Bridging the Gap from Teacher to Teacher Educator: The Role of a Teaching Portfolio

This article explores the role of a teaching portfolio in supporting the transition from teacher to teacher educator. It uses aspects of self-study to catalogue the challenges and successes during this transition. Despite well-documented acknowledgement of the differing demands of teaching when compared to teaching how to teach, little is written about potential supports during transition to teacher education. This article cites benefits associated with developing a teaching portfolio during this period of transition. The process of reflecting on a teaching philosophy, interrogating pedagogy and developing a personal and professional development plan facilitate the formation of an adapted teacher identity. In addition, the scholarly, evidence-based process of portfolio writing acts as a bridge into the research and writing world of an academic. The portfolio writing process this researcher engaged in was based on iterative feedback from more experienced colleagues internal to the institution and from external panels. This led to a supportive and collaborative induction to the role of teacher educator from a number of perspectives. The researching of my self enabled deep reflection on my teaching philosophy, supported early academic writing and facilitated relationships with staff who acted as critical friends and mentors. This promoted the implementation of an effective teacher education pedagogy through structured, reflective, and evidence-led modifications to practice. This article creates awareness of the broader role of a teaching portfolio for teachers and teacher educators, in creating rich learning experiences for the pre-service teachers we teach.     

The Legal Trends‐‐Implications for Menstruation/Fertility Management for Young Women who have an Intellectual Disability

Since 1988, there have been a number of Family Court of Australia cases where permission was sought for a hysterectomy (surgical removal of the uterus) to be performed on premenarchal women who have an intellectual disability. The case judgments refer to several cases from appellate overseas courts. While the judgments indicate a division of judicial opinion on the issue of the necessity of court consent for such surgery on this group of young women, all of the judges sanctioned a premenarchal hysterectomy. This paper will review the cases with specific reference to relevant Australian legislation, and the implications for women who have an intellectual disability which may have international applicability.     

Group status and attitude change in desegregated classrooms

One thousand thirty-three ninth-grade students from Western and Middle-Eastern ethnic background in 30 classrooms responded to a questionnaire assessing ethnic attitudes. The questionnaire was administered at the beginning and again at the end of these students' first year in ethnically desegregated classrooms. No marked changes in ethnic attitudes were noted as a function of the students' individual academic or social status in the classroom, but there were noteworthy changes associated with the relative status in the classroom occupied by the students' ethnic groups. Positive attitude change among Western (majority) students occurred when both ethnic groups in the classroom were of equal status, and when the MiddleEastern (minority) group was of superior academic status to the Western group. Positive change among the Middle-Eastern group occurred when it occupied superior status in the classroom.     

Raising the Educational Requirements for Teachers in Infant Toddler Classrooms: Implications for Institutions of Higher Education

This article describes preschool teachers' espoused mental models (EMMs) or, in other words, their naïve understanding of young children's learning. Our research goal was to examine differences within the teachers' EMMs regarding the minds and learning of young children from different cultural backgrounds. The subjects included 18 preschool teachers from the center of Israel, all of whom belonged to the mainstream cultural background and taught in the national school system. Their classes consisted of 5- to 6-year-old children from the mainstream cultural group as well as children from Ethiopian immigrant families. We conducted individual semistructured interviews that were transcribed and analyzed to identify the original EMM structure. While analyzing the parts of the narratives that referred to Ethiopian children, we discovered a metacategory that did not exist in the original model: Culture. This finding contributes to the construct of espoused mental models for teachers of children from diverse populations.     

Shared Power,Risk-taking,and Innovation: Participatory Action Research in Jewish Education

ABSTRACT

In this article, the authors describe and discuss applications of the Group-Level Assessment/Understanding (GLA/GLU) process, an innovative participatory action research methodology. The authors first describe the GLA/GLU application in the Mandel Teacher Educator Institute (MTEI) and the creation of an MTEI interpretive community to deeply analyze the collected data. The authors then describe adaptations of the process in their home communities to address community-identified dilemmas, tensions, and problems. The article concludes with reflections on common themes that emerged in the GLA/GLU applications–shared power, risk-taking, and methodological innovation.     

Experienced Early Childhood Teachers as Graduate Students: A Process of Change

This paper explores perceptions of professional identity among experienced early childhood educators (ECEs) who are novice students in a new master’s degree program in ECE. We sought to examine the changes experienced by these educators. The study used qualitative content analysis, which included an open-ended questionnaire that was administered twice to the participants: at the beginning of their first year of study and at the end of the second year. The findings indicate a change in the participants’ perceptions of their multi-dimensional professional identity. They began to examine the early childhood educational system with a critical point of view based on their academic and pedagogical conceptual vision, and became aware of the contingent political consequences. We believe this study will enable us to advance the ECE system and promote academic research conducted by professionals.