From isolation to symphonic harmony: Building a professional development community among teacher educators

Professional development among teacher educators requires a framework in which collaborative learning can support growth and change. This study describes a professional development project modeled on a professional development community focused on thinking education in a teachers college. Qualitative measures revealed a multilayered process consisting of breaking personal and professional isolation through interdisciplinary collaboration, talk about student learning, improvement of teaching through skill acquisition, and professional development with the adaptation of new teaching dispositions and a sense of efficacy. The community was characterized by a safe environment which encouraged risk taking and mutual support, enabling significant change in college courses.     

Masculine Female Adolescents at School

The current literatures on girls, queer youth, and multicultural education have ignored a significant group of young people and their experiences in school. This research is a retrospective exploratory study of masculine female adolescent schooling experiences, focusing on the school experiences of adults aged 18-54 who were socially defined as "girls" but who presented a masculine gender expression. This group of people, who may call themselves "tomboys," "butches," or "transgendered" are so underrepresented in the dominant discourses that there is no common language by which to categorize them. In interviews conducted over the past year, these participants revealed the transphobia, homophobia, and misogyny, as well as the support and freedoms they experienced within educational systems. This study reveals the need for critical examination of school policies and their impact on transgender youth. Further development of anti-oppressive curricula which address gender expression as a form of diversity is needed, as well as a better understanding by teachers of the complexity and multiplicity of gender expression.     

Critical moments in the process of educational change: understanding the dynamics of change among teacher educators

This study examines the complex process of change among teacher educators who have chosen to improve their practice in a professional development community. Storyline methodology was used to reveal the dynamic process which teacher educators undergo when they consider adopting innovative pedagogy. Findings reveal critical moments in professional development which are characterised by evaluation of feedback from colleagues and students. Professional growth results not only from interaction and negotiation of meaning within the community but also from the effects of messages received from outside the communal context. A two factor model taking into account implementation and feedback is used to show the dynamic process of evaluation and negotiation in teacher educators’ professional development trajectory. This study deepens understanding of transition towards change within learning communities, while providing insight into the development of teacher educators as a distinct professional group.     

Examining school-related delinquencies,extracurricular activities,and grades in adolescents

Using the theoretical framework of risk and resiliency, the study estimated the contribution of five school-related delinquencies (behaviour problems, schoolwork problems, out-of-school suspension, in-school suspension and grade retention) and seven extracurricular activities (arts, sports, clubs, tutoring, volunteering, religious involvement and scouts) on the report card grades of students. An adolescent sample (N?=?2070) from the US National Household Education Survey was examined. A three-step hierarchical multiple regression found that the protective effects of extracurricular activities remained predictive of better grades, even after controlling for the risks of school-related delinquencies. The extracurricular activity of arts best predicted better grades, but the school-related delinquency of schoolwork problems best predicted worse grades. The discussion focuses on the implications of increasing resilience by promoting extracurricular involvement and combating the risk of school delinquencies.     

Ideal versus school learning: Analyzing Israeli secondary school students’ conceptions of learning

This study explored 130 secondary school students’ conceptions of learning using an open-ended task, analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively. Students’ reality of learning comprised two separate spheres, ideal learning and school learning, which rarely interacted. Generally, students commented more about school than ideal learning. Factor analysis of learning conception categories revealed separate “grand” categories for each sphere and some shared ones. Strikingly, students held complex, deeper conceptions of ideal learning (as self-interest/curiosity, understanding, and knowledge acquisition), but these were separate from their conceptions of school learning as merely the minimal, surface compliance necessary to survive the system by “satisficing” [Simon, H. A. (1955). A behavioral model of rational choice. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 69(1), 99–118] – satisfying and sufficing – the teachers (grades, task completion, and active class participation). Theoretical and educational implications were discussed regarding classroom instruction to heighten educators’ awareness of students’ thinking about learning.     

Preschoolers’ private speech during spelling in Hebrew: the role of word structure and letter position

Reading and Writing - The study’s aims were to (a) evaluate preschoolers’ use of private speech (overt talk to themselves) during spelling; and (b) study how it is affected by the...     

“I speak prose and I now know it.” Personal development trajectories among teacher educators in a professional development community

This study explores trajectories of professional growth by teacher educators participating in a professional development community on teaching thinking. Qualitative measures revealed a four stage model of personal professional trajectories: anticipation/curiosity, withdrawal, awareness and change. The model delineates passages traversed by teacher educators grappling with complexities and challenges of an engaging professional development experience in a communal context. All participants followed the same four staged trajectory though individuals were located at different points on the path. Findings lend support to the nonlinear view of professional development, illustrating Kinchin and Cabot’s (2010) paradigm of backwards and forwards movements along career paths.     

Designing for discovery learning of complexity principles of congestion by driving together in the TrafficJams simulation

We propose and evaluate a framework supporting collaborative discovery learning of complex systems. The framework blends five design principles: (1) individual action: amidst (2) social interactions; challenged with (3) multiple tasks; set in a (4) a constrained interactive learning environment that draws attention to (5) highlighted target relations. The framework addresses a persistent tension in discovery-based pedagogy between offering students the freedom to initiate, experiment, and explore and providing them with tailored experiences with many instances of particular relations underlying the target conceptual structure. The framework was realized with TrafficJams, a participatory simulation in which students drive together. A class of high-school students worked with TrafficJams over 2.5 h. The teacher’s role was to orchestrate the activity but there was no explicit instruction of the traffic and complexity principles. The students completed pre- and post-test questionnaires and their activities were observed and logged. In terms of driving in the simulation, the students learned to drive in ways that reduced congestion in traffic by decreasing lane and speed changes, and keeping their speed down. Even though there was no explicit teaching, half of the students learned that car speed distribution alone can generate traffic jams with no additional causes; and, keeping a safe following distance from the next driver increases everyone’s speed. Our study suggests that the learning environment partially met both the overarching design goal of constrained discovery and the specific content goal of systems reasoning.     

Children's conditional reasoning part III: A design for research on children's learning of conditional reasoning and research findings

Educational Studies in Mathematics -