Still keen and committed: piloting an instrument for identifying positive veteran teachers

ABSTRACT

Since the mid-1980s, the working lives of teachers has become an enduring research topic. Much research has focused on early-career teachers and is often reported from deficit positions, i.e. why they leave the profession. However, career trajectory studies have described a small cohort of veteran teachers who remain positive and committed to teaching. This article reports on the creation and piloting of an instrument designed to test whether this positive cohort can be empirically identified within a wider teaching population. Four constructs (experimentation, challenge, comfort and leadership) drawn from Huberman (1993), and Day and Gu (2007) formed the basis for an online pilot survey completed by 145 teachers. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis supported three of the four factors (experimentation, comfort, leadership), with challenge loading strongly with experimentation. Initial findings suggest the potential of the instrument in helping identifying positive veteran teachers within systems, as well as the voracity of the research approach. Examining and articulating how these veteran teachers maintain their positive outlook may prove valuable as many countries confront an ageing teaching workforce, increasing student numbers and difficulties in retaining experienced teachers, meaning those who remain will be expected to sustain their commitment for longer.     

Moving on and Moving up: Confronting the Complexities of School Improvement in the Improving Schools Project

Despite recent advances, the research literature on school effectiveness, school improvement and educational change has relatively little to say about how schools become effective over time, and what strategies or combination of strategies work best to improve schools at different levels of effectiveness. A recent British research study – ‘The Improving Schools’ project funded by the Economic and Social Research Council – has been designed to explore these (and other) issues. This article describes the rationale for the fieldwork aspect of the project, which includes 13 secondary schools from 3 English local education authorities and presents 4 themes that have emerged from the first phase of the research that cast some light on the phenomena of the ‘improving school’. These themes – multiple starting points, the complex interactive and intuitive nature of school improvement strategies, the missing instructional level, and the importance of context – are described. The article concludes that given the non-linear and unpredictable nature of improvement seen in the case studies, schools need to become more skilled in ‘change agentry’ in order to continue to improve.     

Readability: A Factor in Student Research?

Readability assessments of works cited in freshmen informative and argumentative speeches were performed with the Flesch-Kincaid Reading Grade Level and Flesch Reading Ease assessment tools available in Microsoft Word. Students selected their sources independently, and their sources were grouped as journals, magazines and newspapers, and websites, which were then subdivided by domain type. The wide range of readability scores in sources cited in freshman speeches raises questions related to college freshmen's reading abilities and how that affects student's selection of sources when performing research for class assignments.     

COMMUNITY COLLEGE FACULTY DEVELOPMENT: BRINGING TECHNOLOGY INTO INSTRUCTION

Community college faculty development programs assist faculty in the development of quality curricula, using current and expanding teaching technologies. The first step in helping faculty reach their respective goals is to help them articulate their instructional needs. Eighteen faculty members participated in this study, using a personal in-depth interview as the research method. Several implications for community college faculty and administration resulted from this study including: the need to emphasize information literacy, the faculty as lecturers who want to use technology as a means of enhancing that lecture, the need for more time to accomplish their instructional ideas, the need for help to incorporate technology in the classroom themselves, and the desire for training classes that fit their time schedules and location.     

Talking modelling: examining secondary science teachers’ modelling-related talk during a model-based inquiry unit

This study examines the classroom talk about models and modelling of two secondary science teachers implementing a model-based inquiry instructional unit. The goal was to better understand the opportunities for explicit metamodeling talk in the science classroom. The findings revealed the ways in which they used language to frame the modelling work of the classroom. Instances of modelling talk were identified in classroom videos, and coded using a framework for metamodeling knowledge. Findings revealed that, while instances of metamodeling talk were common, they were largely implicit. This shows that the teachers were aware and knowledgeable about metamodeling ideas (e.g. the nature of models, process of modelling, etc.), but often did not make these ideas explicit to their students. Such findings suggest a trend of focusing on models of phenomena rather than supporting student engagement in the epistemic practice of modelling for reasoning about phenomena. The findings also revealed specific opportunities for explicit metamodeling talk by the teachers including during share-out sessions and the negotiation of explanation criteria. Further implications for classroom practice and research are discussed.     

Knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs about HIV/AIDS among Hindu students from a government women's college of South India

The purpose of the study was to determine the attitudes of Hindu students from a government women's college of South India toward people with AIDS, to assess their beliefs about HIV/AIDS, to determine their knowledge level about HIV/AIDS and to determine how they gain information about HIV/AIDS. The sample consisted of four hundred female students at a government funded Women's University in Southern India who participated in an AIDS survey research project. Participants completed a survey asking about their knowledge, attitudes and beliefs about HIV/AIDS. Results indicated that a majority of the participants learned about HIV/AIDS from reading material while some learned about HIV/AIDS from school classes, and only a few learned from family members. Thirty-nine percent had never communicated to any one about HIV/AIDS. The results indicated that the majority of Indian women in this study did not know about explicit sexual behaviors which transmit the virus. The study also showed that those Indian women university students, by and large, are accepting of people with AIDS but still have fears of getting HIV/AIDS. This data suggest a need to increase educational efforts at the university. It was suggested that counselors take responsibility for helping this population of Indian women become self advocates, particularly in a society which permits men to have multiple sexual relationships. Educators and counselors working with this population must initiate programs that impart accurate and specific knowledge to these female college students and begin to address the multiple psychosocial issues related to HIV/AIDS.