What’s on your bucket list? Utility and importance of the retirement preferences of 40–70-year-old Filipino teachers using discrete choice estimation

ABSTRACT

The transition from a busy work life to a retired state entails a lot of adjustment, planning, and wise decision-making. While there have been numerous studies that elucidate retirement issues across the globe, the need to know about retirement preferences of middle-aged and older teachers remains a blank spot in the literature, hence this discrete choice estimation investigation. The overall purpose of this study is to explicate the utility and importance of retirement preferences of a select group of 40–70 year-old teachers (n = 152) from the northern part of the Philippines. Using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 21, a set of 12 choice bundles with 4 holdouts were extracted from a pool 96 orthogonal array. Respondents were asked to sort and rank each card based on its importance and utility value using the Balanced Incomplete Block Design (BIBD). Results indicate that the most important attribute considered by Filipino teachers relative to their retirement preferences was investment. This was followed by pursuit of an old interest, travel, and part-time job as the least preferred. This utility study yielded empirical data that can be benchmarked by retirement planning policy makers in the academic setting to better address the uncertainty faced by aging teachers when it comes to their retirement decisions.     

Dilemmas of Teaching Inquiry in Elementary Science Methods

Because various definitions of inquiry exist in the science education literature and in classroom practice, elementary science methods students and instructors face dilemmas during the study of inquiry. Using field notes, instructor anecdotal notes, student products, and course artifacts, science methods course instructors created fictional journal entries to represent the experiences of both the instructors and students during instruction on inquiry. Identified dilemmas were varying definitions of inquiry, the struggle to provide sufficient inquiry-based science-learning experiences, perceived time constraints, determining how much course time should be slated for science instruction versus pedagogy instruction, instructors' and students' lack of inquiry-based learning experiences, grade versus trust issues, and students' science phobia. Instructors' attempts at dealing with these dilemmas included using analogies, increased field-experience time, modeling, and detailed rubrics.     

Effects of emotional intelligence and supportive text messages on academic outcomes in first-year undergraduates

An increase in the number of students entering higher education has intensified the need for targeted strategies to support a wider range of student requirements. Current research suggests that emotional intelligence (EI) may be associated with academic success, progression and retention in university students but the use of EI screening as a prospective measure of success requires further investigation. This study evaluates the utility of prospective EI screening to predict progression rates, mean grades, attendance and online engagement in a sample of first-year undergraduate students enrolled on the same degree programme (N = 358). A supportive text messaging intervention was employed during potentially stressful periods of the academic year with a subsection of participants (n = 60) who demonstrated low total EI scores relative to the cohort. Results showed no effects of EI classification on progression rates, mean grades, attendance or online engagement (all p > 0.418). Alternatively, the text messaging intervention was associated with significant improvements compared with a matched control group for progression rates (p = 0.027), mean grades (p = 0.026) and attendance (p = 0.007). The frequency of access to the virtual learning environment also tended to be higher in the intervention group compared with the control group (p = 0.059). In conclusion, this study did not identify any benefits of EI screening as a prospective indicator of student success but provides encouraging indications that a text messaging support intervention could help to improve progression rates, mean grades, attendance and online engagement in first-year undergraduate students. Further research is warranted to develop these proof-of-concept findings.     

Toward praxically-just transformations: interrupting racism in teacher education

ABSTRACT

Recognising the importance of learning from experience, this mixed methods study critically problematises how teacher educators position student teaching as pivotal in teacher education programmes’ inability to focus on racial equity. Through learnings from a survey of US university-based teacher educators who constructed student teaching placements in schools serving students of colour as problems, this article unveils how the concept of quality cloaks the re-production of racism in and through teacher education. Seeking to address how teacher education is implicated in the re-production of racial inequities, a teacher educator partnered with teachers in the most segregated system of state schools in the US to transform student teaching. In describing a situated representation of an innovation at once practice-focused and theoretical, this article illustrates the power and potential for praxically-just critical transformations in teacher education. Findings shed light on the power of Freirean culture circles for transforming teacher education. Implications point toward the need to recognise, problematise, and interrupt ways in which the White-centric rhetoric and practice of teacher education continue to foster racism and re-produce injustice.     

