Service-learning informing the development of an inclusive ethical framework for beginning teachers

A social-cultural theory of difference informed the development of a university unit on inclusive education with a focus on broadening students’ experience and understanding about the backgrounds and values of people in society. One of the aims of the unit was to “develop and work within legal and ethical frameworks that promote diversity, equity and inclusive education”. This paper will report on pre-service teacher reflections in Service-learning Program Logs associated with a university unit on inclusive education in Queensland, Australia. Service-learning requires students to become involved in their community in order to utilise knowledge learned at university. The programme involves reciprocal relationships with organisations in which the service reinforces and strengthens the learning in the academic unit on inclusive education, and the learning reinforces and strengthens the service. Analysis of data presented in this paper informed the development of set of principles of an inclusive ethical framework. We suggest that these principles could be further developed in teacher education programmes to progress inclusive practices in schools.     

Teachers ’ conversations about civic education: Policy and practice in Australian schools

Civic education has been a priority for many countries in the Asia Pacific region over the past decade. Governments of different persuasions have recognized the need to provide stability and cohesion in their societies. This has been particularly so at a time when globalization and other forces threaten to fragment the nation state and co-opt its citizens into broader realms of allegiance and commitment. Policy makers have not been slow to come up with new directions for civic education in the school curriculum and the literature now abounds with examples from different countries. Yet missing from this flurry of policy development has been recognition of the role that teachers play in constructing civic education programs at the school level. In the end, it is teachers in classrooms who determine how centralized polices are understood and implemented. Drawing on a sample of Australian teachers, the purpose of this paper is to highlight the role that teachers play in constructing and reconstructing civic education policy in schools and classrooms. Interviews conducted with teachers in four Australian States/Territories have revealed that teachers ’ personal views of civics are more likely to influence them than external policies, their focus is more on citizenship than formal civics programs and that they are reluctant to develop programs where civic knowledge is formalized and disciplined based. The research reported in this paper was funded by the Australian Research Council (ARC). The views expressed are those of the authors and not the ARC.     

Children's expectancies and perceptions of adults: effects on rapport

Interpersonal expectancy effects are less thoroughly understood in children than in adults, yet they can have practical implications for children's interactions. To understand better children's expectancies, this study extended earlier work to include expectancies of adults, preexisting (i.e., noninduced) expectancies, and joint effects of expectancies and subsequent perceptions. Children (N = 81) in Grades 4 through 6 (i.e., 9- to 12-year-olds) indicated their expectancies of adults who subsequently interacted with them using a style of either autonomy support (AS) or control (CN). After each interaction, children reported on perceived AS and on rapport. Results indicated that children's expectancies and subsequent perceptions interact to predict rapport, adult AS is associated with increased rapport, and the effect of children's expectancies on rapport is only partially mediated by their perceptions.     

A Longitudinal Study of Children’s Developing Knowledge and Reasoning in Science

The growth in science understanding and reasoning of 12 children is being traced through their primary school years. The paper reports findings concerning children’s growing understandings of evaporation, and their changing responses to exploration activities, that show the complexity and coherence of learning pathways. Children’s responses to identical explorations of flight, separated by two years, are used to explore the interactions between conceptual knowledge and scientific reasoning, and the manner in which they change over this time. The paper discusses the particular insights afforded by a longitudinal study design, and some attendant methodological issues.     

Medical student use of Facebook to support preparation for anatomy assessments

The use of Facebook to support students is an emerging area of educational research. This study explored how a Facebook Page could support Year 2 medical (MBChB) students in preparation for summative anatomy assessments and alleviate test anxiety. Overall, Facebook analytics revealed that in total 49 (19.8% of entire cohort) students posted a comment in preparation for either the first (33 students) or second (34) summative anatomy assessments. 18 students commented in preparation for both. In total, 155 comments were posted, with 83 for the first and 72 for the second. Of the 83 comments, 45 related to checking anatomical information, 30 were requiring assessment information and 8 wanted general course information. For the second assessment this was 52, 14 and 6, respectively. Student perceptions on usage, and impact on learning and assessment preparation were obtained via a five‐point Likert‐style questionnaire, with 119 students confirming they accessed the Page. Generally, students believed the Page was an effective way to support their learning, and provided information which supported their preparation with increases in perceived confidence and reductions in anxiety. There was no difference between gender, except for males who appeared to be significantly less likely to ask a question as they may be perceived to lack knowledge (P < 0.05). This study suggests that Facebook can play an important role in supporting students in preparation for anatomy assessments. Anat Sci Educ 10: 205–214. © 2016 American Association of Anatomists.     

