Developing a teacher identity in the university context: a systematic review of the literature

This literature review summarises the growing body of literature discussing teacher identities of university teachers. The aim was to understand what strengthens or constrains the development of a teacher identity. A qualitative synthesis of 59 studies was carried out. The review showed that several factors contribute to the development of teacher identity. While contact with students and staff development programmes were experienced as strengthening teacher identity, the wider context of higher education was experienced as having a constraining effect. Furthermore, the impact of the direct work environment was experienced as either strengthening or constraining, depending on whether or not teaching is valued in the department. Five psychological processes were found to be involved in the development of a teacher identity: a sense of appreciation, a sense of connectedness, a sense of competence, a sense of commitment, and imagining a future career trajectory. The findings suggest that developing a teacher identity in the higher education context is not a smooth process. In order to empower university teachers, it is important to reward teaching excellence and build community. Staff development activities can play a role in helping teachers to develop strategies for gaining confidence and taking active control of their work situation, both individually and collectively. The authors argue that more attention should be paid to the implicit messages that departments convey to their teaching faculty.     

The influence of race–ethnicity and physical activity levels on elementary school achievement

The authors used structural equation modeling to map the relationships between student race–ethnicity via the mediating variable physical activity on English language arts (ELA) and mathematics achievement among 964 fourth- and fifth-grade students. The students attended a New York City Metropolitan area school district and completed the Physical Activity Questionnaire for Older Children, which measured weekly average activity levels. Confirmatory factor analysis validated the use of this instrument. Physical activity had a significant, substantive effect on both ELA and mathematics achievement for students, but was most pronounced among White students on ELA and among Black students on mathematics. Hispanic ethnicity had significant direct and indirect negative associations with ELA and mathematics achievement via their decreased physical activity levels relative to White and Black students. These findings help confirm the important link between physical activity and academic achievement and the need to foster more healthy physical activities for students of all races and ethnicities.     

The role of interest and text structure in professional reading

Students can be regarded as professional readers: they have to attend to, comprehend and remember the most important information in instructional texts, often about topics they are not readily interested in. Optimising such instructional texts has been the subject of much reading research. This research has shown robust effects for the influence of text structure: information highlighted by a strongly organising structure is retained better than seemingly less important information. Hidi and Baird (1986) suggest that such effects of structure are artefacts, because of the dullness of texts used in such experiments. They argue that readers mainly use interest instead of structure as their guide for attention and learning. In this article three related experiments using Dutch instructional texts are reported. Both interest and text structure were manipulated as within-item factors, and on-line as well as off-line methods were used to measure effects on the reading process and product. The outcomes show no support for the hypothesis of Hidi and Baird: students learn better from texts that are well structured, regardless of the interest of the text or its topic.     

Metacognitive experiences and motivational state as aspects of self-awareness: Review and discussion

In the first section of this article, I will briefly examine the views on metacognition and learning that are expressed by each of the seven contributors. In the second half of the article I will provide the reader with my own perceptions of some of the broader theoretical issues and challenges that emerged from my reading of the articles.     

Embedding inquiry-based practices in schools: The strategic role of school leaders

The context of this study were research and development projects in Dutch secondary education, particularly funded by government to combine practice-based research with school development goals for inquiry-based culture. Aiming at better understanding of the strategic role that school leaders play in embedding inquiry-based practices in schools, the research question of this study was to explore to what extent and how do school leaders use the opportunity of participating in funded research and development projects for encouraging and integrating inquiry-based practices in their schools? Differences concerning the integration of inquiry-based working in the school as professional learning community were examined, distinguishing between school leaders’ strategies of capacity building. Twenty-eight school leaders of Dutch secondary schools, involved in nineteen projects, were interviewed retrospectively. Analyses showed the majority of the school leaders to be convinced that inquiry-based working is important for their schools’ development as a professional community. Their strategies for achieving school level project significance differed in school leaders’ successive attention on personal or interpersonal capacity building with regard to inquiry-based practices. Moreover, while some school leaders were actively involved with capacity building right from the start of the research and development projects projects, almost two-third of the school leaders developed interest in inquiry-based practices during the projects and started to enact in the final year of the project. In discussing the results, it is proposed that the interaction of strategy and context needs further study, for instance to inform peer learning among school leaders that are novice and experienced in inquiry-based practices as a means to develop the school as a professional learning community.     

Writing the History of Humanity: The Role of Museums in Defining Origins and Ancestors in a Transnational World

This article explores the question of how transnational audiences experience anthropology exhibitions in particular, and the natural history museum overall. Of interest are the ways in which natural history museums reconcile anthropological notions of humanity's shared evolutionary history—in particular, African origins accounts—with visitors' complex cultural identities. Through case studies of British, American, and Kenyan museum audiences, this research probed the cultural preconceptions that museum visitors bring to the museum and use to interpret their evolutionary heritage. The research took special notice of audiences of African descent, and their experiences in origins exhibitions and the natural history museums that house them. The article aims to draw connections between natural history museums and the dynamic ways in which museum visitors make meaning. As museums play an increasing role in the transnational homogenization of cultures, human origins exhibitions are increasingly challenged to communicate an evolutionary prehistory that we collectively share, while validating the cultural histories that make us unique.     

Teacher Scaffolding in Small-Group Work: An Intervention Study

Adapting support contingently to student needs by first diagnosing their current understanding, that is, scaffolding, is considered a key aspect of excellent teaching. The use of classroom scaffolding is rare, however. We therefore investigated the benefits to teachers of a professional development program that was based upon a model of contingent teaching (MCT) with the following 4 steps: diagnostic strategies, checking of diagnoses, giving contingent support, and checking of student learning. In our experimental study, 17 of 30 teachers participated in this program. All of the teachers (prevocational education; teaching social studies) taught the same 5-lesson project on the European Union. The frequency and quality of their use of the 4 steps from the MCT were then compared. The teachers who worked with the MCT increased their teaching quality more than the teachers who did not participate, especially with regard to the steps of contingent teaching. They also showed more complete cycles of contingent teaching at postmeasurement than the other teachers. Less successful teachers showed a tendency to provide less support because they mistakenly thought that prompting was not part of scaffolding. Future scaffolding research and professional development efforts aimed at promoting scaffolding can benefit from the MCT, provided that teachers’ understanding of scaffolding is closely monitored.     

The effects of guided elaboration in a CSCL programme on the learning outcomes of primary school students from Dutch and immigrant families

This study examined the effects of guided elaboration on students' learning outcomes in a computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) environment. The programme provided students with feedback on their elaborations, and students reflected on this feedback. It was expected that students in the experimental (elaboration) programme would show better learning gains and that students from immigrant families would especially benefit. Two hundred primary school students of 9 different schools participated. The research can be characterized as a quasi-experimental study with a pre-test, post-test, control group design. In a multilevel regression analysis, no main effect of the intervention was found. However, there was a significant differential effect of the intervention; students from immigrant families in the experimental programme outperformed their counterparts in the control group. It can be concluded that guided elaboration in a CSCL programme through feedback and reflection is a promising approach.