Reflective Teaching in the Early Years: A Case for Mentoring Diverse Educators

Student diversity in classrooms is on the rise and with it, a need for teachers who recognize the needs of diverse student populations. Teacher retention is a national crisis, with teachers of color at especially high risk for leaving the teaching profession early. This case study describes a collaborative mentoring approach used by a primary grades Latina teacher and two university professors. This approach focused on reflective discussion of classroom events and addressed the challenges of teaching for understanding in an age of accountability and changing demographics. Findings indicate that the beginning teacher’s enthusiasm combined with the expertise of teacher educators benefited the teacher, the students, other teachers in the school, and the participating university professors. Implications of this case study point towards the need to mentor diverse educators in the early years.     

Learning paths in synthesis writing: Which learning path contributes most to which learning outcome?

Instructional Science - This paper presents a secondary analysis of data collected during an intervention study in which students learnt to synthesise pairs of texts presenting opposite views on...     

The initial development of spelling in Spanish: From global to analytical

During a school year, samples of words written by three groups of children of successive ages were collected. Two groups of children were in first and second year of Kindergarten (4 and 5 years of age), when alphabetic rules were not taught in a systematic way. The third group was in first year of Primary School (6 years of age), and was being taught to read and spell in a systematic way. After classifying the words written by the children, seven categories of spelling were obtained, which may represent different stages in their learning process. Their analysis showed that they are related to different types of knowledge and processes, mainly phonological ones. The results show that the development of spelling in Spanish does not qualitatively differ from that of children who learn to spell in opaque writing systems. The differences mainly involve the time it takes to learn, and the rate of acquisition.     

Educating student pharmacists about herbal medicines: faculty-librarian collaboration

OBJECTIVE: To determine the impact of the teaching collaboration between faculty and librarians in instructing pharmacy students on herbal medicines. METHODS: An elective course with an integrated library instruction component is described. Qualitative data on students' perceptions of library instruction were collected and analysed as the result of pre- and post-surveys. RESULTS: Based on the results of pre-test and post-test surveys, the number of students who felt they were able to select the best print and electronic resources for finding herbal information increased to 100% from 50 and 60 correspondingly. This indicated a significant change in students' perceived knowledge of information sources in the field of herbal medicine, as well as overall progress in information literacy and problem-solving skills. CONCLUSION: Team teaching by faculty librarians is an effective way of educating future pharmacists on the information resources in the field of complementary and alternative therapies.     

An international collaborative investigation of beginning seventh grade students' understandings of scientific inquiry: Establishing a baseline

Although understandings of scientific inquiry (as opposed to conducting inquiry) are included in science education reform documents around the world, little is known about what students have learned about inquiry during their elementary school years. This is partially due to the lack of any assessment instrument to measure understandings about scientific inquiry. However, a valid and reliable assessment has recently been developed and published, Views About Scientific Inquiry (VASI; Lederman et al. [2014], Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 51, 65–83). The purpose of this large-scale international project was to collect the first baseline data on what beginning middle school students have learned about scientific inquiry during their elementary school years. Eighteen countries/regions spanning six continents including 2,634 students participated in the study. The participating countries/regions were: Australia, Brazil, Chile, Egypt, England, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Mainland China, New Zealand, Nigeria, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, Turkey, and the United States. In many countries, science is not formally taught until middle school, which is the rationale for choosing seventh grade students for this investigation. This baseline data will simultaneously provide information on what, if anything, students learn about inquiry in elementary school, as well as their beginning knowledge as they enter secondary school. It is important to note that collecting data from all of the approximately 200 countries globally was not humanly possible, and it was also not possible to collect data from every region of each country. The results overwhelmingly show that students around the world at the beginning of grade seven have very little understandings about scientific inquiry. Some countries do show reasonable understandings in certain aspects but the overall picture of understandings of scientific inquiry is not what is hoped for after completing 6 years of elementary education in any country.     

Orphan Works at Theatre Library and Information Centres: Assessing Librarians' Perceptions and Management in Spain

Currently, libraries and other information services are facing new professional challenges in relation to digitization policies and orphan works after the publication of European Directive 2012/28/EU on certain permitted uses of orphan works and Spanish Royal Decree 224/2016. This paper aims to analyse how Spanish library and information centres specialising in theatre and performing arts meet users' textual and non-textual information needs, by respecting copyright issues and being involved in a dynamic and digital environment. For this purpose, an online questionnaire, which was used as a methodological tool, was sent to library directors in February 2018. At the same time, some research questions based on orphan works and digitisation approaches are discussed in the paper, specifically in reference to graphic and audiovisual materials.