Teacher Educator Identity in a Culture of Iterative Teacher Education Program Design: A Collaborative Self-Study

Faculty in the School of Education have collaborated to re-envision teacher education at our university. A complex, dynamic, time-consuming and sometimes painstaking process, redesigning a teacher education program from a traditional approach (i.e. where courses focus primarily on theoretical principles of practice through textbooks and university-based classroom discussions) to a model of teacher education that embraces teaching, learning and leading with schools and in communities is challenging, yet exciting work. Little is known about teacher educators’ experiences as they either design or deliver collaborative field-based models of teacher education. In this article, we examine our experiences in the second implementation year of our redesigned teacher education program, Teaching, Learning, and Leading with Schools and Communities (TLLSC) and how these unique experiences inform our teacher educator identities. Through a collaborative self-study, we sought to make meaning of our transformation from a faculty delivering a traditional model to educators collectively implementing a field-based model, by analyzing the diverse perspectives of faculty at different entry points in the TLLSC development and implementation process. We found that our participation in an intensive field-based teacher preparation model challenged our notions of teacher educator identity. In a culture of iterative program design, this study documents the personal and professional shifts in identity required to accomplish this collaborative and dynamic change in approach to teacher education.     

After King: Responsibility for Queer and Trans Expressions

In this article, Adam Greteman considers the murder of Lawrence/Latisha King by Brandon McInerney in February 2008. Greteman turns to this case, a decade after it occurred, because it raises a number of issues regarding our evolving understandings of genders, sexualities, and the risks of encountering such differences in the space of school in the twenty‐first century. Greteman argues that we live in a moment where queer and trans youth are coming out and becoming queer and trans earlier and, in various ways, expanding our understanding of genders and sexualities, and also illustrating the complex responsibilities that schools — in the form of teachers, administrators, and students — have toward these forms of becoming. He explores the limits of a liability model of responsibility and the need for contemplating responsibility more broadly as it encounters systemic forms of injustice (for example, transphobia, homophobia, and white supremacy) in the classroom. If queer and trans youth have more access to resources, protections, and representations in the late 2010s, how do those in schools — students, teachers, staff, and administrators — engage the tensions that can arise between queer and trans expressions and expressions opposed to queerness and transness? And how do schools continue to take up their collective responsibilities for the lives of students who are becoming in the midst of systemic injustice?     

Observations of Children's Task Activities and Social Interactions in Relation to Teacher Perceptions in a Child-Centered Preschool: Are We Leaving Too Much to Chance?

The goal of the present study was to describe one center's interpretation of childcentered instruction and what this looked like in terms of the children's daily activities, social affiliation, and behavior in the classrooms. Staff at a self-identified child-centered constructivist preschool program were interviewed about their pedagogical philosophy and asked to give their estimates of the proportion of time that children in their classrooms spent both interacting with different people (alone, with peer, with teacher) and engaged in various behaviors. Data were collected pertaining to children's goal-directed, sustained activities, social affiliation, affect expression, and inappropriate/aggressive behavior via 2,752 naturalistic classroom observations over the course of a semester. Results indicate children a) spent significantly less time engaging in focused, goal-directed, learning activities, b) sustained their attention on one activity for significantly smaller lengths of time, c) expressed overt positive affect considerably less often, and d) had significantly less one-on-one teacher-child interaction, than was believed and desired by the staff. Results were consistent with both a fear expressed by the center director and recent calls from researchers in early childhood education, that teachers in many child-centered constructivist early childhood programs may be committing the "early childhood error" by stepping back and refraining from getting directly involved in children's activities.     

THE STEERING OF HIGHER EDUCATION: A HUNGARIAN CASE STUDY

The steering of higher education in Hungary is symbolized by the House of Professors in Budapest, a building owned by the Hungarian Ministry of Education and Culture, which houses a number of international programmes of importance to Hungarian higher education as well as the Hungarian Rectors’ Conference. First the article presents an over view of present trends in steering and governing higher education in western Europe. Then it compares western European tendencies with those typical of eastern and central Europe. Finally, it identifies Hungarian higher education as an intermediary case situated between the extremes of western and eastern developments. The article concludes with an exposition of how Hungarian higher education will be steered by remote control mechanisms.     

Disciplinary differences and other variations in assessment cultures in higher education: exploring variability and inconsistencies in one university in England

This article argues that differing disciplinary assessment cultures are likely to be an important factor in explaining differences in student marks and grades both within and between higher education institutions. Using institution-wide data on undergraduate student marks over the last five years in one UK higher education institution we demonstrate variability in the distribution of marks in terms of the ‘distance travelled’. This issue was further explored via interviews with senior teaching-active staff. We suggest that the distribution of marks is likely to reflect different disciplinary assessment cultures as well as complexity in the process of marking and assessment. These findings signify that it will be highly challenging, if not impossible, to establish nationally comparable learning gain measures using student mark data because of the underlying inconsistencies in the process of awarding marks. In the current higher education context, with the ongoing implementation of the Teaching Excellence Framework, it remains important to debate and further investigate these issues with all stakeholders, including students.     

A Comment on: Rowlands & Carson ``Where would formal, academic mathematics stand in a curriculum informed by ethnomathematics? A critical review'

The critique of ethnomathematics by Rowlands and Carson that appeared recently provides an opportunity to open debate on cultural issues in mathematics. This response argues that such debate must be based on contemporary writing in the field, and should not focus on extreme views within the political justification for ethnomathematics. It addresses some of the philosophical questions raised by Rowlands and Carson, and the relationship of the field with indigenous knowledge is raised. We also suggest that the role of ethnomathematics in mathematics education is now predominantly an empirical matter,and comment on some preliminary results from recent studies that indicate a positive role for culturally-based curricula. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Development of a Virtual Three-Dimensional Assessment Scenario for Anatomical Education

In anatomical education three-dimensional (3D) visualization technology allows for active and stereoscopic exploration of anatomy and can easily be adopted into medical curricula along with traditional 3D teaching methods. However, most often knowledge is still assessed with two-dimensional (2D) paper-and-pencil tests. To address the growing misalignment between learning and assessment, this viewpoint commentary highlights the development of a virtual 3D assessment scenario and perspectives from students and teachers on the use of this assessment tool: a 10-minute session of anatomical knowledge assessment with real-time interaction between assessor and examinee, both wearing a HoloLens and sharing the same stereoscopic 3D augmented reality model. Additionally, recommendations for future directions, including implementation, validation, logistic challenges, and cost-effectiveness, are provided. Continued collaboration between developers, researchers, teachers, and students is critical to advancing these processes.     

Teaching Through Collaboration: Flexibility and Diversity in Caregiver–Child Interaction Across Cultures

Teaching supports the high-fidelity transmission of knowledge and skills. This study examined similarities and differences in caregiver teaching practices in the United States and Vanuatu (N = 125 caregiver and 3- to 8-year-old child pairs) during a collaborative problem-solving task. Caregivers used diverse verbal and nonverbal teaching practices and adjusted their behaviors in response to task difficulty and child age in both populations. U.S. caregivers used practices consistent with a direct active teaching style typical of formal education, including guiding children’s participation, frequent praise, and facilitation. In contrast, Ni-Vanuatu caregivers used practices associated with informal education and divided tasks with children based on difficulty. The implications of these findings for claims about the universality and diversity of caregiver teaching are discussed.