Developing teachers’ pedagogical identities through a community of practice: learning to sustain the use of a student-centered inquiry as curriculum approach

ABSTRACT

This collaborative self-study explores how educators’ pedagogical identities developed in the process of learning to use a Student-Centered Inquiry as Curriculum (SCIC) approach in activity settings within a community of practice (CoP). Participants included a university professor, college instructor, postdoctoral student and doctoral student. Data included 16 weekly field notes and debriefings following observations, teacher artifacts, 16 weekly collaborative group meetings, and 3 90-minute interviews per teacher. Culture, values, beliefs and professional background were critical for the development of the teachers’ pedagogical identities in the process of learning to use a SCIC approach within a community of practice. These experiences created for some, places to further develop their ideas about teaching, whereas for others they caused great discomfort and a sense of personal loss. The CoP facilitated the development of the teachers’ pedagogical identities, changing positionalities, and negotiating culture, values, beliefs and professional backgrounds.     

Meeting the Challenges of English Learners by Pairing Science and Language Educators

Research in Science Education - Learners of English as a new language and the teachers who find these young people in their classrooms face many challenges. For secondary science educators, this is...     

Making death,compassion and partnership ‘part of life’ in school communities

Death can be considered a social taboo, a common source of fear and public avoidance. School communities are not immune to this, as the topic of death is constantly avoided. It is vital to understand how we can socially and culturally cultivate a positive regard for death, dying and bereavement in our school communities. Community members need to discuss these difficult issues and use strategies to enhance compassion, connectedness and support. In this literature review we reason that death is specifically not ‘part of life’ in school communities. Due to the dearth of school community-based literature on this issue and the progressive literature residing in palliative care, we aim to coalesce palliative care and school-based research, evaluate it and highlight compassion and partnership as a way forward for school communities. Essentially, our societal attitudes about death and dying have been profoundly altered and our community ownership of these normal life events has largely disappeared. This is demonstrated for example, by palliative care moving from the social grass roots ‘modern hospice movement’ formed in the 1960s and being reintegrated into the mainstream health care system by the end of the 1990s, resulting in an overall medicalised morphing of death, dying and bereavement issues. Therefore, we recommend that further research be conducted in how to develop compassionate schools to inform us how death may be continually made ‘part of life’ in school communities, for the benefit of students, teachers and families alike.     

Contextual Counseling With Clients of Color: A “Sista” Intervention for African American Female College Students

The authors argue that college counselors need to consider culturally appropriate adaptations of traditional counseling. They describe a counseling intervention for African American female college students and present a case study to illustrate the effectiveness of this counseling strategy.     

Investigating specialist school ethos … or do you mean culture?

This paper explores the concept of ethos as a facet of the government’s rapidly growing initiative of the ‘specialist school’. Schools accepted on to the scheme are expected to create a new identity, or ethos: but what exactly is meant by that rather nebulous term? And, in reality, is something as all‐consuming as a school ethos, or culture, something that a school can readily conjure up? This discussion, one facet of the author’s case study of a Specialist Sports College, explores the concept of school cultures, but also gives consideration to areas such as conflicting and ‘toxic’ cultures, and to the possibility that changing a school’s culture can have negative as well as positive effects.     

Recruitment and Retention of Ethnic Minority Counselor Educators: An Exploratory Study of CACREP‐Accredited Counseling Programs

This exploratory study sought to determine the strategies used by programs accredited by the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP) to recruit and retain ethnic minority faculty. Seventy‐three CACREP liaisons were surveyed, and the results indicated that many programs have not developed specific strategies to recruit and retain ethnic minority faculty. Mentoring was the most frequently reported strategy for retaining ethnic minority faculty. Implications for counselor education are discussed.     

Conflict, Understanding, and Relationships: Developments and Differences in the Preschool Years

Children's conflict management in three close relationships was studied longitudinally in 38 second born children, observed at home with their mothers and siblings at 33 months and at 47 months, and with friends at 47 months. Children used significantly more other-oriented argument with friends than with their mothers or siblings. Their use of reasoned argument with their siblings, but not their mothers, was related to their emotional understanding assessed formally at 40 months. The emotional context of conflict interactions was found to be important as an influence on children's use of reasoned argument, with less reasoning shown by children when they were upset at 33 months. The differences in patterns over time and in links with emotional understanding for these different relationships is discussed, and the significance of child-child interaction in the development of social understanding is highlighted.     

The key kinematic determinants of undulatory underwater swimming at maximal velocity

The optimisation of undulatory underwater swimming is highly important in competitive swimming performance. Nineteen kinematic variables were identified from previous research undertaken to assess undulatory underwater swimming performance. The purpose of the present study was to determine which kinematic variables were key to the production of maximal undulatory underwater swimming velocity. Kinematic data at maximal undulatory underwater swimming velocity were collected from 17 skilled swimmers. A series of separate backward-elimination analysis of covariance models was produced with cycle frequency and cycle length as dependent variables (DVs) and participant as a fixed factor, as including cycle frequency and cycle length would explain 100% of the maximal swimming velocity variance. The covariates identified in the cycle-frequency and cycle-length models were used to form the saturated model for maximal swimming velocity. The final parsimonious model identified three covariates (maximal knee joint angular velocity, maximal ankle angular velocity and knee range of movement) as determinants of the variance in maximal swimming velocity (adjusted-r² = 0.929). However, when participant was removed as a fixed factor there was a large reduction in explained variance (adjusted r² = 0.397) and only maximal knee joint angular velocity continued to contribute significantly, highlighting its importance to the production of maximal swimming velocity. The reduction in explained variance suggests an emphasis on inter-individual differences in undulatory underwater swimming technique and/or anthropometry. Future research should examine the efficacy of other anthropometric, kinematic and coordination variables to better understand the production of maximal swimming velocity and consider the importance of individual undulatory underwater swimming techniques when interpreting the data.     

African American Counselor Educators' Job Satisfaction and Perceptions of Departmental Racial Climate

Forty‐eight African American counselor educators completed the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire‐Short Form (D. J. Weiss, R. V. Dawis, G. W. England, & L. H. Lofquist, 1967), the Racial Climate Scale (R. J. Watts & R. T. Carter, 1991), and a biodata questionnaire. Results indicated that African American counselor educators' perceptions of departmental racial climate predicted their level of job satisfaction. However, African American counselor educators' job satisfaction was not related to their academic rank and tenure status. Implications for counselor education and future research are discussed.