Challenging evaluation to the cross-cultural test: Program evaluation in cross-cultural settings

The author cites the recent emergence of two new fields in education: evaluation and international education. Each has developed unique methodologies in its area of most concern. Evaluators judge the process and output of national programs; international educators plan for programs overseas. Although the author believes such developments should be complementary, the professions have remained relatively isolated from one another in two distinct regards: as practitioners in a single field, and in the manner in which they train students. Drawing upon personal experience, the author illustrates how current evaluation methods fail to provide adequate guidance in cross-cultural settings. The author further identifies issues, poses questions, and calls for increased cooperation between fields of evaluation and international education as well as across the social science disciplines.     

The Effects of Individual and Group Monetary Incentives on High Performance

This study examined whether high performers performed better (a) under individual and group incentive pay than under hourly pay and (b) under individual incentive pay than under group incentive pay. Participants were 11 college students. An ABCDC within‐subject design was used in which A was hourly pay with individual feedback, B was individual incentives with individual feedback, C was individual incentives with individual and group feedback, and D was group incentives with individual and group feedback. Participants performed better under both individual and group incentive pay than under hourly pay (p<.01). They did not significantly decrease performance when switched from individual to group incentives, but increased their performance when switched back to individual incentives (p<.01). Individual incentive pay was rated as the most preferred and most satisfying of the three pay systems, and group incentive pay as the least preferred, least satisfying and most stressful. These data suggest that high performers perform better under individual than group incentive pay after exposure to both and are highly likely to prefer individual incentive pay.     

Developing an appreciation of what it means to be a school-based teacher educator

The nature of partnership between schools and higher education institutions is changing in many countries, with experienced teachers taking on more responsibility for teacher education whilst remaining in their school as teachers, rather than entering the higher education sector to become teacher educators. This research considers the perspectives of these school-based teacher educators (SBTEs) in England, exploring the impact that this role has on them, their student-teachers and their schools. Some benefits and challenges that they face in the dual role of teacher and teacher educator are revealed. The research takes an interpretive perspective, listening to the meanings being constructed by the participants through use of a questionnaire, semi-structured interviews and a focus group of student-teachers who learned from these SBTEs. Possible impacts on student-teachers’ learning and implications for the development of high-quality teacher education are examined.     

Learning to Teach Elementary Science Through Iterative Cycles of Enactment in Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Contexts

Iterative cycles of enactment embedded in culturally and linguistically diverse contexts provide rich opportunities for preservice teachers (PSTs) to enact core practices of science. This study is situated in the larger Families Involved in Sociocultural Teaching and Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (FIESTAS) project, which weaves together cycles of enactment, core practices in science education and culturally relevant pedagogies. The theoretical foundation draws upon situated learning theory and communities of practice. Using video analysis by PSTs and course artifacts, the authors studied how the iterative process of these cycles guided PSTs development as teachers of elementary science. Findings demonstrate how PSTs were drawing on resources to inform practice, purposefully noticing their practice, renegotiating their roles in teaching, and reconsidering “professional blindness” through cultural practice.     

Using Arts-based Methods in Pre-service Teacher Education: Perzine Pedagogies

The possibilities afforded by perzine pedagogies to nurture reflexivity in pre-service student teachers are presented and explored in this article. Perzine pedagogy as arts-based inquiry is grounded in the events of practical life and may provide a learning context for exploring the problematised nature of teaching. It considers how this reflexive and inquiry-oriented method offers opportunities to interrogate past learning, to accommodate the affective, to challenge constructed beliefs and to build adaptive behaviours. Employing the narrative inquiry lens of the researcher artist/teacher educator and the narrating and reflective voice of a visual arts teacher, this article illustrates how perzine production may inform insights into construction of teacher/learner identities. Perzines offer opportunities for experiential, critical and experimental encounters to move beyond the competency rhetoric to meet a new ethic: a personal desire for self-reflection and expression through opportunities to re-represent the teacher/learner self.