Who is the ideal teacher? Am I? Similarity and difference in perception of students of education regarding the qualities of a good teacher and of their own qualities as teachers

This research examines two images of teachers as seen by students of education: the ideal teacher and their own self‐image as teachers. The research compares the students’ perceptions of these two images using two sub‐groups of students of education: students at an academic teachers’ college who will be referred to as student teachers and beginning teachers, who, while teaching, are completing their academic degrees at teachers’ colleges or regional academic colleges. Data were collected from 89 students at the two colleges by means of a questionnaire that included open‐ended questions which were analyzed qualitatively. The findings of the research indicate that there are two major categories that comprise perceptions of the ideal teacher: first, personal qualities; and second, knowledge of the subject taught as well as didactic knowledge. Both groups of students similarly attributed great importance to the personal qualities of the ideal teacher, but there is a difference in their perception of the importance of knowledge: the beginning teachers attributed great importance to knowledge and perceived it as a quality similar in importance to personal characteristics, while the student teachers, who had not begun their teaching careers, attributed less importance to knowledge as a characteristic of the ideal teacher. A quality which was less prominent when profiling the ideal teacher is general education and wide perspectives. The teacher as a socializing agent, a person who promotes social goals, was not mentioned at all. Students maintained that, during their studies, they had improved their qualities as ‘empathetic and attentive’ teachers, ‘knowledgeable in teaching methods’, and in ‘leadership’. But they had hardly improved their knowledge of the subject they taught or their level of general knowledge. The discussion of knowledge and the desirable personal qualities of a teacher is relevant to the current debate regarding the relative merits of disciplinary education in contrast to pedagogical education in preparation for teaching as a profession. The clear preference for disciplinary education by policy makers in Israel and elsewhere in the field of teacher education is contradictory to the emphasis placed on the personal development of future teachers and their pedagogical education by the students of education who participated in this research.     

English language learners and automated scoring of essays: Critical considerations

This article presents considerations for using automated scoring systems to evaluate second language writing. A distinction is made between English language learners in English-medium educational systems and those studying English in their own countries for a variety of purposes, and between learning-to-write and writing-to-learn in a second language (Manchón, 2011a), extending Manchón's framework from instruction to assessment and drawing implications for construct definition. Next, an approach to validity based on articulating an interpretive argument is presented and discussed with reference to a recent study of the use of e-rater on the TOEFL. Challenges and opportunities for the use of automated scoring system are presented.     

The Multiple Meanings of Play: Exploring Preservice Teachers' Beliefs About a Central Element of Early Childhood Education

This basic qualitative study explores preservice teachers' beliefs about what constitutes play. Research for this study focused on 7 preservice teachers enrolled in an early childhood through Grade 4 practicum course at a small private university in south central Texas. The findings of this study indicate that both on an individual and group level the 7 preservice teachers seemed to believe that play had multiple meanings. Even though commonalities existed among some of the attributes used by the preservice teachers to describe play, no two preservice teachers used the same combination of attributes to define play. Instead, based on the influences that had shaped their beliefs, they strung these attributes together in unique ways. Thus, for each of the preservice teachers, play seemed to have an individualized meaning consisting of multiple parts.     

Supporting Content-Based Feedback in On-Line Writing Evaluation with LSA

This paper describes tests of an automated essay grader and critic that uses Latent Semantic Analysis. Several methods which score the quality of the content in essays are described and tested. These methods are compared against human scores for the essays and the results show that LSA can score as accurately as the humans. Finally, we describe the implementation of the essay grader/critic in an undergraduate course. The outcome showed that students could write and revise their essays on-line, resulting in improved essays. Implications are discussed for the use of the technology in undergraduate courses and how it can provide an effective approach to incorporating more writing both in and outside of the classroom.     

Style,stamina and mobile masculinities: the reinvention of Savate in the Anglosphere

ABSTRACT

The roots of Savate in France stretch back at least 200 years, and there is extensive interdisciplinary research in French showing changing interpretations of its meaning and purpose. Savate is now a globalised combat sports with potential to enter the Olympic Games. To help remedy the lacuna of English-language research, this paper considers: (1) Documentaries and rare instructional literature; (2) online videos and discussions of archival Savate footage; (3) contemporary documentation from the Great Britain Savate Federation; and, (4) ongoing fieldwork in one UK Savate school. Through our multimodal study of printed, televised, digital and physical action, we add to the discussions to the constant reinvention of Savate to a modern, seemingly inclusive combat sport. Using John Urry’s framework of mobilities, we introduce the notion of ‘mobile masculinities’ underpinned by a European sense of relatively elite individualistic cosmopolitanism. Savate provides a rich case study of gender inclusivity in sport – how a previously male-dominated activity incorporates women in positions of power and responsibility and teaches men to acquire elegance in style and elite levels of stamina.     

Precision Education Initiative: Moving Toward Personalized Education

This article propose the Precision Education Initiative, which is the tailoring of education to the specific characteristics of the individual student. Mirroring precision medicine, the author lays out both near‐term and longer term goals that educational research, and importantly educational practice, should follow.     

The role of social competence in predicting gifted enrollment

The purpose of this study is to examine how children's starting level and development of social competence (i.e., task orientation and peer sociability) during kindergarten and first grade predict gifted program enrollment by third grade, even after considering children's cognitive ability. A second purpose is to examine the extent to which the relationship between children's social competence and gifted program enrollment differs depending on children's socioeconomic status (SES), ethnicity, and gender. Latent growth curve analyses conducted on 347 children revealed that students enrolled in gifted programming were not only those high in cognitive ability, but also those showing early task orientation. Neither peer sociability's initial status nor growth was a significant predictor of gifted enrollment. Multigroup comparisons demonstrated different predictive paths for higher versus lower SES groups. Implications are discussed including important questions raised by this study and the need for teacher training in the identification of giftedness. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Healthcare career intervention with youth in a predominantly Latinx rural community: a pilot study of a creative approach

International Journal for Educational and Vocational Guidance - The present study discusses a pilot intervention for youth in a predominantly Latinx rural community in the U.S. The intervention...     

From scraps to reams to mobile screens? An update on printing services in academic libraries

As a follow-up to their 2001/2002 study on printing services in academic libraries, the authors explore how the provision of printing services has changed over the last twelve years. This article explores how libraries are choosing to fund printing services as well as how technology, such as scanning and mobile devices, has changed the way printing services are provided. The results of the 2013 survey find a greater percentage of libraries are using a fee-based system for printing, and, while some technology is providing greater data and control for printing services, other technological advances are having unintended consequences for libraries’ printing infrastructure.     

From Book to Screen: Adopting Cinematic Adaptations of Literature in the EFL Classroom to Hone Students’ Critical Thinking Skills

In light of the paramount value placed on critical thinking (CT) in higher education and the scarcity of research into the use of cinematic adaptations to this end, this study investigated the incorporation of film into the source literature to hone students’ cognitive skills in the areas of analysis, inference, evaluation, induction, and deduction. Participants were 50 third-year students of English as a foreign language (EFL) enrolled in a university in eastern Algeria for academic year 2015–2016. During the fall semester, the treatment group (n = 24) and the control group (n = 26) took a regular literature course. In the spring semester, the treatment group took a film-literature course and the control group, a reading-only course that drew on Facione's IDEAS critical thinking model. The California Critical Thinking Skills Test (CCTST) was used as a pretest and posttest. Empirical findings indicated that both groups performed on par in all cognitive areas of CT with the exception of inference, wherein the film group outperformed the reading-only group in this dimension.