mental models than master students, mainly concerning the factors which influence the seismic risk, such as hazard and vulnerability, and the soils characteristics which influence the intensity of earthquakes. During their academic formation in the university, teachers present some curricular models to students which allow them to reconstruct their mental models and turn them scientifically consistent, enhancing the educational implications of this study that points to the need for teachers to be aware of the importance of the diagnosis of the students’ mental models and to promote meaningful learning and scientific literacy autonomously and dynamically.     

The Status of Proving Among US Secondary Mathematics Teachers

This report examines teachers’ self-espoused attitudes and beliefs on proving in the secondary mathematics classroom. Conclusions were based on a questionnaire of 78 US mathematics teachers who had completed at least 2 years of teaching mathematics at the secondary level. While these teachers placed importance on proving as a general mathematical skill, when they discuss their own classrooms, procedural skill consistently surpasses proof-related activities in importance for a majority of high school teachers. Furthermore, teachers labeling their own past experiences in proving as causing anxiety are predictably more likely to put less value on proving. Interestingly, the quantity of past college mathematics courses is a reverse predictor indicating that further study should consider how students perceptions of proving change as they pass through a mathematics major.     

Common core writing and language standards and aligned state assessments: a national survey of teacher beliefs and attitudes

A random sample of 482 teachers in grades 3 through 8 from across the United States were surveyed about (a) their perceptions of the version of the Common Core writing and language standards adopted by their state and their state’s writing assessment, (b) their preparation to teach writing, and (c) their self-efficacy beliefs for teaching writing. Regardless of grade, a majority of teachers believed that the adopted standards are more rigorous than prior standards, provide clear expectations for students that can be straightforwardly translated into activities and lessons, and have pushed them to address writing more often. However, many surveyed felt the new writing and language standards are too numerous to cover, omit key aspects of writing development, and may be inappropriate for struggling writers. Moreover, most did not feel that professional development efforts have been sufficient to achieve successful implementation, and nearly one in five respondents was not familiar with the standards. The respondents were generally less sanguine regarding their state’s writing test, with elementary teachers even less positive than middle school teachers on some aspects, though nearly a third were unfamiliar with their state test. A majority believed state writing tests, though more rigorous than prior tests, fail to address important aspects of writing development, do not accommodate the needs of students with diverse abilities, and require more time than is available to prepare students. Additionally, many teachers believed professional development efforts have been insufficient to help them understand measurement properties of the assessments and how to use test data to identify students’ writing needs. Teachers who were better prepared to teach writing and who held more positive personal teaching efficacy beliefs for writing exhibited generally more positive perceptions of their state’s standards. In contrast, only teacher efficacy beliefs made a unique contribution to the survey respondents’ attitudes and beliefs about their state’s writing test.     

The reintegration of Tongan postgraduate scholars after study abroad: knowledge utilisation and resituation

Higher education has seen increasing educational mobility as students finance themselves or get financial support from their families to study abroad (Shields Comp Educ Rev 57(4):609–636, 2013; Verbik and Lazanowski in World education news and reviews. http://www.wes.org/educators/pdf/StudentMobility.pdf, 2007). Another significant source of support, particularly for students in developing countries, is that from international aid scholarships. This research presents the reported experiences of 15 Tongan postgraduate scholars who successfully completed overseas postgraduate studies. The study focuses on the perceptions of qualifications and of scholars, as well as knowledge utilisation and knowledge resituation in and beyond the workplace. Knowledge utilisation, sometimes referred to as knowledge management, is how others support returnees’ to share and make use of their knowledge; while knowledge resituation is a personal and individual process in which knowledge gained in one context is tuned to and made use of in a new context (Eraut in Expertise development: the transition between school and work. Open Universiteit, Heerlen, pp 52–73, 2004a, Pedagogy and practice. Culture and identities. Sage, London, 2008; Franken 2012). Given the challenges the scholars faced, we advocate for a more explicit recognition of what knowledge and skills returning scholars bring home, and a more proactive and strategic use of these by their workplaces in particular.     

The Emperor’s perfect map: leadership by numbers

This paper establishes that system-generated data profiles are influencing the work of principals in three Queensland state schools. Drawing upon Foucault’s notions of governance, as well as research emphasising performative cultures and the importance placed upon numbers and data in education, this paper uses the tale of the Emperor’s map as a metaphor to explore the way principals’ work is being influenced by specific sets of data compiled by the department. These data profiles are representative of external accountabilities and high stakes testing regimes, as seen in systems that have adopted neoliberal policies which attempt to quantify the work being undertaken in schools. The paper demonstrates that principals are being constructed in part by discourses from a system that emphasises these system-generated performance data as a driver for school improvement.     

Opportunities to notice: Chinese prospective teachers noticing students’ ideas in a distance formula lesson

This paper investigates the noticing of six Chinese mathematics prospective teachers (PSTs) when looking at a procedural error and responding to three specific tasks related to that error. Using video clips of one student’s procedural error consisting of exchanging the order of coordinates when applying the distance formula, some variation was found in how PSTs attended to, interpreted, and responded to this error. A more important finding is represented by the inconsistent responses that individual PSTs provided to the three related tasks. This finding suggests that, to some extent, prior learning experience, beliefs, and orientations inform what PSTs notice. But the finding also suggests the centrality of selecting tasks that provide accurate representations of PSTs’ emerging professional noticing. Implications for teacher educators are discussed.     

Learning and knowing songs: a study of children as music teachers

In this study we analyze how learners constitute what it means to learn and know a song. This is investigated in the context of four 9- to 10-year-old children in dyads teaching each other to sing a song of their own choosing. How the children take on this task is studied in terms of how they dialogically co-construct pedagogical and musical values throughout the collaborative tasks. The empirical data consist of video observations of the children engaged in dyads. Informed by a sociocultural perspective, with an emphasis on mediational means, scaffolding and appropriation, the study seeks to examine how young people’s instructional methods are facilitated and constrained by communicative resources of different kinds. The empirical data is analyzed as interactively unfolding activity. The study shows that the children make a distinction between learning and knowing a song, in terms of tool use. In teaching, learning is communicated as supported by mediational means in the form of external visualization tools, while knowing the song, from the participants’ point of view means to be able to sing the song without any such mediational means. From a sociocultural theoretical perspective, this difference is conceptualized as the gradual learning process of moving from a materialized practice, based on external artifacts, to an embodied practice, that is, a change in mediational means rather than developing musical knowing without tools.