Leading in the age of post-socialist education transformations: Examining sustainability of teacher education reform in Latvia

As the former socialist countries of Southeastern/Central Europe and the former Soviet Union have embarked on their journeys from authoritarian to democratic societies in the early 1990s, education systems across the region have experienced major changes. From curriculum revision to education finance reforms, virtually no aspect of the education systems has remained untouched. While all post-socialist reform efforts have striven for large-scale, sustainable change, some initiatives were more successful than others, and many reform efforts were short-lived. Focusing on pre-service teacher education reform in Latvia, this article seeks to understand how educational leadership contributes to sustainability of educational reform in the dynamic context of post-socialist education transformation processes.     

What textbooks offer and what teachers teach: an analysis of the Dutch reading comprehension curriculum

In the Netherlands, the quality of the reading curriculum is currently under debate because of disappointing results on national and international assessments of students’ reading skills and motivation. In a mixed-method study, we analyzed the content of Dutch textbooks for reading comprehension instruction (i.e., the implemented curriculum) and teachers’ evaluation and use of these books (i.e., the enacted curriculum). A materials analysis of reading comprehension lessons (N?=?80) in eight textbooks for grades 4 and 5 was complemented with semi-structured teacher interviews (N?=?29) and lesson observations (N?=?11), with a focus on the quality of reading strategy and text structure instruction in the curriculum. Main findings are (1) a lack of alignment between lesson goals, theory, and assignments, (2) a strong focus on practicing strategies, (3) limited declarative knowledge about strategies and text structure, (4) little opportunities for self-regulated strategy application. The teachers that were interviewed mention similar problems, but still hardly deviate from the textbook’s content and pedagogical guidelines. We make recommendations to improve the quality of the curriculum.

     

Supporting family conversations and children's STEM learning in a children's museum

This study tested the effectiveness of a facilitated educational program in a museum for promoting family conversations and children's learning about STEM. A sample of 130 families (71 European-American; 33 African-American; and 26 Hispanic-American) with children M age = 6.42 years were observed in a building construction exhibit. Prior to building, families were randomly assigned to conditions that varied in terms of the instructions about a key engineering principle and elaborative question-asking they received. Conversation instruction resulted in adults’ asking double the number of Wh-questions compared to families who did not receive the instruction. The building instruction was important in promoting increases in adults’ STEM-related talk during the building activity, as well as in the children's STEM talk when prompted for information about what they had learned. The effects of the instructions did not vary by families’ ethnic background. Implications for facilitating family conversations and children's learning related to STEM are discussed.     

Innovation and the Evolving System of U.S. Teacher Preparation

A longstanding tradition criticizes education schools for their presumed vapid curriculum, out-of-touch faculty, irrelevance, and suffocating ideology. What is different at present is the enthusiasm for alternatives to university-based teacher preparation, as well as the increasing interest in holding teacher preparation programs accountable. I begin by briefly summarizing the criticisms of traditional university-based teacher preparation. I then describe a set of ideas—an ideology—that are central to new efforts to improve teacher education that have altered the landscape (Grossman & Loeb, 2008 Grossman, P. L., & Loeb, S. (2008). Alternative routes to teaching: Mapping the new landscape of teacher education. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press. [Google Scholar]), including the need to involve social entrepreneurs, the use of data, and holding teacher education accountable in more public ways, including posting value-added scores for program graduates. I conclude with a discussion of unresolved issues that teacher educators all face.