Analyzing Practice for Improving Schools: The Study of Vignettes

This article suggests a method for analyzing patterns of school practice for improvement purposes. In particular it describes outcomes of a study that point to some promising possibilities, in terms of encouraging teachers to reflect on their practice, for the purpose of improvement. It argues that by discussing and analyzing vignettes, teachers can improve their practice, not only individually, but also as a team. In addition, this analysis can help schools to develop as organizations. At the end, this suggestion is supported with an example which illustrates the potential of using vignettes for improving schools, whilst, at the same time, demonstrating how the procedure might be used.     

The reflection on the blackboard: student teacher self‐evaluation

A common aim of teacher education is to encourage prospective teachers to analyze carefully their instructional performance. Yet, research on teacher cognition heretofore has concentrated primarily on experienced teachers’ planning and instructional thinking. We need more information on how student teachers think about and engage in the evaluation of their teaching performance. This study used data from initial structured interviews to elicit student teachers’ self‐evaluation concerns and examined the student teachers’ journals, a final written self‐evalution, and tapes from post‐teaching interviews to create a profile of each student teacher's responses about self‐evaluation. In this paper I analyze the student teachers’ pre‐conceptions about success, examine their processes of self‐evaluation, and explore a conception of “interactive self‐evaluation.” I offer suggestions about the conditions that may enable student teachers to enhance their analytical processes.     

Faculty work in developing and teaching web‐based distance courses: A case study of time and effort

Abstract

Using an experiential case approach, this study explores the conventional wisdom that distance education courses require greater faculty work effort and time commitment than traditionally taught courses. The study's basis for analysis is an instructor's time and effort in developing and delivering a graduate‐level course in public administration, for both a distance course (a modality with which he had no previous experience) and his traditional classroom courses. The study finds support for the conventional wisdom. But it also suggests hypotheses for future comparative analysis that development and delivery time and effort may partially depend on the accumulation of instructor experience and the level of institutional support. This article also identifies some implications for future research and faculty participation in distance education.     

Politics,Civil Rights,and Disproportional Identification of Students with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders

The civil rights movements involving skin tone, gender or gender orientation, disability, and other physiognomic features remain important in securing the legal rights of individuals to equal treatment and equal opportunities regardless of their personal characteristics of color, origin, gender, and so on. Unfortunately, these welcome civil rights movements have led to a misunderstanding of unfairness in another group of individuals whose rights and opportunities have often been abridged—students with disabilities. Individual rights and opportunities must be insured, but doing so requires the discrimination of differences among differences. That is, not all differences require the same remedy to insure equal rights and opportunities. Misunderstanding of differences and their implications have led to political concerns about disproportional representation, particularly of students with emotional or behavioral disorders, which place unwarranted constraints on special education services.     

The Library as Inquiry Learning System: Defining the Issues

This is the first of a series of columns on the emerging new role of the academic library as a center for learning—but learning in a new sense, with a new focus on what the student actually actively incorporates rather than on teaching method. The new perspective is captured in the concept of student-centered or inquiry-based learning, with special emphasis on reading and better utilization of the extensive print resources carefully collected by academic libraries over the decades.