Evaluating the effect of a teacher training programme on the primary teachers’ attitudes,knowledge and teaching strategies regarding special educational needs

Research has consistently stressed that regular school teachers are important in determining the success of implementing inclusive education. It was also found that teachers’ attitudes, their knowledge about special educational needs (SEN) and teaching strategies are prerequisites for implementing inclusive education successfully. This study examines the effects of an in-service teacher training programme on regular primary school teachers’ attitudes and knowledge about SEN and about teaching strategies. A pre- and post-test control group design study was set up (N_{experimental group} = 33, N_{control group} = 34), comprising 11 public primary schools. The training programme consisted of 32 hours face-to-face training sessions, covering topics about attitudes and knowledge about SEN and about teaching strategies. In order to establish the effects of the training programme, attitudes and knowledge were measured at two moments: before and after the training programme was performed. The outcomes of ANCOVA revealed significant positive effects of the training programme on most dependent variables (attitudes, knowledge about SEN and about teaching strategies) with medium to large effect sizes. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.     

Kevin: “I Gotta Get to the Market”: The Development of Peer Relationships in Inclusive Early Childhood Settings

This study describes the lived experience of Kevin, a young child with physical disabilities who is placed in an inclusive classroom, a classroom where children with and without disabilities are educated together, with extra support provided for the child with disabilities. Children with disabilities who are placed in inclusive early childhood settings tend to be rejected or neglected more than their typically developing peers and are involved more with the adults in the classroom than with their peers. Kevin’s experiences are framed in the context of the current emphasis on inclusive practices. The study documents that adult assistance and curriculum activities both play an important role in either facilitating or constraining social interaction with peers. When the assigned assistant functions as the child’s playmate and mostly chooses table activities, both of these seem to limit opportunities for social interaction with peers. This study also documents that, without the assistant present, the child makes independent choices such as where and with whom to play. The dramatic play area serves as a conduit for meaningful verbal and nonverbal communication with peers. At the same time, Kevin’s strong desire to play in this area seems to be the impetus for physical development—he walks alone for the very first time. Suggestions are given for teacher facilitation of dramatic play.     

Arrested Motherhood: Parenting,Cognitive Distortions,and Depressive Symptoms in Mothers Being Released from Incarceration

Objective. The present study examines cognitive and emotional problems in mothers being released from incarceration. Design. Participants were 98 mothers who were about to be released or had just been released from incarceration, and 63 comparison mothers from disadvantaged areas with low socioeconomic status, both with young children. Mothers provided self-report data on parenting behaviors, cognitive distortions, depressive symptoms, and socioeconomic difficulties. Results. Mothers being released from incarceration reported less optimal parenting behaviors (i.e., less involvement and poorer monitoring) and higher levels of cognitive distortions and depressive symptoms than comparison mothers. Cognitive distortions and depressive symptoms were related to less optimal reported parenting behaviors. Conclusions. Cognitive distortions, depressive symptoms, and less optimal reported parenting behaviors may be factors in incarcerated and formerly incarcerated mothers, which might put their children at risk, beyond risks associated with low socioeconomic status.     

Approaches to Classroom Assessment Inventory: A New Instrument to Support Teacher Assessment Literacy

Teacher assessment literacy has become a central priority across many educational systems in North America and elsewhere in response to growing accountability demands. Although many scholars have aimed to measure teacher assessment literacy, recent research has identified that current assessment literacy instruments do not fully reflect current transformations in the assessment landscape and remain predicated on dated standards for teacher classroom assessment practice. Given significant shifts in classroom assessment over the past 20 years, the purpose of this article is to construct a reliable instrument reflective of contemporary assessment practices and contexts. Specifically, this article describes our instrument development process including construct validation and reliability testing with more than 400 teachers. The result of this research is the Approaches to Classroom Assessment Inventory, which can be used by researchers and practitioners to support teacher assessment literacy in relation to the current accountability framework evident across educational systems.     

Explaining as Mediated Action

Explaining is one of the most important everyday practices in science education. In this article, we examine how scientific explanations could serve as cultural tools for members of a group of pre-service physics teachers. Specifically, we aim at their use of explanations about forces of inertia in non-inertial frames of reference. A basic assumption of our study is that explanatory tools (e.g., typical explanations learned) shape the ways we think and speak about the world. Drawing on the theory of mediated action, analysis illustrates three major claims on scientific explanations: (1) explaining is an act of actively responding to explanations presented by others (and not only to evidence itself); (2) the actual experience of explaining involves the enactment of power and authority; (3) resistance (not acknowledging an explanation as one’s own) might be a constitutive part of learning how to explain (hence, teachers could approach scientific explanation in a less dogmatic way). These assertions expand the possibilities of dialogue between studies of scientific explanations and the social sciences. Implications for science teaching and research in science education are presented.     

多媒体教学在教育数学中应用研究(二)

依据教育数学的理论,制作高等数学多媒体教学的课件,成功地对05级本科三个专业学生进行了教学实践。     

PHOTOCATALYTIC ACTIVITY OF LANTHANUM DOPING TiO_2

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Grundbildung,Allgemeinbildung und Fachunterricht

Zusammenfassung Der Beitrag thematisiert das nicht unproblematische Spannungsverh?ltnis von Grundbildung, Allgemeinbildung und Fachunterricht. Anspruchsvolle Fachinhalte, die über die in der internationalen PISA-Studie untersuchten Basiskompetenzen hinausgehen, lassen sich nicht mit einem normativen Verweis auf allgemeine Kompetenzen (wie Lernf?higkeit, Sozial-oder Probleml?sekompetenz) für alle Heranwachsenden rechtfertigen. Die Allgemeinheit der Bildung ist vielmehr im Faktum der Kontingenz und Differenz jeglicher Fachinhalte zu suchen. Bildung wird dabei als die F?higkeit zum Umgang mit Ungewissheit definiert. Anhand einer Fallstudie mit einer Hamburger Lehrerin wird gezeigt, dass diese Bestimmung für Lehrende pragmatisch auf die Realisation „guten“ Fachunterrichts hinauslaufen kann. Unter Bildungsaspekten zeigt sich das Handeln der Lehrerin dabei implizit an einer Als-ob-Didaktik orientiert, deren Grundzüge im Beitrag verallgemeinernd herausgearbeitet werden. Eine geeignete Rahmenkonzeption dafür steht mit der Bildungsgangdidaktik zur Verfügung, die die tats?chlichen Lern-und Bildungsprozesse der Schülerinnen und Schüler in das Zentrum ihrer Theoriebildung stellt.

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Summary Basic education, general education and subject-focused lessons This contribution focuses on the not unproblematic tensions between basic education, general education and subject-focused lessons. Demanding subject matter, which offers more than those basic competencies studied in the international PISA study, cannot be justified for all learners with a normative reference to the attainment of general competencies (i.e. learning, social and problem-solving skills). Generality is indeed to be found in the contingency and difference of subject matter. Bildung is defined as the ability to deal with uncertainty. On the basis of a case study of a teacher from Hamburg, it will be demonstrated that this concept can — in pragmatic terms — simply mean the realization of „good“ subject-focused teaching. According to the theory of Bildung, it can be shown that the teache’s work is implicitly based on a didactic with as-if-character, which will be further generalized in this paper. An appropriate framework for such concepts is offered by the Bildungsgangdidaktik, which places the realized learning and educational processes at the center of its theory.