Written artefacts in post-conference feedback sessions: the running commentary as a support for teacher learning

Written artefacts often form a significant part of teacher education activities and play a crucial role in the dialogue between tutor and student teacher in a post-observation feedback session. However, although the dialogue of feedback sessions has been extensively researched, the role of the artefact has been less explored. This research examines how the written artefact of a running commentary guides or constrains the pedagogical conversation between tutor and student teachers, as well as how it represents the power and authority of the tutor and the teacher education establishment. The article concludes with implications for pre-service teacher education practice.     

Urban regimes and school compacts: The development of the Detroit Compact

School compacts between the business community and school officials have increased in recent years. This paper examines the development and implementation of a school compact program in the Detroit Public School system. The paper shows that the Detroit Compact was initiated by Detroit's corporate leaders. The article highlights some of the issues faced in forging compact agreements between the business community, Detroit Mayor Coleman Young, school officials, and school activists. The paper concludes with a discussion of some of the problems the Detroit Compact faces.     

Effects of Introducing Classroom Peflormance Assessments on Student Learning

How can performance assessments be used as part of regular instruction? Will this raise student performance on external achievement measures? What aspects of examinee performance improve on the assessment exercises?     

Secondary School Students’ Understanding of Science and Their Socioscientific Reasoning

Research in socioscientific issue (SSI)-based interventions is relatively new (Sadler in Journal of Research in Science Teaching 41:513–536, 2004; Zeidler et al. in Journal of Research in Science Teaching 46:74–101, 2009), and there is a need for understanding more about the effects of SSI-based learning environments (Sadler in Journal of Research in Science Teaching 41:513–536, 2004). Lee and Witz (International Journal of Science Education 31:931–960, 2009) highlighted the need for detailed case studies that would focus on how students respond to teachers’ practices of teaching SSI. This study presents case studies that investigated the development of secondary school students’ science understanding and their socioscientific reasoning within SSI-based learning environments. A multiple case study with embedded units of analysis was implemented for this research because of the contextual differences for each case. The findings of the study revealed that students’ understanding of science, including scientific method, social and cultural influences on science, and scientific bias, was strongly influenced by their experiences in SSI-based learning environments. Furthermore, multidimensional SSI-based science classes resulted in students having multiple reasoning modes, such as ethical and economic reasoning, compared to data-driven SSI-based science classes. In addition to portraying how participants presented complexity, perspectives, inquiry, and skepticism as aspects of socioscientific reasoning (Sadler et al. in Research in Science Education 37:371–391, 2007), this study proposes the inclusion of three additional aspects for the socioscientific reasoning theoretical construct: (1) identification of social domains affecting the SSI, (2) using cost and benefit analysis for evaluation of claims, and (3) understanding that SSIs and scientific studies around them are context-bound.     

Academic Mobbing in Relation to Leadership Practices: A New Perspective on an Old Issue

Abstract

Constant pressures emanating from internal and external environments of the academy have resulted in many changes, one of which is the workplace mobbing, an old issue for the broader field of organization science but a relatively new phenomenon in the academic context. This study investigated the relationship between workplace mobbing and academic leadership and the results indicated that the more positive leadership there is in an institution, the less mobbing behaviors are observed.